Eliza Bladon is Executive Assistant to the Co-Founder and CTO of Lola.com, and also the founder of SmarterEA – a growing community of EAs on Slack.
Eliza is a leader in her company and a leader in the EA community at large so I am very excited to share our conversation with you!
We talk about navigating and embracing change, finding a Llama at the last minute, communicating with your executive, networking with other assistants, and tips for booking corporate travel.
Eliza also shares how she uses Lola.com – the sponsor for this episode – to manage expenses, book travel, and handle last minute travel emergencies. Oh and we find out what Lola.com’s service team calls themselves. 🙂
Enjoy the show and be sure to attend a demo of Lola.com to get a $50 Amazon gift card here.
LEADERSHIP QUOTE
Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
– John F. Kennedy
CONNECT WITH ELIZA
About Eliza Bladon
Eliza is Lola.com’s executive assistant. She manages the Co-founder/CTO’s calendar and travel, gets new hires up and running, assists in planning company meetings and events and more! She also runs a slack group focused on EAs and Office managers, called Smarter EA.
THIS EPISODE’S SPONSOR
Thanks to Lola.com for sponsoring this episode! If you manage business travel at your company, check out Lola.com’s corporate travel platform. Lola.com is the easiest way to book, manage, and report on corporate travel. Visit Lola.com/podcast to schedule a free demo and receive a free $50 Amazon gift card (terms apply).
If you’re interested in sponsoring The Leader Assistant Podcast, contact me here.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Eliza Bladon 0:00
Hi I’m Eliza. Today’s leadership quote comes from John F. Kennedy. Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
Podcast Intro 0:12
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become irreplaceable game changing leader assistance.
Jeremy Burrows 0:20
Hey assistance, it’s episode 29 In now live from our sponsor. Hey leader assistants, if you manage business travel at your company, check out Lola.coms corporate travel platform lulu.com is the easiest way to book manage and report on corporate travel. Visit lola.com forward slash podcast to schedule a free demo and receive a free $50 amazon gift card terms apply. Again that’s lola.com/podcast. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Eliza Bladen who is lola.com executive assistant. She manages the co founder and CTOs calendar and travel gets new hires up and running, assist in planning company meetings and events and more. She also runs a Slack group focused on EAS and office managers called Smarter EAA. You can check out today’s show notes at leaderassistant.com/29. Also, don’t forget to join our Facebook community at Facebook.leaderassistant.com. And lastly, sign up for my email list at leaderassistant.com/sign up. Let’s get right to it. Hey, leader assistants. Thanks for tuning in. And it’s your host Jeremy Burrows. And today I’m excited to be speaking with Eliza Bladon from lola.com. Eliza is executive assistant to their co founder and CTO. Hi, Eliza. Hey, let’s talk a little bit about your very first job, and maybe what skills and traits you’ve maybe learned and acquired from that job that you still use today?
Eliza Bladon 2:04
Sure, so my very first job, I was actually a babysitter. Which is funny because if you think about childcare, I’m not saying executives are like children in any way. But there’s this kind of planning that goes into that and making sure everyone is taken care of. That was my very, very first job right out of college, I actually worked corporate retail, which is this really high stress, fast paced environment. And I think learning how to move quickly. But making smart decisions at the same time are two of the skills that I learned during those jobs that really helped me become a successful EA.
Jeremy Burrows 2:40
Awesome. Yeah, babysitting is kind of like being an assistant. But yeah, yeah, we’ll get too too far down that trail. Yeah. So what’s your favorite breakfast cereal? And why is it your favorite?
Eliza Bladon 2:55
So I’m actually not a big cereal person. But if I had to choose one, I mean, I love sugar. So it would probably be lucky charms.
Jeremy Burrows 3:04
Nice. Nice. I’m a huge cereal person. So you know, it’s kind of offensive that you’re not a cereal person.
Eliza Bladon 3:11
What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?
