Claudia Laughter on Developing a Long-Term Strategic Partnership

Claudia · 0:00

Hi, my name is Claudia Lauder, and today's leadership quote comes from Pamela Gill Alabaster. Continuous learning leads to continuous improvement. Commit yourself to advancing your knowledge, skill, and expertise. The business environment is quickly changing, and your understanding of the leading practices, thinking, and emerging tools will help you manage for better results. Be a lifelong student.

Speaker 3 · 0:26

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy · 0:42

Everyone is talking about NOVA Chief of Staff, and it's no surprise when graduates walk away with huge benefits, like greater confidence and the validation that they can do the role. There are over 300 students in the NOVA Chief of Staff Certification Course, many of which are growth-minded executive assistants like you. Many of the leader assistants taking the course aren't necessarily looking for a promotion, they simply want to become more effective, strategic and game-changing assistants. Over 18 countries around the globe are represented by students in NOVA's course. So I highly recommend you join the club. Visit leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more about this amazing professional development resource. Hey friends, welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's your host, Jeremy Burrows and it's episode 277. You can check out the show notes for this conversation at leaderassistant.com/277. Today, I'm speaking with my friend, Claudia Lauder. Claudia has over 20 years of experience as an executive assistant in startups, established public brands, local government and software companies. So lots to talk about today. Claudia, welcome to the show.

Claudia · 1:58

Thank you, Jeremy. Glad to be here.

Jeremy · 2:01

What city are you in?

Claudia · 2:02

Currently near Newton, New Jersey. Recently transplanted from last summer from the Bay Area. So this has been a little bit of a culture shock and weather shock, but it's been great.

Jeremy · 2:17

And what's your favorite thing to do when you're not working? Travel.

Claudia · 2:21

That's always my favorite. I'm also, when I'm not in EA, I'm also a huge history nerd. So anything that I've researched, studied, read about, seen in a movie, whatever, the opportunity to go to the place and actually see it and just explore any parts of history. That's always my favorite. So cool.

Jeremy · 2:45

Where's your next bucket list travel location?

Claudia · 2:49

I'm actually going to go to York in the north of England in June. So I'm looking forward. I've never been there. It's one of the oldest cities from Roman times up through. They've got a really amazing little section called The Shambles. That looks like it's out of. I think it's actually part of it is the inspiration for Diagon Alley. So more history. So I'm going to go check that out.

Jeremy · 3:19

Also, well, what or how did you end up in the assistant profession?

Claudia · 3:25

So I started out probably like many people did. I started out as a receptionist. I worked at a mortgage company. And one of the things that my parents had told me, my original major was theater in high school and college. And so there was always the have the backup plan. So the backup plan was where I sort of got into administrative work and I realized that it was a profession that you can sort of travel between industries. And I've definitely done that in my career. So it's been really beneficial to be able to move cities, move entire industries and be able to take those things with me. So I've worked my way up over the past 20 plus years, and I'm now an Executive Principal Executive Assistant at Sixth Sense. So I'm back in tech.

Jeremy · 4:20

Love it. So before we kind of get into where you're at now, and I want to ask you about your title and all that fun stuff, but when going back when you started your career, what was the moment or when did you realize that being an assistant could be a career?

