S04E164 Virtual Executive Assistants For Business Growth with Gina Cotner

Your calendar is packed, your brain is louder than your inbox, and somehow you’re still the one chasing updates. That’s not a workload problem, it’s an ownership problem. Marilyn Jenkins sits down with Gina Cotner, founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, to unpack what changes when you stop delegating tasks and start delegating responsibility to a high-caliber executive assistant. 

We dig into the mechanics of accountability, including the simple but often avoided question: “When will that be done?” Gina explains how strong executive assistants help drive accountability, protect a law firm owner’s time, and support better delegation through systems and clear communication.

We also discuss practical ways to document repeatable processes using Loom, Zoom recordings, and voice notes, along with how Athena vets and matches virtual executive assistants. Gina shares why trust and partnership matter just as much as admin skills, and how starting with just a few hours a week can create momentum for better follow-through and fewer bottlenecks.

Reach Gina here:
https://www.athenaexecutiveservices.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/athena-executive-services/
https://www.instagram.com/athena_executive_services/
https://www.facebook.com/AthenaVirtualAssistants

Special for listeners of Leadership in Law Podcast!

Receive 5 free hours of service added to your first full month of work with Athena Executive Services (AES)—a $275 value! Just mention this offer during your first call with them.

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins 
Powered by Law Marketing Zone®
https://lawmarketingzone.com
A full-service Digital Marketing Agency helping clients increase Leads, Cases, and Profit by getting their digital marketing right.

Subscribe on your favorite Podcast listening platform!

Like, Share, and Review us!

#leadershipinlawpodcast #leadershipinlaw #lawmarketingzone #marilynjenkins

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:47

So whether you're a statement leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:57

need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Gina Cottner, to the show today. Gina is the founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, one of the top virtual assistant firms in the U.S. Athena Executive Services pairs highly skilled executive assistants across the country with swamp and successful entrepreneurs and executives. Gina's team of elite EAs takes ownership of some key tasks and projects, freeing leaders to focus their time and energy where it matters most. Gina is a dynamic speaker and workshop facilitator known for her practical, engaging approach to delegation. Through immersive, collaborative experiences, she helps leaders confidently hand off the heavy lifting and build teams rooted in clarity, accountability, and trust. I'm excited to have you here. Gina, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Absolutely. Tell us about your leadership journey.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Oh gosh. At a high level, I worked for corporate America in my early part of my career, which was great. Actually, I worked for Big Blue. I worked for IBM. I was a great place

Gina’s Path From IBM To CEO

SPEAKER_02 2:11

to be in my late 20s, early 30s. And somewhere in there, I just decided I want to work for myself. I don't want to, this notion of what back then was two weeks of vacation per year and meetings every Monday at 10 a.m. in a gigantic boardroom with a bunch of people. I just thought I can't, this can't be like this for the next 30 years of my life. And it was a good experience, but I was like, I gotta go. So I decided to be an entrepreneur, I think, in 2006 is when I left IBM.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

And I left IBM with a brilliant business plan to open a martini lounge. What wasn't it? And I spent a year and a half actually working on it. Now think 2006, not knowing that what's coming is 2008 and a whole big crash in the housing market and the markets in general. So thankfully it was the greatest thing I never did. I pulled the plug on it at the last minute and said, I'm not gonna do it. So for the next 10 years, I just had a lot of small businesses work for myself or had one business partner here or started this little thing there, and nothing really went. And then um then I found myself 10 years later in the middle of a divorce that was not going well. And I just said, I can't be an entrepreneur anymore. I have just got to get a job, a J O B. Somebody needs to, I need to do some work for somebody. They need to put some money in my bank account. It needs to be simple. And I found someone on Facebook who I knew, and she was looking for an executive assistant. And I was like, I could do that, I could be an executive assistant. So I was her executive assistant for a few years actually. And she sold her office, and we were suddenly all working from home. It was a recruiting firm, and there I was, I was an EA working from home, and I loved it. And then her business kind of fizzled out. She didn't need me anymore. And at the same time, my father, I we knew my father was going to pass at the time, or it was eminent. So I went and spent the last chapter of his life with him. And then about three months later, I went looking for another CEO. Okay, I'll go be somebody else's EA. And I found one. And his HR director soon said, We need you in other departments. And I said, Well, I'm full. Thank you, but no, thank you. And she said, No problem. Just find me somebody like you. And I was like, Oh, and she goes, just be a really good business. And I was like, No, I've been an entrepreneur, we're not doing that again. She goes, Okay, that's fine. Just find me somebody like you. So I found somebody that actually she and I both mutually knew, and she said, I said, this person would be really good. She'd never been an EA, but she'd be really good. And this woman said, Good, will you coach her? We'll pay you to coach her, and we'll pay her. So I was being an EA. Dorian, my friend, was being an EA, and I was coaching her to be great. And that was where we started 10 years ago. And we were good and happy, just like that. And then sure enough, Miss HR director came to me again and said, Hey, the guys in sales, wasting a bunch of time on a bunch of admin work. I need somebody else. Find me somebody else and open this thing as a business. And I said, I don't want to. And she said, get over yourself. So that's the origin story of the company. So 10 years ago, you've caught me in the exact month. 10 years ago this month, we ran our first payroll.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

