Hallie Warner: The Executive Force Multiplier

Guests: Hallie Warner, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: January 5, 2020

Excerpt

Hallie serves as Chief of Staff to the Founder and CEO of Adam Hergenrother Companies. She has worked side-by-side with Adam Hergenrother for over eight years, ensuring that Adam’s vision is communicated and implemented, and has mastered the ability to lead and assist by assessing current needs, initiating change, and executing projects.

As Chief of Staff, Hallie works closely with the executive team to manage special projects, hire and grow talent, and maximize Adam’s reach through training events and strategic communication.

Recently, Adam Hergenrother and Hallie Warner announced their first book, The Founder & The Force Multiplier. They have worked together for over eight years and have seen an increased need for dialogue around the Executive and Executive Assistant partnership.

In the book, Hergenrother and Warner cover everything from roles, titles, and responsibilities, to time management in the C-suite, to strategies for better communication, to how to find and hire your Executive Assistant, to how to get your leader to give up control, to a leader’s top 20% and how an EA can force multiply a leader’s efforts, to how to build trust, to how to create an ideal daily schedule together, and much more.

This book was written for Executive Assistants interested in learning how to build a dynamic and fulfilling career and for leaders looking to hire an EA or establish a better relationship with their current right hand.

Transcript

00:00:08:17 – 00:00:28:14
Daniel Ramsey
Hey, everybody. Danny Ramsey here with MyOutDesk. I’m really excited because we have Haley Warner here and she is actually in a different role than we normally kind of interview. She is the chief of staff for mega agent and a client of my our desk. And so I love chief of staff. So we’re going to break that down.

00:00:28:14 – 00:00:34:24
Daniel Ramsey
We’re also going to talk about her new book, The Founder and Force Multiplier. I really I love that title, by the way.

00:00:35:10 – 00:00:36:04
Hallie Warner
Yeah, thanks.

00:00:37:00 – 00:00:37:17
Daniel Ramsey
It’s a cool one.

00:00:38:06 – 00:00:41:02
Hallie Warner
I’ve never gotten an introduction like that before, so I think.

00:00:41:03 – 00:00:51:15
Daniel Ramsey
Oh, there we go. So let’s let’s start with just who you are, what you do, and kind of how you got started in this fun world of real estate.

00:00:52:02 – 00:01:12:20
Hallie Warner
Sure. It’s always hard to explain exactly what I do now. So let’s talk a little bit to nine years ago. Actually, it popped up on my Facebook feed or somebody shared it with me at nine years ago yesterday. I actually accepted the job working with Adam. Wow. And as a listing coordinator or Haagen Roth, our team at Keller Williams Realty.

00:01:12:20 – 00:01:17:13
Hallie Warner
And I was I don’t even know who I worked for. When I first got hired, I was like, Do I work for Adam? Do I work for Keller Williams? I have no idea.

00:01:17:23 – 00:01:18:06
Daniel Ramsey
Right.

00:01:19:13 – 00:01:49:07
Hallie Warner
So that was a listing coordinator position. I did that. You know, typical listing management. I worked with clients for a couple of months and then I moved into a role as his executive assistant, mostly on the team. So that was that was about the first three months I started working with him again. He was really he was only that opened a brokerage and of our Keller Williams office and team leader at that point that team leader, leader of our team at that time.

00:01:49:08 – 00:02:09:14
Hallie Warner
So we had the two businesses and I was his again, I helped with clients. I oversaw our listing assistant, etc., etc.. Right. And then about a year into that, I started we started doing other things. We started started expansion. So we started, we’re in Vermont and we had a team, our first team launched in Maine and one in Connecticut.

00:02:10:11 – 00:02:27:13
Hallie Warner
So I was both as he’s on the team and kind of a director of operations. And then we started another company and then another company, another company, all that stuff. And so I eventually heard about five years ago, I really stopped working probably well like six years ago I stopped really working on the real estate side of things and just really worked on Adam, the businesses.

00:02:28:21 – 00:02:57:08
Hallie Warner
But along the way I replaced myself as director of Ops. Somebody handled that. We hired air for the team. Actually, my very first hire I ever made with Adam was a virtual assistant through my desk, and that was eight years ago. Eight years ago, my very first hire and she was my she was my listing assistant, right? So we actually replaced somebody in office who wasn’t really the right fit with this, with this position.

00:02:57:08 – 00:03:05:12
Hallie Warner
And she and I worked together for about a year before I again kind of totally went off the team and somebody else took that over. But she was with us, I think, for six years.

00:03:05:12 – 00:03:29:01
Daniel Ramsey
Here’s you know, it’s it’s interesting to hear your story, and I want to break it down for everybody so, you know, and make it very simple. So Adam owned a team, was a broker in an office, hired you, and then started just opening businesses and somehow identified you as the right partner in that, because that’s where you are today.

