Headhunter to the Stars Radio Interview
Celebrity recruiter, Brian Daniel, gives an in-depth interview about how he got started assisting others. Inspired by meeting his first billionaire at 17 years old, Brian eventually went on to working for some of the most recognized names on Earth.
|
What it's like to work for a celebrity
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
PART 1
Hey, it's your pal, Dev. Thank you so much for tuning in. Now, I know that at one point in your life, you probably wanted to be a celebrity you're fascinated by the lifestyle of these beautiful and rich people. Well, today's guest is former celebrity personal assistant, Brian Daniel and let me tell you something. He knows a thing or two about working with A-list celebrities, billionaire's or even royalty. He is now a staffing consultant and career coach and also author of Dream Careers: The Tutorial for finding Elite personal Assistant Jobs.
Brian, thank you so much for your time. And right off the bat. I'm curious, were you always fascinated by celebrities growing up? It's a very interesting story because back in the late 80s. I was an assistant a part-time assistant to someone who installed high-tech equipment in cars. So back then mobile phones were in their infancy and people are walking around, carrying them in briefcases, basically. And that was at the time when people were also putting those high-tech stereos in their car. Aftermarket stereos like Alpine and Blaupunkt. So one day I go to work and my boss says to me we're going to billionaire Jack Kent Cooke's house to install a phone in his limousine.
Jack Kent Cooke is dead now, but at the time he owned like half of LA and New York, he owned three sports teams, and this was right around the time when the Washington Redskins went the Super Bowl. So we went in his ranch, and it was just like you expect in a movie like Daddy Warbucks from the Annie movie. He had a huge entourage of people around him, and we were working his limousine. and then he jumped into the car and said we have to go right now. We are in the middle of installing this used mobile phone, and it's used limousine, because he was very thrifty like a lot of billionaires are.
It's just such a wild experience and I always became really fascinated. And then when I eventually moved to Los Angeles later in my life after I graduated from high school. My first personal assistant job on the west coast was working for a member of the Johnson & Johnson family. So that sowed the seeds, so speak and things grew from there. Wow. Okay. So you were talking about how he had a big posse and stuff... How many people usually work for for these celebrities on average because we know what celebrity is is a person but it's a business.
So how many people work around one person usually, or for that one person would would say? That is a terrific question. And I have a terrific answer for you. And the answer is it varies wildly. Now, some billionaires like Warren Buffett, for example, he's not my client. But people like Warren Buffett are incredibly conservative. They travel very low-key, and other billionaires like to have a flashy style, and then they have huge a posse with them. So there really is no rhyme or reason to it. It depends on how flashy the person wants to be and how high their profile is.
So CEOs and celebrities are almost one in the same because sometimes you'll see these huge a-list stars -- sometimes they will be by themselves or they will only have one person with them, perhaps their assistant. And then sometime they are walking around with 20 people. So it really depends, that's that's the best answer I can give you. So I guess the question should be, how many do they need? That is another great question? So it all depends on how high their profile is. Now what you would expect if you're working for a very high-profile a-list Hollywood celebrity or celebrity CEO...
You're definitely going to be traveling around with a head assistant and several subordinate assistants.
And then if they have their kids with them, you might have nannies, and depending on what's happening that day, you know, you might have lawyers with you and a publicity agent. So I've been in situations where I was the only personal assistant in the entourage and I've also been in situations where there were fifteen people with us, so it does vary wildly. And which one do you prefer? Would you rather be alone, or do you like it when there's a lot of people around the celebrity? Honestly, in my older age, I do prefer the low-key PA jobs at this point in my career. When I was much younger, I have to admit, flying around on private jets and being in the big entourages was pretty exciting, but there's a trade to that because when you're in those sort of glamourous situations, you know, you're going to be up all night.
Your boss might keep you up for 2:00 in the morning because if you were at a nightclub with them, but then he can sleep late. But I would have to get up at the wee hours in the morning because my phone started ringing and I had to start his day up for whatever we're going to be doing, and I had to keep my appointments. So yeah, I like the low-key personal assistant jobs better now, honestly. So you talk about private jets and all that kind of stuff... just to give us an idea who were some of the people that you've worked with?
