A Conversation About Titles on The Future Focused Admin Podcast

Jeremy · 0:00

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Speaker 2 · 1:34

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

Jeremy · 1:50

Hey, friends, it's Jeremy again. Thanks again for listening. Just want to let you know, in case you didn't, that my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant, has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it. It's called The Leader Assistant Workbook. Now, you can buy the Kindle eBook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of The Workbook. This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with. So, it's a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes. Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook.

Candice · 2:42

Okay, so welcome back to The Future Focused Admin. We've got a very special episode today because we are combining our forces with The Leader Assistant Podcast, Jeremy Burrows, who's, well, the host of The Leader Assistant Podcast. So, welcome, Jeremy.

Jeremy · 3:00

Thanks, Candice. Good to be here.

Candice · 3:02

Awesome. So, we have a very invested, what's the word, interest in our profession. And all three of us, obviously, we're all deeply passionate about what we do and also our community. So, we have very different views on a lot of things, which I think is great. I love a good, healthy debate, and I love different opinions, and I love that they're all coming from all different parts of the world. And I was like, let's all jump on a podcast and discuss these differences, discuss what's going on in the profession, and discuss what the outpour of comments was on my viral post and different opinions on that. And we'll just have a little general chat on what's going on in the profession. So, let's start with the debate of dropping the title assistant, since we haven't really moved off it since this post went viral. Obviously, if you're jumping the queue and listening to this episode direct, I did a LinkedIn post that I've pinned that is titled saying goodbye to the title assistant. And I've done it before, I've done it several times, but for some reason, it really hit a nerve this time. It had over 700,000 impressions and hundreds of comments, hundreds of reposts. So, it really was the first time I've seen something go this crazy in our community groups, and especially on LinkedIn, regarding the title of our profession. So, Jeremy is, his company is called The Leader Assistant, his book is called The Leader Assistant, no, yes, The Leader Assistant. So, obviously, he wouldn't want to be a fan of letting go of The Leader Assistant. But also, he has a different view on that, because he is also an executive assistant and he wants to keep that title. So, tell us a little bit about your thoughts on it, Jeremy, and what you're hearing in your community group and whatnot.

Jeremy · 5:12

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the first of all, I just want to say thanks again for having me on the show and for engaging in conversation with someone who may not agree with everything. So, I appreciate that.

Candice · 5:26

We love that.

Jeremy · 5:27

Open discourse. But yeah, I think when it comes to the titles, I mean, there's a lot of different areas that I think we could talk about, and it'd be fun to bounce back and forth and hear your thoughts. But specifically for me, I like the title assistant because I'm assisting my CEO in executing his vision. A lot of times people ask me like, hey, you know, how can I be a better assistant? How can I be better at my job? And the way that I like to look at it is, I'm actually not looking for how to be a better assistant. I'm actually looking at how to be a better CEO. And so when I think about my job, I think about what is my CEO doing day to day and what do they need to do to accomplish company goals, department goals, personal goals, et cetera. And so what the way I look at it is I want to try to put myself in the shoes of the CEO and take off as much as I can from their plate and do more and more of their job. And when I do that, that makes me more invaluable to the organization and to that executive. But it also, excuse me, it also allows me to really be that strategic partner with that executive. Because your goals, your goals are my goals kind of a thing. So that's kind of mine.

Candice · 7:02

Do you think you're more of a strategic partner than an assistant?

Jeremy · 7:06

Depends on what day it is. Depends on what day it is. There are days when I'm scheduling investor meetings non-stop. And there are days when I'm re-drafting or rewriting the board deck for the upcoming quarterly board meeting. And then there are days when I'm sitting in the board meeting or sitting in the leadership team meeting and I'm bouncing ideas off with all the other executives about, hey, how are we going to reach this milestone by the end of the year? So it really depends, really depends. But that's kind of my high level, like that's how I view my role personally. And I don't care. When I say I don't care about titles, I don't care about like you can call me an assistant, you can call me executive business partner, you can call me director of operations, you can call me chief of staff. I don't really care what you call me. What I do care about is my compensation, my respect that you're going to give me or not give me the job description. Is it something that I'm actually passionate about and want to wake up in the morning and do? And so those are all the things I care about. Now, what I'd like to say, though, is I've gathered a lot of research from my community on titles and compensation and salaries and experience, geography, all the different variables that come into play. And there are assistance in my community that their title is Executive Business Partner at a financial tech company in the Seattle area, making $70,000 a year. And then I have assistance in rural America with a title of Executive Assistant, making $120,000 a year. So when I say I don't really care about titles, I personally mean I don't care about a title, but it also mean that I think it's the bottom of the list when it comes to what we should really try to drive forward. Now, all that to say, kind of my last point on the title is, I think that if your organization or your industry or even your executive, if they will respect you and pay you more with a title change, then go for it, go get a title change. But if some industries don't care about the titles or they're not going to respect you because you have a different title, they're not going to pay you just because you have a different title. So what I love about Lin-Walder's work and others in the field, is they don't just talk about titles, they talk about levels. So I actually think the levels are the most important because a lot of these assistants work in companies that don't even have levels. So anyway, that's kind of my quick version of the title conversation that's been going on, but I'd love to dig deeper on any of those areas.

Candice · 10:13

Well, everybody knows my opinion because they saw my post. So Jessica, do you want to jump in and what you're hearing in your community as well?

