Number one social media influencer for the PA community!

Lordy, lordy, my head is swelling as I sit here typing this....    :-)

The website address of the list, if you want it, is http://eventopedia.com/the-pa-club-power-list

The site says "The PA Club’s most influential Powerlist is based on the active users of Twitter and other social media and their Klout scores. This Klout score is based on various metrics from Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Wikipedia as well as Klout. The influencer list is an almost real-time run down of the most influential PAs on social media. This list is automatically updated on a weekly basis every Friday."

#SOproud!!

Onwards and upwards.....

Angela  xx

Explaining who and what I am....

It's quite complicated, being a PA. One of the biggest obstacles in the job is that some of the people you come into contact with have  no idea what a PA is and subsequently no idea what you do all day. I spent a lot of time during my 24 years in administrative roles (of which 18 were in PA roles), explaining what I did, where my role fit within an organisation, how I worked with the boss and in what way my skills could be best utilised...

I'm still defining myself now - even though I left my official Personal Assistant role in February 2014 - over a year and a half ago! Why?

Because, even though I'm no longer someone else's PA, I'm now MY OWN PA. I carry out all of the PA tasks, responsibilities and duties that I used to carry out for other people - except now I am doing them for myself. Technically, I'm the CEO of my little training company - but as I'm the only member of staff I'm also my own PA.

Plus, in addition to delivering training, mentoring and coaching worldwide for PAs, EAs, VAs, Secretaries and Administrative Staff - and editing NAHPA magazine - and writing books - and editing and publishing other people's books - I'm also a Virtual Assistant, doing administrative work for three CEOs from my home.

I found myself this evening explaining all this on the phone to a lovely chap from Eventopedia, as his team had thought I was no longer a PA / EA / VA and therefore not eligible to be a member of their weekly Top 250 PA board - they'd removed me from the Board last week and I queried it with them.

During our conversation I noted that they took their information mostly from Twitter - and pointed out that, for me, the Twitter headline doesn't allow enough space to list all my roles and responsibilities, because I'm still a multi-tasker! I explained the work that I'm currently doing - for whom - for what - for when - for how - and I've now rejigged my Twitter headline to squeeze in "Virtual Assistant", which means I should be back on the Eventopedia Top 250 PA Social Media list when it's published at the end of this week.

(Headline box outlined in pink: not enough space for everything I do!)

The list is at http://eventopedia.com/the-pa-club-power-list - and I recommend it to PAs / EAs / VAs to find mentors for their development - seek out someone in a similar industry to your own and follow them on Twitter / LinkedIn / etc - and contact them to ask if they would consider working with you on a one-to-one basis by phone or Skype or in person every now and again to help you out with your CPD.

It's a great list of fabulous people in wonderful roles. USE IT!


Angela Garry
The world's most connected Personal Assistant, Virtual Assistant, and PA Trainer / Mentor / Coach.

Thank us, and mean it - or lose us...

(This piece is reproduced from my LinkedIn posting today at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thank-us-mean-lose-angela-garry?trk=pulse-det-nav_art)

You know how sometimes an article can jog your memory of something?

Today, I was pointed in the direction of Mark Goulston's rather excellent article on the importance of thanks and praise for assistants (see "How to give a meaningful Thank You", from February 2013 - available on the Harvard Business Review website https://hbr.org/2013/02/how-to-give-a-meaningful-thank). Reading the article, I was reminded of a Personal Assistant who spoke with me a couple of years ago about one of her former bosses.

Since 2010 I have been delivering training, mentoring and coaching sessions worldwide for PAs, Executive Assistants, Secretaries and administrators. Kelly* attended one of my training sessions in 2013, around the time Mark was writing his article. She was at that point about three years into her job at a leading finance organisation. Within my training session I had mentioned the importance of thanks - and she came to chat with me afterwards on how much this had resonated with her.
This was what Kelly told me of her story:

"I'm really happy in my current job and I get on very well with my Chief Executive and my colleagues. Maybe it's rare in the finance industry but it's actually quite a caring culture at the company, and we are actively encouraged to notice and appreciate each others' efforts. One of my previous jobs was totally different though...