Well, honestly, I have confidentiality agreements with my clients, both as a headhunter and when I was a personal assistant, but what I can say without mentioning a specific name, is that I did work for the Saudi Royal Family. That was probably one of the most exciting PA gigs that I've had. I did that for about two years and I was an estate manager of properties all over the world, and I was traveling around on private jets, and I was in charge of exotic car fleets. And says there are more than 10,000 members in the Saudi Royal Family, I can say tell that comfortably without having to mention my specific boss's name.
Who's more demanding, royal families or A-list celebrities? I've met some really amazing, darling people like Mariah Carey, for example. I met her on a number of occasions, and she is a real sweetheart. And then of course, I've met the divas that likes to throw things at people, and royal family members are just like any other person. They can have their bad days. So it just really depends. Okay. Now is this a job that is out of reach for people? What kind of background do you need, education-wise... How do you get that? Maybe some people are saying, it looks great in the movies and everything, but that's never going to happen to me.
Is it possible to get a job with a celebrity? So when I started my recruiting business, I started doing a lot of research, and I learned there are, now, more than 2,000 billionaires around the world, and in the USA alone, there are about fifty-thousand households that have net worth between 50 and 500 million dollars. The opportunities now to the work for the
ultra-rich as a personal assistant have never been more plentiful. There are incredible opportunities out there for executive assistants, estate managers, PAs and nannies to work for ultra-high-net-worth families; and, frankly, it's tough to fill these roles because the demands are so great.
It goes beyond skill-set. It goes beyond having the BA degree or even a master's degree. Years ago, I would say 20 years ago, a lot of assistants didn't have college degrees. I would say most of them didn't. Now there's been a huge shift in the
industry. So what I call hybrid positions, and in the old days what they did... The VIP, whoever that was, would have a personal assistant handling all the personal life, and working out of the home office, and then they would have the executive assistant that did all the corporate stuff in the office... and now people are bringing these roles together.
And so it is a little bit of a situation with "old dog new tricks" because all of those old-school celebrity assistants who did not update their skills, and learn things like Microsoft Office suite, front to back, top to bottom, have become obsolete dinosaurs. And what a lot of employers are looking for now are two-in-one and even three-in-one assistants. So, for example, I would not be uncommon for me to get a job spec where they're asking for someone who can do some light cooking duties. Someone childcare experience because they might have to pick up the kids after school, and then a little bit of personal assistant and some executive assistant duties in there.
So these roles, the lines are becoming blurred, and it did not used to be like that 20 years ago. Now I'm guessing, though, that these celebrity personal assistant jobs are very typical. You get out of school. You can go do it and you're good if technically or educationally you've got the right tools, it's also more of being a "people person" ...something that's hard to calculate, and I'm guessing that you you have to try a personal assistant in order to know if it's going to be good right Because how do you gauge in an interview if you you'll be good or not for that specific person?
You bring up a really terrific point. So just because somebody was an executive assistant to a Fortune 500 CEO, does not mean that they were going to be a good fit for another Fortune 500 CEO. Above and beyond the skills that are required, the basic and advanced skills that someone has to have... In the entertainment business, they call it "lightning in a bottle." Right? So, if they're trying to cast a lead actor for a role and they're looking for a movie star, they don't really know who they want until that person walks in the room.
And, in a way, it is the same thing with pairing an executive assistant with a celebrity, or a billionaire, or a prince because there's something that happens... There's a, professionally speaking...There is "magic" that happens in the room during the interview, where people just "clicked together" and I said it before, professionally speaking, it is like a marriage because the assistant is going to be working with their boss...a minimum of 5 days a week , often 6 days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day, and the assistant is going to be with the Principal more than the Principal with their spouse or their boyfriend or girlfriend.
So it is like a professional match. So when celebrities come to me... They're asking for that special match. Because they give me the job description and say, okay, Here's... This is everything that we want them to have. Now, let me tell you some personality traits that I'm looking for, and then we really start getting into the specific details of the PA's job
and the situation. Yeah, well, you mention the work hours. That's probably one of the toughest things. What else is really tough, or not easy to deal with, when you're dealing with someone who's a billionaire... who's, I guess, can buy whatever they want. What are some of the things that people probably don't know about the job that are not so glamorous?
You have a lot of great questions. I really like your style. So the thing is that people have to understand, is that this is a business. So it does look fun in the movies. It does look fun when people go to my website and they see all the pictures of me in the private jets and driving Lamborghinis, but one thing I have to stress And when I'm interviewing the candidate, I'm very clear about this. It is an incredible sacrifice and your time. You really have to love it. So this is a career, and to be successful in any career, if you want to move up, you have to love what you do.
