209: Gina Cotner | Why You May Need an EA, Not a VA
It will be faster tomorrow if you do it yourself. But you are investing in a future you that is three months out or six months out. So when you first hire an assistant, it's not gonna be an immediate relief. That's the other misnomer. Like, oh, I must've hired the wrong one.
Gina:You know, boy, I had to work so hard. I would plan on in the first few weeks in particular in the first month, you are going to invest more time, but you're investing the time for who you're gonna get to work with three months from now, right? Because you're gonna explain things to them and the better of a trainer and get that really dialed in that process dialed in a month from now, you are not gonna have to talk to them about it again and you're gonna be so excited. You're just gonna be like, it's invoice time or it's, you know, can you Whatever. Go on to It's done.
Intro:Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams.
Intro:Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hi. This is Devina. And before we jump into today's show, I'd like first to introduce you to some of our sponsors. When prospective clients are looking for an attorney, they usually turn to Google first. Optimize My Firm helps law firms grow their practices and attract more right fit clients through on page and back end search engine optimization.
Davina:Optimize My Firm can help your firm rank higher on Google so that clients can find you before they find your competition. They serve personal injury, family law, workers' comp, immigration, and other types of law firms. Optimize My Firm does SEO the right way, delivering meaningful results with geographic exclusivity and no contracts. Contact them today at optimizemyfirm.com or click the link in the show notes. In the next ten years, 90% of legal services will be delivered online.
Davina:Gavel is the software lawyers are using to streamline internal document automation and build online legal products like landlord legal or hello divorce. With gavel, you can easily build client intake that generates document sets through powerful logic based document automation. Gavel, formerly known as document can be used internally or you can make it client facing. It also integrates with nearly everything. Clio even rated gavel their best integration tool.
Davina:Visit www.gavel.io and mention the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast for a free fourteen day trial, or just click on the link in the show notes.
Speaker 4:Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Davina Frederick. And today, my guest is Gina Cotner. Gina is the founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, a firm that pairs virtual executive assistants around The United States with swamped and successful entrepreneurs and executives. Her team of high caliber executive assistants work part time from home taking many tasks and projects off the plate of successful people leaving them free to spend their time where they are needed most.
Speaker 4:After earning her dual degree in human resources and public relations from Syracuse University, she went on to develop a career in training and personal development. Gina has worked remotely for more than fifteen years on national and international teams. So she's a real expert around helping build your team. And more recently, she's focused on work life balance, wellness, and personal satisfaction helping busy professionals achieve that. She's known for developing leaders and helping them rise up around her.
Speaker 4:So we are super excited to pick her brain today about how to hire executive assistants and manage and lead them. Welcome Gina. I appreciate you being here. Thanks Devina. It's great to be here.
Speaker 4:Good. So why don't you start out by just telling me a little bit about Athena Executive Services and kind of the array of services so we have a framework or a scope of the services you provide.
Gina:Yeah, sure. So we're part of the virtual assistant industry which is just sort of wild wild west industry that's unregulated and spans the globe. And in the virtual assistant world, you have a lot of virtual assistants overseas, Philippines or Argentina or India. And then you have US based agencies, which is what I am and all of our team are here within The United States. And then you have just the little solopreneurs out there who just hung out their shingle and said, I'll be somebody's assistant.
Gina:And I'm sitting at my dining room table in Kansas City. So we're a firm. We have a team of about 20 people that are all scattered all around The United States and they are all executive assistants. So they're akin to what somebody might have outside their office of the 40th Floor of a downtown high rise. So I developed a company seven years ago thinking, you know, a lot of people need an assistant with that level of business acumen, professionalism, but they don't need them forty hours a week.
Gina:Probably need them maybe ten hours a week and could delegate some business and personal tasks and projects to them and have a real partner. And especially for people who are very small business owners, you know, it's lonely and if you don't get up today and you don't go to work, who knows, right? So that's also becomes really a great key shoulder to shoulder professional partner in, you know, what are we doing next in this business and what can I take off your plate? That's a little high level.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I like this distinction and I wanna go a little deeper into this distinction because I think one of the challenges that women law firm owners have in hiring assistants is often they're thinking I need somebody to do the scanning, do the filing, do these sorts of things that are maybe $10 an hour tasks. And then they may want them to do some other things to help them be person but the person may not be skilled at that level. Whereas if you have an executive assistant, an executive assistant is someone who has a higher level skill set that they bring to the table. So talk to me about some of those skills that an executive assistant might have.
