Maggie Olson The Leader Assistant Podcast screenshot ep 296

Maggie Olson is the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the premier destination for Chief of Staff education and development.

In this episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast, Maggie talks about how to build financial acumen in your role so you can be more confident in conversations and projects related to the finance world.

CONNECT WITH MAGGIE

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ABOUT MAGGIE

Maggie Olson is the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the premier destination for Chief of Staff education and development. As the first Chief of Staff to a president at a Fortune 40 company — who led a multibillion-dollar business with 5,000+ employees — Maggie built the president’s Chief of Staff model from the ground up. Maggie has 20 years’ experience leading large teams and has spent her career focused on both customer and employee experience at companies including T-Mobile, Nordstrom, and Starbucks. In addition to operating the Nova Chief of Staff Certification course, Maggie is a fractional Chief of Staff focused on helping mission-driven, for-profit startup founders scale their businesses quickly. In her spare time, Maggie loves spending time outside with her husband, their animals, and their 1-year-old, Max!

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THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

00:00:05.935 –> 00:00:13.495
<v SPEAKER_2>The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

00:00:23.255 –> 00:00:30.475
JEREMY: Hey, Leader Assistants, have you heard the NOVA Chief of Staff Certification course is about to see a price increase?

00:00:30.475 –> 00:00:37.375
JEREMY: But don’t worry, you can enroll now, lock in the current rate, and start whenever you’re ready with lifetime access.

00:00:37.375 –> 00:00:41.415
JEREMY: NOVA’s mission is to give you the ultimate student experience.

00:00:41.415 –> 00:00:54.835
JEREMY: They’ve packed the course with dozens of templates, self-paced learning, hands-on practice, multiple instructor touchpoints, peer engagement, and even guest authored assignments.

00:00:54.835 –> 00:01:02.035
JEREMY: With over 500 students across 22 countries, NOVA is the top spot for Chief of Staff Learning and Development.

00:01:02.035 –> 00:01:06.235
JEREMY: Don’t wait, enroll today and join the community at leaderassistant.com/nova.

00:01:09.195 –> 00:01:11.535
JEREMY: Hey friends, welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast.

00:01:11.535 –> 00:01:16.015
JEREMY: It’s episode 296, and I’m your host, Jeremy Burrows.

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JEREMY: You can check out the show notes and links for this conversation at leaderassistant.com/296.

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JEREMY: leaderassistant.com/296.

00:01:28.415 –> 00:01:31.715
JEREMY: Check out all the links to this episode.

00:01:31.715 –> 00:01:50.455
JEREMY: And also just a quick reminder, if you have the Apple Podcast app on your phone, they have a pretty cool new feature that they released this year, and they essentially automatically transcribe these podcast episodes.

00:01:50.455 –> 00:02:00.855
JEREMY: So you can go into the Apple app and click on transcript and literally read through the episode if you prefer to read and skim versus listen.

00:02:00.855 –> 00:02:04.015
JEREMY: So definitely check that out on the Apple Podcast app.

00:02:04.015 –> 00:02:05.455
JEREMY: That’s been pretty nice.

00:02:05.455 –> 00:02:08.015
JEREMY: I’ve been doing that for a few of the podcasts that I listen to.

00:02:08.015 –> 00:02:10.195
JEREMY: So just a quick tip there.

00:02:10.195 –> 00:02:11.655
JEREMY: But again, episode 296.

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JEREMY: I hope you’re having a good day.

00:02:13.875 –> 00:02:19.015
JEREMY: Thanks for tuning in and I’m super excited to have my friend Maggie Olson on again.

00:02:19.015 –> 00:02:29.775
JEREMY: Maggie is the founder of the Nova Chief of Staff Certification Course, which you have probably heard about if you’ve listened to the show.

00:02:29.775 –> 00:02:41.515
JEREMY: And she was actually on a few other episodes, looks like episode 283, 281, 267, and a bunch of others.

