MY 5 RULES for hiring an EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT in 2021

Summary

• Before I hired an executive assistant (EA), I was juggling numerous roles, from finance to customer service, which was overwhelming.
• Six months after switching our business model, I realized I needed an EA to handle the varied and quickly changing responsibilities.
• I found my first EA, who I still work with and adore, through a deliberate and thoughtful hiring process.
• When considering hiring an EA, look for someone with more experience than you and someone you would enjoy spending time with outside of work.
• Think of hiring an EA as a math equation: if they save you hours, you can earn significantly more, justifying their salary which ranges from $45,000 to $100,000 per year.
• Resistance to hiring an EA often stems from the fear of vulnerability, as they will know all personal and business details.
• Look for an EA who anticipates needs, is resourceful, communicates reflecting your values, can handle random tasks including large projects, and is tech-savvy.
• To keep an EA, set clear expectations, communicate effectively and often, and provide regular feedback, both positive and constructive.
• An effective EA becomes an invaluable member of your team, increasing efficiency and allowing you to focus on driving revenue and growing the business.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by discovering tasks that are overwhelming you and decide if they can be handed to someone else. If it's a lot, it's time to think about an Executive Assistant (EA). Here's how to do this without spending too much time or money:

1. Write down what you need help with – like finance, customer service, or planning. Know what's on your plate so you know what to pass off.

2. Think about who you need: someone with experience and someone you'd like outside of work. The goal is to trust and enjoy working with them.

3. Remember, an EA is an investment. If they save you hours, you can make more money. It's like doing math. The cost of an EA can be less than the money you could make with the extra time.

4. Overcome the fear of sharing personal and business information. An EA will need to know a lot, so trust is key.

5. Now, find that person. Look for someone who can:

   • Guess what you need before you say it.
   • Find answers on their own.
   • Talk and work just like you would.
   • Handle different jobs, even big ones.
   • Use technology easily.

6. Once you hire them, talk a lot. Set clear work rules and chat often. Tell them what’s good and what needs work. This keeps them and helps you both do better.

Following these steps can make your work easier. You will focus on growing your business while your EA takes care of the rest. It's like having a helper who's always on your side.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"If utilized properly, they can take back over half of your working hours during the week, leaving you way more time to drive revenue and make more money"

– Leila Hormozi

"A good executive assistant is going to have a billion other people that want to work with them"

– Leila Hormozi

"You communicate with them first and then they communicate with everybody else"

– Leila Hormozi

"The salary of an EA is still absolutely justified"

– Leila Hormozi

"You should consider a little bit more than you would with any other role"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