Gina:Here's what I call my executive assistant. What I want, I want somebody who can do critical thinking because I'm going to throw at you a project tomorrow that I've never done, you've never done. But I need to know that you can do critical thinking. You can go research, you can go figure out, at least get me educated enough that I can come up with a good question and then we can dig further, you know, together. Because the world of being an assistant, yes, there is manager calendar.
Gina:There might be manager inbox. There might be oversee your social media. There might be update your CRM plan who all is getting what holiday gifts and birthday gifts, anniversary gifts. And thank you so much for the, this, that and the other thing gift.
Speaker 4:Right.
Gina:And they should, could, and would do all of that, I would expect. But I think when you're really talking about an executive assistant, you're also talking about somebody you can do some thinking with, right? Not sinking in where you, the lawyers are, you know, they have not been to law school. They do not understand what you do, but we want you to be used for the highest and best use of you. And then look to see, okay, what else can we strip away from you so that your whole day is whatever is the highest and best use of you or whatever you just flat out enjoy.
Speaker 4:Right, right, right. So I love that. We were talking before the call. My followers have heard me say this before because I've put it in different pieces of content. That one of the things that I find so fascinating is my male colleagues will automatically hire an assistant when they go out on their own.
Speaker 4:But my female colleagues, sometimes I will work with women who have had their own law firm for seven, eight, ten years and they will have hired paralegals. They may have even hired attorneys. They'll hire legal admins, but they will not hire an executive assistant for themselves. It is not something that occurs to them. Whereas most men I know that's the first thing they do when they go out is I need somebody to help me sort of run my life or be my right hand person, right?
Speaker 4:To book travel or to help me respond to invitation to events or to me plan events or whatever. I remember went out on my own and I joined all of these organizations and I was immediately put into leadership positions in these organizations and I didn't have a staff. One of my mentors pulled me aside and she said, this organization that you're in, you're the program chair. Well, the president of that organization has an assistant, has a secretary, is what he called her at the time, who is running this whole program for him. He's not doing it.
Speaker 4:And here you are doing all this while you're trying to learn how to be a lawyer, while you're trying to learn how to be a business owner. You don't even have somebody like that. And it didn't even occur to me as a woman. It didn't occur to me. Have you found that in working with men and women?
Speaker 4:Have you seen that? I know a lot more women now these days may think that way. But what have you seen?
Gina:You know, that's so interesting because I've never looked at it from that angle because I think by the time people come to us, they're now committed. They're now, okay, I've already to invest the time and the money for this. I deserve this. I need this. Or I can see the ROI.
Gina:I can see the return on investment. Have got to stop, just stop doing the low level stuff. And, you know, my guess is being a woman myself and I started this firm and I didn't have an EA in the beginning. So I run an EA firm and didn't have an EA, right? Talk about like the tailor whose children have no clothes or whatever the phrase is.
Gina:And I thought, no, no, but I know all about having an EA. But when I myself, maybe three years into the business hired an EA for me, even for me was a game changer. Like, woah, this is a different mindset to allow someone and maybe this is the female thing. I don't know. Allow somebody to contribute to you.
Gina:You know? Like, oh, really? I feel a little awkward having them plan spring break for my family. Yeah. But you know, as soon as you start shopping for airline tickets, what a time suck, right?
Gina:Just, oh, well, if I left on Tuesday? What if I left in
Speaker 4:the morning? Maybe I should use some points.
Gina:I will never book my own tickets ever again. So it is a mindset shift and why that is with women. I don't know, but I agree. I'm pretty sure we are less likely to say, Hey, I'd like to be contributed to. Could you provide A, B and C?
Gina:But I will tell you the minute you get a taste of it, you never want to go back because you realize a great assistant loves to be of service and they will start to extract it from you. How about this? Why do you keep doing that? How about I do that? Oh, I keep noticing you keep saying you're going to go to yoga and you never go.
Gina:What can we do about that? You know, like they start to show up as a partner and it's thrilling for them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I love that because I think one of the challenges in speaking with my clients as they're growing their firms and hiring people and all the things that are on their plate is that they feel like they have to be completely organized, have all their systems in place, have everything done before they can hire help regardless of what kind of help it is. I remember my mother telling me when she was pregnant with my sister, my oldest sister, my dad says that she was so sick that she couldn't lift her head up. And my dad says, why don't you hire somebody to help clean the house once a week come in and clean the house because you're so sick. And the day before the person came my mother had to like clean the whole house because she couldn't have this person see her mess.