Claudia · 4:43

The more I moved up the administrative ladder, the more I realized that this was something that really played to my skill set. I'm very organized. I like being able to manage things. I also like being able to manage things for other people. So those skills that I've had, detail-oriented, all the things that we end up knowing that we have as EAs or any administrative profession, I realized that this could be a career. And then once you delve into the EA world, you start to see that there are people who are working side-by-side, who are partners with big corporations with big names. And I really thought that this is exactly what I wanted to do. And like I said, one of the things, it's like my career can travel. I've worked in tech. I've worked for Gap Headquarters. I've worked for small government, big government. And you definitely kind of understand the more you work in different fields and different industries, you understand what you do want to do and what you don't want to do. And I think that that's really important to know that for your own career, no matter what you do. I found out very quickly that government is probably not for me. I'm a big believer that the right job comes along at the right time. Having gone through the first dot-com boom, now the second one, there's definitely people or opportunities that come up in your life that you just have to kind of say yes to. I was working for a small government when I was pregnant with my daughter, which was great because it was a flexible schedule. I eventually went on to being city clerk for a city in Northern California, and about six months in, realized this is not for me. I want to go back to. So yeah, I think that really coming to those realizations, what you want, what you don't want, what the kind of person you want to be able to support, and then being able to advocate for yourself, this is working for me, this is not working for me. Like I said, when I was in the city clerk job, I realized that it was not what I wanted to do. It is, if you think regular EA work is detailed, government work is even more detailed, and you can't control a lot of it. And I had a friend who came to me and he's like, how's it going? And I said, not great. He's like, you want to come back and work in tech, be my EA? And so I said yes, and jumped at it. And so now I'm back where I am. But yeah, I'm again, I'm a firm believer that the right thing comes along at the right time. But the trick is to say yes.

Jeremy · 7:51

For those listening who have never worked in tech, what's your favorite part about working in this industry?

Claudia · 7:58

I've worked for several startups. Like I said, the first.com boom, I was at eVite, and it was literally the last six months of the boom. And then 75% of the staff got laid off. And there were about 12 of us who got sent to the building that had the pool table. And we came back and we were the only staff that was left. So it was six months of awesome, back in the 2000s, it was great. And then it was six months of, okay, we have to get the company sold and move on to the next thing. But I like the startup mentality. I like working at places where it's a new technology, it's a new idea, it's a new product. And there's an excitement and an energy around that from the people that are creating it. And I find it to be really invigorating. So it's like all on board. Yes, let's do it. It really inspires really creative thinking, not only on their part, but also in support. And you find you're doing a lot of different things that you never thought you would do. So you have a lot of projects thrown at you. You have a lot of asks that are, for me, are exciting challenges. It's like, I don't know how to do that, but give me five minutes and I'll figure out how to do that and I'll get back to you.

Jeremy · 9:19

Nice. Awesome. So speaking of maybe stepping outside of your comfort zone, you're asked about something that you don't know how to do. Tell us about time in your career where you had to step outside of your comfort zone and take risks.

Claudia · 9:34

Probably one of the biggest ones, and this is where actually how I met you as well, is that right as COVID was shutting everything down, so it was March of that year, my CMO boss at that point was we were getting ready to publish her first book and we were self-publishing. I had never done self-publishing, none of us had. So it was very much like, okay, go figure out how we're going to self-publish this book. And Maggie Jacobs, who is also EA to our CEO at Sixth Sense, knew you and she said, go talk to Jeremy. Jeremy is publishing a book. So you were amazingly helpful. And I think that's where coming, having an EA network really comes in to help with those unusual or new or special tasks that get assigned to you. So you and I chatted and you were a great resource to me. But yeah, we basically like, how do you publish a book when you can't do a book launch in person? You can't do all the things around that that you want to. So we ended up doing a virtual book launch. We ended up having Michael Fronte do a small 20-minute set for it. And it was super successful. And she's now on her second edition of the book, which we also published. Actually, that one was through Wiley, but it's being given these kind of tasks. And I love the creative aspect of like, I got to figure this out. Okay, how do we do this? What are my steps? Who can I talk to? Whose brain can I pick? And that really helps. And if you're scared or you're like, oh my God, I've never done this, go to your network, find your network. I wish in my early career in my 20s that I had had these kind of organizations like yours, you know, Phoenix Norman was a big influence for me. Just all the organizations that are out there. If you haven't already, start reaching out, start finding those, find those chat boards that you can, whether they're individual chat boards or there's Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups, but start asking those questions. You don't know how to do something because nine times out of 10, somebody out there has done it and they've got a recommendation and they're happy to share.

Jeremy · 12:00

Yeah. Love it. Great, great advice. And I think that, you know, it's one of those things where when you take those risks and get out of your comfort zone and reach out to fellow assistants like you did, it even was encouraging to me because it was like, oh, you know, this is probably something that my CEO is going to want to do eventually too. And so just that, that was the word camaraderie between between assistants.

