Ep. 31 Behind the Front Desk w/ Annie Croner

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Admin Spotlight behind the Front Desk. In each episode, we take time to chat with an administrative professional, share personal stories, professional journeys, and get thoughts from those of us who work tirelessly behind the scenes. The Admin Spotlight behind the Front Desk is sponsored by vast. VAST is today's executive assistance choice for productivity software, giving the EA the ability to supercharge their communication and workflow, become a vastly more effective assistant today.

Speaker C: Hello, my m fellow administrative professionals. Thank you for tuning in to the Admin Spotlight behind the Front Desk. I'm your host, Molly Denham, and I am so happy to have you joining us today because today is going to be a great episode because we have the amazing Annie Croner with us here today. Thank you so much for, uh, coming to the Admin spotlight, Annie.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me, Molly. I know it's been a long time coming, a lot of back and forth, and I think with busy schedules that's just how it goes sometimes. But I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker C: Oh, well, I am very excited to have you. So for those who are not familiar with Annie, she is an executive assistant coach, trainer and strategic thinker. She loves to help her clients unlock their badassery and revolutionize their career. Over her 20, uh, 20 year career as an executive assistant, Annie worked for boutique companies across multiple industries, including accounting, marketing, nonprofit and private wealth management. Working in a variety of settings has led to a diverse understanding of the assistant role and the many challenges that often come with it. Annie is passionate about helping those in support roles show up more strategically and garner the respect of executives, colleagues and key stakeholders without sacrificing their mental health and well being. Like you said, Annie, it has been a little while of us trying to manage all of our schedules to get this together, but I'm so excited to have you here with us today.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I could talk about all things admin all day long. I think it's one of those topics that I'm super passionate about. Right.

Speaker C: You and me both. I'm not sure how we're going to pack this all in 30 minutes, but I'm going to give it a college try. So I gave a very quick overview, um, of your amazing bio, but we're going to want to dig a little bit deeper and learn more about you and where you started. Can you walk us through your admin journey and tell us how you became an admin professional and then how you turned that knowledge and skill into being a Coach and trainer.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I think like many of us, my path is winding. I don't think that we set out to be admins. I think that we fall into it or we discover it in really cool ways. And, and um, I did admin work to pay the bills all through college along with waiting tables and whatnot. And then after college I moved to Boston and got a job as a receptionist at ah, a consulting firm, um, in the North End and loved that work. And I saw my boss, my supervisor who was the EA to the CEO. I saw her relationship with her executive and I, I admired it. I mean she could keep him in line and he, he totally respected her and she totally respected him. She had his back and they had a very direct communication style which also is attractive to me. I'm like, wow, okay. She can just lay it down and let him know how it is and let him know like where he needs to be and what he needs to be doing and what he needs to be focusing on. And, and uh, I just love their dynamic. And I at that point was like, that's what I want. And I studied theater in college. At that point I was like, I don't want to be in a theater all night and then, you know, have a partner who works all day. It just wasn't worth it to me, the sacrifice of it all. And I studied theater design specifically so I was really looking for something that I could do long term. Even though I had done admin roles in college, I just really appreciated that dynamic with my supervisor and her executive. And I was like, I'm going to make choices to get me there.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And so that's basically what I did. Um, I spent the last seven years of my 20 year career supporting high net worth people in the venture capital and family office spaces. And I loved every minute of it. My last role, I was also a personal assistant in addition to being an executive assistant. And there wasn't a part of that gentleman's life that I didn't touch, but I loved it. And when you're with somebody that you really jive with.

Speaker C: Mhm. Mm.

Speaker A: It can be so fulfilling. And there again, I had that respect piece in place. He respected me and I respected him and I was able to point out blind spots and whatnot. And then coaching just happened as a natural progression. I hired a coach for myself, um, as I was pregnant with my first child and I wasn't sure how I was going to manage all the things and so much of my identity was wrapped up in work.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And So I was like, okay, well, how am I going to make this work with a whole other human to look out for and think about? And so I hired a coach and then had my baby in December of 2019, and then we went on lockdown in 2020. And so my coach saw me all through that season and like, this is it. I need to become a coach to help other administrative professionals navigate circumstances. And I just am so passionate about helping people level up without burning out.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I love, I call it the sweet spot. Right when you get, when you get to that certain level with you and your executive. So I've been with an individual, um, you know, military is my background. And so we worked together in the military. I was his assistant during the military. And then he retired. And still we've been together almost 20 years now, um, the two of us. And I told him, I said, I am like a barnacle on a boat. You're just not getting at this point. It's such a great dynamic when you find just the right person, but you have to find that just the right person, which isn't always easy.

Speaker A: You so do. And, and also, like, I had an extreme story of burnout. So I was working as EA to the CEO of an accounting firm. This was several years ago. I was only in my mid to late 20s. And, um, I had a stroke at the office.

Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the reason for that was I was living in a place that felt like I was swimming upstream. I was kind of in an unhealthy relationship at the time. I was working 60 plus hour weeks. And I thought that by making everyone around me happy, that that would somehow make me happy. And then, um, with that stroke, my life kind of everything burnt to the ground.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I lost that relationship and I lost my job and like, had to rebuild and had to re. Had to redo things. But with that came a rebuilding with intention. And I think so often we override that inner voice and we aren't paying attention to what we need as a human first, which is why my brand is called the Whole Assistant, because I really want to come alongside and support the whole person on their journey. Um, and we tend to put other people first, which can be a beautiful thing. And there is like, the shadow side, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So as a, as a coach for then, for our, our profession, do you often find that one of the main things that kind of holds us back is that. Is that inner voice? Because we're often service oriented. Right. Like you said, we, we like to help others before we help ourselves. And so is, is that what you see as often hold somebody back, or is it more external and has to do with the perceptions of the administrative field or the perceived value or lack thereof for some people, um, what do you find is one of them the prevailing hurdles to individual success as an admin professional?

Speaker A: I think it's actually both, Molly. I think there's a level of people not understanding the role of a, uh, support professional or what it is we spend our time doing every day. I always say that nobody understands the role like another executive assistant or like another admin or support professional. That's definitely a piece of the puzzle. But I always encourage my clients to uncover their roadblocks first because that's, um, the thing we can control. And oftentimes when I'm working one on one with clients, I just was noticing similar questions being asked around boundaries and being asked around like, but how do you set boundaries in those roles when it's literally our job to like, make everyone lives, everyone's life easier around us? What does that look like? And unfortunately, the answer is different for everyone because, because values come into play. Your boundaries have to be based off of your values, and they also have to be based on where you're at in life. So before I had my kids, I didn't mind working 24 7. It did not bother me to work all the time, and a large part of my identity was wrapped up in that. And then when I had my babies, it was like, I can't. I logistically can't because I've got to go home and take care of kids. And so that was a huge value shift for me that then altered my boundaries. So part of it is like staying in touch with yourself and knowing those pieces. And I think another kind of hurdle that I see a lot of is the failure to use your voice and the failure to actually ask the question and the failure to actually advocate for yourself, whether it be for a salary increase, whether it be for a title change, whether it be for a more integrated work life integration, a more balanced work life integration. Um, we don't ask the question because we assume the answer is no when that's not actually accurate or fair to our employers. And so because it's going to be awkward for us to actually ask, what we're doing is we're failing in advance by not actually having that conversation. So I'm constantly advocating for people to ask first and then assess afterwards. So if you ask and the answer is no, then we can assess from here. Is this going to be a deal breaker for me? Do I need to look for work elsewhere or is this something that is livable? Because I don't believe there's 100% aligned expectations with any role. I think, I think everyone has different ideas and so really it's a matter of figuring out like what your values are and kind of aligning your career to those values and using your voice to advocate for that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I, I also encourage a lot of admin folks that I talk with because they, they seem to um, adopt that less than value that's often placed upon us. And then you know, so they're, they're not hesitant to go in and ask for things because they don, believe that, that they deserve them, but they have this whole less often this less than um, thought that kind of runs through their head or you know, voice that they hear. And so I, I, I don't think we can say it enough to people. You are valuable. You would not have been hired if you were not valuable to the team. Um, and so just, I love the message of um, being you know, honest with yourself and your values and just going out and asking for what you want. If you don't ask, they're not certainly gonna offer and volunteer very often.

Speaker A: No, certainly not. Certainly not. And nobody can read your mind. You know, that's the other piece. I think there is something that I want to name here and I think that sometimes when we're in a room full of high level thinkers, we can feel less than and we're like, why am I even here? Why am I in this room right now? And you're in the room precisely because you are the weird, precisely because you are the boots on the ground. Precisely because you're going to bring in different vantage point. I often say that executive support professionals are the bridge between their executive and organization and that uh, people will come and complain to you or they won't to your executive

Speaker C: and people softer, easier approach than sometimes your executive is.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So you're going to have a deeper understanding of the organization and a different understanding than even your executive does. And that is such a beautiful thing also for the team too, too. You're going to have an understanding of what's on your executive's plate and how to convey certain messages. And um, I love the idea of actually coaching the team on how best to interact with your executive or say they want to approach your executive and your executives having an off day like not today, you know, like we're the intermediary between and that's Such a powerful place to be. Is a powerful place to be culturally and that we are going to keep the company culture. We get to decide what passes over the bridge. We get to decide what dies with us. We get to decide or discern what is just complaining and what can be valuable information down the road. And not that we want to sell our executives out, or not that we want to sell our colleagues out, but that's a really unique place to be.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Like an executive ops. So I love this idea of embracing the weirdness that we are because we offer such a unique perspective and actually using our voice and advocating in those spaces for the team or pointing out different dynamics that the team, the executive team may not be aware of. Right. Such a, such a cool place to be.

