Episode 216 – The Executive Symphony of the Power Couple, Ethan and Stephanie Bull

Episode Transcription

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and to create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump in to another amazing episode of the ultimate advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson 01:07

Welcome to the Ultimate Advisor Podcast Brittany Anderson here today with a couple extra special guests. Today I’ve got with me, Ethan and Stephanie Bull. So before we bring them on the show, I’m gonna give a little background about their expertise and why they are here to add a ton of massive value to you our audience listeners. Ethan Bull is the co founder of pro assisting a next generation remote fractional executive assistance firm for business owners and C suite executives. With a background in hospitality and an expert in the EA space Ethan has held a variety of senior positions, including director of administration services and senior EA to the President and CEO at Rochester Regional Health definitely bowl is pro assisting co founder and the former EA for J Crew CEO and the CEOs of two multi billion Yes, that was with a B multibillion dollar hedge funds. Before developing pro assisting Stephanie proved herself an expert in the field and a vital addition to the C suite by fulfilling a variety of roles, including Chief of Staff, a state manager and investment liaison, Stephanie and Ethan, welcome to the show.

Ethan Bull 2:22

Hi, Brittany.

Stephanie Bull 2:23

Hi, thanks for having us.

Brittany Anderson 2:25

Well, I am so excited to get this rockin and rollin. So we are going to cut to the chase here. The reason that I decided to bring you on the show is because you have a really interesting business model that is different from any that I’ve seen out there. So talk a little bit about the model in general. And maybe what got you to this point?

Ethan 2:43

Well, again, thank you for having us. We actually lived in New York City for a number of years. And then when our second son came along, decided to quit our jobs, sell our condo and moved to upstate New York, which is right outside of Rochester, and quickly realized that the term executive assistant means something different outside of major metropolitan areas than what you find within major metropolitan areas. Fortunately, Stephanie was able to get a client through a friend of ours, and they said, Hey, this is a consultant for Fortune 100 companies she travels the world needs great support, doesn’t care where you are, and doesn’t need full time. And by that point, in our journey, upstate, Stephanie was a little bit at her wit’s end of being home with the kids really longed for, you know, some work and exercising the adult brain. And so we that ended up turning into our first client. Now what that really spurred for us was taking a look at the remote slash virtual assistant space in general. And what we saw really didn’t align with our experience or our compensation expectation. And the way we’re different is that we limit the number of assistants that are or the number of clients that our assistants partner with to three, and that allows them to provide that Monday through Friday full service support, and we don’t charge by the hour, we charge a flat retainer rate. And that allows us to compensate our assistants 80% of the retainer. And so they are compensated appropriately based on their experience. And it gives top level executive assistants who could command six figures a chance to move outside of the metropolitan cities across the country and work for clients instead of bosses.

Brittany 4:37

There’s so much to unpack there with some of the things that you’re sharing here. So one of the things that I think is notable about what you’ve put together is this model where you’re not only limiting the number of clients that each of your EAS have, but you’re really making sure that the pairing makes sense. So can you talk a little bit more about how you go about pairing People who come in, you know, they’re looking for an Executive Assistant, what’s the pairing process like? And how do you help ensure that that relationship is going to be as productive as possible,

Ethan 5:09

We are an expert two sided marketplace, we believe that a great executive assistant is both industry and principle agnostic and able to work with anyone across any industry. And we have to stay in balance. So we don’t have a ton of assistance that we can pull from, you know, once we make a commitment to an assistant, that we’re going to partner you with clients, we partner them with one, and then after a month, we partner them with two, and then after two months, we partner them with three. So the pairing process is more along the lines of what we have available of who we have available. But we’re confident in our selection process. And maybe Stephanie can speak to that. But that’s kind of how we do it. It’s not we’re very boutique for

Stephanie 5:57

Yeah, I did want to speak Brittany to the, to our vetting, and selection process. So it starts with certainly checking out the LinkedIn profile, making sure there are no typos. Because you’d be surprised how many people have typos in their LinkedIn profiles. And, you know, we really are looking for someone with with C suite experience, several years for someone that has experienced that could match that. So maybe a project manager, or or using the similar skill set, but maybe doesn’t have the executive assistant title. And you know, after we’ve checked out the LinkedIn profile, speaking on the phone, or doing a video call, and making sure that person’s personality comes through in their voice, because we’ve had so many candidates who are great on paper and have these like amazing resumes, and you speak to them on the phone, and they are robotic, you know, wooden, no smile in their voice, just just kind of zeros, personality wise. And conversely, I think we’ve also had people who might not have the perfect resume, but have these amazing personalities. And so it’s it’s a combination of those. But I think that Ethan does a great job. He’s really our main main assistant contact, and he does a great job betting our candidates.