00:03:29:01 – 00:03:47:14
Daniel Ramsey
You’re you’re running his entire kind of human part of his of his team. But what was that like for you to realize, number one, you’ve attached yourself to a serial entrepreneur, somebody who has a lot of energy willing to take risk, and also, how did you know that that was the right spot for you?

00:03:48:04 – 00:04:06:19
Hallie Warner
Yeah, great question. So one thing that a lot of people think I do, which I don’t do, is I actually don’t really run any of his businesses. We have great people in each of his businesses who are running the day to day operations. For those companies I work I’m an I’m an extension of Adam at all times. So if he’s doing a podcast, I’m on the podcast with him.

00:04:07:11 – 00:04:31:08
Hallie Warner
He’s writing a book, I’m with him writing the book of he is working on some, you know, a leadership presentation or talking points or we’re goal planning for ten years out. I’m doing whatever he’s doing. I’m not actually necessarily in the day to day, but I am a connection point for people within all the other companies. So if we’ve got a new initiative, I might be communicating that along with Adam to make sure that it actually gets implemented.

00:04:31:13 – 00:04:51:12
Hallie Warner
So what I believe my role it my core responsibility as chief of staff is making sure Adam’s vision is communicated and executed and that that’s what it is. I mean, it I it’s a lot more complex than that, but that’s an easy way to kind of understand what it is I do. So about five years ago, I knew I needed to kind of keep growing in my career.

00:04:51:12 – 00:05:06:22
Hallie Warner
So I did a lot of research on what it is I like to do. I did a lot of research on a seat on CEO roles because that’s a lot of naturally where a lot of people in this kind of ops world go when they’re working on a real estate team, right? They want to be a director. Rob Searcy Oh, so I did a ton of research on that position.

00:05:06:22 – 00:05:21:19
Hallie Warner
And then through that research I started paying attention, I think, to just as chief of staff role. And I realized that not only is that where I ultimately wanted to be in my career, it was actually a lot of what I was already doing. And I knew that being a soldier was actually not in my wheelhouse at all.

00:05:21:19 – 00:05:36:18
Hallie Warner
Looking at the numbers and and the metrics and holding team members accountable, and I can do it from like a leadership perspective, but not necessarily from that day to day ops. It’s not me. So that’s how I kind of just kept growing and this on this path in my career.

00:05:37:06 – 00:05:56:17
Daniel Ramsey
So does Adam have a CEO who kind of keeps the operationally, you know, the numbers, right? The financials, right. Everybody in the right seat or and like break that down because I think, again, this is a very unique role for the real estate world and really for the entrepreneurial spirit.

00:05:57:01 – 00:06:10:17
Hallie Warner
And it’s becoming more common, I would say a lot more so in tech and really have been more highly complex organizations. But in with startups as well, a lot of startups, again, particularly in tech, are looking for this type of staff role right now.

00:06:11:02 – 00:06:12:08
Daniel Ramsey
Right.

00:06:12:08 – 00:06:30:03
Hallie Warner
All that being said, yes, every one of our companies has some sort whatever their title is, it’s a little bit different for each organization. But yes, somebody who was handling the finance and the operations from a day to day perspective, we are actually looking for somebody right now who would be working closely with me and Adam as the CEO, CFO for all of that.

00:06:30:10 – 00:06:38:07
Hallie Warner
Other companies. So again, being a little bit more of that link, I fill in a lot of those gaps right now as needed. But that, again, is not necessarily my wheelhouse.

00:06:38:16 – 00:07:05:19
Daniel Ramsey
Right. You’re not you’re not like a data nerd or like a yeah, you’re like, no, but you know, so describe like describe your day to day. I hear that you help execute on Adam’s vision and you make sure that the stuff happens and things get implemented correctly, but give us some good examples of a major initiative or something that you kind of push over the hump for.

00:07:05:19 – 00:07:13:14
Daniel Ramsey
Adam And what’s that been like, you know, working back and forth with leadership. Adam And trying to be the glue for the organization.

00:07:14:13 – 00:07:34:22
Hallie Warner
Sure. So one thing that I’m working on right now is we are rolling out 401k plans and health insurance benefits to all 50 staff members. And, you know, we have three other agents in our organization. So while we’re not actually rolling it out to them, I mean, we do we actually might at some point at least offer the plans available to them.

00:07:35:06 – 00:07:54:09
Hallie Warner
So it’s having all the conversations with all of the carriers and our health insurance consultant and our TPA and our CPA and gathering all that information, analyzing it, figuring it out. What are the best plans going to Adam saying here are the two options. Here are the two financial advisors I’ve already had three phone calls with. I want you to meet them.

