Just starting out? Take a shortcut with our assistant training:

  • Take advantage of our 20+ years of assisting experience
  • Get answers to any assisting question you have directly from us
  • 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
Learn more about the program or
Dress for Success
Our 1-for-1 partnership with Dress for Success®:
For every person who enrolls in our training, we donate a full year scholarship to a Dress for Success client. It's an easy way to help someone in need during these difficult economic times! Learn More Here.
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, 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.

 

All Posts, Stress Management,

Save up your “See ya!” money ASAP
March 10, 2009 at 06:58 PM | (0) Comments

The advice in this post goes for pretty much everyone but as you’ll see below, assistants have to worry about fraud and ethical lapses within their company and be aware of the potential that they unknowingly could be an accomplice to such actions.

This article is about Bernie Madoff’s assistant, Annette Bongiorno down in FL. A reporter tracked her down and is asking questions about all of her assets and if she personally put through any trades on behalf of Bernie. There are legitimate questions about her involvement and knowledge of Bernie’s scheme BUT if she smelled something “fishy” in the beginning AND had some “See ya!” money saved up, she could have quit and avoided a really bad situation. Now she’s being tracked down by investigative reporters and has probably met a few times with the FBI.

Moral of the story? Save up some “See ya!” money ASAP when you enter the working world so if you ever smell anything “fishy” OR if you need to get away from a maniacal boss, you can.

UPDATE - Below is the video of this report and you can see that Annette wants nothing to do with it:

 

All Posts, Organization,

Phonesheet.com or ProAssisting’s Phone Sheet template?
March 06, 2009 at 07:00 PM | (0) Comments

The phone sheet is one of the most important tools that an assistant and boss have for keeping track of multiple phone calls. Most offices get more than tens calls per day and some get more than 200… yes, 200 phone calls per day. As you can imagine, keeping track of those calls and not letting any slip by you IS a full time job in-and-of-itself.

And that brings us to Phonesheet.com. This web based service was developed by a former Hollywood assistant and as someone who was a “Hollywood” assistant……I know how important it is to have a solid phone sheet with a system of how to use it so I was more than intrigued when I came across his service. But after looking over his site and the video demonstration, call me skeptical.

Don’t get me wrong, Phonesheet.com is a solid utility and gives you and your boss the ability to have access to your phone sheet via the web but I’m still not convinced that a solid phone sheet template with a key and rules in place isn’t any better. And what if your Internet access goes down? Lastly, at $15 per month or $160 for the year, the price seems a bit high to me when we give you our phone sheet template free in our email series as something from inside our the Member’s area.  UPDATE: Since our email series is being revamped, you can download our phone sheet FOR FREE by clicking this link. Shhh, don’t tell our members:)!

Just remember, either way you go, using a phone sheet properly as an assistant is one of the KEYS to your success and it’s no wonder someone created a business around this valuable assistant tool.

 

All Posts,

And we’re off…
March 04, 2009 at 07:09 PM | (2) Comments

Hello and welcome to our little corner of the Internet. We’ve designed ProAssisting to be about and for assistants… numerous kinds of assistants such as Executive assistants, Personal assistants, Admin assistants, Group assistants, Second & Third assistants, virtual assistants, office managers, operation assistants and even interns. Yes, interns.

The kind of assistants and their work that we will not focus on are along the lines of medical, veterinary, paralegal or any other kind of assistant that requires specific certification. Rather, here we’ll be dealing with all the various corporate and creative organizations and companies that use assistants.

Thank you for your interest in ProAssisting and hopefully we’ll see you on the inside real soon.

Ethan & Stephanie

 

Page 22 of 23 pages « First  <  20 21 22 23 >