So I know a lot of assistants who started in the business 20, 30 years ago. They never got married and they never had kids. They really didn't have time, and that was okay for them. So at some point after you've done it for 5 years, 20 years and you're starting to push 15 or 20 years, people have to do some deep soul-searching and they say, well, am I going to keep going with this, or are they going to do what I did, and you take a step back, and you either start your own company or you do some sort of staffing consulting.
But I know a lot of people, again, that that been in the business for decades and they just didn't have time to have kids. So you really have to think about what you're 5, 10, and 20 your plan is going to be.
PART 1
Hey, it's your pal, Dev. Thank you so much for tuning in. Now, I know that at one point in your life, you probably wanted to be a celebrity you're fascinated by the lifestyle of these beautiful and rich people. Well, today's guest is former celebrity personal assistant, Brian Daniel and let me tell you something. He knows a thing or two about working with A-list celebrities, billionaire's or even royalty. He is now a staffing consultant and career coach and also author of Dream Careers: The Tutorial for finding Elite personal Assistant Jobs.
Brian, thank you so much for your time. And right off the bat. I'm curious, were you always fascinated by celebrities growing up? It's a very interesting story because back in the late 80s. I was an assistant a part-time assistant to someone who installed high-tech equipment in cars. So back then mobile phones were in their infancy and people are walking around, carrying them in briefcases, basically. And that was at the time when people were also putting those high-tech stereos in their car. Aftermarket stereos like Alpine and Blaupunkt. So one day I go to work and my boss says to me we're going to billionaire Jack Kent Cooke's house to install a phone in his limousine.
Jack Kent Cooke is dead now, but at the time he owned like half of LA and New York, he owned three sports teams, and this was right around the time when the Washington Redskins went the Super Bowl. So we went in his ranch, and it was just like you expect in a movie like Daddy Warbucks from the Annie movie. He had a huge entourage of people around him, and we were working his limousine. and then he jumped into the car and said we have to go right now. We are in the middle of installing this used mobile phone, and it's used limousine, because he was very thrifty like a lot of billionaires are.
It's just such a wild experience and I always became really fascinated. And then when I eventually moved to Los Angeles later in my life after I graduated from high school. My first personal assistant job on the west coast was working for a member of the Johnson & Johnson family. So that sowed the seeds, so speak and things grew from there. Wow. Okay. So you were talking about how he had a big posse and stuff... How many people usually work for for these celebrities on average because we know what celebrity is is a person but it's a business.
So how many people work around one person usually, or for that one person would would say? That is a terrific question. And I have a terrific answer for you. And the answer is it varies wildly. Now, some billionaires like Warren Buffett, for example, he's not my client. But people like Warren Buffett are incredibly conservative. They travel very low-key, and other billionaires like to have a flashy style, and then they have huge a posse with them. So there really is no rhyme or reason to it. It depends on how flashy the person wants to be and how high their profile is.
So CEOs and celebrities are almost one in the same because sometimes you'll see these huge a-list stars -- sometimes they will be by themselves or they will only have one person with them, perhaps their assistant. And then sometime they are walking around with 20 people. So it really depends, that's that's the best answer I can give you. So I guess the question should be, how many do they need? That is another great question? So it all depends on how high their profile is. Now what you would expect if you're working for a very high-profile a-list Hollywood celebrity or celebrity CEO...
You're definitely going to be traveling around with a head assistant and several subordinate assistants.
And then if they have their kids with them, you might have nannies, and depending on what's happening that day, you know, you might have lawyers with you and a publicity agent. So I've been in situations where I was the only personal assistant in the entourage and I've also been in situations where there were fifteen people with us, so it does vary wildly. And which one do you prefer? Would you rather be alone, or do you like it when there's a lot of people around the celebrity? Honestly, in my older age, I do prefer the low-key PA jobs at this point in my career. When I was much younger, I have to admit, flying around on private jets and being in the big entourages was pretty exciting, but there's a trade to that because when you're in those sort of glamourous situations, you know, you're going to be up all night.