Jessica · 10:22

Yeah, so I agree that there is a lot of the issue with it's more of like a leveling issue than the actual title. I also have assistant in my brand name, so I really I don't care either way. I used to think I don't really care about titles. I don't think they matter. And then I went from making about $52,000 a year to $120,000 when I went from being a virtual assistant to an executive assistant. So immediately, like, it did jump, it jumped. And I did not have trouble working with people with an assistant title and feeling like I wasn't being taken seriously. But I'm really aggressive and I'm assertive. And I put myself out there in a way that a lot of peers are not. I'm going to just tell a slight derailing story really quickly that's going to show, in my opinion, why titles do matter, especially when you're working with a board and a lot of men, especially in CEO-type levels. Is my current husband, love him. He was a business analyst for Walmart for many, many years. He was applying for jobs and he went to go interview for this other big, large corporation. They were going to hire him in as a manager, a manager of something, something. But he was going to be going in and meeting with ABPs on a day-to-day basis. This was 10 years ago and he was like, I can't do that. I cannot go into this room and expect to be treated. They're not going to treat me the same on the same respect level that they would ABP or an ABP. He negotiated and they came back with the director title. I'll never forget this. He was like, I have to sit down because he was so shocked at making a director. Because immediately, you're given more respect. I think that's what we need to focus on more is the ones that are doing strategic level work and business and they really are these high-level admins. It's like, how do we better encapsulate that it's so much more than just running a schedule, which is still a very complex thing and don't get me started because I don't want to run a schedule. But there's so much more into it that we're not getting credit for the work that we're doing. When we talk about compensation, it's like nobody is utilizing these titles the same way. No company uses executive assistant across the board. It's all over the place. We really do need to focus more on the idea of how do we grade this? I usually use the World Administrators job matrix. I really like to compare job postings to that, to see how is this actually leveled and what is the expectation. Because you can call it an assistant, you can call it an executive support, you can call it whatever, and I want respect and I want to be paid well. I do recognize at the end of the day that how I am perceived by my title is going to vary different than Jeremy. Than it's going to vary my woman of color co-worker. It's all a matter of addressing that there's real issues that play behind more than just the title. Like there's so many deeper levels that actually need to like get addressed to manage the pay gap.

Candice · 13:28

Yep.

Jeremy · 13:28

Yeah. Well said.

Candice · 13:30

That's something we should definitely hit on, is that there is a really different, and Jeremy and I spoke about this the other day, is we have the same title, Executive Assistant, but we've had completely different careers, and we've had completely different ways that we've gone through our career, but we hold the same title. We didn't discuss salary or anything, but I'm sure that we've had very different salaries as well. I'm not afraid to save my salaries. I was paid very well. I don't want viewers to be caught out by it, so I won't say it. And if you want to ask me, feel free for it. If anyone wants to jump in my DMs and say, how much do you earn? But I did earn well. I did earn very well for a female executive assistant. But I earned it. I would fight for my salary reviews. I would fight for it. And this is the difference, right? I had to fight for everything. I particularly remember when I worked for a president. It came to interview bonuses, and I had to do the letters. And I did the letters, and I went, I'm not in here. And she went, well, you're on an admin band. And I went, so did I not work as hard as everybody else, if not harder, because we were starting a new business unit? Did I not work as hard as everybody else? And she was like, yes. And I said, well, I don't deserve a bonus. And she's like, it's not like that. You would need to speak to HR. And I said, no, you do. You need to speak to HR because you should be fighting for this for me. And she didn't. And so I left. But I'm privileged and lucky enough that I'm able to just leave a position if I don't feel treated well or I don't feel that my value is being seen. But that probably kicked off my admin advocacy. I was like, bugger this. This is so unfair that everybody else got to have a bonus except for me because I'm on a band. And I understand that the title is not the big problem here. I mean, it is because the next generation don't want to be an assistant. That's not the career choice for them. What annoys me about, because I put it out there and I always have, is that I was always proud to be an executive assistant. If someone wants to come up on the street and say, what do you do for a living? I'd say executive assistant. There's no dirty word in assistant to me. I'm very proud to have had that career. But I don't feel that it has ever encapsulated the value that I have bought, the support that I have bought, the strategy that I have done, the ability to become an entrepreneur from these skills. If anything, and Jeremy, I'm sorry, I'm going to put you on the spotlight here. The difference between you and I is, I publicly have been on the job hunt for a while, and people have looked at my LinkedIn, they've had confirmation of this, and seen that because I have a podcast, and because I have admin avenues, they have said that I am overqualified, and that they felt feared that I wouldn't be able to do the job, and focus on the job when I have all these other things. Has anyone ever said that to you? Has anyone ever said, Jeremy, how could you possibly be a CEO, CEO and have a podcast and a community and then then? I mean, you do a lot of speaking gigs and stuff all over the world, like you.

Jeremy · 17:04

Yeah, I mean, all the time. You perform what I do. Yeah, all the time. I mean, I interviewed with a CEO offering $220,000 for an assistant as a salary, and this is one of those crazy, innovative tech world jobs, and I interviewed and he basically was like, I haven't taken a day off in three months, and this is kind of what I don't really know what I need, but I know I need somebody like you, etc., etc. And it was one of the things where I literally told my current CEO, I said, hey, I just got off this interview with this guy and he's offering $220,000, but it sounds like there's no balance and whatever. And he's like, listen, I'd love to pay you $220,000 and hopefully someday I can. But, you know, there's so much more than just your salary. And to be able to work for a CEO who when you launch your book, he posts on LinkedIn saying, hey, my assistant wrote a book, you should check it out. And I didn't have to post it for him. That's, that's huge. Like, that's a very unique situation. And I totally get that that's not normal and that's not necessarily common. Although I know several other assistants that I've interviewed on my podcast and that I know through my network that do have awesome relationships with their executives. So I've definitely had those situations where it's like, oh, I could go work for two or three times the salary that I started with here at Capacity, but I'm not going to have the flexibility to fly to San Diego like I did yesterday and do a training for assistants. I'm not going to have the flexibility to publish podcast episodes and share my thoughts and opinions without having to get legal to sign off on it every time, you know? And there's, so you kind of have to figure out what you want to do with your life. And in my last role, I was working at a non-profit. I was making, you know, by the time I left, I'd supported the senior founder, pastor at this non-profit church organization. And I'd supported this, I'd been there for 12 years, and I'd supported the top dog, if you will, for six years by the time I left. And I was making $55,000 a year, you know? And so I went from that world, and all my eggs were in that basket, my friends, my community, my finances, everything was in that basket. And then when my executive got fired, unexpectedly, I was all of a sudden like, okay, well, I thought I was gonna be here for 12 more years, and now I don't even know what I'm gonna do the next 12 hours. And so I took that opportunity, learned the hard way and said, all right, I'm not gonna do this again. I'm gonna set up multiple streams of income. I'm going to find a job that pays me better. And I'm gonna, so that's why I'm not in the nonprofit world anymore. So I voted with my feet and went to the for-profit world. I went to tech, AI, innovation, but I also went with an executive that I knew had the similar values as me. And he had also, he had sold his last company for almost a billion dollars and burned out and was tired of...