what is up in this video shape what i want to talk about is how to find and hire an executive assistant and how to know if you need one i was kind of thinking about this the other day because i've helped um i think four ceos in the last three months find executive assistants and i like doing this because it's something that i feel deeply passionate about because my executive assistant is like my favorite person in the entire world um and so i just want everyone to have that and i'll kind of explain where i was before i found her and then after so when we were starting gym launch for the first year alex and i were flying out to gyms you know to different locations et cetera et cetera and then we switched our model to basically a consulting model and then when we did that that shifted in i want to say it was like march or april and then i hired my executive assistant in um sept october of that year so it was about six months after switching to this model that ended up taking off and pretty much at that point i was doing everything in the business so i think that we had uh four other employees i think we had like tech support customer support billing and another billing person and then it was me and alex and so we really didn't have anybody and at that point i was finance hr it you know uh customer success customer service like i was doing everything and i was like i don't even know who to hire because i just need someone that can help me do all this because i have just a [ __ ] ton of stuff i'm doing and whatever this role is it's gonna change really quickly and so after thinking about a lot i was like i really think that i want to get an executive assistant and so i started the search and um you know i found mine whom i still have today and uh luckily she was my first executive assistant and i hope that you know i stick with her for a very long time because i absolutely love working with her and after i brought her on my life was immensely more simple because especially if you're in the point in your business where you're still wearing multiple hats to have someone who can help you you know take care of those multiple priorities because they are all priorities is immensely helpful and so um the one thing i will say is that if you're considering getting an ea it is a role that you should consider a little bit more than you would with any other role which is this when i was hiring for that role i realized two things which is one i cannot train this person i can give them context and i can communicate and i can work on a relationship but i don't know what they're supposed to do and now i can know to an extent i can read books and et cetera et cetera but i've never been an executive assistant and i've also never had one and so i should probably hire someone who has more experience than i do right i don't want to hire somebody who's never done it before because neither of us know what we're doing that was the first thing i took into consideration the second thing i took into consideration is that i wanted somebody who i would hang out with even if they weren't my executive assistant and the reason for that is because if you do this relationship correctly it will be the one role that helps you accelerate past all the other bottlenecks in the business because this person's got your back and so the only thing that can really impede upon that is poor communication and you know when people often poorly communicate the most is when they don't like somebody when you don't like someone when you enjoy being around somebody you avoid them you don't want to talk to them you have less proactive communication i genuinely have to resist from communicating with my ea so much because i absolutely love talking to her and so that is what i would say if you're looking for an executive assistant or you're wondering what that kind of relationship looks like i would consider myself to have a very successful relationship as well as some of the people who i've helped in the past if you're considering if this is something that you should be doing i want you to just think about this math wise because it really is just a math equation just like any other role in your business okay say you take home four million dollars per year and you're working 60 hours per week that's like 13.90 per hour that you're making okay so you're making 1 390 per hour okay if you can get an ea most da's on average i think the stats were um the average ea can get about uh a little over half your hours back for you for each week so say that person gets you 35 hours back right so you're making 4 million per year you use it 60 hours a week they get you back 35 of those hours so that means right 35 times 1390 is you're gonna make 2.3 million more dollars or half back the time from that 2.3 million to make more opportunity to make more money if you hire an executive assistant okay so if utilized properly they can take back over half of your working hours during the week leaving you way more time to drive revenue and make more money so to me when i see someone that says they don't think that it makes sense to have an executive assistant i'm like no you just can't afford not to because you have no idea how much time you're wasting right if your time is that valuable and you're making significant money right which could even just be a couple hundred thousand dollars per year the salary of an ea is still absolutely justified an average ea is going to range anywhere from like if they're on the beginner side they're probably going to be around 45 to 55 grand per year on the advanced side they're going to be you know around anywhere from 80 to 100 grand per year and if you think about that compared to the extra 2 million you can make if you have that time back it's really a no-brainer and so i think that the reality is that we make a lot of excuses for why we don't want to hire for this role the reality is it's a hard role to freaking hire for and so we're like oh i don't know but it's like you're vulnerable because this person's all up in your [ __ ] personal space they know everything about you they're gonna there's nothing you cannot hide from this person right and so i think actually a lot of people are really resistant to that it's not that they don't understand the math side of it it's that they're scared to reveal themselves to someone in that manner and to trust somebody to give them their bank account their social security like their passports like they have access to everything right which is why points one and two are really important right finding someone experienced if you're not and then making sure you really like the person now i can i made the list of what i look for in an executive assistant because i think that me being really clear made the interviewing process perfect because after i got off the phone with mine who is still now my executive assistant i literally was like i don't even want to interview anyone else like she's it i know it i'm 1000 positive and it's so funny because she only continued to impress me from there and so here's what i looked for in an executive assistant and if you have one and you're not sure if they're right for