Episode 20
Behind the Scenes of Biotech: How Executive Assistants Drive Efficiency with Ann Albrecht, Founder & CEO of Ann Albrecht Consulting
This week, we chatted with Ann Albrecht, Founder & CEO at Ann Albrecht Consulting, a virtual executive assistant consulting firm supporting C-level executives in diverse industries, including biotech, venture capital, and strategic marketing. Ann and her team help executives build thriving biotechs by allowing them to focus on their zones of genius while they handle the rest.
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Transcript
We just got to hang out and chat with Anne Albrecht, and
Speaker:she is the founder and CEO of her own consulting firm, and
Speaker:she provides virtual executive assistance for biotechs.
Speaker:Yeah, there's so many things that you don't think of that happen in
Speaker:a biotech. And I think this is a theme we've sort of brought
Speaker:up a few times on a few different episodes now, but this fractional help
Speaker:so that the CEO, the founder, the executives can focus on
Speaker:the things that matter, like the science or getting funding, not
Speaker:booking their travel or worrying about how that board meeting is
Speaker:going to get scheduled. Those are all the things that Anne takes off your plate. And
Speaker:Her model is super interesting too. She has really
Speaker:figured out how to work within the confines of a growing biotech and
Speaker:how to help them scale reasonably. She's also just a delightful
Speaker:person. So much fun to talk to. She has a really cool career journey. I
Speaker:think this is an awesome episode that people are really going to find super interesting
Speaker:and I hope you enjoy. Anne, thank you so much for being
Speaker:here with us today. We are so excited to get to talk to you on
Speaker:building biotechs. And like we always do, we're just going to jump
Speaker:right into it with the first question, which is, what did you want to be when you
Speaker:Thank you for having me on here. This is great. I had to
Speaker:think back because I don't know how many people remember what they wanted
Speaker:to do when they were seven. You know, because that was such a long time ago, depending on
Speaker:what the subject matter was going on in school, like I really wanted to
Speaker:earth sciences. So it was like meteorologist or once
Speaker:I got even older than that, I knew I wanted to travel. So being a flight attendant,
Speaker:how cool would that be to fly everywhere? And obviously I didn't do any of
Speaker:those. So, you know, because who dreams of
Speaker:being, you know, a professional executive assistant for a career? No
Speaker:one, unless they had somebody who was an amazing parent who did that
Speaker:before. I went through various stages. I was big
Speaker:into music, believe it or not, when I was growing up. I was
Speaker:a flautist for about 12 years. When
Speaker:it came to college, I had to decide which direction I wanted to go in.
Speaker:There's tons of flautists out there. So where would
Speaker:I go? I wouldn't get very far, you know, if I had high aspirations. So
Speaker:it's like, well, maybe I can do manage a concert hall or
Speaker:something. So I actually went into management and then said there
Speaker:are too many concert halls. So then I'll maybe I'll go into fundraising. And
Speaker:that was my specialization. And then I did it and I hated it. I ended up
Speaker:saying, well, what's similar? So I changed jobs, went into marketing as
Speaker:an assistant, thinking I could move up the ranks. and
Speaker:tried it out. They gave me for six months when I
Speaker:was at a firm called Digitas. They let me try it out, both
Speaker:as an admin and working on the marketing team. I was good, but I didn't
Speaker:have a passion for it. But I was really good as an assistant. Maybe I
Speaker:should do that. And then that's kind of how I ended up where
Speaker:That's a great story. I love that. And I think that that's so
Speaker:interesting, too, because I feel like people who sometimes we
Speaker:talk to people and they, you know, they knew they wanted to be a scientist or
Speaker:whatever, and that's their path. But people who tend to fall more
Speaker:in that operations role, like myself, were the people who
Speaker:were like, I kind of thought this sounded cool and I kind of thought this sounded cool and
Speaker:I kind of figured it would all come together in some capacity. But I think that makes you
Speaker:like a really nimble thinker, maybe, or maybe really adaptable. So
Speaker:just trying different things in a different industries yeah i think that running joke
Speaker:Nominally a recruiter right that is if you break down what i do
Speaker:on a day to day basis to do a lot of things but one of them is recruit and for a
Speaker:long time that was the main thing i did. Before i was running companies
Speaker:and doing more strategy work who thinks they want to be a recruiter when they grow up. Right?
Speaker:That's another one of those that's like, no, you end
Speaker:up there through a combination of hilarious events
Speaker:and circumstance and whatever your passions ends up being that
Speaker:you follow. I think that the behind the scenes is so important
Speaker:and we don't talk about it enough. And so I think we're really hoping to dig into
Speaker:that with you today and think about, you know, all of the things that you
Speaker:There's a lot. So you're working with a marketing firm and
Speaker:then you made the jump into working with biotechs. So
Speaker:So I've been in various industries, obviously, nonprofit and
Speaker:marketing. When I left there, I worked with
Speaker:Recruiter and they put me in with a
Speaker:an early stage biotech. And as anybody who's
Speaker:been in that field long enough, Even if they've been around for seven years
Speaker:doesn't mean they're gonna stay around for seven more years right it was a
Speaker:fabulous company based mall fam small it
Speaker:was a great environment i work there for a year. Then two
Speaker:thousand eight two thousand nine hit the fundraising nightmares they
Speaker:had some. Interesting data that came out that wasn't helpful kind
Speaker:of it. I wouldn't say it's similar to this environment but you know it
Speaker:makes it harder and they realize that they couldn't couldn't sustain within
Speaker:a month they went belly up right. So then i went from
Speaker:a to children's hospital and then worked with a vc firm
Speaker:after that that was last ten years of my life was working with a
Speaker:venture capital firm who did early stage biotech investing. right,
Speaker:and seeing everything that they did. So all the spaces that I've been
Speaker:in in the past 20 years and my educational background
Speaker:have all kind of steered into that direction. So I clearly
Speaker:know what's required for an assistant. I've been exposed to
Speaker:both the front end and the back end of how a biotech is funded
Speaker:and how it runs. And then also seeing how
Speaker:it's built up by working for You know, I was working at 5 a.m.