Jeremy Burrows 3:14
I would say Chrispix is my favorite. It’s not really a sugar one. But I think it’s like classic perfect cereal. As far as sugar cereal, though I’d probably say Golden Grahams. Tell us about kind of your career path for that corporate retail babysitting and corporate retail, and then how you became an EA and why and you know how that all unfolded?
Eliza Bladon 3:38
Sure. So it was pretty serendipitous, for lack of a better term, I went to college for fashion. So I thought I always wanted to be in retail. It was like my dream job. I landed it when I got out of college. And I realized it just really wasn’t for me. It was a lot more accounting based. And I was used to a lot of math involved, which was not my strong suit. So I worked at TJ Maxx for a while, which was really fun. I learned a lot. And then I got into the startup world, I went to Wayfair I want to try something totally different. And I really enjoyed that job. And then I thought that I wanted to do marketing. So then I tried something else completely different. And at the end of the day, I was talking to a friend, and she was like, You know what I am thinking about like your skill set and what you’re good at. And she was like you should think about becoming an executive assistant. You know, you love calendars. You love to do lists. And so I was introduced to my current boss Paul through a friend and we met and we hit it off and that’s kind of how I became an executive assistant.
Jeremy Burrows 4:44
So as EAS we deal with a lot of change, and it sounds like you’ve had a lot of change just even in your career path. So how did you kind of embrace that and did it kind of push you and push you outside of your comfort zone?
Eliza Bladon 5:00
Yeah, I’m a I’m a big believer in change and previous roles that I’ve had, I always tried to do projects that were outside my comfort zone. I think embracing change is the best way to learn about yourself and learn about what you like in your career, even as an executive assistant today. I mean, I’m sure you know this to our jobs are just so different day to day. And so I think the more that you can switch it up and be okay with it, I think the better that you’re gonna do at your job, I didn’t have that straight line career path that I thought I was going to have. And it turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me.
Jeremy Burrows 5:38
So do you have any crazy stories from your times? As an EA?
Eliza Bladon 5:44
Yeah, I think one of my so we do a lot of party planning here at the company, I work for lulu.com. And we put on these crazy events. And I also help my boss planned some of his summer parties. And so I think the craziest story I’ve ever had is I had to find a llama for an animal themed party in less than 48 hours. And I did. That is one of my favorite stories. I think being an EA is so interesting, because again, you just you’re doing so many different tasks throughout the day, it could be anything from making sure that everyone’s organized for an off site. And then all of a sudden you find yourself online trying to find the nearest petting zoo. So I think that was one of the craziest things I’ve done since I’ve had this role.
Jeremy Burrows 6:27
Nice. I hope you have pictures and videos.
Eliza Bladon 6:31
I think there’s a few. There’s a few floating around. Yeah.
Jeremy Burrows 6:34
So what was the biggest mistake you made as an assistant? And what do you learn from it?
Eliza Bladon 6:39
Yeah, that’s a great question. I so I book a lot of travel. It’s a big part of my job. I’m spoiled in the sense that I now use a tool that helps us book that travel lulu.com. But before I was using that, I booked a flight for my boss and I forgot to pick a seat assignment and it was a long flight. And he ended up like in the very back row in the middle seat that like didn’t recline, I’d say that one was pretty bad. Just because, you know, obviously no one, it wasn’t my fault at the end of the day, but like, Bas are supposed to be on top of it, and double checking things and all that. So that was a pretty big one. But my whole thought process about being an EA is as long as you’re learning from mistakes, and you share it with others. That’s the best outcome.
Jeremy Burrows 7:25
Yeah, that would be tough. It would be tough to face your executive after that. Especially if you’re on the other end of that fight picking them up or something. Yeah, for sure. Speaking of travel, if you had a day where you could go and do anything in the world with unlimited resources, what would you do? And where would you go?
Eliza Bladon 7:45
I’m a big beach person, like I love the water, I would probably rent some house on the ocean somewhere, maybe Hawaii or in the Caribbean and just relax for the day. I think that would be like my ultimate day just no agenda, like the exact opposite of what I do on a day to day basis.