Speaker 4:So I think there's something in women and particularly in high achieving women, we're used to doing things on our own and we hide the mess, you know, looking like we're smoothing, you know, gliding smoothly on the surface and underneath we're paddling. And so there's something about inviting that trust element of inviting people in. Can I trust them? So what are some things we talk about a mindset shift? What are some things we need to be thinking about in terms of how to build that trusting relationship with somebody?
Speaker 4:How can we trust somebody coming in to help us out? Good. And I love what
Gina:you said about the systems. You don't have to have it all together and that might be the very beginning of the trust. In one hand, when I was getting ready to have an EA, it did have me start to think from when I go tell her to go to this file in Dropbox and find XYZ, I better go like clean up that folder a little bit because any sane human is going to look in that folder and go, what file is she talking about? So it may force some housecleaning, which was wanted and needed anyway, but that might also very well be the very first project you give away. EA's So name is I might say to Corinne, listen, you're going to go into a folder.
Gina:It's going look like crazy mess because I just know in my head which files are good, which ones should get archived. One thing that makes a difference I've found is I give my concern or my project over to my EA and I say, listen, this is a mess. I need you to organize it. But I also know you don't know how to organize that. You need me.
Gina:So I need you to own this project and I'm now going to work for you. I'm going to be a good team player. I'm going to answer your questions. I'm gonna get you what you need, but I need you to schedule time on my calendar. Grab me, like demand of me.
Gina:Gina, we're gonna go into the newsletter folder in Dropbox, which I know you hate, and we're gonna go clean it up and I'm gonna do that for you. And I'm like, okay. So it's a lot easier for me to kind of go along and ride along. Now she knows I'm the boss and I know I'm the boss. So there is ultimately something I don't like.
Gina:I'll say, you know, we're not going do that. But it is really fun for them and a little more relaxing for you, for me to just relax and go, okay, they're going to spearhead this project.
Speaker 4:I was just reading something recently about characteristics of a good leader. And one of the characteristics of a good leader is the ability to follow. And I think a lot of people don't think about it. They think I have to have all the answers before I hire this person to help me. And really what you're doing is you're wanting to hire somebody who has the capability of asking you good questions.
Gina:Absolutely. And being a good partner. I just submitted a piece of writing to my EA and I said, look this over. I'm tired. I don't think it's done, but I think it's 80%.
Gina:What does it mean? And she tells me, okay, Gina, listen, I think you should include a quote about this. And I remember when you were talking about this, why don't you include that? Like adding her thinking to my thinking that makes my thinking rich. And it has me not have to get everything perfect and done a 100%.
Gina:I think a lot of people are going
Speaker 4:to be surprised if there are people out there like this because I think everybody has a dream of having somebody like this. But in their experience of going out to some VA services, what they're finding is I'm hiring somebody and I have to be very dialed in and very specific about I need you to do X, Y and Z and X, Y, Z, and border, which means they have to take time out to do that. And they say it's just quicker to do it myself. What you're talking about though is something different. So elaborate on that a little bit more.
Gina:Yeah, it's quicker to do it myself. So I definitely want to come back to that. Remind me if I forget, that's a juicy little lead off. But the other thing is, there are different kinds of virtual assistants out there. So there are task doers and you might just need a task doer.
Gina:You got five repeatable things. You need them done every single week. They're really cleaned up. They're dialed in. Good.
Gina:Go get a task doer. No, you shouldn't pay a lot of money for that. A shoulder to shoulder business partner, right? Then now we're talking about like a firm like mine, which is a boutique firm. And there's a wide range of firms within The United States as well.
Gina:So, and again, I'm just so sorry because it's unregulated and it is the wild wild west. So, you know, you do want to ask questions. And I think the more you've got it cleaned up and dialed in the less you should pay. The more you want to be able to say, listen, Corrine, will you run this? I need your brain on this.
Gina:Bring me into the project. Then the more money you're going to pay because you're paying for that critical thinking and that business partner essentially. And it's not to say everybody needs a business partner type person, but you might. My assertion is I'd rather have that person for ten hours a week than a task doer for thirty hours a week. Right?
Gina:I'd rather have somebody who works for me, not a whole lot of hours, but man they're on. And in fact, it is true. It will be faster tomorrow if you do it yourself. But you are investing in a future you that is three months out or six months out. So when you first hire an assistant, it's not going to be an immediate relief.
