Let’s get cliché.

Today, more than ever, you have to raise the bar to go beyond the industry standard to make your business go from good to great. How do you do that? You have to motivate each and every one of your voice over identities, especially your identity as the Executive Assistant.

This role is the glue that holds the pieces of your voice over business together. Without it, your ship will sink.

That was a lot of cliches, a lot of them coming from the top 100 overused business clichés. I couldn’t help it. But truly, your role as the Executive Assistant is very important to the success of your voice over business.

Why?

As the Executive Assistant, the completion of your tasks ensures that the meat and potato identities (Voice Over Talent, Audio Engineer, etc.) of your business can operate smoothly.

How do you motivate your role as the Executive Assistant?

Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer did extensive research on motivating workers and found that, of 5 motivating factors, employees picked progress (making headway rather than spinning their wheels) as the biggest motivating factor in their work. They could have chosen other factors like incentives, more money, or recognition for their work. Instead, they chose progress.

Keep in mind, the workers reported this as their answer, so there could be some self-fulfilling prophecy or self-serving bias at play here. Also, there are other motivating factors that I’ve covered in other parts of this series that they did not give as an option. However, these findings are still very important to consider when motivating your role as Executive Assistant.

How do you track your progress to make sure you are making progress?

Simple: give a clear job description. With a clear job description, you can make the expectations and goals of your job easy to understand and track.

Through the help of Monster.com and my own ideas, I’ve created a Voice Over Executive Assistant Sample Job Description to help you track your progress as the Executive Assistant (Let me know if I’ve missed anything!). This could be something you do for each of your roles/identities within your voice over business.

Voice Over Executive Assistant Sample Job Description

Voice Over Executive Assistant Job Purpose: Enhances your voice over business’ effectiveness by providing information management support, organization and scheduling; representing the business to others.

Voice Over Executive Assistant Job Duties:

• Produces information by transcribing, formatting, inputting, editing (not your audio), retrieving, copying, and transmitting text, data, and graphics.

• Conserves business’ time by reading, researching, and routing correspondence; drafting letters and documents; collecting and analyzing information; initiating telecommunications.

• Schedules your live, phone-patch/ISDN-directed recording sessions with your clients so that nothing overlaps, and you still have enough time to take care of other important matters in your business.

• Clears your inbox by responding to e-mail inquiries from your prospects and clients.

• Organizes your desk and work space often (I hate this one) to maximize productivity.

• Maintains appointment schedule by planning and scheduling meetings, conferences, teleconferences, and travel (to big events like FaffCamp and other VO conferences).

• Welcomes guests and customers by greeting them, in person or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries to other roles within your voice over business.

• Maintains client confidence and protects operations by keeping information confidential unless otherwise specified or agreed upon in the client contract.

• Prepares reports by collecting and analyzing information.

• Secures information by completing data base backups (i.e. saving files and information on backup hard drive or cloud server).

• Provides historical reference by developing and utilizing filing and retrieval systems; recording meeting discussions.

• Maintains office supplies inventory by checking stock to determine inventory level; anticipating needed supplies; evaluating new office products; placing and expediting orders for supplies; verifying receipt of supplies.

• Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements (a.k.a. making sure your microphone, computer, printer, and everything else don’t blow up); following manufacturer’s instructions; troubleshooting malfunctions; calling for repairs; maintaining equipment inventories; evaluating new equipment and techniques.

Skills/Qualifications: Administrative Writing Skills, Reporting Skills, Supply Management, Recording Session Scheduling, Microsoft Office Skills, CRM Skills, Microsoft Excel Skills, Organization, Time Management, Presentation Skills, Equipment Maintenance, Travel Logistics, Verbal Communication, and more.

This is a pretty exhaustive list that (hopefully) covers all of your tasks within your Executive Assistant identity. This way, you can specifically track your progress (thereby motivating yourself) by making sure you’re executing these tasks daily.

1 Potentially Big Problem

This is only 1 of your 8 voice over identities. Say what?! This is a job all by itself. You’re right. It is. How in the heck are you going to be able to do this while keeping your other 7 identities motivated and successful?

1 Potentially Big Solution

Before I give you the solution, let me remind you that this CAN be done on your own. In fact, I’m doing it on my own as we speak. However, as my business continues to grow, I have less and less time to take care of a lot of the tasks on the Executive Assistant job description. That’s why outsourcing some of these tasks may be a good idea for my business and maybe yours too.

Ba-dadadaaaa! *trumpet playing in rejoice*

Karen Souer – Voiceover Virtual Assistant

Karen Souer to the rescue! Karen Souer is the daughter of well-known and well-respected VO talent Bob Souer. Bob Souer is a workhorse and true voice over professional. Want to know one of his tricks of the trade that has kept his business flourishing? He outsources a lot of his work to his daughter, Karen.

Karen is a Voiceover Virtual Assistant. She’s been working with her father (and more recently a variety of other talent) and learning the voice over trade for years. As a Voiceover Virtual Assistant, she does LOTS of things to help voice over talent beyond the tasks of the Executive Assistant identity of their businesses.

Here is a list of them taken from her “Services” page:

-Editing

-Proofing

-Content Directing

-Research

-Social Media Posting

-Clerical Work

Instead of having to motivate so many different identities in your voice over business, you can hand some of your tasks over to Karen. Obviously, her services aren’t free, but imagine if you had more time to work on the other parts of your business. It’s something worth considering.

If you do decide to outsource some of your work to Karen, tell her I say hi.

p.s. I’m not getting any commission or money for mentioning Karen here. I just think she offers a great service that every voice over talent should consider.

p.p.s. Karen really believes in what she does and is SUPER motivated to delivering high quality work for her clients. Here’s what she had to say when I asked her about how she motivates herself:

One of the biggest things that drives me is my profound belief in the value of what I do…There are not many talent who are as committed to outsourcing as my Dad is, and I hope over time to help change the mindset of the average talent and help them see the benefits of having more time to do the things only they can. Another motivating factor is the chance to work with such great people. -Karen Souer

I hope you found this information useful, and I encourage you to apply some of it to help you motivate your “Executive Assistant” identity or any other part of your life.

Last time, I covered how to motivate your “Customer Service Representative” identity. Next Friday, I cover how to motivate your “Accountant/Bill Collector” identity.

Subscribe on the upper right hand side of this page so you don’t miss any of this 8-part blog series about “How To Motivate Your 8 Voice Over Identities.”