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00:00:01
Clara Ma
41 Plays1 day ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Clara Ma.
To keep up with or connect with Clara:
✨Ask A Chief Of Staff Website: https://askachiefofstaff.com/
✨Ask A Chief of Staff Substack: https://askachiefofstaff.substack.com/
✨Clara’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarama/
To stay in touch with Meredith and Medbury:
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Medbury on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medbury_agency/
Subscribe to the Medbury newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Email Meredith: Meredith@MedburyAgency.com
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Transcript
Introduction of Guests
00:00:01
Speaker
Clara, hi. Thank you so much for doing this episode of Content People. So happy to be here. Happy to have you. and Content People listeners, I have a guest host with me today, Julia Lechner, head of exec content. Julia and I did a Content People episode together like a year ago, maybe. Happy to be back. and one of the reasons that Julia is joining us today is Clara, who is doing such cool work and we're so excited to dig into her work. Also has a lot of LinkedIn followers like Clara. think it's more than 50K. Is that right?
00:00:30
Speaker
Yeah, we're tutoring right on the edge of 60,000. I'm hoping over the next two weeks we hit that milestone. i hope so So it just felt like we had to have Julia on from a LinkedIn angle since Julia helps so many of our clients with LinkedIn.
00:00:44
Speaker
So Clara, very excited to talk to you. i think the chief of staff is such an important and nuanced role, and I'm excited to dig into it
Clara's Career Journey
00:00:54
Speaker
with you. But for folks who don't know you, can you say a little bit about who you are and what you do?
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Clara. I'm the founder and CEO of Ask a Chief of Staff. We're a platform that's dedicated to uplifting and demystifying the chief of staff role. But I was a chief of staff myself and found the role one of the most transformational roles for my career, but also one of the most challenging because it is oftentimes a very lonely role. within your organization. And so I set out to build a community and platform space to help chiefs of staff navigate the ambiguity in this role, help executives hire great chiefs of staff, and overall build up that chief of staff and principal relationship from the ground up and continue to expand it throughout their careers.
00:01:39
Speaker
I have so many questions for you. Before we get into ask a Chief of Staff, can you say a little bit about your career journey thus far and how you got up to founding Ask a Chief of Staff today?
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I always tell people that I was an accidental entrepreneur. I didn't know that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always thought maybe one day it'll be nice to work for myself, but I didn't really know exactly what that route was to get there. If we rewind all the way back to the first job I ever had, I actually worked in recruiting. So I worked for a boutique recruiting firm. And that's where I really started to get into startups. I was recruiting for a lot of startups and figured, OK, I think I want to move into the startup world.
00:02:19
Speaker
Out of a variety of different startups I worked at, I was always playing this kind of generalist, operational role. Jack of all trades type of person. And that's what really spurned my interest in a chief of staff role. After working at a couple of startups doing a little bit of everything, i wanted to figure out how I could sit closer to leadership. And that's when the chief of staff role really came onto my radar.
00:02:41
Speaker
So eventually I became the chief of staff at a series A AI startup. Like I said, one of the best roles I ever had, but one that I really had to figure out on the fly. And so when I left that role, I really thought about how can I do more to support people who are in this chief of staff role? And that's what's led me to now build this community for
Role and Skills of a Chief of Staff
00:03:01
Speaker
them. So a very windy pathway. I think it makes a lot of sense now when I look at it in retrospect. But when I was going through it, definitely didn't feel like that.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You said it was transformational as a role. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What was transformational about it? What was so transformational for me for the chief staff role was that I finally got a chance to see organizations from a 10,000 foot view. So generally speaking, when I was at startups, I was very much in the day to day. executing on a lot things. I would work with executives in a way where they would trust me. So they'd give me some sort of initiative and I'd just run with it and get it done. But I never really thought about how the things that I was doing, how were they fitting into the bigger picture as a whole? How was this driving towards our North Star? Things like that. And so in that chief of staff seat, I got to sit next to my CEO and got to think about, okay, what does each thing in our organization do? How does that
00:03:55
Speaker
drive towards the bigger picture, right? How do all these puzzle pieces fit together? And in addition to that, the extra nuance was that I got to see how my CEO made decisions. I could really think, okay, why did we go this direction versus that one? Why did we go with this client versus another? And things like that. And that really helped solidify a little bit more of my own decision-making skills instead of just saying, okay, what's the fastest way to get this done? You know, what is the best way in the long-term to do this thing right now?