Candice · 20:38

Did you have your side hustle business?

Jeremy · 20:42

I'd started it like six months before. And I sat down and I said, I want to keep doing this. And he said, as long as you can do your day job, then you can keep doing it. And I said, all right, let's go, I'll be the best assistant you've ever had. Just leave me alone on the weekends.

Candice · 20:58

And that's the kind of point I'm making for you as a man. You were looked at as great. This is probably going to help our business. And look at him. He's a go-getter. And he's got a side hustle. And he can do all these things and look at his podcast go. I was looked at as she could be.

Jeremy · 21:14

I didn't have a book. I didn't have a podcast. I mean, I literally only had an e-mail list of a few hundred. And I was blogging a little bit. And I did one speaking.

Candice · 21:24

Mr. 200,000 CEO, did he have a problem with you having all these side businesses?

Jeremy · 21:29

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He was like, I haven't taken a day off.

Candice · 21:34

He didn't have a problem with it, though, did he?

Jeremy · 21:36

What do you mean the next guy?

Candice · 21:38

The 200,000 one?

Jeremy · 21:40

No, that's the one that had the problem with it.

Candice · 21:42

Oh, they did have a problem with it.

Jeremy · 21:44

Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, sorry. That's the one that he was like, I haven't had a day off in three months. You're just going to have to come latch on to me and it's just going to be crazy. But this is we're trying to take advantage of this innovative time. And we just raised millions and millions of dollars and we're going to pay you well, but we're going to figure this thing out. And so I was like, yeah, I have kids, I have hobbies, you know, I like sleep, things like that.

Candice · 22:11

And I'm in good shape.

Jessica · 22:17

I found that when I was laid off in February 2023, and I had just kind of started getting into the whole chat, chatty thing, and doing a few speaking events, and I very quickly found in my interviews that they thought I was too ambitious. They did not think that I was going to be a good executive assistant to them because I had gone out and developed interests and they weren't going to have that. So I definitely felt like it was treated, it was used against me, that I had ambition.

Jeremy · 22:47

Yeah.

Jessica · 22:49

I think that a lot of people have felt that way.

Candice · 22:53

Sorry, Jeremy. I was just saying that I think that, I think that being an executive assistant makes you an expert in business, especially at six-week level. I think what you are exposed to, like I definitely wouldn't have been able to do what I've been able to do if I hadn't have had the roles that I had. And it gave me the confidence that when I was able to play in that area and actually do the work, I was like, I can do this. I'm going to take these skills and I'm going to take it into my own business, which all three of us have done. And all three of us have been to be executive assistants. I truly do believe that it is the training of not having professional training, not having a degree and things like that. You can get the training through doing this job and be able to set up your own business. But you just need to be confident in it and confident in yourself and know that, like you said, Jeremy, and we'll dive into this now about the varying costs of training and development. You wanted a different stream of income. Like you were like, I was earning too low of the family now. I've got responsibilities. I need another stream of income. So you started training. What was first?

Jeremy · 24:04

Well, to be honest, the first thing I did was, you know, we sold our house because we couldn't afford the mortgage anymore. And so we sold our house, sold a bunch of our belongings. So Facebook Marketplace was my first extra stream of income. And then my second one was my brother actually sells baseball tickets. That's kind of his business. And so my second stream of income was I bought baseball playoff tickets, and I sold baseball playoff tickets. So that was kind of my next stream of income for a little bit. Did a little bit of investing, stock market, Bitcoin, all that fun stuff. And then I started blogging, and I started calling... I didn't know any assistants. I honestly did not know any assistants. So I started reaching out to executives that I knew because I worked for an executive, and he was connected with all these different executives. So I just called all these executives, and I said, hey, I'm passionate about helping assistants and their executives resist burnout, so that they can actually have a strategic partnership, and they can actually lead like they want to lead. They can actually accomplish their goals without burning out. And so I just started calling executives and say, hey, can we have lunch? Can I ask you about your assistant? So I had a couple of executives who paid me to coach them through how to work with their assistant better and then coach their assistant as well. So that was kind of the first thing I did. Then I just started blogging, getting on LinkedIn, reaching out to assistants of the world. And I remember I got a couple of remote, virtual, really small things that I did for free or hardly any money. And then randomly I got invited to, just because I had started putting myself out there, I got invited to speak at the European Central Bank for their conference for their assistance. And I was like, OK, this is interesting. And then they're like, oh, and we're going to fly you out and we're going to pay you. And I was like, oh, OK, this is cool. And so I was able to take my wife out there, did a training for their assistants, had to go through the security at the European Central Bank and all this stuff. And then at the end of it, my wife was talking to the organizer and she's like, you know, this is his first public speaking gig. And I was like, you're not supposed to tell them it's my first one, but at least she waited till afterwards before she said.

Candice · 26:35

We all got to have a first.

Jeremy · 26:36

Right, right. So anyway, that kind of slowly started going. And then that was like, I think, a year into my job at capacity. So I kind of just started doing a little bit of things here and there, flipping things on Facebook or baseball tickets or stocks or speaking gigs here and there. So I just, I just try to do a little bit of everything.