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JEREMY: So we’ve had some interesting conversations about different topics related to executive assistants, chiefs of staff, and everything in between.

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JEREMY: So Maggie, welcome back.

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MAGGIE: Thanks, Jeremy.

00:02:52.375 –> 00:02:53.855
MAGGIE: Happy to be here.

00:02:53.855 –> 00:02:59.015
JEREMY: So today we’re going to talk about building financial acumen in your role.

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JEREMY: And I know that I have had many of those conversations with my CEO and my CFO, who I work pretty closely with.

00:03:11.635 –> 00:03:34.815
JEREMY: All those, for me, semi-awkward conversations where they start talking numbers, they start talking all this money lingo and EBITDA and gross revenue and ARR and MRR and GRRN or whatever, all these acronyms.

00:03:34.815 –> 00:03:36.775
JEREMY: And I’m just like, all right, wait, wait, what’s that mean?

00:03:37.115 –> 00:03:43.455
JEREMY: Can you explain that to a homeschool preacher’s kid?

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JEREMY: Because that’s what I am.

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JEREMY: And it’s just like, it can be overwhelming, you know?

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JEREMY: And sometimes I feel like, all right, well, maybe I’m in the wrong industry if I’ve got to try to keep up with this.

00:03:57.055 –> 00:04:05.435
JEREMY: So I’m sure there are others listening who feel similarly when it comes to numbers and finance and that whole world.

00:04:05.435 –> 00:04:21.055
JEREMY: But it is important as assistants and chiefs of staff for us to at least train ourselves up and be somewhat aware of what’s being talked about at a high level so that we can keep up.

00:04:21.055 –> 00:04:25.055
JEREMY: So I’d love to hear your thoughts on this whole topic.

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MAGGIE: Yeah, yeah.

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MAGGIE: I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head.

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MAGGIE: I often hear from aspiring chiefs of staff, current chiefs of staff, executive assistants, that their top concern when it comes to confidence, if they can hack it in a high level role in the C-suite, is that lack of confidence in their financial acumen.

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MAGGIE: So do I know numbers well enough?

00:04:51.755 –> 00:04:54.735
MAGGIE: Do I care about numbers well enough?

00:04:54.735 –> 00:04:57.435
MAGGIE: Do I understand how metrics work?

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MAGGIE: How much like deep financial modeling or analysis or experience in profit and loss management do I have and is that important?

00:05:09.875 –> 00:05:12.915
MAGGIE: So it’s a valid concern.

00:05:12.915 –> 00:05:14.055
MAGGIE: I’ve been there too.

00:05:14.055 –> 00:05:15.755
MAGGIE: I have an MBA.

00:05:15.755 –> 00:05:19.075
MAGGIE: I’ve been in analytical roles my entire life, and I’ve also had that concern.

00:05:19.075 –> 00:05:28.395
MAGGIE: I don’t think anyone is exempt necessarily from that lack of confidence because just like Excel, you can just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper.

00:05:28.395 –> 00:05:32.115
MAGGIE: You’re going to find someone who knows more.

00:05:32.115 –> 00:05:40.915
MAGGIE: You’re probably sitting next to somebody on a finance team, or you see the CFO, or you’re hearing complex conversations, and you’re like, dang, I don’t know all that.

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MAGGIE: Super valid, super valid concern.

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MAGGIE: But I have learned throughout my career, especially in roles like Chief of Staff and Senior Executive Assistant, that it’s a lot less important to have a deep financial understanding and knowledge or a deep financial practice even in your role than it is to have a financial BFF.

00:06:06.135 –> 00:06:07.875
MAGGIE: So we should get into that.

00:06:07.875 –> 00:06:16.895
MAGGIE: But Jeremy, I don’t know if you’ve found the same, but that is literally one of the top things that we can talk about here is find a buddy, find somebody in the financial world.

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MAGGIE: It doesn’t have to be C-suite.

00:06:17.995 –> 00:06:19.075
MAGGIE: It doesn’t have to be director level.