Speaker:for 10 years of seeing hands on of how that works.
Speaker:And then when it came to me deciding what I wanted to do
Speaker:next, it was like I had these ideas in my head.
Speaker:Let's go for it. You know, I think there's a huge need for fractional
Speaker:assistance support that for folks that do
Speaker:what I do, who need it on a smaller basis, but also for
Speaker:the biotechs who aren't as lucky. Not everybody's lucky to have these
Speaker:really well-funded VCs helping them out. Because when
Speaker:I was at there, they would hand us out every once in a while to
Speaker:some of these portfolio companies, give them the support. But nobody has that. Not everybody has
Speaker:that, but everybody deserves it because they need it. And so I
Speaker:What are you doing today? Tell us about your company because you are the founder
Speaker:I am, right. So I started it a little over three years ago,
Speaker:just as me. I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go. If
Speaker:I wanted to keep it micro, just be me and have five, six
Speaker:clients and just go from there. But people kept asking
Speaker:me, do you have time? Do you have capacity, can you take on more?
Speaker:So after a year after that, I hired somebody, hired
Speaker:two. Now there's six of us in total. We've
Speaker:had over 25 companies sign on. There's about 15 or
Speaker:16 of them active. And that's where we are right now with some
Speaker:I love that. That sounds a lot. That sounds very similar. I'm feeling deja
Speaker:vu. I'm resonating with that a lot. When I started as
Speaker:a consultancy of one, I felt the same thing. I was like,
Speaker:do I want to grow this? Do I want to just stay? So I
Speaker:know that there was the market pressure to grow that, but also as
Speaker:a, you know, the ability to expand your offerings. You
Speaker:know, what do you now provide to clients that maybe you couldn't when
Speaker:it was just you? You know, how has that expansion enabled you to give
Speaker:The immediate impact is that, call it selfishness, I can take
Speaker:a vacation, right? You know, micro, you can't really take a vacation, have
Speaker:backup. So now, you know, not only do I have backup, but my
Speaker:staff has backup so that if they are supporting clients and
Speaker:they are out, they have backup as well. There's the collective knowledge
Speaker:that all of us have over the 60, 70 years
Speaker:combined experience that we have, so that if one
Speaker:of us gets into a rut, we can reach out to each other to say, hey, do you have
Speaker:any suggestions? And then they would come up with something,
Speaker:so that there's that, which is very valuable.
Speaker:Otherwise, you'd be going off to message boards, you know,
Speaker:that I'm various part of that I could see, like, they're
Speaker:stuck, but they have nobody else to go to. But we have our own internal group
Speaker:I love that. All of that sounds so familiar. And I just think that's a
Speaker:And now does your firm operate? Are you fully remote? Like,
Speaker:are your employees all remote? Do you go into clients? How does that
Speaker:When I started, it was mostly virtual. Sometimes
Speaker:I would call a few of the clients remote only because they were local to where I
Speaker:was. And so if they had something special, I could go out and support
Speaker:them. So at that part was remote. You know, because there's obviously a
Speaker:difference between virtual and remote. Everybody seems to think they're the same, but
Speaker:they're not exactly the same. Now, most of the time it's virtual, except
Speaker:for various occasions where there's a big important board
Speaker:meeting or event that's happening. And then we
Speaker:will send the assistant who's assigned to that client out
Speaker:if needed to help support them on site. Because not everybody is
Speaker:virtual, all our companies. Some of them are completely virtual. Some of
Speaker:them are hybrid. Some of them are all in person. And then in
Speaker:terms of our staff, they're located all across the
Speaker:US. Because we have clients both on the East Coast and West Coast,
Speaker:we had to be considerate of time zones. So we've got a few folks
Speaker:in the East Coast, Central, and not quite West Coast,
Speaker:but out in Hawaii. It was important to make sure that we had
Speaker:people in similar time zones to where the client
Speaker:is, because we mostly support U.S.-based companies. And
Speaker:they're looking for assistants who are actually working in their time zone.
Speaker:So remote and virtual, let's just untangle that
Speaker:a little bit, because I have a feeling I'm one of those people who just uses either
Speaker:term kind of ad hoc. So what's the difference? Can you
Speaker:So when I think of a remote, you're obviously working mostly virtually.
Speaker:But it means that every once in a while, you could go into the office or
Speaker:go to an event with other people from your firm. And so then you're
Speaker:not really virtual anymore. You're just remote. Virtual means that
Speaker:you are never, probably ever going to see them in person. It's all going to
Speaker:be exactly what we're doing right now. It's, you know, over Zooms or
Speaker:phone calls. It's all electronic communication. So
Speaker:I really like that. And I think that's a really critical distinction that I
Speaker:actually don't think has been made abundantly clear, but it makes a lot of sense the way
Speaker:Remote is different than hybrid, too, because hybrid obviously means
Speaker:that you're going to be going into the office or wherever you work. Your
Speaker:folks are co-working space or whatever more than, you know,
Speaker:That makes sense. Let's talk strategy because I
Speaker:love to think about how fractional teams can help biotechs
Speaker:build more intelligently, extend runways, cash
Speaker:runways, and think about using leveraging internal
Speaker:full-time employees better for their actual skill set.
Speaker:So how do you approach that with your clients and what's your messaging around that
Speaker:So no matter how small a company is, they obviously need all
Speaker:the basic functions and support of one way or another. And in terms
Speaker:of assistant support, whether it's executive assistant, administrative
Speaker:assistant, they still need it, but obviously they can't support somebody
Speaker:full-time or even part-time, because part-time implies specific
Speaker:hours of the day each day of the week, right? So what we do,
Speaker:and this usually helps with their budgeting, is we provide support
Speaker:within a reasonable amount of time, and we only
Speaker:charge per hour. So for their budgeting purposes, we
Speaker:don't do the retainer route either. So if it's like a small, if
Speaker:they don't have anything going on, say for the month of October. they don't have to worry
Speaker:about, oh crap, you know, we're paid for the support and we're not getting it.
