Brad Johnson: Tricia, welcome to the show.
Tricia Sciortino: Thanks for having me, Brad.
Brad Johnson: We were just doing a little bit of reminiscing before we hit record here, and I think we figured out we probably traded emails about a decade ago, right, when you were working with Michael as his assistant, Michael Hyatt, for those unfamiliar.
Tricia Sciortino: Yes. We have definitely passed tracks before, no doubt.
Brad Johnson: Well, I want to use that to dive into your story, because you have a very unique path. Today, you’re a CEO at Belay, who sponsors the podcast, actually, our very first sponsorship. And one of the things that I would say, and this isn’t a commercial, this is just how I feel, this show is not about selling or endorsing things we don’t believe in. And for me, Belay was really easy, because Belay is how Brooke, my current EA, actually how we found her, how we got connected, how she started out hourly, and eventually we bought her out of her contract. She became full-time. So, I can say Belay personally has made a massive impact on myself, my business, our team here at Triad, what we’ve built over the last five and a half years.
So, I’m excited to hear the inside perspective from you, because you started kind of where Brooke was as an assistant. And then you have seen how this has evolved, now running the company that helps serve businesses all over the country. So, I’m not sure where you want to dive in on that story. But I’m going to flip it to you and let you take over.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. Thank you. I’m so excited you found your Brooke, and you were able to take her, and now she’s helping you run your business. I started my career at Belay because the founders saw an opportunity for an organization to help leaders find great executive assistants that were fractional and remote and maybe didn’t live in the same town. Actually, our very first client was somebody who was from Cheyenne, Wyoming, who could not find a local talent person, did not need a full-time hire, and was really like, “I actually don’t even know what to do now. I’ve tapped all my local resources.” And we’re like, “Hey, you know what? Could you have an assistant in Atlanta?” “Sure, I think so.” And that’s how it all began.
And so, for me, my story is I started on the ground floor. The owner saw this opportunity to create a business that could provide fractional, high-end support to people who couldn’t find it. And they asked me to join, because at the time I was actually the founder’s assistant. And they said, “Hey, we want to start this company. Will you come over and help us build this thing from the ground up?” So, the opportunity to be the first assistant and the first employee, ground up in the organization through startup, and through that first year, got to experience so many interesting, fascinating people, and we’ve learned so much.
I had the opportunity to be the executive assistant for Michael Hyatt as he first stepped out of Thomas Nelson Publishing and went off on his own. So, what’s interesting about those two things, which I love telling this story, is that the founders of Belay, the first thing they did was bring me on as an assistant. When Mike Hyatt left Platform to create his own… I’m sorry. When he left Thomas Nelson to create his own business, the first thing he did was hire an assistant, which is an interesting conversation, which I look forward to unpacking, because most people think you hire an assistant when you get to a certain place.
What they knew that was different is that they needed the assistant at the front to help them grow and create the business that was ahead of them. So, they leveraged. The mindset was the assistant helps me go further faster. The assistant comes in, lays the groundwork, does all the administration, so I can actually go create and grow this business. And so, I got to sit and watch two leaders really do this in front of my eyes. So, the second I got a promotion at Belay and became a leader, the first thing I did was hire an assistant. I was a manager. I had a new team now. We were growing. I knew in order for me to hit my maximum capacity, I also wanted what they had.
I wanted somebody who was handling the non-managerial part of the job. I wanted somebody doing the expense reporting, and scheduling of meetings, and worrying about my calendar, and travel, and prepping agendas, and follow-up actions. I wanted somebody else doing all that so I could save 10, 15 hours a week and focus on what the job at hand was. So, I had the opportunity to be the assistant. Now, I’m a leader who has an assistant and truly believe that because I learned that very early on, here I am 15 years later with the honor of being the CEO of Belay, because I learned early on who you have around you, who you delegate to, who you work with really can help your career and your business grow if you leverage those people right.
So, that is kind of my crazy little journey from EA to now CEO of a company that now practices what we preach and are really here to help leaders get their time back, focus on their business the way they should, and live their life, which is what I love about what you do is, what are we doing it all for? To work ourselves into the ground? No, let’s not do that. Let’s create an amazing life with boundaries and leverage people and assistants to help us maximize our potential.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I’ve shared this a few times, but my wife’s running joke is Brooke makes our marriage better. And it’s not really a joke. She’s actually right. And this does assistance a disservice, I think, but if I look at how does Brooke function in my life when it comes to Triad at work and our family life at home, where I screwed things up consistently was I didn’t have air traffic control, and I had, like, two landing strips, right? I had the work calendar and the home calendar with all the family stuff, the ball games, the birthdays. And what I would consistently do is accidentally schedule one over the other on either side. And then you just, as a founder, you feel like, “I can’t win here, I can’t win here.” Like, it sucks. You feel defeated.
And when you have somebody that sees clarity on both sides, but also knows your heart and what you want to prioritize and where you want to show up, and coordinates all of that, it is such a heavy lift that comes off your shoulders where you can just show up where you’re supposed to, be fully present, be all in, be prepared, and I just don’t know how people function and run businesses without it. It’s wild.
Tricia Sciortino: I kind of feel the same way. I mean, any time I run into a business owner, and this comes up, and I meet people who do not have an executive assistant, they don’t have anybody next to them, I am literally like, “How? What? Why?” Like, how? There’s so much that we have to do. How do you not? And it’s different than other leaders inside your company. So, of course, I have a CFO, I have a COO, I have SVPs of revenue, and I have people leading functions inside our organization as we’ve grown. We’re a big organization now. None of that at any level has ever replaced still what I need from my assistant. My assistant is for me. She runs my life, honestly, not just the company.