Your boss might keep you up for 2:00 in the morning because if you were at a nightclub with them, but then he can sleep late. But I would have to get up at the wee hours in the morning because my phone started ringing and I had to start his day up for whatever we're going to be doing, and I had to keep my appointments. So yeah, I like the low-key personal assistant jobs better now, honestly. So you talk about private jets and all that kind of stuff... just to give us an idea who were some of the people that you've worked with?
Well, honestly, I have confidentiality agreements with my clients, both as a headhunter and when I was a personal assistant, but what I can say without mentioning a specific name, is that I did work for the Saudi Royal Family. That was probably one of the most exciting PA gigs that I've had. I did that for about two years and I was an estate manager of properties all over the world, and I was traveling around on private jets, and I was in charge of exotic car fleets. And says there are more than 10,000 members in the Saudi Royal Family, I can say tell that comfortably without having to mention my specific boss's name.
Who's more demanding, royal families or A-list celebrities? I've met some really amazing, darling people like Mariah Carey, for example. I met her on a number of occasions, and she is a real sweetheart. And then of course, I've met the divas that likes to throw things at people, and royal family members are just like any other person. They can have their bad days. So it just really depends. Okay. Now is this a job that is out of reach for people? What kind of background do you need, education-wise... How do you get that? Maybe some people are saying, it looks great in the movies and everything, but that's never going to happen to me.
Is it possible to get a job with a celebrity? So when I started my recruiting business, I started doing a lot of research, and I learned there are, now, more than 2,000 billionaires around the world, and in the USA alone, there are about fifty-thousand households that have net worth between 50 and 500 million dollars. The opportunities now to the work for the
ultra-rich as a personal assistant have never been more plentiful. There are incredible opportunities out there for executive assistants, estate managers, PAs and nannies to work for ultra-high-net-worth families; and, frankly, it's tough to fill these roles because the demands are so great.
It goes beyond skill-set. It goes beyond having the BA degree or even a master's degree. Years ago, I would say 20 years ago, a lot of assistants didn't have college degrees. I would say most of them didn't. Now there's been a huge shift in the
industry. So what I call hybrid positions, and in the old days what they did... The VIP, whoever that was, would have a personal assistant handling all the personal life, and working out of the home office, and then they would have the executive assistant that did all the corporate stuff in the office... and now people are bringing these roles together.
And so it is a little bit of a situation with "old dog new tricks" because all of those old-school celebrity assistants who did not update their skills, and learn things like Microsoft Office suite, front to back, top to bottom, have become obsolete dinosaurs. And what a lot of employers are looking for now are two-in-one and even three-in-one assistants. So, for example, I would not be uncommon for me to get a job spec where they're asking for someone who can do some light cooking duties. Someone childcare experience because they might have to pick up the kids after school, and then a little bit of personal assistant and some executive assistant duties in there.
So these roles, the lines are becoming blurred, and it did not used to be like that 20 years ago. Now I'm guessing, though, that these celebrity personal assistant jobs are very typical. You get out of school. You can go do it and you're good if technically or educationally you've got the right tools, it's also more of being a "people person" ...something that's hard to calculate, and I'm guessing that you you have to try a personal assistant in order to know if it's going to be good right Because how do you gauge in an interview if you you'll be good or not for that specific person?
You bring up a really terrific point. So just because somebody was an executive assistant to a Fortune 500 CEO, does not mean that they were going to be a good fit for another Fortune 500 CEO. Above and beyond the skills that are required, the basic and advanced skills that someone has to have... In the entertainment business, they call it "lightning in a bottle." Right? So, if they're trying to cast a lead actor for a role and they're looking for a movie star, they don't really know who they want until that person walks in the room.
And, in a way, it is the same thing with pairing an executive assistant with a celebrity, or a billionaire, or a prince because there's something that happens... There's a, professionally speaking...There is "magic" that happens in the room during the interview, where people just "clicked together" and I said it before, professionally speaking, it is like a marriage because the assistant is going to be working with their boss...a minimum of 5 days a week , often 6 days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day, and the assistant is going to be with the Principal more than the Principal with their spouse or their boyfriend or girlfriend.
So it is like a professional match. So when celebrities come to me... They're asking for that special match. Because they give me the job description and say, okay, Here's... This is everything that we want them to have. Now, let me tell you some personality traits that I'm looking for, and then we really start getting into the specific details of the PA's job
and the situation. Yeah, well, you mention the work hours. That's probably one of the toughest things. What else is really tough, or not easy to deal with, when you're dealing with someone who's a billionaire... who's, I guess, can buy whatever they want. What are some of the things that people probably don't know about the job that are not so glamorous?