Candice · 27:00

So what made you do the podcast?

Jeremy · 27:03

So fast forward a few years. Well, backtrack, I actually used to edit podcasts and I used to edit audio and I used to do video editing and I used to be a project manager for a creative department who did videos and audio editing and all this. So I had some of that experience. And I always thought, oh, it would be fun to get back into the audio editing side, the part that I enjoy. But I don't want to start a podcast and then stop. You know, I wanted to, if I was going to do it, I was going to do it. So I waited a couple of years, finally realized I think I have a big enough network that I could probably reach out and have people on the show and have enough guests to keep going because I wasn't going to produce my own content every week with a full-time job and two little kids. So once I just once I got to the point is around is March 2019, I said, you know what, I think I can actually, I put a spreadsheet together, planned out every week for like a year straight. And I was like, I think I can actually do a year for a year. I think I can commit to a year of doing almost every week an episode. And so that's when I that's when I jumped in and I thought, okay, if I can do this consistently, because I don't like doing things half-assed, like I like to really go in and do it full on and do it well. And so I was like, if I'm going to do this, I want to do it well and I want to stay consistent. And I knew that there was a gap in the podcast world for assistant podcasts. There was a few out there. Some of them were terrible. Some of them were good, but not updated very often. And so I thought I could jump in and do that and reach more assistants. And then, of course, my ultimate mission is to help assistants resist burnout and lead well. But the podcast was just another, if I kind of zoom in on how do I reach more people, how do I help more assistants and grow the business in the way that I can sustain it. Podcast is one of those credibility pillars, if you will, that I decided to do.

Candice · 29:09

So when did the training and event start? After the podcast?

Jeremy · 29:13

It was a little bit of coaching, a little bit of events here and there, mostly virtual before that. Because 2019 March was when I started the podcast, COVID was March 2020, and so I had my very first live event in Kansas City with Bonnie Lowe-Crayman, and there was 170 people in the room, and two weeks later, the world shut down. And so, I had already been very online focused, so I was able to adapt, and I didn't have to adapt that much, I guess. So, yeah, it kind of slowly happened in that frame, but I'd have to look back. I think 2019 is probably when it picked up. I like to tell people, I'd have to look at the actual numbers, but 2016, I lost money, 2017, I lost money, 2018, I made a little bit of money. So my wife was like, oh, you actually made a little bit of money this year. We actually have to pay a little bit of taxes because you didn't lose money. And I'm like, yeah. And in the next couple of years, it just blew up and it's been very blessed. And as a side note, one of the things that I'm passionate about, and my wife and I, so she coaches at the local high school. It's the most diverse high school in the state of Missouri. And she coaches track and she has athletes who, they're failing classes and they show up late to school, if at all. And you find out they're living in a hotel because they can't afford living situations and all this stuff. And so my wife and I are passionate about helping those who are really struggling. And one of the ways that I've done that is I've tried to set up all these different streams of income and investments and business categories so that we can have those funds so that she doesn't have to work and she can go do these volunteer or super low-paying part-time gigs at.

Candice · 31:20

And raising two boys.

Jeremy · 31:22

And of course, raising two kids is her full-time job.

Jessica · 31:25

Yes.

Candice · 31:26

Let's not forget that. That is a job. Yes. So let's talk about different options of training and different categories of training and whatnot. So in my world of admin, which is mainly Australia, it's now moved into the UK and whatnot, I do not see big budgets being paid by companies for events. Less and less. Like there was an event in Australia recently where it was a dinner and it was 300, a lunch, $300 to attend and you got to listen to a guest speaker and have the lunch and get, it was $300 Australian dollars, so you want to convert to Google, everyone. But that's not a huge amount of money, but it did not sell well because no companies were willing to sponsor that, because one, it was a lunch, so they were like, I'm not paying for your lunch, and two, they didn't see the value in it. They don't understand that going to this, you would have networked with all these people that you would have been able to have contact with after and had been able to have that warm introduction, say, hey, I sat with you at this event, or I don't need to tell this audience what networking is. But it was a big talked about thing because it was $300 for a lunch, and people were like, who actually paid that? That was the sentiment in Australia, so that was $300 Australian dollars. In the UK, there was something, I can't remember what kind of event, but it was something like 500 pounds. 500 pounds is 1000 Australian dollars. For everybody else, Google it. But it was a lot of money. I'm in a group in London, that is British EAs and I put it in there and said, is this a lot of money? Every single one of them was like, yes, absolutely not what I'd be able to afford that. So I'm seeing all these people saying, no, can't afford it, can't afford it. Companies aren't paying for it. Some people are paying out of their own pockets. When we talked about it, you were saying you had completely different experience in that people were getting companies to pay for the events that you've been putting on.