Brittany 7:31

I think something that’s really interesting too, is when I think about our industry, when I think about, you know, the wealth planners, the financial advisors that are tuning in to this, a big conversation that happened recently, and I think COVID has helped this along in a positive direction, is understanding that an EA doesn’t necessarily have to be in office. Now, we also have a little bit of more of like the traditional model, traditional thinking where you need your people around you. So what advice would you give, and this is truly for somebody that, you know, we believe that there’s so much opportunity in hiring remote workers, and hiring people that can work from wherever they are. So what would you say to somebody that’s maybe struggling with the notion of not having somebody right next door physically to them,

Ethan 8:18

You know, I would say that it’s a gray area. And we’re finding out that there is a happy medium, if you will, I don’t ascribe to the philosophy that everyone should be remote, the assistant role really took on a remote aspect to it back in 1999 2000 2001, when the BlackBerry came out, and in the finance industry, they were handing those out like Tic Tac. So that’s my little saying, and Stephanie had one and I didn’t because I was in advertising. And I was jealous of the ability to work remotely, and how that looked. And I think there are certain roles within the office and now assistant support that really can function remotely, and where you’re hiring a service based company, as opposed to an employee. And when you contrast that with business development strategy sessions, or creative sessions, or, you know, board meetings or having difficult conversations, all of those things should be done in person when possible. And we don’t shy away from that. And you know, we work with a lot of companies where we augment their in house support with our support, and then they get more bandwidth, their internal support that’s in office feels like they have a life raft if they need it, but that’s just one instance. So you know, life is always a shade of gray. And I never like to go to extremes, but along with technology platforms between PC and Mac, and computer programs becoming Ubik Notice, it really allows for anyone to work with anyone in an assistant capacity and then leverage additional services to make up for the fact that someone isn’t right outside your door.

Brittany 10:13

You know, I think this spins a little bit into something that really caught my attention. When we had our first conversation off air. One of the things that you talked about is how much you support your EAS, and how your business model is truly built around, you know, helping shape them and you know, create these opportunities for themselves. So while yes, you are supporting, you know, the CEOs, the executives, the people who need the support, really, your core focus is on shaping these individuals and helping provide opportunity. So I would love for you to talk just a little bit about maybe the culture of your company, and you know, what that looks like going into the future?

Stephanie 10:55

Yeah, Brittany. So we pride ourselves on we we feel we take very good care of our assistants, we do pass on 80% of the retainer, the month of retainer to our assistants, which is really unheard of in this industry. Most of our, our competitors, other people in the space are paying maybe 50%. And they’re passing that along to their assistants. And that’s probably the top the top of the top level for that, you know, used to commanding, say, six figures in major metropolitan areas. And these are people who, by passing on that 80%, we can attract the talent, and we can keep the talent. And that’s so important because, you know, part of our model is we want that long term relationship. We do charge on a month to month basis. But our our average relationships are more than two years. Ethan has had a client for five years now. And that’s what we’re really going for is that long term partnership,