With those two women, the very first two people I ever brought on board were Dorian and Allison. And Dorian is now currently running the day-to-day operations of the company. And I work about 10 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

So your business was born out of necessity of fixing things that you help people fix. I love it. Something like that.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Even my mom is like, How did you get here? I'm like, Mom, you don't want to know. Just know that it's been a successful company in the last 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I love it. Like we said before we started recording, I'm a big fan of hiring people to do things you don't enjoy doing. And it just helps you get out of. I think admin work can be procrastination for a CEO, where you know, I know it's time consuming, it's decision making, but you've got better things to do. So where do you see accountability breaking down most often inside teams when an EA could be the one that could fix that or help that?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yeah, boy, accountability. We could talk for hours about it because there's delegating, right? And there's delegating effectively. But then accountability is a whole other world.

Accountability Culture And The “When” Question

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Now, if you have what I'd call a high caliber EA, it sure makes accountability a lot easier because they're pretty self-accountable. They will account to you. But mostly people are so afraid to hold others to account. But if you start to practice it, and even if you're mildly good at it, even if you're not great at it, but you're consistent at it, pretty soon it just becomes part of the culture of your firm. And a little less awkward and a little less awkward and a little less awkward if in every meeting somebody is saying, When? When is that going to get done? When is that going to get done? And if you're working with a high caliber EA, they might very well be that person. That's a this here's the aspirational vision is you're the CEO or you're a firm owner and you're not the one having to ask when, right? Your high-powered EA is going around the room saying when, when, when, when, and they're tracking when everybody's going to get everything done. If because if you don't ask when, you don't have a shot at anybody being held to account for anything. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of people working on stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, I think that is right. I agree is the difference of delegating. Yes, you can delegate, but someone has to be held accountable. Someone needs responsibility for that. So it's not just taking it off your plate if you still have to keep following up with it. So you have you save time. So I know you talk about the art of accountability a lot. And I know it goes beyond assigning tasks. So I like so your EAs are trying to actually follow up on those tasks to ask the win question. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

And the good news and the bad news is they'll do it to you. But it's great. If you're, I think if you're a strong leader, you also love to be led. And I also believe if you're gonna outsource something like executive assistant work, I'm outsourcing the thinking. If all I'm doing is outsourcing the doing, okay, then you should pay $6 an hour to somebody in the Philippines. Fine. And that's good for certain things. But if you want a thinking, no disrespect, not saying people aren't thinking in the Philippines, but if you want like a thought leader, a thought partner, somebody who's gonna be shoulder to shoulder with you and say, okay, Marilyn, listen, we have pushed that thing three times on your calendar. Let's just tell the truth about this thing. Are you gonna is you is or is you ain't, right? Are you gonna do that? Are we not gonna do that? Should I just tell those people we're not gonna do that? We're gonna bow out. Like somebody who's gonna be proactively moving forward with you and your goals at the same time. And that that is possible. I don't know that everybody knows that's possible. And some of that comes from holding people accountable and having people around you who want to hold people accountable. And frankly, high performers don't care. High performers are like, hold me to account. I got my work done. And they resent, frankly, being around people who don't get held to account and don't get their work done.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

True. True. We all have goals, and those that are high performing are going for those goals. And we don't like to see people sitting around just waiting for things to happen to them.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

No, and there's we call those task doers. And again, task you might need a task doer. And good, you should not pay $55 an hour for a task doer. And you might have a high-caliber EA that's managing your VAs overseas. Sometimes that happens. But really, your part of how I turned over the heavy lifting was in investing in the assistants around me and taking the time to invest in them, which is also frustrating, right? Everybody wants instant relief. Oh, I have an EA. It should all my life should be easier next week. No, your life's gonna get more complicated.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, it's gonna bring them up to speed.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Yep. And you might have to train them in a few things, but you're investing in who you're gonna get to be six months from now, three months from now, who you're not going to have to explain that again. Somebody else now owns that. That's what I started to do in my own firm was you now own this. I'm not delegating tasks, I'm delegating ownership. You now own invoicing.