Jeremy · 33:54

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just really depends on the event. It depends on the city. It depends on the industry, what you're offering. I've had, I've, I've trial through trial and error over the years. I've had events. I've had online events for $20 that didn't sell well. And I've had online events for $1,500 that sold great, you know. And it's like, you just have to trial and error as a business owner and figure out what, what people are able to pay or what companies are able to pay. But also, I think the big thing is really educating the assistants on how to ask and how to build that business case to their companies to, in order for them to pay. But I think the bottom line is in the business side of things, I think it's a matter of you're going to charge what people will pay and you're going to charge what you think it's worth based on your time and the expertise that you're offering. But you're also going to charge just like much like if you're a virtual assistant, you know, OK, yeah, I think I'm worth $25 an hour. I think that's the skill set, that's what I want to do. However, I need to charge $45 an hour because I got to pay taxes out of that, I got to pay insurance out of that, I got to pay software expenses out of that, and so on. So maybe you think your time is worth $25 an hour, but you can't just charge $25 an hour. And actually have a sustaining business that's going to keep going. And so it's through trial and error. And I think the big thing again, educate people on how to ask and realize that there are different levers that you can pull. And so your company may not have a professional development budget for assistance, but the department that you work in may have a furthering education line item that you can pull from to cover those expenses. And I also think that it's important for people like me and other assistant community thought leaders, whatever you want to call us, like you two as well. I think it's important for us to have a variety of price points. You know, like I've published 286 and counting episodes of the podcast for the last, since 2019, and you don't have to pay a dime to listen to those. You know, like you can buy my book, which has all my tactics and strategies. It's a guide for being an assistant. You can buy it for $6 or whatever on Amazon Kindle or $15 if you want the paperback. And then I also have a lot of chapters of my book or free blog posts on my blog. And I think that when it comes to training, people can find the information they want and they need with the amount of information that's available online, ChatGPT, Google Search, LinkedIn, or YouTube learning, you know, like my brother rehabbed his house and he figured out how to do everything just by watching free YouTube videos. You know, like, so I think that you can get anything you want. However, people will pay a premium. If you can guide them throughout the journey, step by step, and really focus them in on here's here's where I'm at point A and I want to get to point D, E, F. You're the one that I want to get me from A to F. I don't want to sit there trying to be overwhelmed with information overload on free resources. I want to pay you to get me from this point to this point.

Candice · 37:39

And Jessica, what's your point of view on that and in your community and your experience with that?

Jessica · 37:46

Let's take a little bit of a different approach. And that like I recently I did launch a community in the past couple of months. I keep it a very low cost. It's $10 to join the community. I'm offering trainings, doing all kinds of things. The problem is the feedback that I got from people when I was trying to make a decision about what I wanted to do with the community was, you know, how many people were just like gatecapped out of like the good information because they can't afford an $800 a year membership. And as someone who only got like educational funding when I started working at a tech company, and I was like, hey, they get tech funding. Can I have that? And they were like, sir, why not? Like, and I negotiated it. But, you know, I've never had a company want to invest in me. I had never had a company say like, yeah, let's spend X thousand dollars on your education. So in the work that I do, it's like I talked to so many admins day in and day out that, you know, they're barely getting by. They are not making a living wage. Like it is, let me say that we have that EA How To, Alicia Fairfalk did her EA How To survey recently. And the average salary in the US for an administrative professional is $86,212. And that is assuming that they, you know, basically have like a spouse to help support them. I think I saw a survey recently that said you need to make like $175,000 in the United States to live a comfortable life. Like it's not set up for us to thrive. And when you take in the fact that like child care and all of these other things are going to come first before me spending an extra $1,000 on like some like networking event or something is, it's just not plausible. And it ends up doing what the rich have always done, which is it said only a few of us are valuable, only a few of us get this education. And then we stand around and people go, well, why can't people advance? I don't understand why they can't do more, they can't advocate for themselves in their careers. It's like, let's all stop and think. They probably weren't taught that language growing up. They probably weren't taught to advocate for themselves. It took me years to get to a point where I felt comfortable voicing what I needed and what I wanted in the office, because I had been continuously made to feel like I was an idiot by people that I supported. So for me, it's just like, how can I keep things as most affordable as possible? Because I think at the day, I'm just one person. I, yes, I'm considered an expert in our industry and I have a lot of knowledge, but there's so much to learn. I don't want to charge you an obscene amount just so you can take away one small thing. But I don't know. I just, like I said, I try and keep things what I would pay at the end of the day.

Candice · 40:30

I'm not being an asshole in saying this. This is a legit question. In Canada and America, do you have to be certified to be a coach or a trainer or anything?

Jessica · 40:42

No.

Jeremy · 40:42

No.

Candice · 40:43

So there's no certification. Well, there might be a certification, but there's not like you have to show that you did this course.

Jessica · 40:50

It is not a licensed profession.

Candice · 40:52

Okay.

Jeremy · 40:53

Yeah, like a therapist would be a license. You can't call yourself a therapist unless you have the credentials.

Jessica · 40:58

Yeah, the life coach.

Jeremy · 41:00

Right.

Candice · 41:01

So when you're doing CPD points, I see, things like that. Is that because that's accredited to something? Is that not an American thing?

Jessica · 41:14

I think probably the equivalent is when I did some stuff for IAP, it was credentials. You could say, oh, you get half a point or a point. Yeah. They had certain guidelines that you're supposed to teach to in the amount of time that you need to teach, and then they would weight it and say, okay, that's three points towards your continuing education.

Candice · 41:33

Okay. So that's how that works. Okay. That makes sense.

Jessica · 41:37

So I can teach and give credentials, but they'll get their creds. But if somebody came in and did a wellness talk, it wouldn't count.

Speaker 2 · 41:46

It's just kind of hard.

Candice · 41:48

Okay.

Jeremy · 41:48

Okay. But that's more for the organizations that run those certifications like IWP or whatever. That's not corporate America saying, oh, this is that.

Candice · 42:00

Okay.

