A STORY OF OVERWHELM

Cheers, a $15M+ e-commerce company in the alcohol health industry, was founded by Brooks Powell with the goal of promoting wellness and responsible drinking.

In February 2024, Brooks reached out to Oceans to find someone who could take some weight off his shoulders.

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He was introduced to Anjalie, a highly skilled and experienced EA+ (an Executive Assistant designed for Founders) with a proven track record of supporting C-suite executives in various industries.

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Anjalie joined Brooks just before he had to attend a trade show called Expo West, and they built a system to follow up with every new contact from that event.

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"When you go to trade shows you’re pausing your day-to-day work to attend these events. When you come back, there’s a bunch of work you neglected on those days, now piled up. Plus, now you also have all the follow-up work from the trade show! When there’s no one keeping tabs and following up, those conversations you had, contacts you made at these events, tend to fall through the cracks." - Brooks, Founder

THE EA+ EVENTS FOLLOW UP SYSTEM

1. Create a single source of truth. Set up a Slack Thread between you and your EA+, specifically for ad hoc requests.

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Anjalie and Brooks started their own channel on Slack called Brooks Requests so he could pop in all his random requests. From voice notes dictating emails tosend out, to snapshots of business cards he receives at various events: this is where all his requests for Anjalie landed.

2. Put it into a tracking system. Extract information from business cards into an organized Tracker Sheet (free template).

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Anjalie creates a Tracker Sheet for each event Brooks attends, including contacts that he’s met both physically and virtually. The information is extracted from the screenshots/business cards’ photos he sends her on their Requests Slack Thread.

3. Get clear on next actions. Follow up on daily sync calls.

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Anjalie adds notes from the Tracker Sheet she’s now created to her agenda to discuss with Brooks on their daily sync call. At this point, Brooks would tell her if she needs to draft an email to them, add them to their CRM, or even send them a welcome gift if this is a new client coming onboard. Once done, Anjalie updates the Tracker Sheet with the new status of each contact.

4. Build a documented history of each contact. By creating a CRM.

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Anjalie created a CRM for Cheers on Notion with all of its stakeholders, important to Brooks. If he requests for new contacts to be added to the CRM, this is where Anjalie inputs their details. They’ve also devised a VIP list for certain contacts for differentiation.

THE IMPACT

The dozens of casual conversations and loose business cards that are exchanged over the frenzy of an event are now followed up with. Brooks sleeps easy, knowing they are now squeezing every ounce of value out of each event!

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Looking for your own Anjalie?

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The learnings from this playbook are meant to be shared with anyone who would like to DIY. But if you’re looking for more support and would rather it be done for you — we can help you hire proactive global talent for your team. Just like Anjalie.