Leslie's Journey
From PA to leading six teams
I was 20 minutes late for my first interview
Oops! The country manager told me later that he was hoping he could reject me after that. I was 30 minutes early for the following two interviews.
I love the variety of this work
You always get to try new things. I knew travel and could book trips in my sleep. But I didn’t know my way around a CRM, for example. Everything but travel planning was new. It was also a lot smaller than my previous company, which occupied an entire floor of a high-rise building. Prialto was and is more like a family.
I now manage six teams of seven PAs and Team Captains
I became a team leader after three years. It’s been exciting to see our accounts grow from a few to a dozen or more PAs. It’s a lot, but I am still learning new things every day, and it is never boring.
My team calls me Ma Les or Mama Les
They come to me with their (mostly) work problems. We make sure people aren’t afraid of making mistakes. We’re not here to blame but to support. I also tell them about my mistakes. At my first onboarding call, I forgot to invite the member that we were onboarding!
The most important thing you can bring to your work is care
When you care about your work, show care for your members and their businesses, people can feel it. I care about my team as people and as employees.
I tell new PAs that you have to be like a sponge
Soak things in. Openness and learning are in some ways more important than your experience with specific tools or technologies. Being eager to learn is what makes us able to help each other. Suppose I don’t know a particular CRM? Someone else on the team will teach me. This is what makes us different.
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I love to cook
I once wanted to open my own restaurant. I shared my recipe for Lechon Belly with the team. That was fun.