00:06:19.195 –> 00:06:26.535
MAGGIE: It can be a manager level, who deeply understands the finance of your business at the level that your leader looks at it.

00:06:26.895 –> 00:06:29.295
MAGGIE: That’s important and get to know them.

00:06:29.295 –> 00:06:33.795
MAGGIE: Have a Finance 101 session about how their world works.

00:06:33.855 –> 00:06:45.795
MAGGIE: Use them as a resource for when you do have to dive in deep, but along with a few other tactics that we’ll get into, keep that person close, build the relationship, and have the confidence that you can dive in deep when you need to.

00:06:45.795 –> 00:06:47.495
MAGGIE: You have a resource to help you with that.

00:06:48.115 –> 00:06:57.115
MAGGIE: But you will not be able to do your job successfully from a breadth perspective if you’re diving deep, deep, deep into finance every day anyway.

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MAGGIE: I’ll pause there and then we can go over some other tactics in a minute.

00:07:00.955 –> 00:07:02.015
JEREMY: Yeah, I think that’s great.

00:07:02.015 –> 00:07:13.035
JEREMY: I think one of the things when I first, I was higher number one at our company capacity and my executive hired a bunch of engineers, which I’m not an engineer.

00:07:14.475 –> 00:07:20.195
JEREMY: And so the first day it was like, hey, I’m the non-engineer, everyone else had that background.

00:07:20.195 –> 00:07:37.155
JEREMY: And my executive essentially said, listen, I’m going to need you to manage people and numbers and finance for a while until we can get things going and actually bring on someone that likes people and is good at math, which was the opposite of me.

00:07:37.175 –> 00:07:40.095
JEREMY: I was an introvert that was not good at math.

00:07:40.095 –> 00:07:42.095
JEREMY: And I was like, all right, we’ll see how this goes.

00:07:42.675 –> 00:07:53.355
JEREMY: So the first thing I did, like you said, I found that BFF, I found that contact that was HR, and then I found that contact that was accounting.

00:07:53.355 –> 00:07:54.615
MAGGIE: Awesome.

00:07:54.615 –> 00:07:55.115
JEREMY: Finance.

00:07:55.115 –> 00:07:57.695
JEREMY: And so that was like my first step.

00:07:57.695 –> 00:08:04.595
JEREMY: I was like, all right, I’m not going to try and pretend to be able to figure it all out my own.

00:08:04.595 –> 00:08:12.155
JEREMY: But I am going to find someone that we can maybe outsource a little bit of it to and then kind of walk me through how to get things set up.

00:08:12.155 –> 00:08:16.355
JEREMY: And then the funny thing is a couple of years later, we got audited for that first year.

00:08:16.355 –> 00:08:20.835
JEREMY: And I was like, oh, no, we’re going to get we’re going to get audited for the year that I was in charge.

00:08:20.835 –> 00:08:25.195
JEREMY: But everything, of course, everything went fine because I brought in those experts.

00:08:25.195 –> 00:08:27.795
MAGGIE: So, yeah, yeah, I love that.

00:08:27.795 –> 00:08:28.955
MAGGIE: And it’s such a common question.

00:08:28.955 –> 00:08:32.235
MAGGIE: Like, I’m asked all the time, OK, I’m new in this role.

00:08:32.235 –> 00:08:33.575
MAGGIE: I don’t know a lot about it.

00:08:33.575 –> 00:08:35.115
MAGGIE: I want to learn quickly.

00:08:35.115 –> 00:08:36.415
MAGGIE: So how do you like learn at all?

00:08:36.415 –> 00:08:38.115
MAGGIE: How do I become an expert in everything?

00:08:38.115 –> 00:08:39.575
MAGGIE: And it’s just it’s just you can’t.

00:08:39.695 –> 00:08:41.055
MAGGIE: You don’t, you do not.