Claudia · 12:32

And so there's definitely I talk to people all the time who are like, okay, tell me how you did it. And I'm like, well, exactly how are you doing this? Talk to somebody who's done it and see what works for you and try different avenues. But yeah, I would say your network and your EA network is just so important for those, whether it's publishing a book or how do I find the best restaurant in Milwaukee?

Speaker 4 · 13:01

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Jeremy · 13:38

Yeah, totally. Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about your title. So if I, it's Principal EA and Special Projects Manager, is that right? So how did that, how did your role expand into that? Did you customize your title and role based on what you wanted? Like, talk through a little bit because my follow-up point is, you know, I want to ask you about supporting the same executive for a long time, which you have, so that's kind of probably woven into part of this part of the conversation. But yeah, what's the title? What does it mean? How did it come to be?

Claudia · 14:18

So I'm very fortunate, and we'll get into talking about her later, but I've been supporting the same executive for actually this week, five years now. And one of the things that I really love about partnering with her is that a couple of years ago, she was, I was supporting multiple executives at the time. And she asked me, she's like, what do you want? And I was able to have that just honest conversation with her and just said, I just want to support you. Can we make that happen? She said, yeah, let's make that happen. So it's gone back and forth. You know, our company's grown a lot. So there have been, I have two execs right now, including her. But, you know, the flexibility, but she has been my number one strategic partner. And there's a thing that she talks about when she, she's former CMO, now she's our CRO, but in a lot of these CMO groups, she talked about category creation. So category creation is exactly this. Let's find a title that really speaks to what you do. And so I am her principal EA, and then the special project manager, that's things like, hey, we're going to publish a book. That's, hey, I want to start a podcast. That's, hey, I'm thinking about doing this project or that project. So I think a lot of times executives, there's a mindset of, EAs are just, we book calendar and travel and do expense reports. And there's so much more and every EA position is different. And one of the things I really would love execs to know a little bit more is that what I do as an EA is not what Maggie does as an EA, it's not what this person or that person does as an EA. Depending on who you support, and it's mainly been marketing for me and now it's all the revenue category. So it's marketing and partnerships and sales and customer success for us, is we're there to be a strategic partner for you, not just to do the day to day. We know how to do the day to day. I know how to keep a calendar. But really knowing that we are there as a strategic partner for everyone. And that partnership that I've had with Latiny over these five years, I mean, we've really developed, and this kind of goes into your second part, we really developed sort of a shorthand. You get to know them. And I think as EAs, you really have to sort of be in complete trust with your executive. I think if they don't trust you, to look in their mailbox, to know what emails they're sending, what emails they're getting, what projects they're working on. I think that we know each other so well. We know each other's personal lives. I know when she's at her premium, when she's really good at time of day on like meetings are better in the morning or three o'clock on a Friday, probably not the best time to meet with a customer. But just knowing that shorthand with each other. And being able to speak for her, to be able to go into prep meetings, knowing what her priorities are, what she intends to get out of things, especially things like she does a lot of speaking engagements. But being that representative for your executive, if there isn't that trust already built in, then you can't do your job as an EA. That's the soapbox I will stand on and the hill I will die on, that if you're an executive, you need to trust your EA.

Jeremy · 18:08

Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about when you started working with her. There was, I think I'm remembering this right. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but was she promoted throughout those five years? And then were there conversations at each point or each promotion where it was like, hey, are you coming with me or are you still, you know what I mean? How did that work throughout your partnership?

Claudia · 18:39

So she was promoted last fall to CRO. And so that, again, that oversees sales and marketing and partnerships and customer success and operations. And for me, it was a whole new world opening up because it went from just the silo of marketing and which was having a theater background. I like the marketing aspect. You know, there's always sort of the production we do with that. We did great events. That's more interesting to me than, say, if I was working for engineering or product design. But her taking on and stepping up in that role really opened up what I can do for her and it opened up where I can be a bigger strategic partner for her. Because now it's just not one division that we're looking at. It's managing all of them. And so being able to... It kind of felt like the training wheels were taking off and that's maybe that's not the right I know what you mean. The right phrase. But it was just like, boom, it opened up like you could see it's the Wizard of Oz. All of a sudden, everything was in color. And I really felt empowered by her to be able to step up more. So it's much more of... It's less calendaring and the little day-to-day stuff. Still do it, but it's not that it's more thinking, bigger picture. And I really like that trust that she put into me. And I really like that goal that we have for each other of like, let's make this successful because she's also ambitious. And she went after that role. And so it's my job to help her be successful. And it's also exciting. It's exciting to see somebody. It's rare to see somebody who is a CMO go to a CRO role, because it's usually sales goes into that instead of marketing. So she's definitely a trendsetter for it.