Speaker:Right. Um, so for that, it's very helpful, especially
Speaker:for the early, early stages, which when they're really, you know, counting their
Speaker:dollars, but yet they also get the support of
Speaker:knowing that we know what we're doing. We can jump right in and don't need
Speaker:too much training so that when they start doing scheduling meetings
Speaker:with investors, creating these board of director meetings, booking
Speaker:travel, expense reports, we can jump right in and there's no training involved, which
Speaker:saves a lot of cost on their end. So for a
Speaker:lot of these companies, it's anywhere between 5, 10, 15 hours a week,
Speaker:or even sometimes just a month. And we cater it to each individual company.
Speaker:Well, even at like, let's say, 15 hours a month, what
Speaker:is interesting about early stage founders, sometimes they think,
Speaker:oh, I'll save money by doing it myself. But
Speaker:if you really think about who is the value driver of
Speaker:that company, especially at the early stages, the founder, they
Speaker:need to be out pounding the pavement, they need to be doing what they
Speaker:do best, right? Whether it's thinking about the science or getting money, right?
Speaker:Finding that funding, pitching. And so every minute
Speaker:that they spend organizing their travel or
Speaker:responding to an email that is not
Speaker:pertinent to the thing they're really focusing on right now, that is wasted time
Speaker:Oh, and I've talked to a lot, especially lately, because everybody's talking about,
Speaker:what's the savings? Because it's hard to actually put hard numbers on
Speaker:it because each individual case is unique. But for instance, let's take the
Speaker:travel aspect. Everybody's thinking about, or hopefully they've already
Speaker:done it, going to J.P. Morgan. Right. So you think about
Speaker:the rabbit hole that they could go down in terms of trying
Speaker:to find a hotel, trying to find the right flights, if
Speaker:they need car service or a car, thinking about how to get back and
Speaker:forth. You think, oh, yeah, I'll just save it on my own. And we
Speaker:all know what happens when we book our own travel. You think, oh, it's going to
Speaker:take five minutes. And next thing you know, it's taken two hours to find exactly
Speaker:what you want. And then if in terms of between
Speaker:this, you know, the founder or the CEO and what we are,
Speaker:think of how much per hour they're probably worth in
Speaker:the time spent, and then think about we're a fraction of that cost.
Speaker:And we do this all the time, so we know the ins and outs and how
Speaker:to find stuff probably a lot quicker than them. It seems simple
Speaker:enough is a reason as like why they need us, because in that particular
Speaker:instance, we're saving them a tremendous amount of money and time. So
Speaker:that amount of time that they've spent not doing it can
Speaker:be used towards Oh, I need to reach out to these investors to
Speaker:find some new money or, you know, partnerships with pharmas
Speaker:I'll say, too, that there's a little bit of extra clout when
Speaker:someone else is helping you with your scheduling. So if they're going
Speaker:to J.P. Morgan and then they're setting up these investor meetings and they're kicking
Speaker:you over, you know, oh, here's my E.A. That is a little bit
Speaker:Exactly. And the way we function is we're integrated within the
Speaker:company, the biotech or the VC or whatever company that
Speaker:we're in. So when we're messaging with outside individuals
Speaker:on behalf of them, it's from company X, Y, Z. So
Speaker:it's not from, you know, Ann Albrecht at annalbrechtconsulting.com. They
Speaker:don't know that we are consultants for the company. You
Speaker:know, they don't know that, that we're only working a couple of hours a week at
Speaker:most for them. They think we're full time and we're part
Speaker:Ann, I'm really glad you brought up JP Morgan because when you were saying, you know,
Speaker:sometimes it's a month, that was my first thought. I was like, wow, I wonder how busy she is
Speaker:with JP Morgan. And then that, you know, you tackled
Speaker:that. I assume the answer is very busy. You must see a huge uptick. in people
Speaker:who need help around this time. What are the other seasonalities that
Speaker:you see? Like, are there other events that all of a sudden you're like, oh, this is
Speaker:coming up and now we're going to get super busy? Or like, does it quiet down significantly for
Speaker:you in the summertime? What do you kind of see as the trend over a
Speaker:Well, it's interesting. So what I see outside of the individual
Speaker:science specific conferences that happen, and those are obviously individualistic
Speaker:to the companies and the science that they're involved with. And they can happen anywhere
Speaker:between the fall and the spring because usually they don't happen too much during the summer because everybody
Speaker:is taking time off. There are the larger ones, there's J.P. Morgan and
Speaker:then there's Bio in June. So those things can get ramped up
Speaker:and Bio seems to be, in my opinion, getting just as big as J.P. Morgan.
Speaker:Not as expensive, but being just as big. And they
Speaker:may not be officially presenting at either one of those conferences, but
Speaker:they'll be doing the networking meeting, which makes it even tougher to
Speaker:find locations because the designated one-on-one spaces
Speaker:at those two conferences, if they're not attending them, you don't get
Speaker:to utilize them. So there's those and then depending
Speaker:on how many board meetings they have every year, you know, not
Speaker:all of them have the traditional, you know, March, June,
Speaker:September and December timeframes. Obviously those ones make it even
Speaker:harder to schedule during the summer or if
Speaker:they waited until the last minute towards the end of the year trying to figure out
Speaker:how to schedule all those meetings for the following year. And then
Speaker:obviously during those particular months of when the board meetings are to
Speaker:make sure everything is is prepared whether or not it's a zoom meeting
Speaker:or an in-person meeting. I wouldn't say there's a real
Speaker:downside or a really busy side. I
Speaker:guess you could say between the holidays in December and
Speaker:January it could die down, but it all depends on if they're attending
Speaker:JP Morgan or not. And then during the summer, sometimes July
Speaker:and August can be slow, but what happens if they're in the middle of fundraising mode?