00:07:54:09 – 00:08:01:17
Hallie Warner
Which one do you like better? You know, just keeping all of that stuff moving forward and then we’re getting ready to do the enrollment here in November.

00:08:01:17 – 00:08:14:21
Daniel Ramsey
So so in his world, is he simply making this like, how do you and him work together in terms of like making decisions like you bring all of the information and then he makes the decision is or how does that work?

00:08:15:06 – 00:08:30:04
Hallie Warner
Yeah, it depends on what it is. If it’s something more creative like the podcast, it’s a lot of obviously a lot more conversations or if we’re writing more conversations about where we want how we want to see that go. But for the most part, like we at this point, again in our relationship, we’ve been working together for nine years.

00:08:30:04 – 00:08:31:01
Hallie Warner
We know.

00:08:31:21 – 00:08:32:08
Daniel Ramsey
Who.

00:08:32:09 – 00:08:48:00
Hallie Warner
Like what the goals are of each organization they’re working on executing. We Adam and I are in company meetings every Monday. So every Monday that’s pretty much my entire day is having meetings with the various leadership teams. And then our.

00:08:48:19 – 00:08:51:19
Daniel Ramsey
Meeting. Are you both meeting with all of the leadership team?

00:08:52:11 – 00:09:10:11
Hallie Warner
Yeah. So like Black Hour Construction has their team meeting and then part of the realty group has their leadership team meeting and we meet with, with all of them. And usually one meeting a week is sufficient. They know what they need to accomplish. We’re just kind of doing a quick check in. Are there any decisions that Adam needs to weigh in on and then we move forward?

00:09:11:03 – 00:09:12:17
Hallie Warner
What? Really sorry. Go ahead.

00:09:13:04 – 00:09:14:01
Daniel Ramsey
No, you go ahead.

00:09:14:06 – 00:09:28:00
Hallie Warner
I was going to just say with with any a leader or executive, they really should only be in decision making meetings anyway if they’re in the planning and the strategy meetings the some other time with a few caveats depending on what it is.

00:09:28:00 – 00:09:38:09
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. If there’s like a major shift in the market or if there’s a there’s something huge happening, then they’re in. But typical planning of just blocking and tackling. They don’t need to be involvement.

00:09:38:14 – 00:09:39:14
Hallie Warner
No, and they shouldn’t be.

00:09:39:16 – 00:09:58:06
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, I love it. Okay. How how have you and Adam, like, not gone at loggerheads because this is a big and I just ask that question, have respect for you. And, you know, we we work with you guys for a long time, so I know Adam well and I know you guys, but how have you kept the egos at check?

00:09:58:14 – 00:10:04:05
Daniel Ramsey
How have you guys kind of managed the difficulties of running a business together?

00:10:05:16 – 00:10:32:18
Hallie Warner
Yeah, that’s such a good question because. Well, because I’ve never actually thought a lot about it. I feel like it’s because we have different strengths and I think that’s really what it is, is that he’s vision and he knows what it is. He knows the big picture. And while I’m pretty close to that, right, like I also think in big picture and I have a lot of great ideas at the end of the day, I also see every single step that needs to happen in order for us to get there.

00:10:33:03 – 00:10:52:11
Hallie Warner
Yeah, he doesn’t necessarily and he’s just like, let’s go make this happen. I’m like, okay, well then there’s these 700 things that need to happen. Now, I don’t necessarily do them all. I just know what needs to get done. And then I bring the people in that need to make it happen. So I think some of it is that we just we have different strengths and we bring a different perspective to problems and we’re asking different questions.

00:10:52:11 – 00:10:55:10
Hallie Warner
And I think that’s what works so well.

00:10:55:10 – 00:11:13:13
Daniel Ramsey
And you guys you guys, when there is disagreement, is it typically the integrator? I mean, I’m I’m hearing visionary integrator Ray in this conversation. Is there any when there is conflict, is it typically when he gets into the weeds or when you get into the vision or do you guys just have these clear lines.

00:11:14:06 – 00:11:39:11
Hallie Warner
That’s such a good question. I think that we really do have pretty clear lines. So it might be more if there’s ever conflict. It’s because I don’t totally understand it. I’m I’m just asking questions and I might be annoying, right? I mean, it is for me to ask these questions to try to get him to get really clear on what it is he wants, because I am trying to get him what he wants, but I need to be really clear on what that is.

00:11:39:16 – 00:11:54:07
Hallie Warner
And so I might be asking, well, what about this? Or did we think about this or This is like this is how that impacts that. And if there’s a conflict, I’m just being like, just make it happen. And me wanting really, really extreme clarity, which is my style, right?

00:11:54:17 – 00:12:07:07
Daniel Ramsey
It’s like he, he, he points to the future and says, go. And you’re like, wait a minute, I don’t understand. And then and then he’s like, I don’t have time for this. And you’re like, No, you have to, because I can’t get us there. That’s, that’s typically the conflict.