You have a lot of great questions. I really like your style. So the thing is that people have to understand, is that this is a business. So it does look fun in the movies. It does look fun when people go to my website and they see all the pictures of me in the private jets and driving Lamborghinis, but one thing I have to stress And when I'm interviewing the candidate, I'm very clear about this. It is an incredible sacrifice and your time. You really have to love it. So this is a career, and to be successful in any career, if you want to move up, you have to love what you do.
So I know a lot of assistants who started in the business 20, 30 years ago. They never got married and they never had kids. They really didn't have time, and that was okay for them. So at some point after you've done it for 5 years, 20 years and you're starting to push 15 or 20 years, people have to do some deep soul-searching and they say, well, am I going to keep going with this, or are they going to do what I did, and you take a step back, and you either start your own company or you do some sort of staffing consulting.
But I know a lot of people, again, that that been in the business for decades and they just didn't have time to have kids. So you really have to think about what you're 5, 10, and 20 your plan is going to be.
How to get celebrity PA jobs
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT PART 2
And it's going to be... Yeah, I'll for sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. It's the ultimate sacrifice to be a celebrity assistant but it's worth it. Right? It is. I absolutely, wholeheartedly think that it is. Do you have any personal tricks that you used when you dealt with a difficult situations, or with emotional clients.. that, you know, you could work through, or whatever... maybe if they had high demands, or maybe they pulled a little tantrum or something on you. Do you have like personal tricks?
Yes, so, in this PA business we call it "thick skin." You have to have very thick skin. When you cross that line and you leave the corporate world as an administrative assistant or executive assistant, and you cross over to the other side, and you become a personal assistant... and you're working out in the field, or in someone's private family office. You are going to be involved in things that you weren't doing in the office, and that's okay. You know, that's all part of the job description.
So when employers come to me and they tell me what they're looking for, sometimes I get the coax that extra information out of them because the more I know, the more successful I'll be and making that placemat. What I require of the assistant is that they really have to... in a way like a teacher getting to know their students, and parents getting to know their kids, the assistant has to get to know their client. And you have to be able to do it very quickly.
You don't have much time because employers at the very high-level don't often give second or third chances and that you will have a short window when you're on probation. So you have to have an incredible amount of patience and you have to be very observant. So when you're thrown into a situation, even if you're a very experienced assistant and your brand new on a job, you have to watch what's going on around you and see how the other subordinates are dealing with the billionaire, and you have to hit the ground running.
There's really no other way to put it. Okay, so let's say let's say someone, like me for example, okay. I'm on the radio. I love arts and entertainment, I'm organized, career-driven, if I asked you... if I become a personal assistant, what would you say? What I would say is that anybody can do it, but you have to find your niche. So before I was giving you numbers about fifty thousand households that have net worth between 50 and 500 million dollars... It's not a situation where you say. Well, I'm just going to be a PA to somebody famous or somebody rich.
You have to do some soul-searching. You have to take a look at your skill set, and you have to say, okay, this is my background and experience. And now what I'm going to do, is I'm going to hone my target list and these are the people that I'm going to go after. So if someone like you, for example, with your arts and entertainment and your broadcast experience... What you might do if you were considering retiring from My Radio and you wanted to be a PA to somebody then I would look at some company like Clear Channel at one of the Heavy Hitters in the industry and I would look at the CEOs in the VIPs, and I would start a target list that way instead of just spraying randomly, like the shooting a shotgun in the air.
Just hope something hits. You want to be very specific with your PA career goals. Okay, so I would go for a probably someone in the music industry or stand-up comedy, something like that, because I have that experience... and I'm passionate about it. Any personal assistant jobs in Canada? I do have clients all over the world because I specialize only in personal assistants, it has allowed me to be incredibly flexible.
And, basically, my office is with me wherever I go because I have my laptop. So I have clients in North America, Asia, the Middle East, all over Europe, and the other thing I would like to stress to your listeners is, you can be a PA to a high-profile individual or family anywhere in the world, including small towns. So going back to what I said about the wealth statistics in America. So there are 2,000 billionaires in the world, about 600 of them are in the US, now there are only about 80 in New York City and even less in Los Angeles.
