Assist With Impact

Fifty episodes is a momentous milestone in the world of podcasting. Most podcasts don't make it to double digits let alone a half century. This episode is a road rambling celebrating the special people that have made Being Indispensable something that has been worth continuing with. From my husband and daughters to the many Executive Assistants that have kindly expressed their appreciation for my...

Today's episode is a road rambling sharing some of the points I presented to an audience of Executive Assistants at a conference in Sydney run by Intrepid Minds. The topic was negotiating skills and strategies.  It's common for people to think about negotiation as it applies to the job hunt process. Negotiating salary and benefits or alternatively negotiating salary increases or role changes with...

A key area for festering mistrust and misunderstanding between Executive Assistants and their manager is around expectations and perceptions. Failing to communicate on these topics leads to frustration on the part of both of you. It may be hard for you to broach this subject and it may be equally hard for your boss to give you honest feedback but it is something both of you need to approach with a...

Hallie Warner is the Chief of Staff for Adam Hergenrother .  For the last seven years Hallie has been Adams right hand person. She epitomises the word linchpin and definitely fits the image of an indispensable assistant.  Hallie has cultivated a true partnership with Adam and in this episode she shares what it has taken to reach this point and some of her learnings along the way. We discuss how sh...

Today's podcast guest is Roxanne Calder, Managing Director of boutique office support recruitment firm EST10 based in Sydney, Australia. Roxanne has been a previous guest on Being Indispensable. Listen to Episode #22 to hear all about EST10 and Roxanne's passion for Office Support professionals. In this episode we discuss the annual Salary Guide produced by EST10 and talk about the 2017/18 guide w...

We all know the benefits for team and personal morale of giving positive feedback. The weird thing is that when we are on the receiving end we can often be guilt of reading it, feeling momentarily happy and validated and then moving on and never looking at it again. In this episode, Liz shares why it makes such good sense to create a filing system or a repository for positive feedback you receive,...

Liz opens up about how anxiety and confidence issues have got in the way of her bringing regular episodes out.  This is an issue Liz has fought on an ongoing basis, in Episode 8 she discussed feeling like an imposter.  

This week is Part 2 of my two-part Road Rambling. It's a wrap-up of what was an excellent EA Leadership Summit 2017 run by The Growth Faculty. In the episode I share my thoughts on why our bosses need to see that we're human (in my opinion) and how it doesn't help us to appear infallible and how Libby Moore's presentation demonstrated why no one ever got promoted for being the best at Excel or Pow...

This week is Part 1 of my two-part Road Rambling. It's a wrap-up of what was an excellent EA Leadership Summit 2017 run by The Growth Faculty as well as an overview of the content I will be sharing on the 30th August 2017 when I present 2 X 45 minute sessions at the Office Professionals Workshop in Adelaide. This event is being run by Catherine Middleton (that would be the other Catherine Middleto...

In this episode Liz explains her recent podcasting hiatus and shares the reasons why her break has been so fulfilling. Liz is also looking forward to attending the EA Leadership Summit in her capacity as a member of the Advisory Panel and presenting at the Office Professionals Workshop in Adelaide on the topic of knowing yourself, knowing your boss and knowing your job.  EA Leadership Summit - Syd...

Episode #40 of Being Indispensable shines a light on two Executive Assistants (or Administrative Assistants as they are known in the USA) who work at Nvidia in Santa Clara, California. The company description on Wikipedia summarises them as follows: Nvidia Corporation is an American technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It designs graphics processing units for the gaming and profess...

One thing I find really unfortunate about the realm of Executive Assistant forums is the way there seems to be a tacit acceptance that it's okay to judge each other. As someone who has come to focus on this profession having experienced the world of Selling professionals and Marketing professionals it's something I find quite curious. I've noticed that it seems normal for experts in the profession...

Staying calm under pressure is an important skill for Indispensable assistants to focus on. In Episode 38 Liz shares what it means to be unflappable, why it matters and three techniques to focus on that will help you project an aura of calm when in reality you might be feeling anything but.  Appearing to be unflappable requires us to control our primitive responses to stress and be less reactive....

Episode 37 is the final episode in my miniseries devoted to helping you get your C-suite leader on the social media bandwagon. In this episode I discuss the elephant in the room - the fact that becoming your executives social media manager involves taking on additional workload which no doubt is the last thing you need as an Executive Assistant. This fact hasn't escaped me and I'm loathe to be the...

Part 3 of my series on how to help your C-Suite leader engage in social media, specifically LinkedIn. In this episode I outline a 5 step process of monitoring and observing the engagement of a targeted number of individuals and companies on LinkedIn. This data will inform the future planning for tactical engagement on LinkedIn.  By tracking these identified individuals and companies over a finite...

Part 2 in my ongoing series on Helping Your Executive Get Social - being strategic and proactive in managing your business leaders social media engagement. 

Episode 34 of Being Indispensable is the first of two episodes that focus on the way engaging in social media can be a great way of demonstrating how proactive, strategic and indispensable they can be. In the first episode Liz explains the benefits that Executives can gain if they harness the power of social media. The idea for these two episodes came from a post on LinkedIn written by Liz . Peopl...

2017 is a quarter complete and it's time to get an update on how Liz is tracking with her 'Words of 2017' as well as a Health & Wellness update. This part can be summarised as 'I'm Not Burying My Head In The Sand, I'm  Just Running The Other Way'. Liz shares the sneaky ways the urge to flee continues to make itself known & how she is channeling her inner Emu.  For a solo episode it's ended up bein...

Creating a strategic partnership with your C-Suite Executive is a topic of much discussion amongst Executive Assistants and educators in the profession. What is required to achieve this is something Liz discussed in a recent LinkedIn post. In this solo episode she shares the feedback she has received on the post and expands on the topic discussing how vital it is for the partnership to be a win/wi...

Coming to you from a park bench in downtown Palo Alto, California. More a garden ramble than a road ramble, Liz explains the purpose of her trip to the USA and how it's been a trip she's been looking forward to making ever since finishing Breast Cancer treatment. Enjoy a giggle as she recounts how in the pursuit of an interview with an indispensable assistant she goes from outwardly cool, calm and...

In Part 2 of my interview with Sue McComasky we discuss her role as National President of the Australian Institute of Office Professionals (AIOP) and why she is so passionate about what the mission of the organisation. AIOP is an organisation run by volunteers and it seeks to provide: Professional Development opportunities for members Networking opportunities for members Access to an online networ...

Sue McComasky is an indispensable Executive Assistant who is passionate about her role and the Business Leaders she supports. The intention of Being Indispensable has always involved providing a platform for Executive Assistants to be given the recognition for the amazing contribution they make to their respective organisations. In Part 1 (Episode #29) of our interview, Sue talks about her role an...

This week's solo episode is all about passion. Indispensable Executive Assistants demonstrate passion. They are passionate about their role, about their organisation and about the executive they support. It sets them apart from mediocre EA's and it's something that may require a mindset shift. One of the ways that you can demonstrate passion is being able to passionately articulate your business l...

In Part 2 of my interview Liz shares some initial results from her Survey of C-Suite Executives  where she has been investigating how elements of Adam's EA Manifesto resonate with executives and their experience working with EA's. The results to do date reinforce that assistant's currently are not generally viewed as behaving strategically and operating with the 'managerial mindset' that Adam enco...

In my interview with Adam we discuss his belief that Executive Assistants must take charge of their professional destiny because if they fail to do so, they risk others stepping in to influence it that do not understand the role and the true value that Executive Assistants can offer organisations and individual leaders. The overarching theme of Adam's work is about encouraging and enabling EA's to...