She runs my entire well-being and balance. I feel like I’m a more thoughtful spouse, friend, mother, daughter because my assistant can be like, “Hey, Mother’s Day is coming. Do you want me to send flowers to your mom this year? What are you thinking? Do you want jewelry? What can I shop for?” She’s like two weeks ahead of everything. And we get so busy, and I’m like, “Oh gosh, I would’ve remembered Mother’s Day maybe three days before Mother’s Day.” So, she keeps me honest. She keeps me on top of things. She keeps me thoughtful. She’s constantly checking on me. Sometimes we’ll be sitting on a Zoom, and she’ll say, “Girl, you need your nails done.”
Brad Johnson: That’s funny.
Tricia Sciortino: And then she’s like, “I got you scheduled for Saturday.” I’m like, “Okay, thank you. Taking care of me.”
Brad Johnson: It’s like we got a little chip forming there.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah, yeah.
Brad Johnson: Oh, that’s funny.
Tricia Sciortino: So, I mean, I think one of the things people miss is using their assistants personally and professionally. I have had so many people ask me over the years, “Can I use my assistant for personal things?” And I’m like, “Yes, absolutely.” Like, dinner reservations on your anniversary, like all the things. She helps a little bit with vacation planning, transportation. Like, “Oh, the family’s going here. Can you work with our travel agent? Like, book the flight, get the car, ground transportation. I want some dinner reservations.” Like, she almost runs as a small little travel agent for me at times.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Brooke is amazing there. And you hit on one thing that I think’s really important. Leading a company, especially as you start to get larger and larger scale, is really hard. It’s hard to keep track of all of the demands on the calendar. “Oh, and by the way, it’s my dad’s birthday. I should have given him a call, sent him a gift.” And the proactiveness, this was just a week ago. I had a long day, like a stressful day on a Thursday, and Brooke texts me, and she’s like, “Hey, tomorrow morning’s pretty open. You’ve had a long week. It’s been pretty demanding. Do you need an hour or two just to, like, chill?” And I would never schedule that for me.
It would just literally be like, “Oh, here’s the next thing on the calendar. Knock this out.” But actually, having somebody that’s kind of can know when you show up as your best self, maybe when you’re a little worn out or run down, it’s awesome, and I wish everybody could have that. But that’s what a great assistant does as well is it’s not just schedule the meetings, book the flights. It’s, “How are you doing? Is this working? These weeks are getting a little jammed. I see some inconsistencies or inefficiencies on your calendar. Let’s revisit that.” So, I don’t know. I’m going on a little tangent here.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. No, I agree because I feel like they’re your partner.
Brad Johnson: Yeah.
Tricia Sciortino: They’re your work partner, so, like, they are the only one who is going to look out ahead of you to make sure that what you hope to be true in the weeks and months ahead, it actually unfolds that way. So, like, I have an ideal work week. I have for me, like, what I’m willing to give, when I’m willing to start and end my days, how many meetings I’m willing to sit into a day, how much time I need to block for other strategic things, board preparations. Like, I have all of these things written out in preferences, and she will notify whether it’s a day ahead, like Brooke did for you, or even a week ahead, and say, “Hey, you’ve overcommitted. You are slammed on Tuesday, but you have this thing due on Wednesday. There’s no way you’re going to, like, have all this, get this done, and due on Wednesday.
So, I am rescheduling these two things to Thursday so you can have your deliverable on Wednesday. And it’s fine because I already spoke with them, and they’re cool. And so, it’s just done. And I did the shuffle.” And I was like, that, like end game, right? You might not start there day one with an assistant, but the goal is, like, Cameron can now look ahead and go, “I just reshuffled your entire week. I already messaged every single person that was on your calendar. I rearranged and restacked it so you have scale, you can accomplish what you need, and you don’t have to be stressed out because I know exactly what’ll happen. If your Tuesday gets out of control, you’re going to be a mess by Wednesday.”
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Because guess what? We’re all humans. It’s weird.
Tricia Sciortino: We’re not machines.
Brad Johnson: Yeah.
Tricia Sciortino: Like, we can’t just keep going. We actually need to have breaks and rest and clear our minds. And it’s easy for some of us, like high-performing leaders. I mean, right? We know we could actually grind 14 hours a day into eternity. Like, we really could. Like, I could. I could grind for 14 hours and keep going. But what am I sacrificing in those 14 hours? Like, oh, I didn’t have dinner with my kids. You know, I was a jerk to my husband because I was cranky because I worked 14 hours. Or I don’t sleep good that night because I’m all, like, spun up, you know? So, it’s like, “Oh, that’s all just not worth it.”
Brad Johnson: For sure. Well, let’s go back. You said something. You’ve worked with some really great leaders. Were you Bryan’s or Shannon’s assistant when you started?
Tricia Sciortino: I was Bryan’s assistant when I started.
Brad Johnson: And Bryan, didn’t he come from finance? What did he do before Belay?
Tricia Sciortino: He came from church construction.
Brad Johnson: Church construction?
Tricia Sciortino: So, Bryan and I… Yeah. So, it was a company called Cogun, and they were a design-build firm, and Bryan was the Head of Sales for the organization. And Bryan had an office assistant. We had offices. So, he had an in-office assistant who was going out on a maternity leave, and I stepped in to cover the maternity leave. What’s weird, what’s interesting, and these are all, like, so funny how the world puts you in places you don’t even know you belong yet. At the time, I had just quit my job. I grew up in New York. I was the Head District Manager at Pacific Sunwear. I was leading the number one district. I was working seven days a week, 80 hours, retail. I mean, it was bonkers.