00:12:07:12 – 00:12:29:04
Hallie Warner
Yeah. It’s because I move really, really fast as well and I’m super impatient. But I also like that clarity. So I’m always like battling against myself before I go to battle with Adam and yeah, sometimes it can feel like I would like I’m slowing him down or like putting up too many roadblocks for him. Like, do we think about this?

00:12:29:04 – 00:12:37:08
Hallie Warner
What about this? What about this? At the end of the day, it all works out. I’m just trying to externally process what it is we need to do and making sure that the vision is still achieved.

00:12:37:15 – 00:13:01:14
Daniel Ramsey
Well, and to be clear, what I’m trying to do by asking questions is help our audience understand what a chief of staff does, what a visionary integrator relationship looks like, who you are as a person, and who the leader needs to be, and where those lines are. Because I think in crossing those lines or not communicating well or like any kind of whenever there’s pressure, that’s when conflict can happen.

00:13:01:14 – 00:13:14:03
Daniel Ramsey
And you lose somebody who’s important to you like like you. You know? Adam, you know, I actually this is a great question. How much of his success do you believe you’ve been integral in in being a part of.

00:13:15:09 – 00:13:36:15
Hallie Warner
So why do you ask that? Because I was thinking about that very question this morning. I think perhaps because I’ve been asked it before on a podcast. But Adam and I have been actually having a whole conversation about just, you know, being versus doing and, you know, self-actualization and all this stuff. And the fact of the matter is, Adam was going to be successful with or without me and I was going to be successful with or without Adam.

00:13:37:02 – 00:13:57:10
Hallie Warner
We just happened to kind of link up together and we’re doing this thing together, so I can’t say what one specific thing that I felt that was integral to his success. He was going to be successful regardless. Did we just go down different avenues together because of who we are? Maybe right. He would have written a book with somebody else that wasn’t if.

00:13:57:16 – 00:14:07:20
Hallie Warner
If there had been somebody else in this role. Maybe not. You know, would I have worked on some of the projects I’ve worked on if I wasn’t without working with Adam? Yeah, but.

00:14:08:02 – 00:14:30:24
Daniel Ramsey
Here’s the real question. And I’m trying to get the juice, right? So in this relationship, A plus B does not equal C, it probably equals G or D or some other linear thing. Like when you break up, two people that are super talented would be successful anyways. But there’s this energy between you guys and there’s this great working relationship.

00:14:31:05 – 00:14:41:09
Daniel Ramsey
So that’s my question is what do you think the pair you and him together have been able to do in percent delta between what would have happened in your individual lives?

00:14:42:24 – 00:15:10:22
Hallie Warner
Yeah, I’m I still don’t necessarily know. I mean, if I was just kind of hypothesizing and and theorizing about what it what it could have, what it could have looked like or what we did accomplish together. I don’t I don’t necessarily know. I think that we maybe did things faster than we would have otherwise. I think that maybe we.

00:15:10:22 – 00:15:16:04
Daniel Ramsey
Did them faster, two times faster. One and a half. Oh, yeah, I know. I’m crazy.

00:15:16:04 – 00:15:35:13
Hallie Warner
I know. Well, I God, we really work really fast, actually. It’s interesting. And so here’s the here’s a challenge that I’m having around this question is the bulk of my career I don’t know any different really than working with somebody like Adam. And so my perspective is I don’t necessarily know if I have a different one that I can really share with you because this is my what you’ve.

00:15:35:13 – 00:15:35:22
Daniel Ramsey
Done in.

00:15:36:01 – 00:16:00:04
Hallie Warner
My working career has been working with this crazy visionary that just is going, going, going all the time. However, what’s really interesting is when we bring in other people onto our team, for example, we just hired a director of marketing. She’s been with us for 90 days and the feedback we’re getting from her is, I have never accomplished as much as I have in my career, and she’s a seasoned director of marketing.

00:16:00:04 – 00:16:19:20
Hallie Warner
I’ve never accomplished this much in a week as I have working here normally. You know, a redesign that you guys are doing in 60 days took our last company a year. Right. So that’s a perspective that I don’t have because this is this is my normal. Right. But sure. Did we have we accomplished things faster together and maybe on a greater scale?

00:16:19:20 – 00:16:20:22
Hallie Warner
Yeah, I think so.

00:16:21:14 – 00:16:24:18
Daniel Ramsey
Okay, cool. I wanted to try to quantify it, but I get why it’s hard.

00:16:25:04 – 00:16:26:16
Hallie Warner
I’m not a numbers person, remember?

00:16:26:20 – 00:16:44:22
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. What for our audience? Who were you as a kid? Like, if. If I. If I’m trying. Let’s say I want to hire my own version of you, like who worked, you know, tell us about who you were, what you are like that made this position work for you.