There are millionaires and billionaires all over the country, including in small-towns. So if people are diligent you can start right in your backyard and you get on Google and you see who are the high-net-worth families in my area. And if you find, let's say, a hundred people then, you can start saying realistically... Well, I'm not going to mail a hundred letters my first week. Why don't I start a target list and figure out realistically who I have the best chance of scoring a PA job with, and then you can use platforms like LinkedIn and you can see, oh look, I have a second-degree connection to this person in this industry, and you start connecting with people.
And this is the kind of networking that you have to do to get a leg up to try to score these kinds of celebrity assistant jobs. Well, that's some great, great advice there... I really appreciate it. I got a little last thing I'd like to do. It's a lightning round game and shouldn't take too much time, just to end this on a good note. So I'm going to just ask you things like funniest celebrity you've met? Jerry Seinfeld. The most famous celebrity you've met? Bruce Willis. Richest celebrity you've met? A prince and the Saudi royal family. So we are talking about super rich billionaires, right? Yes.
Favorite job you were asked to do? Private jet shopping. What's one of the things that you would look for in a private jet, or is that your client asked you to look for? Well, I does depend on budget, doesn't it? So in this case, I didn't have a ceiling. My client wanted a private jet, somewhere around the 727 size, and it could be new or used, but it had to have a certain kind of wow factor inside of it. So we ended up hiring a contractor after the jet was purchased to completely out re-outfit the entire inside of the plane. And how many millions did that cost? A lot. I don't have it right on the tip of my tongue. But I remember my jaw dropping when I saw the final check.
What about your least favorite job you were asked to do or something that you hated doing on the job. Maybe there's a specific... staying up all night. There is no amount of money can get paid to lose sleep. You mean like while your client was
at a club or something or working and you just had to pull an all-nighter to be there or two to work? Yes, especially around award season what would happen in the Hollywood situation is when the Oscars or the Emmys were around the corner, there would be, you know, a big build-up to the award ceremony and when you're working for a client, especially that's nominated. And they're doing a lot of interviews and they have a lot of things to fit in, plus they're doing their filming schedule for whatever project they're working on now, at the time, and it's incredibly demanding and there were quite a few nights where I just didn't sleep and you start to become a little delirious.
Yes, I see. So being a personal assistant to someone famous is demanding. Lastly, your favorite experience that you got to live through something that you remember, and you are saying, you know what I can't believe that happened or that I lived through that experience. Let me see. I did a tour of the Middle East with a VIP client, and I had such a wonderful time. I was in quite a few countries in the Middle East and it was just very exciting to be steeped in that culture. I remember going, in Saudi Arabia, I was at a restaurant for super wealthy people, but the restaurant was designed like the ancient times, and so we were in a big tent and we were sitting on the ground on the sand, and we were eating and the tent was air conditioned. And it was like a five-star meal in a Red Sea tent. It was just such a wild experience.
I can't think of anything else that that made such a big impression on me, and then of course being in the UAE and Ski Dubai and skiing inside the mall on the slopes. That is such a great mall. So the Middle East really has a lot to offer. I know a lot of Westerners have some fears about going to the Middle East to work because of a cultural differences, but you can study up on these things and overcome your fear and there are a lot of really terrific personal assistant jobs out in the Middle East.
I seen a lot of assistants walk away from once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in the Middle East... in particular, I'm thinking of a woman who walked away from a $250,000 a year Executive PA job because she just didn't want to go out of her comfort zone and move to move to the Middle East because culturally was just kind of a shock for her but, I definitely recommend it. Well, I guess if you're not willing to get out of your comfort zone, it's not the job for you, right? Correct.
Thank you so much. After you finished a contract with a client, do you still keep in touch with them, or is a relationship gone after? I do... so the way it works the domestic staffing business is there typically going to be a sort of guarantee for 90 days depending on the situation of something doesn't work out with the assistant. They might need to be replaced.
If a Headhunter has done their job well that won't happen very often, but I do get repeat calls from clients who hired a personal assistant, and the assistant moved up. So with some PA jobs, even if you're working for someone really rich, it might be dead-end job, even though you might make some a pretty good salary, and you might like your boss, but there just might not be any upward mobility... and some personal assistant jobs, if you work for a CEO that's got a really big company, the VIP or billionaire might say, "Hey, personal assistant, you are so valuable to me and to my company that I'm going to move you up to do something else, and then in those situations, the celebrity at will call me back and get another assistant.