"I was the Chief Financial Officer's personal assistant at a bank. He was quite 'old school' and a couple of times while I was there he referred to PAs as 'secretaries with an attitude', which I very much disliked but he thought was a bit funny and clever. He'd say it to visitors to his office - in front of me. They'd smile, I'd wince politely, they'd go into their meeting, and I'd sit at my desk thinking of ways to get him back...

"I never did though, I was far too professional in my work and I became more determined, I suppose, to prove him wrong and to make him appreciate what I did, by going that extra mile on things, putting in additional effort.

"Looking back now, I can quite easily see that his doing down of my skills, his lack of thanks and praise - and his lack of acknowledgement of any sort about my efforts - was actually making me want and need them all the more, and I became a workaholic, yearning for some sort of acknowledgement of my hard work. Of course, I didn't see this at the time. Nobody does in that situation, I suppose...

"The more I worked, the harder I worked, the more effort I put in, the earlier I came into the office and the later I stayed to get things done, the less he seemed to notice. The pressure grew all the time, and I became more and more unhappy, more and more tired, more and more determined to get things right enough that my boss would have to see how good I was, surely he would see it one day? But he never did.

"A colleague from another branch of the bank came into my office around 9am one day for an all-day meeting with ten or twelve others, plus my boss, who hadn't arrived yet. He and my boss were due to meet for an hour first before the others arrived for the major pitch on a project. He commented on the two empty coffee cups on the shelf behind my desk - hadn't the room been cleaned last night, he asked? I explained that they were my 'first thing in the morning' and 'one hour after arrival' drinks from this morning. "You mean you've been here over an hour already?" he asked. "About two hours, actually, to get the final things ready for this meeting", I said. 

"He sat at a spare table in my office and got on with some paperwork whilst waiting for my boss to arrive. When my boss finally came in half an hour later, the colleague said jokingly to him "You work Kelly much too hard, you know. Do you know she's always in the office so early each day?" My boss smiled and replied "She thrives on the pressure, she wouldn't have it any other way."
"They went into their meeting. I was in split in two trains of thought. Part of me thought, yes, I did seem to thrive on pressure, I worked hard and got into routines to get me through a lot of work swiftly. The other part of me thought, no, I wasn't thriving at all, I was miserable, over-worked, over-wrought and exhausted, and why couldn't my boss see that? Probably because *I* hadn't seen that until then.

"The all-day meeting was about a really major project, which could have a big impact for the organisation. I'd spent an enormous amount of time in the weeks leading up to this meeting, putting together the documentation, the presentation slides, the handouts, etc. The other attendees arrived and joined the meeting. I flitted about, organising teas and coffees, making sure the lunch order was finalised, making yet more copies of papers after someone spilled coffee on theirs, and mopping up the spilt drink. As I was doing this, I heard my boss say something about how they ought to halt the confidential discussions whilst "the little woman was cleaning the table". No mention of the fact that I had typed all of the confidential documents that they were looking at, or of the other hard work that I had put in to ensure that everything was ready for this major meeting. Just a sly comment that implied that I couldn't be trusted to hear something confidential.

"I went back to my desk and got on with my work. But I also spent the day thinking (and fuming!) about what had been said. At the end of the all-day meeting, the visitors left, and the colleague left. My boss came out of his office, beaming from ear to ear. "We've got the project 'go ahead'", he said. "This is going to be major. Of course, you're going to need to put in some harder work from now on, but at the end of this project it's going to mean a lot. I'm even going to get a nice big bonus out of it." He was so proud. Something on my face must have registered for a second... "I'll see you right, don't you worry. In fact, I'll go and sort that out now" he said, and he left for the day.