Speaker:Then it could be really busy. Like I worked on a client, two
Speaker:of us actually worked on a client that was really heavily
Speaker:working with investors and they were scheduling like 20, 30 meetings. So
Speaker:That's such a good indication though of like why someone would need your help. Like
Speaker:everything you just listed out. These all take time to prepare
Speaker:for, right? You can't just be like, OK, we're having a board meeting. I'll send a quick Zoom link
Speaker:for tomorrow. Like, no, you got to think it through. You've got to have the agendas.
Speaker:You've got to have everyone's calendars managed. Like these
Speaker:things take time. And I think people don't think about exactly
Speaker:my boyfriend, who happens to be Six Sigma. And I jokingly
Speaker:say, one of these days, I really want to have a stopwatch. And
Speaker:actually, you know, stopping and starting so people realize how much time
Speaker:it really takes to do something, because nobody really thinks it. When
Speaker:I interview a potential client, we go over things. There
Speaker:are plenty of times when they think, oh, I think I need 20 hours
Speaker:for an assistant. I'm like, well, what do you need them to do and who are they working
Speaker:with? And they tell me and then I say, I actually think you only need 10 to
Speaker:15. And they look at me like I'm nuts. And yet when we start doing the
Speaker:work, the number is usually about right, because I have mentally
Speaker:have been doing this for years, you know, stopping and starting my internal
Speaker:Well, and then there's the efficiency that you have cultivated, where
Speaker:if I'm going to go do a task I'm not used to doing, or I only do every once
Speaker:in a while, like schedule a board meeting, right? I'm not going to
Speaker:have the emails at my fingertips. I'm not going to have the templates, the
Speaker:protocols. I'm going to be searching around. I mean, there's so many
Speaker:things that go into that. We do some interview scheduling for
Speaker:our clients as part of our work, and we
Speaker:had to have a candidate meet with some board members because
Speaker:it was quite a high-level candidate. I think to meet
Speaker:with three board members, it was 18 or
Speaker:so emails back and forth to get those scheduled. And of
Speaker:course, they're not in the internal calendaring system.
Speaker:So it's not like we can just peek at their calendar and then move forward. So
Speaker:that takes more time than you'd think. But for somebody who is moving
Speaker:between those same tasks all day and not context switching, that
Speaker:So I have a question for you that I am super interested to hear your answer
Speaker:on. When you handle communication with your clients and
Speaker:internally, what's your preferred method for keeping everyone organized and
Speaker:on the same page? Because you're obviously disseminating a lot of information and
Speaker:We use various software for keeping either,
Speaker:you know, spreadsheets that we've utilized, the password management
Speaker:that we have, anything for internally and
Speaker:externally. So we use SharePoint, you know, for a lot of our information,
Speaker:Slack. A lot, because even our clients use,
Speaker:some of them use it pretty heavily, some use it very infrequently. We
Speaker:internally use it. So we use that, one password
Speaker:so that we can put all our passwords in one spot and makes it
Speaker:easier in case we have to backfill somebody in just in
Speaker:It's always interesting to hear about what's coming up or what people are just like,
Speaker:We're very individualized because it's not like we have a
Speaker:team of assistants working with one client. It's one person. So
Speaker:it's more like what the client is using. And
Speaker:so outside of making sure that we have things in
Speaker:place, for coverage or transition, because every once
Speaker:in a while we do transition. It's all individualized, so it's
Speaker:on their space. The everyday stuff that we work on is
Speaker:core. So it's correspondence, it's
Speaker:calendaring, which goes along with the correspondence, right? It's
Speaker:travel, it's expense reports, and
Speaker:sometimes we do deal with some contract management stuff and helping to
Speaker:organize that for the early stage ones, especially so that they're
Speaker:prepped and ready and a little bit more organized when they have to start doing their data
Speaker:When you bring up early stage, and I know that your model is super cool because people
Speaker:can work month to month, they can call you when they need you, but
Speaker:when is it the ideal time? When are you like, yes, you brought
Speaker:me at the perfect time. Is there a perfect time? Do you have an
Speaker:ideal client that they're super early stage or
Speaker:So we have clients that need various different things. So I
Speaker:have one client who is pretty well established
Speaker:and they're actually a public company now, but they only utilize us for doing
Speaker:the board directors because they're pretty slim in what they do. We've
Speaker:got another others that are only, you know, a handful. Maybe
Speaker:they've got three, four, maybe five at most. Actual
Speaker:staff, the rest of them are consultants, right? Just like, kind of
Speaker:like we are. And it's just the occasional, oh, we need to schedule some
Speaker:heavy investor meetings. Can you deal with that? I would say as soon
Speaker:as you're starting to deal with anything that's slightly complicated, rather than
Speaker:just doing one-on-ones, it's probably a good idea to start involving us.