00:04:23
Speaker
So it helped you quickly learn more and integrate around decision-making process and how everything hewed to the North Star of an organization, which is a big part of what chief of staff assists with.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. i think of the chief of staff as a role that has a lot of soft skills because a lot of it is navigating and supporting people. So many different leaders, many of which can have complex personalities, different goals, working closely with the CEO, as you said, or a founder. And then also, though, a role that you have to be kind of autodidactic, able to teach yourself things quickly. Generally, any like new tech tool, et cetera, that might come your way, be able to gain fluency with it so that you can be engaging with conversations around it.
00:05:05
Speaker
So I feel like it is a role that it requires a lot. It requires a lot of emotional intelligence, a lot of presence, a lot of technical ability. What do you think makes a great chief of staff?
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely a couple of characteristics that I see as a thorough line across a lot of chiefs and staff. And I think you touched a lot on this already, right? Very high EQ, like that emotional intelligence is so important because you are not only working with a CEO, which oftentimes can be a very big personality or has like a certain way that they like to do things, you know, why they are successful and why they founded a company. They sometimes have their own philosophy around that and you need to be able to read between the lines and understand you know what it is that they're asking for and kind of mold your communication styles to that person. But in addition to that, you also have to work up and down the organization as well, right? As a chief of staff, there's no way that you can do everything yourself that your CEO is demanding of you. You have to work with individual contributors, other functions, working cross-departmentally to sometimes get those initiatives across the line. And so being able to work with people, read people, understand what their motivations are and what makes them tick is such an important part of this job. The other part is really strong communication. You have to be able to communicate and translate different parts of the org to each other. one example I can share is that I worked at a very technical organization. This is an AI startup where everybody other than myself and the CEO was an engineer
Challenges and Adaptation in the Role
00:06:33
Speaker
or a scientist. And we had to put out a newsletter to thousands of our readers who may not be as deeply technical as our engineers, but they needed to be able to understand what it is that we are coming out with. And so being able to be that translator between different audiences is super important there as well. And then the last point, which I think you'd also touched on is like this ability to learn things on the fly, right? I think a lot of the time you're going to be hit with things that you may say, oh, I don't know, like I've never done anything like that before, but what are the frameworks that you have and the scaffolding that you have to go and find those answers? And it's not just, you know, ask ChatGPT anything like that, but really understanding the context and the situation of what is being asked of you. So again, one more example I can share is that day two of my job, one of our employees came up to us and said, my wife had a baby last week, what's our parental leave policy? And we just didn't have one at that early stage. We were such a small company and this was not something that was established just quite yet. And so I had to figure out, okay, how do i figure out what the best policy could be at our stage in size, but also build towards when we raise our series B, when we're a hundred people, is this still going to hold up? Or is it going to be easy to fluctuate and be flexible as we continue to grow and scale? And also another fun thing that happened during my tenure was that we encountered the pandemic. And that was something that there was no playbook for. So being able to know, OK, who are peers or advisors that I can turn to outside of my organization? How can I find this information out for myself?
When to Hire a Chief of Staff
00:08:03
Speaker
I think these are all really important skill sets for a chief staff to have. Not all organizations have a chief of staff. What are the signs that you should think about investing in one?
00:08:13
Speaker
So the thing that I always tell executives is what is your zone of genius, right? What is the thing that you as an executive are best suited to do? And why do you need to be the person leading this organization? If you are spending less than, i would say, 50, 75% of your time in your zone of genius, that's the time to hire a chief of staff. And that can look different for a lot of different founders, right?
00:08:35
Speaker
My CEO hired me right after they had raised their Series A. Some CEOs don't hire one until Series B or beyond. Even at larger corporations like a LinkedIn or a Microsoft, which are way past that early stage, they have multiple chiefs of staff to different executives. And oftentimes the remit comes from, okay me as an executive, I'm not spending my time doing the things that only I can do. I'm starting to do a lot of things that need to be done at an executive level, but I think I could delegate to somebody who is highly intelligent, somebody who can pick up on this very quickly and can execute at that executive level, but it doesn't necessarily have to be me anymore. So ultimately it becomes a capacity issue for the executive in question. And then of course we dig into what exactly is it that's eating up your time and is it better to hire a chief of staff or a functional lead or whatever that might look like.
00:09:27
Speaker
I love that. go ahead, Julia. I noticed, Claire, you mentioned that you felt it was a lonely role and it was your first time stepping into it. Now you've created this incredible resource for current and future chiefs of staff. What did you turn to when you were first stepping into that role, whether it was advisors, mentors, or resources to learn and gain the confidence and experience when stepping into that chief of staff role?