Jeremy Burrows 8:05
Nice. You said you had a friend that was like, hey, you know, you have the skill set to be an EA, what would you tell someone who’s considering becoming an assistant?
Eliza Bladon 8:14
I would say so one of the things that I did that really helped is I built my network of executive assistants, I went into this role not really knowing what to expect. And this job can be so different based on who you are actually assisting. So build your network, go grab coffee with people who are already doing the job just to learn more about what it is that they actually do on a day to day basis.
Jeremy Burrows 8:37
What’s the one maybe a tip you have for networking with other assistants?
Eliza Bladon 8:43
Well, I would say LinkedIn is a great tool just to see if there are other executive assistants just in your area working for other local companies. I also have a Slack group that I started smarter aaa.com, which has a bunch of executives across the country who just want to talk to someone even online. It doesn’t have to be in person.
Jeremy Burrows 9:04
How did you end up coming up with that idea to start that group?
Eliza Bladon 9:07
Yeah, so I was chatting with my boss. And we were talking about how EAS have to move so quickly. And there’s a bunch of great resources that are already out there and established. But something that I personally couldn’t find was a way to communicate with other executive assistants quickly. And so we came up with this smarter EA idea and just started a community slack group. And it’s been pretty exciting to just watch it unfold and watch more members join and people have built relationships and they get quick answers to questions. So that’s kind of how it all got started about a year ago.
Jeremy Burrows 9:43
Awesome. So let’s talk about the executives for a second. What’s maybe one tip that you would give executives to help them get more out of their assistant.
Eliza Bladon 9:55
I would say communication is really key. One thing that I found really helpful is my executive took the time to set up weekly meetings with me when I first started and we still have them now, just to communicate and talk about, you know what’s going on in his schedule. A lot of communication is done over email these days and slack messaging and you name it, but face to face communication sometimes is the best way to get quick answers to questions. So I’d say one tip to give executives is make sure that you have your assistant feel comfortable coming to you for things and maybe setting up those weekly meetings is a great way to start that.
Jeremy Burrows 10:34
Love it. I’m a big fan of the weekly one on one check in Yeah. So all right, let’s talk a little bit about what you’re passionate about. Travel and what you enjoy booking travel. And then what that’s also what your company is all about. Lola dot coms, corporate travel booking software. So what are some of the biggest issues that you’ve had or that you’ve seen other EAS have when it comes to booking travel?
Eliza Bladon 11:03
I’d say unpredictability, I think that’s something talking about changing comfort zones, like a lot of really successful EAS are very good at predicting, you know, a week from now, two weeks from now, what schedules are going to look like what things are gonna look like, I haven’t figured out how to predict the weather a week out. So when unpredictability is a big one, and then expense management can be just such a pain. So I’d say those are the two biggest issues that I think EAS have when it comes to booking travel.
Jeremy Burrows 11:32
So what’s kind of your number one travel booking tip
Eliza Bladon 11:40
I would say just always have a backup plan, especially if it’s for if you’re booking travel on behalf of someone else. If there’s an important meeting, just know that that there’s a slight chance that you might need to get a refundable ticket on another flight that’s a little bit later. Or if there’s a train option available, maybe you should snag one of those, I’d say having a backup plan is really great. And then using some type of tool to manage your travel. So I’m again spoiled, I get to use all a.com. It’s an amazing tool that, you know, I have a 24/7 travel team that if anything goes wrong, they’re there. And they’re guiding me through how to fix things. I’d say that’s a that’s a big one.
Jeremy Burrows 12:20
So when kind of unexpected happens, the first thing you do, what’s the first thing you do? Particularly with this tool that you kind of do to take care of when your flights are delayed or canceled or diverted. When there’s a big storm coming in? How do you utilize the lulu.com platform to kind of handle those last minute emergencies?