Outsourcing Doing Versus Outsourcing Thinking

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Ah, but I don't know that I know exactly how to do it all. I know you don't know exactly how to do it all. That's okay. You can still own it, be the owner of it. Let me know what you need, get what you need, ask for what you need, talk to people about what you need. I understand that, but this is this baby's yours. And I think that's the other one of the other flips. Like when I delegate, is it's yours now. And sometimes I delegate things to my EA. I know she's never done, I've never done. I'm like, somebody's got to start wading into this and figuring out about this software or this trip or this project or whatever. Somebody's got to get it started. Might as well be you and not me.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's that, and that's it's actually, I think that's empowering to them. So with my team, we always work together with new education, so building SOPs, and but it's a constant source of training. What are we going to learn next? What kind of if I'm looking at perhaps rolling in a new piece of software, I assign that to someone. I don't have the time I had 20 years ago to spend hours reading through manuals and watching training videos. And I think that's something that's important because there's those little things that you don't enjoy doing. There's somebody in this world that loves it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Exactly. And sometimes people say to me, I feel guilty even delegating that. Who would want to do that? And I'm like, oh, you'd be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

You'd be surprised. And even if they don't love doing it, if they're a great EA, frankly, I think at their core in their DNA somewhere is this drive to be of service. So they're like, that's what would be of service today is calling the internet company and resolving something that none of us would want to talk to the internet company about. But they will do it because it's okay, but that's what's going to clear up space for people to go fulfill their goals. And that's what they're here for. And a great EA too, also, I think, loves being an EA. And you're not always going to find those. You'll find people that are on the rise, right? They want to become something else in your firm. And it's not a bad place to start, but it is really lovely when you find people who this is just what they want to do. They want to be executive assistants, and that's it. And they're awesome at it, just like you're awesome at what you're awesome at. So they're amazing in their lane. And you can lean on them for that. My EA, I'm like, this is your lane. This is not my lane.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I think it's similar to having a lifelong secretary. You've seen that the older law firms that the attorney has had the same secretary for my my sister had an attorney that passed away a couple of years ago. He had the same secretary for 38 years. She loved being a secretary, had no desire to do anything more. That was that filled her cup every single day because of all the customer service she got to do. So it was yeah, very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

And in this day and age, like with our firm, they're part-time, and a lot of them love it because they want a really great part-time job. Why? Because they're picking up their kids here in five hours. Yeah. And they're whip smart, they're super organized. And no, they're not going to work 40 hours a week and they're not going to drive to a downtown high-rise.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, good point. Good

Delegating Ownership And Building SOPs

SPEAKER_01 15:00

point. So thinking about the leaders that won't that need help, where why do so many leaders struggle to delegate effectively, even when they know they need help?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah. When I'm like at a conference on stage, I will ask that exact question. I'm like, I'm not going to really teach you how to delegate. I think in this room, enough people know how to delegate. So why don't you? Yeah. And you even know how to do it well. So why not? And I think nine times out of 10, what it comes down to is this paradox of time. I don't really have the time. And I said, I know. You're driving from point A to point B, and you don't have time. You don't have time to explain it. You don't have time to delegate well. So you kind of just maybe dump and run, or you do a half-assed job at it. And I say, okay, well, you don't have the time. Where do you think you're going to get the time?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Good question.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

This is kind of chicken or egg thing, right? If you don't invest, you're investing time in having more time in the future. So you're buying a little bit of your time by just hiring somebody else. Okay, good job. That's a good start. But it and then in the law firm space, even trickier, right? Because it's less what's billable, what's not billable, who wants to not be, who wants to be doing something in a non-billable space, but our. And so I think it's just the discipline to decide. I think when you do a quarterly planning or a monthly planning, how much of my time am I going to invest in delegating? Knowing that's an investment in next quarter. The better I do, like maybe pick two projects. Okay, I am going to turn over A and B this quarter. That's it. I'm not going to train anybody, anybody, but if I can just get these two processes turned over well next quarter, I'm going to have more time.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I love that breakdown by month or by by quarter. Yeah. And do you find that because one of the things I did was the things I wanted to get take off my calendar, and my team leader is amazing. She'll look at my calendar and go, This should not be on your calendar. Proactively, give me that. And what we started doing in the beginning was when I did something, I merely recorded it on Zoom. Okay. SOP, there you go. Yep. And if you re if you do the video, even if I forget to say a step, she's seen me click something. Right? Because you're so good. You do it. And I get stuck in the point where I know how to do it. I'm the best. I'm I can do it faster than I can teach it. With video, that's not an excuse anymore.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