Speaker:As I said, we have clients that are only five hours, and then we've
Speaker:got some steady eddies that do between 10 and 15 hours. And
Speaker:as you get used to us, then you start realizing, oh, well, we can ask you
Speaker:to do this and this and this, and then we grow with you. And it's amazing to
Speaker:think of how long we can stay with a firm as they continue to
Speaker:grow until they fully realize that they need a full-time person. that
Speaker:Even then, I feel like since you are so flexible in your model, once
Speaker:they have their full-time person, staying on to be
Speaker:that flex, that overflow, okay, it is JP Morgan
Speaker:season, or that person wants to go on vacation. And,
Speaker:you know, being able to have that steady knowledge base, that coverage,
Speaker:if you are that flexible, why ever wind down with you? Why not
Speaker:We have one or two of those that have done that. Usually they just say, we're
Speaker:going to stop it, but we know we can go back to you because we have history
Speaker:with you and we can just jump right in. But we can jump right in
Speaker:with almost anybody though, because on the core of it, the EA
Speaker:work is consistent no matter what company it is. It's just, you know,
Speaker:I just find it so hard to believe, Anne and Karina, that you guys didn't build your
Speaker:companies at the same time while knowing each other, because it's sort of like you both
Speaker:built the same model and two different functions. There's a lot of similarity. It's
Speaker:A lot of our clients are really struggling right now
Speaker:because they don't have funding to hire. And so, you
Speaker:know, we've been helping to get really lean in those cases, get
Speaker:really scrappy and think about, OK, well, you don't need a full
Speaker:time hire for this role. So that's sort of that was part of the impetus of
Speaker:starting this podcast is thinking about, hey, there's a lot more ways to build biotech
Speaker:than maybe you've even known about. And it
Speaker:came from, to your point, knowing some of these robust ecosystems
Speaker:where they did give a lot of support to baby biotechs in
Speaker:the different business verticals. And then when we work
Speaker:with clients that don't have that support, it is so obvious they really
Speaker:need it. And so I'm really excited to have this conversation because it's
Speaker:yet another thing that we can offer to our clients and say, hey, you
Speaker:don't need yet to hire a full-time EA, but
Speaker:I agree and we think of the things that they may not have thought of
Speaker:and we have a list of providers just like you do that
Speaker:they ask me like, hey, especially when it comes to like
Speaker:IT or what happens if
Speaker:they can't always ask us to do the travel? Do you have any travel agency suggestions
Speaker:on who to go with? And we have those. you know,
Speaker:all those sorts of things that you probably have as well,
Speaker:you know, so that if it comes up, you're like, I know exactly who you should work within
Speaker:So, yeah, that kind of brings me to my next question. When you think
Speaker:about the strategy that you provide, it sounds like more than
Speaker:just doing the work. You also are able to be a resource to
Speaker:your clients. What other things do you kind of step all with them as
Speaker:they're growing or their areas where you step in and you say, oh, I've seen a
Speaker:Yeah, so it all depends on whether or not they have
Speaker:something in an operations mode, administrative mode, on
Speaker:board or consultant. And even then, even if they do, they usually
Speaker:ask me if I have any suggestions because anybody who's worked with somebody
Speaker:who's a pretty seasoned EA knows that they've done all that operations stuff,
Speaker:whether it be an office move, obtaining like
Speaker:office equipment or IT equipment or working with IT
Speaker:firms or any of that so that when they come to me they
Speaker:get to a certain size and they realize that they can't rely
Speaker:on Joe who is a lower level person
Speaker:who is pretending to be IT because they don't want to hire an
Speaker:IT firm then I can provide them a couple of of options, for instance,
Speaker:you know, one that's meant for small businesses who does work with biotech so
Speaker:that they're used to that. They're very flexible versus some of the
Speaker:bigger ones who, they're great. They obviously
Speaker:know the system and have worked with lots of companies.
Speaker:So they've streamlined things, but it's more of, I don't want to say it badly, but
Speaker:it could be more like my way or the highway kind of mentality. And depending
Speaker:on how the biotech is, that may be good or bad for them.
Speaker:Yeah, we've certainly seen that my way or the highway with a few IT firms.
Speaker:They don't know where to go because that's the other thing. In this fractional
Speaker:space, a lot of people realize that when we need somebody fractionally,
Speaker:Well, we happen to have a downloadable guide on our website that we're always building
Speaker:out. So we'll be sure that you're in there, but you should take a look. And if there's anyone we
Speaker:missed, we'd love to add them. We don't, for instance, have any
Speaker:travel agencies on there. That's not something that in our recruiting
Speaker:space we've actually been asked to do since before the pandemic.
Speaker:So prior to the pandemic, we did occasionally, you know,
Speaker:organize travel for a candidate to come on site. But it's been
Speaker:a long time there. You know, companies are now comfortable
Speaker:Yeah. So it's interesting. And with that specific thing,
Speaker:some people think, well, we'll just book it and I'll just have the assistant book it. And nine
Speaker:out of 10 times, that sometimes can be perfectly fine. But if it's a complicated
Speaker:trip or an international trip, or you think there's going to be problems
Speaker:with that trip, using a travel agent in that aspect is
Speaker:actually better because usually they have 24 hour lines you
Speaker:can call. Cause what happens if you're, you know, you're flying into Europe,
Speaker:And there's a problem with the flight, but yet it's the middle of the night here. I'm
Speaker:not necessarily going to wake up because it's not like we offer, we
Speaker:don't really offer 24 hour, you know, concierge service, but you
Speaker:know, I'm not going to wake up at 3am to jump on online to
Speaker:fix it. If it happened during the day, during business hours, of course I
Speaker:would do that, but you don't want to leave them stranded. So sometimes using
Speaker:A lot of us like doing the booking ourselves because we enjoy it. Right. But
Speaker:you have to think about it. If it's a simple trip and you think there's going
Speaker:to be no complications, sure, you're going to do that. If it's complicated, totally use
Speaker:a travel agent because sometimes obviously they can fix things. But
Speaker:most people forget that travel agents can get discounts that
Speaker:you can't normally get. So whether or not it's a higher end hotel
Speaker:that your executive wants to stay at, but you can't, it's super
Speaker:expensive. just getting it off of the website and they don't want to
Speaker:do hotels.com or Expedia because those third-party services can
Speaker:cause issues sometimes. A travel agent is a good resource because
Speaker:I'm really interested, too, how you're seeing AI
Speaker:impact your clients, if at all. Is anyone adopting any
Speaker:sort of AI? Have you adopted any sort of AI to help streamline things?