Gina:That's the other misnomer. Like, oh, I must've hired the wrong one. You know, boy, I had to work so hard. I would plan on in the first few weeks in particular in the first month, are going to invest more time, but you're investing the time for who you're going to get to work with three months from now, right? Cause you're going to explain things to them and the better of a trainer and get that really dialed in that process dialed in a month from now, you are not going to have to talk to them about it again.
Gina:And you're going to be so excited. You're just going to be like, it's invoice time or it's, you know, can you Whatever go to it's done. You guys have already done all the talking you're dialed in. So that's just something I like to remind people is, yeah, you're right. You will do it faster and better.
Gina:And the question is, do you want to do it forever? Or do you want to start investing in, hey, that really could be somebody else doing that.
Speaker 4:Right. Our background of
Gina:our team is really unique and a lot of agencies, like there are some agencies that will tell you, listen, you are going to get a college graduate or you're going to get a this, you're going to get a that. Our team is really varied. So some of them have like all this really strong EA background. Some of them have something where we can see that skill set would be great, you know, project management, or they've worked with high level executives before. You can imagine the kind of person who wants to work with like a high powered female attorney.
Gina:You know, they've got to have some confidence. They've got to have some business smarts about that. And we do have a pretty extensive vetting process. I think that also makes us unique. So when we go to screen and interview people, it's about a two week long process.
Speaker 4:Oh It
Gina:has about six or seven steps to it. And that's because we want to drag to get out intentionally. Because why? Cause we interview somebody today, they're going to say everything we want to hear and they're going to be on their very best. We're going to be on our very best.
Gina:Everything's going to look good. Maybe two days later, we have another follow-up. Now we hire this person. And then there's so much we didn't discover because also our world is virtual. So we might throw some curve balls at them in the process.
Gina:Maybe it's via text. Now let's see how they respond in text. Is it professional? Is it full of emojis? Does it have five exclamation points after everything?
Gina:Well, now next time, let's send them an email. Oh, I'm so sorry. I need to reschedule that call with you. I'm running late. How did they respond to us?
Gina:Right. In our vetting and screening process because that's how they're going to respond to you, our client. So we put them through paces that they don't even know they're being put through. And then in the end, actually have them do real world exercises. Basically, that's kind of their audition.
Gina:We're going to have you do this. We're going have you do that. We're going to play client. I'm going to give you incomplete information because I'm on my way from this meeting to that meeting and I need you to follow-up with this and then text the attorney and then follow-up with that. And then get back to me on Thursday about the hanaha.
Gina:I gotta go. Bye. Yeah. That's accurate. Exactly.
Gina:I gotta see how they can roll with that. Are they upset or they will, they, she didn't give me enough information. Well, come on, these are gonna see people, right? It's your job, the EA. So we develop the EA's.
Gina:They get really clear. It's their job to kindly and professionally extract from you what It's they not your problem to be the world's most perfect delegator. So we develop them in that. We invest in their development. They've got team huddles.
Gina:They one thing they love about being on this team is they're not alone. Know, they could right now today they're on a Slack channel with 20 other EAs and they could go, hey, we don't like the flower sending service that we use. Who's got a better one? Or we're really tired of sending XYZ as birthday gifts. What are other people doing?
Gina:So they love that they've got a team here that they can collaborate with and they have a performance coach. So everybody has a performance coach. We hold ourselves to account for their performance so that you don't have to. And then we regularly reach out to clients and say, how's it going with Alison? And then you'll go, she's great.
Gina:And then we'll go, no, we will dig. We will be like, no, okay, no, I got it. She's great. Of course, she's great. We hired her.
Gina:We vetted her, now tell us what could be better. What is she not picking up fast enough? What would you like her to get stronger in? And we'll go to work on that in the background. But we're also a very high end.
Gina:I will just be frank. That's kind of what makes us a high end, you know, boutique executive assistant firm. Right. Right. And all
Speaker 4:of these VAs work for you as employees?
Gina:Partly and partly not. So some are contractors. All of the contractors have their own business licenses and their own professional liability insurance. And then we, of course, the company carries all that plus cyber insurance. And then some are employees and that has to do with state laws.
Gina:Of course trying to manage a company that runs across 50 states is a little crazy Right,
Speaker 4:right, right, right. Let's talk about some of the things an executive assistant can help women law firm owners. We've already discussed some things. The top of mind or I think scheduling is probably one of the things that's hardest for people to sort of give up. This idea of somebody helping to manage their schedule.