Ethan Bull 12:02

I like to say we care a little bit more about our assistants than our clients. And we are also welcoming and okay with an assistant having one or two of our clients, and then also having a client outside of our relationship. So part of what we do is coach our assistants on how to start their own little business under our umbrella. And they create an LLC, and they open a business bank account, and we walk them through that process. And we’re giving them options down the road, whether they move back into the W two full time role, or whether they continue to work for clients as opposed to bosses, and really looking at a top level executive assistant position as a trade that can be taken with you into different locations and for different industries and different principles. And it gives it finally feels like and as career executive assistants, I think we both finally feel like you can create your own safety net and really align yourself properly with a client as opposed to being a way of a large imbalance in power. And that makes the assistant want to work really well with the client because it’s month to month. And that makes the client want to work well with the assistant because frankly, finding a new assistant and getting through onboarding is like a root canal.
Yeah. And I think that’s part of the struggle. And I think that’s such a differentiator for you guys as a service company is that you’re kind of taking the pain away in a lot of capacities. So I think about just some of the advisors that I’ve had conversations with, you know, be it in our coaching program, you know, different participants in our mastermind, who are to that point where they know they need an executive assistant, one of the biggest fears, I guess, you could say or reasons that they procrastinate is because they don’t know where the heck to start. And the interview process can be so overwhelming, you know, as you know, you go to hire anybody within your company. It’s like, man, there’s a whole system method process to this or ensure that I get the right person in the right seat. So I think something that you’ve done is you’ve kind of cut that pain point, or at least helped shorten the distance that it would take. That’s at least how it appears from the outside looking in.

Brittany 13:29

Yeah, the most important part is aligning expectations and responsibilities on both sides of the equation. And that’s, you know, that’s where our business model comes in. And that’s where having a very open frank conversation about the client or prospective client needs and how we fit into that and whether we can get aligned and then we’re alleviating the need to pay a recruiter. We’re also alleviating the need to worry about the response. ability of taking on a full time employee and, and making that work. And, you know, it’s it’s been working really well. And, you know, Stephanie and I, it’s a common story, if you will, in the entrepreneurial space where we’ve taken our Well, I can’t believe it, but almost 40 years of combined experience and created a service business based on our W two full time employee experience, we filled ourselves up with clients first, we’ve proven that the model work, and now it was more about, you know, we’re at 50 clients and 20, something assistants, and it’s it, it just grew organically. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s been a ride, I will say, and Stephanie can probably attest this, I don’t think neither of us were ready for just the inherent stress of running a business, as opposed to being a W two employee and not having to think about it just that. But the rewards on providing great support to someone who didn’t have it is is fantastic. And more importantly, helping assistants really understand their value and their worth sticking up for the for the tribe, if you will,

Ethan Bull 14:24

I think that’s that’s such a beautiful kind of layout for your business too, because you’re clear on your intentions. And you’re clear on your vision on who you serve, and who you serve first, essentially. So, you know, the other interesting thing too, is that you have that firsthand experience, be it through, you know, who you’re supporting now who your direct clients are now or through your past life being in more of a W two type position. So I would be curious to know, from your observation, what are some of the biggest roadblocks that you’re seeing entrepreneurs face? And how are they maybe not overcoming them as quickly as they should?

Stephanie 17:00

Well, I guess I will say, I mean, I think, really, the, the trust factor is the biggest one. And that I mean, that’s the biggest hurdle for people in my opinion. And that’s more, you know, speaking more to what Ethan was saying about taking that that first leap, you know, dipping your toe in, and that’s why pro sustain is great, because we’ve vetted those people. And that just alone is like, you know, hey, we’re doing the sort of the first step for you. And matching you with someone that we trust and know that you can trust. My most successful relationships with clients are undoubtedly the ones where they trust me, and give me autonomy, trust that I am representing them in their business in the way that they would want. The folks that really can’t let go of the power or struggle with it, the the relationship doesn’t grow organically the way it should. So I a lot of time, and I’ve had to have these conversations where it’s like, you know, I could do this for you. This is an idea, since I’ve already done you know, this report for you. Why don’t you should I try to do this for you as well. But when they can’t let go of that, it’s just they’re not using me to my full capability.

Ethan 18:21

Yeah, I would just add that entrepreneurs speaking to that point, directly type A micromanagers. And if you are, if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re running your own book of business, or as a financial planner or an end, you want things done a certain way, it can be hard to understand that there could be multiple ways of doing something. And making that transition from micromanager to delegator can be a little challenging. But what we find is that one one of those people does make the transition, they want to delegate everything. Once you can see how much time you’re getting back, and that is the name of the game is time. And then something Jeff Bezos said that’s been in my mind a lot lately is that there are two kinds of decisions one way door decisions and two way door decisions. A one way door decision is a really important decision that you make and you can’t go back. That falls to the principal that falls to the CEO, the founder, the business owner, but the two way door decisions are decisions that can be placed, some of them say in the hands of an executive assistant. And if something goes wrong or doesn’t work or isn’t right, then you can go back through the door and do it the old way, or do it a different way. And I think if you couch some of these tasks, projects responsibility means that you’re handing over to your assistant in that frame, it allows you to kind of let go a little bit. And and know that there usually are multiple ways of doing something. And also, a lot of times what you think is a problem, your client or your customer does not, and doesn’t even acknowledge or notice or think about. So, it’s, it’s a dance. And you know, and Stephanie is exactly right. The best relationships happen when the know like, and trust feeling is built. And where a principal is not cringing, when they see that their assistant is calling. They’re actually excited to answer the phone, because usually it’s either saving time, it’s getting them out of a jam, or calling with a solution. Yeah. And that’s the goal.