Speaker:Sort of like travel, but I don't know. There's so many things happening out
Speaker:That's funny because I think a few of our clients actually, they are
Speaker:doing AI, ML for the science side. But that
Speaker:aside, it's interesting. We've been fielding some searches
Speaker:on apps that help as an assistant. We've been
Speaker:looking into them. Our model is unique, obviously, because we're
Speaker:working with multiple clients. So it's not as if I'm working for Ann
Speaker:Albrecht Consulting and looking at just for Ann Albrecht Consulting. It's obviously
Speaker:used for our clients. So we have to make sure that confidentiality is
Speaker:in there, you know, and how they integrate. Especially for chat
Speaker:GPT, we have some restrictions. In our own
Speaker:firm, because of all the bad press that they've received so
Speaker:far, we actually tell our assistants that they aren't to use
Speaker:it unless the client specifies it. Only because I don't want anybody
Speaker:getting into trouble for something that, you know, they've used it for
Speaker:and it's incorrect. Right. But I do know that as an assistant
Speaker:space, they have been talking about finding ways to make it a lot easier. I
Speaker:was looking at multiple calendaring, so it's a little bit more than just using
Speaker:Doodle Poll, which I'm sure most people have heard by now if they've had to
Speaker:do meetings. A little bit more robust in that. But the question is,
Speaker:how does it integrate with other people's calendars? both outside the firm
Speaker:and how do you deal with the confidentiality and where does stuff get saved?
Speaker:It's definitely going in that direction and we definitely
Speaker:want to start using it, but I don't think it'll ever, ever
Speaker:negate the human aspect of how we deal things because
Speaker:that's been a lot in the news lately about assistances. You know, oh,
Speaker:you know, like Calendly, for instance, you don't need an assistant because we
Speaker:have Calendly. Well, somebody still has to act as the assistant on
Speaker:Calendly. You know, you send the person a link and then they still have to go digging
Speaker:and searching to see what works and doesn't work very well with multiple meetings
Speaker:I think there's also something else too. When you're dealing with things
Speaker:particularly like travel and all the many things, many
Speaker:of which are very confidential that you handle, there's something to
Speaker:having a person there for even like the emotional support side of things, right?
Speaker:If something's going off the rails, you know you've got a person. If you
Speaker:really need to run an idea by someone, you've got a person. Like Calendly's great.
Speaker:Again, I still have to send the email that sends the link and
Speaker:if something goes wrong, I can't get into the back end of
Speaker:CalME and fix it. Whereas if someone could just be like, oh, I'll just email them and I'll
Speaker:handle this situation. There's a huge
Speaker:element of just having that support and feeling
Speaker:like you have a team with you rather than just fully relying on
Speaker:software. I think that really means a lot to people. People
Speaker:The interesting thing with that is that the more things get easier and
Speaker:complicated at the same time, you still have to troubleshoot that. So it
Speaker:means that the assistant actually has to be pretty technically savvy
Speaker:and knowledgeable. So, you know, making sure that they have all that
Speaker:background so that they can figure it out. For
Speaker:all those aspects, usually if you have an assistant, they're the first line
Speaker:Yes, that's exactly what I'm driving at. It's knowing someone's in your corner. And
Speaker:I think, you know, yes, you have to be tech savvy and all that. You
Speaker:also have to be financially savvy because we keep a really close
Speaker:eye on how many systems we're looking at and paying for. And you know, it's so
Speaker:easy to be like, oh, this sounds cool, subscribe to this. Oh, it's one month here, one month
Speaker:here, da, da, da, da, da. And then part of what I do is sit down and
Speaker:look at all the systems we have and say, do we even need these anymore? Are these redundant?
Speaker:Are these a security risk? Because the more systems you have, the
Speaker:more security risk you have. So, you know, someone does have to manage that
Speaker:and stay on top of all of the subscriptions. And I think
Speaker:that's where you see, like, you need a person on the ground. No software system's
Speaker:At least not yet. Yeah, in the recruiting space, we're
Speaker:seeing a lot of really interesting stuff with AI for
Speaker:sourcing and outreach for candidates. And part
Speaker:of my job at the moment is to stay on top of that because we need to
Speaker:make sure we're cutting edge and we're doing all the things that
Speaker:our clients would expect us to be doing to cut costs and to speed up
Speaker:processes while staying safe, while staying legally compliant.
Speaker:Because we're also seeing that, I think just New York now, but other
Speaker:states are following suit, have legislation on the books about using
Speaker:AI in hiring. So I'm sure that, well,
Speaker:more to come on that. It's every day, I have multiple Google alerts
Speaker:so that I know what is coming down the pipe for recruiting. And I'm sure that that's,
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, side note, I mean, obviously, you know, this, but
Speaker:AI is built on, you know, obviously, it's still built by
Speaker:people, and their biases are unconscious bias. It's
Speaker:more than they think it. So that's obviously, like with CHEP
Speaker:GPT, what got them in trouble is a little bit of bias
Speaker:going on there. And I think they found that with some of the AI software
Speaker:Yeah, so what happened there was really interesting. It's built by people,
Speaker:but then it's also trained by data. And
Speaker:who decides what data it trains on? It's not
Speaker:conscious. It doesn't know to pick through data
Speaker:and think, okay, Why would this data set not be
Speaker:totally unbiased? And so some of those early headlines were that
Speaker:some companies had an early start at using the
Speaker:open AI system way before we knew it as chat GPT. And
Speaker:they started to build AI and similar tools into their
Speaker:databases. And these companies were really big companies with large databases. But
Speaker:they also attracted particular demographics for
Speaker:years and years and years that applied to these jobs. And so An
Speaker:engineer is a white male. That is what their database
Speaker:told it, because that was the skew. And so it's so fascinating.
Speaker:So now that that is, now that we know that, it's
Speaker:easier to train on better data sets. It's garbage in,
Speaker:garbage out, just like data analysis for the entire history of
Speaker:the world. We just did it much faster and much larger this
Speaker:In terms of using it for our purposes, I'd rather
Speaker:wait. Think of it like an update to any like Microsoft software. You
Speaker:know, you get the people who want it right away and or the phone, right?