00:16:45:23 – 00:17:09:23
Hallie Warner
Yeah. Another process. You can ask me some questions because I actually feel like I didn’t even know this. I didn’t know this job existed when I was a kid. Right. But it really is the job that allows me to fully realize who I am and bring that into the workplace. I would do this if Adam’s companies closed tomorrow and there wasn’t anything there anymore.

00:17:09:23 – 00:17:34:10
Hallie Warner
I would do this for somebody else because I’m so passionate about it. Yeah, but I think some of it had to do with I’m not the oldest child, but I am the oldest female and family with four. So that could have something to do with it. Right. Another thing I actually read recently on a podcast, maybe this is something people can pay attention to and it rings true for me is somebody who grows, grew up with a lot of change.

00:17:34:19 – 00:18:04:02
Hallie Warner
So my dad was in the military. So every two years we moved so very adaptable and and and kind of handle whatever. And you’re always having to assimilate yourself into new situations, right? So that could have been a valuable thing from my childhood that I’m able I mean, this is probably the most unique and changeable environment that I’ve ever been a part of, but you just kind of roll with it because you have to start being flexible and adaptable and really resourceful.

00:18:04:21 – 00:18:14:19
Hallie Warner
Are all things that a recovering perfectionist? I mean, those sort of things just always got really high achieving some type of type A, a personality.

00:18:16:03 – 00:18:27:18
Daniel Ramsey
You get stuff done. Yes. Even as a kid. Like when if you look back at your childhood, were you always the one that was like, I’m going to do 27 different things and be great at every single one of them?

00:18:29:02 – 00:18:41:10
Hallie Warner
I wouldn’t say I was, which is another interesting. I wouldn’t say I was necessarily great at any one of them, but I was good at a lot of things. And I another again, in this role, you like a CEO or CFO, you actually do need to master certain things.

00:18:41:17 – 00:18:42:04
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, I.

00:18:42:04 – 00:18:57:17
Hallie Warner
Actually need to be pretty good at a lot of things, but I wouldn’t say I’m a master at any one. So I think that that there’s a there’s a bit of that. And I was always in some sort of leadership position, no matter, I wouldn’t necessarily do 27 things, but I’d have other people do 27 things.

00:18:57:21 – 00:19:00:15
Daniel Ramsey
Even as a kid. Even as a kid, you were in that space? Yeah.

00:19:00:23 – 00:19:05:13
Hallie Warner
Yeah. Whether it was my siblings or Erin’s parents.

00:19:05:16 – 00:19:07:16
Daniel Ramsey
Most your parents or our teams?

00:19:07:16 – 00:19:27:24
Hallie Warner
Yes. I mean, my I mean, my dad always tells a story of when I was like 13 or 14 in the high school. And the teacher is telling me that I can’t do something. It was like, you know, organizing our, our cricket classes for the next year, for the next semester in my parents were in this meeting with me and they the teacher is telling me, no, you can’t take this class because you can’t take this one.

00:19:27:24 – 00:19:35:15
Hallie Warner
And I, I’m like, no, actually I can. I did this research, blah, blah, but I told them exactly what was going to happen. And then and it happened, right?

00:19:35:15 – 00:19:38:16
Daniel Ramsey
I mean, and that was it for that’s who you are.

00:19:38:16 – 00:19:41:21
Hallie Warner
My dad tells that story all the time.

00:19:41:21 – 00:20:05:23
Daniel Ramsey
As a 13 year old, you were telling the teacher what’s what? Okay, good. What are some of the. Okay, well, let’s talk about your book because I think there’s a lot of this love and knowledge in the book. So let’s talk founder and force multiplier that, by the way, says that you are a force multiplier, meaning you’ve helped atom kind of double or triple what would have been possible.

00:20:05:23 – 00:20:08:13
Daniel Ramsey
So, yeah, let’s talk about the book.

00:20:08:13 – 00:20:10:20
Hallie Warner
What what’s it a number for you. But yeah.

00:20:12:05 – 00:20:24:12
Daniel Ramsey
You’re not sure the percentage but we can figure it out I’m sure. So talk about the book. Why? Why did you write it? What’s important? What’s in it? Why should people buy that if if if they find this interesting?

00:20:26:05 – 00:20:45:21
Hallie Warner
Yes. So Adam and I knew we wanted to write a book and that was like two years ago, I think. And so we started we started writing several different books and then we went back and did some research because I had a blog, he had a blog and we said, Let’s just go see what the data says. So his blog was being read in like 139 countries.

00:20:45:21 – 00:21:04:08
Hallie Warner
And I don’t know, there was like 30,000 people who had read the blog over the past year. Every time we wrote a blog about the E and the executive partnership, the the traffic on those blog posts was like astronomical was way higher than any of the other posts. The other posts were doing great, but that one just that was getting a lot of attention.