00:09:49
Speaker
A lot of it was reaching out to former colleagues and coworkers. So in
Community and Resources at Ask a Chief of Staff
00:09:53
Speaker
that parental leave example, I actually called up the former head of HR, head of people at another company that I had worked with. And then I also asked other friends who I knew their companies had really great parental leave policies, right? Like a Google or something like that, where was like, I know we're gonna get to a Google level policy right now, but I wanna understand what excellence looks like, and then I'll figure out how to adapt that to my organization. But even within that, I didn't feel like it was enough. And one of the things that I did and what's led to my LinkedIn connections being such a large number is that I actually reached out to probably hundreds of chiefs of staff on LinkedIn to ask them for 15, 20 minutes of their time, whatever they could spare for me so that I could get on the call and ask them what exactly it was that they were spending their time on, how were they delegating and prioritizing. And if I had specific situational questions, I would be able to ask them as well. So Ask a Chief of Staff has become the solution that I wish I had when I was a Chief of Staff myself. But I think that being able to find people outside of your organization is so important because if you're an early stage startup, you're the only chief of staff there, right? There's nobody else that does exactly what you do. And oftentimes you are explaining your role to other people within the org as well. So not necessarily the best people for you to go to get help. But if you're also at a larger corporation, like a LinkedIn has tons of chiefs of staff or Microsoft, for example, has a lot of chiefs of staff.
00:11:12
Speaker
Talking to other chiefs of staff when within your organization can be helpful to understand how to navigate the bureaucracy, the politics, that kind of thing. But also keeping in mind that all of those other chiefs of staff have principals, executives that they're working for at their organization as well. So they're not bringing a completely unbiased perspective. They may be looking for something on behalf of their principal, et cetera. So I always found that going outside of my organization was better because they did not have a stake in what it was that I was building. They just wanted to share great experiences.
00:11:42
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about if someone was to join Ask a Chief of Staff, what's the experience like for them? What are the resources available to them? So one thing that we like to say about Ask a Chief Staff is that we can meet you wherever you are in your career journey. So whether you're six months into your very first Chief of Staff role or you're three-time Chief of Staff and you're looking for more peers, we're able to serve this entire gamut. And the big reason is because Chiefs Staff come from all sorts of different backgrounds. So some people take on their first Chief of Staff role maybe five to seven years into their career. Some people take that on. 10 to 15 years into their careers. And so there's a large amount of experience that people come to the table with. And we're able to meet all of these different people because we have all of these different members with different experiences. But we also bring in the best in class industry experts, former chiefs of staff to come speak to our members as well. So some of the things that you can expect within our community is peers, of course, people that you could talk to, network with, share best practices with. We have weekly webinars with industry leaders to talk about a variety of different topics that Chiefs of Staff might be working on or dealing with. Of course, AI integration is top of mind, AI transformation, of course, but also things like managing upwards, how to give upward feedback, how to work with principals, how to onboard yourself in your first 30, 60, 90 days. And then we also have a very robust mentorship program. So we can speak to any one of our 50 plus mentors, talk to people who've been in this role before, who can give you real time advice and experience because they've done this role before. And then again, you can take that back to your organization. So some of the things that our members have said is that I don't know how would survive without talking to XYZ person in my role.
00:13:19
Speaker
The big thing that we often find is just a sense of belonging and feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I'm not the only person going through this. I thought maybe I was doing my chief of staff role wrong, but oftentimes It is just part of the job to navigate a lot of this ambiguity and just having somebody else there to say, hey, you're doing all the things that you can. Here are some things that you can try, but you are doing all the right things. And having that validation, I think, is so important and finding community for your career.
00:13:44
Speaker
One question. Do you find that there's a disproportionate amount of women in the chief of staff role or does it seem equally split insofar as like your members, for example? Yeah.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, within our members, we definitely skew higher on women. I don't think that's super surprising given how much emotional intelligence is needed in this role. And I think that women tend to be able to just read people a little bit better and tend to be in these roles where they are supporting an executive in
Career Paths and Future Opportunities
00:14:12
Speaker
a better capacity. That being said, we have plenty of men in our roles as well. And I think chief of staff role is often one that is a fast track towards an executive role down the line. And so it can be enticing for anybody who's looking to take that next step in their career. Several people have described the chief of staff role as like a crash course MBA. And so if you're looking to kind of level up and learn how an organization is run, see how executives are making decisions, I don't think that's gender specific in any means.