Speaker:Think of the iPhone update, right? They want it right away with all the
Speaker:new things, whether or not there's bugs or not. And then you have the people who wait
Speaker:until the very end, who should have been. I like to be
Speaker:somewhere in the middle. I want to vet it a little bit more so that
Speaker:we don't have as many hiccups. But I also don't want to
Speaker:be the tail end of it to find out that we're one of the last people to use it.
Speaker:If someone's thinking about working with you as a consulting firm or they're
Speaker:thinking about making an in-house hire, what do they need to consider between
Speaker:those two things? Like, is there something that, you know, differentiates a
Speaker:consulting firm doing EA work or just hiring a full-time EA?
Speaker:So cost savings wise, if you're not going to be
Speaker:actually having somebody truly do 30 or more hours of
Speaker:actual work, it probably makes more sense to hire somebody like
Speaker:us. because of all the other extra costs that are associated with
Speaker:hiring somebody full-time. But not every executive is savvy
Speaker:about this, because I remember when I first started doing this, and I would say what our hourly rate
Speaker:is, and just sort of like a law firm, we booked to
Speaker:the closest 15 minutes, right? And they see it and they're like, oh
Speaker:my God, if I multiplied that by 40 hours and
Speaker:this is what it would have cost if I hired somebody full time. I'm like, you wouldn't
Speaker:do that. But the team that I have are Ann Alper consulting
Speaker:staff. So I actually pay for all
Speaker:of that stuff. Then the client doesn't have to
Speaker:worry about, they don't have to pay for the taxes, they don't have to
Speaker:pay for the benefits. You know whether or not it's health or
Speaker:dental or 401k or training unless
Speaker:it's specific specific to them only you know that's what we
Speaker:provide and that's all mixed in to the rate and so they
Speaker:don't have to worry about that so it's actually much more
Speaker:cost effective for them to use us that it would
Speaker:be for them to hire. The only time that it would make sense, obviously, as I said, is
Speaker:if it's going to be at least 30 hours or more. And especially
Speaker:if they're going to be in person, yes, because we're not going to be there
Speaker:in person, right? But usually the core is 30 hours
Speaker:or more. And we've transitioned a few companies once they've hit that
Speaker:mark. And I'm very proud to say, and I tell them congrats, because obviously that
Speaker:Well, that means you've done your job so well, too, right? Because you've helped them scale
Speaker:Yeah, that's how we look at it too. Eventually we hire replacements and that just
Speaker:means that we did a good job. Everyone wins sort
Speaker:of along those lines. The other big cost savings that I,
Speaker:as also a W2 employer, see are the vacation time
Speaker:too. And people don't think about that, especially I bet in your space,
Speaker:because when your EA goes on vacation, It
Speaker:feels really jarring. That is a big problem if you are
Speaker:used to the support. But with your team, that's covered, which
Speaker:Exactly. So unlike with a micro company or individual consultant,
Speaker:they get the backup from us. So they take a week or two
Speaker:week vacation. We ask them, do you want fill in? And we'll
Speaker:fill them in. And depending on what the client is, we'll determine
Speaker:I think what you do is so valuable because there is so much going
Speaker:on behind the scenes that does not need to be and should
Speaker:not be done by the executives because they need to keep their
Speaker:eye on the prize and they need to be building their biotech and
Speaker:not worrying about all of the things that actually have to be done to
Speaker:build that biotech. So you just are such a facilitator. And
Speaker:I think from as a recruiter who did used to go
Speaker:on site, my main counterparts were the EAs
Speaker:and it is just such an amazing role that it's
Speaker:just touches every part of the company. Don't think enough people
Speaker:realize that, especially when they're in a small company. You see it more when you're in
Speaker:the bigger companies and you're seeing, you know, the EA staff is
Speaker:sort of circulating and just handling all the things. But at those
Speaker:small companies, you just provide such a valuable service. It's a little taste of
Speaker:And can I tag in something on that one? Because you made me think of something.
Speaker:Anyone who's listening to this who was like, wow, this sounds like a career I'd be really
Speaker:good at. I love organization. I love calendar management. I think this would
Speaker:be really cool. We talked about your career path and it's a little windy
Speaker:and my career path has also been windy. But looking
Speaker:back, are there things you would tell someone like, hey, this would be the experience I
Speaker:would specifically go after. These would be the skills I'd start really building because
Speaker:I think that's really valuable. If someone wants to be an executive EA,
Speaker:I don't want to advocate constantly moving around, but I definitely think because
Speaker:each company has a different culture. So and each company is unique
Speaker:between small and large requiring different things. So
Speaker:that's important. Truly, truly, truly taking advantage
Speaker:of any trainings and encouraging them
Speaker:to speak up to their managers to ask for that training. Because
Speaker:most companies tend to forget, unfortunately, that
Speaker:assistants still also need the training. And two, to
Speaker:network. The nature of the assistant position is a very siloed,
Speaker:very kind of lonely position, even if you're in a larger company. And
Speaker:yet you're expected to know all this information. And the only way
Speaker:to know all this information is actually to go out there. So
Speaker:yeah, I'm an introvert, so that is, even though it's kind
Speaker:of tough for me to do that, I still force myself to do it. So in order
Speaker:to know the right resources for event planning, I
Speaker:actually go to event planning conferences, to networking,
Speaker:because there's a couple of organizations, especially in the Boston community that I'm a
Speaker:part of. So I'm part of that. Even to a certain extent,
Speaker:a lot of EAs tend to do some of the lower level HR related stuff.
