2.1 Taking Time Off and Maintaining Operations

In this episode of the Business Millennials Podcast, founders Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager discuss creating space in your business for time off and growth. They explore the challenges of balancing work and life as entrepreneurs, debunk myths about minimal work hours, and offer practical advice for building a sustainable business that allows for time away. Safa and Ashley emphasize the importance of long-term planning, systems development, and adaptability in creating a business that works for you, not the other way around.

Key Takeaways:
1. Creating space in your business involves planning for both growth and time off, requiring different strategies for each.
2. The myth of working minimal hours while running a successful business often overlooks the extensive behind-the-scenes work and team support.
3. Building systems, creating SOPs, and documenting processes are crucial steps in removing yourself from day-to-day operations.
4. Long-term planning (ideally 12 months in advance) is essential for managing extended time off without sacrificing business success.
5. There's no one-size-fits-all solution; entrepreneurs need to find what works for their unique business model and goals.

Timestamps:
00:58 Ashley's big announcement!
05:02 Discussion on different types of space in business
09:24 Debunking myths about minimal work hours
16:17 Steps to start creating space in your business
25:50 Planning for holidays and managing workload across quarters
34:24 The importance of adaptability and finding solutions

Referenced Links:
Free Business Audit: https://scaleandthriveco.com/strategy-assessment/

Is your business just not the vibe right now and you can't seem to get it going, even though you feel like you're doing #AllTheThings? Fill out the linked audit form to give us the inside scoop on your current situation, challenges, and goals. That way we can spot your strengths, opportunities, and outline next steps, keeping a sustainable & scalable business in mind.

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https://scaleandthriveco.com/strategy-assessment/

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Transcript

Intro: 0:00

Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris, and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably. Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Ashley Dreager: 0:58

So time off, we have some exciting announcements here

Safa Harris: 1:04

we do

Ashley Dreager: 1:05

at the business millennials. I haven't told you guys this yet. One big one.

Safa Harris: 1:09

You haven't, you haven't really told anyone.

Ashley Dreager: 1:11

I have, I posted once on Instagram a couple of weeks ago and everyone was like, Oh my gosh. Uh,

Safa Harris: 1:23

like pregnant face, you don't get

Ashley Dreager: 1:25

thank you. Thank you. I've.

Safa Harris: 1:26

Hey, you're

Ashley Dreager: 1:27

I've been trying. I've been trying this time around.

Safa Harris: 1:33

Yay!

Ashley Dreager: 1:38

from this recording, I should say. If you're listening to this in October, she's already here. Um, yeah, so

Safa Harris: 1:47

a month or two at that point.

Ashley Dreager: 1:49

yeah, I know she, uh, She's due at the end of August and I am very much into the woo woo stuff. And so I've been looking at the full moon schedule and the full moon is like right at her due date, like within a couple of days. And it's really interesting because for, um, Ellie and Addison, I went to 41 plus one for both of them and they both were. like within two days of a full moon. So now I'm curious, am I going to still go a week late or am I going to be like on the due date? Because the full moon is not a week late after. So,

Safa Harris: 2:27

very interesting to see because both of my kids, so when they did my due date, they did it by like math and they gave me a due date and then once they did the ultrasound, they would always move it out one week. But I always had them closer to the original due date.

Ashley Dreager: 2:45

Oh, interesting.

Safa Harris: 2:47

Mm-Hmm.

Ashley Dreager: 2:48

Oh, that's so interesting.

Safa Harris: 2:49

knew they're gonna be, I was like, okay, it's just gonna be closer to the original due date and not what they've told me.

Ashley Dreager: 2:54

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 2:55

plan it

Ashley Dreager: 2:57

Oh, that's weird.

Safa Harris: 2:58

what my, was always what my gut always told me to. I'm like, there's no way I'm making it to my due date. Even my first one, even what was

Ashley Dreager: 3:05

Really? Oh, wow. See, I'm like, preparing for the opposite. I'm just like, I was prepared the whole time to go a week late. So it'd be weird. It's weird thinking to go sooner than, yeah, than what you

Safa Harris: 3:20

And it's your third. Apparently they just like walk out at that point.

Ashley Dreager: 3:27

I mean, I wouldn't complain. Uh, Justin's very anxious about it. He hates the whole birth stuff. He gets very like,

Safa Harris: 3:34

really?

