I am actually a terrible example of hiring practices. I was hired by my rainmaker in 2013 when he posted for a new administrative assistant late at night on Craigslist (of all places), and I responded within a couple minutes. After a ten minute interview the next morning, he hired me on the spot I knew very little about it. But it's all worked out.

Conversely, in 2016 we left the brokerage we had been at for 3 years to start a new team at Keller Williams. Growth at this point was very exciting to me, though also nerve-wracking, since I knew a lot about how to transact real estate at this point but next to nothing about building a business. The challenge was highly appealing.

Primarily, I keep the business on track. That means both strategically and tactically deciding what the best allocation of our resources and effort are to get us towards our long term vision, and getting everyone else to stay the course on those decisions. This encompasses everything from budgets, projects, organizational models, hiring, and implementing various technology tools.

Second to that, leadership is a key component of the job--by which I mean developing leaders within the team by communicating vision and clarity every day, and mentoring my direct reports.

My 80% is roughly anything that isn't someone else's job description: troubleshooting high level client problems, maintaining financial records, tracking metrics and indicators, internal tech support, project managing various things we're implementing, and overhauling our internal process documentation.

Mondays are typically my most packed day, and are a good example of what the job looks like. I start first thing in the morning by catching up on emails and clearing my inbox of anything by either responding to it (if it's easy), setting a reminder to deal with it later in Slack, or filing it away if it's not actionable. I review my schedule for the day and make any adjustments in white space if I know that it's needed for any priorities that have changed.

I then run a warm up with my operations team which is typically only about 10-15 minutes. We start with daily gratitude from each team member, then everyone reports on their priorities and commitments for the day. We wrap it up with a Q&A on anything that needs group discussion, help, or problem solving. This creates a space that my team knows I'll be present and attentive to their concerns for every day, in addition to always being available via Slack, phone, face-to-face, etc.

Between my warm up and our team meeting (weekly on Mondays), I'll take care of any small task items that are on my list and do some light prep for the meeting itself. Our team meeting takes place at 11:00 AM after sales’ lead generation schedule block and runs for 30 minutes. I run the meeting and we review team metrics and performance as a whole, and do a high level review of any business that affects the entire team.

Immediately following this, our leadership team meets for an hour weekly to review and discuss both department updates and inter-departmental initiatives. We also use this time to make big decisions if necessary. Typically, these meetings are vigorously opinionated at the decision level and everyone commits to extensive follow up items for the next week.

After a quick lunch, I have 30 minute blocks for individual one on one meetings with each of my direct reports to review their goal accountability. This is also where any criticism or room for improvement conversation is isolated unless extremely urgent.

At this point I'm well into the afternoon, and I'll typically have my schedule blocked for an hour or two till the end of the day to work on a specific project or workload that is in alignment with my priorities for the week.
 

Personnel issues are by far the most common derailment. Our team runs lean and everyone is aggressive and has a significant workload.  I get involved in a lot of necessary sidebar conversations to put out fires either between team members/departments, or to ease someone's qualms about something.

Outside of that, there are occasionally high level client fires that demand my particular brand of problem solving or coaching if the person on point needs assistance.

...how much there is to learn about how to run a business effectively and how long that takes.

Our office is an open concept but our spaces are fairly separate. I also spend a lot of time at other people's desks for various reasons and if I'm on the phone I do a lot of pacing around outside.

I have a varied background in both small business settings and larger corporate settings, and I think that helps tremendously in trying to build something from the ground up. Good logical problem solving and intuitive thinking are a necessity. Leadership and management skills are key and always a journey of growth.

I've learned a lot about business financials, business strategy, high level communication, and negotiation skills.

I shape our business from top to bottom and determine how best to engage, capture, and service our clients both now and in the future.

Executive Assistant

There's no ceiling really. You could either grow your team as far as you want to take it, or you could take a similar position in a larger company. As the team grows, the role naturally contracts and you're able to delegate out more of it as you focus on the leadership and decision making only.

I don't think any education is superior to experience, but a business or management background would certainly be helpful.

Slack, Trello, and Office are our daily mainstays. I don't think any software is a must-know, but the ability to quickly learn and adapt to new technology is definitely key.

This is the most rewarding career I've ever had with the right mix of autonomy, control, and producing something worthwhile.