I had my first daughter. I went back to that job and very quickly realized I cannot be a retail leader that’s working seven days a week, nights, weekends, floor sets, every holiday stores are open, Thanksgiving, Black Friday. I’m missing everything at home. And so, I made a very bold decision. I just walked in one day, and I decided, “I’m leaving. I’m quitting.” And they were like, “What?” I, I had been there for 10 years. I was their head DM. I was like, “I need a life. This isn’t worth it for me.” And so, I left that job and stayed at home for a few months and realized I love work. I love doing good work. And so, I wanted to find something fractional. And so, that’s how I met Bryan Miles. He needed an interim EA, and I did that very part-time. It gave me the best of both worlds.
I was able to be present at home with my young daughter, who I didn’t want to miss moments. And I was also able to part-time support a leader who I thought was doing really great, cool work, and I got to be part of that, and I could help him accomplish his goals. And that turned into what then became Belay. We said, “Well, that relationship, this overwhelmed leader, he was leading sales, right? And this experienced professional who just wants to downshift and do something part-time but has expertise and talent to help me, like what if that’s what Belay could do on repeat on scale?” And so, it kind of became this very rewarding opportunity where we created a company where we could help executives get the help they need.
But also, the other most amazing part about Belay is we get to offer talented executive assistants fractional opportunities that could become full-time if they wanted to, if they’re looking for something that fits with their life. And extremely talented women who want, and men who want to do fractional work because of season of life or for whatever it looks like. And it became this very win-win scenario, where, like, we have clients who are getting what they need. We have these team members who are getting exactly what they need: flexible, remote, present work solutions for them. So, it became just such core foundation to what Belay means today.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And I’m assuming something, but you’re kind of alluding to it. This was Brooke’s situation: mom, young kids. She actually came out of a situation where she, I think, was working with three church leaders running, like, a really big church, multiple events. So, she had a lot going on. And then I think it was just kind of like, “Hey, too much for kids.” So, I think that’s kind of how she got to Belay. But the expertise was there. It was just I don’t have 40 hours a week to give. And it reminds me of my wife. Like, she was a grade schoolteacher, high school coach. We have our first, who’s now 16, but when we first had him, she stayed at home until our youngest was back in school, and now she’s started to put more hours back on the calendar.
But is that a theme you see, where it’s business professional females maybe have children, so they don’t want to do 40 hours, but they still want to be plugged in and working for a business? Is that a theme where a lot of your talent comes from?
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah, the vast majority of our talent are professional women whose season of life, whether it’s they have young children now or whatever that looks like, decided they don’t want to work 40 hours a week anymore because they want to be home and also do great work. And that was really our talent recruiting mechanism. What’s been great about it is it created a movement. We receive today anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 applicants a month.
Brad Johnson: What? Wow.
Tricia Sciortino: A month. A goldmine of women. I wish we had 6,000 new clients a month to pair them with, right? But hear me. It is just such a great opportunity for the executive assistant to do this. And so, word got out. We never had a market on that side of the business. Word of mouth really grew. Friends told friends told friends, “Wait, you can work here fractionally. It’s not a pyramid scheme. You know, this isn’t licking envelopes. This is a real work-from-home job.” And back in 2010, ’11, ’12, ’13, those were very hard to find. And so, it really gained traction, and we had this really grassroots movement. We had all these professional women coming to us saying, “I want to downshift my career, and I only want to work 20 hours a week, but I’m a highly skilled professional.”
And then when they’re ready, like your Brooke, the client has the opportunity to bring them on staff and offer them a full-time position if they choose. And so, it’s like everybody’s winning, and I feel like I got to be part of that, too, for me. I mean, I got to downshift my life.
Brad Johnson: You kind of pioneered it, really.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It’s like I felt like I’m taking a leap of faith. I’m going to quit this big job, and I’m going to go do something part-time because I want to, and it just led me to where I am today. So, I feel like it’s a very divine journey of mine that I get to be here. And, yeah, it’s an honor. And so, still to this day, we just gush over the fact that 6,000 to 10,000 people want to apply to work here.
Brad Johnson: Well, let’s start diving in here. So, I had the opportunity, actually, Michael introduced me to Bryan and Shannon Miles, have done a couple of podcasts on my prior podcast, even with Bryan. Great dude. Obviously, brilliant with what he saw, the vision, the need, and how y’all built Belay. And now he’s off, like, running a brewery or something. I don’t know. He’s doing some other fun stuff too.
Tricia Sciortino: He is, yeah.
Brad Johnson: I’m sure he’s still involved with Belay as well. But you had the opportunity to work for two great leaders, and I would be curious to hear what common themes did you see on how they work side by side with an assistant to both empower the assistant but also make sure they’re focusing their time where it’s needed. And unfortunately, the flip side of this question, I’ve seen people that struggle to work with an assistant, where it’s kind of like they’ve got a new assistant every week, and it’s always weird, the assistant’s fault. I’m like, “Well, there’s one common variable here. It’s not the assistant.” So, maybe tell me here are the themes we see of how founders/entrepreneurs can work really well with an assistant, and here are the things that kind of derail it.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. The first thing I will say that is very similar with working with Bryan, who, by the way, he’s amazing, still friends with him. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago. And Mike was that they immediately, day one, extended all the trust and gave me access to everything. And so, I remember very specifically when I started working for Michael Hyatt, my first day, well, it’s like, “Mike, meet Tricia. Tricia, meet Mike. You two are going to work together. Now, she’s going to be your EA.” “Hi, Mike.” He had, like, a 23-page document of everything you ever need to know about Mike’s whole life…
Brad Johnson: That does not surprise me.
Tricia Sciortino: That he gave me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He SOP’d it out for me. You know, he was so prepared to just hand the keys over. And so, I knew all his daughters’ names, their spouses, Gail, all her information, his home address, every credit card, every friend, every person who might email, who should get through.
Brad Johnson: How he took his coffee, probably.