00:14:39
Speaker
That makes sense, I ask, because I do think in my head, if you say chief of staff, I have to admit, I picture a woman. And I do think of it as a role where, not to generalize, but there is so much EQ and navigating.
00:14:52
Speaker
I have a couple more questions, and then, Julia, I will kick it to you so that maybe you can ask some LinkedIn questions, but just a few more on this, Clara. I think chiefs of staff work so, so hard.
00:15:02
Speaker
They are grinding and they are giving a lot of emotional labor to the job. They're keeping things together in a lot of ways behind the scenes, in my experience. When you are all advising, you're and supporting your members.
00:15:16
Speaker
Do you find that most of them want to move up into C-level roles? And if so, is there a advice that you give them insofar as the opportunities that they look for, the types of industries they're working in, or even just the way that they approach the role that could support them in moving up into that role as opposed to just staying in that valuable, but sometimes I think taken for granted role where folks doing so much? A couple of reactions. One, it's pretty split. Some people take on the role and they have a very clear outcome of what they want to do. And they were working towards that from the very beginning. For somebody like me, I was like, I know that I want to step up in my career, but then I don't really know what comes after this chief staff role. I hadn't really given it that much thought beyond, let me land the role first and then like figure it out along the way, right? So eventually i had conversations with my CEO about where this role could lead. And we settled more on a
00:16:06
Speaker
head of operations, like COO type track, mostly because I knew that's where a lot of my strengths were, but also we didn't have that function within our organization. So there was a clear gap that could be filled. I would say that what I always encourage people to do is like, yeah, what do you want to get out of this role, right? Why do you want to take on a chief of staff role now? For a lot of people, it's a career of pivot. They're like, okay, I've been super deep in this function. I want to see the forest for the trees and figure out what are other things that I might like to explore that I might be good at. And the chief staff role is going to give you a huge breadth for that. Some folks, this was my eventual route was I do want to become an entrepreneur, right? I'd want to become a CEO. I want to found my own company and a chief of staff is going to be a great training ground for you to get there. You're going to sit next to a decision maker. if You're going to get to see the organization from a 10,000 foot view, but also execute on the ground level. So that's going to set you up to become a great executive down the line for your own company. But more and more so, we're seeing chiefs of staff who are multi-time or what we call career chiefs of staff, whether it's staying with the same principal. I've seen chiefs of staff move with their principal. So let's say like, your principal was a CMO at one company and then they've decided to move to their next company, sometimes they'll take their chief of staff with them, right? You already have that established trust. You know how to delegate. You know how to work together. I've also seen chiefs of staff move from company to company. Maybe they really like building at a specific stage and size. And so once the company gets to a certain stage and scale, they're like, okay, I think my work here is done. I want to move to the next company and kind of do the same thing again. And then I've seen chief staff stay with the principal at the same company for now five, 10 years. You know, if you really enjoy what it is that you're doing, your role is changing as much as your executive's role is changing, right? As the company grows from 10 to 50 to 200 people, that executive's role and how they lead is going to change. And so you as a chief of staff are going to have to change as
Daily Routine and Community Events
00:17:53
Speaker
well. So One thing we really encourage our chiefs of staff to do is like every three months or so, take stock of what it is that you're doing. What are the things that give you energy and you enjoy? what are things that don't and you can delegate or maybe try to pass along to the next person so that you don't have to do them and see if there are any trends that really start to arise from that and help you figure out what your next step might be. That's really interesting. Thank you. I'm really curious to know, as a founder right now, what is the normal-ish day like for you? How does your routine go?
00:18:23
Speaker
What I'm really proud of is that we've built out a team. And so my days are spent lot on more top level strategy and partnerships. So I spend a good amount of time figuring out, okay, how can we bring more great people into our chief of staff community? i spend a lot of time trying to work out different experiments we can run and how to attract the best chiefs of staff to come join us. I'm also working obviously on managing our team and making sure everybody knows exactly what it is that they need to do so that we can push to the next level. So we're a team of about five now and everybody has different parts of the business that they're working on. And then a lot of it is also thinking about what are great experiences for chiefs of staff to have. We last week just ran our first ever New York Ask Chief Staff Summit. It was a full day of learning for about 50 chiefs staff that all came out to New York. and people really enjoyed the experience of getting together in person, working through problems, working with an executive coach that we had on site that day, and just mixing and mingling. So a lot of it is around the community experience. And then, of course, then I'm also working with executives to figure out, do you need a chief of staff? Who might you want to hire?