00:08:41.055 –> 00:08:50.215
MAGGIE: You cannot become an expert in everything if you’re going to be effective in the many, many areas of this expert generalist type of world that we’re in.

00:08:50.215 –> 00:08:52.795
MAGGIE: You know, so you have to nail the most important things.

00:08:52.795 –> 00:09:01.295
MAGGIE: I think that’s probably the first thing that I recommend here when chatting about the financial acumen that you absolutely do need.

00:09:01.295 –> 00:09:10.015
MAGGIE: You absolutely need to understand the top five to ten metrics that drive your business at the level that your leadership team looks at them.

00:09:10.015 –> 00:09:11.335
MAGGIE: And you need to know them deeply.

00:09:11.335 –> 00:09:18.575
MAGGIE: Understand how the numerator works, understand how they work with each other, understand who’s talking about them and why they matter.

00:09:18.575 –> 00:09:19.775
MAGGIE: Learn those deeply.

00:09:19.775 –> 00:09:24.095
MAGGIE: And it’s okay if you don’t know them when you start.

00:09:24.095 –> 00:09:36.335
MAGGIE: You have confidence that you can do hard things, that you can dive in, dig in and learn them and really understand those top five to ten metrics to begin with.

00:09:36.335 –> 00:09:36.695
JEREMY: Yeah.

00:09:36.955 –> 00:09:37.655
JEREMY: What would you say?

00:09:37.655 –> 00:09:40.575
JEREMY: I’ve got a list kind of running in my head.

00:09:40.575 –> 00:09:50.955
JEREMY: What would you say in the Chief of Staff world are a few of those top metrics that generally speaking people need to be aware of?

00:09:50.955 –> 00:09:57.455
MAGGIE: It’s a good question, but the hard part about that answer is that it’s going to be different for any industry.

00:09:57.455 –> 00:10:03.095
MAGGIE: So I’ve worked in the telecom industry, I’ve worked in retail, food and beverage.

00:10:03.095 –> 00:10:08.735
MAGGIE: All of those metrics, there might be a few similar ones, especially if you’re looking at something like a balance sheet.

00:10:08.735 –> 00:10:12.455
MAGGIE: But often in a big company, you’re not going to be looking at a balance sheet.

00:10:12.455 –> 00:10:18.615
MAGGIE: So in retail, what’s your margin and your turn, your markup?

00:10:18.615 –> 00:10:20.195
MAGGIE: Those are some obvious ones.

00:10:20.195 –> 00:10:23.375
MAGGIE: In telecom, we also looked at churn.

00:10:23.375 –> 00:10:27.455
MAGGIE: We looked at, oh my gosh, so many terms that I don’t even remember.

00:10:27.455 –> 00:10:28.695
MAGGIE: It’s only been a couple of years, right?

00:10:28.795 –> 00:10:33.675
MAGGIE: Because it’s like a 101 dive-in deep analysis that you have to cram and learn.

00:10:33.675 –> 00:10:42.315
MAGGIE: We looked at customer tenure and there’s a switching metric moving from provider to provider that we looked at deeply.

00:10:42.315 –> 00:10:54.635
MAGGIE: Then food and beverage, you’re looking at cost, you’re also looking at margin, but it just depends on your leader, it depends on your business, it depends on if your product’s driven, it depends on if your people driven, it’s going to be different.

00:10:54.635 –> 00:10:57.575
MAGGIE: That’s why we can’t tell you what those are on this call.

00:10:57.855 –> 00:11:22.155
MAGGIE: That’s why you have to reach out, find that financial BFF, find that resource, and start to, if you’re not already, start to really understand, take notes on the metrics that are coming up consistently in the meetings that you’re listening in on, in the emails that you’re receiving for financial performance updates, what your leader’s talking about.

00:11:22.155 –> 00:11:34.935
MAGGIE: Listen in and listen to the ones that are repeating, that are coming up and that are being talked about together, and then meet with that financial partner to dive into them and understand them really well.