Speaker C: It truly is. And so, um, I love getting to talk to all of these different admin professionals through this podcast. And one of the things that I ask a lot of folks is about their passion because everybody got a passion that comes onto this. And you um, are no doubt passionate about this field. I mean you're, you've got the whole assistance like you said, you know, you, you had your podcast, you are a very vocal, very public, um, person in the admin profession. So what is it that you love about this field that not, not just gets, keeps you going as a career, but you go one step further, sometimes even two steps further than what most folks do, um, to be a public advocate. What is it that is about this field that just reels you in and uh, and pushes you to do that every day?

Speaker A: I think it's working with people who genuinely want to serve and support. It's who genuinely like have other people's backs in a way that even the executives can understand or appreciate a lot of the time because they don't know what we keep from landing on their plates. And, and I love, I love to highlight the impact for my clients because oftentimes what comes naturally to us, we just assume comes naturally to other people. But that's not actually accurate. I spent the last seven years supporting high net worth people. I gotta say. Common sense, not that common. Right. And yet we downplay what comes naturally to us. So I really like to highlight for my clients, hey, you seem to be really strong or passionate about this. I just want to highlight that for you because it's not with everybody. Not even all admins like to do events or not even all admins like to do executive ops or not even all admin like to do a certain aspect of the role. So I think, I think that's what I love is like really tapping into individual strengths and highlighting that for my clients because not many people will or not many people are going to know how to point those things out or to harness them. So I love, I mean, the people are just amazing. Admins are just amazing. I love, I mean, I love them so much. Obviously I'm doing what I do because I absolutely love what I do and I love supporting admins and admin teams and stuff like that. But that's why the people are just amazing.

Speaker C: Right? It's one of the things that I love about this field. And so, Annie, I am so thankful for your honesty and for all of these insights and I'm really excited to dig into your thoughts, um, about the career field as a whole. But before we do that, we need to pause for just a moment and recognize our amazing sponsor, Vast, for all they do for the admin community. Please stick with us. We are about to jump into the future of the admin field and get Annie's thoughts about where our career field is headed. So stick with us.

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Speaker C: Foreign. Welcome back to the Admin Spotlight behind the Front desk. I'm your host, Molly Denham and I am here with our amazing guest, Annie Kroner. Annie is the CEO of uh, the whole assistant and is not only an amazing advocate for our field, she has been a great public face for our community with a no nonsense approach that I absolutely love to helping the admin professional embrace their role and their career trajectories. So with all of the experience and knowledge that you've collected over the years, you've had a great opportunity to not just pick the brains of our community members as a coach and a trainer, but you also have unique insight into the business operations and the executive landscape that we see evolving, um, here in real time. And so with all of that swirling around in that brain of yours, what do you see as the biggest challenge we as a career field are staring down and what can we possibly do to help, ah, approach that challenge and maybe shape a better path forward for our career?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's letting go of old stereotypes is probably the biggest thing as a community. Both internalized stereotypes and external stereotypes that we see that we bump up against. I think that more is being required of us as administrative professionals. We are being sought after as more strategic business partners. A lot of the time not every role is going to be strategic in nature and that's okay. Um, when I'm coaching a client and I see a lot of this on LinkedIn, a lot of talk about chief of staff and strategic partnering and that sort of thing and yada yada, I think that there's a role that's unique out there for us all based on what you actually want to spend your time doing. So if you don't mind spending your time calendaring and doing all the things tactical, that's great. Lean into that. If you want to be more strategic business partner, that's uh, that is also great. So it's just a matter of figuring out that piece of where you fit into the landscape. But I will say that what I'm seeing is a large misunderstanding of the role of executive assistant. And especially in its more evolved state nowadays, AI and I do think that AI is going to replace a lot of the function of our roles. So now it's like, okay, what other value can we add? How do we improve our value proposition? How can we leverage these tools instead of be afraid of them. How do we know how to leverage these tools? And that conversation is exciting, and it's also challenging at the same time, especially for those of us who have been doing this work for a long time or really don't want to embrace AI we're like, we know what we do and we know what we bring to the organization. And, and those are the conversations that we're having a lot. And I think even this whole idea that you need to become a chief of staff to be more strategic is something that I reject. I think that we can all show up strategically for ourselves first and for how we're choosing to honor our time every day and that sort of thing. And that, uh, in and of itself is something that often gets overlooked.