00:21:04:08 – 00:21:24:12
Hallie Warner
So we were like, okay, this is the conversation people want to have right now. This is obviously resonating. It’s really tangible. So let’s talk about what let’s write a book and share all of our experiences and knowledge about that founder and that force multiplier. Again, we’re really talking about like an entrepreneur, a business, you know, small business owner and an executive assistant or chief of staff.

00:21:24:12 – 00:21:45:06
Hallie Warner
We kind of use the term executive assistant, but I’m finding more and more that those two roles can sometimes be interchangeable depending on the size of the organization. At our organization, we have to we have an executive assistant and me, so our roles are different. But I was the I am the chief of staff for four years. So yeah.

00:21:45:06 – 00:21:50:20
Daniel Ramsey
Break that down. Like what is the differences in your guys’s world for chief of staff and. Yeah.

00:21:51:09 – 00:22:16:04
Hallie Warner
Yeah. I mean, we I just wrote a blog about this last week, too, because it’s hard to it is hard to explain sometimes, again, depending on the organization. But in general and a lot of times people say chief of staff is tactical or sorry, strategic, executive assistant is tactical. I used to say that, but I also I’m beginning to feel like that’s actually a disservice to both roles.

00:22:16:11 – 00:22:39:21
Hallie Warner
I do a lot of tactical work and Amy, our executive assistant, does a ton of strategic work. This is different. Just like Adam and I really share the same role, Amy and I are actually doing one like massive high impact job. We just are doing two different pieces of it. Raise our example. She handles all the scheduling, travel calendar, event planning anywhere Adam needs to be.

00:22:39:21 – 00:23:03:03
Hallie Warner
She’s on it. When we host our large training event project, she is organizing that entire event. She’s really handling like the day to day details of the executive office and I’m working on other and I actually said the distinguishing factors is time she’s usually thinking in like today and like maybe 30 days out for the most part. And I’m usually thinking 90 days.

00:23:03:03 – 00:23:03:23
Daniel Ramsey
Or 90 days.

00:23:04:02 – 00:23:24:23
Hallie Warner
Five years out. So a lot of that is the big the biggest difference. And while, yes, some of my day to day is tactical, I’m thinking about this like we already have all 20, 20 planned out. Right? So that was my kind of project. And then I brought Amy in and she’s actually going to schedule it all, but we kind of did it from a higher level, like, here’s where we need to be in 2020.

00:23:24:23 – 00:23:32:16
Hallie Warner
What events are we doing? Like, where is Adam traveling? Where is he speaking? All that stuff, right? So I don’t know if that explains it a little bit, but.

00:23:32:22 – 00:23:58:16
Daniel Ramsey
I think the time thing does. Yeah, eia is in the in the 30 day cycle and you’re in the after cycle. The five year planning strategically is good. And what have you learned over the nine years of being in this role like that? You would you wish you would have known when you originally started nine years ago or that you could have like used, you know, to increase results.

00:24:00:19 – 00:24:18:14
Hallie Warner
Feel like there’s so much the few things that come to mind is which maybe are rooted in the same thing is is confidence. I wish I had been more, maybe more confident in the beginning because, I mean, it’s sometimes it’s just time. And I it was one of my very first jobs and, you know, all that stuff. But I probably.

00:24:19:09 – 00:24:20:13
Daniel Ramsey
You needed more experience.

00:24:20:20 – 00:24:43:11
Hallie Warner
Didn’t necessarily speak up as I do today. If I could fast track that and give that to other people like earlier on the careers man, that would be really awesome. And then I think also in that I didn’t I was always often a martyr and you know, I can do it all and I don’t need any help because that’s my personality and I don’t think I need anybody and I can do everything.

00:24:44:04 – 00:25:01:14
Hallie Warner
And I wish that I had probably spoken up earlier about that. I needed help. I needed a little bit of time off, all of those good things. And when we make those when you started making those hires, when I did finally start speaking up, the business, of course, started growing faster when I wasn’t no longer holding it back.

00:25:02:04 – 00:25:09:15
Daniel Ramsey
Right. So there was a part of yourself that you had to transition into the leadership mindspace.

00:25:10:08 – 00:25:10:22
Hallie Warner
Is that.

00:25:11:19 – 00:25:12:09
Daniel Ramsey
Talk about that?

00:25:13:20 – 00:25:35:01
Hallie Warner
Yeah. And I think maybe communism’s the right word. But you know, my significance in my identity was so tied in to me being Adam’s executive assistant and I didn’t want to let go of any of those pieces. But the fact of the matter is, we needed to hire oh, we needed to hire a marketing person. And I couldn’t do all all of that so slowly we did start hiring, you know, five other people to do some of the things that I was doing.

