Jess Lindgren is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Ask an Assistant podcast. You can learn more about Jess by listening to my conversations with her on episodes 23 and 313 of The Leader Assistant Podcast.
I’m excited to re-post several episodes of Jess’ podcast on this show over the coming months and I think you’ll enjoy hearing her point of view on all sorts of topics relevant to the assistant profession.
In this Ask an Assistant spotlight episode, Jess talks about good vs fast vs cheap.
CONNECT WITH JESS
ABOUT JESS
Jess Lindgren has worked in the C-Suite of organizations great and small for 20+ years. She focuses on supporting her current CEO in his many endeavors, improving the relationships between EAs and their Execs, and has very low tolerance for any meeting that should have been an email. Jess hosts the wildly popular* business podcast, Ask An Assistant.
*in her Grandma’s sewing room
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00.180 –> 00:00:03.220
JEREMY: In-person meeting planning can be a lot to manage.
00:00:03.220 –> 00:00:05.940
JEREMY: That’s where TROOP Planner comes in.
00:00:05.940 –> 00:00:10.560
JEREMY: TROOP Planner is built to make life easier for busy assistants like you.
00:00:10.560 –> 00:00:19.640
JEREMY: Whether you’re organizing an executive offsite, department meeting, or team retreat, TROOP keeps it simple, fast, and organized.
00:00:19.640 –> 00:00:34.480
JEREMY: From choosing the perfect location to managing budgets, coordinating travel, and tracking attendee details, TROOP brings everything together in one easy-to-use platform, so you can save time and focus on what matters most.
00:00:34.480 –> 00:00:41.140
JEREMY: TROOP has an exclusive offer for leader assistant listeners through Administrative Professionals Day, so don’t miss out.
00:00:41.140 –> 00:00:45.180
JEREMY: Visit leaderassistant.com/troop to learn more.
00:00:46.280 –> 00:00:49.240
JEREMY: Hey friends, it’s Jeremy Burrows, host of The Leader Assistant Podcast.
00:00:49.240 –> 00:00:50.740
JEREMY: Thanks for tuning in.
00:00:50.740 –> 00:00:58.520
JEREMY: Today, I’m actually excited to put the spotlight on my friend Jess Lindgren’s podcast called Ask an Assistant.
00:00:58.520 –> 00:01:09.760
JEREMY: Jess takes questions from you all and then answers them on the Ask an Assistant Show, so be sure to go to askanassistant.com to check out more episodes and submit your questions for Jess.
00:01:09.760 –> 00:01:15.140
JEREMY: I hope you enjoy this spotlight episode of the Ask an Assistant Show, and we’ll talk to you soon.
00:01:21.143 –> 00:01:28.683
<v SPEAKER_2>The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.
00:01:36.931 –> 00:01:44.091
JEREMY: Hey, friends, my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant, has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it.
00:01:44.091 –> 00:01:46.791
JEREMY: It’s called The Leader Assistant Workbook.
00:01:46.791 –> 00:02:00.371
JEREMY: Now, you can buy the Kindle ebook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook.
00:02:00.371 –> 00:02:09.011
JEREMY: This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with.
00:02:09.011 –> 00:02:16.311
JEREMY: So it’s a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes.
00:02:16.311 –> 00:02:22.471
JEREMY: Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook.
00:02:32.832 –> 00:02:40.812
JESS: Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of Ask an Assistant, the podcast for executive assistants and the people that love us.
00:02:40.812 –> 00:02:42.392
JESS: I’m your host, Jess Lindgren.
00:02:42.392 –> 00:02:44.072
JESS: Let’s get to work.
00:02:44.072 –> 00:02:51.172
JESS: Right up at the top, I would love to acknowledge the fact that it is Administrative Professionals Week this week.
00:02:51.172 –> 00:02:55.992
JESS: Give last week’s episode, episode 16, a listen if you haven’t already.
00:02:55.992 –> 00:03:07.292
JESS: I lay out some of my thoughts there on the week and the day and ways that folks in corporate America might consider celebrating the Administrative Professionals in their lives.
00:03:07.572 –> 00:03:10.692
JESS: Thing two, there is not a question this week.
00:03:10.692 –> 00:03:18.432
JESS: I rather am sharing some of my thoughts on an experience that I had and would love to hear your thoughts.
00:03:18.432 –> 00:03:21.952
JESS: So right up at the top, askanassistant.com.
00:03:21.952 –> 00:03:27.952
JESS: Please feel free to reach out and let me know what you think about this week and any week’s episode.
00:03:28.592 –> 00:03:35.312
JESS: This week, we are talking about a situation that I encountered with a friend who was running an event.
00:03:35.312 –> 00:03:38.072
JESS: And they asked me for some help in advance.