Tricia Sciortino: I mean, how often he wanted to go to the dentist, the dentist’s phone number, where he got his hair cut, how often he wanted his hair cut. Like, he knew exactly what I needed. He was willing to give it all over, and he did not wait to trust me. He just literally said, “Here is all the things I need help with. Please come in and do as much of this as you possibly can, and we’ll work on it together.” And he was very much open. He was very much conversational. It was very much trust first. And when somebody gives you that, you want to do, gosh, your very best to have earned that trust. And so, I always tried to give 110%, 120% to Mike and everything he needed because he trusted me with his life, and I did not take that lightly.
Same thing with Bryan. Bryan never held back. He was like, and he would stretch me, and he’s the reason why I’m the CEO today, because he believed I was more than a title. He believed, “Executive assistant may be what it says on your email signature, but you are a partner here, and I’m going to ask you and give you opportunity to do a little bit of everything in startup.” And so, he didn’t just put me in a box. He gave me opportunities to be like, “Hey, you think you can go run down this, I think we need a CRM. Could you go, like, find one and build it for me?” And I was like, “Sure, I’ll vet some CRMs. I’ll bring back some information. Just, you know. ”
Brad Johnson: No big deal. It’s not a big decision.
Tricia Sciortino: No. So, I looked at a couple, and I was like, “Okay, I think I recommend this one.” He’s like, “Great. You think you can implement it?” I was like, “Sure, I’ll implement the CRM for you.” And it’s like, “I wasn’t an IT personality manager. I was doing administrative work, and I came from retail.” But a good executive assistant, number one, goes, “Sure, I’m going to figure that out,” because you’re resourceful. And so, gosh, you can learn anything on YouTube, and nowadays even AI can teach you how to do any of this. And so, he gave me the opportunity to do things beyond what anybody would consider scope of work, and that’s how I was able to kind of build my career at Belay.
Eventually, it’s like eventually I did run IT, you know? Eventually, I did run things. He would say, “Hey, as an assistant, you think you could interview other assistants? You would know what another good one of you looks like. Hire a bunch of yous.” And so, I was interviewing talent, then I became head of talent. And so, that’s how I grew my career. So, the two things I say they both did very well: They extended great trust. They knew what they needed. They communicated frequently, always. They were never a bottleneck. I wanted to exceed their expectations. Where we see it go wrong…
Brad Johnson: Before we go there, I want to hit one thing that’s a theme. I think a lot of people, number one, I remember when Michael Hyatt, I was in a mastermind with him, and I said, I was explaining all my problems of, like, calendaring chaos, email overwhelm, and he’s like, “You need an EA.” I didn’t even know what an EA was. I was like, “What’s an EA?” Like, that is finance. I think a lot of finance, it’s not Forbes 500 companies. These are all small businesses where it’s like, “Wait. Oh, I’m supposed to have one of those? I don’t even know what one of those does.” But I think when people hear ‘assistant,’ you think org chart below.
And what I heard you say, partner beside, and I think just that mindset shift is huge because it’s not like, “Hey, go get me a coffee.” That’s not what we’re talking about here. This is partnership and showing up where you need to show up, when you need to show up, how you need to show up.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: Very different.
Tricia Sciortino: Yes.
Brad Johnson: So, I want to get to the stuff not to do, but anything else on that, just that you’ve seen?
Tricia Sciortino: Well, yeah. And what I would say is, but that also, like a good assistant, when I walk into a conference or a meeting, and she’s there, she has my coffee waiting.
Brad Johnson: Yes, servant mindset.
Tricia Sciortino: Right? Like, they want to impress you. She’s like, “Here’s your coffee.” She knows what I like. “Here’s your coffee. Here’s the dry-erase markers. The laptop’s set up. You’re ready to go. Slide deck. Here’s the clicker.” Like, she’s all ready. She’s got me handled. She got me there. Like, she’s handled all the logistics. She helped probably with the presentation. She helped with the agenda. She booked my travel. She had my coffee ready. She did all these things. My inbox is empty. My calendar’s clean. All that is happening. But to your point about the org chart, it’s funny you mention that, because we actually just rolled out a revised org chart to our entire company this week.
We had some leadership promotions, which is always exciting, and so that was really exciting. But when we show an org chart to our team, and I screen share with our entire team, and I show a new senior leader and their team. So, under the leader, we have who their direct reports are. Straight line across, literally straight line across, with the box next to them, the assistant. That’s how we show it on our org chart. So, my org chart, it’s Tricia, Cameron, CFO, COO, CMO. Like, that’s how we look at our org. And then next to them, their assistant, because we really do believe it. This is their force multiplier. Like, I get mad. My CFO, bless her heart, love her. She’s my best friend. She’s an amazing CFO. She went a season where she didn’t have an assistant.
One didn’t work out. She was traveling, so she wound up leaving, and there was a gap in between. And, I was like, “I need you to find an assistant as soon as possible, because you are losing…” You could watch people lose efficiency. Or they have to work late to make up hours. I’m like, “No, you’re working too late. You’re working too late. I don’t want to get this report at 7:00 PM. I need you to have an assistant so you can get stuff to me on time so I can be productive.” And so, that’s the culture we created here, is like, “You have to have one so that you can be at your literal best,” and they sit next to you.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. The other thing I’ve noticed, back to how you can empower that person to show up in the organization, how they need to, you got a lot of stuff that goes on your calendar, Tricia. Guess what? I’m guessing sometimes you need to be two places at the same time. Unfortunately, you’re not able to do that. But I’ve seen a great EA as they level up the trust, they can serve as a proxy for you, where they’re stepping into that meeting, “Hey, Tricia can’t be here. She’s booked on another call. However, here are a couple of things,” and they’re acting on your behalf. And it is a way to show up two places at the same time. And I know Brooke has done that a few times, where it’s just been required.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah, certainly. I mean, we…
Brad Johnson: But if they’re not seen as a beside you or below you, it’s harder to empower them to do that.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. And Cameron will do that proactively. Like, there might be some new tool we’re rolling out or something, where they’re doing a demo for the entire company, and Cameron will say, “I’m declining. You’re not going to this. I will go. I will knit it out. I’ll give you the short summary, and I will set yours up. Don’t even worry about it.” So, she knows now things that, like, I don’t need to participate. She will take the CliffsNotes version, or she will do it for me, and send me like a Loom or a clip or something with a little video screenshot so I know I have the highlight reel, and it’s kept me out of another meeting. But that is so valuable. Any time she can keep me out of a meeting is a good thing.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. All right. I want to get to the stuff not to do.