Brittany 20:55

You know, it makes me think about everything that you just shared there with that trust factor. And, you know, I think about the journey to trust and how it can’t be necessarily earned overnight. But a lot of times it can happen by your own intentional actions. So I was listening to a presentation recently, and the gentleman he was in the real estate space, he was talking about how when he first decided to make this, he does remodels, you know, flips, houses, that that’s his whole business model. So when he first was in the space, he decided, you know, I need to hire somebody to help with some of the basics. And so he did this demonstration where he’s like, you know, I used to be the guy that did it all. And I carry the toilet, he has this, like, you know, walk across the stage, pretending he’s carrying this big toilet, he’s like, Okay, well, I need to hire somebody to do that, and move that over there. And he’s like, it was fine, because it freed me up and I could go do some of the stuff that I wanted, and, you know, maybe make some decisions for my business, he goes, but the game changer, the point where I became more than a six figure producer and seven into eight figure producer, was when I actually offloaded some of the biggest decisions, and actually put somebody in place who can help with that bigger minutia. So again, you’re not going to put the hands of your entire company to your point with, you know, the the two way door versus the one way door into an executive assistant. But I think that there’s a big gap, where people don’t put enough responsibility on to a very capable, very intelligent human being, that’s actually great. And maybe even better than the executive ever better than the entrepreneur and what they do by just handing off some of those bigger things. So I think it just ties in really well with what you just shared there about, you know, making sure that you facilitate that trust, and that you’re delegating the stuff that’s going to actually make a difference for you. Versus the carrying of the toilet.

Ethan 22:43

Yeah. And as an as entrepreneurs ourselves, you know, being five years in, we’re in our sixth year now, and most businesses don’t make it that far. So we’re, we definitely pat ourselves on the back there. But if you are going to get to multiple, seven and into eight figures, and have a saleable asset, as opposed to a job, you really do need to find ways to allow your team to make those big decisions. And the way that we say it is we’re going to be really excited. Actually, it’s happening actually, right now, as we speak, we’re really excited in that we have an assistant who has brought on a new assistant onto our team, and being able to take that searching, conversations, agreement, expert expectations all off our plate. And now we have someone new on our team, who were looking to partner with clients. That’s amazing. The next step down the road when someone other than Stephanie or I make a sale. And so from an entrepreneurial spec perspective, a business owner perspective, that’s the goal is to lead to where you are getting some of those
larger, two way door decisions. And maybe even a couple of one way door decisions off of your plate. And it’s, it’s been fun. It’s been fun looking at how we’ve slowly built our business and trying to take comfort in the president and have some patience, which is my problem. But I am very grateful for Stephanie in terms of helping acknowledge smaller wins and enjoy those.

Brittany 24:39

And there is so much power in it. And I know our advisor, audience tuning in. A lot of the advisors that we tend to work with or end up in our coaching programs are people who do have that type A they want everything yesterday and you know I think having that person in your corner to be intentional about celebrating the wins about recognizing the Progress, right, looking back and not saying, you know, wow, you know, look forward again, we have a long ways to go but saying, Wow, look how far we’ve come. I think that’s such valuable advice. So, before I ask you the last couple questions that I’ve got for you today, if somebody wants to learn more about how you might be able to help them how you could help place an EA into their lives, which could be a total game changer, how would they get ahold of you?

Stephanie 25:22

Well, we’re both on LinkedIn. We’re both active on LinkedIn. So I’m Stephanie Bull, ProAssisting and Ethan Bull. And also our website Proassisting.com.

