Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant If you’re an estate planning attorney with your own law practice, there’s a good chance that you don’t have one of the most important manuals in your practice: an Employee Handbook. In fact, this may also be the case for other estate planning professionals as well, such as CPAs, financial advisors, or life insurance agents. The fact is, if you have your own business and you have employees working for you, an employee handbook is a must-have necessity as part of your business for all of the reasons laid out below. What…
7 Tips For Being the “Boss” of Your Boss
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant An executive assistant is probably one of the most important support staff members that any busy professional could possibly have, regardless of his or her profession. One of the things that we hear all the time from our boss, Phil Kavesh, is that his executive assistant is actually his boss. Of course, this doesn’t give us, as executive assistants, the same kind of “power” that a normal boss might have over an employee. What being the boss of your boss means is that you are supporting your boss and directing his or…
Squash the Drama: 5 Steps to Properly Handling Interoffice Conflicts
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant It’s a fact in just about every single office, conflict is going to happen. There are times the workplace is going to be stressful. There are going to be different people with different personalities and with a lot of different things going on in both their personal and professional lives. Regardless of what industry you’re in, but especially in an estate, tax or financial planning practice, what is inevitable is that, at some point or another, there will be conflict. Knowing and implementing the steps to properly handle this conflict, while they…
If You’re Doing Seminars (or Are Thinking About Doing Them) Your Staff Better Know About and Be Handling These Important Details!
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant The common saying “The devil is in the details” is probably never more true than when it comes to seminar marketing. Whenever I’m discussing seminar marketing with attorneys, it becomes pretty clear to me that a lot of estate planning attorneys are overlooking a number of key details that should be completed. Successful seminar marketing is the result that comes from the compound effect of a lot of steps to be handled during the planning process, just before the seminar, during the seminar, and right after. Even missing one or two of…
Helpful Computer Programs for Organization and Efficiency
Download Printable Article By Megan DeLaGarza, Executive Assistant Staying organized and on top of a busy workload and boss can be time-consuming and overwhelming. Even if you have a plan of attack, it’s not always easy to find where exactly to start or the best way to implement new ideas. Below are a few resources that might prove helpful not only for you, but perhaps for your entire firm, to execute efficient and effective daily work. Text Expander. Save time and effort with TextExpander to avoid typing the same thing over and over, whether it’s a simple email signature or…
Keep Your E-Mail Inbox Under Control (or It Will Control You!)
Download Printable Article By Megan DeLaGarza, Executive Assistant Technology is a concurrent blessing and curse. Email has not been around terribly long in the grand scheme of office administration, so we are just now learning the effects of it’s omnipresence in a plugged in world. The biggest problem with email is that it’s a huge distraction. The pressure to respond right away leads you to working off-task. An inbox that is open with notifications popping up makes this even worse. Responding to your inbox as a to-do list leads to working on the wrong priorities. It’s time to break these…
Our Top 10 Best Articles on Support Staff & Executive Assistant Tips
As part of our December 2014 Newsletter, we are featuring a special “Best Of” issue. Below, you will find a list of our Top 10 Articles on Support Staff and Executive Assistants. All of these articles were authored and written by Kristina Schneider and Megan DeLaGarza, Executive Assistants to Philip Kavesh. Five Simple Tips for Being a More Organized Assistant 6 Ways to Better Manage Your Interruptions How “Electronically” Organized Are You? Effectively Managing Your Boss’ Busy Calendar 7 Tips for Taking Better Notes & Being More Efficient! 6 Tips for Handling Difficult Clients 8 Steps to Hiring a Great…
GREAT NEWS!—Marketing Session Added to The Ultimate Level Program
By popular demand, we are pleased to announce that we have added a MARKETING SESSION to both of our upcoming 2-day Ultimate Level events. We are just 4 weeks away from our Dallas program and we only have 4 spots left. For more information about the Dallas event, click here. If you can’t make the Dallas event or prefer to attend our Orlando event in October, we still have room and you still have time to do so. For more information about the Orlando event, click here. During this MARKETING SESSION, Phil will be providing attendees ideas and strategies for…
The Three “D’s” of Being a Better Assistant (and More Efficient Assistant)
By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant | Volume 2, Issue 5 (May 2014) Whether you’re a busy executive or the assistant to a busy executive, you know the feeling of having far too many things to do in a day than hours available, right? There are a lot of different tips and ways that you can handle such a workload. One such technique of determining how to handle a heavy workload is something that Phil actually taught to us. It’s the Three “D’s”: Do It, Delegate It, DeferIt! Start by looking at your To Do List – – which we hope all of you have, because…
How You & Your Assistant Can Work Better Together
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant (UPDATED JULY 2015) Trust in the workplace is always a difficult, but necessary, part of running a successful practice. A lot of estate planners, regardless of his or her professional designation, struggle with this concept. Although just about every single one of these professionals could benefit from having some kind of assistant or other administrative support, they have difficulty in trusting others to take on important tasks. Unfortunately, estate planners are only ever making any real money if they are either meeting with clients or doing some kind of marketing or networking…