Jeremy · 42:01

And I will say too, in America, I think I failed to mention this, but there's this idea, the American dream is like, okay, well, I got a raise, so I'm going to buy a bigger house. Oh, I got another raise. I got another raise, so I'm going to take out a lease on a car that I can't afford. Oh, I got another raise, so I'm going to move to a nicer neighborhood with a nicer school and a bigger house. I got another. So like, you raise your income and then you raise your cost of living to match or even, unfortunately, that's why there's so much debt in America. More than that. My philosophy has always been to help assistants have the confidence to ask for what they deserve and to negotiate their compensation. If you don't ask all those things. But also, when I coach assistants one-on-one, I walk them through, I'm like, listen, you live in Seattle, and so your cost of living is higher than this other assistant that I coach that lives in rural southern Missouri. And so you have to have, you have to do the calculations on cost of living as well. But all that to say, I've been about, with my wife and I and much to the chagrin of my in-laws, we've been about when I make more money, I don't go buy a bigger house and move to a nicer neighborhood. We intentionally chose a rougher part of town that had a not as nice blocks and a couple of crack houses, literally two blocks away that got busted a year after we moved in. But we wanted to be in a diverse community, for our kids to be raised in a diverse community. That's our passion as a family. But financially, I also am very passionate about, I'm trying to lower my cost of living as much as I can. I don't care if I'm making more than I've ever had. I'm still trying to keep my costs down. So I don't borrow for buying a car. Like I only buy cars if I have the cash to pay for it. You know what I mean? So there's that kind of financial literacy that has not been focused on in American education, which means you have a lot of people in corporate America, assistance included, who don't have that training. And I think that's a big factor in the whole salaries and raises and all this kind of stuff. And you mentioned it takes $175,000 to live comfortably in the US. Now, if you're in San Francisco or New York, then at least that. But if you're in Kansas City, Missouri, you can be doing really, really, really well and have a very nice life for that kind of salary. And so, anyway.

Candice · 44:57

I just want to flag something, is that you two are both married.

Jessica · 45:02

Yes.

Candice · 45:04

And share costs and share responsibilities. And Jessica, you've got a child that you share with another, her father and their father. And there's a lot of dual stuff in this. I am a single person. And I find life tough on a single wage. I struggle with everything, just being just me, paying for things, just me, doing that, just me, putting petrol in the car. It's a very different way of living when it's you, just you. And so, I want to like speak up for the single people and particularly the single moms that are really struggling. Hats off to you, ladies. And single dads, if you're out there. But I just want to flag that in that you two are coming from a very privileged position. It's tough for single people, no matter where you are. Because I'm talking Australia, I'm talking London, and I'm talking... And I know they're two very privileged, first world countries, and we're not talking about the poor people that are in Gaza and things like that. Obviously, that's horrible. But I just want to flag that, yes, that whilst that all sounds right in corporate America and everything, people that are doing it alone really do struggle financially. And I have an admin group myself that is $306, Australian dollars a year, if you want to join. And people have said to me, I can't afford it this year. I can't afford it this year. And we also provide a letter that you can submit about requesting personal career development. And we try and do everything we can to try and help these people. But the fact is, it's just not viable this year. There's just a lot of people struggling financially.

Jessica · 46:58

Yeah, the only way I wanted to add is that, obviously, we have very different levels of privileges. I used to make pretty good money. I lost my job. I had to build a business from scratch. I had to adjust my level of living. You cannot budget your way out of poverty. At the end of the day, if you are not getting paid enough, that you can pay for your mortgage, which has gone up because it was an adjustable mortgage, because that's all you could qualify for. If you have to pay $2,500 a month for childcare, because you don't have a partner and so you still have to pay for childcare so that you can go to work to make that money. Insurance, not every company provides good insurance. You're paying different things. If you're medically fragile and you have health care issues like in the United States or health costs, there are so many bills. It's not about, like America loves to suggest this idea of that, like, it's just about not working hard enough or it's not about advocating for yourself enough. It's all these things while continuing to slap you down and say, no, you can't get this better job because we won't help you with child care. So you continue to stay trapped at where you can. I have a peer who's trapped in a job because it has good health care and her spouse needs a transplant or something. There's all kinds of different scenarios where it's like just budgeting. This isn't the situation of Dave Ramsey being like, you just need to not use your credit cards and things like that. This is a situation of the cost of living in the United States and Canada has inflated massively. I should not be making what I made at my first executive assistant job at the same amount that my mother-in-law made in her first executive assistant job 30 years ago. The rate of pay has not kept up with inflation, and that is the real issue at the end of the day. There's so many more costs. Now we need internet, we need phones, we need all these different things. It's just a completely different environment than even when I entered the workforce in 2008. So I think it's like really, it's not about people are bad with their money, because I've even seen like in groups like, hey, what kind of like financial literacy can we offer to our EA team because they're all struggling? And it's like, no, the answer is actually unionize. The answer is there's more strength when you guys band together and say, we're not going to do this until you pay us a higher wage. And that's really where we're gonna see change starting to happen is when people start doing collective bargaining and saying, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. And there's strength in numbers. So that's why it's important to have these conversations and say, how can we support this joint vision?

Candice · 49:46

Do you think that could be a thing? Unionizing? Do you think like, is that an American... We're sticking on the American thing here.

Jeremy · 49:53

I was gonna say, we're gonna need a whole other podcast episode to talk about all this.

Candice · 49:57

Is that a thing? Is that something that couldn't happen for me in Australia and the UK? We don't need these insurances because we can get free health care. We can come into a hospital without falling off and then we'll put it back on. It's a very different story in America.

Jessica · 50:13

You don't need a union to do collective bargaining. You can start talking to your coworkers about what you are getting paid. Because they discourage you from discussing what you get paid because they don't want you to know that they're paying you less than somebody else. So they make you think you're not allowed to. You're legally allowed in the United States and Canada to discuss your wages. They cannot punish you. So talk to your coworkers about what they're getting paid. Because you'll find very quickly there is a lot of times a disparity within the same pay band. So that's a really great way is just kind of start talking to your peers more.

Jeremy · 50:47

Yeah, I think that I think there's so many different ways to tackle the issue. And I think that I think Jessica, you're right. I think there's there's a lot of layers to the whole, you know, whether it's poverty, whether it's, you know, unions, whether it's insurance issues, whether it's political issues, whatever it is, it's a battle day in and day out. And some of us, myself, for sure, with the white male in America privilege, have it easier, unfortunately, than others. And I've never been one to deny that I do have that privilege. But I have been one that's, that's tried my darndest to do what I can to help those that don't have the privilege with the resources that I've been blessed with. And I, I think that, you know, some people would, you know, have told me in the past and, and have wished that I would speak out on certain topics or use my platform for, for different, you know, causes, if you will. And I think that, you know, I've chosen to focus on kind of a narrow, narrow focus on helping assistants gain confidence, grow their compensation and be the leaders that I know they are. And that's why I've highlighted people like you two and hundreds of other assistants on my show that are passionate about different subjects and different concerns in the, in the assistant world and beyond. But I try to do the best I can with what I think that I have to offer and then use the resources that I have to help those who aren't as fortunate.