Tricia Sciortino: The stuff not to do.
Brad Johnson: What are your thoughts?
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. I mean, the first thing, to counter what we talked about, is not trusting and not releasing. And so, I like to call this, like, the control. I call it control freaks. And so, there’s some control freakism. There’s this control freak part of us who wants to have control of the work, and there are many reasons people have a hard time releasing work and just trusting others to do work, and they’re valid. It’s like, “Oh, maybe I’ve tried to before. I got burned. It can’t be done.” Instead of thinking, “Well, maybe it was just that person,” or, “Maybe I didn’t teach it right.” They just assume, “I did it once before, forget it, it doesn’t work,” instead of thinking they can try it again.
Or they think, which this comes up interestingly often, “This is real drudgery work, and I don’t like this work, and I feel bad asking anybody to do this.” This is such drudgery work.” I just had a leader two weeks ago say, “I hate this, and I would never ask anybody else to do it.” I’m like, “No, no, no. There are people who love the work you don’t like.” Like, there are people who love. You will find somebody who that thing you dislike you don’t have to feel bad delegating it. They actually really like and enjoy it. That’s their gifting, and so there’s great balance there. So, that could be one of the reasons.
And then part of it is you think, like, “I can do it better, faster, and quicker. It’s easier and quicker for me to just do it myself than to delegate it and teach somebody else to do it.” And that is true for, like, a week. So, it may be quicker for you to do a bunch of 10-minute tasks now, but as your business grows, those 10-minute tasks compound. Then the next thing you know, you have ten 10-minute tasks, and you’re spending two hours a day doing tasks. It compounds. But what could’ve happened is you could’ve taken, let’s say, tops, an hour to teach a 10-minute task. And I’m saying an hour because I’m going to say you taught it for 10 minutes, they tried it, you didn’t like it, you gave feedback, they tried it again, you finalized one more feedback loop, you nailed it.
Maybe that took an hour or two for that one 10-minute task. So, it took you an hour to offload a 10-minute task you will never have to do again. And then if you did that with 20 tasks, the amount of hours you’d get back in your days is insurmountable. And then if you take the math and you put dollars to it, that is an entirely new conversation we can have about how much money you will actually save.
Brad Johnson: That’s exactly where my head was going. Well, how do…
Tricia Sciortino: Because your hourly rate versus their hourly rate, I mean, that is very easy math.
Brad Johnson: Well, you’re a prime example. Your hourly rate when you first started as a fractional assistant, compared to today. Here’s what you’ve done well. You have continued to spend your time in places that are more valuable to the companies you serve. If you did not do that, you would not be where you are. So, now, if you kept doing the same tasks you were doing year one Tricia was at Belay, there’s no way in the world you would be a CEO. And so, as a founder, as a leader, as the team grows, your time must become more valuable. And if your time is $500 an hour, $1,000, $5,000 an hour based on your revenue of your company, and you’re doing $50 an hour work, like checking your email, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would you keep doing that? But people do. It’s wild.
Tricia Sciortino: Great. Yeah, it’s wild. And what happens is people do low-level work. Sometimes they do it because, honestly, it can feel very good to check a task box.
Brad Johnson: Yes, like a reward like, “I did this thing.”
Tricia Sciortino: “Whoo, done.” Because a lot of, like you said earlier, leadership is hard, running a business is hard, and there are so many parts of the job that are actually really hard. What’s easy is booking a trip, submitting an expense report, and replying that can be, you’re like, “Whoo, I’m going to do some easy work right now.”
Brad Johnson: Got so much done today. I checked three things off.
Tricia Sciortino: Look at all these things I did. Those were easy. But there are all these hard things. So, sometimes it feels good to do the easy thing, but it’s not the right thing for the business. The right thing for the business is actually to do more hard things. That’s just how this goes, people. So, we do more hard things as we grow. And so, if you’re ignoring the hard thing because you prefer to do the easy thing, you’re going to wind up in a pickle. You’ll see businesses start stalling. Sometimes, I will talk to business owners. They’re like, “Oh, I can’t get past this, like, 2 million in revenue.” And I’ll, “Talk to me about your team. Who’s running the business with you?” “Well, I have people out in the field.”
And I’m like, “Do you have a COO, an EA? Like, who’s running the back office? Like, who’s doing your accounting, your books, your invoicing? Like, who’s doing all this?” It’s like, “Me.” I’m like, “You’re not a business owner. You’re an executive assistant.”
Brad Johnson: Hey, real quick, we’re going to do, for those of you watching out on YouTube or listening on audio, here’s a really quick quiz for you, and I see this a lot in finance, which is why I’m so glad we’re doing this episode. Hope we can help some people. Are you checking your own email and answering all your emails? If yes, you need an EA. Are you booking all your flights and travel? If yes, you need an EA. Are you doing all your bookkeeping and expense reports? If yes, you need an EA. So, those are three very common ones I see all the time in finance, which is why I’m on this mission. I’m on a soapbox right now. The number one missing role in finance is a highly qualified assistant, whether that’s assistant, executive assistant, there’s levels to it.
Actually, that’d be a great question for you, Tricia. What’s the difference between an assistant, an executive assistant, chief of staff? How do you start to define those levels of assistant?