Brittany 25:35

So to kind of help round things out today, I’d like to ask a couple questions that are maybe a little bit more personal to you. So we talk about fear a lot on this podcast actually just wrapped up another interview right before this, where we got deep into the conversation of fear. But I would be curious to know a time in your lives where fear was absolutely present, but you managed to push through and not let it stop your progress.

Stephanie 25:59

I’m gonna be brutally honest right now. I remember when we were in our first couple months of launching pro sustain and making the leap. Like Ethan said, I had I had my first part time client, it was very part time role. And Ethan was transitioning from W to role. I was terrified. I remember, being in my car, and listening to all honest Morissette and crying really loudly. I was really scared. And I, I credit Ethan with, with being more of the risk taker and our relationship, I think we work well together that way, he’s more of a risk taker and more of the governor. But that for me was, was very scary. And as we grew the business, of course, that I started to let go of that, but that initially, for me, was very scary.

Brittany 26:54

I can about imagine. What about you, Ethan?

Ethan 26:57

Well, I’m just grateful that I didn’t know that story. So she was really good at hiding that. Yeah, I mean, it’s the same time, you know, the fear of, of making the leap. And, you know, that’s the easy one to point to. You know, I think another part was, you know, in 2015, when we had our second son on the way and we ditched our jobs, sold our condo and moved to upstate New York, and in the back of our heads, knowing that we’re going up to a part of the country that really, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for people with our level of experience. And fortunately, I was able to land a spot and stuff was able to stay at home with the kids. But, you know, there was a time there, where it’s also, along with fear comes in excitement, and an opportunity and growth. And so, you know, you can’t it’s yin and yang, you can’t have one without the other.

Brittany 28:00

I love that I love the correlation between excitement and fear. Because it is so true. That you know, especially when you have movement involved, maybe that’s the third word when there’s movement towards something. That’s where the excitement starts to kick into. So I can so appreciate both of your responses there. And I’ll tell you this, definitely, there’s a talk that I have where I actually shared one of those moments or those days where I literally cried, I think the entire way home, just had my music cranked up and you’re feeling all the feels. And then you get home and you brush it off and you fix your hair and you fix your makeup and you move forward.

Stephanie 28:35

So it’s such a cliche, but seriously, for me, it works. You’ve got to get it out.

Brittany 28:40

We do. Amen. Amen. So to round this out, what’s something that I haven’t asked you that I maybe should have,

Ethan 28:48

I guess you know, where we’re headed. We’re actually you have a training component to your business. And we are really excited about launching a training program that we consider a master’s program for career executive assistants, and giving them the tools to look at themselves and their experience as a trade and to build a safety net where they can either level up on their W two full time roles, focusing a lot on personal development, personal financial health, understanding emotional intelligence, and in hospitality, as well as a digital presence that can carry that you can carry with you outside of your W two role and potentially into working with clients as opposed to bosses and feeling that empowerment and that safety net. Again, it’s about serving To the assistant community in a much larger way than we’re able to now with the assistants that are on our team. And I think we both really enjoy the camaraderie and the the community and the support that has always been there in the EA community. And as a male Executive Assistant, there’s like eight of us across the country. Jeremy Burrows is one and who does amazing things as well. I guess that’s been interesting, too. So we’re starting that program, but the conversations that Stephanie and I have throughout our careers, and how a lot of times it’s, it’s a man with a female executive assistant. And, and Stephanie was in this role, and we would have these in depth discussions around how to ask for that raise, how to express your worth, how to have difficult conversations, I tell you what was what was amazing is is watching Stephanie moved to New York City. And the first time she came home and told me she told someone off on the subway, I’m like you are a true New Yorker. And, frankly, we need sometimes from in the EA space, we need some more of that because a lot of EAs are so scared about losing their role, and not understanding that leverage the support of a great executive assistant if they’ve never had one, or make sure that they’re getting the most out of the partnership that they do have. And we’re willing to throw that to your listeners.

Brittany 31:37

Awesome. That is such a gift and we will make sure that the details on that are included in the show notes so that everybody can get direct to that link. That is an incredibly generous offer. So thank you. Happy to do it. Awesome. Well, that wraps up today’s episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We’ll catch you back here next time.