00:03:38.072 –> 00:03:44.952
JESS: I was happy to do it, run a couple errands here in town, order a few things via my Amazon account.
00:03:44.952 –> 00:03:56.092
JESS: They don’t have a Prime account and I am slowly but surely trying to wean myself off of the reliance on Jeff Bezos and his monstrosity that is amazon.com.
00:03:57.252 –> 00:04:01.252
JESS: But in the meantime, since I still have an account, I am very happy to help order things in advance.
00:04:01.252 –> 00:04:02.612
JESS: No problem there.
00:04:02.612 –> 00:04:12.812
JESS: But then the day before the event, they called me up in a panic and they said, Jess, I really need like a dozen flash drives.
00:04:12.812 –> 00:04:22.252
JESS: And so I said, okay, well, you’ve got a few options, most of which will involve you physically going to a store to pick them up.
00:04:23.112 –> 00:04:27.152
JESS: And they said, you know, can I just can I peek around your Amazon account?
00:04:27.152 –> 00:04:31.652
JESS: I don’t want you spending the time doing the research, to which I said, sure, go ahead.
00:04:31.652 –> 00:04:41.852
JESS: And they tried to find an option that would allow them to pick up same day at an Amazon locker, which I haven’t done since I lived in San Diego.
00:04:41.852 –> 00:04:44.292
JESS: So it’s been almost three years since I’ve done that.
00:04:44.292 –> 00:04:48.452
JESS: I don’t even know where the local Amazon locker is where I live now.
00:04:48.452 –> 00:04:50.932
JESS: I don’t know what the order minimums are.
00:04:51.152 –> 00:04:55.532
JESS: You kind of have to get lucky and find a product that suits your needs.
00:04:55.532 –> 00:05:01.912
JESS: In this case, they wanted thumb drives that were like two to four gigs.
00:05:01.912 –> 00:05:13.392
JESS: And when they looked at any local stores, they were only finding options for buying individually and things that were like 16 plus gigs, which is way more than they needed.
00:05:13.392 –> 00:05:22.892
JESS: But it just brings me around to one of my favorite things that I love to keep in mind, which is the triangle, if you will, of good, cheap, and fast.
00:05:22.892 –> 00:05:36.412
JESS: So in this instance, good would have meant a, let’s say, 10-pack of two to four gig thumb drives that fit within the budget that could be picked up on the same day.
00:05:36.412 –> 00:05:47.992
JESS: If you’re familiar with this, I don’t even, is there like an official, I don’t know, we’re just gonna call it the good, cheap, fast triangle for the purposes of this conversation that we’re having here today.
00:05:47.992 –> 00:05:55.032
JESS: But basically, three things, like I said, good, cheap, and fast, and generally speaking, you can only pick two.
00:05:55.032 –> 00:06:03.852
JESS: If you want something to be good and cheap, so in this instance, we want a 10-pack of thumb drives that fit within the budget, it’s not gonna be fast.
00:06:03.852 –> 00:06:08.452
JESS: It’s gonna be really difficult to make that happen before tomorrow’s event.
00:06:08.452 –> 00:06:18.292
JESS: If you want something to be fast and good, you want something that you can pick up today, that’s going to be a 10-pack of 2 to 4 gig thumb drives, it’s not gonna be cheap.
00:06:18.892 –> 00:06:23.892
JESS: It’s gonna cost you way more than if you had planned even 48 hours in advance.
00:06:23.892 –> 00:06:26.992
JESS: If you want something cheap and fast, it’s not gonna be good.
00:06:26.992 –> 00:06:34.112
JESS: If you’re looking for something that’s gonna fit within your budget that you can pick up today, you might not even be able to find 2 to 4 gig thumb drives.
00:06:34.192 –> 00:06:48.092
JESS: You might be scraping through someone’s supply closet of promotional materials and get branded thumb drives that are 256 megs or something like that, like not even one full gigabyte.
00:06:48.092 –> 00:06:51.012
JESS: So I totally understand it.
00:06:51.012 –> 00:06:59.092
JESS: And I’ve been there myself when it comes to a last minute request from an executive, something that you ordered weeks ago.
00:06:59.092 –> 00:07:01.512
JESS: You just forgot to check it off your list and it didn’t show up.
00:07:01.632 –> 00:07:04.352
JESS: And now it’s go time and you really have to have it.
00:07:04.352 –> 00:07:05.192
JESS: I’ve been there.
00:07:05.192 –> 00:07:06.972
JESS: I can totally sympathize.
00:07:06.972 –> 00:07:10.772
JESS: But in this instance, I was dealing with a friend who works at a non-profit.
00:07:10.772 –> 00:07:14.312
JESS: So budget is really kind of the top consideration.
00:07:16.332 –> 00:07:25.172
JESS: And feeding into even the cheap of it all, you’re going to spend your time, which is the one finite resource that all of us have.