Speaker 4:Booking travel is an excellent idea. Especially so many of my clients love to travel internationally. Women law firm owners, their goal in life is to travel internationally everywhere. Especially the more successful they get. Billing I think would be a huge thing.
Speaker 4:Helping people sort of deal with billing because that's often a big task. Can executive assistants help with things that might seem personal? Because a lot of my clients, women law firm owners are also moms and they're dealing with their children and all their children's activities and maybe needing to keep that family calendar organized and order things for parties or whatever. So give me an idea of some of the things that executive assistants can do.
Gina:Yeah. So all of that. Yes. And it all depends upon how small or how big your firm is and how automated or not automated it is. So it might be, you know, world of calendaring has evolved so much right now.
Gina:Just get a link, you put yourself on somebody's calendar, but now somebody's got to manage that calendar such that you don't pick a time on my calendar where I'm already booked and oops, I scheduled this thing. So the EAs now in the world of calendaring are doing more of what I'd call calendar proofing or making your calendaring system better. So they are not the whole system much anymore but if you don't have a great system, they'll improve your system. And I think that's, you know, the biggest thing updating your CRM. What do you need tracked in there?
Gina:What are all the things, you know, you should do but you never get around to them? And the personal, yes, they love that. I mean, I am constantly having my EA send so and so a birthday card and so and so flowers and so and so all the gifts and even coming up with the plans for say, want everybody to get a new year's card at the end of the year or what is our end of year message? Which clients are going to get what level of gifts? And again, I give it all over to where I say, you come up with a plan, you bring me the plan and then I'll tell you what I like and I don't like about it but don't make me sit here and draft the plan.
Gina:Yes. All kinds of travel research, the organization of your inbox. I don't know if people have got that under control or they don't. No, most attorneys don't. Yeah.
Gina:Again, a system is good. So an EA will get in there and the EA isn't the system but a good EA will create a system. They will create rules so that all of those emails from those people go into these folders and unsubscribe you from what you should get unsubscribed from and maybe even filter. Listen, Davina, when you see things in this folder, this is what's hot. When you wake up in the morning, this is where the hot stuff is.
Gina:Don't get distracted cause the inbox can You become like can just lose all kinds of time in inbox just because it's there. It's not because it's what is the highest and best use of you right now. Right, right.
Speaker 4:I know that a lot of people are using virtual assistants in other countries right now. And part of the reason why is because they're not able to find the right people in The U. S. And so they're getting referrals in communities of lawyers. We talk about these things in there.
Speaker 4:Everybody's always wanting to know like who's the best people to work with and stuff. So tell me why you think it's an advantage with Athena that we're talking about US based people.
Gina:Yeah. So time zone sometimes is an issue. So do you need to connect with somebody? Do you want to be able to talk to them and say, like for example, we would recommend you talk to your VA, you know, even just for fifteen minutes, three times a week maybe so they can just run down five items for you. Okay, Davina, listen, I worked on this.
Gina:What do you want done with this? Okay, what do want done with this? What do want done with this? So the ability to connect in live voice during a normal working hour is something to consider. And again, if there's an issue with them or they've done something with maybe a communication with a client or a vendor and it didn't go well and you've got to get something ironed out, how are you going to get it ironed out?
Gina:You know, things are easy, breezy and smooth, then okay, it might work. It might work to work with somebody from The Philippines. I think some of the other concerns I've heard about, I'm gonna say they're cultural. This does not to say this doesn't happen in The United States, But in some cultures, it would be so what's the word? Like, shaming to admit to you that I made a mistake.
Gina:Mhmm. That it would be best if I just didn't. Because culturally, you wouldn't do that. Whereas, I don't know if it's across The United States, but certainly in our firm, REAs have enough confidence to say, Devina, I gotta let you know something. I screwed something up.
Gina:Listen, yesterday I did this and this, but it had this effect and now here's what I'm gonna do about it. Like the transparency and the confidence to work with a high level US business person, I think can be missing with a VA overseas. Internet sometimes is an issue. Internet speed, the quality of internet, the language depends upon how much you want somebody to speak on your behalf and be you and communicate to people as you and how much the command of the language is important. And do you care whether or not it looks like, you know, I got an email from somebody, Oh, I bet you that's not actually an assistant here in The US.