Candice · 52:48

Again, not being a dick when I'm saying this, because you can never tell when you're hearing people or their faces. You can't see their faces or anything. But what do you provide? Like do you have templates that are like, like I provide a template that's, that helps people go to their executive and says fill in the blanks, and request for compensation to go to a conference?

Jeremy · 53:08

Yeah, I have a template as well, Google Doc that I customize for each of the events that I put on, or the coaching sessions, or whatnot, and it just is a letter, essentially, or an email essentially to their executive or their HR team, and they fill in the blank on, they're customized it to fit their context, and that helps them ask for more money or for professional development dollars, et cetera. I've got a very affordable resume course that I put together with my friend, Al Hussein, with a template that you can copy and paste, and a video of walking through line-by-line how to craft your resume so that you can get that callback, and got negotiation templates and courses, all different price ranges, different resources like that. I think the coaching that I do one-on-one is 99% of the time. Assistants come to me because they want more confidence, and whether they want more confidence to ask for more money, or whether they want more confidence to get that promotion, or they just want more confidence because they're down on themselves and insecure, and they just want to be reminded that they have what it takes. That's what I do in my more one-on-one resources. But, yeah, I just-

Candice · 54:36

Do you feel like you should have an obligation to be more talking about women's KP gap and things like that since 98% of the profession is women? Or do you feel that because you're highlighting these other people, and we'll go into that next about some of the thought leaders in this space. Don't worry, I won't keep you all night. Do you feel a responsibility in that space? Because it's 98% women?

Jeremy · 55:03

Yeah. I've put together about four or five free webinar training sessions over the last four or five years where we had, I think, the most recent one last year, we had 900 people register and we basically talked about how to be confident and negotiate for what you're worth. And we talk about the gender pay gap, we talk about, you know, the fact that the number one reason you are paid less is because you didn't ask for more. And there's lots of different templates and resources that I've done. To be honest, I haven't done as much in the last year or two just because I've been so focused on my day job and my kids' sports practices and tournaments that I've just been trying to put out a podcast episode and keep that going. And but yeah, I think someday if I get to leave my day job and do this full time, then I'll definitely be doing more content like that. But like I said, I just try to, I have a limited amount of time every week to focus on this. And I try to do what I can do as much as I can. And it's women, because it's 98 percent of the assistants are women. But you don't hear me talking about gender a lot because I believe that the, like we were talking about earlier, you mentioned something like there's nobody out there saying, I want to be an assistant. The young people aren't saying I want to be an assistant. And the reason is because, in my opinion, is because we aren't out there having these clear levels and titles. If you want to be a salesperson, it's very clear. If you make more sales, you move up to this level. If you close more deals, you move up to this level. If you're in marketing, it's very clear. This is the entry-level marketing job, this is the next level, and then this is what you need to do. And if you're a developer, it's very clear. You need to learn this code, or this language, this coding language. And if you can, if you're proficient in this language, in this type of project, then you'll move up to this level. But in the assistant world, it has not been clear. And so, of course, if you're a young person that wants to have aspirations of a successful career with growth opportunities, of course, you're not going to think of the assistant role.

Jessica · 57:25

Yep.

Candice · 57:27

Jessica, anything to add on that? So I want to just quickly, because I know we're on time here, but the ugly side of thought leadership in the admin space. I'd like to get your views on this. So we just interviewed, I guess, oh, should we say her name yet? Yeah, because it'll be out one time, this comes out. Yeah. Dominique, who is a Chief of Staff, who made a post on LinkedIn about the difference between Chief of Staff and assistants, and it got a fair bit of traction and whatnot. Someone who's considered a thought leader in this space attacked her. Publicly, on LinkedIn. So we did an episode about that and about bullying in general, that falls in this space. But I want to talk about that ugly side of some of the thought leadership in the admin space. There's misinformation, there's ego, clearly. I'm all for everyone having their own views and ways of doing things, but I feel like, and I've said this before, the majority of thought leaders in this space are white, and older, and mainly women. There's yourself and Al Hussein. I've not actually had contact with him direct, but there's a couple of others that I can't remember off the top of my head, so we've not had direct contact. But I would say the ones that have had direct contact, and that I see in the feed all the time, they're all white women. I'd like to see a diversification of that. I'd like to see more younger people using their voice and not be ripped to shreds for doing so. I would like to see different opinions and remaining authentic and not using your political talk. Say what you think. We don't all have to agree. I don't think we should all agree. How boring would the world be if we were all in agreeance? I want there to be difference of opinions. I want there to be, but just with respect and kindness and that kind of thing. So what's your kind of thoughts on this?

Jeremy · 59:56

Oh, man, where to begin? Yeah, I think that, you know, I can't do anything about my privilege as a white man. I highlight as many people as I can from all different backgrounds. You know, I do not consider myself an expert in a lot of different things. And the things that I have personal experience with that has helped assistance of the world, those are the things I focus on. And what frustrates me is in the thought leadership space, there's a lot of this like, well, you know, you're doing things differently, or you're not doing things the same way that I would do it, or I'm gonna basically get in an online commenting battle with you, or I'm gonna legitimately, like you mentioned, bully other people. You know, I've had people steal my work word for word, I've had people, you know, talk, you know, negatively about stuff that I've put out with other people in the space, I've had, you know, people, you know, get upset because I charge for my services, you know, like, at the same time, they're the same people that publicly talk about how assistants should demand pay and demand fair pay and better compensation. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly what you want to focus on or what specific questions you have, but I think in general, my viewpoint has been to just highlight as many people that want to be highlighted. Every assistant has a story to share, even if you're not an assistant thought leader or you don't want to have your own business, whatever. Every assistant has a story to share, and that's why I have the podcast is to try to allow assistants from all over a platform to share their story. I have too much going on in my life to get in online commenting battles with people, or to worry about what other quote unquote competitors are doing in the space. I think that it's great that you both have your own thing going on, and you do it differently than I do, and you talk about different topics than I do, and I think that it's great that other people are doing things. I agree, I think we need more diversity in the space, but I don't necessarily have answers on how to do that other than, if you're doing something and you want to share your story with the world, and it's related to the Assistant World, then reach out and I'd love to have you on the podcast.