Eliza Bladon 12:47
Yeah, so speed is everything in those scenarios. Our travel team or customer service team is already on top of that. So they know before I do if a flight is delayed, cancelled, you name it. And they’ll usually come to me with some different options to fix it. So whether it’s maybe we should book a rental car to get someone back or there’s another flight that leaves in an hour that has seats left. Do you want me to book that? So for me, I don’t really have to do much because they’re already working on it that comes as part of the service. So that’s how Lola works before Lola, I was just moving quickly. Like if I knew that a flight was canceled or delayed, I was booking a car as quickly as possible if it was within driving distance or booking the next possible flight out speed is everything in those scenarios, because you have all these other travelers that are thinking the exact same way and trying to get home or trying to get to their meeting.
Jeremy Burrows 13:39
Yeah, I had a I had a really rough situation the other day where my executive was stuck in LGA, when LGA was basically shutting down because of a thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. He got stuck in there for like eight hours. And so I basically was on the phone with airlines, hotels, travel agent, just kind of booking backup flights, canceling booking a different backup flight, you know, just as they kept pushing his flight, back, and back and back. So that was kind of one of those moments where I was like, alright, this doesn’t happen. Like my executive doesn’t travel a ton right now. But as he starts to travel more, and the odds of these types of things happening increase, a sort of faking. Alright, I’ve got to probably have a little bit more help on this. Because even though I’m quick, I like to think I’m quick and resourceful. It’s probably better to have a team supporting me on this.
Eliza Bladon 14:38
Yeah. I mean, I used to think I was really good at being speedy and like knowing all the options, and then, you know, I started using Lola and we have these amazing travel assistance, and they’re just geniuses like, they’re five steps ahead of me. So yeah, sometimes it’s good to have someone in your corner you should think about using Lova
Jeremy Burrows 14:58
definitely. So how do you organise your executive travel itineraries.
Eliza Bladon 15:03
So Google Calendar is a huge tool for me, like I live in Google Calendar, my husband, like always makes fun of me, because I’ll like be on it on my phone, it’s on my computer. So I’ll usually put all the travel details into Google calendar invites. But Lola also has a tool called trips. And so you can open up a trips page. And it just organizes the flight, the hotel, the rental car in the right order, and you can download it and you can share it. So that’s another tool that I also use.
Jeremy Burrows 15:33
Nice, how do you format kind of in the goop because I do the same with Google Calendar, where I have everything in the description of the events. And so I like to try to do it very minimal, like the most important things like the flight number and the departure time, and, but not all the other extra details. And then I like to space it out so that you can kind of scroll on your phone and quickly get to what you need. Do you have any tips on kind of how you format it and Google Calendar?
Eliza Bladon 16:03
Yeah, so I have this similar mentality, I keep it, you know, just the details that they really need. So airport, location number, and sometimes ticket number. There are rare instances where you do actually need that say, like, your flight does get canceled, and you want to make sure that like that money gets refunded back into your account. The other thing that I like about Google Calendar is you can set different time zones. So when your boss is traveling, I don’t know from the West Coast to the East Coast, or vice versa, you can go through and make sure that everything reflects correctly on their calendar as well.
Jeremy Burrows 16:34
Great. So what’s your favorite airline to work with?
Eliza Bladon 16:38
JetBlue I love JetBlue. I love traveling JetBlue. Their customer service is great. My executive is a mosaic member, because he travels so frequently. So they also have like a dedicated helpline. I’ve never had issues. I think being an assistant can be hard when you have to call airline sometimes because my boss is a man, I’m a woman, and I clearly don’t have a man’s voice. So sometimes, you know, I hit walls, and people won’t let me update things or they won’t let me change his travel plans and JetBlue I’ve never had an issue like that. They’re just always so helpful.
Jeremy Burrows 17:13
Is that, where are you guys based out of again?
Eliza Bladon 17:16
We’re out of Boston. Okay,
Jeremy Burrows 17:17
so it’s pretty, they’re like they hubbed in Boston, or?
Eliza Bladon 17:22
I don’t believe so. But they have quite a few flights that go out.