Ashley Dreager: 3:34

Oh yeah. He's like, can we just have the, can the baby just be here? And I don't know. For me, she's arrived, um, for me, I've had really positive birth experiences. So it's. It's more, um, like empowering and exciting for me to like, think about I definitely go through moments of like, Oh my gosh, this is happening. Do I, am I ready? Do I want to do this? I don't really have a choice anymore,

Safa Harris: 4:02

Yeah, it kinda just happens. But

Ashley Dreager: 4:04

but

Safa Harris: 4:05

because we both have gone natural for our kids, because I feel like there's a point when it's like first happening where it's like, oh my god. And then once you're like in the thick of it, it's just kinda like, I'm here, let's do this, like, and then it's done.

Ashley Dreager: 4:20

yeah, yeah,

Safa Harris: 4:22

I can't even tell you when it is, but there's definitely like a switch from like your mind stops thinking about it and like your body takes over.

Ashley Dreager: 4:30

yeah. Labor land. Yep.

Safa Harris: 4:33

hmm. Yes!

Ashley Dreager: 4:34

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting this time around. Um, like thinking about how Addison's went versus Ellie's went. Um, they both basically were the same on paper, but they were very different, like experiences. Um, and so my plan is to not walk into the hospital until I'm like ready. to push.

Safa Harris: 5:02

yeah.

Ashley Dreager: 5:03

Um,

Safa Harris: 5:03

okay.

Ashley Dreager: 5:04

yeah, the whole like triage thing is weird too. I don't like it.

Safa Harris: 5:08

hate

Ashley Dreager: 5:08

And that bill,

Safa Harris: 5:09

it's the worst part!

Ashley Dreager: 5:11

they like destroyed my arm. They couldn't get the vein. They couldn't get the vein. They like ultimately like, yeah, it was like, my whole arm was like swelling up because they kept like missing or what I've never had this issue like with blood draws or anything like that. They had to get like a stat machine, stat, like ultrasound, whatever, to get it placed.

Safa Harris: 5:31

Oh, the, to see where

Ashley Dreager: 5:33

Yeah. Yeah. And I was,

Safa Harris: 5:35

is,

Ashley Dreager: 5:35

yeah, it was, uh, so anyways, well, I guess we'll see. We got like four weeks, four to five weeks, but that has prompted a lot of conversation internally about. What time off looks like and leave and operations. And we thought that this would just be a really conversation, a really interesting conversation to have. Uh, because it's something that a lot of people I think can relate to in their business, not specifically maternity leave necessarily, but just time off in general and vacations and how to keep things flowing and not stagnant and actually enjoy your time off and all of that kind of stuff. So. Safa, this is your, uh, area of expertise.

Safa Harris: 6:20

My, my space, uh, so

Ashley Dreager: 6:24

Mm-Hmm.

Safa Harris: 6:25

we have a lot of conversation about creating space in your business when you're trying to grow. Like, oh, you need to have space in your business to be able to have the capacity to take on more work, to make more money, or take on, Just create more and be able to deliver more products or services to people. And like, that's why you need to have these foundations. This is why you need to have your foundations built. And then at that point is kind of where you're able to push up your marketing and bring more in. But there's another angle to creating space in your business. It's. Taking time off, being able to slow down, and letting it sustain itself. And for us, it's always been like, oh, we want that space to have, Every single day

Ashley Dreager: 7:13

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 7:14

to

Ashley Dreager: 7:14

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 7:14

time off every day, right? Um, and work how and when we want to work that works for our families. Our lives are just like mental state and what we're feeling. So,

Ashley Dreager: 7:29

Mm-Hmm.

Safa Harris: 7:30

yes, you're setting up your foundations, you're creating space in your business to be able to receive more capacity, but you're also doing all of that to be able to create space to take yourself out and move yourself up into a higher level in your business that automatically creates more space. Space away from you doing the doing and more into the strategic space. So when you're not doing the day to day, when you have a team supporting you, when you have the system supporting you, you are able to. step away and let your business still function and things still happen without it relying on you and your role is more tracking, controlling, doing the strategic view. Like you're looking at like months ahead of time. So if you're like, I want to

Ashley Dreager: 8:24

Mm-Hmm.

