You generally have to be pretty smart to be a practitioner in accounting or law... Generally.
I know many brilliant practitioners. Far smarter than me. But there’s times when things are said or done that just leave one scratching their head.
At a recent conference I was standing around with a group of such people and the conversation turned to my work. They were very polite, and I shared about the many years of experience I’ve had working with offshore teams, including how I’ve worked with Executive Assistants (EA).
Now I LOVE talking working with an EA because it’s made such a difference to my personal and professional life. I delegate many things to my EA and feel like my job is much more enjoyable as a result.
But one fellow in the group wasn’t that impressed and quickly brushed it off. “I tried working with an EA once” he said, “…but I tend to get annoyed and prefer to do things myself”.
Reflecting later about what he said, I have questions.
I wonder what types of things is he ‘doing himself’? And what is his hourly rate? Most people at this conference were north of $500/hour.
How many emails a day does a $500/hour professional receive? 100… 200? Should someone who bills $500 per hour be slaving over emails?
Perhaps the bulk of those emails get ignored, so that the inbox blows up and gets out of control. And that’s just email. What does that do for the quality of his service?
Any accounting practice has 100 other unimportant things competing for a partner’s time.
This particular conference was held in a beautiful but remote part of Queensland, so I’d brought my family for a quick dose of warm weather. We were due to fly back to Melbourne on the Friday and being the last flight out, I started feeling nervous when delays were announced.
Then the cancellation call came.
Here I am, with 300 stranded passengers at 5pm, with my wife and 4 kids and no accommodation. And with so many people stranded at a regional airport, it’s not a simple matter of transferring to the next day’s flight.
I quickly booked a taxi to make the 40-minute drive from the airport, and then messaged Louie, my EA in the Philippines. “Louie, I need your help!”
Louie called me and we discussed our strategy. “Find somewhere in town for the family to stay asap, give me the address to pass to the driver, then let’s worry about the flights after that.”
Louie got online while we were on the road and messaged me a few alternatives – “You’ll need to decide quick… there’s limited availability”. Once done, she got on the phone with the airline to work out how to get the 6 of us back to Melbourne on one flight. No easy task, since I’d used points across two separate bookings. That was 2 hours of her time navigating the Virgin Airlines customer service departments. She’ll help with the travel insurance claim too.
With 4 hungry kids, I can’t imagine how stressful that would have been to deal with all on my own.
While Louie handled Virgin, I was able to check in to the apartment she booked, then head off to the shops and get food for dinner.
This experience is just one of many where having an offshore EA has proven to be a gamechanger.
There are many things an EA can do to make your life easier and to free up your valuable time. Partners of accounting firms really cannot afford to waste time. They need a clear, focused mind to be able to solve their clients’ problems and build their businesses.
Email and calendar management is a great place to start systemising and delegating to an EA, but the tasks they can do are limited only by your own creative thinking.
If you’re looking to reclaim your time and increase your productivity, consider bringing an offshore EA on board. You might find, just like I did, that the next time you're stranded with a family emergency or overwhelmed with a flood of emails, your EA will be the superhero you didn't know you needed.
P.S. Feeling overwhelmed? Don't waste another minute on tasks that an EA can handle. Schedule a Discover Call with Frontline Accounting and find out the power of a superhero assistant!
Комментарии