So for example, I can think of at least three situations where a candidate with working for an a-list star who was also a producer and those assistants all became co-producers for the A-list celebrities and were making films. And so the assistant needed to be replaced with someone to fill the role that the other person was doing. That's crazy. That's so cool. Yeah, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for people are willing to put in the hours. Yes, of course. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. I took so much of your time, but it was so interesting. And yeah, I really appreciate it. So if there any PA jobs in Canada, like the music star Drake or Justin Bieber, just let me know. No problem. If I really enjoyed speaking with you. Contact me anytime.
And it's going to be... Yeah, I'll for sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. It's the ultimate sacrifice to be a celebrity assistant but it's worth it. Right? It is. I absolutely, wholeheartedly think that it is. Do you have any personal tricks that you used when you dealt with a difficult situations, or with emotional clients.. that, you know, you could work through, or whatever... maybe if they had high demands, or maybe they pulled a little tantrum or something on you. Do you have like personal tricks?
Yes, so, in this PA business we call it "thick skin." You have to have very thick skin. When you cross that line and you leave the corporate world as an administrative assistant or executive assistant, and you cross over to the other side, and you become a personal assistant... and you're working out in the field, or in someone's private family office. You are going to be involved in things that you weren't doing in the office, and that's okay. You know, that's all part of the job description.
So when employers come to me and they tell me what they're looking for, sometimes I get the coax that extra information out of them because the more I know, the more successful I'll be and making that placemat. What I require of the assistant is that they really have to... in a way like a teacher getting to know their students, and parents getting to know their kids, the assistant has to get to know their client. And you have to be able to do it very quickly.
You don't have much time because employers at the very high-level don't often give second or third chances and that you will have a short window when you're on probation. So you have to have an incredible amount of patience and you have to be very observant. So when you're thrown into a situation, even if you're a very experienced assistant and your brand new on a job, you have to watch what's going on around you and see how the other subordinates are dealing with the billionaire, and you have to hit the ground running.
There's really no other way to put it. Okay, so let's say let's say someone, like me for example, okay. I'm on the radio. I love arts and entertainment, I'm organized, career-driven, if I asked you... if I become a personal assistant, what would you say? What I would say is that anybody can do it, but you have to find your niche. So before I was giving you numbers about fifty thousand households that have net worth between 50 and 500 million dollars... It's not a situation where you say. Well, I'm just going to be a PA to somebody famous or somebody rich.
You have to do some soul-searching. You have to take a look at your skill set, and you have to say, okay, this is my background and experience. And now what I'm going to do, is I'm going to hone my target list and these are the people that I'm going to go after. So if someone like you, for example, with your arts and entertainment and your broadcast experience... What you might do if you were considering retiring from My Radio and you wanted to be a PA to somebody then I would look at some company like Clear Channel at one of the Heavy Hitters in the industry and I would look at the CEOs in the VIPs, and I would start a target list that way instead of just spraying randomly, like the shooting a shotgun in the air.
Just hope something hits. You want to be very specific with your PA career goals. Okay, so I would go for a probably someone in the music industry or stand-up comedy, something like that, because I have that experience... and I'm passionate about it. Any personal assistant jobs in Canada? I do have clients all over the world because I specialize only in personal assistants, it has allowed me to be incredibly flexible.
And, basically, my office is with me wherever I go because I have my laptop. So I have clients in North America, Asia, the Middle East, all over Europe, and the other thing I would like to stress to your listeners is, you can be a PA to a high-profile individual or family anywhere in the world, including small towns. So going back to what I said about the wealth statistics in America. So there are 2,000 billionaires in the world, about 600 of them are in the US, now there are only about 80 in New York City and even less in Los Angeles.
There are millionaires and billionaires all over the country, including in small-towns. So if people are diligent you can start right in your backyard and you get on Google and you see who are the high-net-worth families in my area. And if you find, let's say, a hundred people then, you can start saying realistically... Well, I'm not going to mail a hundred letters my first week. Why don't I start a target list and figure out realistically who I have the best chance of scoring a PA job with, and then you can use platforms like LinkedIn and you can see, oh look, I have a second-degree connection to this person in this industry, and you start connecting with people.