Candice · 1:02:49

Well, there's a funny point to add to it because in my viral post, the amount of people who felt the need to make negative commentary who had nothing to do with the Assistant World. Particularly men, again, that were VPs. I screenshot all of them, but I deleted a lot of them because they were downright rude. But they were VP men. They had the title Vice President as they're underneath. Mine is Admin Advocate and LGBTQIA plus Ally. That's my title under my name. They had Vice President as theirs, but they're saying title doesn't matter. I was like, dude, not only that.

Jeremy · 1:03:28

To be fair, the Vice President doesn't mean very much in a lot of organizations in America and a lot of corporate levels and titles. Everyone has the title Vice President. So anyway, that's probably who that was.

Candice · 1:03:39

But yeah, they had nothing to do with Admin and they felt the need to jump in on this thread where all these people were giving their opinions from personal experience and then these brandos started to drop their nuggets of wisdom.

Jeremy · 1:03:55

Yeah, I don't know, Jessica, what's your philosophy on all this? What are your thoughts?

Jessica · 1:04:02

I mean, I grew up chronically online and I am chronically online, so I've been in a few Internet tangos or two. Just mind your damn business, people.

Candice · 1:04:11

Here's the thing.

Jessica · 1:04:12

It's like I treat my peers with the same respect that I treat experts, right? Like, I assume that you are an expert in what you're speaking about. And unless somebody is like, especially on LinkedIn, of all places, unless you're being completely left field, like if they're completely just lying about things that are directly related to me or something, it's just not my business. It's just not my energy. I don't have time to be fighting on LinkedIn. I'm busy fighting on threads, okay? I have more important things to worry about. So, yeah, I think that it's really obvious who didn't grow up online and who still thinks that they need to fight every single internet battle and correct every single person they feel is even remotely wrong. I think that it's my place, like if I am observing somebody else's posts, it's like unless I have something that really adds to the conversation or like congratulates them or something, it's like I'm not stepping in this because I don't need to be LinkedIn's main character. I don't need to be a person that has a screenshot of them being sent amongst all of our peers. I'd just rather not have that for me. So, yeah, just be nice. It's not hard.

Jeremy · 1:05:24

Yeah. Well, I think the way I... I think there's an emotional lack of intelligence in all of this because you think about it and you don't know what's going on in people's lives. You don't know that they just got laid off. You don't know that they're... It's a roller coaster. Everyone's lives, like my last two weeks have been such an emotional roller coaster. My wife had surgery. There's complications with that. We're dealing with that. Then the next day, it's like, oh, my son did really well in his sports thing and it was really exciting. We celebrated that. Then the next day, I find out a good friend that, one of my good friends that endorsed the book just collapsed while on family vacation and died. Then the next day, my family and I are all healthy and the weather is beautiful, and we go to the Royals game and we have a fun night, and it's just this amazing experience that my 10 and 12-year-old are going to remember forever. Then the next day, I find out my college roommate and then groomsman in my wedding had a heart attack and died and left his three young kids. Then the next weekend, my son wins a soccer tournament, and then I'm going to the funeral. Life is a rollercoaster, and you don't know what's going on in people's lives. You don't know how good or bad or blah their day has been or their week has been. So try to have a little bit of emotional intelligence in the world. When you're online, before you post, try to think, you know what? This person is a human. Even if we can check ourselves before we do that, I think that's a big win.

Candice · 1:07:14

Okay. So I know we're clocking up time here, so I want to do one last thing quick around the table is, what's your predictions for what's happening next in the admin space? Do you think that the assistant title will be around in the next 10 years? Do you think it'll be something else? Do you think AI is going to wipe out our jobs? What's your quick predictions for the admin community? Jessica, you go first.

Jessica · 1:07:40

I do believe that we're going to be seeing a rebrand as administrative consultants where the people that have been pushed out of the workforce that are learning to be independent business owners can start rebranding themselves and actually get the respect that they deserve because I get treated a lot differently when I transitioned to consulting. So I think we're going to see more of that happening.

Candice · 1:08:01

Okay. Jeremy?

Jeremy · 1:08:04

Yeah, I think the title is going to stick. I think it's going to be rebranded a little bit in a way. But I think as far as technology and innovation, I think it's really a matter of the assistants or whatever you want to call them that who automate, who embrace automation are going to lead the way and they're going to have jobs and they're going to have opportunities and they're going to have a future. The assistants who don't are going to be automated. As my CEO always says, automate or be automated.

Candice · 1:08:41

Good quote. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jeremy, for joining us. Jessica, thanks for turning up too. Anything that we've talked about that pops into mind, we'll put in the show notes. Lin's work, the Global Steals Matrix, all those things that we've referenced, we'll put in the show notes. If you have any questions, we'll also have all of our contacts there. So if you want to connect, if you want to check out our communities, if you want to ask questions, we're always open to feedback and ideas and everything. So the Future Focused Admin and The Leader Assistant, checking out for Episode 3. And we'll see you guys soon.

Jeremy · 1:09:25

Thanks, Candice. Thanks, Jessica. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 · 1:09:38

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