Episode 97: Putting Family First: Why Rachel Is Leaving Client Work

You’ll hear us say this again and again: Family first, then business.

In this episode of the Babies and Business Podcast, we’re getting honest about what that looks like behind the scenes. We’re walking you through our plan to get Rachel out of client-facing work by the end of the year, why that matters for our family, and what we’re doing to make it happen.

We talk about what’s working, where we’ve hit bottlenecks, and how we’re solving them, from reclaiming our shared work time to finally documenting processes that live in Avram’s head.

If you’re growing a business and trying to make space for what matters most at home, this episode is for you.

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• Why getting Rachel out of client-facing work is essential for honoring their family-first values and creating room for future growth
• How shifting Avram’s calendar helped unlock focus time for high-level business building
• The real reason systems matter and how each one is an investment that pays back in time
• Why Profit First helped them get crystal clear on how much new revenue they need to hire
• The surprising mindset shifts they’ve had to make to move forward
• What’s coming next and how this isn’t just about hiring, but about designing the life they want

Mentions & Resources

Digital Harvest – The SEO agency run by Rachel and Avram Gonzales, helping service-based businesses grow through targeted, high-impact strategies.

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz – The accounting method that helped them clarify revenue goals and make confident, sustainable hiring decisions.

Mentioned Episodes

Babies and Business Episode 88 – From Burnout to Clarity: Our Genesis Training Experience

Episode Transcription

 

Below you will find a transcript of this entire podcast episode. Enjoy!

Avram: Hey there. A couple months ago we started sharing with you the goals of our business and one of the big things that we wanna accomplish this year. You know what our values are? It’s family first and building a life around the business, or no? Is it? It’s building the building business around the life.

Building the business around the life. Yeah. yeah. Family’s the priority. It’s the hub. And in order to continue that as the priority. There’s certain things we gotta do with our business.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: One of those things is growing the business so that we can remove a hat from Rachel’s plate.

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: So one of her core values is family, like the highest

Rachel: it is the highest

Avram: level. And we shared in a previous episode, she’s felt the, the pull.

Rachel: Oh yeah, the push pull. I need to be working. I need to be with the family, but I can’t do either, but I need to do both.

Avram: And we had juggled some stuff recently around childcare that we’ve now got settled and very happy with. And this episode we just wanna share with you. ’cause I think you’d find it interesting, as you grow a business and you go from being the owner of a job to being the owner of a business, it requires hiring a lot of people

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: and in order to hire people, you gotta do certain things right? To grow the revenue of the business so that you can hire the people to continue growing it.

Rachel: And we thought we’d just take you along with that journey and check in with you every few months about our progress in doing that.

Avram: Also, kind of a fun exercise for us to do because there is no way in hell I’m getting back on this podcast three months from now and reporting back in and telling you we failed.

Rachel: we didn’t get it done.

Avram: We didn’t get it done. some accountability for us too. where do we begin on that? I think we’ve set the stage for why?

Rachel: Yeah. we know why and what we’re really saying is we need this to happen this year. We have places that we want to go and things we want to do, and I need to spend my time on other parts of our business. They’re not lacking right now, but if I were to spend more time on them, we would go light years faster than what we are currently going at right now. So there’s that. We’re gonna talk about some things we’re gonna talk about, like our vision, why this is important. Our revenue processes, things that we are doing, things that can be changed, things that, can be changed by me having more time, but also things that maybe I need to do in order to provide that revenue and the processes to go along with what that new revenue would look like.

To make sure that our processes don’t break with the growth. And then we’re gonna just talk about some other things, like some things we’ve done with your schedule. Some things that we have in place that we know where we need to reach, what revenue goals we need to reach to make that happen.

So we’re gonna take you along for the ride with our thoughts of this journey.

Avram: Yeah, so right now we got a team of five. So it’s me, Rachel, and we have three other team members. We got Kim, Barbra, and Glen, all working with us full time. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last year. It was end of September, early October of 2024 that we made the two additional hires with Glen and Barbra.

Things have been working out extremely well for these new team members and for the, the trajectory of our business. We are on track to have the biggest year in business we’ve ever had. Thanks to these guys coming in and just crushing stuff, allowing us, and me in particular to spend less time doing so
me of the work being stuck in the day to day of the business.

Rachel:

Avram: So that’s all opened things up and we got this momentum. The goal that we have in mind this year is by the end of this year, we would like to get Rachel out of all of the client facing stuff. And the reason that’s important is because client facing stuff requires you to be there at a certain time, and it requires a certain speed to respond to emails and phone calls and things.

Rachel: Because you’re responsible for all the follow up and the follow through. Making sure that these things that came up in the meeting actually get into the project management system or to the project manager, yada, yada. Lots of follow up.

Avram: So much stuff and it’s time bound oftentimes, and that makes it hard when you’re a mom. Also trying to spend time with your kids, right? So this is like one of the big things that we realized we needed to solve for. It’s why we’re putting priority on this. There’s another role that we’re gonna hire probably by the end of this year at the same time, which is an SEO role.

Get me out of more of the day-to-day. We have on our team, Glen, who’s been helping out a lot,

Rachel: but he is more pinch hitting that not really his strength. He does a really good job of it. But he doesn’t love it.

Avram: Yep. And so those are what we’re working towards and we know that getting Rachel, through to this next phase is going to allow us to expand and bring on this new team member more easily. Like there’s just

Rachel: It’s gonna facilitate so much growth. It can exponentialise, if that’s a word, the growth that we can have, because the systems will be there to support it. Our systems are rocking, we are doing so. Oh man. The things that we have in place are incredible, and we would just like to go a step above that and look into the future and look at the things that we have had in R and D for a while and get them into reality.

Bring those into client offerings. There’s so many things that we have going on and we’re really excited for the future. We just need me to be more in that project management and process creation side of our business.

Avram: Yeah, so the way that we look at it is what are the bottlenecks that need to be solved in order to hire this next person? And so we’ve already explained some of the issues that we’re seeing on the client facing stuff, like we just know it could be better. We also know that there’s a better person for it, right?

And so it’s like, okay, two things need to be solved. Number one, revenue.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: We must increase revenue in order to hire the person. And we actually have a really good idea of how much revenue that is. And then the second thing we have to do is we have to overcome the bottleneck of time working together.

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: So here’s the thing, right?

So I started the business,

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: I started Digital Harvest and everything that we do up until like about a year ago was stuck in my head.

Rachel: Yeah.

So anything that needed to happen, decisions were having to roll through me. yeah because there was not an understanding. There was no system, Nope. No things that supported that, that vision that you had to bring it to life. But also to bolster and support and increase what we’re already doing, There lots of details to that.

Avram: Yep. So it’s like Rachel being, quote the right hand, the one who’s like taking all of the vision, the ideas, and then making them reality. there’s some steps in between that and some things that only I know how to do or what order things should be done or who should do what.

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: And so it’s not as easy as saying, okay, Rachel, we need to do this.

Rachel: Right.

Avram: She’s like, well, I got some questions

Rachel: I need context with that

Avram: context, like, how do I effectively delegate this to somebody? So the big thing that we were running into was, client meetings at the same time as while we have work time together.

Rachel: Our ideal work times are at the same time of day, yours and mine. We wanna get it done. All this really high level stuff. During this portion of the day

Avram: The working on the business

Rachel: Exactly. We need to work on the business. And we were finding all sorts of things that we’re becoming roadblocks and freeing my time from those client facing meetings, which are time bound and during the times that we could work together working out our schedule, so that we have more of that together, so that we can get more of that information for me to run.

Avram: So this was an easy bottleneck to fix. So one of the things that we did was I will still accept sales meetings during the day while we have work time together, because sales means revenue. That’s the number one thing we have to solve for but the thing that I stopped doing was I stopped scheduling any of my networking meetings and any of the non-revenue generating stuff that I’d be doing.

We push that into the latter part of the day. And if I have to, I will be taking meetings like in the early afternoon, two o’clock or three o’clock, and I’ll be able to get back home around the same time or just before the boys are coming home from school. We still have the family time.

Rachel: Right.

Avram: But now it’s not interrupting our ability to work together and for me to hear from Rachel, Hey, I don’t have enough to delegate this.

And then I can turn around, okay, I need to build a tool for this, and this. I need to make a video for this. Or I need to write out the steps for this, or I need to find an example of this.

Rachel: We need you to distill what’s in your brain onto paper or video. So that it can be an asset that can be given along with that task and Provide that understanding to do that new thing, especially if it’s a new task. It’s something that we’re bringing on that hasn’t been done. It’s still in the works of let’s work out the bugs.

To make sure that the deliverables are flawless. Those are some of the things. Yeah. So we need the stuff from your brain.

Avram: yeah, remove the stuff from my brain. So it’severy time that we build one of these. Supporting tools, whether it’s,a process map or a video tutorial or something else. What we do is we’ve just gained leverage. We’ve just gained a foothold. So every time it gets delegated and somebody runs that process, we now get a return on time invested, right?

So if it takes an hour to build it, but it takes 15 minutes to run the process, guess what? After a team member runs it four times. We have now gotten a break even on the time invested. And then it compounds. The biggest problem that we’ve run into in the past and every business owner can relate to is just spending time getting the stuff done that needs to be done in the business and then what, you’re back at Square one you have not gained any leverage because you haven’t spent time building and working on the business. So

Exactly, the easy part We solved.

Rachel: Yeah, we solved it by knowing that I need to have that time in the day that solves that. And then making sure that you don’t have meetings that conflict with that time as well. Making sure that we can have that time together dedicated. And then what that does for me as a, a planner and making lists and bringing things to fruition is now I know how many hours I can put into certain buckets for the future things that we’re doing for our business that we’re working on for our business, and we can actually see forward mom
entum. Otherwise, it’s, so when are we gonna get time to do this? Okay. Let’s look at our schedule and let’s see where we line up, where we might have a little pocket of time.

And, so really excited about that solution that was found.

Avram: Yeah. And what was happening a lot was like Rachel would be stuck, can’t delegate because needs information. And then I was getting dragged out of whatever I was doing to come back in and help delegate new stuff and come up with things to delegate, to fill team members time. So it’s like we were just getting pulled back over and

Rachel: And it wasn’t sustainable. Wasn’t sustainable. That’s the thing. So we need to create processes that I can then bring in at any time in whatever frequency it needs to be to happen to make all the deliverables delivered on time. very important that we were working on the future and not just putting out the fires.

That was the thing that we saw needed to be solved in the time part of working together.

Avram: Yeah. And so what’s been really easy to do now that both children are in school and we’ve got this dedicated time from about nine to three every day, nine 30 to three or whatever it is, Now we’re seeing traction because Fridays we’re usually building some processes or recording podcasts. And then each day we’re doing something and we have an idea of the week before we get into it, right?

Here’s some of the processes and things that Avram needs to record and put together so they can go into project management and we can use ’em over and over. Yes. So what we’re looking at now is okay, so what is the. Operational goal for this month? Yes. what are we building into? Are we supporting

Rachel: what needs support?

What needs creation? What needs reorganization, what needs rethinking? If there’s something that’s not working or meeting the metrics that we see on our side for effective stuff that we’re doing, we need to rethink that,It’s wonderful.

We are able to actually get things moving forward.

Avram: Yep. Yep. So we did some stuff this last week that brought another team member in to help support Rachel as the client Happiness officer right now. Some things that were just very hard for her to keep on top of and on track of. Now we’ve got this other person supporting,these like website change requests that clients are making.

if Rachel can’t get to her email for a day or two. That’s problematic. So we created systems to help with that in the meantime.

Rachel: And we’ve already found some things. We’ve, gained efficiencies. We’ve added more review steps into our processes just to make sure that we have enough time to fix a problem before it becomes a problem down the line. So really cool what, just one week. Because it felt like one week for me that I had real dedicated time to actually move things forward with your help and the other things that we have going on, how much further we are ahead in the project management of, the future. I.

Avram: Yeah. Yeah. So the time bottleneck, we’ve we’ve got covered for now, we just have to stay focused on building out the things that we’ll support. And one of the big things that, that we will be making a push for after we solve the revenue bottleneck is building out as much structure and supporting information and tools for the next client happiness officer.

And I’m already, that’s already in the back of my head when I do certain things. I think of how would I train this next person? What would that look like? What is the flow? Yeah. From meeting to follow up. To follow through to follow up again. What does that cadence look like and what are the expectations that we have of that person?

Rachel: What does done look like for a client management standpoint? On our side for our team member. Yeah,

Avram: So one of the things that we identified now looking at the revenue bottleneck, I think we’re ready to talk about.

Because that’s the next big piece. And then I think we’re gonna start rounding things out, on today’s podcast. The revenue bottleneck, to be quite honest, running this agency for the last 10 years, in my mind I have not solved the revenue bottleneck to my satisfaction.

And it’s just funny being a marketer and feeling like I have struggled in some ways to attract new clients. So we know that we need to bring in a certain amount of revenue to be able to afford. And pay a new Client Happiness officer. We actually know what that number is. We know that if we bring in another, I think it’s between eight and 10,000, I think it’s $8,000 in new revenue

Rachel: Yep.

Avram: based off of our percentages that we use with the Profit First Accounting System. We know that will provide enough money to pay for this person.

And that’s, to say much more than that

Rachel: No, I mean it’s really, we’re really clear on our percentages. Like you said, that’s what Profit First the what I see as the power that comes from Profit First, it’s empowering to know how much you need to reach because it’s a mathematical equation.

It’s not guessing. It’s not wondering, it’s not hoping. It’s not planning down the line. You are a profitable business right now.

Avram: Yeah, and I’m thankful that, and we’ve got, we’ll put this in the show notes. we’ve recorded several podcasts about Profit First, and when we started the system, we wouldn’t have been able to say, oh, we need to bring in X amount of dollars then we can afford it. Why? Because our costs were out of control. Our expenses were out of control.

Rachel: Absolutely, and like you said, we will link it because there are so many things. If that’s where you are in your business and your expenses are out of control or you don’t, you’re not pulling profit. All these different symptoms that you could see and notice, we’re gonna link that, that show notes.

If you make more money, top line revenue each year, but it’s not really changing your household bank account that much and what you draw, that’s a symptom, and revenue will not solve your problems when expenses are outta control. Absolutely.

Avram: Grateful we’ve been on that path for a while, so we could nail this down.

The next order of business for us though is finding and discovering the way that we will actually attract and bring in clients on a more regular basis.

Rachel: And,reliable

Avram: Yes, realiable,

Rachel: something that really actually brings them in. we do have some thoughts right now in the works. We’re really excited about something that we’re, in the process of getting started. And you’ve been doing some things, really excited about what you’ve been doing with some more information that you’ve been putting out there about what we do and your knowledge and sharing it, but really excited about the future for that on the side of bringing sales

Avram: Yeah. And I don’t think we need to go into to details about that specifically. Just That we are expanding the ways that we can attract and bring in clients. We’ve got some ways that have helped us get to where we are now, and we now understand we have to layer in something additional to do that, and so everything that we’ve discussed allows me to also have the extra time put towards that

Rachel: Right, because before, it feels like your time is really, limited and it really is. We are just reorganizing what is done when, and then when I talk to you about doing these other things to support the sales side of our business, you’re really excited because that’s some of the stuff that you really love to do.

Avram: It is. It is.

Rachel: And now you’re not resistant to putting time there because there is nothing else more important at this time because it’s all been taken care of. So when you get to that point where you feel like everything is being taken care of, everything is on track, we’re moving forward, we are on a forward trajectory that’s where we are. Where you can actually put more time in. Oh, oh,

Avram: That was an alarm. Yep. It’s time. It’s time. I think it’s also time to give a plug for our business ’cause you’re listening to the podcast. You wanna see us succeed. We would like to have more opportunities. To help other businesses thrive with the services that we provide. I’m gonna give you a quick idea of what we do in under 60 seconds, and if a person pops to your mind that needs to be introduced to us, I would love and welcome that introduction.

We just finished up a quarterly review of a local HVAC client that we’ve been working with for a little over a year. So we are comparing the data from Q2 of last year. Versus Q2 of this year. And what we discovered was that we were able to increase their lead flow and opportunities year over year by about 22%.

Rachel: Now that’s massive.

Avram: When you think about 22%. And a business that makes $10,000 a month goes to 12 thousands. It’s not so impressive, but when you think about a business that’s doing 300 or $500,000 a month, 22% is massive. It’s massive. So if you know someone like a family member that is running at trades based, like a home service company like HVAC or roofing or electrical, something like that, we would love an introduction. Alright, in particular, those that have a couple of crews out in the field, maybe they’ve been working with somebody for a while and the business has plateaued. Those are perfect introductions for us. It’s free to talk to me. you can reach out to us through the podcast, hello@babiesandbiz.com.

You can also send ’em to our website, digitalharvest.io. But I’ll tell you what, if you just give somebody a link. And you don’t make an introduction, the chances of them actually following through and receiving what we have to offer are about zero. People need accountability. They want to be introduced.

So if you reach out to us first, I can coach you through how to make that introduction, how to make it smooth and super easy,and make sure that your family member gets the royal treatment. So that’s where we’re headed over the next six months or so, by the end of this year, we’re gonna have Rachel outta this role focus solely on the project management and the financial side of the business.

It’s really her flame, the place where she thrives the most.

Rachel: Absolutely.

Avram: Anything else you’d like to add here? Well,

Rachel: I can’t think of anything that, that we haven’t said.

Avram: yeah, what I will say is we have talked a lot today about the mechanics of how we’re gonna get there.

Rachel: yeah,

Avram: And in another episode, maybe we’ll talk about some of the mindset shifts and things that we’ve had to embody in order to move in this direction because it’s taking some effort on our end to shift our personal identities and how we see ourselves in the business and out in the world.

Rachel: A thousand percent

Avram: That are going to allow the mechanics and things to fall in place, if you don’t address these things, you can’t move forward. And that’s a realization we made in the last few months. We talked about this genesis experience that we went through and a couple episodes ago that’s made us realize the biggest reason we’ve been feeling stuck has been because of, for lack of a better word, mindset,

Rachel: Yeah. How we choose to not show up. How we’re, held back by different things that are going on in the background.

Avram: And this stuff is just so invisible when you’re living it day to day. And it takes, in some ways being shaken up a bit in order to realize it. We’ve had that realization. We’ve started to work through these things. We started to see some big shifts, and that’s why now is the time for us to make moves here.

And so, uh, we just appreciate you for listening and, I know that, Everybody’s at different parts of their journey and we just felt compelled to share with you a part of ours. And, we hope that you’ll cheer us on, support us here, and we look forward to, sharing the news with you by the end of this year.

Rachel’s out, Rachel’s done with this part of the journey and, uh, look forward to keeping you updated. So with that, we appreciate you for listening.

Rachel: Bye for now.