00:19:35
Speaker
kick them over to our recruiting team so they can start to lead those searches. But I'm connecting with a lot of executives on the day-to-day as well to really figure out if a chief of staff is right for them. So they're a really valuable service. And Julia, I'm curious, what are your questions around LinkedIn? But also, I know I just talked lot. if you have non-LinkedIn questions, go for it. Yeah, Claire, to start, I know you mentioned AI transformation earlier, which I'm sure is top of mind for a lot of chiefs
Industry Shifts and AI Transformation
00:20:00
Speaker
of staff. When you had the opportunity to get together for the summit or you're speaking with your community, are there any other shifts or changes in the industry that are top of mind where it's been helpful to come together in community to work through some of those shifts in the industry?
The Role of LinkedIn in Career Growth
00:20:14
Speaker
There are a couple of throw lines that we always see chiefs of staff wanting to talk about, right? One is around prioritization and how to figure out, okay, My principal, my executive is giving me 10 priorities. Like how am I supposed to get all of them done? So there's always a lot of figuring out, okay, what exactly can get done and what can get deprioritized until the next quarter. So ah prioritization is a big one. Overall, annual planning and strategic planning is also something that Chiefs and staff are often involved with. Figuring out, okay, now that we have the top level strategy, how does that translate down into the rest of the organization so everybody knows what it is that they're doing to drive towards that North Star, right? Drive towards... whatever milestones that we're looking to accomplish. flesh And then I would say another one that we see a lot of also is career development and figuring out what does this chief of staff role mean for me, right? So I know we talked a little bit about this just earlier, but a lot of chiefs of staff, I think, start to hit the year mark or a year and a half mark, and they're like, wow, I've done a ton of stuff.
00:21:11
Speaker
what am I supposed to do with all of this? It feels like I've done a little bit of everything and I don't even know, like, do I stay in this role forever? Do i think about what's next? What does what's next even look like for me? And so those are just a couple of thorough lines that I see come up often within our chiefs of staff.
00:21:27
Speaker
Perfect. And then pivoting to LinkedIn a bit. I know you mentioned that was one way that you were able to learn and find some other mentors in that space. How did you initially approach it? Were you already active on the platform or was stepping into this role a motivator to want to grow your network more so on LinkedIn?
00:21:43
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, stepping into the role, it was almost a forcing function. i realized I didn't know any other chiefs of staff when I stepped into the role and I needed that to change like pretty quickly overnight. So that was a huge forcing function. I would say a lot of that was just done in LinkedIn DMs and Zoom coffee chats. I didn't feel confident enough to tell other people how to do this role like even what best practices were when I was first stepping into this role. I felt like I had so much to learn on my own, but I remember having one conversation in particular with the chief of staff who I thought like, oh my, like I'm going to learn so much from this person. This person has been the chief of staff role for three years. Like they're further along in their career than me. And I had all these questions that i wanted to ask him. And so I kind of went down my list of questions. And then the thing that really kind of stopped me in my tracks was that at the end of the conversation, I started to thank him for his time. And I was like, oh my gosh, like I can't, even began to say thank you for how much time you spent with me. Please, like, if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. And he kind of stopped me and he was like, well, we talked a lot about me, but like, what do you do as a chief of staff? And I was so shocked that he wanted to ask me that question at all, because I figured you probably have it all figured out. You've been a chief of staff for a while. And he told me, actually, I never get to talk to other chiefs of staff. Like they're the first chief of staff I've talked to in a really long time because one, like I'm always so busy, but two, there's not other people like me at my company. And so there was this kind of lack of knowing what other people were doing. A lot of the initial LinkedIn interactions I had or just building out my network was done privately. And then it wasn't until I stepped into a business
00:23:15
Speaker
program director role at OnDeck before I started Ask a Chief of Staff, where I actually built the first iteration of a Chief of Staff cohort and fellowship that I started to post a little bit more on LinkedIn. I mean, part of it was helping people and sharing some of the lessons that I had, but also trying to suss out who were other Chiefs of Staff and how can we start to bring them together. So started that journey, gosh, probably almost five years ago when I was working at OnDeck and then was posting maybe twice a week on a good week. But when I started Ask a Chief of Staff, really doubled down to now posting almost every single weekday about the Chief of Staff role and really seeing it pay off in dividends when it comes to attracting the right people for our community, but also sharing a lot about the Chief of Staff role and helping people feel a little less alone.