Jeremy Burrows 17:26
Okay. Yeah, I really enjoy working with Southwest. And I think that’s half because they’re St. Louis is a pretty big hub for Southwest. So there’s a lot more options a lot of the times, but then I also just love that I can change a flight at the last minute or, you know, book a new flight last minute with credit. And I just, there’s never any, like change fees or anything. So I know, like, there’s often times where I will book two or three backup flights, because I know that I can either get a refund or credited to a future flight and so I’m not losing money. And so taking that financial kind of risk out of it in those moments is very empowering. When you’re trying to figure things out in the last minute.
Eliza Bladon 18:17
Yeah, for sure. Southwest is a great airline.
Jeremy Burrows 18:20
So what about Hotel? What’s your favorite hotel chain?
Eliza Bladon 18:26
So for hotels, I’d say so my executive bounces around quite a bit. Usually stays in more boutique hotels, but I really like Kimpton, I think those are great hotels, they always have like really cool decor, great customer service. And then I recently stayed at an Embassy Suites, which is owned by Hilton. And those are great hotels because they do free Happy Hour, which if you’re a business traveler, and if you’ve had a long day, there’s nothing like free cocktails from four to six. So I’d also say Hilton is a pretty good one.
Jeremy Burrows 18:56
So how do you kind of go about booking hotels and finding the best hotel rates and last minute hotels? And is that all through lulu.com? Or is it kind of somebody else?
Eliza Bladon 19:09
So everything that I do is through Lola so flights, cars, hotels, and the really neat thing about Lola is especially for business travel, what it does is it’ll flag hotels that other people in your company recommend or where they’ve stayed before. So if I’m planning a trip out to St Louis where my boss and I’m like I don’t know anything about the Louis you know, I pull up the hotels I’m in charge of booking when I might see that, you know, our head of VD has actually stayed out there a previous month and she recommended a hotel so that’s another really great feature that can give you a little more confidence behind booking.
Jeremy Burrows 19:44
And then when you book I’m just curious how like my situation the other night where my executives in New York and it’s looking like his flights probably gonna get canceled. So I’m starting to look at hotels but everybody else and their dog are looking for hotels to go Yeah. And what I found was when I spoke, you know, I found online a few options. But then I spoke to the travel agent. Finally, after an hour and a half, he found a hotel, but it was, you know, non refundable, because it was after six o’clock that day. And I he basically was like, Hey, I got this hotel, we worked an hour and a half to find it, do you want it? It’s 500 and something bucks, and it’s close to the airport, and they held the room, they’re holding the room for me for a second. And I was literally I just find found out that my executive was about to supposedly board his flight. And so I was in this like, 10 minute window where I was like, okay, he could be getting on the plane and actually leaving. But he also could not, it could still get pushed back or canceled. And then he’d be stuck without a room. So I was like, do I spend, do I risk the 500 $600? Or do I risk not having a room? And so I, I had to kind of make that decision on the fly. And just I just like, you know, I’m not going to spend $600. I’ll figure it out if you get stuck. And so I said no to the travel agent, which I’m super happy about. But then it ended up he ended up getting on his flight and leaving. So I was like, Oh, good. I say, Well, that’s
Eliza Bladon 21:14
good. I’m glad that’s like the worst feeling when you’re like sitting there. And you’re like, I really hope that I just made the right decision.
Jeremy Burrows 21:20
Yeah, so I got lucky on that one. But how would you kind of how does lulu.com software kind of help you navigate that? Obviously, you said there’s a travel team that would kind of be ahead of the game. But does it help with like last minute cancellation fees, or you know, things like that.