00:07:25.172 –> 00:07:28.632
JESS: There is no, it is not a renewable resource.
00:07:28.632 –> 00:07:30.392
JESS: It is not something that you can get more of.
00:07:30.472 –> 00:07:33.892
JESS: You can’t go to the store and buy more time.
00:07:33.892 –> 00:07:37.852
JESS: You’re going to spend all that time trying to find something that fits within the budget.
00:07:37.852 –> 00:07:46.032
JESS: So definitely, I really encourage folks to just kind of wing it if something like that comes up.
00:07:46.032 –> 00:07:52.112
JESS: For me personally, though, too, the calculus of what constitutes cheap really changes.
00:07:52.112 –> 00:07:57.712
JESS: If someone is able to get me fast and good, I don’t worry so much about the cheap.
00:07:58.072 –> 00:08:08.172
JESS: My feelings, my personal feelings on what constitutes cheap or affordable really changes.
00:08:08.172 –> 00:08:30.392
JESS: Because if you can get me something that’s fast and good, if you can get me same day and it’s the 10-pack of 2-gigabyte drives that I wanted, I might have two or three times the budget that I originally had to save myself the time and effort of needing to do a ton of research or go to 15 different Best Buy stores to try and track them down.
00:08:30.392 –> 00:08:32.872
JESS: So that’s just me personally.
00:08:32.872 –> 00:08:43.452
JESS: Something that you may have heard me say a time or two on this show is a lack of planning on anyone else’s part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
00:08:43.452 –> 00:08:54.572
JESS: Again, I totally do my best to sympathize, empathize, offer what resources, solutions, thoughts that I have and then move on with my day.
00:08:54.572 –> 00:09:02.092
JESS: Then on top of that, if this is an event that’s going to happen again in the future, add it to your list.
00:09:02.092 –> 00:09:04.252
JESS: Talk about it in your debrief.
00:09:04.252 –> 00:09:11.712
JESS: Hey, if we had planned even a couple of days in advance, we could have used the Amazon account, we could have ordered this, we could have gotten exactly what we wanted.
00:09:11.712 –> 00:09:14.492
JESS: Is this something that we’re going to need for a future event?
00:09:14.492 –> 00:09:22.272
JESS: If we bought a 10-pack, whether it was in-person or something that we ordered online, did we use all 10?
00:09:22.272 –> 00:09:25.272
JESS: Do we have a handful that we can use for the next event?
00:09:25.272 –> 00:09:34.072
JESS: Did we only use five and now we only need five for the next event so that one pack of 10 can spread across two events?
00:09:34.072 –> 00:09:40.472
JESS: There’s just a lot of calculus that goes into it on the backend of that good, fast, cheap triangle.
00:09:40.472 –> 00:09:43.652
JESS: And the more that you can get out ahead of it, the better.
00:09:44.192 –> 00:09:51.132
JESS: But again, I know last-minute things happen to all of us and we just hit the ground running and do our best.
00:09:51.132 –> 00:09:54.012
JESS: So no real question this week.
00:09:54.012 –> 00:09:57.372
JESS: More of an experience and some of my thoughts.
00:09:57.372 –> 00:10:00.992
JESS: I would love to know from you what your thoughts are on the good, fast, cheap.
00:10:00.992 –> 00:10:08.932
JESS: If there are things that maybe it’s more of a rectangle or a quadrangle.
00:10:08.932 –> 00:10:11.052
JESS: It’s got more than just the three good, fast, cheap.
00:10:11.052 –> 00:10:12.192
JESS: You know, what are your thoughts there?
00:10:12.352 –> 00:10:14.092
JESS: I would love to hear from you.
00:10:14.092 –> 00:10:17.732
JESS: And happy Administrative Professionals Week for sure.
00:10:17.732 –> 00:10:23.312
JESS: Happy Administrative Professionals Day tomorrow, if that’s something that you celebrate.
00:10:23.312 –> 00:10:25.872
JESS: And until next week, take care.
00:10:37.465 –> 00:10:39.565
JEREMY: You’re listening to The Leader Assistant Podcast.
00:10:50.070 –> 00:10:52.430
<v SPEAKER_2>Please review on Apple Podcasts.
00:10:58.845 –> 00:11:00.545
<v SPEAKER_2>gobullos.com.
00:11:04.765 –> 00:11:11.725
JEREMY: Hey, friends, my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant, has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it.
00:11:11.725 –> 00:11:14.425
JEREMY: It’s called The Leader Assistant Workbook.
00:11:14.425 –> 00:11:27.445
JEREMY: Now, you can buy the Kindle ebook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook.
00:11:28.025 –> 00:11:44.085
JEREMY: This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with, so it’s a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes.
00:11:44.085 –> 00:11:50.245
JEREMY: Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook.