Strategic Use of LinkedIn
00:24:01
Speaker
That's incredible. And yeah, your content certainly resonates. What was it like becoming more of like an influencer role? Did it feel natural? Was it a bit of a stretch to say, I'm putting my face out there now that I'm a founder and want to share more on the platform?
00:24:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody's always nervous about posting on LinkedIn first, right? It feels like the internet is forever and that these are things that are gonna stay in the web archives for forever. But the thing that I tried to keep in mind was that I'm not sharing personal opinions per se, right? I'm not trying to influence people to change their lives, but instead I'm just trying to share some of the things that I wish I had learned and some of the best practices, right? And knowing that not everybody is gonna go through the same chief of staff journey I did. Every chief of staff role is a little bit different. But if we could find some commonalities and we could help people capitalize on some of those things and share one template or share one piece of information that helps make their lives easier, then we've accomplished our roles. I never really thought of myself as like an influencer per se. i just wanted to
00:24:59
Speaker
build this community space. And I knew that in order to do that, I had to go and find the right people. And LinkedIn felt like the right platform for that. I think also LinkedIn gives you still a professional networking error, right? I know it's a little different from what it was five years ago, but it's very different from something like an Instagram or a TikTok, where it really is a lens into your day-to-day life.
00:25:20
Speaker
LinkedIn is, at least for me, still gives me a little bit of work-life separation. So I would say chief of staff LinkedIn Clara is definitely not weekend pickleball Clara. Understood. And how does it help support the business? Are you finding like that is the primary driver for growing the network and connecting with other Cheetah staff?
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, I would say LinkedIn is really for sound bites, right? It's quick scroll. It's a lot of quick, catchy templates and things that people can see and read and say, okay, i agree with that. And then we really try to drive people towards our sub stack, which is where we have longer form, really tactical content. So between the two, i think people really enjoy the breadth of material that we put out. i can't tell you how many times I've showed up to events that we host or events that I go to where there are other chiefs of staff and they're like, oh yeah, like you're on my LinkedIn all the time. Or I subscribe to your newsletter and it's like the one that I really set aside time for to read. Like I opened up the tab and I like really make sure I sit down and read it thoroughly without like skipping anything. Those are all really positive signals for us. There's a lot of content flying at you from every single angle. And one thing that we've really tried to maintain is written content. I know that a lot of platforms really prioritize photos or videos and things like that, but I think for chiefs of staff, like they tend to be quite introspective. They tend to do a lot of writing on their own. And so meeting them where i think they are in terms of having introspective content that is readable for them and you're able to process it in that way has been really great in attracting the right kinds of people. and attracting chiefs of staff as well. As folks who love writing too, it's nice when you've got images, video, it's also important, but getting to prioritize something like a sub stack with really thoughtful tactical content and lead folks to it.
00:27:02
Speaker
More of that please in the world, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Well, Claire, this has been amazing. If folks are curious and they want to learn more about you or the sub stack, or they're curious about potentially joining your organization, where can we send them? And we'll put the links right in the show notes here. So if you're listening, you want to check it out, you can just scroll and click. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can come to our website that has everything. Our sub stack is on there. Our community information is on there. If you're an executive looking to hire a chief of staff, there's a hire a chief of staff button on there. So you can just go to askachieffofstaff.com. And then, of course, I will always encourage everyone to come and connect with me on LinkedIn as well. Amazing. Thank you so much, Claire. I really appreciate you taking this time. And is there anything we didn't ask that you'd want to say before we wrap up?
00:27:48
Speaker
I think my last piece of advice, and this is just to anybody who wants to start building their LinkedIn presence or is maybe nervous about writing anything online, write what you know. You don't have to write something that you're like,
00:27:59
Speaker
I have to like create this whole new persona. a lot of the posts that I wrote in the beginning were just things that I did wrong and I wish I had done better or that I wish I had known about. And I think everybody has those lessons to share. So don't be afraid to share your shortcomings, your failures, your mistakes. Like those are actually the things I think resonate the most with people is when you did something wrong in your career, you did something that you wish that you had done differently. and how you would do it differently now. Because one, it shows progression in how you think and your career, but also it makes you feel a lot more relatable to people because everybody's had some of those missteps in their career as well. So I'll leave you with that if anyone's ever stuck on content on what to write about. But I think that's a great place to start.
00:28:37
Speaker
love that advice. Thank you so much, Claire. I love talking with you. Of course. It's so great to meet you both.