Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. This episode was recorded at the Administrative Professionals Conference 2025, in Seattle, with host Debra Coleman and guest Lauren Bradley. Lauren is a strong advocate for the ways in which admins can best showcase their work and value today. So, let’s listen in to this conversation between Lauren and Deb from the show floor at APC.

Debra Coleman: Welcome, Lauren Bradley, to The Admin Edge podcast. It’s so exciting to have you here. You are Ms. Lauren Bradley, Founder of The Officials, and trainer at APC Seattle. Thank you for taking time out of what I know is a busy schedule.

00:00:51

Lauren Bradley: Thank you very much. I am a trainer at APC.

Debra Coleman: You are.

Lauren Bradley: I have never come to one, and I walked in as a trainer, and I feel like I’m both. I feel like I’m an attendee and in awe of it all. The whole team’s been wonderful. Every attendee has been wonderful. The sessions have been well received. All my friends are here. It’s like a little reunion. I love it.

Debra Coleman: Isn’t it? It’s wonderful. Thank you, Seattle, for bringing us together. It’s amazing, yeah.

Lauren Bradley: Yes! And it’s in Seattle, which is a beautiful city.

Debra Coleman: Beautiful city, the Emerald City. Well, thank you for spending time with us so we can dive in a little bit about how to streamline and showcase our work, which I know is almost like an eternal struggle with EAs out there today. So, thank you for sharing your expertise on this a little bit with us.

Lauren Bradley: Yeah. It’s a great topic because it’s going to relate to anybody.

Debra Coleman: Anybody, in any situation, absolutely. Well, let’s get into it. So, the first question:  You work with assistants all over the world (and I have front-row seats to this) through The Officials, helping them grow and level up in their careers. So, what’s the biggest mindset shift you help admins make when it comes to self-promoting?

00:01:58

Lauren Bradley: Okay, so, in a nutshell, it’s taking them from cringe to competent. There’s something—it’s like “self-promotion” is a bad word. Talking about yourself or highlighting any good thing that you’ve done is somehow evil, naughty, something. There’s something ingrained in that, something culturally. A lot of women are in our industry, and we know they’re taught culturally—hopefully things are changing, but there is that stigma that hangs. Even though we talk about tech, no matter what I’m talking about, we will think it’s one thing, and it will always go back to confidence, standing up for ourselves.

00:02:46

At one point, I used to think I would talk to CEOs and tell them how amazing assistants were, and I realized that if I just talked to the assistants it spreads like a ripple into a lake. They will share with somebody else. They will share it with somebody else. And it’s beautiful when they realize the truth. Yeah, I find, no matter what we’re talking about, it always comes back to that.

Debra Coleman: Okay, so believing in yourself, too, just—

Lauren Bradley: It’s an unlearning. They know who they are. Imposter syndrome, the definition is—the one I like is that you cannot process your own accomplishments. So, by definition, you have accomplishments. Maya Angelou, Lady Gaga, like all these famous people talk about how they had imposter syndrome, and it’s actually a sign that you’re actually on the right path. Any way that I can help somebody unlearn these sort of—like this hard shell that keeps being shellacked on them, telling them to be smaller, to be smaller.

00:03:54

They know it. The reason why they even come around to us or talk to us is because they know it, too. They just have to be more around people that keep reminding them of that truth, and then they just bloom. They bloom. It’s amazing. I love it. It’s so rewarding.

Debra Coleman: It is, and I love that you mentioned surrounding yourself [with] people who help empower you and place that belief in you. Okay, so let’s talk about managing our day a little bit, which we know—you know nothing about productivity, right? That’s just not—[laughter] So we all know how hectic our days can get with urgent tasks that pile up, from every direction, it seems like sometimes. We’re just catching butterflies in the outfield, is what I like to say.

Lauren Bradley: I like that analogy, yeah. That’s exactly what it’s like.

Debra Coleman: I have my net, right? I’m out there. So when everything’s feeling urgent—of course it is, right? Everything is urgent. Where’s the best place for an admin to start streamlining their processes without dropping the ball?

00:04:47

Lauren Bradley: So, brilliant, because this is all I talked about. I just have to go back to your butterfly analogy. I loved sports because I loved being around people. I wanted to talk to people. And I was always in right field, and I was always chasing butterflies, so I feel like it’s—I’m still doing that now. It was my favorite part. But this is literally what I talked about today. It was really eye-opening for a lot of people. I told them it would be very frustrating when they realized how easy it was to do this thing, and why weren’t we doing it all along?

So one of the ways I help people with streamlining is 1) map your process. Figure out, what are you doing? What do you wish you were doing, before you got interrupted, before a Teams ding came through, before you went to open your calendar but then you saw that email from your boss, and you never even got to your to-do list? What would the process be, if it could be this? And everyone was chiming in today, saying calendar first because sometimes there’s a sneaky morning meeting that you don’t know about, so check the calendar first. Then go to email.

00:05:47

And I said, well, one of the things I teach is have a dashboard. What if you sat down every single day and you were just confronted with one page? It could be a OneNote page. It could be a SharePoint site page for your own SharePoint site, because you can embed lists, which I think that’s where Microsoft people should be putting their to-do list. I have a Notion dashboard that I share with people, and it’s where I land every day. It reminds me of all of my to-do lists, my schedule, where I need to be, and it’s something I can return to over and over again when I get distracted, when I get interrupted, and I can go back to it. It’s a gamechanger.

I’ve just been talking with like 40 people after that session, just [following] to the different places I was so we could keep talking about it. They were all talking about how they were going to design theirs in different places. It’s a gamechanger. It really is.

Debra Coleman: That is. Even now, I’m reacting to that. I’m like, that’s a great idea. I never thought to do that. SharePoint, that’s what hit for me. I’m like, my SharePoint page. That’s fantastic.

00:06:43

Lauren Bradley: It works like a website. I say, if you can just do two things, 1) think of all the links that you would go to. Do you go to CRM? Do you go to Concur? Just make that a link there, instead of having to every day open up, open up the same places over and over again. Save them there. And then, if you get your to-do list in there, that is enough. You can get your to-do list and your links. I could show you how to get accomplishments in there and your goals, but just start with that, and it’s like a gateway drug. Then they’re like, ooh, what else can I put in this one place? It’s kind of like building your own sw.

Debra Coleman: It is. It really is like you’re building your own dashboard, like you said. When people hear “dashboard,” [it’s like], “Oh, I don’t think I have the background to do that.” But now. What you just described is absolutely doable.

Lauren Bradley: Because sometimes you think dashboard and you think a bunch of charts and things—and you can get that out of it, especially if you use something like lists. Because it’s a table, you can start to quantify things. But, it’s more, to me, like maybe it’s a control center, sort of Jean-Luc Picard or “Minority Report,” where they have all those screens and you just can do everything from there.

Debra Coleman: Yeah.

00:07:53

Lauren Bradley: Why did we not think of this before? Like, genuinely, why did we not think of this before?

Debra Coleman: Right.

Lauren Bradley: It is a gamechanger. I made one in Notion and started sharing it with people. They loved it. But not everyone [is in] Notion, can have it. I just wanted to help them, so I just showed them how to do it in whatever systems they have.

Debra Coleman: Brilliant. Lauren Bradley, dropping some truth bombs. I love it. That is fantastic. Star that—asterisk that. [laughter] Well, one more question here, Ms. Bradley. So, for many admins, it can feel like they’re busy, but struggle to clearly show their impact—here we go—when it’s time for performance reviews. Here we go with that. So, for an admin who feels like they’re constantly busy but can’t seem to articulate their value when review time comes around—so this is all wonderful, but when I sit down with you, my boss, how do I articulate my value in that review moment?

00:08:44

Lauren Bradley: Such a good question. My specialty tends to be around tech and automation and the sort of practical ways we can use tech. The whole other side of that is this idea I have of this framework of “treat your career as a startup.” It is your business. Your employer is your client. Your résumé is your services brochure. The job description they gave you was a brief, looking for a supplier with services they needed, okay? I want to put you in a mindset that you’re a business leader talking to a business leader, okay? This is easy to follow because there’s lots of EAs, right?

I always tell people: First, looking at your job description and figure out what services are there—calendar management, inbox management, onboarding, relationship management, internal coms—and then how would you define that? The nice thing is, when you go to AI and tell it that you are the CEO of an executive support consultancy, guess what? You get better answers because it looks at the internet for information on executive assistants. It’s going to look at job descriptions that aren’t written well.

00:09:53

If you say you’re a CEO and you provide a consultancy service, the benefit and the value that they’re going to define for you [has a] totally different tone, much higher value. It’s infuriating, but great.

Debra Coleman: But brilliant, yeah.

Lauren Bradley: So, when you go into a performance review, I think that’s your annual client check-in, right? What happens before is we go, “I hope I fill out this form in the way they want me to, so they suddenly recognize everything I’ve done and I don’t have to ask them for the raise or the recognition; they just do it, and I don’t have to have the awkward phase.”

I trained at Google, and the heads of that wonderful team told me that they turned their performance reviews into one-to-one’s with their boss. They were so uncomfortable talking about themselves—and these are powerful, amazing assistants. They are very confident in many ways. They feel so uncomfortable talking about themselves that they start going, “Well, let’s talk about your week,” and they shift the whole session.

00:10:50

I said, “Okay, this is your performance review or your annual client check-in, so you have an agenda. Don’t just worry about what they want.” And we’re still getting it wrong because we’re just thinking we have to fill this out in the way that they want. If I’m a gardener and you hired me to mow the lawn, I’m going to come by after a year and say, “Hey, this is the service. Here’s my clipboard. You asked me to mow your lawn, and this is how we’ve been killing it. You have no weeds. Everything’s looking great.”

And then I call the next level up “honeypot services,” where you didn’t ask me to do them, but I noticed there was paint on your drive. We have a pressure sprayer. I took care of that for you. But that’s why you work with me. You don’t go to competitors. I love working with you. They’re nice-to-haves, but they’re not a big, extra ask.

And the next thing would be I’m looking for opportunities to upsell new services, or you’ve asked me to provide new services. If I’m a supplier, I’m your gardener, and you ask me to clean your windows and check your gutters, I would say, “Okay, great. I’d love to do that for you. Here’s a quote. Let’s recalibrate the contract.”

00:10:50

As assistants or admins, we think everything we’re asked to do is our job. This is just a clear framework we already for suppliers, just laid on top of what we do. You suddenly realize, oh, I can figure out what services I’m not contractually obligated to do. And so then you can go in there and upsell and say, “I’d love to do the things.” Or, “I was maybe doing some of these for you, but if you want me to continue—those were a free sample or a free trial. Let’s have a discussion to now get those involved in our contract. Let’s change our partnership, right?” They should always come with some type of fair exchange. It’s not always salary. Everyone’s at a different place, but, remember, money is recognition, too.

You have to be an example for other people. Assistants don’t ask for nearly enough, we don’t. It has to be an exercise. We do more of it, and we have to do it for each other, because I was very uncomfortable with this, too—still am—but I push through the uncomfortableness because we need to talk to each other. We need to see examples. We need to get braver for each other.

00:12:57

But I love that framework because it’s something most—I haven’t heard anybody reject that framework for suppliers, and then they suddenly all go, “Oh…now I understand.” And it changes the way you talk in an interview. Instead of waiting for them to ask me questions, it’s a client discovery call. “Why do you need this service? How is it going to help you reach your goal?” It just puts you in a different mindset, makes you ask the right questions, and you get a little bit more comfortable with seeing why you need to talk about yourself, and it’s just a part of business, as opposed to a selfish thing, which it definitely is not.

Debra Coleman: Right, or coming from a place of behind. You’re actually coming from a place of empowerment and coming in front of it.

00:13:47

Lauren Bradley: We’re all human; therefore, we are all peers. No one should ever be afraid to talk to anybody else, and the more I accepted that, the more people responded to it. I know you know this.

Debra Coleman: Right, that’s it, yeah.

Lauren Bradley: And so you’re not even behind; you’re just meeting adult to adult.

Debra Coleman: Yes.

Lauren Bradley: Sometimes, in interviews, we go into a child place of I want to—well, what happens is we go into an adult place and we go, “I’ll take care of everything for you. It’ll all be great.” And then on the first day, we go, “What can I do?” So you switch to a child role. There’s reasons at certain times, [like] we need to protect each other or executive partner, but you really want to be adult to adult. And that’s how you do it. That’s another way, to just think: I’m a business owner. I’m a human.

I’ll say one more thing here. Power is all a perspective. Say your boss’ name is Jeff and you think: He could fire me. He’s real mean. But Jeff, to me, is my neighbor who mows his lawn in shorts that are too short and he sings Laga Gaga the whole time. He’s the same guy, but from a different perspective he has no power over me. He’s hilarious. I love Jeff. But to you it’s like this person that could make these decisions.

00:14:55

I think that’s why people say to imagine people naked. I never understood that.

Debra Coleman: I never did, either.

Lauren Bradley: But Jeff in the short shorts, singing Lady Gaga? That, I can get, and you suddenly see they’re just human. And the more you get there faster—and if someone can’t handle that, you don’t want to be there anyway. You don’t want to be there anyway, and all it did was tell you that.

Debra Coleman: That’s right, and so that’s still a win.

Lauren Bradley: It’s a still a win. You’re right.

Debra Coleman: Brilliant advice. Gosh! Ms. Lauren Bradley, let’s just drop the mic. That was fabulous. That’s exactly the type of empowerment, though, that we need to hear, and that’s why you are an EA thought leader in this space, because you feed that to us and we need to hear that. So, thank you for sharing that.

Lauren Bradley: Thank you for having me. And I just want to say how much I love you. I love you so much, Debra. You are just the kindest person and there’s no one better to be doing this. I’m just so glad. Because we’ve known each other for so long, and now I got to meet you at this session. APC brought me wonderful gifts. It really did.

00:15:45

Debra Coleman: Really, I echo that. Absolutely.

Lauren Bradley: And you’re one of them.

Debra Coleman: Well, thank you. Before we let you hop, thank you. That means so much. My cup spilleth over. Do you have time just for one listener question? I see that we do have a listener question coming in.

Lauren Bradley: I cannot wait.

Debra Coleman: Okay, all right. So, Ms. Lauren, the listener asks: I keep detailed to-do lists and manage a ton of moving parts every day, but when I try to showcase my work, it just looks like a list of tasks. So this is maybe leaning into that SharePoint idea you shared. But how can I translate what I do into results that leaders will actually care about?

Lauren Bradley: It’s really good because it’s full circle. It’s not only how are you tracking it, but it goes into that treat your role as a startup—your career as a startup. So detailed lists—I want to know, are you tracking it against every service you provide? In that detail, do you understand the value of those services?

I always say, like if someone asked you in pub what you do—say you’re an EA—how do you describe that? What you hear is inbox management, check their emails, I respond to things. I do calendar management. They downplay it.

00:16:50

I had a brain date yesterday and everyone there was brilliant, and they knew they were brilliant, and they all did one little thing that was self-deprecating because we can’t be too flashy, right? I was like, don’t do that. But in this scenario, we do not know how to define the value. When we know how to connect what we do, those services—and this is why it helps to say you’re a business owner, because now what I used to use Google for, I can use ChatGPT for a lot easier, or AI, because…

If you think of this way, like a Buzz Lightyear doll on a shelf, it might say it has flashing lights, but what it really says is hours of fun. All your friends will want one. There’s that emotional tie. Some people call this like personal branding and stuff, but, to me, it’s: How is that person going to feel after you provide these services? So, instead of saying, “I do calendar management or inbox management,” I say, “I strategically deploy my executive’s time. I do that so that they’re focused on their goals and growth-accelerating initiatives.” Now, that’s the business speak. That’s how I connect—that’s literally the business case for my role.

00:17:59

How come no one defined that outside of us? They hired us, but they cannot define it. We have to learn ourselves. But the last piece of that is, if a CEO reads that, how is he going to know I know what I’m talking about? “I’m going to give you better work/life balance. I’m going to make sure that you have more decision-making time in your day. I’m going to make sure that you have the information you need to make the decisions that lead the helm, so I can improve your ROI. I’m here to look out for you and remove decisions from you.”

That speaks totally differently than the other way. It is as skill. It’s one you can learn quite quickly. You literally just say—say it’s event planning. What is the benefit of a company having coffee events, coffee meetups? And it’ll say something like culture or collaboration. You go, “Why is collaboration is important?” You just keep going why, why, why.

00:18:53

So I used to do that in Google. You don’t even have to click on any of them. You have those previews and you’ll hear a word like “retention,” and you’re like, “Ooh, okay.” And you’re getting closer. But now you can ask ChatGPT and it will give you much better answers. We all know we have value, we know we have value, but no one can articulate it.

Jillian Hufnagel is great at this, at [unintelligible] humor—fantastic at this. I’ve learned so much from that. But when I showed somebody that I literally just keep Googling “why, why this, why that,” and they’ve been working with me for years, before every performance review, she was like, “Lauren, that’s the best thing you ever showed me. I thought you knew all these words.” I was like, “No, I don’t know any of this stuff. I just know where to find it.” So those are just little tips. You start to learn that language and they, again, totally respond to it. It’s like magic.

Debra Coleman: Like magic. Fantastic advice. Good advice. I love [how] all of your advice is so centered around being empowered and standing in our own confidence. That’s just going to lead us forward. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, honestly.

00:19:56

Lauren Bradley: The funny thing is that when you see other people—because we’re drawn to helping people, right? You follow your own advice. When you see these people struggling and you know they shouldn’t be, that they’re amazing and they’re empowered and you say that truth to them, we hear it ourselves. I have only gotten better by helping others, and that’s why assistants are also good because when they help others, they’ve learned something. They accept some of their own advice. I just like that we’re doing it now more in a leadership sense.

Debra Coleman: Absolutely.

Lauren Bradley: I’ve learned a lot.

Debra Coleman: Yeah, and we are learning a lot from you, with conversations like this. It’s no wonder your brain dates are packed and your schedule is full.

Lauren Bradley: It’s been very full. It’s been amazing because I’m a captive audience. I just want to talk to as many people as possible, and I’m so glad that I was here and you got to talk to me and I got to talk to you.

Debra Coleman: Me, too. So, for those who are listening, where can they find more about The Officials and about Lauren Bradley?

00:20:48

Lauren Bradley: That’s a good question. You can find us at jointheofficials.com. I’m on LinkedIn, just /laurenbradley, and on TikTok @jointheofficials.

Debra Coleman: Fantastic. Thank you, Ms. Lauren. I appreciate you being here with me. Thank you so much.

Lauren Bradley: Thank you. I love you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to The Admin Edge, produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool Productions. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at ASAPorg.com/podcast.