Safa Harris: 8:25

off, okay, well, I'm just going to do the strategy and the planning for the next six months. I'll keep a pulse on like the metrics or I'll have like my right hand, be like, Hey, this is happening. These are the solutions we should take. And then I'm just doing a yes or no decision type thing. So yeah, creating foundations, create space to grow your business, take in more, but have that view of like, okay, well, I want to take off. I want to do these things. I want to work three days. a week. I want to work three hour days. am I going to do that? I'm going to create space in my business so I can move up, bring other people in into more of those operational roles to keep everything going when I do check out, when I do work less. Which I think leads us to the marketing online that we see all the time. Be like, I made seven figures and I work three hours a day or I work four days a

Ashley Dreager: 9:23

Mm-Hmm.

Safa Harris: 9:24

four hours a week. How do you think that happened?

Ashley Dreager: 9:28

Mm-Hmm.

Safa Harris: 9:28

They put in the work to build this business. Get their sales and marketing figured out. They built out strong operational foundations that systems are maintaining things. They brought people in to sustain it. And they have now moved themselves into a true CEO role. Where they are, uh, Keeping an eye on metrics, they're coming up with strategic initiatives, coming up with projects that they are then pushing down line for it to be implemented and move forward and keeping that and that is creating space for them in their lives to live their lives and then take off however they need to because you then have more control over whatever external factors happen during the day to day because I don't care how good your systems are, I don't care how good your operations are, I don't care how good your SOPs are, stuff happens. never going to be perfect and it's never going to be seamless. You're always going to have questions you're always going to have people saying things and you're always going to have some external factors happening where Tech breaks a launch goes the wrong way You are if you're doing client based work a client wants something or they're not going to be the ideal perfect client That's going to happen and it's never going to go away unless you grow yourself out of it.

Ashley Dreager: 10:39

I was gonna say, Microsoft? Like, yeah.

Safa Harris: 10:42

yes! Well, it was actually

Ashley Dreager: 10:44

Like, Oh, really? I thought it was the Microsoft, like, system that went down.

Safa Harris: 10:51

yeah, so CrowdStrike is the cyber security firm, whoever they use, so CrowdStrike put out an update

Ashley Dreager: 10:58

Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Safa Harris: 11:00

caused Microsoft to crash.

Ashley Dreager: 11:02

Yeah, so. Very much outside of everyone's control who uses their systems.

Safa Harris: 11:10

Did the CEO have to go in and try to fix the code? No, he just put out PR statements and was like stressed out all day about his numbers, but

Ashley Dreager: 11:20

Seriously.

Safa Harris: 11:21

is definitely fired. But like,

Ashley Dreager: 11:25

It was, yeah, it, um, just a little side note, we ended up, we had to go to urgent care. Um, everything is fine. It's like, it was for something very, very small, uh, but the urgent care is, it's Computer system was down because of it.

Safa Harris: 11:37

Oh

Ashley Dreager: 11:38

we had, everything was back to paper and pen and couldn't accept payment. Like it was this whole thing. I was like, Oh, that's really inconvenient. So just a little,

Safa Harris: 11:49

least they were still able to operate like stuff with like flights are still

Ashley Dreager: 11:52

I know,

Safa Harris: 11:52

out what to like catch up and fix. I saw it

Ashley Dreager: 11:55

I know. What?

Safa Harris: 12:01

computers apparently or whatever and none of their stuff went down so they had no issues. They were still able to operate

Ashley Dreager: 12:08

There they are laughing at everybody else.

Safa Harris: 12:11

they, I'm gonna try to find the tweet, they put out the wildest tweets. I feel like some of these Social media managers for these bigger brands, like Wendy's and Duolingo

Ashley Dreager: 12:22

my gosh.

Safa Harris: 12:23

and I love it. Um, but I'm going to try to find the tweet that Southwest went put down. Um, they even like, they cursed in it and I was like, Oh,

Ashley Dreager: 12:32

Oh, really? Um, yeah, we got like a whole paper prescription that we had to physically drop off. I was like, yeah, my sister was like, um, the drop off line is over there. And I was like, I don't know. I've never dropped off a paper prescription before.

Safa Harris: 12:51

Because now, all of those people that got, that came in, like, that are newer grads or whatever, that are nurses that are used to electronic records, they're gonna go in and be like, well, we don't know how to paper chart.