00:11:34.935 –> 00:11:40.035
JEREMY: Yeah, and I’m in the software world, so there’s a different set of metrics for software.

00:11:40.035 –> 00:11:41.015
JEREMY: If you’re in the…

00:11:41.015 –> 00:11:45.715
JEREMY: I came from nonprofit world, that’s even different.

00:11:45.715 –> 00:11:48.915
JEREMY: So, for example, a couple of them just off the top of my head…

00:11:48.915 –> 00:11:51.335
JEREMY: Yeah, which ones come up for you?

00:11:51.335 –> 00:11:54.035
JEREMY: The biggest one is ARR, annual recurring revenue.

00:11:54.295 –> 00:11:59.375
JEREMY: So, in the software world, it’s all about the subscription, recurring revenue.

00:11:59.375 –> 00:12:06.775
JEREMY: How much of your revenue is recurring subscription versus professional services or one-off services?

00:12:06.775 –> 00:12:07.115
MAGGIE: Yeah.

00:12:07.115 –> 00:12:10.335
JEREMY: And then, you know, what’s your burn rate?

00:12:10.335 –> 00:12:13.695
JEREMY: You know, how much cash are you burning through?

00:12:13.695 –> 00:12:17.915
JEREMY: Are you breakeven, profitable, nowhere close?

00:12:17.915 –> 00:12:19.095
JEREMY: You know, all those things.

00:12:19.975 –> 00:12:23.675
MAGGIE: Yeah, customer lifetime value brought me back to my telecom days.

00:12:24.235 –> 00:12:30.235
MAGGIE: How much money are you making from the lifetime of that customer if you average it out and project it and apply it to everybody else?

00:12:30.235 –> 00:12:36.015
MAGGIE: But you can tell, I mean, and then let’s think about health care and then the nonprofit sector.

00:12:36.015 –> 00:12:43.315
MAGGIE: And then you’ve got big business, small business, startup, you know, mature, like it’s just media, entertainment.

00:12:43.315 –> 00:12:47.455
MAGGIE: My husband’s a news anchor and I’m like, oh, what do you guys look at?

00:12:47.455 –> 00:12:48.255
MAGGIE: Completely different.

00:12:48.255 –> 00:12:49.875
MAGGIE: It’s like viewership percent.

00:12:49.875 –> 00:12:52.235
MAGGIE: I mean, it’s just like totally things that I’ve never heard of.

00:12:52.395 –> 00:12:57.535
MAGGIE: But if I were a chief of staff in media, I would have the exact same advice.

00:12:57.535 –> 00:13:05.795
MAGGIE: Find the most important metrics, what’s being talked about, top five or 10, understand them, understand how they work together and deeply learn those metrics.

00:13:05.795 –> 00:13:06.695
JEREMY: Yeah, well said.

00:13:08.775 –> 00:13:26.415
MAGGIE: Okay, so along with deeply understanding the most important metrics and finding that finance BFF, what else can you do to really understand the finance world of your business?

00:13:26.415 –> 00:13:45.095
MAGGIE: And we touched on this a little bit, but it’s just to truly be an active listener, to ask to attend some of those meetings that might, you might be like, oh, I’m going to glaze over, it’s not my area of specialty, it’s not what I’m interested in, but you’ve got to attend some of them and have a cup of coffee beforehand.

00:13:45.095 –> 00:13:50.175
MAGGIE: Pay attention, take notes, find someone to ask questions of afterwards.

00:13:50.175 –> 00:13:53.415
MAGGIE: There’s no wrong answer when you’re learning your business.

00:13:53.415 –> 00:13:57.195
MAGGIE: You’re always learning your business, so there’s never going to be a wrong answer, truly.

00:13:59.095 –> 00:14:07.195
MAGGIE: So attend those sessions, get involved in things that maybe you wouldn’t get involved in previously to help learn a little bit, drive a little bit of that learning.

00:14:07.195 –> 00:14:12.755
MAGGIE: Maybe you’re going to jump on and put an investor update together with a couple of your peers.