Speaker:Right. So there are some HR related things that they could do and
Speaker:the same thing for operations. So, you know, getting out there and
Speaker:learning about that stuff is very important. And if they need somebody
Speaker:to mentor, definitely, you know, finding somebody who they can mentor and
Speaker:That's great advice. Yeah, I was going to say there's a lot of crossover between
Speaker:HR and EA. So I've seen people go
Speaker:both directions and enjoy, you know, getting
Speaker:a taste of bold and then saying, okay, this is my group app. I love HR. I'm
Speaker:going to stay there. Or I love assistant. I'm going to go
Speaker:all the way to, you know, EA. I want to be the EA to the CEO and manage
Speaker:all of the things. And that's not for everyone. And so it's nice to get the
Speaker:taste. And it actually is something we see people move around quite
Speaker:I remember when I was figuring out what I, if I wanted to go in this direction
Speaker:and I had a friend who is an HR consultant and she says,
Speaker:oh my God, you should totally go into HR because you already know all of this stuff. You'd
Speaker:be great at going that direction. So I think to your point, yeah, they
Speaker:get pulled in all those different, either way and they go back and forth.
Speaker:Same with operations too though. You see a lot of people shift into an
Speaker:operations role because for exactly what you said, and
Speaker:I did work as an EA for a while and What
Speaker:did I do? I planned an office move. We did the real estate
Speaker:thing. You get the furniture, you, you do everything. You end up just being
Speaker:pulled into every last little thing. And so I think it's such a great career
Speaker:path because it allows you to pursue different interests, right? You
Speaker:could do a little HR and then to your point, maybe work for another company and that's not
Speaker:their primary concern. And you do something else. I really love your
Speaker:model of, you know, we're here when you need us for the time you need
Speaker:us, because it's another thing where it's a very scalable function.
Speaker:All right, so you are firmly ensconced
Speaker:in your current company. What do you see as next for you? Are
Speaker:you growing it bigger? Are you kind of staying where you are? What do you hope for?
Speaker:I have an executive coach that I've had for a couple of years, and she
Speaker:asks me this every once in a while just so I can get back on the right path and
Speaker:stuff. And I've always just chose to let this company grow
Speaker:organically as needed. Like this year was a bit more
Speaker:networking. Next year in the immediate is we call it
Speaker:the year of the employee. Right. So our goal is to actually
Speaker:get all of us together in one place next year for a little little retreat
Speaker:because it's very important because of the nature that we are virtual. Right.
Speaker:But for longer term, I do consider seeing it
Speaker:growing. Last couple of years, we've grown it by two or three people every
Speaker:year, so it's probably going to stay that way, but it also depends
Speaker:on the market, right? So everybody seems to think that when
Speaker:people start laying off and we've helped support some people who've companies
Speaker:that have been laid off assistance, does that automatically mean that
Speaker:they're going to gear towards us? Not necessarily. They may find a way
Speaker:to have that old assistant work as a consultant individually, so it
Speaker:may not grab us. But we are that resource and just
Speaker:getting us our name out there should have lead more people
Speaker:to say, oh, let's contact them. Right. So, yeah,
Speaker:I do see it growing. Personally, it means
Speaker:that as it gets bigger, I'm going to work less and less with clients. Right.
Speaker:I only work with three, four at most. Everybody
Speaker:else, all the other ones are with the other admins on the team. And
Speaker:I only take specific kinds now, if not
Speaker:at all. It always goes to somebody else. So if I'm interviewing with
Speaker:somebody, the client, they're not going to get me because I don't
Speaker:have the time because just like the other entrepreneurs and the
Speaker:founders that you meet up with, I'm now also now ensconced
Speaker:with all the same startup stuff and the same problems that I actually tell
Speaker:them that they need be, I have to find that I have to start taking my
Speaker:Well, Anne, what is your favorite fiction or
Speaker:It's funny. So I'm a big fantasy and science fiction fan.
Speaker:So most of them I probably wouldn't want to name light of day.
Speaker:But if I had to pick one, it would probably be the Outlander series,
Speaker:you know, that was made into the Star series. I've read
Speaker:them since they came out like 20 years ago. So, you know, I've
Speaker:been a longtime fan. So for fiction, that would be it. But for
Speaker:nonfiction, I mean, outside of reading journals and,
Speaker:you know, publications, I do have some other books, but the latest one
Speaker:And you guys are going to laugh. So it's the birds of
Speaker:Massachusetts is a field guide because I live right outside wooded area,
Speaker:like a really nice nature preserve area. So I'm constantly like
Speaker:when I have a few minutes and I need to decompress, I go look up. Oh, what bird
Speaker:And I used to live in Florida and I literally have Florida birds sitting right
Speaker:behind me. And Massachusetts is up on my desk because I live in Massachusetts and
Speaker:I need to get a New Hampshire one. I just really. I mean, I'm not
Speaker:going to see any of these birds up here. I can promise you it's snowing and the
Speaker:complete wrong climate, but I still have it because you never know. So I
Speaker:No one's going to really want to see, you know, the HR guide to startups
Speaker:that, you know, that I have that I gave to one of my employees or, you know,
Speaker:women's leadership stuff. I'm like. i mean i have tons
Speaker:of those when i'm like i i looked at it last night when i was prepping i'm
Speaker:like what book should i recommend and i saw something nope you know what if
Speaker:i'm gonna be real that is probably the last non-fiction book
Speaker:that i read so you know As
Speaker:somebody who's super, super busy, you know, you have to decompress. And
Speaker:so, um, and working from home, it doesn't mean I
Speaker:can get out very often, but I have the woods and I, you know, just take
Speaker:a minute. I'm like, Oh, let's listen to the bird. I'm like, what bird is
Speaker:that? So, you know, take your mind off of work to go back to
Speaker:Very cool. I love that. We have a whole list on
Speaker:our website of all the books that have been recommended, and I'm absolutely adding
Speaker:So Anne, where can everyone find you and contact you
Speaker:Sure. So we're on LinkedIn, so you could always look up Ann
Speaker:Albrecht Consulting. We have a website, annalbrechtconsulting.com, or
Speaker:you can certainly drop me a line. It's really easy. It's
Speaker:Perfect. We'll link all of that in the show notes that people can click right through if
Speaker:they're on their podcast app. But it has been such
Speaker:a pleasure, and I really hope people have learned a little bit about
Speaker:this, about all the inner workings, the things they need to think about building