"A small part of me thought "Wow, has he gone to speak with someone about a bonus for me?" I went home, exhausted. When I got into work the following morning, everything was the same as usual. I did an hour and a half's work before my boss swanned in with an unfeasibly large bouquet of white lilies, wrapped in paper, which he plonked on my desk. "This is for your hard work on the project" he said, and went into his office. Not even a "Thank you"' and certainly no hint of a bonus for me.

"White lilies have been traditionally used as a highly scented flower to mask the smell of death. We've had white lilies at family funerals. I don't like their smell, and because of the funerals, I associate them with death. To be brutally honest, I hate white lilies. They're not a cheerful flower. And they're certainly not a 'thank you for all your support' flower. What were these flowers were to me? They were the death of my role. 

"I sat at my desk and typed a resignation letter, resigning with IMMEDIATE EFFECT and stating that I would take my remaining holiday entitlement - all 16 days of it - during my notice period. It was close to Easter. This meant that I gave a month's full notice, but didn't owe the organisation another day or my time. I didn't even owe them that day - my annual leave entitlement was enough for me to walk out, there and then. So I did.

"I printed two copies, signed them both, and put one into my boss's in tray and the other into the internal mail tray in the corridor, in an envelope marked to the Director of HR. I emptied my few personal things from my desk. And I put the lilies in my office bin which I stood on my desk - next to a handwritten note saying "Thank you."

"My 'thank you' note wasn't to say 'thank you for being a great boss' - oh, no no! It was to say 'thank you for showing me that I needed to do this for myself, and that I needed to make the decision to leave'. 

"Then I walked out, crossed the road and signed on with a temping agency, who found me a full-time role to start just a couple of days later. I never went back.

"After a few months of temping in several offices, a week here, a couple of weeks there, I found my current role and I love it. I'm not looking for a boss who tries to thank me for every single little thing I do day in day out, but being genuinely thanked every once in a while when I've been working hard is SO joyful and means SO much."

* Note: Kelly has given me her permission to repeat her story here, on condition that I change her name for anonymity purposes.


To bosses worldwide, the bottom line is this:

Take on board the amount of work that your assistant does for you. 

Notice the number of hours they put in on your behalf. 

Look at the amount of success you achieve as a result of their efforts. 

And then THANK THEM. Genuinely. Mean it.

Not just a quick "thanks a million" as you walk out of the door, or a "Tks" at the end of an email.

Let your assistant know that their work is appreciated, that their efforts are appreciated, that what they do MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Then I want you to do something more.

PAY THEM ACCORDINGLY.

Administrative Assistants, Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants, Secretaries, whatever you choose to call us in our roles, are paid VERY little for the level of expertise and professionalism which we demonstrate on a daily basis. And yet, more and more, you expect more from your assistant.

In the Hays / Executive Secretary survey (results published in July 2015), 63% of managers / executives credited their assistant with working at MANAGERIAL or DIRECTOR level. There is no excuse for paying such a worthy worker a pittance for their efforts in ensuring that you do well in your role of running the organisation.

Without the support of your Assistant, where would you be?

PAs and EAs the world over are supporting the leadership of businesses, working in partnership with their bosses, to run organisations. We are not the stereotypical "take a letter, Miss Jones" secretary or no-brained receptionist from the cartoons of the 1950s. We never were. We are working in partnership with you, we have well developed skills and expertise, we soak up your knowledge in order to keep the organisation running all day while you are out at meetings. We deal with your visitors, your phone calls, your correspondence, with the knowledge and learning that we have developed in our roles. We help you to lead your business to success.

All of that deserves thanks, praise and appropriate remuneration.

As I've said before, it's all L'Oreal, you know.

We're worth it.


Angela Garry
angelagarry@picaaurum.com
Worlds most connected PA and PA Trainer on LinkedIn
Global PA & EA Trainer at Pica Aurum www.picaaurum.com
Author "Brave PAs" www.bravepas.com and "The PA & EA Circus"  www.thepaeacircus.com
Editor of "National Association of Headteachers' PAs" magazine www.nahpa.org.uk

Reporting on my first time as a speaker and exhibitor at the Office* show last week...

