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  • Access a library of tools, templates & resources assistants use daily
  • Use our training to shine from day one
  • Get promoted in the shortest time possible
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Interpersonal Skills

Communication only becomes more critical as your career advances. Fine-tune those communications skills for phenomenal performance.
Organization

Ever hear of a fantastic disorganized assistant? Neither have we. Get the tools and tactics you need to stay organized and on the ball in your assisting duties.
Stress Management

Keeping a cool head in a crisis is one of the most oft-neglected essential skills of an assistant. Learn how to keep stress at bay so you can rise above.
Technology

There are innumerable programs, websites, and online tools to help make your job easier. We’ll review and recommend the best ones for assistants.
Tricks of the Trade

Take the shortcut to gaining years of experience by getting our Cliffs notes version of what we’ve learned from our 20 years in assistant positions.
All Posts, Tricks of the Trade,

Your boss: Tough love, hot head or push over?
March 25, 2009 at 06:54 PM | (0) Comments

Bosses come in all shapes and sizes… does your boss treat you with tough love, are they a hot head or push over?

Everyone initially thinks that they want a push over for a boss but believe us, you don’t. Why? Because you won’t work as hard or get noticed for that promotion you want.

Do you want a hot head for a boss? In our view, it depends. If this boss has a reputation of being a hot head and you can survive working for them for an extended period of time, maybe even thrive, your reputation around the office will be that of ’saint’ for being able to put up with them. Which in turn will open more doors to promotion should you want to step through them.

In my opinion, I want a boss who gives tough love. Sure, the first six months can be brutal as you try to get up to speed and satisfy their demanding ways but boy, once you get that first compliement for a job well done, you’ll walk through fire for that boss. You see, a tough love boss is kinda in the middle between hot head and push over in that once you’ve proven yourself, the tough love boss will overlook a rare mistake and give you more freedom to pursue your own path within the organization. Plus, they keep you, and everyone else who works for them, on your toes.

Jerry Roberts of Careerjolt.com wrote a great guest post at Zenhabits on how to deal with a tough boss that’s worth checking out if you do have a tough boss or are considering working for one. However, if your boss is so unbearable that it is having negative effects on your personal life, maybe it’s time to tap your “See ya!” money and get out of there.

 

All Posts, Technology,

Contact Categories…set ‘em up and use ‘em!
March 22, 2009 at 06:56 PM | (0) Comments

Almost all contact programs allow you to select different categories, that you can define, for each contact profile. Most people don’t use this feature or even know that it exists but as an assistant, if you set different categories for your boss’ contacts, it will save you time and make you look like a star when planning an event or sending out those holiday cards.

You see, when your boss says to copy a letter to all of your clients, you can select the client category in his contacts to fliter out all of the clients. Then, let’s say that one client is on the fence lately so in that situation, you can ask your boss if the letter should go to that client as well. You’re on the ball and they know it.

We suggest that you have categories for family, friends, clients, vendors, employees, network, potential clients and any others that are specific to your boss. And note that you can assign multiple categories for each contact.

Also, having the contacts broken up this way allows you to “mail merge” them into mailing labels for easy holiday card mailings or company newletters… but we’ll cover “mail merge” in a future post. For now, set up categories in your boss’ contacts and use ‘em… trust us, it helps.

 

All Posts, Tricks of the Trade,

Nailing the interview
March 19, 2009 at 06:57 PM | (0) Comments

A majority of our effort here is to help you succeed at your assistant position however before we can do that, you need to land the job you want, right?

That brings us to Steve Errey’s “The Confidence Guy” blog and his post about making a confident first impression in an interview.

He runs down some of the “oldies but goodies” tips but a few of them really stood out to me like “don’t jump in the first chair you see” and “try to sit a bit diagonally across” from your interviewer so you’re not acting as a wall. Or like his tip about “pacing yourself” which talks about how getting to know someone takes a specific pacing and that you should let the interviewer set that pace and not blurt our your life history when they ask if you found the building OK.

Just some all around good tips to keep in mind when walking into that interview. Check out Steve’s full post HERE.

All Posts, Interpersonal Skills,

“Are you having a bad day or…”
March 14, 2009 at 06:58 PM | (7) Comments

“…is it something I did (or said)?”

The above question can be used in any number of situations when you get the sense that the other person on the other end of the phone or email or standing in front of you, isn’t happy with you or your question or request.

As an assistant, you’re going to be asking people to do their own individual jobs all day long to get what you need done for your boss. Whether that person is the travel agent, IT help guy (or gal), person in accounting dealing with expense reports or anyone else who you might come in contact with if you sense them not being happy with you, you should ask the above question.

By asking the question you get one of two things:

  1. You give them an out to say, “Yeah, I’m having a bad day, sorry for my attitude.”… OR…
  2. You’ll find our real quick if it is something that you in fact did that made them give you their attitude.

You see, you can’t fix a problem or issue with someone else if you don’t know one exists so finding out the answer to that above question is your first step to creating a solid working relationship. We know that confrontation can be hard but if you ask the right question and give the person you’re dealing with an out, you will both be better off for it… and you’ll be surprised at how quickly that attitude you noticed earlier will disappear.

 

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