Clay for Executive Assistants

Clay works with many executives and their EAs or chiefs of staff to organize their contacts, search their network, and be more thoughtful with people. This powerful relationship management platform helps busy executives maintain meaningful connections by centralizing all their relationship data, providing intelligent search capabilities, and surfacing timely opportunities for outreach. Here's how to get started and make the most of Clay for your executive.

🏁 Getting Started

Before you can begin managing your executive's Clay account, they'll need to be on the Clay for Teams plan. This allows for shared workspace access and collaboration features essential for EA support.

Once your executive is on Clay for Teams, they can give you access to their account by adding you as a team member of the workspace:

1. Have them go to App Menu > Settings > Members, then select 'Add Member'

2. Then, have them add your email. You should receive an email from team@clay.earth with a sign-in link valid for 10 minutes

   ⚠️ If the link expires before you're able to add your account, have your client remove your email under 'Members' and add it again

3. Follow the instructions to set up access. Once you're logged in, you'll have full access to the account, meaning you're able to see all content and add, edit, or archive people, notes, or reminders.

🔗 Getting Everything in One Place

Clay's power lies in connecting your executive's various accounts to create a comprehensive view of their network. The more integrations you connect, the more complete and useful Clay becomes.

Navigate to App Menu > Settings > Integrations and connect all relevant accounts. Clay currently supports multiple email accounts, calendars, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. Each integration serves a specific purpose in building your executive's relationship map:

• Email accounts create contacts from correspondence and track communication history
• Calendar integrations show meeting patterns and help identify key relationships
• LinkedIn enriches profiles with professional information and tracks job changes
• Social media accounts provide updates on contacts' activities and life events
• Messaging apps offer insights into communication frequency and relationship strength

The system automatically imports contacts from these sources and begins building rich profiles with professional history, social media updates, and interaction patterns. This gives you immediate context for every person in your executive's network.

👥 Organizing Their Network and Contacts

Once contacts are flowing into Clay, the next step is ensuring the data is clean, accurate, and well-organized for easy access and management.

Managing Duplicates

Clay errs on the side of caution when merging contacts to avoid incorrectly combining different people. We intelligently analyze your contacts and surface potential matches for review. You can access this by navigating to the People tab and selecting Duplicates at the top of the screen.

The Duplicates view presents potential matches side-by-side, allowing you to compare names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other key details before taking action. When dealing with groups of multiple potential duplicates, you can ignore contacts that aren't actually duplicates, ensuring only true matches remain for merging.

Clay continuously scans your network for possible duplicates in the background, notifying you in the Activity view when new potential matches are found. When you're ready to merge contacts, you can do so directly from the Duplicates view or use the traditional method of hitting 'M' with a contact card open. The system will combine all information, notes, and interaction history into a single comprehensive profile.

Editing Contact Information

Clay automatically pulls in publicly available information, but you'll often need to edit and enhance contact details:

• Adding missing information: If social profiles or contact details appear sparse, edit the card (three dots menu, then pencil icon) and add LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media links to prompt Clay to gather more data
• Correcting inaccuracies: Update job titles, company information, or personal details as needed to maintain accuracy
• Enriching profiles: Add personal notes about preferences, family details, or other context that helps your executive maintain meaningful relationships

Clay prioritizes data from Twitter and LinkedIn, so adding these links first often yields the most comprehensive profile updates.

Creating Organizational Systems

Groups are essential for organizing your executive's network strategically. Consider creating groups for:

• Board members and key stakeholders
• Industry contacts by sector or function
• Event attendees from important conferences
• Personal contacts and family friends
• Potential business partners or clients

You can efficiently add people to groups using search and multi-select functionality, or add individuals directly from their contact cards.

🤝 Being Proactive with Outreach and People

Clay's real power emerges when you use it proactively to help your executive maintain and strengthen relationships through timely, contextual outreach.

Leveraging Intelligent Search

Clay's Search understands natural language, making it incredibly powerful for finding specific people or groups. You can search for complex criteria like people interested in renewable energy or designers in San Francisco I haven't talked to recently This capability is particularly valuable for:

• Event planning: Finding contacts in specific cities when your executive travels
• Business development: Identifying potential partners or clients with relevant expertise
• Networking: Discovering mutual connections for warm introductions
• Recruiting: Locating candidates with specific skills or backgrounds

The search also understands time-based terms like recently or a while ago helping you identify relationships that may need attention.

Using the Home Feed Strategically

The Home view serves as your daily relationship intelligence briefing. It surfaces important updates about people in your executive's network, including job changes, news mentions, birthdays, and social media updates. Use this information to:

• Alert your executive to congratulation opportunities (promotions, new roles, achievements)
• Identify reconnection opportunities with people they haven't spoken to recently
• Surface relevant updates that could spark meaningful conversations
• Plan timely outreach around life events or career milestones

Visualizing the Network with Map View

The Map feature provides a geographical perspective on your executive's relationships, powered by Apple Maps. This is particularly valuable for:

• Travel planning: Identifying local connections when your executive visits different cities
• Event strategy: Understanding regional relationship density for conference planning
• Business expansion: Visualizing network coverage in target markets
• Relationship gaps: Spotting geographic areas where network building might be beneficial

Taking Strategic Notes

Notes in Clay support markdown formatting and become searchable across the entire database. Develop a consistent system for capturing:

• Meeting outcomes and follow-up actions
• Personal details shared in conversations (family updates, hobbies, interests)
• Business context (current projects, challenges, opportunities)
• Relationship dynamics and mutual connections

Use the @ symbol followed by someone's name to create connections between people, helping you track warm introduction opportunities and relationship mapping.

Setting Thoughtful Reminders

The Reconnect feature helps ensure important relationships don't fall through the cracks. You can set custom cadences for different types of relationships:

• Key stakeholders: Monthly or quarterly check-ins
• Industry contacts: Semi-annual reconnections
• Personal relationships: Regular social outreach
• Potential opportunities: Strategic follow-up timing

Clay will surface these contacts in the Home view at appropriate intervals, along with relevant context about your last interactions and any recent updates.

🚀 Best Practices for Maximum Impact

Daily Workflows

Start and end each day by checking the Home view to contextualize upcoming meetings and identify follow-up opportunities. This rhythm ensures your executive stays current with their network and never misses important relationship moments.

Proactive Maintenance

Regularly review and update contact information to maintain Clay as the definitive source of truth for your executive's relationships. Add people to relevant groups as you think of new organizational schemes, and create new groups when patterns emerge from your searches.

Strategic Relationship Management

Keep the Starred group updated with your executive's most important relationships. These contacts receive priority in search results and appear more frequently in reconnect suggestions, helping ensure the most critical relationships receive appropriate attention.

The key to Clay's effectiveness lies in consistent use and thoughtful curation. By maintaining clean data, using strategic search, and staying proactive with the Home feed insights, you'll help your executive build stronger, more meaningful relationships across their entire network.