00:25:35:20 – 00:25:41:10
Hallie Warner
And they became full, you know, full positions instead of me just like piecemeal ing it, piecemeal it was.

00:25:41:10 – 00:26:02:16
Daniel Ramsey
No, that’s right. That’s exactly what our audience consistently struggles with, is the founder pushes all the work down and the person can’t execute. So then there’s a plateau in the business and the founder and the get at each other because they they are not communicating well, but that that is exactly what happens.

00:26:02:22 – 00:26:20:21
Hallie Warner
Yeah. Yeah, totally. And and it wasn’t that Adam wasn’t communicating with me or it was me not being willing to say I can’t do it. All right. Right. So when I was finally able to say that things changed.

00:26:21:18 – 00:26:30:02
Daniel Ramsey
Things changed and you guys grew, I assumed, like said, you hired the right people and growth started coming back again.

00:26:30:09 – 00:26:31:02
Hallie Warner
Absolutely.

00:26:31:14 – 00:26:33:01
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. I mean, you still.

00:26:33:01 – 00:26:42:03
Hallie Warner
But here’s the thing. We were still we were still growing. We were growing maybe not as quickly. And it just meant that I was working probably 80 or 90 hours a week.

00:26:42:14 – 00:26:43:02
Daniel Ramsey
Right. Right.

00:26:43:08 – 00:26:50:10
Hallie Warner
I mean, because I would I refused to let us not grow. It just I should have been doing right. I would just shouldn’t have been doing it all by myself.

00:26:51:09 – 00:26:57:18
Daniel Ramsey
How did Adam cause that shift for you? Or did he?

00:26:57:18 – 00:27:16:18
Hallie Warner
I think it was I don’t even remember the exact moment because it was like, little. This has happened several times over nine years. It’s not like it just happened once. I think it happened first time six years ago and then again to four years ago and three, you know, two years ago. It’s just a lot of it actually goes back to that confidence thing, me being like, okay, I’m valuable.

00:27:16:18 – 00:27:29:19
Hallie Warner
No matter what role I play in this organization, I am valuable even if I don’t work in this company. That that sort of mindset. And that’s just a lot of working on myself and, you know, my self leadership.

00:27:29:19 – 00:27:42:02
Daniel Ramsey
And how did you realize that? Oh, come on, give me the goods. Because yeah, this is I want our audience to understand exactly who you are so they will find their own and then experience the growth that you guys have.

00:27:42:02 – 00:27:45:18
Hallie Warner
Experience how to tell. Ask me that. How do they realize what exactly.

00:27:46:02 – 00:28:09:24
Daniel Ramsey
How did you realize that you can’t hold all of the bags that you needed to hire people that you couldn’t continue at 89 hours, that it was causing you and Adam? You know, because there there has to be some of this at burn out and that you needed you needed help and that you were valuable like what what was the there’s always a pivotal moment.

00:28:09:24 – 00:28:27:00
Hallie Warner
So. Well, I’ll give you two kind of scenarios. One was maybe several years ago, and when we when we started hiring some of those other positions, I was really more okay with that. I knew it was good for the business. Right? We needed that director of marketing. I know we needed that Director of Ops. It was not taking anything away from me.

00:28:27:00 – 00:28:28:16
Hallie Warner
It was actually giving a lot of work away that I.

00:28:29:04 – 00:28:29:10
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah.

00:28:29:23 – 00:28:58:20
Hallie Warner
Have any interest in doing. The harder part for me came more recently when we hired an executive assistant because that that was, that was who I was. So but I knew, gosh, I’m try to think of the exact moment. I just knew that I needed. I really I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just remember knowing that we needed I needed to not work as much.

00:28:58:20 – 00:29:15:06
Hallie Warner
That’s really what it was. I was like I had reached a point where I just couldn’t keep working the way I was and still be a complete human being. That’s really what it was. And and I and I probably knew it a little bit sooner. I just wasn’t willing to admit it initially.

00:29:15:20 – 00:29:23:08
Daniel Ramsey
Right. And Adam had no part in helping you understand that it was something that you came to on your own.

00:29:23:17 – 00:29:55:10
Hallie Warner
Yeah. I mean, he and I’d certainly had like lots of like we’ve had we had conversations about it. We’d hired EBAs in the past and they just hadn’t worked out right. So there was a little bit of that and I’m like, I can keep doing it. It’ll be fine. And then and then I really a lot of what it was is that I the burnout, in my opinion, isn’t actually from the number of hours working, because if you’re loving what you’re doing in your flow, doesn’t really matter if it came when I was continuing to grow and I was growing in my leadership through all of my coaching and experiences with Adam, and that started

00:29:55:10 – 00:30:21:21
Hallie Warner
to be a mismatch of what I was doing every day in that role. And because I was doing it, I kind of chief of staff stuff. But every time I had to like get back into the kind of the now I was, it felt like I wasn’t aligned anymore with really who I was. And that’s where I was like, okay, this is where we really need to make a change or I’m going to go some go somewhere else where I can find that alignment, which I didn’t want to do.