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah, and I would even say client services assistant for the financial industry.
Brad Johnson: Okay. Yeah, give us your like how that would lay out.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. I view it as a series of very similar and different types of staff you can bring on board. So, an assistant is, for us, the headliner of all the different types of role, types that would sit underneath an assistant umbrella. Underneath an assistant umbrella, you can have an executive assistant, a senior executive assistant, a client services assistant. We have marketing assistants. You could have sales assistants, operations assistants, multiple types of assistants, depending on what your business is, what your role is, what your need is. All those things exist underneath the assistant umbrella for Belay. I think if you’re out in the world and you’re looking at assistants, you have to be careful that you’re looking at apples to apples.
Because sometimes an assistant can be offshore, nearshore, a bot, AI. You really have to do your research, like what are you getting here? So, that’s the first thing I would say. We are, at our core, we use the assistant language, but we are at our core executive assistants. So, when we started our business, we knew that the quality of the assistant for us was going to be the thing that we leaned very heavily on. We did not want to be low-level doers, taskers. There are companies out there that you can do easy tasking can get done. We really wanted to go up a notch and say, “No, no, we are executive assistants. We are a partner to executives and business owners. These are people who have executive skillsets, have prior great experience, and are people you can give complex things to, not just easy finish this task to.” So, that was very specific.
Brad Johnson: May I dig in on that?
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: Because you mentioned the inflow of the 6,000 to 10,000. Like, you don’t have to go super deep, but what are some of your filtering to say, “Okay, not everybody is qualified to be a Belay assistant”? What’s some of your filtering as you filter through that?
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. I mean, we filter through and only hire about 1% to 2% of those 6,000 in any given month because, well, number one, we’re blessed to have the opportunity to filter in that way. But we have a talent acquisition team whose job it is to filter those resumes and pick the best, the cream of the crop, the top 1% of that grouping, so that we have them available for our clients to place with them. But our filtering system is very, it’s pretty robust. We kind of tease and say it’s almost as hard to get into Belay as it is to get into Harvard. Our acceptance rate is equally as challenging. So, you go through a few different skills assessment tests. In the initial application, there are things that are immediate knockouts that we’re looking for.
You know, grammar, how does the resume look? Is there a cover letter? Like, professionalism screen one. Some people think you can be an executive assistant, like, as a side hustle. And you can at other companies. It can be your night and weekend job, maybe somewhere else, but that is not what Belay does. So, we are not a side hustle company. This is like we are main business operating hours executive assistants. We’re your nine-to-fivers or whatever your job is. And so, the side hustle people immediately booted out. When you kind of get through initial vetting, you’re down to, like, 50% of that pool. Then that whole pool is running through an actual multiple skills assessment testing that they have to do, and they’re graded.
Open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, what-if questions they’re graded. You have to get a certain score to pass. If you pass 85% or higher, you go into a one-way video interview where now you’re sending…
Brad Johnson: Wow. This is intense.
Tricia Sciortino: It’s intense. You’re sending us a one-way video. You have to on the spot answer three to four questions about how you would handle client work, and it helps us vet, like, how do you look, how are you presenting yourself, how do you articulate, how do you solve problems on the fly? And then and only then, if you pass all those things, will you have an interview with somebody on our team, who will then ask you interview questions. Tell me about a time, let’s walk through your resume. And then if we think you’ve done great on the final interview, we will extend you a contract to come be part of Belay, and then you will sit on a bench.
We will wait for the perfect client to come on, and then there’s another final interview that you have to go through to make sure you’re the right assistant for the client. So, you’re actually doing, you’re interviewing to get into Belay, but then you have to interview for the client.
Brad Johnson: Interview to get the job. Yeah.
Tricia Sciortino: Because the match is, to us, the most important part. It matters we have the right people to source, but then the client, every client is unique. Like I said, there are all different types of assistants. Is it heavy operations? Is it more sales-focused? Is it typical executive assistant representing the client, EA focused? Like, what is needed here? Then we look for the right person. We interview that person to make sure we got it right. Sometimes it’s not, and we interview a few assistants for you, and we get the right exact one. And we say, “This is the one for you.”
Brad Johnson: Well, on that last one, I know Michael Hyatt, and you just growing up in his system, he’s never met a personal assessment test he doesn’t like. That’s probably part of his onboarding. But it feels almost, and I don’t know if you guys do, like, KOLBE, Enneagram, any of that stuff, but Brooke is my perfect complement. I’m a 7, high energy, lots of ideas, fear of missing out, overbooking, natural tendencies. Sound familiar? Brooke’s an Enneagram 1. Well, 2, wing 1, I should say. And so, helper, highly organized, highly structured, loves a list. Exactly what I need. And so, I’m just curious how much of the personal assessment stuff comes into it, or is it just you’ve been doing it long enough, you kind of know how to create complements there?
Tricia Sciortino: That’s a great question. Yeah, currently, we use Predictive Index. And so, what we’ve created an ideal Predictive Index model based off of our top executive assistants, and then we use that model to run all the candidates against. And if somebody was within a window of 10% of, like, this ideal match, they will be considered a potential good match going forward. In the past, we’ve used DiSC way back when. DiSC was one we used in the beginning. We’ve used Enneagram for a while. We’ve been using Predictive Index for a couple of years now, and that’s been really helpful. And then we have a client success consultant team here. That team’s job is to make that match.
And so, that person is responsible for understanding the client need, doing the deep discovery, knowing the assistants, and putting the two together. So, that team is trained, and their only focus here is to make sure, like, that match is right, that introduction is made, these two people, this goes right for them, and then we follow along through the journey to make sure, like, there is success here. So, that team is really in tune with, which you know this, soft skills crush hard skills every day. And so, the soft skill is highly evaluated here at Belay because we know most hard skills, within reason, can be taught. And there are a lot of times we will place an EA with a client, and the client maybe said, “I need them. They have to know how to use Salesforce.”