Gina:May not matter. So kind of depends upon how you want to utilize them. Right.
Speaker 4:Right. So if I were to, you know, say, you know, this sounds really great. I'd like to hire an executive assistant. What do you think I need to do to prepare mentally for that and prepare for my mind to bring somebody into my world, into my chaos and however I think, you know, whatever. What do you think I need to do to prepare for that?
Gina:Yeah. Well, I think everybody today could just start a log, whether it's on your laptop or a piece of paper next your desk, you know, what are what I call the low hanging fruit? What is the repeatable, easy, low hanging stuff that you think, why am I doing that? Just start the list. Now you may not do anything about it for another month or whatever, but just start that list so you can kind of look at it and keep adding to it and go, okay, now if I hired an assistant of this list of 20 things, what might be the first three things I want to start with?
Gina:Because some people are gonna say, I wanna start with the hardest stuff. Other people are gonna feel like I'm not gonna delegate that project. That project's too high risk. I wanna start with this over here. I wanna get to know this person through these projects.
Gina:So I think that's where a couple places to look is what would be on your list. Now, things I would put on your list are things you're not good at, or maybe you're great at it and you just don't enjoy it. That's just like, at the end of the day, you just feel so drained because you don't like doing that kind of work. And then you can look to see some of these things you might go, boy, all right, I can see that my system for, I don't know, writing my quarterly newsletter is in pretty good shape. Okay, maybe that's where I'm going to start.
Gina:I'm going to like turn part of that over to somebody. So you can see what is repeatable. For me, it was invoicing frankly, for me in the beginning, I invoice twice a month and I was thrilled because we've always worked from anywhere way pre COVID. It's always been how we've worked and I was delighted that I could work from anywhere. But then I was in Maui with my friends and they were off doing something and it was invoice day and I'm sitting on the Lanai invoicing.
Gina:And I was like, Cotner, never ever again are you doing that. That was just like, this is so gross. I am not doing this again. So that was part of my impetus to like, okay, just give away that invoicing's got to go out. It's got to out twice a month just like clockwork.
Gina:Contracts going out. I had to get the contracts. You know, that kind of stuff. I was like, this is if I have to do this one more time, I'm going to puke. So those were the things I started turning over.
Speaker 4:I was just having this conversation in our group, on our group call today about invoicing. And it is a huge issue for women law firm owners. And part of it is this feeling that I have to check everything before it goes out. And so one of the things that I tell them to do is they said, I promise you that you are looking for the same things over and over and over again. Every time you're checking, make a list, make a checklist of all of those pet peeves, double entries, all the things that you look for every time.
Speaker 4:And you'll start to realize that it really is not something that has to be done by you. And I think that's where we have to get out of our head and start to tease out this is not the highest best use of my time. And somebody else really is. Like you are not the best person for every job in your business. You just can't be.
Speaker 4:And you won't ever be. Everybody who listens to this podcast knows I do not like bookkeeping. I actually worked for a year in college as a bookkeeper for a couple who own multiple companies and I kept all their books. That got my butt back into college so fast because I hated being a bookkeeper even though I know how to do it. And so there's just no way I'm going be my own bookkeeper.
Speaker 4:I'm going to outsource that to somebody else. I love looking at the financial statements and making, watching all the money add up and making all those decisions about my business. But it is this idea that I'm the best person. If I just had more time, I could figure it out myself. And I think when you start hiring assistants you start to see that, Kevin, I really don't want to spend my time figuring it out.
Speaker 4:I want to be out on the beach in Maui with my friends. I don't want to be here taking a course on how to optimize my billing or whatever it is, right? So it is really that idea too of, yeah, you could probably learn it but what if you could hire somebody who just already knew it, could take it off your plate and could come up with a plan? And what I love about what you're saying in particular is the thinking part of it. Because for me and for a lot of the women law firm owners that I'm in conversation with, the thing that makes us the most exhausted is that we have to feed the critical thinkers and the decision makers.
Speaker 4:And then once you come up with solutions for every little thing in the business and at home, As that is the part, it is the mental work of it all that it's so exhausting. So to have someone else that you can rely on to take some of the mental work off your plate so you're not having to sit there and do all the mental work and then say, now go do A, B, and C in this order in this way. You can just say, take it and figure out what should be A, what should be B, and what should be C and come back to me and I'll tell you if you need to change it, right? All different experience, right? A challenge for people is they're too busy.