00:14:12.755 –> 00:14:18.815
MAGGIE: That’s a great opportunity to ask questions in a low-stakes environment when maybe the room is smaller.

00:14:18.815 –> 00:14:24.095
MAGGIE: Jeremy, any other tactics that you’ve used as you’re learning a new financial business?

00:14:24.835 –> 00:14:24.915
JEREMY: Yeah.

00:14:24.915 –> 00:14:27.735
JEREMY: You mentioned drinking coffee before a meeting.

00:14:27.735 –> 00:14:35.675
JEREMY: Also have Google open so that if somebody shoots out a bunch of acronyms, you can type them in real quick and be like, okay, what this means.

00:14:35.675 –> 00:14:37.695
JEREMY: I did that when I was in the software world.

00:14:38.255 –> 00:14:40.735
JEREMY: Initially, with engineers, they’d be talking about Python.

00:14:40.735 –> 00:14:42.955
JEREMY: I’m like, why are they talking about snakes?

00:14:42.955 –> 00:14:44.895
JEREMY: This is a software company.

00:14:44.975 –> 00:14:52.395
JEREMY: So Google and all these different CSS and Python and all this, and I was just like, okay, these are coding languages.

00:14:52.395 –> 00:14:53.415
JEREMY: Okay, I get this now.

00:14:53.895 –> 00:14:55.475
JEREMY: So you just have to have Google-ready.

00:14:55.735 –> 00:14:56.315
JEREMY: That’s my big tip.

00:14:56.315 –> 00:14:57.695
MAGGIE: Yep, have Google-ready.

00:14:58.135 –> 00:15:03.295
MAGGIE: Oftentimes, like Jeremy and I were talking about how there’s all these different KPIs for different industries.

00:15:03.295 –> 00:15:12.315
MAGGIE: You could go look up retail math, top 20 retail math metrics, and there’s a Google image for that that you could print and have right next to your computer.

00:15:12.315 –> 00:15:16.575
MAGGIE: I had that in my Nordstrom buying days because they’re complex.

00:15:16.575 –> 00:15:24.255
MAGGIE: You can’t memorize all of them because for me, I was a little bit more involved in the finance portion, and so I needed to know way more than five or 10.

00:15:24.255 –> 00:15:25.575
MAGGIE: I had a cheat sheet right next to me.

00:15:25.575 –> 00:15:26.255
MAGGIE: That’s okay.

00:15:26.255 –> 00:15:27.895
MAGGIE: That’s totally fine.

00:15:27.895 –> 00:15:39.195
MAGGIE: For people that we’re talking to today, as you’re listening more, as you’re getting involved more, you’re starting to understand those top metrics, you’re having conversations, then dig in to the scorecards that are being sent.

00:15:39.195 –> 00:15:47.515
MAGGIE: Dig into the dashboard, identify those KPIs in the scorecards and dashboards and performance summaries and see how they work together.

00:15:47.515 –> 00:15:58.875
MAGGIE: Some of it is basic math that is simple but not easy, an equation that has been nailed into my head is new minus old divided by old percent growth.

00:15:58.875 –> 00:16:03.055
MAGGIE: That was a retail math equation that we did nonstop.

00:16:03.055 –> 00:16:07.555
MAGGIE: I do that on a calculator now to help myself understand and stay connected to the metric.

00:16:07.555 –> 00:16:10.695
MAGGIE: That one shows up a lot, industry agnostic.

00:16:10.695 –> 00:16:15.855
MAGGIE: So pay attention, start to read things and read the things that you’re getting in the financial world.

00:16:16.855 –> 00:16:17.815
MAGGIE: Let’s all be honest.

00:16:17.815 –> 00:16:20.615
MAGGIE: Oftentimes, we just move to another inbox.

00:16:20.615 –> 00:16:23.075
MAGGIE: We don’t open, start to open those things.