Oh my! I had a whale of a time last week....

I was invited, back in about April, to be a speaker within the Seminar programme at the Office* show in London, which took place on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 October. Just one week before the show, I was asked if I could cover someone else's slot in the programme too - so I was booked for two sessions, plus I had a stand within the exhibition.

With my friend Di Solomon roped in to be my "Honorary Personal Assistant" for the two days - we set off from the Midlands to London, arriving at the Olympia venue on Monday around 4:40 pm. By 5:30 we had emptied the contents of the car into the stand, and then headed off to our hotel to check-in, then out for dinner. (We found a lovely pub almost directly opposite Earls Court tube station!)

Tuesday morning saw us up early and out of the hotel. We should have been WELL in time - but for some unknown reason I managed to completely mess things up and wrongly navigated from a map - so we arrived LATE for the 9:00 am start (eeeeek!) - and I staggered in, huffing and puffing, through the doors around 9:15. Thankfully, with the stand being on the back row of the exhibition space, there were very few people around at that time so we were able to get the table set up with copies of my books for sale, and get settled in, ready for the crowds...

My first speaking session was at 12pm on the Tuesday - speaking on "Talent management - managing your career and shaping your future". This was the session I was asked to cover at a week's notice, and seemed to go down well with the audience - lots of people came over to the stand afterwards to give good comments and feedback, and to buy my books, plus there were several really positive tweets about it on Twitter, so I was very pleased. I got a chance to wander around some of the other stands mid-afternoon - but the day absolutely flew by - Di and I could hardly believe that suddenly it was 4:15pm already, with only another 45 minutes of the show remaining for the day!

It was a really great two days being on the "other side" of attending - I'd attended as a PA for many years, and this was my first time being a speaker and/or exhibitor - so speaking twice AND having the stand really gave me a whole new experience of Office* !!

Di and I attended the drinks session which was hosted at Pizza Express for speakers and exhibitors at the end of the day (the photo shows Marion Lowrence, Vickie Sokol Evans, me and Di), then crossed the road to the Masala curry house for a delicious dinner, before retrieving Di's car from the Olympia car park and back to our hotel for the night.  Needless to say, after the fiasco of my map-reading that morning, I made sure that we did better on our route back to Olympia on Wednesday morning (I still can't quite believe how badly I misread the map on Tuesday!!), and we were back at the stand ready for the 9am opening of day two.

It seemed a little slower on Wednesday with less people - or it could just be that we'd calmed down from the flurry and excitement of the day before... My seminar was at 10:45, speaking on "The beginner's guide to integrating the many parts of the PA & EA". This was the session I was really excited about - as it was based on my new book "The PA & EA Circus", which I had finished writing at the end of August, just in time to get it published to bring copies along to sell at Office*....

Again, the session seemed to go over very well, with more really positive feedback from attendees who came to visit the stand, and more positive tweets - and over the two days Di and I managed to sell a good number of copies of my books.

With being on the stand, there wasn't really time for me to attend other seminars over the two days  which is a real change from my previous experiences of attending Office* - but I didn't miss out in any way: instead of meeting PAs as I walked around, they made their way to me at the stand!!  As always, I absolutely loved meeting so many PAs and EAs - it's such a great event for meeting and networking and making really good connections.

If you didn't attend this year, please please please put the dates in your diary and make an effort to attend in 2016 - it's going to be 11-12 May next time and at a change of venue - the ExCel in the London Docklands areas. Details will be added to http://www.officeshow.co.uk in the coming months. I can guarantee you'll have an interesting time, and meet some great people - and the training seminars, free keynote seminars, technological seminars AND exhibition are all brilliantly planned and put together.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Angela
xx

Working with PAs & EAs worldwide.... can you spot yourself in one of my course photos?

I've just been spending an hour or two pulling together some images to use in a promotional banner, to advertise my training courses.

