The most surprising thing I’ve learned from building this EA agency

The best leaders understand that they report to their EAs.

Entrepreneurs wear a ton of hats. Every function that isn’t team building, capital management, or vision setting is another hat.

This could be doing sales as a sales manager, copywriting as a marketing manager, or random admin work as an ops manager.

This is okay and even expected.

But when you're working with an EA, you need to know that you’re picking up an extra hat of being your EA's client or partner.

There's work involved with this to set them up for success.

When you make the decision to do to hire an onboard one, you're placing a bet that the added responsibilities to wear this new hat as their client is ROI positive.

You’re betting that they take off more from your plate than they add on.

So, what responsibilities come with this hat of EA client?

To set up your EA for success, they need the right resources and the background rationale.

Resources:

On a regular basis, are they getting enough business and personal context? Are you letting them shadow you or giving them enough instruction or background details through Loom or Zoom? Are you giving them the access needed for them to be proactive? — Calendar, inbox, your Linkedin, etc

Are they getting the visibility they need to be positioned in a good place within your org? — Invited to team meetings, met with other stakeholders, etc

Are you setting up an environment for them that fosters their confidence to operate at a higher level? Or are you micromanaging them and imposing your specific goals onto them?

Rationale:

Are you explaining the why behind the tactical answers you give them? If they’re booking travel with you and they're asking if they should purchase a ticket with a four hour layover to save $100.

A lot of entrepreneurs would say no. But are you also including your reasoning that 1 extra client meeting within those 4 hours would be worth more than $100?

Are you explaining the tradeoffs that you're willing to make and how they relate to your higher level goals?

If your EA, if your highly qualified EA is not working out, and they've had success in the past, reflect on this:

Do you have an explicit understanding of when you work for them as their client? And, in these cases, are you performing well enough to expect them to be successful?

Tool of the week: Motion

AI tools that have helped amplify the EA and Client productivity

Motion is an AI-powered task and project management tool.

I’ve been using it for a couple of months now.

The AI task scheduler works by time automatically time blocking tasks onto your calendar.

I’ve never been one to map out every hour but it helps that I can always lean on the AI reschedule all of the downstream tasks as things change mid day.

It’s really nice and feels sustainable.

On the other hand, keeping the project management tasks up to date is still pretty clunky.

Right now, I fill out a Google Sheet with tasks to add and then my EA will do the data entry into Motion.

I would bet that they improve this side of the UX at some point. They’re still a relatively early product.

The end outcomes are what make it worth it for me:

1. The AI scheduler warns me when it can’t find time to schedule tasks before their designated due dates. This tells me when I’m overcommitted and flags me to try to delegate more.
2. My EA can get visibility into exactly what I’m working on.
3. Overall, I’ve noticed a significant boost in my outputs over the past couple of months while using Motion and would recommend giving them a try!

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Playbook of the Week

Actionable delegation playbook that’s been helpful for other entrepreneurs and EAs.

Setting up new emails for cold outbound (Instructions for EAs)

Task Overview

“Cold email” - one of the known and proven ways of outreach and for businesses to connect with new leads or generate more noise for their brand. And while thoughts may directly pivot towards crafting copy and improving your outreach strategy, one of the first steps one should take is laying down the foundation of your technical setup.

Note: Technical setup directly influences email deliverability and reputation. A proper set up ensures that your emails 📨 not only land in inboxes but also bypass spam filters, maximizing visibility.

EA Responsibilities

Ensuring a proper technical set up and warming up domain before your business ships your cold email efforts is just another task among the list of many others that you Executive Assistant can help out with. In particular:

• Handling the process of purchasing and setting up your domains for cold email
• Filling out and setting up tedious and repetitive action of creating each account
• Configuring across all domains and accounts, and testing whether all configurations work as it should
• Troubleshooting and resolving any issues that may come up

Specific tools used in this playbook

• GoDaddy - for domains
• Google Workspace - for email accounts
• Instantly.ai - a cold email solution provider for all your email campaign needs like set up, warm up, testing, and sending.

Required access

• GoDaddy
• Instantly.ai
• Payment method to purchase domains and google workspace plans

Important terms

• Domain - A unique web address where a site is located.
• Email Account - A user account that can send and receive emails.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) - confirms the legitimacy of the sender by preventing email spoofing through specified authorized email servers.
• DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) - An email authentication method that adds a digital signature to email headers to verify the sender's identity.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, & Conformance) - A record that signifies whether the messages are protected by SPF and DKIM which also shows the recipient’s email servers that that the email is secured and sent legitimately.
• Forwarding - The process of redirecting emails from one email address or domain to another.
• Custom Tracking Domain - A personalized domain that tracks all opens and clicks in sent emails.
• Deliverability - The ability or extent of an email to reach the recipient’s main inbox without being marked as spam.

The step by step process

Buying your domain

In GoDaddy, search and purchase for relevant domains.

