All Posts, Tricks of the Trade,

Reader Question: Asked & Answered
March 30, 2009 at 06:53 PM | (1) Comments

In the comments on another post, I told a reader that if she had any specific questions that she would like to bounce off of us to feel free. Well, she took us up on the offer and below you’ll find her questions and hopefully a satisfactory answer. If you have any questions you’d like answered, leave a comment or email us and we’ll get to it.

Cheryl B:

Sure, Ethan! I’ve got a big one for ya (or maybe not so big…but it’s big in my head). How do you sell yourself as an assistant to a company that currently has no assistant positions? Or simply sell the idea of an assistant to a company that is starting to expand and might not have a full grasp of how crazy things might get for them in the near future?

Thanks for the question, Cheryl. Having worked as an assistant in a 25 person company and the only assistant in the organization, this type of situation is unique in that as the sole assistant, you have to wear many different hats.

In my situation, I was the assistant to the CEO and by default, I also handled HR administration, office management, payroll/accounting, office tech & party planner in addition to all of the regular assisting duties for the CEO. So to answer your question, you could explain to this company that being an assistant in a start-up or small company can mean much much more and thus take various tasks off of other people’s plates to encourage growth and promote efficiency. If you are not afraid to get your hands dirty and explain to them other skills that you have that fall outside the normal definition of being an “assistant” (like knowing Quickbooks, etc.), they could more than justify making the hire and adding the position.

Lastly, I would also suggest that you “sell” the idea more as an office manager/assistant role instead of just a straight assistant role to more than justify the added expense of adding a new employee. Does that make sense? Thanks again for asking the question.

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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.

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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.

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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.

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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:

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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.

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
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

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages