Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge.

Here at ASAP, we have a community of nearly 140,000 members, and we provide online courses, certifications, and events like APC and EA Ignite. Many of our members are executive assistants, and many wrestle with how to demonstrate value in ways their business and executives will recognize.

So let’s hear from wonderful guest Jess Gardiner on the subject from the show floor at EA Ignite.

Hi, I’m Leah Warwick, senior content manager for ASAP, and my guest today is Jess Gardner, founder and CEO of The Assistant Room, a global community of 40,000-plus assistants and a speaker at this event, EA Ignite.

Welcome to the podcast, Jess.

Jess Gardiner: Thank you, Leah.

Leah Warwick: So great to have you here.

In our membership community at ASAP, we often hear the qualifier of “just.” I’m just an EA. I just keep my executives on track, et cetera. Why do you think this mindset is still so pervasive?

Jess Gardiner: It’s a confidence thing. Absolutely. I think there’s a lack of true understanding actually of what PAs and EAs do on a daily basis, and the impact that you make.

I’m saying that from somebody who used to be an executive assistant, and it’s really interesting because now I’m on the other side of it, and I actually have my own EA, and I have a completely different understanding of why she is so important in a way that I didn’t actually have when I was an EA myself, even though I thought I did.

And ultimately, it just comes down to the, in my opinion, the feeling or the misunderstanding that this role is something that people are unable to fully quantify. And ultimately, it comes down to the fact that excellence in our roles is not how much we do, but it’s the impact that we make. But we’re not taught to describe our impact, and therefore, of course, there’s the confidence issues.

Of course, there’s those challenges when it comes to describing what you do and, and why you’re so important in a way that businesses understand. And then it’s just a little bit of a never-ending cycle of not really being able to get that full recognition for who you are. So, I think that’s really where it comes down to. If you can’t describe why you’re not just something, it’s very easy to fall into that habit.

Leah Warwick: I like how you described the outside perspective that you have now, the bigger picture, because often when you’re in the role and you have the blinders on a bit or you have tunnel vision, and it can be harder to see the impact that you’re having, and then also be able to voice that and communicate that.

We also hear from our members, and I’m sure you do as well, about their pain points. I’m wondering what you’re hearing from your community at The Assistant Room. What are they telling you are their biggest struggles right now?

Jess Gardiner: I think they’re actually very consistent challenges that people have always had.

It is that recognition piece, absolutely. You know, how can I ask my boss to finally understand what I do and why I’m important? That’s definitely one of the biggest challenges that we’ve heard consistently, and one of the things that I felt when I was an EA.

The other is AI, and how that can be introduced into our roles and in a way that executives also welcome—without them thinking that we don’t know how to do our jobs properly, because it’s absolutely not about that.

It’s about enhancing what we do, saving time on the more time-consuming admin pieces so that you can put all of your effort into more strategic, more commercially driven tasks.

I would say that coming to events like this is so important because you understand that everybody else has the same challenges, but you also then have the support to overcome those challenges, which is super important. So the value in what you’ve created with EA Ignite is just absolutely spectacular.

Leah Warwick: Oh, and likewise! The power of community is, is very real, and I’m sure you feel it too, to know that you’re not alone, to know that you’re not having these problems in a vacuum. They are happening with other people, and you’re so right about the AI element of it.

We believe that the biggest antidote to fear is action. You break that first barrier, and then you get a little more confident, and you start using more tools. And it’s true that AI can be a really strong lever to more strategic work because, frankly, a lot of what you can use it for is very foundational work that often used to take you all day and maybe was super annoying and maybe wasn’t your favorite part of the job.

Like, “Ugh, I have to do these tasks and, and I really want to be making a bigger impact or doing more.” If you give that to AI now, then how will the role change?

And we’re talking about that a lot at this event too. How will it change in really positive ways? But also any kind of change is inherently scary and is an adjustment, and that’s totally okay too. It definitely takes time to adapt, and we are in a, a growth period, for certain.

And we found this in the ASAP Set- State of the Profession Report that we just put out. The executives that responded to this survey, 91% of them said that they have the authority to approve training, professional development training for EAs.

And yet, budget approval is still the number one barrier that our EAs report, and all administrative professionals who took the survey, with nearly half of them experiencing friction with budget uncertainty and unclear approval pathways.

What is your take on that, and how can admins and EAs hold their organizations accountable for their professional growth?

Jess Gardiner: Firstly, the fact that you had executives contributing to that survey is amazing. I mean, if I look back at when I started The Assistant Room, the idea that I would ever hear that executives were proactively involved in anything to do with the assistant community, was something that I probably thought was the funniest joke that you would tell me.

But, you know, we are seeing change. We are seeing that executives do recognize that this is an industry of exceptionally powerful people that deserves the same input as everybody else.

You know, it’s crazy to me that there are so many EAs who are pivotal to executives being extremely successful, and they need an extremely high-performing team around them. And so the fact that the PA or the EA is not included sometimes in that blows my mind. It’s absolutely wild.

So I think there’s a few things. Firstly, it’s about not giving up. When you’re asking for budgets or if you’re asking for training or whatever it is, it doesn’t matter if it’s $10 or $10,000.

If you get a no straight away, your first answer back to them is, “Okay, well, what do you need me to do to make this, this possible? What do you need to see from me to understand what the value is?”

And that’s something that across the board, whether you’re asking for a promotion, a pay rise, training and development, anything at all, you have to be able to demonstrate the value.

Nobody goes into work and just gets a budget signed off just for the sake of it. It doesn’t work like that for any of us. So go in, lead with value, explain why it’s beneficial to you, what you’re going to learn from it, how you’re going to apply those skills internally once you’ve learnt them at your conference or on your course or whatever you’re doing, and talk about the impact that it’s going to make, and how it’s going to benefit them as an organization, and them as a boss.

There’s something that I talk and I teach quite a lot, which is your ripple, and it’s your impact, and your second ripple or, or your task. Your second ripple is how that impacts your boss. Third ripple, how that impacts your department. Fourth ripple, how that impacts the entire company. And you’re pretty much setting out a business case for anything that you want.

You have to be relentless. If you get a no, don’t just leave it as a no. Recognize that sometimes executives m- might say to you, “Well, we don’t have budget.” That doesn’t mean that they don’t have money.

Leah Warwick: That’s exactly right.

Jess Gardiner: So, feel that fire in your belly when someone says that to you. Don’t give up. Don’t just walk out of that room and think, ” I can’t go to that conference,” or, “I can’t do that course.”

Also, ask the right questions. Ask the right people the right questions. but just don’t give up. You deserve that, you deserve that opportunity in the same way everybody else does.

Leah Warwick: I 100% agree, and it helps also to think about how an executive thinks. Very often they’re thinking about the business bottom line, and they’re thinking about ROI as well. So doing the job for them of showing them, as you were talking about. what the return on investment will be from you getting this training.

And then an important step that you cannot overlook is coming back. Let’s say you get approval for an AI course. Then show, “Here’s how I’m implementing that.”

A lot of this is quantifiable, even if it’s percentage of time saved, not just dollars. Oftentimes, it is dollars.

If you can show that, then they’re going to see that that was a worthwhile investment as well.

Often the hardest part is just getting the yes, but then after you get the yes, showing, “Hey, this actually really helped.” And that’s going to further your growth as well, and then—also important to the executive—the organization’s growth because of the ripple effect that you have.

Jess Gardiner: Absolutely. Yeah. Just don’t give up. When someone says no, don’t take no for an answer.

Leah Wariwck: I think that’s true of so many things in life, right? Just because you get a no does not mean that’s the end of the road for you or the end of the conversation even with that particular person.

Be resilient. That’s always served me well, and many of the people I know and love. We’re giving you permission right here!

And I have a listener question for you, submitted by a member of our community. They wrote: “Why do you think so many EAs still downplay their own role, even when they know how much they contribute.”

Jess Gardiner: Ooh, that’s such a good question. I think that’s something we all suffer from.

At some point, every EA or PA will either do that on a regular basis, or we will all have that moment where we look back and think, “Actually, I did a really good job, and I didn’t take the credit for that like I should have.”

I think ultimately it comes down to the level of psychological safety you have and the trust you have within yourself. I don’t think it necessarily helps that we are a majority industry of women, and we don’t typically like to talk about ourselves in the same way guys do.

But it’s something that we can all change. Just because you haven’t necessarily been representing yourself in the right way, and you haven’t been putting your best foot forward or talking about your achievements, it doesn’t mean that that can’t happen.

It’s all about confidence, but that confidence is within you. You know, you just said about permission. You do not need permission to be an amazing person. You don’t need permission to talk about being an amazing person.

And if you aren’t going to talk about yourself and talk about your achievements and how you are essential to a business or essential to your boss, it’s never going to happen for you by somebody else. You have to take the lead on that. That magic moment of somebody finally recognizing how incredible you are is never going to come unless you welcome it in.

So my advice to anybody who is experiencing a confidence issue is find a way that you feel confident or you feel comfortable with talking about yourself, whether that’s going into your performance review or just a one-to-one meeting with your boss and having a list of three wins from that week and just reading them.

You don’t have to put the pressure on yourself to think on the spot. Just do whatever you need to, to get yourself in that position.

Talk about yourself. Talk about yourself unapologetically as well, because administrative professionals are backbone of every single organization.

I know that everybody says, “If I wasn’t here, my boss’s life would fall apart, or the company wouldn’t run.” And that is absolutely true, but it’s not enough to say that to yourself. You have to be able to verbalize that to your boss in a way that they understand, of course.

But just go for it. Stop playing small. Recognize how great you are, and embrace it, and let everybody else know how great you are as well.

Leah Warwick: Yes, yes. I find that when I am louder about my accomplishments, the amount of support I get back, it always takes me by surprise.

And there’s so many people out there rooting for you, too, even if it’s just on LinkedIn. Maybe you’re the only EA at your company. With your community, you’ll find them here [at EA Ignite] You’ll find them in The Assistant Room. They’re in your corner, too, and there’s so many people out there wanting the best for you and being inspired.

You could be an inspiration to someone else. You never know someone might need what you have to say.

Jess Gardiner: There’s a, a really good example actually recently from one of our members.

She came to me and said, “I’ve been organizing this same event now for the last three years, and my boss never really says thank you to me, or never really recognizes me and the hard work that goes into that event in the way that I wish he did. We had a new PA join recently. She worked on it with me, and she rang me and said, ‘My boss has just given me a £50 voucher to say thank you for all the work that I’ve done on this event.’”

And my member said, “Well, I don’t really know why she gets that, that praise, and why she’s got that voucher, and I’ve never got that because I do this event all the time. But what’s the difference?”

And I said, “The difference is that the new PA spoke about her achievements. She spoke about how much hard work that she put into something that you never talk about.

And that doesn’t diminish the work that you do, and that doesn’t mean that you haven’t worked as hard as she has. But if you want that recognition and you want people to realize the importance of the part that you play, you have to verbalize it, and you have to talk about how great you are.”

Leah Warwick: I’ve heard it said that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. But also, if you don’t say, people might not know. You can’t assume that people know what you’re doing unless you’re talking about it.

So, that’s such good advice, and I hope that some of us out there will be brave and take that first step today, even if it’s a small step, to talk about your accomplishments—because you’re doing so many amazing things.

And thanks again for joining us on The Admin Edge, Jess. Where can our listeners find you online?

Jess Gardiner: So many places.

Obviously, TheAssistantRoom.com. We’re just about to start laying our U.S. foundations, which I’m very excited about, but we’re global already. We have an incredible group of over 70,000 PAs and EAs in the network already, so definitely on TheAssistantRoom.com and also on LinkedIn.

We do have our own podcast, but we are trying to bring that back for season three. No promises just yet.

But definitely on LinkedIn, absolutely. I love a good chat. I love connecting with people. So yeah, come and find me.

Leah Warwick: Alright. Go and find Jess, and I’ll keep an ear out for that podcast and an eye out for you. Thank you so much.

Jess Gardiner: Thank you.

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 Five Tool Productions. If you like 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.

If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at asaporg.com/podcast.