That's good. I like that. I'm stealing that. I'm stealing that. Yeah, because it really is. I do say you really could do it faster than the amount of time it takes you to explain it. But that's great. Yeah, just turn on record, and that's how I turned over the entire sales process, which as a founder, that's like the scariest last thing you want to turn over. And I just started recording pieces and parts. Well, here's how I respond to this, here's how I respond to that. I left, I must have made 10 different voice recordings because rather than trying to, like you said, type it all out or put it into some process, I could just riff into a microphone. And after five years of doing sales myself, I'm like, okay, here are the top 10 questions you're going to get asked. Here's how I respond to all of them. Do with that what you will.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah, I like that. The voice recording and Loom is your friend when it comes to desktop recording, right? That's 10 bucks a month. You don't even need the $10 plan. It's so easy. It's so easy. Yes. So do you when you introduce an EA to one of your clients, do you help with the transition? And obviously you've already got very ready to go, chopping at the bits, EA that are ready to take that responsibility and the accountability. How do you help with that transition?

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yeah. To get on our team, they've got to go through a few weeks worth of interviews and processes. It's long and annoying intentionally for them. And if they make it through that, and then sometimes they've got to wait, right? Because the timing is never perfect. You never have the right amount of people in your client pipeline that we have in the EA pipeline. And sometimes we have EAs that have been working for us and they now have bandwidth that they didn't have. Right. The first step is that at the end of our sales process, I was insane to design it this way,

Why Leaders Avoid Delegation

SPEAKER_02 19:21

but it has worked. If you're a potential client and we've had a few conversations with you and we've decided we found the right EA for you. They're either somebody who's already been on our staff or they're in our pipeline and we think they're the best match for you. Then we have set up a meet and greet between you two that does not involve us. That's the scary part. So it's the very last part of the sales process is I'm going to turn you, a potential client, over to an EA to have a final chat with. And but it always goes well. And it's the point of that is so that the EA can choose you. And so you can choose the EA or not.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Right. Like I want them to go, yep, this is good. I can rock with this person. And I want the client to be like, oh yeah, okay, I don't have any concerns. Or the client comes back to us and goes, I loved everything about that EA, but here's my one concern. And then we can like work through it. So we're not a temp agency, we're not a recruiting agency. We are that, listen, we know how to vet and screen and pair and partner people. So it's not, oh, here, we'll give you three to look at, pick the one you want. We don't do that, but we do set up an intentional, we call it a meet and greet that you can sign off on the final blessing of who's that person's gonna be. And then after that, that executive assistant forever has a performance coach on our team. And then we have a client care manager. So in those first couple weeks, a client gets a lot of touch from us, maybe more than they want. Because you're getting a partnership off the ground. And like any relationship that takes something. And it's if all it was about delegating tasks and your inbox and your CRM and all that stuff, that'd be fine. There's that other part of relationship that is beyond shoulder-to-shoul partnership and that trust. And so that somebody is just like you were talking about your team lead, going, Why is that on your calendar? I got that. And can you have enough of a relationship with this person that you can trust them? We trust them because there are people. We vetted them. We know, oh yeah, Marilyn, they're great. Well, you just met them last week. How do you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

You know, how do you know if you can trust them? So we have we have somebody on the client side who's always checking in, saying, What do you need? How's it going? What do you need? How's it going? Then we have somebody on the EA side always talking to the EA saying, How are things going with Marilyn? Are you struggling with anything? Is there any software you need help with? But we also take care of the human of the EA because you're hiring us an agency. You're going to get as close or not close to your EA as you want, but it's our job to know that over the weekend their kid had to go to ER because he broke his arm in a soccer game. It's our job to know that her grandmother just got out of the hospital and she's really worried about her. Like all the life things that are going on with that human, we're very close with because we know that's who's showing up for work on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

It's easy to be like, not our problem, right? That's your personal life. But we are like, yeah, but who's showing up on Monday is very affected by I think an EA to me is not just an em it, I say just an employee.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