Going through my folders of photos has taken me ages - because for every image, I've stopped, looked at the faces, remembered some of the names (but not all, I'm good but not THAT good) - and remembered the stories they shared within the courses that they attended.

In just five and a half years (during the first four years of which I was already carrying out a full-time job), I've met and delivered training, mentoring and / or coaching for well over 3,000 Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants, Secretaries, Office Managers, Admin Assistants - support staff by whatever name or title you choose to call them.

I'm not sure I can express in words how lucky, fortunate, hanging-out-of-my-pockets-with-joy this feels. I just know that I've spent the last two hours or so with a great big grin on my face, remembering.

Here's the combined image that I've put together, to be displayed in the middle of a vertical banner advertising my Pica Aurum training courses:  can you spot yourself?????

I've made the image clickable so that you can see a larger version of it.....

Sorry I couldn't include everyone - there were SO many photos of groups to choose from, these are just a selection....


Angela

An innovative new training / mentoring / coaching offering for PAs & EAs worldwide...

As a Trainer for PAs, I often receive requests to travel round the world to deliver courses for groups / companies / events - and I also market my own courses within the UK and Europe.  

For example, I'm currently marketing courses 1 and 2 in my series of two-day workshops, taking place across England, Scotland and Ireland in October to December 2015. Courses 3 and 4 are in preparation, and I'll hopefully start delivering those next year also. Details at www.picaaurum.com

Whenever I advertise one (or more) of my courses and send out marketing messages via LinkedIn, Twitter, email, etc, I endeavour to send out to targetted people, groups or companies who might be interested in attending.  Putting messages about the courses on discussion groups on LinkedIn can be really helpful as it brings in people who are members of those groups but might not already be on my contact list, so it helps to expand my reach.

However, it does bring about another issue: people outside of my target area also see my messages and contact me saying "your courses look great - but I am not near your venue. Are you thinking of coming to XXXXX sometime soon?" I've responded with messages saying whether I am (or aren't) due to be delivering training anywhere near them, and also offering my services to their company to deliver bespoke training for them and their colleagues, should they wish to fly me out.

This works for some, but not for others - so I have decided to further develop my already comprehensive course handbooks to include images of the slides from the presentations I would make during each course - and to then make these available for purchase. This means that potential attendees worldwide who cannot make it to one of my events can benefit from working through the training materials on their own and at their own pace. The purchase price will include up to two hours of one-to-one Skype calls with me, to discuss any items within the course content or their CPD which they would like to talk about.

Purchasers could choose for the Skype element to be four half-hourly calls, or two one-hour ones, etc. - we'd arrange it to suit both of us. They can also choose whether to work through the whole course handbook before talking with me, or whether to work through half or quarter of it at a time - or to utilise the Skype calls for mentoring / coaching sessions on other CPD matters, in addition to working through the course handbook.

With this in mind, I've today completed the print-on-demand process for the course handbooks for courses 1 and 2 - and they are both now available via Amazon worldwide and also direct from me (if you would prefer for your company to be invoiced for the purchase).

The attendance cost for my two-day courses is around £300 per programme (depending on whether you book on the Early Bird, Normal or Last Minute rate).

The complete handbooks, including images of presentation slides and two hours of Skype calls with me, are priced at £200 for each course, making this an affordable alternative.

Course 1, "Two Essential Days for PAs", contains two one-day workshops, "Be a Multi-Tasking Miracle Maker" and "Project Management for PAs / EAs".  These are the links to buy this from Amazon.co.uk - course 1 and Amazon.com - course 1

Course 2, "Two 'How To' Days for Tomorrow's PA", contains 8 essential topics to ensure you are ready for tomorrow's challenges: presentations, overflowing inboxes, purple folder, appraisals, social media, managing change, minute-taking, networking. These are the links to buy this from Amazon.co.uk - course 2 and Amazon.com - course 2

To purchase either course handbook from me direct (so that your company can pay via invoice), please email angelagarry@picaaurum.com to arrange this.

Best wishes,

Angela Garry