Ashley Dreager: 13:03

I know I, I called the pharmacy. I was like, are you guys going to be able to do this? I have a paper prescription. Are you going to be able to fill it? I don't know. Oh.

Safa Harris: 13:17

It says, well, well, well, look who needs old Southwest Airlines now because all of our systems run on a single Commodore 64, which I don't know what it is, in a warehouse in Arlington. Go to hell.

Ashley Dreager: 13:37

You know, their whole internal team just had a heyday with that, just like,

Safa Harris: 13:42

sure.

Ashley Dreager: 13:43

they loved it. Oh my gosh. Um, but to get us back on track with our original conversation, uh, when you see people talking about how they work very little hours in the day or very few days in a week, it's not because they found a magical business system that just doesn't need that much time. It's because they've either paid for someone else's time to do it for them, or they've spent the time or the money building out all of the systems to automate the majority of the work because they have a business model that allows for automation.

Safa Harris: 14:21

Yeah, so I think the three most prevalent business models in the online space, I would say is like service providers, coaching, and then like digital products. So if you're seeing someone being like, Oh, I'm like all this freedom from digital products. They have people on the back end helping them create those digital products, especially if it's if they're. One, you should have more than one digital product. Two, to create those, like, yeah, you, we can like pull the IP out of our brain and be like, here, this is what it is. But there's other stuff that goes into it. Like one, like, oh, we created this, but then there needs to be some kind of guide or anything to go along with it. So that still has to be created. And then there's a turn to that and then bringing that to market the tech and then the marketing and how you're going to do it. All of that work still has to be done and the marketing part of it is ongoing For forever so that work doesn't go away. So you're still going to have this huge product And project that takes a lot of hours to do. And if you're going to think, Oh, I'm going to do digital products and I only have to work so much and it's not going to matter. And it's all going to like out. That's not, that's not real because you're not seeing the backend that has to be done. And. Unless you scale those digital products to make enough money to pay yourself and then bring in a team to manage all of that and do it for you, it's not going to, like, you're not going to be able to create that space until you get to that point. And anybody telling you wrong. Unless you do one product, do the work one time, and then it continues to sell in perpetuity forever, that's not going to happen. But if it does, like, there's your golden ticket, but that's not reality.

Ashley Dreager: 16:17

Yeah, it's, I mean, even thinking about just on the marketing side, it's likely going to be ads, which is going to go through a testing phase. So you need to have the cashflow beforehand. to afford the testing phase to figure out what's going to work for you to scale it anyways. But don't plan on that being the case forever because algorithms change and platforms change and audiences change. So just because it works today doesn't mean it's going to work in six months. So be prepared to do it again and keep a pulse. On it. So what would you say is like the first thing that somebody should start focusing on when they want to start taking more time off or be more removed from the day to day to have that spaciousness, I guess, whether it's on like a day daily schedule or they have a vacation coming up or something to that nature.

Safa Harris: 17:16

So in both circumstances, the first thing you need to do is figure out what's actually happening in your business. Like look at each department in your business and if you I think it's like twofold on this. So if you, it's just you and like one person or if you're just solo, it's going to be a lot more of understanding what you do every single day and putting it into a PM tool, putting it on paper, and understanding all of this stuff has to happen to produce XYZ. So you already have a team and you're still like doing a bunch of stuff and you still feel like you're constantly in slack being bombarded, all of those things, and you just possibly cannot take off, you always have to be plugged in or what it is, you need to figure out what is happening each of your departments of your business. Who's doing what? What is going on in systemize those make sure there's accountability and tracking of what is happening and everybody knows Okay, this is my job. This is what I'm accountable for and this is how it's done and then have that documented Have it tracked and then from there Okay, so what am I doing? In this

Ashley Dreager: 18:34

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 18:35

why am I involved in these things? What part of these things that I'm still involved in? One should actually be someone else's job. Do I need to hire someone else or is the system broken or am I micromanaging?

Ashley Dreager: 18:49

Hmm. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Safa Harris: 18:54

Like, are you

Ashley Dreager: 18:55

Yeah. I keep thinking about how this is just all the SOPs. I personally hate building SOPs, you guys. I will procrastinate them until Safa's like, you need to put this down in this document so that we can finish this SOP.

