Opening Remarks
Let's move forward with one of the most crucial aspects of our partnership: your Inbox. We're going to work together to ensure that I have access to both your personal and professional inboxes. This will allow me to help you maximize leverage across your communications.
Athena Philosophy
As your Executive Assistant, managing your inbox is a key part of my role in supporting you. To be most effective, I need to stay informed about both your personal and professional emails related to projects, scheduling, and more. Athena suggests granting delegated access to your accounts, but if that's not possible or convenient, you can choose to provide me with direct sign-on access.
Goal of the Session
Today, my goal is to be granted access to your personal and professional inboxes, and any others you regularly use. This is an important part of delegation—If I am to be your right hand, I must be completely and reasonably informed.
During the Session
During this session, I would like you to share your email account passwords with me. This is best done face-to-face to build trust. This is the easiest way to get me access to all your email accounts but I understand if you may not be comfortable with this. If you are not comfortable with this at this time, we can set up delegated access.
Session Complete
Now that I have access to your Inboxes, am I free to observe your messaging patterns and inbox ecosystem? I will also ask if you want to send an email to key personal and professional contacts introducing me as your EA—this is recommended by Athena so that your key contacts are not blindsided that they will see me in communications with you.
After the Session
After this session, I will begin familiarizing myself with your inboxes. You may need to unblock any access issues if you are using a company email; your company IT may need to grant permission to me for delegated access, especially with FrontApp.
Closing
Now, do I have your permission to begin spending time in your inboxes to begin to understand your communication habits and frequent contacts? This is also a great time to introduce me to your most important contacts since it’s likely I will be corresponding with them directly in the near future. I can provide a draft if you'd like to send it because, at this point of our partnership, it's best if this note still comes directly from you."
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
So on a scale of one to 10, how comfortable are you with giving me access to those two inboxes of yours?