Eliza Bladon 21:37
So one of the things that’s really great about Lola is you can see right away when you’re doing a search for a hotel, if it’s refundable or not. So as opposed to a lot of other sites, you can literally pull it up and compare six different hotels at once. And you can sort it by refundable or non refundable rate. So that’s a big feature that I really like. So right away, I know what’s not refundable. And I know what is refundable? And in that case, hopefully you’d be able to have more results show up that would be refundable rates. In the case where there isn’t anything available. I do think that our travel service team has an amount of like swagger over the phone, like they’re really great with people and they’ll do their best to try and get you the best possible outcome. So I would say that just having more people on your side helping you book travel for your executive at the end of the day is just is going to help you
Jeremy Burrows 22:33
and I heard you have a interesting nickname for that team.
Eliza Bladon 22:37
We do so they’re called the wombats. It’s kind of a funny story. So are now VP of product. She started in our service team. And she always wanted to be on a team called the wombats. I don’t quite know why. But she kept trying to sell it to our head of service. She was like, we should call ourselves the wombats and she was like, I don’t really understand why I don’t think so. And then we found out that a group of wombats is called a wisdom. And ever since then, we just love that term. So we call our travel agents, the wombats, they have a mascot His name is Sir whales. He’s a little stuffed animal wombat that has his own Instagram page. So they’re a lot of fun. I actually sit right next to them where I work now, which is also again, I’m very spoiled. If I have any travel issues, I can just turn around and talk to them live. So
Jeremy Burrows 23:24
wow, love it. Oh, we’ll be sure to share the Instagram page on the show notes. For sure. So do you have any tips for EAS who have to book flights for a group of 50 or more team members?
Eliza Bladon 23:41
Yeah, I mean, first, bless you, because that is a lot I the first thing that I think is important is just getting everyone’s information and making sure that it’s accurate. So if you’re not using a travel tool, like Lola, creating a Google spreadsheet, and just having everyone share and double check all of their information. There’s so many times when people have to book flights, and you know, someone’s birthday might be incorrect, or they’re known traveler number is one digit off. So just double checking all the details is a really big thing and keeping organized. But I also just really recommend getting some type of tool to book your travel and manage your expenses. Because managing those 50 travelers is probably going to be a headache when they get back. I remember one of my first jobs like my job was to collect all these receipts from all these buyers. And it would be like three months later and they’d be like, Oh yeah, I went on this one business trip and I forgot to expense this. So it’s like this never ending manual journey. So I’d say get a tool. Try and work with your executive team or your finance team to get in your corner and find some type of travel tool to use. Hopefully it’s Lola. And then if that’s not an option, just try and be as organized as possible and have people triple check all of their information.
Jeremy Burrows 24:53
Let’s talk about kind of, if somebody wanted to check out lo.com Is this something Thinking that, let’s say you’re in a small company, and you’re the only EA and you’re the only one that books travel, is there is it kind of a simple onboarding process for one solo EA and a small company. And then, on the flip side, if you’re in a company of 5000 people, and you have 1000, travel, people that travel and you’re kind of trying to manage all that, tell us a little bit about kind of how you would onboard in those situations.
Eliza Bladon 25:29
Sure. So that’s honestly, one of my favorite features, too, is the onboarding process is really easy. When you get set up as an admin, one of the first steps is you just send invites to the company. And in a matter of clicks, they fill out their personal information, their travel information, and then it’s done like they’re in the system. So it’s, it’s a pretty quick process, whereas I know other travel tools can be, you know, a month long setup process, and you have to wait for all this information, we really put the tool in the hands of the traveler. So while the admin is in charge of it, it’s up to the traveler to put in all of their information, the admin can do it if he or she wants to. But there’s this great option to just send an email and have everyone set up their own profile. And again, like a matter of minutes.
Jeremy Burrows 26:16
And as far as like, pricing, it’s it breaks down to where if you’re one, just one user, you could your company could sign up for it and roll with it. Right?
Eliza Bladon 26:27
Yeah, so we have different pricing structures based on the size of your company.
Jeremy Burrows 26:31
Okay. Awesome. What about you? Okay, so you’ve been talking about this tool to help you do your work better? What are your thoughts on artificial intelligence? And what we as assistants can and should do to kind of prepare for the future of work?