Safa Harris: 19:14

just a little bit. But here's the thing, like you also complain about like having to answer questions

Ashley Dreager: 19:22

I do.

Safa Harris: 19:22

give full details up front before you assign something. And I'm like, you know, if you just made an SOP, we wouldn't have this problem.

Ashley Dreager: 19:30

I know.

Safa Harris: 19:31

well, I don't want to do that

Ashley Dreager: 19:31

I know.

Safa Harris: 19:32

I was like, you got to pick your poison girl.

Ashley Dreager: 19:35

I got very spoiled very early on in my freelance business and found a VA that filled the gaps of my brain for me. So I never really like developed that skill or trained that muscle.

Safa Harris: 19:53

I'm going to so one it's great when you find a team member like that Two if they ever leave it's the same thing as you leaving in your business. You cannot rely On your systems your processes anything to happen on a your business on a person including yourself

Ashley Dreager: 20:13

Yeah. Don't,

Safa Harris: 20:27

Don't do what Ashley did. I don't care how good the team member is. If they leave, are you going to be in a bad way? problem. If they get sick, you, we're one, are you going to know how to do it? Someone else going to know how to do it? Or are you just like

Ashley Dreager: 20:46

SOL.

Safa Harris: 20:47

out of luck?

Ashley Dreager: 20:50

But we see those types of, those types of posts all the time. People wanting, To find those unicorns that can do anything and everything. And we've, we've gotten pretty good at being able to read between the lines too, of figuring out like, this is probably what this person is looking for. And we, we know how we'll be able to fix that for them versus like going through the hiring and.

Safa Harris: 21:18

unicorns don't exist. They're not real. Unless you have an agency like ours that has like 20 people that is able to put all those skill sets together. But I think this goes back to what we focus on a lot is the root cause issues. So, whenever we see a post of like, XYZ is happening, I need this to solve a problem. We know that there's probably three or four other things that are the root cause that are causing these issues. And they're trying to put something else to solve the pain, instead of get to the root and solve and fix that situation. There's a time and place to solve the problem, but it's usually a band aid for now because root cause solutions take time

Ashley Dreager: 22:08

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 22:09

because it's like reworking and redoing a lot of things. So those take longer, but they're better for the sustainability and long term of your business. So it might be hey, let's put a band aid on it now while we work on this and get that done and yeah. So one person might be able to put that band aid on there, but you're going to need like three or four people to fix that root cause and then build something more into it. And this is exactly what I'm saying with like looking at each of the different departments of your business. What is going on? What is happening? What do you want to be happening? How should it work? And building those things out so people are able to work. know what's going on, and then also have a hierarchy of how do I solve these problems when I run into it. And like developing a culture of critical thinking, of knowing where to look, and then bringing in someone that's not you that is able to support and help Lower level team members that need it to be like, oh, yeah, this is where you do it or hey Yeah, let's come up with solutions and then go to the CEO and be like give us a yeah Hey, this is those solutions we came up with This is what I think we should be doing like you cool with it and the answer is usually yeah Or if it's like, oh, well, I've been doing this a really long time Did you guys think about this element go back and then come back to me type of thing Instead of you just constantly answering questions and giving them everything. They're coming to you with solutions.

Ashley Dreager: 23:42

I mean, that seemed really streamlined and efficient, the way that you laid that out. It's like, yeah, that sounds like the ideal day, the ideal conversation to be having. Um, yeah. So,

Safa Harris: 23:57

there's, that's like, if you have a team, you have a lot going on and you feel like you're still working a ton and you can't take time off, you don't have space in your day, but if it's just you, or if you're just you and your VA, it's like, okay, then you're in a space of, well, how do I grow this business to take myself out of it? And it's either. Okay, well, what more can I put into tech? What more automations can we do? What can we change? Like, or do we need to spend time growing so there's more money to bring in more resources that will then grow me out of the situation? And if you're thinking about that early on, that's a lot better than the, first situation I talked about, because you can do the building of the systems as you grow. You can do the building of the team members as you grow, as you gradually get yourself out of it, and you can have that long term vision. And what you're creating now is building on top of itself to get to that long term vision to be able to take you out of it.