Make sure to buy domains based on the bulk of the sending that is planned to be done. Here’s a general guideline:

1. The recommended amount of emails you can send per day per email account is about 50.
2. If you want to send 1000 emails per day, you will need 1000/50=20 email accounts.
3. It is recommended to create 3-5 email accounts per domain, which means for 20 email accounts you need about 4-7 domains.

Note: Make sure to allow for full domain protection to ensure that your domain is secured and protected from hackers or any other unauthorized changes.

Creating email accounts

1. In Google Workspace, buy the appropriate size of the workspace and fill out all needed information.
   • For the email address, make sure to use your main email address for recovery purposes.
2. Once you filled out all information, you will be asked to activate your email.
   • You will need to be logged in to your GoDaddy account to do this. You will need to wait a few minutes for this to be done - don’t refresh or log out.
3. After this, you will be asked to create new user accounts.
   • Create as much email accounts as needed based on the bulk of sending that is planned to be done. Make sure to send over the log in credentials for each account to your main email and enable sending to yourself for security purposes. Remember to save and set up password and credentials for each before proceeding.

Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

• SPF
  1. In GoDaddy, go the domain settings or “DNS Management” of your chosen domain. Confirm that the MX records are made.
  2. Ensure that there is only one SPF record. These are the TXT records that include the following … v=spf1
  3. The one we want to keep should have v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all. For this record, click the edit icon and modify the name to @. Save.
  4. Delete the other record (typically has a longer value and includes the domain).
     • Typically, doing this would run into an error. If it does, modify the record based on the following information: Name: @
     • Value: v=spf1
     • Save. Delete.
• DKIM
  1. Double check that the selected domain is the one you want to create a record for then click GENERATE.
  2. Copy the generated TXT record in the DNS Management of the domain in GoDaddy. Make sure to properly add input. Save and verify.
  3. Type: TXT
  4. Name: Paste generated DNS Host name.
  5. Value: Paste generated TXT record value.
  6. Wait for a few minutes for the records to reflect then START AUTHENTICATION.
  7. Typically, you should wait 5 - 10 minutes before doing so.
  8. Go to EasyDMARC’s Record Generator to generate.
  9. Fill out the following as so:
     • Domain: Your domain
     • Policy type: None
     • Reports send to: Admin account of your domain (not your main)
     • Subdomain: None
     • SPF Identifier alignment: Relaxed
     • DKIM Identified alignment: Relaxed
     • Failure reporting options: 1
     • (Keep values of others not added here as is)
  10. Generate record and copy.
  11. In DNS Management, add a new record and input accordingly.
      • Type: TXT‍
      • Name: _dmarc‍
      • Value: Paste generated value.

Set up Domain Forwarding

The goal of this is to make sure that anyone that types your domain gets redirected to your main domain.

Sample: Looking up mydomain.com shows the page for mymaindomain.com

1. In DNS Management of your domain, click FORWARDING.
2. Choose https:// or http:// then type in the link of your main domain. Keep the permanent option as is. Save.
3. Sample: https:// + www.mydomain.com
4. Double check by typing in your domain’s web address. It should redirect you to the page of your main domain. Make sure to wait a few minutes up to 24 hours (if not working immediately) to let the information get updated globally.

Set up Custom Tracking Domain

1. In DNS Management of your domain, add a new record.
2. Fill out like so…
   • Type: CNAME
   • Name: inst
   • Value: prox.itrackly.com‍
3. Copy and remember your custom tracking domain. It should look like this: inst.domainaddress.com. You will use this in a little while.

Connecting Domain and Emails to Instantly

1. Go to each google account and enable IMAP through the settings, under Forwarding and POPIMAP. Save.
2. In Instantly, click ADD NEW and authenticate log in of your admin email (the first email you make when you create a Google Workspace.
3. If IMAP is enabled, proceed.
4. Go to your Google Workspace Admin Panel.
5. Click “Add App” then select “OAuth App Name or Client ID”
6. Copy the Client-ID given by Instantly. Select Instantly oAuth v1
7. Continue and select access to TRUSTED (important!)
8. Review entry and click finish. This should allow you to log in to your Email through Instantly.
9. Repeat the process using the other emails in your Workspace through Incognito. Make sure to log in to your Instantly and Email for easier transition.
10. Make sure to double check that all emails are added!

Verify email accounts and warm up on Instantly

1. First, ensure that technical set up is in order by clicking the icon next to Add New.

• A confirmation should show up if everything is done correctly. Should look like: “All accounts have MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records set up!”

2. To double check whether the custom tracking domain works, go through each email in Instantly and go to SETTINGS.
3. Under custom tracking domain, enter your custom tracking domain and check status.
4. Should look like this: inst.domainaddress.com
5. If done correctly, a green confirmation should show up with CNAME Verified and SSL Verified.
6. • Make sure to to check status across all accounts.
7. Finally - once everything’s done and in order, activate the warm up by clicking the fire 🔥 icon. It should turn green when active.

Tip for Passwords

Make all access easier by adding a passkey for main accounts such as GoDaddy accounts in a password manager such as 1Password. You’ll be asked to verify changes often and it makes it much easier to have it on-hand.

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