00:30:23:02 – 00:30:30:03
Hallie Warner
I didn’t know it at the time that it was really like a misalignment of like who I was and where I was at that point in my career.

00:30:30:18 – 00:30:56:18
Daniel Ramsey
And if you’re listening right now, she just made that transition into a leadership role where she knew you, knew you weren’t doing your highest and best work. You you had you had an epiphany where like, look, we should leverage this out because I’m so much more valuable in this role if I’m doing it full time and that is the reason I bring it up is that shift is like so hard to get somebody in your role to understand.

00:30:57:04 – 00:31:08:22
Daniel Ramsey
And it’s why a lot of people split and a lot of lost founders and force multipliers, you know, don’t stay married I guess is that is a good way to say it. Yeah.

00:31:09:16 – 00:31:20:02
Hallie Warner
Yeah. And and I know that Adam knew it before I did, but he also respected you. Needed me, too. I needed to get there on my own. And he knew that, too. Yeah.

00:31:20:11 – 00:31:29:13
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. I love it. Well, how where would somebody get a copy of your book and kind of connect with you if that was something they wanted to do?

00:31:30:00 – 00:31:55:02
Hallie Warner
Sure. Well, I’m all over social media so you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram email is always the best way to get in touch with me and the book you can find on Amazon or go to founder and force multiplier dot com. We actually have a course launching on October 16th, a four week course to get two copies of the book if you join that class and then the book is available on Amazon.

00:31:55:19 – 00:32:04:08
Daniel Ramsey
You know what’s interesting is you mentioned before a lot of coaching, so you’ve been in a coached position for a long time, is that correct?

00:32:05:08 – 00:32:07:04
Hallie Warner
Yes. Yeah. From Adam, absolutely.

00:32:07:13 – 00:32:25:11
Daniel Ramsey
Okay. And so one of the challenges, I think people there’s all kinds of coaching for the founder, but there’s not a lot of coaching available for the force. Multiple. Yeah. What’s some suggestions you would give to our audience if they wanted to get coaching for their EAA or their chief of staff?

00:32:26:11 – 00:32:48:15
Hallie Warner
Yes, well, I know all sorts of coaching, good coaching programs. So I mean, my best suggestion is email me and let me know what it is you’re actually looking for. And I can match you up with the right kind of coaching platform. Obviously, Max Coaching has rolled out some director of operations specific coaching. I do coach executives, assistants and chiefs of staff as well.

00:32:48:19 – 00:32:54:07
Hallie Warner
I take only a limited number per year and typically it’s more than that. Chief of Staff.

00:32:54:15 – 00:32:54:24
Daniel Ramsey
Yep.

00:32:56:06 – 00:33:02:11
Hallie Warner
But we do have other coaches on our team who and on Adam Hagen out there training who coach more real estate director but.

00:33:02:17 – 00:33:04:00
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah option.

00:33:04:09 – 00:33:17:06
Hallie Warner
I know I think pro staffing has coaches coaches I mean honestly let me know if you’re chief of staff the prime to go prime chief of staff has a coaching division lots of resources out there.

00:33:17:16 – 00:33:28:16
Daniel Ramsey
Okay, cool. And you suggest everybody who has an idea or chief of staff, they have coaching specific to that particular role. And so they have a community and they have some resources in addition to the founder.

00:33:29:03 – 00:33:53:04
Hallie Warner
Oh yeah, I think. I think so for for sure. Yeah. If nothing else, some group coaching and just getting plugged into and into a community. And there are a lot of those online, particularly on LinkedIn, and then there are a lot of real estate ones on Facebook that I know about. But just being a part of that community and there’s more and more of those like retreats and masterminds around those real estate admin roles as well that are happening.

00:33:53:04 – 00:33:54:00
Hallie Warner
So those are great.

00:33:54:11 – 00:34:08:10
Daniel Ramsey
Well, there you go. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for listening. You’re amazing. I would definitely we put the lead to getting founder in force multiplier the Amazon meet so you can check it out. Thanks for being here today and sharing your story.

00:34:08:21 – 00:34:13:06
Hallie Warner
Oh, thank you. I mean, man, your questions really made me think and reflect, which I appreciate.

00:34:13:12 – 00:34:16:20
Daniel Ramsey
And watch out. I’ll make you think. All right. Thanks. Thanks again for your time.

00:34:17:03 – 00:34:19:23
Hallie Warner
Thank you. I.