Ashley Dreager: 25:01

mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 25:02

And if you want Say you do have like a maternity leave coming up and you're like, like one, I have no desire to like have a huge business. I just want a little bit of time off. I'm fine with being in the day to day. It's like, okay, well, I want to take this much time off. I need this much money beforehand to be able to do that. What is going to keep one revenue generating in my business? to keep it sustainable and keep like the day to day running and keeping my VA employed during the time that I'm off and not working and not generating revenue? Is that bringing in a team member that can do delivery? Or am I able to stack so much income before time off to have that money available to keep things at least just churning in my absence

Ashley Dreager: 25:50

Yeah,

Safa Harris: 25:51

having those resources and everything for everyone to be able to do?

Ashley Dreager: 25:54

there's yeah, there's definitely a few different ways that you can do it. I think one of the main points that I really want to drive home is that this isn't something that you, you can easily just throw together last minute. Like this is something that even internally we've been talking about since I was like six weeks pregnant, like from very, very early on. I'm like, okay, Hey, this is what's going on. Because then Even with the best of planning, things change over time too. So there's going to be pivots and adjustments that need to be made, but having those foundations and having that scale already in place alleviates a lot of the work that needs to get done. So, I would say, start planning this out or start planning long term time off, like 12 months in advance. Especially if you're in the process of building out a lot of the foundations or the systems or the processes, because. Yeah, you could probably also do it in 90 days, but that's going to be very stressful. Saw your eyes.

Safa Harris: 27:08

it's gonna be, yeah, that's gonna be so stressful,

Ashley Dreager: 27:11

you could do the systems builds and the, you know, getting the SOPs and all of that kind of stuff, but you also want to have time. To have it be implemented. Yeah, to test it and make sure that everything's going as it should, that there isn't anything else that you didn't think of. Um, plus just from the marketing side to grow and to increase income like that takes time. So you have two things going simultaneously that both are very time consuming growth projects. So, mm

Safa Harris: 27:43

Yeah, because it's, it's one aspect of like, oh, I know I need to, I need to, I want to take extended time off in a year and you start doing the work. And it's another thing of like, I want to build this business so I have consistent space in my life over time and able to take that time off. Like it's not, okay, yeah, you might be able to figure things out to be able to give yourself like a six week. And then you can get your two weeks off for maternity leave or just like a vacation for two weeks or whatever. And you can probably jimmy rig that real quick and get out. But if this is something you want for your business to be, where you're able to consistently take time off, you're able to consistently have lower level work days, then, uh, This needs to be something that you're building out long term, and it gets maintained, and you're shifting your role to be able to accommodate that. And that takes time. It's not something you can just make happen.

Ashley Dreager: 28:42

We've, we saw a post not too long ago, uh, where she was talking about how her maternity leave, she was going to be having a baby within like four weeks and wanted to build a website and get some passive income so that she could have much income coming in during her time off. And everybody was like pitching her for website builds and all this stuff. And I was like, Hey, wait a minute. Like, I'm sure that everybody in here is really great, but four weeks is a very short amount of time. To be getting these results to give you income during your time off. Like, I

Safa Harris: 29:17

50 bucks.

Ashley Dreager: 29:19

mean, even then. Yeah. So to

Safa Harris: 29:33

Sounds like there was like no offer or product anything available So building all that out putting it all in place and then once you have that then being able to sell it and just The lead time on marketing for sales right now is so so much longer than it's ever been. Just all of these different factors. So you need time and money to be able to take off and have space in your day to day life when you're running a business, essentially.

Ashley Dreager: 30:06

wrap this one up, I think that maybe we should talk about the holidays briefly, cause this will come out. Within a couple months of holiday season. And a lot of people either go all in on trying to get last, like a big push for sales during the very end of the year, or they really take that as like. a way to step back. So maybe talking about the angle of taking a step back during the holiday season, what would you suggest that people do so that they don't go into January 1st regretting their decision to be pulling back?