And we may find the ideal EA that does not know how to use Salesforce, but they used HubSpot before, close enough. We feel like they’re smart. They can figure it out. And so, we will say, “I know she does not know Salesforce, but she’s got the right soft skills. She’s resourceful. She can learn Salesforce.” And that is just something we lean into. The soft skills really do matter.
Brad Johnson: It goes back to what you said, I mean, look back in the day, did you know CRMs? Nope. But you were a problem-solver that was going to figure it out because you’re an A player. So, I feel like you hire an A player. Soft skills are the hardest to retrain. Oftentimes, it’s just kind of wired into us. But yeah, anybody can learn, I mean, like you said, Claude, YouTube. If you have the desire, it’s easy to learn the stuff. So, couldn’t agree more. Okay. I kind of stopped you midway through your answer, took you down the rabbit trail, but back to the different types of assistants. It sounds like kind of where you’re trending for most, let’s just say, people like me in finance, teams from the size of three to five up to 50, 60, probably were trending in the direction of an executive assistant for a founder, would be kind of what you’re thinking?
Tricia Sciortino: Yes. I would say executive assistant. We actually have a, which we’re really excited about, we’ve launched kind of two new assistant types in the last year. We have a financial assistant. And we also have a client services assistant for RIAs. So, those two roles, the reason they’re different is they come through the pipeline. They have all of our assistant qualities. They pass all those rigorous things. However, they do have industry knowledge that is specific for those two things, because we actually believe, just like you, the financial industry and financial people really could use the help, and it would actually be really helpful if that person had financial acumen. And so, we are testing for assistants now that do have financial acumen, and they go through some financial testing.
And we’re also looking for some client services assistants for RIAs who have used certain technologies and tools that RIAs might need and use, so that they can have a starting point to help them to get onboarded. So, we currently have a, if you will, a new product, a new offer, a new role, that are those two that have been our highest attention products right now. So, we’re really excited about what’s possible and how we can help the industry, because we just did some fake math earlier. The win here, the ROI here is so high, for somebody who is in the financial industry to just really remove some of that administrative tasks and can really focus on the client work.
Brad Johnson: Well, here’s a real-life story. Probably 10 years ago now, one of my highest growth firms, a firm I was working with out of Boston, just south of Boston, they had their biggest year ever the prior year. This was three founders. Team of maybe 15 at the time. They’d done 60 million of new assets that last year, which is a great year. Many firms will never touch that. So, we’re doing a little year-end goal setting, looking at the next year’s strategic planning, and I said, “Hey, guys, what are your goals going into next year?” Like, “Yeah, we think we’re going to try to shoot for 50.” I’m like, “I’m no wizard here, but I don’t see a lot of goals that are a step back. Help me understand.”
And they said, “We’re not going to sacrifice what we sacrificed last year to do higher numbers this year,” which was they were all dads, all husbands, missed a lot of ballgames, missed a lot of family dinners because they did not have the service. They had bringing on a bunch of new clients, but they were the service. So, bring on the new ones and take care of the ones that are already here. As you know, the calendar gets full and half the calendar is just helping the people that are already there. So, the next year or two, we build out their service team. Guess what? They’re over $2 billion of assets now, a decade later. But without that service aspect, they would’ve been stuck and miserable at the same time.
And so, after this interview, Tricia, we probably need to go circle for Triad because we’re building an RIA very quickly. There’s a lot of need for service there. But what are some of the vetting for the, what I would say, financial services side? Are these, like, Series 65 licensed? Is it that deep? Are they licensed? Or what sort of metrics are you looking at there?
Tricia Sciortino: No. Pre-licensed, but we’re vetting for the fact that they currently are a client services assistant, so they currently are working in an RIA firm as an assistant or some type of financial organization where they actually have prior experience. And we’re also vetting for certain tools that we know RIAs are using that they would need to have to know. I don’t have those tools at the top of my head.
Brad Johnson: Probably like an Orion, eMoney, like, financial planning softwares.
Tricia Sciortino: Yes, yes, yes. And then we have, like, a job description, which I can even share with you and you can share with your audience.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, please. After this, shoot it over. Yeah.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. We have a job description. It’s like, “Oh, this is what this role can do for you,” because part of it is the things we talked about, like your own personal email responding and booking travel and expense reporting. But some of it is like client-facing communication. So, setting client appointments, “Oh, my client’s up for his quarterly review.” She’s checking the calendar to see, “Oh, Bob Smith, it’s been two months. Let me schedule him for next month.” Like, reaching out, helping keeping your clients on the schedule, making sure you’re doing all your responding. When you’re onboarding new clients and collecting data and information, and there’s a lag, like your CSA can, like, be reaching out to the client and say, “Hey, can I help you upload these documents? Where can I help you along?”
Really helping you onboard your clientele, stay in top communication with your clientele, and make sure you’re scheduled as needed with all of your clients, and then prepared for any client meetings. Like, “Hey, here’s your debrief before your meeting with Bob. You haven’t spoken to him in two months, FYI.” Like, all that can be prepared for you.
Brad Johnson: Pull what you need out of the CRM, a little one-page brief. Yeah.
Tricia Sciortino: Yep, work in the CRM, load notes in the CRM, pull from the CRM so I have a debrief so I’m prepared to go into meetings, and make sure that everybody’s getting my attention so that you’re giving a great client experience. So, they’re really helping you give a good client experience. But all that time you’re getting back, doing all those things, you’re out building your book. You’re out looking for your next clients.