You know, I'm not saying it like that, but I think an executive assistant is much more closer to the person that's hiring them. There's always going to be some we've got to make sure the personality works, that they like each other, because otherwise, if you don't, it's just not gonna work. You gotta know the human side as well. I think I I it's really awesome that you take care of all of that and that you vet and work through, and it sounds like you are incredibly thorough getting somebody ready and. And matched correctly with the personality types and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Exactly. And that's what we don't put on the website because nobody's shopping for it is partnership. Nobody's, wow, I'm gonna go shopping for a partner. Everybody's I'm overwhelmed. I need somebody to take all this crap off my plate. That's what I want. And that's what they're shopping for. But then once they realize what they get, oh, this is what I this is what I actually wanted. When COVID hit, I lost like 40% of my client roster in the first three or four months. And I thought, oh, this is it. We're going down, right? This is the end

Recording Processes With Loom And Voice Notes

SPEAKER_02 23:49

of this. But the only people we lost were the people who had only had their EA for three months. Anybody who had their EA four, five, six months or longer, they were like, nope, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep my EA. I'm not losing that person. And it was very interesting. And then of course the pandemic just threw gas on the fire because we were a work from home.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Everybody in my firm works across the four time zones here in the States, and everybody works from home. And so when everybody had to start working from home, they were like, Oh, you guys already do that? So we were one of those businesses that I wasn't loud about it at the time because I felt so bad in my heart for all the business owners that were suffering so badly. But meanwhile, in 2022 and 2023, we had these massive growths in our company because of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

It's like the use of Zoom, the work from home. We all have been doing it for 20 years. And COVID just made people go, can we actually do that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to your point, who they who people didn't let go was their EA. If they had a strong partnership with them, they're like, no, I'm not letting that person go.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

You depend on them. I couldn't imagine being without mine. Nope. I have such a peace of mind when I want to go out to dinner with friends or leave early to meet somebody that's just passing through town. Just to have a drink with someone on the that was visiting.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

So it and see, that's the trick, is you and I are on the other side. We have a lifestyle now that involves an EA, and we would never go back. And until you've made that transition, it sounds so bougie. It sounds all fancy. Oh, that's for fancy rich people. And it's no, this is for people who are unwilling to spend the precious hours of their life on stuff that is not the highest and best use of them.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

And that's we don't get yesterday back.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

No, and as a CEO, you you we people preach to us you need to work on your business, not in your business. This is the way of taking a foot out and working on the growth of your business, working on your goals and having someone else do the stuff that shouldn't be a CEO per hour amount.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Exactly. And I would even say to so many CEOs, and you might spend one of those hours taking a nap. You might spend one of those hours like golfing, and we think, oh, that's really fancy. No, but when you're the CEO, the kind of decisions you make, the amount of time you spend, I spend waking up. I said, what do I think about first thing in the morning? It's not golf, it's business. Right. So it's rejuvenating ourselves as leaders and keeping our cup full, which might mean having a date with a good friend or taking a nap or playing around a golf. And it might sound fancy, but that's what keeps my cup full so that I can keep making the hard decisions, doing the hard thinking, being in the harder meetings. And I think CEOs find that I think some CEOs really get it. Yeah, I must rejuvenate. And therefore I have people around me that free up my time so that I can A, work on the business, but B, make sure my resilience, I have to keep my resilience up because I'm the one who has to deal with the problems. That's my job. If there's no problems, you don't need a CEO. Everybody's fine. Everybody can run the firm. We're only there for when there's problems. And problems can be stressful. So important to keep our resilience up. And how we do that is by taking care of our well-being.

How Athena Matches EAs With Clients

SPEAKER_02 27:29

How do we have time to take care of our well-being? We've delegated a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I love that. I love that. It makes absolute sense. And if you feel like playing golf spougie, take a walk. Just get out from behind your desk. Exactly. Exactly. So let's thinking about our audience. If you know someone is thinking about, I really sound like a good idea. What would be a good timing? What's the first step they would take? What would you advise someone that's been thinking about taking some stuff off their plate and just opening up their vision?

