Prowess Project how has 1000s in our Community + talent pool, and one of our favorite things is to celebrate them. Meet Aubrey, Exec Assistant & Project Manager.
Who is Aubrey? Tell us who you are as a person and professional.
Hiya, Aubrey here. I’m a non-binary Austin-based performance and recording artist, but I have a huge passion for helping women and non-binary folks build their businesses. I’m currently a part-time executive assistant and project manager for two badass babes in the Austin music scene while simultaneously running my own music business as a solo artist.
Why did you join Prowess and/or why do you stay active in the Prowess Community.
I joined Prowess because I knew that my skill set was greater than I was making it out to be. Prowess taught me to value my skills and even to appreciate some qualities I had no idea were marketable. I’m not as active within the Community as I’d like to be because I’m crazy busy, but I cannot say enough about the Work Readiness Course itself and how it taught me to market myself.
What is your dream job?
My dream job is my current job but at a higher level. In the future, I’d love to tour (pandemic willing) and also become a more established songwriter — cowrite with bigger artists and all that jazz. As weird as it sounds, I’d love to be involved in policy-making around the music industry as well. I believe I’m making the connections working in the music industry to make all of this happen.
How have you added value to a client?
I swear in a past life, I was a therapist. I’m empathetic but logical and I think that those two things together can become a superpower if you know what to do with it. My ability to take everything that needs to get done, set levels of priority, and organize information for folks that don’t have time or the eye to is something my clients have always echoed to me as significant strengths.
Because I run my own music business and am also working for music industry folks, I’m always upping my knowledge and learning new skills to better my own business. Everything I’m learning is shared with the other entrepreneurs that I work with. Being a highly effective communicator and someone who pays attention to the details also quite literally saves my clients time and money.
What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?
The best compliment I’ve ever received in the work sphere was being invited to speak as a panelist for Literacy Works. Over the 2020 pandemic year, I was fortunate enough to work on a temporary assignment with a lovely Chicago-based non-profit. Their main focus was workforce development training in the welding industry.
One of my primary responsibilities was building out their remote testing program for potential clients. My training for the non-profit’s staff ended up being more useful than the training the remote testing software provider offered, and three months after my assignment with them ended they invited me to be a panelist with one of the leading experts in adult literacy. It was a really cool feeling.
What is one piece of advice you can give to clients who are looking to fill a role in your specialty?
Listen more than you talk, but when you do talk ask ALL of the questions. So often I find that my role is being talked at and organizing all the details so we can break the big picture down into smaller steps. If you’re detail-oriented and something isn’t adding up, ask more questions to clarify the goals and steps to get there. A lot of my client-related duties are really just keeping the ball rolling and acting as an accountability or work partner. It’s a role I’m happy to facilitate.