Eliza Bladon 26:48
I would say when it comes to AI, embrace it. I know I’ve talked to a few other assistants, and sometimes that topic can make them nervous, like, oh, is my job gonna get replaced by Alexa? Oh, gosh, we have an Alexa in this conference room, and I just set her off.
Jeremy Burrows 27:04
Perfect. I always wanted to be on
Eliza Bladon 27:07
that. Okay, well, she might be okay, she’s off. So I would say embrace it, I actually think AI can make our job so much easier. And at the end of the day, there are these human touches that I think we’re always going to need. I think that this role comes with a lot of empathy and a lot of understanding. And I think we’re a long ways off from Ai becoming that way. So embrace it, use tools that make your job easier.
Jeremy Burrows 27:30
Yeah. Perfect. So if you could snap your fingers and instantly give all assistants more of something, what would it be
Eliza Bladon 27:38
their own assistants? No, I would say, time, like, I wish I had one extra hour in the day, just to like, clear out my inbox or reorganize all the thoughts in my head, I wish that like executive assistants could just have one extra hour every day.
Jeremy Burrows 27:58
What makes an assistant, a leader
Eliza Bladon 28:03
not being afraid to jump in, I think assistants really, when they get into roles can can feel very isolated. It’s a job where, for me, for example, you know, I really work with one executive. And so that could mean that you know, I have my head down, I’m at my computer all day. And when he’s on the road, you know, maybe I’m just emailing with him, it could be a really lonely job. I think one of the ways that I found success is just get involved in different areas of the company, you know, so much more than you think that you do as an assistant, like you’re really tuned in to so many different areas. And so offer to help out doing different projects that are again outside of your comfort zone and embrace change. Recently, I started doing our company onboarding here. So I work with a lot of our new hires and making sure that they feel welcome. And we’ve been through a bunch of different trainings. And that was something that I think has helped me and take on more of a leadership role in my job.
Jeremy Burrows 28:57
So what’s like a resource that you’ve really learned a lot from that you recommend other systems check out?
Eliza Bladon 29:07
So there’s a bunch of them out there. For me, I really use smarter, yay. It’s a tool that’s a Slack group, I use Slack at work. It’s a great communication tool. It’s on my phone, when I’m on the go. It’s on my computer, where I just have the community of assistants where I can ask them questions like if I have to find catering tomorrow for a group of 20. And, you know, there’s only a couple of options out there. I can throw that question out to the Boston Slack channel and ask, Hey, who’s used like QuickTime catering, that was actually really good. Any suggestions or, you know, I might be having a bad week or if I want to talk about career advice, I’ve been able to talk to a few people individually that I’ve met through the channel. So I’d say building out your network through smarter yay is a great way and there’s depending on the area that you live in. There are also a bunch of Facebook groups and things out there for people to join.
Jeremy Burrows 29:56
Nice awesome Eliza. Well, thanks so much for taking time out of your Day in chatting about corporate travel and what you’re passionate about and cereal, even though you’re not a big cereal thing, and I really appreciate you and the work you’re doing. So where can we find you and lola.com? And how can we support what y’all are up to?
Speaker 1 30:19
Sure. So lola.com easy way to find us. Our name is our website. So there are a lot of Lola’s out there. But we are lola.com. So you can check us out there. And then if you do want to check out smarter EA just go to smarterea.com. It’s a community for office managers and executive assistants to get to know each other a little bit better.
Jeremy Burrows 30:41
Perfect. Well, even though those are pretty simple URLs, we’ll still put them in the show notes and amazing. Thanks again and really appreciate your wisdom and sharing your tips and tricks. And we will hopefully talk soon. Sounds good. Thank you probably go book some travel. A job right now. Yeah. All right. Have a good one. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks. Thanks again to Eliza and lola.com. For an amazing episode with lots of great booking travel corporate expense tips, you can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/29 And don’t forget to check out the demo of lola.com and grab a $50 amazon gift card lola.com/podcast Thank you so much for listening. I really really appreciate you keep leading well.
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