Jeremy · 20:37

It's got to be rewarding too to see, as assistants, we often talk about our goals. Our goals are our executives' goals. And it's got to be rewarding to see your executive reach their goals and succeed and level up and all those things as you're supporting them.

Claudia · 21:00

And it kind of gives you a little bit of permission to level up too. Right. Oh, we're going there. Great. Let's do it.

Jeremy · 21:07

Yeah, totally. That's awesome. Well, what's maybe a practical tip on, you know, you've worked together for five years. What's something that you would share with assistants that maybe you have learned over time, have learned working together, that maybe if you could go back in time and say, oh, man, if we could have learned this in year one, it would have helped us a lot going forward.

Claudia · 21:41

Well, I think part of it is knowing, I talked about it earlier, is really knowing them, knowing what they need to succeed. So in our case, she is a preparer. She is an over-preparer. She talks about this in some of her public speaking sessions. And so for me, I always like to get into her mindset of, okay, if I'm going into this meeting, I need to make sure that what would I want to see is her. I want to see a prep sheet. I want to see who I'm talking to. What's the deal size? What are their concerns or things that they want to talk about? So really for me, it's having that extra preparation for her. And I think you've talked about this too. You can get into being over prepared for people and then having them come back to you and say, actually, I don't use that. I think you talked about you used to do detailed travel arrangements for your CEO. And then they were like, actually, I just need this little bit. So having that clear communication with them and knowing exactly what they want so that they're not overwhelmed with information that they're not really using. So you're not overwhelmed running around trying to get everything together for them. I think that's something that if you start with an executive, that's the number one thing you need to know. How do they like their information? In what format? And how it's best going to serve them.

Jeremy · 23:16

Right. Yeah, like my CEO really likes things, you know, when he needs them. So it doesn't really help for me to be like on Mondays and, hey, here's the context for your call on Friday. That's not really going to help. Unless it's like, oh, he's got to prepare a presentation and he needs some time ever. But yeah, it's like, it's that just-in-time communication.

Claudia · 23:45

For me, she gets, you know, she gets a daily reminder of the next day, the night before. Unless it's something, again, similar if it's something, you know, really big. But it's like short, sweet snippets. That's what works best for her. And there are executives who want a full spreadsheet. They want all the details. And that's fine, too. You just need to have that clear communication with them. What it is that they need and what they don't need.

Jeremy · 24:15

Awesome. Well, Claudia, what's if you were going to put a billboard up on the busiest highway where all the assistants drive by, what would the billboard say to the assistants of the world?

Claudia · 24:31

Find your pack. Find your people. Like I said, early in my career, I wish I had had mentors, organizations, sounding boards. Find those people that you can not only celebrate your wins with, but you can rant to them. You can ask them for advice. You can be there for them. That has been over the past five years, definitely at this job has been one of the most successful things for me personally is having that network. I don't think I would be able to operate at the level I'm at without it.

Jeremy · 25:17

Love it. Makes sense. I'm going to order the billboard now. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Congrats on your career, amazing journey. And where is the best place for people to reach out if they want to say hi?

Claudia · 25:32

Find me on LinkedIn. Last name sounds like Lauder, spelled like Laughter. So you can find me there. Please connect. I'm happy to meet some new folks and have my own network.

Jeremy · 25:45

Well, I'll put that URL on the show notes as well. leaderassistant.com/277. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And thanks again, Claudia, for joining. And we'll talk soon.

Claudia · 25:57

Thank you, Jeremy. Please review on Apple Podcasts.