Have you realized it’s time to hire an executive assistant? Maybe your task list has been growing by the week, with no system for knocking items off of it. You’ve become the bottleneck holding back your company’s success. Or, you’re spending much of your time putting out fires instead of proactively moving the business forward and providing creative direction. Continuing at this pace is not sustainable — and it’s a sure way to burn out.
Instead, you need to delegate tasks to a trusted assistant.
Just 19% of newer leaders excel at delegation, which robs them of valuable time. But leaders who effectively delegate bring in 33% more revenue. The ROI of hiring an executive assistant who can handle a sizable portion of the tasks in your schedule can be enormous.
Finding an executive assistant can take some legwork. But instead of hiring a new staff member, maybe you already have the ideal person on your team. With a little training, a good virtual assistant can step into the role of executive assistant (EA), becoming a trusted asset who helps you achieve your full potential as a leader.
At IA Blueprint, here are some typical results we see when leaders hire a virtual executive assistant:
- They reclaim 10–20 hours per week for core business activities
- Calendar efficiency increases by 50–70%
- Email response time decreases from 60–80%
- Task completion rises by 40–60%
- Client satisfaction increases by 25–35%
These metrics show the enormous role that a good virtual executive assistant plays in a company’s success. By hiring the right person — or promoting one of your existing assistants to EA — you’ll gain back precious hours of time for key priorities.
Qualities to Look for in a Virtual Executive Assistant
Many skills, like time-management, can be developed with practice. But you want to begin with someone who possesses certain core traits. Think about whether these statements describe one of your current staff:
- They have a knack for staying well-organized, and they’re good at thinking in terms of systems.
- They’re dependable and punctual, handling tasks in a timely manner.
- They’re friendly and assertive, maintaining clear communications with you and your clients.
- They have integrity and are highly trustworthy.
- They keep a level head under pressure.
Someone with strong executive assistant potential is meticulous about keeping things organized and on track. You can count on them to keep things running smoothly — and they’ll probably know your schedule better than you do.
Training an existing employee as your executive assistant brings another advantage: They already have a good idea of how you think and work. They’ll need to build a more in-depth understanding of how you operate, but this provides an excellent foundation for success.
Best Practices for Training an Executive Assistant
Take these steps to help your virtual executive assistant get up to speed quickly. Think of this as your onboarding period for the position. Being patient and clear will help them master the role before long.
Share a list of core tasks.
These are the things they’ll do on a daily or weekly basis. Here’s a sample list of key tasks an executive assistant might handle:
- Replying to emails and managing your inbox
- Booking and confirming client calls
- Coordinating vendor payments
- Preparing meeting agendas and notes
- Updating project status on a platform like Trello
You can then add other tasks on an as-needed basis.
Give them time to learn how you think.
As you start training an executive assistant, give them time to learn how you think and operate. This can take 2–4 weeks. Here are some actions to take during this time:
- Create and share voice and tone guides for responding to emails or drafting internal communications. Come up with a response template they can use routinely.
- Design a system for organizing your emails into folders. For instance, the assistant can put any important emails demanding a personalized response from you into a specific folder.
- Talk with them about client expectations.
- Review your emails together so they can learn how you’d respond, what you’d deem most urgent, and what you need to reply to personally.
By shadowing you as you reply to clients, your virtual executive assistant will start to understand how you respond to specific types of messages.
Let them own your calendar and email inbox.
Assign permissions for your calendar and email. As soon as they’re ready, give them primary responsibility for scheduling and responding to emails. This might happen around week 3 or 4.
Rely on your executive assistant to optimize your calendar for productivity. Discuss your core priorities with them. Essentially, these are the reasons you’ve promoted them to the role — the things they’ll be protecting your time for. That’s their core mission in everything they do. They can strategically plan your calendar, looking for time-wasters and eliminating them.
Talk with your assistant about your time-management preferences, helping them get to know how you operate:
- What times of day do you prefer to hold meetings?
- When do you need focused time for independent work?
- When do you prefer to engage in learning and personal growth?
Talk about how much time you’ll need to block out for each activity, too. Then, your assistant can protect your time for your key priorities.
Hold EA sync meetings each week.
Around weeks 3–6, your executive assistant will probably be ready to tackle a range of duties on their own. Begin entrusting them to handle core tasks. Clarify these responsibilities during weekly sync meetings.
Maintain an ongoing list of action items and delegate them during these sessions, too. These weekly meetings create a consistent feedback loop, letting you share input and update the EA’s task list. Prior to these sessions, spend a few minutes reflecting on what your assistant has done well, what they could do better, and what new tasks they’re ready to tackle. Share this feedback during your check-ins. For instance, do you need more time in between client meetings, or are you more productive with back-to-back meetings?
Set clear goals.
Do you want your inbox to be at 0 by the close of each day? Do you want a project’s status to be updated on a daily basis? Do you want client calls to be confirmed 48 hours in advance? Make that known to your EA. Specify the most crucial priorities — the “must haves” — and the “nice to haves.”
Increase responsibility gradually.
As you build trust with your EA, they can take on higher-level duties that support team alignment. For example, they might help you prepare talking points for staff meetings. They’ll also grow more adept at managing your schedule. Plus, a good executive assistant is a great problem-solver. They can figure out how to delegate certain tasks to other staff or solve issues before you even notice them. Or, they might attend some lower-stakes meetings, like team briefings, on your behalf.
By promoting your VA to executive assistant, you’ll gain back many hours each week for your key priorities. You’ll also make sure that all the tasks you’re offloading get the care they deserve. Remember that training your new executive assistant is a process — they won’t learn how you think overnight. But over the next few weeks, they’ll grow skilled in the core duties you’ve hired them to handle. Investing this time in their onboarding will pay huge dividends in the months and years to come.
Wondering how to hire a great executive assistant — or just wanting to open the conversation? Set up a call. I’ll be glad to walk you through how the process works, what you can expect from an executive assistant, and the benefits you can realize. If you’re ready to make the choice, we’ll help you to clarify your goals and needs so you’ll get the best possible assistant for your company.