you then listen up too because this applies to that okay one is that you want someone who anticipates your needs okay so my executive assistant for example if i tell her that i'm like man next week is looking kind of rough or if i look at my schedule and sometimes i'll look at my schedule three weeks out i'll be like oh my gosh this looks terrible i don't know how i'm gonna be able to make this work i looked two days later and she's already changed it for me okay so she looks at my schedule knowing how i work and how i like to plan my days she can already go and move things because she knows when she looks at it and she's looking months ahead for me she's like um that wouldn't work for layla the second piece to that might look like you're planning an event and she knows that uh say my assistant knows that we're gonna have clients in town she's going to make sure there's food ordered there's water the house is stocked with stuff there's a place for them to park she's going to make sure that they know directions from the airport i'm not going to have to tell her to do any of that she's just going to anticipate the need so that is what you want number one an executive assistant you do not want someone who can only function when you tell them what to do because again like i said especially if you've never had one before you don't even know what to tell them to do right you're just reacting and kind of throwing what you think could go to them and so you want someone who can step in and be proactive and anticipate needs and isn't afraid to do things right the second to that is that you need someone who's resourceful because if someone wants to anticipate needs and wants to take care of things ahead of time right before the problem is there make sure that they prevent something from happening then you want someone who's resourceful what that means is you want someone who can interact with your team interact with vendors uh use google use yahoo whatever they have to use i don't even know if they use yahoo um but they have to be resourceful they have to be able to go get resources on their own and you are the last resort so they should not come to you first they should come to you last because they've exhausted all their other resources and that's why you want someone who's super resourceful because then most of the times they don't need to come to you okay so that's the second one you want someone who's resourceful the third one is you want an executive assistant to reflect your values in their communication okay so i'll give you the example with my ea which is if i get an email and i cannot respond to that email immediately but i want them to know i've received it because i think it's rude to just leave an email unanswered for more than 12 to 24 hours then i will say hey i got this email i got to think about it or i'm really busy or i'm out of town i'm going to get back to you by this date she does the same thing i also consider myself to be a fast communicator meaning i don't make people wait long for me to get back to them on slack asana email etc i just think that that's not i think the job of the ceo is to be fast and to set the tone and so you know what she does she's fast if not faster than me to all of those responses and so when i delegate things to her i have confidence that she's reflecting my values when she is talking to people so i don't have to worry hey like what's she gonna is she gonna make a good impression of me a bad impression of me like you should never have to worry about that with an executive assistant they should reflect your values now you have to know your values in order for them to reflect your values so that's one thing i will say is that you don't know your values you cannot um express those to your executive assistant then it's going to be harder for them to reflect yours they have to take more time to catch up on to how you actually act the fourth thing is that they can take on random projects and tasks and what i mean by this is um anything that you would take on as a random product or task because somebody else on one of your teams cannot do it they must be able to take that on and so i'll give you the best example which was when we launched our software company and we were short staffed on the weekend for a support function and my ea jumped in and said listen i'll work the weekend i want to learn it it's better for me and i'll learn more about the company and so she got in there and she learned it in like a few hours and worked the whole weekend just to fill the stop and you know what would have happened if she wasn't able to do it because we were just starting this team up as i would have had to do it all weekend and so she knew that instead she said i'll go do this right another example would be client events when we were first starting the business i didn't have an event coordinator i didn't have customer success manager since i had me and my executive assistant so she learned to coordinate events for 300 500 and 700 people right which she could have said that's outside of my realm or my scope or whatever but instead she was like no i love this i want to learn more i want to get more under my belt i want to be more valuable to you and so she took that on and so someone who's willing to take on more than just the the typical administrative functions an executive assistant is not an administrative assistant administrative assistant is more of a button pusher an executive assistant is someone who can help you so you can truly do what you are best at and they take responsibilities below that which often can mean big things big projects big things that affect the company and so you have to keep that in mind is you don't want someone who you can just pay as low as possible to just push buttons and check emails you want someone who can also be strategic they understand people they can manage people they can hold people accountable they can manage projects otherwise they're not really going to be an executive assistant and then last is you want someone who's tech savvy um most people who watch this channel are virtual and online businesses so what i have noticed is that there's been a few people i know who have hired executive assistants who were fantastic executive assistants 20 years ago but they were not accustomed to doing things online and so they didn't mesh well with the workplace and so i know particularly a friend of mine who hired an executive assistant that person had been working in person for about 40 years and then when it came time to make the adjustment they were very um against using the technology right they didn't want to take notes in asana they didn't want to use slack they didn't want to do any of that they just wanted to do their notebook and they didn't even want to get on the video calls with the camera and so you want to make sure i know it sounds simple but there are a lot of people who come from a culture where they're not as tech savvy and if you want someone to be able to relieve you you often want someone who can figure out technology and who knows how to use the technology that you have to the nth degree so they can also reflect your values when communicating so those are the five things i look for right someone who can anticipate someone who can be resourceful someone who can reflect my values someone who can take on random projects and tasks and somebody who's tech savvy okay now once you've found that person right you go through the interview process you think you found the person how do you actually keep that person because here's the thing a good executive assistant is going to have a billion other people that want to work with them and so you have to ask yourself how can i foster this relationship and set us up for success with each other because i think that there's this common you know the thing is about executive assistance they're all going to say they're like listen i work for you i accommodate you i do everything for you you shouldn't have to do anything here's the [ __ ] reality is that if you actually want to make this work you have to put an effort you cannot just let them figure it all out you have to learn how to communicate like a [ __ ] human i see it all the time where people don't they don't help them prioritize they don't help them decide what's a small task a big task which one they should do first they don't give them their preferences they just let them figure it out and so there's so much more rocky water before you get to this like smooth sailing when in reality if you just set expectations right you set expectations in the beginning you communicate frequently and effectively i mean you talk to your ea you don't ignore them let them sit in the corner you talk to your ea all the time and then you give them feedback regularly then it's rock solid like i don't know anyone who wouldn't be able to succeed with an ea if they don't do those three things and so what that looks like is setting clear expectations what are the working hours um what do you expect from them what's the company like what's the role gonna look like it's such a different role based on every ceo and so i'll tell you that when i interviewed my ea i first said to her when we're on the phone i said listen i'm like a golden retriever i have no [ __ ] clue what i'm doing i barely know how to be a ceo i certainly don't know what an executive assistant is supposed to do i made the job description i hope this is it i just need help i have all this [ __ ] i'm doing i just hope you can help me and she said layla i got this i know an executive assistant is supposed to do you don't need to worry about that i'm going to on board myself and i just need you to communicate with me what you want and i was like got it i can do that and so i set the expectation i was like i have no experience i don't know what i'm doing right it was vulnerable and it was weird but at the same time if i had just lied and she'd come in she would have figured it out anyways so i was being honest the second thing is communicating frequently and effectively is a lot of people what i see them do is they don't talk their executive assistant regularly they don't talk to them on slack they don't talk to them uh on zoom calls instead they actually prioritize everybody else and then their executive assistant is last the reality is what i have done and what i teach people to do and what i suggest that you do is that they are first you communicate with them first and then they communicate with everybody else that is how you make them an incredibly valuable member of the team in fact your most valuable employee if you want them to be then you communicate with them before everybody else you keep them in the loop and then you make sure that they don't they're not last to be communicated with they're always first i've made this mistake from time to time where you know alex and i have decided on new initiatives and every once in a while i kind of just like forget to tell her and then she kind of say then my executive system will start asking and then i'm like oh [ __ ] i didn't tell you right and i should have looped you in sooner and sometimes it's harder because you know to the same house together and she's not physically there but i try my best to loop her in and just let her know like where my head's at what i'm thinking how i'm feeling if there's any preferences that have changed right and that's how i like to communicate and so i do i talk to her more than anybody else on the team i talk to her every day and i talk to her multiple times throughout the day and i think that that's why we work so well together because i know that for her to succeed and to take on all the [ __ ] i give her i have to do that she's not going to just mind read nobody can mind read and so i think that we have to remember that like any executive system you bring in they're not magic they cannot produce things without knowing what you want and so i think that that's one of the most important things and then the last piece of that is feedback so i think that um if you want to go above and beyond and create a rock-solid long-lasting relationship with an executive assistant give them good feedback and give them critical feedback and so i always want to point out when my executive assistant is doing things i like when she's done something above and beyond that i'm like i love that you did that i'm so excited that was creative it was innovative i love it and i also want to be like hey you did this this time next time i prefer you did this instead and with this role it's really important because there's preferences that you're not going to have with other roles like when i'm staying in hotel and i want to make sure i have a mini fridge and a good gym and maybe there's not a mini fridge a good gym or maybe there's no coffee maker i sound like in my head this is ridiculous but i would like her to know that next time i just would like prefer if it actually had a coffee maker and a fridge in the room like it sounds simple but you have to be able to communicate those things and not feel silly or stupid or like you're asking for too much because they want to do a good job for you right and if you would do it for yourself then you should ask them to do it for you and so setting clear expectations communicating effectively and frequently and giving feedback those are the three things that you can do to keep an executive assistant like i said in the beginning of this i think a lot of us in the beginning the idea of having an executive assistant we don't understand where they fit in we don't understand what they do we don't understand they can help us but the reality is is that if we are effective communicators and we know how to effectively utilize an executive assistant and find the one that we need and find the right kind of person like i described in this video there is no way that they are not going to be effective on your team especially if you're a small team especially if you have a ton to do especially if you're growing quickly and so i hope this video was useful i hope that you have a little more clarity around how to find an executive assistant and how to communicate effectively with them so that you can keep that executive assistant and so hopefully you enjoyed this i will see you in the next video have a great day