00:16:23.075 –> 00:16:32.555
MAGGIE: Even if you don’t understand most of it, you will get a handful of really good takeaways and your learning will just continue to grow.

00:16:33.915 –> 00:16:40.295
MAGGIE: I think the last thing I would say here is just to really hammer in the why.

00:16:40.295 –> 00:16:44.835
MAGGIE: Why can’t we be deep financial experts in, let’s say, the chief of staff role?

00:16:45.535 –> 00:16:50.755
MAGGIE: And that’s because our role is dependent on breadth versus depth.

00:16:50.755 –> 00:16:56.995
MAGGIE: So, let’s say that my company doesn’t have a financial scorecard at all.

00:16:56.995 –> 00:17:03.475
MAGGIE: We don’t have a dashboard, we don’t even have projections and summaries or anything being sent via email to our executive team.

00:17:03.475 –> 00:17:06.455
MAGGIE: And I identify this as a problem and I want to solve it.

00:17:06.455 –> 00:17:08.135
MAGGIE: Okay, check, check.

00:17:08.135 –> 00:17:10.095
MAGGIE: Identify the problem, want to solve it.

00:17:10.095 –> 00:17:13.955
MAGGIE: It would solve a lot of issues with the executive team and everybody needs better insights.

00:17:14.815 –> 00:17:26.875
MAGGIE: The situation here though is the Chief of Staff and often the Senior EA as well, cannot be the person that executes this solution every single week.

00:17:26.875 –> 00:17:43.755
MAGGIE: We have to identify the problem, build the solution, work with other people to kickstart a process, help with the launch, but identify the doers who are going to do this every week in order to be able to solve problems across the company from a breadth perspective.

00:17:43.935 –> 00:17:48.995
MAGGIE: This is the same issue with getting too deeply involved in finance, for example.

00:17:48.995 –> 00:17:50.135
MAGGIE: There are people for that.

00:17:50.135 –> 00:17:57.175
MAGGIE: We need a deep understanding so that we can tackle projects and speak credibly and all the things.

00:17:57.175 –> 00:18:07.395
MAGGIE: But we can’t dedicate tons and tons of time to spending in this financial world, or it’s going to take us away from the breadth of problems that we need to solve in such an expert generalist role.

00:18:08.075 –> 00:18:09.895
JEREMY: Yeah.

00:18:09.895 –> 00:18:10.215
JEREMY: Love it.

00:18:10.215 –> 00:18:11.135
JEREMY: Well said, Maggie.

00:18:11.135 –> 00:18:18.275
JEREMY: And I think this is all a great, great summary of this financial acumen topic.

00:18:18.275 –> 00:18:22.855
JEREMY: And I know that it’s relevant to assistants and chiefs of staff alike.

00:18:22.875 –> 00:18:25.335
JEREMY: And I appreciate you diving in a little bit today.

00:18:25.335 –> 00:18:31.095
JEREMY: And of course, those listening want to dive in more and learn more from Maggie and learn more about her course.

00:18:31.095 –> 00:18:34.175
JEREMY: Be sure to reach out to her Leader assistant.com/nova.

00:18:36.075 –> 00:18:40.675
JEREMY: And then the show notes again for this episode will be at Leader assistant.com/296.

00:18:44.535 –> 00:18:47.715
JEREMY: So, Maggie, thanks again for sharing your tips and tricks.

00:18:47.735 –> 00:18:51.015
JEREMY: And always a pleasure speaking with you.

00:18:51.015 –> 00:18:52.995
JEREMY: And we’ll look forward to the next one.

00:18:52.995 –> 00:18:53.855
MAGGIE: Yeah, you too.

00:18:53.855 –> 00:18:54.775
MAGGIE: Thanks for having me.

00:18:54.775 –> 00:18:55.195
MAGGIE: Have a good one.

00:19:06.249 –> 00:19:08.909
<v SPEAKER_2>Please review on Apple Podcasts.

00:19:15.348 –> 00:19:17.028
<v SPEAKER_2>goburrows.com.

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