Brad Johnson: Well, here’s what I’ve found, that same firm I just shared the story of. So, I think most advisory firms, they think marketing, sales, rinse, repeat, right? Like, I’m going to go do the public event. We’re going to book some appointments. Hopefully, we get those to come into the office, bring the right ones on, revenue comes in, do more of that, do more revenue. Here’s what we’ve found. Part of what gets in the way, you make a promise on the front end, you say, “I’m going to build this financial plan.” How do you fulfill that promise on the back-end operations? What we found, the firms that do world-class planning consistently, on time, with great communication all along the way, a lot of the service stuff you just mentioned.
The flywheel that the advisor thinks is on the front end, market, sell, market, sell, is actually on the back end. Sell, fulfill promise, sell, fulfill promise. And so, you’re building trust to where they’re like, yeah, their friend’s like, “I haven’t heard from my advisor in a year.” And they’re like, “Oh, well, we just had our check-in. We had the email over with all the details that we’re on track. And by the way, they’re doing a wine tasting next month, I can bring a friend to. You want to come check it out?” And now, that’s a revenue-producing role in the firm, because it’s actually bringing the referrals in on the other side, and because you’re actually doing the work you’re promising. And so, that’s the longer game, but it’s the highly more profitable game, because marketing’s expensive.
Tricia Sciortino: Yeah. Well, keeping clients is the most important revenue any of us have. And so, we use the same mindset inside Belay that you would use in your business, right? Like, we market and sell and market and sell and bring a client on. Well, if we don’t exceed expectations, deliver on the promise, and have an excellent operating model so that you have a great experience with your assistant, then if we lose you on the backside, we just have to market and sell to fill a leaking bucket. You’re not getting traction.
Brad Johnson: And make sure Brad’s not out there talking trash because it was a bad experience, which by the way, I don’t do. And nor would I because Belay’s been incredible.
Tricia Sciortino: Thank you. But brand promise, brand promise matters, and reputation. I tell my team all the time that that client success team, the most important thing they do is deliver on the promise we are making in the market.
Brad Johnson: One thing that I didn’t share, the beginning of my Belay journey. Brooke was not the first assistant assigned to me. And so, what I love is, guess what? Things don’t always work perfectly. It’s business. There’s no perfect formula here. My other assistant, I think it was two weeks in, super nice lady. I think she had a personal thing come up. I don’t know all the details. But basically, your team reached out, I think the same team. Client success team, “Hey, Brad. Unfortunately, such and such, she’s not going to be able to be…” Maybe I just sucked to work for. That could have been the truth, too.
Tricia Sciortino: I just don’t think so, Brad.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. But they’re like, “We’re already on it. We think we found you a good next candidate. Her name is Brooke.” And here I am, five and a half years later. Number one, it was seamless to replace. My team did not have to go out, do another job post, do another interview, start over from scratch. Your team did it. You already had the qualified candidate pool ready. It was an easy switch. Thank God it happened, because Brooke has been such a blessing. And you just made it the hard stuff easy, that like any great business, see where the constraints are, figure out a system to make it easy to serve your clients. It just works. So, you all are easy to brag on, because you all have impacted our business here so much. And I tell Brooke this a lot, but so grateful she’s here.
Tricia Sciortino: Thank you. Yeah, we know that life happens, and sometimes there will be bumps in the road, and people are not perfect. And so, we very early on created a very seamless process with which, if we have to transition services from an EA to another EA for a multitude of reasons, like you, that has to be painless for our client. And so, we’ve tried so hard to make that so smooth and easy, because life happens. And so, I’m glad you brought it up, and I’m glad you had a smooth experience. That is our goal.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, I know we’re at time here. I feel like we could keep riffing for quite a while here, Tricia. This has been really fun. Thanks for sharing. I love your journey, starting as an assistant all the way to CEO. Any parting advice before I hit you with the last question for today?
Tricia Sciortino: Ooh, we have a surprise question.
Brad Johnson: Just in regards to assistants, CEO advice, what do you got?
Tricia Sciortino: I would say if you’re thinking you should consider hiring somebody, the answer is probably yes. Like, no business thrives with one person behind the helm by themselves. Get help. Hire somebody to go along the journey with you. Get yourself a great partner, and go grow your business, have an awesome career, and a great life.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. Life’s too short not to.
Tricia Sciortino: Yes.
Brad Johnson: All right, final question. This is the Do Business Do Life Show, and how we define that at Triad is build a business that blesses your life, that doesn’t become your life. Also, work with people in your business that you actually want to do life with, so it kind of has a dual meaning here. I’m curious to hear what is Tricia’s definition of do business do life?
Tricia Sciortino: My definition of do business, do life would be that I don’t work. I don’t live to work. I work to live. And so, work is part of my life. It is not my whole life. And having a full life is the most important part for me. But having a successful career that has great boundaries allows me to have a great fulfilling life. And so, I like to call myself the 40-hour CEO, and I stand behind that. I work 9:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday. Will not work nights and weekends. Our company does nine figures a year, because I believe in delegating and living your life.
Brad Johnson: I love having a model at the top that you then, I heard you say it earlier with your CFO, “I don’t want a 7:00 PM email.” I love that you’re living it as a model, and then you want it for your team as well.
Tricia Sciortino: Thank you.
Brad Johnson: That’s leadership.
Tricia Sciortino: Thank you.
Brad Johnson: Well, it’s been an awesome conversation. Tricia, it’s so nice to finally meet you. Your reputation preceded you. Maybe we met, like, a decade and a half ago over email, but have an awesome day today. Look forward to when we get to actually connect in person sometime, and thanks for all the wisdom you shared today. I know it’s going to impact a lot of advisors out there.
Tricia Sciortino: Thank you so much. I loved the conversation, and we for certainly have to make sure our paths cross.
Brad Johnson: All right. Next trip to Florida, I’ll have to look you up.
Tricia Sciortino: Yes, please do.
Brad Johnson: All right. Until next time. We’ll see ya.
Tricia Sciortino: Bye.