Speaker 4:They're still having to do the thinking piece of it. And what you're introducing is something different. It's a different kind of relationship. What should we look for when we are looking for a good executive assistant? We know critical thinking skills is something that we look for.
Speaker 4:What are some other things that we should say, you know, I need to have this on my list when I'm looking for an executive assistant?
Gina:Yeah, I think how you communicate, how you like to communicate, how you want to communicate. If I had never had an assistant before, I'd be looking for an assistant that could train me in having an assistant. You know, I'd be saying, listen, I've never had an assistant before. Do you think you can work with me? We go to having an assistant, you know, which is also another thing that they should be good at.
Gina:I'm a proponent in always hiring is why we do this in my firm is having people actually perform. Because when you talk about performing, everybody's like, yes, I'm excellent at that. Yes, I'm excellent at that. There's nothing I'm not excellent at. Right.
Gina:But can you come up with or find out if a firm does this, having them do things, actually do things. Right. You know, that you would like done. Or you might give them a scenario. Listen, my inbox is a bloody mess.
Gina:What would you do? And just hear, like, maybe you just hear their thinking, no, they're probably not gonna have the perfect answer, but what's their logic? Where are they looking from? What are they considering? You might even bring them something you've been chewing on the last two weeks.
Gina:You know, my fiftieth birthday is coming up and I think I want to rent a yacht and I want some people on it and I want to go to the San Juan Islands. I know nothing about this. If I gave you this project, what do you think you'd do? That was an actual project of mine that I gave my EA. And I mean, I didn't know anything.
Gina:I've never chartered a yacht. I don't even know what questions to ask. I'm like, go learn something, educate me, you know. So I think the more you can have them have to either demonstrate or talk through how they would deal with you or deal with a mess you have, I think you'll hear, oh, I love how that person's thinking. Or they like, I don't know.
Gina:I'll just do it however you want it done. You just tell me and I'll just get all over that. Okay. I don't need another person to tell what to do. Right?
Gina:Right. Right. Right. Right. This person's not paying you top dollar for that.
Speaker 4:Give me an idea of top dollar. I'm not going to pin you down to the exact. Can you give me an idea of top dollar so people understand like the difference between, this is not $10 an hour stuff we're talking about here.
Gina:Yeah, yeah. And people get very excited about hiring from The Philippines because I hear it is $6 an hour. So there is overseas, you know, certain amount or for $15 an hour you get five tasks or something like that. So there's that world. Our firm, we start at $50 an hour.
Gina:So if everybody I'm pretty transparent about that and it's on the website somewhere it's not hitting news. And I would have told you three years ago, four years ago, that was probably the most expensive, one of the most expensive in the country. I don't think that's so much the case anymore, but we're probably in the upper 75 percentile. If you go and hire a firm that maybe is going to charge you say $35 or $40 an hour, you might ask them, it was a very bold question. Somebody asked me one and it threw me back on my heels and I thought it was so smart.
Gina:They said, well, what do you pay your people? So that's something you could ask because depending on kind of work you want to have them do, but if they're paying somebody again to your point $10 an hour or $13 an hour, I don't know, But that's who you want to have responding to your client in an email. Now you may not have them do that work at all. We discharge flatly by the hour, whatever your EA works for you. That's what you're going to get billed.
Gina:We have a minimum of ten hours a week. And we actually recommend people start there because what you get in ten hours a week in the third month is a lot different than in the first week. So while you're just keep paying ten hours a week, ten hours a week, ten hours a week, what you should be getting from your EA should be more and more and more and more and more. And they become more and more and more efficient. You may get to a point where then you go, you know what, I need a little more.
Gina:Then there's packages. Some people will charge by the month. You know, they'll say $1,500 a month and that gets you this many hours. I never went that route. I don't know what happens if you want more, if you want less but that's what you'll find out there is people who just charge by the hour.
Gina:My guess is that U. S. Based agency range right now is probably somewhere between 35 and 60 an hour.
Speaker 4:That is a really smart question for somebody to ask you because what I think some people have experienced is I'm paying this agency agency all all this this money but then I'm getting somebody that is of a caliber that I could hire would be a whole lot less than that if I hire them directly. And so when you're looking at an agency you're looking for what are they doing to train and teach these people to be better, right? So that I don't have to do the training and the teaching piece of it.
Gina:Yeah. On the one hand they've done the vetting and the screening right for you. But that would be a good question. Like I appreciate firm you've done the vetting and the screening and that's partly why I'm paying a premium but after day one, then what do I get? Right?
