This month's DBDL Academy call brought in Tricia Sciortino, CEO of BELAY, for a live conversation with Brad Johnson on what it actually takes to scale a business without losing what made it work in the first place.
Tricia's own path made her uniquely suited for the conversation. She started as an executive assistant to Michael Hyatt when BELAY was first getting off the ground, worked her way up through operations and eventually the COO seat, and now leads the company as CEO. Few leaders have seen both sides of the assistant relationship as clearly as she has.
What Breaks as You Scale
Brad asked Tricia what tends to break as a firm grows from a handful of people to forty or fifty. She pointed to three recurring failure points:
Quality control. When a founder is small, they can see and maintain quality across everything personally. As layers build, that visibility disappears, and the client experience is often the first thing to slip if there is nothing systematized to catch it.
Culture and toxic team members. A sour attitude or a bad hire spreads fast inside a growing team. Tricia's rule: hire slow and cautiously, but fire fast. She admitted BELAY has held onto the wrong people for too long more than once, and it always cost them.
People hitting their lids. Team members who were great at one size of the business can plateau as it grows past them. The fix is not always removing someone. Sometimes it is coaching, retraining or moving them into a role that fits where they are now.
The Case for an Executive Assistant
A large part of the conversation centered on the executive assistant role and how far it has evolved. Tricia described today's EA as far more than a calendar gatekeeper. Modern assistants build standard operating procedures, create systems and processes, vet new software and CRMs, and act as an advocate on a leader's behalf with the rest of the team. Her advice for anyone building out a support team: give a new assistant full access early, have them shadow your communication style, and build one or two SOPs together right away rather than waiting months to formalize a process.
A Special Offer for Triad Members
As part of the call, Tricia announced that BELAY is waiving all onboarding and startup fees for Triad Members for a limited time. That is normally a $1,000 value, exclusive to this group.
Missed the Live Call?
The full session recording is available for replay in Coach Accountable.
Check out the DBDL Podcast episode featuring Tricia:
How to Hire an Assistant that Actually Buys Back Your Time
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