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yeah. Start a log of what you might give away. What's what do you hate doing? That put that on the list. What's not the best use of you? You struggle to do it. You're you know you're not good at it. Put that on the list. Things that are happening regularly. Every Monday, I gotta do this. Every Thursday, I've got to do this, twice a week I've got to do that. Or every client meeting, I need to be ready for this. What is repeatable in your business? And that's those are start to give you the ideas of, oh yeah, okay, what would I give away? And then you could even start the pre-work, like you were talking about. Maybe make a Loom video of how you do that thing. I noticed before I turned over a very large process, I went into our filing system, which at the time was in Dropbox, and I thought, oh my God, I can't send somebody in here. I understand the mess in here, but this is a mess. I can't say just go to the operations folder, you'll find it. No, you will not find it. So there might be some organizing you start to do with the vision called, okay, someday I'm gonna get somebody involved and they're gonna open up this folder, and this folder is not gonna make any sense. Yeah, okay. Well, go start making it, go start making it make sense a little bit. Now, the other side of the flip side of that is when you bring in an assistant, tell them to go get it organized. But you might need to do a little bit of house cleaning. So those are some good starting points. And then when you shop, of course, I'm tainted by what we do, and I set up our firm the way I set it up because I figured a lot of people need high caliber support, somebody with a high level of business acumen and polish and confidence, but they don't need them 40 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

They need that kind of EA that sits outside the somebody's office on the 40th floor of the downtown high rise, but they just need them 10 hours a week. So I would also say do that. Start there. We almost always tell people start at about 10 hours a week. That's our minimum in our company. Because, and people might go, I think I'm gonna need more. And then we're like, of course, great, we want to provide more services. But the other thing is that two months from now, you're gonna get a lot more out of that 10 hours a week than you got in the first two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

So they're getting exponentially faster and more efficient at what they do in those 10 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

And I think it as a foreign executive, I think trying to figure out what am I gonna give away this 40 hours a week is overwhelming to think about. Oh, and I think that just rolls into procrastination. I just can't, if I don't have enough, I can't do it. I love that you offer a 10-hour a week program because that to me is a no-brainer. I can find 10 hours of stuff to get off my plate, right? And that's how why I have my EA. Right. It was just, but I did the same thing, keeping a log. And it was a coach suggested I do that. And this has been several years ago. Keep a log of everything you're doing every 15 minutes. Sounds like a pain, but then you realize the things you were doing you didn't need to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah, yeah. It gets very, and it does need to hit us right in the face. Oh gosh, look at that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's a muscle you, we as leaders are building. That's the other thing I like about the 10 hours a week is especially if you haven't had an EA, you don't feel like you're really great at delegating, you're probably not, but you're gonna get good at it. That allows you to get better and better at delegating and you feeling better and better at delegating until you're like, oh man, I think I do have 20 hours a week worth of work here to give away. Now that I can see to your point, now that I can see everything I'm doing that maybe isn't the highest and best use of me.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

I love that. This is this has been excellent. I'm I think whoever is looking to clear their plight of some things they don't want to do should give you a call. Absolutely. And EA is the answer to a lot of stress relieving when it comes to getting stuff done with your business. Good. I happen to agree. Right. But I know that my listeners are going to want to connect with you, learn more about you. Where would be the best place to do that?

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Yeah. If you want to learn more about our firm and having an EA through our firm, go to our website, which is Athena Executive Services.com. I will give you a little pro tip. There is a Philippine firm

Trust, Partnership, And The Human Side

SPEAKER_02 32:15

very different than ours that is Athena.com. So that's not us.

unknown 32:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

It's a very different product. So we are Athenaexecutiveservices.com. And you can read about us, but then also all over the website there's buttons that say, hey, want to learn more, want to get started? Click here. Don't be afraid. All that's going to do is it's going to connect you to this really nice guy named John, who lives in Philadelphia, and you'll schedule a little chat with him for 20 minutes and just see if we are, he'll see if he thinks you're ready for us and see if you think you're ready for us. And if you are, then he'll show you some next steps about that. That's all we do on that side. And then if you want to reach me personally, you want to ask me a question, or maybe you're like, hey, do you want to do a workshop on accountability for my firm or something like that? You can just find me on LinkedIn, Gina Cottner out on LinkedIn. I check it regularly. I'm responsive out there.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Perfect. I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes. This has been a really great conversation. I think you have a wonderful service. And thank you so much for being here. It's been a great call. You're welcome. My pleasure. Thank you. That's a wrap on today's episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Before you go, I want to make sure that you know about something that could be a real game changer for your firm. If you've been doing the work, showing up, serving clients, but your marketing still isn't producing the caseload you know you deserve. That's exactly the problem Law Marketing Zone was built to solve. My team and I work exclusively with law firms, and we don't do cookie cutter. We build a strategy around your practice, your market, and your goals. More high-quality leads, better cases, less stress, and more profit. Head over to LawmarketingZone.com/slash book a call and book your free case growth session today. The link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next episode.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingstone.com. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources, and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with Victor and keep growing your firm.