Speaker C: Yeah. And the thing with AI, uh, is it's still in its infancy, so we as an admin community, we don't know what it's going to do to our future. We're still just trying to learn it just like everybody else. And so I think we have to give ourselves a little bit of grace and say, look, I'm not the AI expert. Um, and we can't be expected to. However, I do believe that you've got to see the writing on the wall. It's coming. So start, start learning it and start figuring it out and seeing how it can be placed in the future or looking at the possibilities anyways. Um, and at least, you know, maybe not having 100% solution, but at least start looking at it, um, and planning for it as best you can.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think different companies have different policies around different tools and whatnot. You know, I'm a huge fan of process first, like get your processes down first, get your procedural guidelines down first, get your standard operating procedures on paper so, so you can communicate those in the event that you have to step away from work or you have a huge life event, like I did back with my stroke. It would have been nice to have had documentation to pass off to somebody to be able to take over the role. You know, it's just a matter of figuring out how to show up better for ourselves first. And there again, obviously, I'm about the assistant and my brand, the whole assistant. I'm very much about supporting them and their, in their work first. And of course we want to support our executives and teams and all of that also. But I think one way in which we lead the way is by being our own guinea pig with some of these things.

Speaker C: I have a lot of stuff like Offline, I'm like, I try it out. I'm like, oh, that didn't work. Me too, Me too.

Speaker A: I'm constantly troubleshooting tools because someone will bring a tool to me. Like, I'll give it a go. I'll go play with them. Like, not, uh, for me. Next tool for sure.

Speaker C: Yeah. So as a, as a trainer and a coach, I'm sure education obviously is a big task item for you, and education for the admin profession is something that, that I'm very passionate about and I've stated it on this show before, and those who have listened to, to some of the things that I've said and written, um, I believe that we don't have a very good foundational identity as a career field. I, um, believe we need to standardize and define what our roles and responsibilities are. And then this means we have to identify our core competencies in our field. Those, those functional areas that bind all administrative professionals together and are the foundational business operations that we perform and add value. Um, as a trainer, do you see this, um, do you see this the same way? Or is this an issue that needs to be addressed? And where are the holes in the education of our field and how can we move forward to better position ourselves, um, as the business world evolves and as our place starts to shift?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, Molly, you and I touched on this in a private conversation once, but I do think that, like, standardization is going to be important moving forward. I also think that it is going to be challenging moving forward because every admin role looks different and, and like, every executive wants a different level of support. Every executive wants somebody to come alongside and support them that is unique to them. And so that's the challenge. Right? Like, how do we actually standardize something that is so individualized to the executive? And also how do we name those core competencies? And you know, I know, um, I know that there's been a lot of work, ah, With a couple of different organizations to actually standardize things and to end up and to name core competencies. And this is just going to be an ongoing conversation, but I'm also. I don't know what that looks like, I guess.

Speaker C: Yeah, I don't either.

Speaker A: I think, I think that's the challenge and it's an exciting challenge and it's also, uh, daunting. And so I would just want to say that I admire you for taking that on. I know, I know.

Speaker C: You're a super dream big princess. That's, that's kind of how I Feel?

Speaker A: Um, yeah. Yeah. But I think. I think through that, though, Molly, you'll be able to foster conversations with people to actually get their sense for what core competencies should be. And I think you'll eventually begin to notice trends and themes for sure. So I'm excited to see where that goes for you. Please keep me posted as you kind of unravel this.

Speaker C: Absolutely. That. Annie, I. I knew that our 30 minutes was going to fly by and my links, my lights over here are blinking, telling me that I'm coming close to the end of my time. And I truly appreciate you, like I said, being so forthright and honest with us today. And we, you know, we have hard discussions, I think, in our future to make, and, um, and we can't afford to be blase or tiptoe around the problem, you know, like, you know, like you. We've got to be no nonsense and say, hey, this is. This is really what it is. And, um. And so, you know, before we sign off, though, do you have any last pearls of wisdom or, um, final thoughts that you want to leave with our audience before we close up?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think when it comes to core competencies, when it comes to growth, really always remaining curious, not being so set in your ways or set on an answer that you're not open to exploring other paths or other opportunities or other ways of thinking about things or, um, yeah, other ideas. And a growth mindset is probably the biggest asset as an administrative professional, because you will always be thirsty, you will always remain curious. And that mindset is the best mindset for any professional, but particularly for admins.

Speaker B: Uh.

Speaker C: Oh, I love it. I love it. So, Annie, thank you so much for joining me today and being so thoughtful and candid. It is truly appreciated.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker C: Molly, for those who are not already connected or Following Annie on LinkedIn, I encourage you to fix that today because she is such a great advocate for our field and is a wonderful resource for everyone. And if you are in need, she is the one of the few that I would personally recommend to you. So thanks again for spending time with us today. I truly, truly do appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you too.

Speaker C: Yes, and thank you, my fellow admin professionals, for tuning into the admin spotlight behind the front desk. Please join us next time when we shine the spotlight on another fellow professional and take a walk through their admin journey. We'll see you then.