How To Be Worth A Higher Salary As An EA
Why spending $4.95 on a Starbucks black coffee annoys me now
My go to drink at Starbucks is an Iced Grande Coffee w/ extra ice. Not a cold brew. Not an Americano. Not regular ice. No cream, no sugar, just black. Plain and simple, easy peasy.
Back in the day, this cost $2.95. Then it went up to $3.25. Then $3.95. And then suddenly in the last few months, I noticed it’s at $4.95. A $1 increase in what I feel like was less than a year.
The coffee was delicious at $2.95. I enjoyed it thoroughly everyday, and the Starbucks workers knew me :)
At $3.25 it was fine. At $3.95 it was annoying but bearable.
At $4.95, the coffee, though it was the same exact coffee, suddenly tasted like shit.
I just couldn’t get myself to pay the nearly $5 for my Starbucks coffee everyday anymore because it wasn’t even a special coffee - they didn’t do anything to change it.
It’s not really about the money though. It’s about what I’m getting for the money. If it was an Iced Small Tesora Black Coffee from Philz, I will gladly pay the $5 it costs because what I’m getting for that $5 is high quality and pretty damn good tasting coffee.
My Starbucks coffee no longer added value. And it was no longer worth the cost.
And it made me wonder if that’s how our roles as Executive Assistants are looked at sometimes. There’s a certain expectation executives have depending on what you’re getting paid. Heck even I have that expectation when I’m interviewing EAs. If you’re asking for $175k a year, you better be damn good.
I talk to a lot of EAs, and I always wondered why the discrepancy in salary was so enormous. I’ve spoken to EAs who get paid $22K a year all the way to $275K a year. What differentiates them to warrant such a huge difference in pay?
I think it’s how much value these individuals add.
If you’re starting out at a lower salary, your EA role is probably a more junior role. Not much experience is needed, the tasks could be pretty menial, and the people you support just need someone who can “do” the things they ask.
I was in this position getting paid $45K at my first job as an Admin Assistant / Office Manager. And it was a job where I could easily be replaced at any moment.
With hard work, time, strategic thinking, learning to watch and observe patterns and behaviors, making mistakes and learning from them, and being thrown into the deep waters of the ocean and having no choice but to survive, I eventually rose up the salary ranks.
Over time, and unlike the Starbucks coffee which tastes the same whether it’s $2.95 or $4.95, I grew and became a better EA. I learned to read cues, body language, emails, tone of voice, behaviors, relationships, etc. I strengthened my people skills, learned to be more strategic, built trust, and made better executive decisions. I also built a reputation, I worked hard, I learned to anticipate needs and be proactive. I knew how to quickly put out fires, I could problem solve instantly, and I always wanted to be helpful and never disappoint anyone (Yes, I know. There’s another childhood trauma cue here, which I totally should write about soon).
I think once you get to a level where you can do all that and more (and trust me, I haven’t reached my max, I still have so much to learn), you start to become invaluable. Your executives don’t want you to leave, they offer you more money every chance they get, they don’t bat an eye when you ask for something, and they want to take you with them to their next role, company, or venture.
Think about your own life and what you spend good money on. Don’t you spend a little extra for better quality things, to be more comfortable, to feel safer, for higher quality food, and to have peace of mind?
In the same way, an executive who truly understands the value of an amazing EA will want to pay on the higher end for the same reasons because they know a valuable EA can help make them so much more of a productive and successful executive and lift so much stress off their shoulders.
If you’re not happy with your pay right now or perhaps it’s on the lower side, think about what you can do as an EA to add tremendous value to your executive in all that you do. With value will come more money, whether you get it because it’s given to you through a performance review or you get it by asking for it or you get it by moving on to a different role.
And when you continue to get more money, stay humble, remember what you bring to the table, and continue to seek out growth.
Don’t be a $2.95 iced black coffee trying to charge people $4.95 unless you’re going to change, add value, become special and different, and be worth it.
What can YOU do to be an iced coffee worth spending $4.95 on?
I know. I have to work on my analogies. But you get the gist of what I’m trying to say. :)
Amen 🙏🏼