Gina:Cause now that works kind of on me, the executive to go and train this person. What am I getting from you guys? Other thing what are
Speaker 4:we getting from Athena?
Gina:Yeah, well they have a contact here that they can call at any time and say, listen, I need this person to be better at this, better at that. And they have performance coach. Like I've said that they talked to in the early days in the first three weeks of that relationship, we know that getting any relationship off the ground really takes something. So what's happening in the background, talk about the ducks that are floating along the water and all the fluttering under fluttering that's going on and below the pond is their performance coach and our client care manager talking to that EA about every other day saying, okay, what did Davina just give you to do? Okay, and how is that going?
Gina:Is there anything you need? Oh, you're all set up? Okay, good. Oh, she wants you to use what CRM? Oh, wait, hold on.
Gina:I think somebody else has used that CRM, you know, like whatever we can do to get that relate. Cause once that relationship is up and off the ground and you guys are smooth sailing, it's going to be easier and easier. There was something else I thought to say about this. Oh, this is the other thing you might consider when you're shopping is whether or not if you fall in love with this person and you want to hire them away, is that possible? So you could, and this keeps happening with us more and more.
Gina:It's very interesting. I don't mind it at all. People have their EA. And if the EA says, yeah, I really love my client. The client says, I really love this person.
Gina:Can I hire them for myself and put them on my payroll? It is possible and you just pay what's called a conversion fee. So you could, if you have that interest, it could be a little bit of a try before you buy. Could use these firms. You can use my firm in that way.
Gina:You can use other firms in that way. Now there's no guarantee. And if you think you might like a full time person, I would also make sure you're getting found. Somebody is selecting for you an EA that could grow with you? Or do they have four other gigs going and in this case they only have ten hours a week?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was another question I was going to ask. I have used a service before a few years ago And the VA, it was a VA that I had was in The US but she was a mom first and then she had a pre existing client and then I came third. And I felt like I came third because of the way that she worked. She actually stood me up on a meeting because she was doing something for one of her other clients. So obviously that didn't work out.
Speaker 4:But that is an experience I have. Do your EAs work with multiple people? How many people? Is there like a max on that or how does Yeah. That
Gina:And that's a great question to ask when you're vetting people. So we found that two is a good max, two clients. We had some of our really strong people even go to three and even they said, Oh, this is crazy making. And it's partly the mental taxation. So I'm working with a lawyer for one hour and then I'm working with this financial advisor and then I'm working with this plastic surgeon.
Gina:And it's like your brain is just in too many different worlds at once. So we keep really close tabs on people's bandwidth partly because we want to keep their bandwidth full but we won't fill it with more than two clients. And we are on top of, and we're very nosy. Let's just say appropriately nosy about what other gigs they got going on because that's nice. They only have two clients with us, but what if they have three other side hustles going on?
Gina:Right. Then we're now we're back in the same issue you just experienced. That's something that we're very close with them about. And also we just really take the time to get to know them really personally in a way that you may not, and you certainly don't have to because what is happening in their personal life is affecting how their performance is with you. But we don't really want that to be your problem.
Gina:Yet if you knew that their grandmother was in the hospital two days ago and their dog just got hit by a car and they're considering divorce, you'd understand why they were so frazzled. But we kind of take that. We're like, come over here. You know, let's huddle over here in the back channels and we'll take care of you and make sure as a human being, you know, you're well taken care of so that then you can go perform.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Right. So tell us we need to end but before we do tell us how we can connect with you on your socials, your website, whatever it is you want to share.
Gina:Yeah, sure. People can find out all about us on our website really which is athenaexecutiveservices.com And there's multiple buttons on there for if you want to explore more, it says click here. And all that's going to do is it's going to take you to a woman named Jennifer Tracy and set up a chat with her. And she's happy to brainstorm with you. And she's also happy to just tell you, you know what?
Gina:We're not it, but here's where we think you should go. So if you wanna just brainstorm with somebody who's knowledgeable about the industry, she's great for that. And you'll find us out on Facebook and Instagram. It's all athenaexecutiveservices.com.
Speaker 4:Beautiful. Thank you. Gina, it's been such a pleasure talking with you about this subject because it's definitely a hot subject right now among me, my clients, myself. And I appreciate you being here and helping us understand this a little bit better and really finding ways that we can get things off of our plate. So thanks again.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.