And this is the kind of networking that you have to do to get a leg up to try to score these kinds of celebrity assistant jobs. Well, that's some great, great advice there... I really appreciate it. I got a little last thing I'd like to do. It's a lightning round game and shouldn't take too much time, just to end this on a good note. So I'm going to just ask you things like funniest celebrity you've met? Jerry Seinfeld. The most famous celebrity you've met? Bruce Willis. Richest celebrity you've met? A prince and the Saudi royal family. So we are talking about super rich billionaires, right? Yes.
Favorite job you were asked to do? Private jet shopping. What's one of the things that you would look for in a private jet, or is that your client asked you to look for? Well, I does depend on budget, doesn't it? So in this case, I didn't have a ceiling. My client wanted a private jet, somewhere around the 727 size, and it could be new or used, but it had to have a certain kind of wow factor inside of it. So we ended up hiring a contractor after the jet was purchased to completely out re-outfit the entire inside of the plane. And how many millions did that cost? A lot. I don't have it right on the tip of my tongue. But I remember my jaw dropping when I saw the final check.
What about your least favorite job you were asked to do or something that you hated doing on the job. Maybe there's a specific... staying up all night. There is no amount of money can get paid to lose sleep. You mean like while your client was
at a club or something or working and you just had to pull an all-nighter to be there or two to work? Yes, especially around award season what would happen in the Hollywood situation is when the Oscars or the Emmys were around the corner, there would be, you know, a big build-up to the award ceremony and when you're working for a client, especially that's nominated. And they're doing a lot of interviews and they have a lot of things to fit in, plus they're doing their filming schedule for whatever project they're working on now, at the time, and it's incredibly demanding and there were quite a few nights where I just didn't sleep and you start to become a little delirious.
Yes, I see. So being a personal assistant to someone famous is demanding. Lastly, your favorite experience that you got to live through something that you remember, and you are saying, you know what I can't believe that happened or that I lived through that experience. Let me see. I did a tour of the Middle East with a VIP client, and I had such a wonderful time. I was in quite a few countries in the Middle East and it was just very exciting to be steeped in that culture. I remember going, in Saudi Arabia, I was at a restaurant for super wealthy people, but the restaurant was designed like the ancient times, and so we were in a big tent and we were sitting on the ground on the sand, and we were eating and the tent was air conditioned. And it was like a five-star meal in a Red Sea tent. It was just such a wild experience.
I can't think of anything else that that made such a big impression on me, and then of course being in the UAE and Ski Dubai and skiing inside the mall on the slopes. That is such a great mall. So the Middle East really has a lot to offer. I know a lot of Westerners have some fears about going to the Middle East to work because of a cultural differences, but you can study up on these things and overcome your fear and there are a lot of really terrific personal assistant jobs out in the Middle East.
I seen a lot of assistants walk away from once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in the Middle East... in particular, I'm thinking of a woman who walked away from a $250,000 a year Executive PA job because she just didn't want to go out of her comfort zone and move to move to the Middle East because culturally was just kind of a shock for her but, I definitely recommend it. Well, I guess if you're not willing to get out of your comfort zone, it's not the job for you, right? Correct.
Thank you so much. After you finished a contract with a client, do you still keep in touch with them, or is a relationship gone after? I do... so the way it works the domestic staffing business is there typically going to be a sort of guarantee for 90 days depending on the situation of something doesn't work out with the assistant. They might need to be replaced.
If a Headhunter has done their job well that won't happen very often, but I do get repeat calls from clients who hired a personal assistant, and the assistant moved up. So with some PA jobs, even if you're working for someone really rich, it might be dead-end job, even though you might make some a pretty good salary, and you might like your boss, but there just might not be any upward mobility... and some personal assistant jobs, if you work for a CEO that's got a really big company, the VIP or billionaire might say, "Hey, personal assistant, you are so valuable to me and to my company that I'm going to move you up to do something else, and then in those situations, the celebrity at will call me back and get another assistant.
So for example, I can think of at least three situations where a candidate with working for an a-list star who was also a producer and those assistants all became co-producers for the A-list celebrities and were making films. And so the assistant needed to be replaced with someone to fill the role that the other person was doing. That's crazy. That's so cool. Yeah, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for people are willing to put in the hours. Yes, of course. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. I took so much of your time, but it was so interesting. And yeah, I really appreciate it. So if there any PA jobs in Canada, like the music star Drake or Justin Bieber, just let me know. No problem. If I really enjoyed speaking with you. Contact me anytime.