Safa Harris: 30:49

so I'll kind of give like two perspectives on it. One is kind of our perspective on it because We have planned out significant time off for our company to be off

Ashley Dreager: 31:03

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 31:09

the team kind of will get a choice of like, hey, do you want to work? You can, but if you don't want to, you can't. You don't have to type of situation and the idea and the plan is that there would be systems in place that one will keep things steady and constant for what the client expectations are of what needs to be delivered and how we want to get that to clients to maintain the income. But that again takes a lot of forethought and planning of like, One, are we able to accommodate the volume of work, period, in the business to make the money that we need to that allows us to front load work, to be able to then deliver it without there being a lot of active work in that moment, be able to take off and have space and all of those things. Right? So there's that aspect to it. Like, hey, front load the work, still delivering it as you want to. So you're still having the expectation. So you're doing less work in those moments of having the time off for the holidays. Another aspect is like you're taking off, but your team is still doing the delivering and they're still working through that period. So you're already, hey, this is just business as usual because I've already pulled myself out of it. My business is just running like normal. I'm time off. That really depends on you, how your company is set up, what you have going on, what's up with your team, all of those kinds of things. then another aspect. Is like another angle on it, which I think speaks more directly if you are a smaller team with an a solopreneur and you're trying to take time off if you have something available to you. That's like your. You have like more of like the quote unquote passive income you have digital products that are selling whatever you can still do a sales push Of this digital product whatever during this holidays period just keep getting that money still coming in But even if you didn't want to do that, you need to plan in like january Hey, my Q4 is going to be low. How am I making more money Q1, Q2, Q3, which also for our scenario is true. It's like, how are we making more money in Q1, Q2, Q3 that we can spend a little bit more in Q1, Q2, Q3 to get ahead of Q4, right? So if I'm going to have a 50 percent reduction in income in Q4, I making 25 percent more the other quarters? so and then Paying myself or paying whatever and saving that for q4 when i'm not making the money when we're not doing the work We're not doing anything to keep things sustaining So few different options, but they all take forethought and planning ahead of time.

Ashley Dreager: 34:24

Can I just say, this is why? There is no one reason why a business is not successful or hasn't reached a milestone. It just, it depends. What do you want? What is your business model? What is, what's going on? Where are you? There's just so many factors and variables. Um, so you gotta get to the root cause. You gotta have that strategy, but it's, it may be overwhelming to think about all of the options and the variables, But I think that it could also be comforting knowing that it can be customized and modified to your situation to fit your needs, that you don't have to fit into a box.

Safa Harris: 35:07

Yeah, I was talking to someone last week and she has been In the online space, I think she said like 25 years or something.

Ashley Dreager: 35:18

Oh, wow.

Safa Harris: 35:19

Yeah. And she was saying that her business has looked so different from what it did today, all those years back. And she's like, there's been low periods and bad periods and everything like that. And she's like, it's everything has changed and looks so different. But one thing that's Been the same is that there's always something you can do. like it might be something different But there's always something you can do and like you're involved Maybe it is like having a smaller team and you're having to do more work or you're able to do that She's like but there's always something you can do. You just have to figure out What is happening? What you're going to do about it and then keep it going because there's never like didn't work out. There's always something.

Ashley Dreager: 36:07

There's always a door that opens a different direction. Yeah.

Safa Harris: 36:11

different direction. You just have to it out. Just, there's many options to everything and you really don't know what those options are until you like dig in and figure out what's happening, why it's happening, and then what you want it to look like and, but sometimes what you want it to look like may not be possible due to external factors. So figuring out, okay, so what are my options of what it can look like? And then creating a plan from there. And

Ashley Dreager: 36:40

if

Safa Harris: 36:40

like speaks to our whole thing, right?

Ashley Dreager: 36:43

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Safa Harris: 36:44

you can't just have one solution.

Ashley Dreager: 36:47

And if you guys want help figuring that out, we do offer free audits. So if you have just been feeling stuck, you don't know what the next move should be or how to Make that big vision happen, be able to take time off, have that spaciousness. We'll link the free audit form in our show notes. Um, so we'll just ask you for some pretty detailed information so that we can give you a customized action plan. This is not templated cut and paste one, two, three steps. Um, we'll take a look at everything and we'll give you that action plan and some solutions to get things moving forward. So take advantage of that. It's a pretty,

Safa Harris: 37:27

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager: 37:27

awesome. Email that you'll get.

Safa Harris: 37:29

if you, even if you don't know what the problem is, you just know something's not wrong, right. And something feels off those, the questions in there will help you like pull that out and then we'll be able to say, well, like, given all of these factors in your specific business, this is probably what's happening and these are your options.

Ashley Dreager: 37:50

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 37:50

you're like, it's just not right. Yeah. You can fill out the form and we can work through it and get to that root cause.

Outro: 37:57

And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.