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Intro: I’m Paul Higgins, an ex-corporate executive turned business owner who, for five years, struggled to grow a cloud Consulting business whilst battling a chronic disease. With the help of mentors and experts, I got the business model right, built a sales and marketing engine, and developed a high performing team that ended in a successful exit. I received a kidney transplant from a mate, and now on my second life, I dedicate my time to helping other Cloud Consultants go quickly with less effort to enjoy life. Detecting an accent, I'm an Aussie working globally from Melbourne, Australia. I interview successful Cloud Consultants sharing their scaling story to give you inspiration and practical tips. I have dedicated experts for Cloud Consultants on the show to save you time and money by working with the right people. If you want to scale quickly with less effort to enjoy life, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

(0:55): Hello, I'm Paul Higgins. And welcome to the Cloud consultant Show episode number 473. Do you ever feel like you're the bottleneck for delivering in your business? And if you don't, I think you're lying, course you do. Well, today's topic is the 131 rule. And it's going to help you solve that. If it’s your first time, welcome. I share my learnings from scaling and selling a cloud consulting business and mentoring hundreds of other Cloud Consultants. The show is typically 10 minutes, but this one's going to be short and sweet. Check out past shows just search cloud consultants show. And also check out the interview shows. 

(1:27): If you love what you hear, please subscribe. If you're a regular, thanks for your support. I always love to get emails from you, [email protected]. Let me know that you listen, let me know what you'd like to hear more of. And before I start, I'd like to talk to you about the world's only revenue focus collective exclusively for cloud consultants. Forget Youtube, Google Chat GPT. They're not as good as your peers answering your business questions firsthand, fast. Try it yourself at cloudconsultantscollective.com. And of course, it's free. 

(1:57): So I mentioned you're the bottleneck to delivery, right? Do your team ask you for help on things that you know you can answer but you shouldn't, right? Are you always in a chat or just a chat away from helping them solve something? Why do you do it? Well, only you can truly answer that question. But let me give you some examples of what I've heard from other people that I mentor. I'm good at it. And I really enjoyed doing it. Right. And that's probably the case. You're great at it right? You've probably you know, you've been on the tools, you're trying to get yourself off the tools. But it's just easy to default back to it. I like to help my team. And that's right, you're a leader, you think that the key thing you got to do is help them but are you really helping them? I want to get better results for my clients. And I completely understand that right? Great results mean, it's easy to get referrals, which means you got to do less sales and marketing the front end, I completely get that. And I want to finish projects ahead of time, right? You want to dazzle you want to excite your clients, you want to give them better than expected. 

(2:57): And if you just keep getting quick answers to your team that's going to help. But unfortunately, it's not the best way to do it. And there's an old boss of mine once said, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should, right, because I was doing this exact same thing to my sales teams. I love selling. And I was giving them lots of sales tips when they came through to me and you know, I was really spoon feeding them. And think about it for a moment. Right? How often do you fall into this category? 

(3:26): Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, right? And some mentees challenged me as to why it is so bad. I want to say that it's not that bad, right? But it's simply an opportunity cost. One is the cost of doing strategy, leadership, sales and marketing that only you can do right? Your team can't do that. That's why you're the owner of the business. And to is the cost of not developing your team, right, you're spoon feeding not developing them. 

(3:52): But before we get to the solution, which I'll call the 131 rule. Are you a success partner and struggling to scale your business, then you won't want to miss the free scaling blueprint. As I've said before, I've interviewed hundreds of cloud consultants who have successfully navigated the challenge of growing their business. And I've put these into enable plus my learnings from doing my own business and exiting it right. So don't miss this opportunity to take your business to the next level. Receive the free ebook on scaling your cloud consulting or SaaS partner business, just go to paulhigginsmentoring.com/blueprint. 

(4:27): So what is the 131 rule? Well, it's pretty simple, right? One problem, three options to solve it and one recommendation. So your team can come prepared if they do need to do it, but ultimately, they will probably solve it for themselves, right? Because they get to learn and as you know, with cha GPT, etc., you know, that should be a great way for them to get information and get problem solved without using you all the time. Right. So AI is going to get better and better at that. But it actually just gives them the discipline of doing it. So think of a situation today where you could have used it. Right? Again, one problem, three options to solve it, and one recommendation. You probably heard variations of this rule before, but I really liked when I heard it the 131 rule. It's very simple. And you can go and implement it today. 

(5:17): So what are your key actions today? I want to stop doing what you can do and focus on what you should do, right? Because that's the only way to really scale your business. The second is train your team on the one through one rule. So don't just go and use it straightaway train them, get them to understand why and get them to deal with their teams as well. They might be using freelancers or other people as well. Stick to it for 60 days, right? You're going to fall off the wagon. It's not just because you say at once and you have a team meeting or a stand up or whatever you do, that it's going to stick right? You're going to fall off the wagon, except that know that it's going to take around 60 days to embed. And the last one is send me how you've used it. I'd love to hear it. [email protected]. 

(5:59): Please follow me on LinkedIn to get content specifically for cloud consultants. If you know someone who's struggling with his whole delegation, please share it with him. They'll think you're an absolute Rockstar. If you're a cloud consultant. Please join our free community I mentioned before the cloud consultants collective.com. Please take action now to make your ambitions a reality. 

Outro: Learning is just one piece of the puzzle. it is now time for action. Head to Today's show page at paulhigginsmentoring.com/podcast, get the links, and put it into action. Head to your favorite podcast platform, subscribe, rate, and review the show. Suggest topics for me to cover at [email protected], and don't wait one more minute to gain access to content, especially for you, a cloud consultant at paulhigginsmentoring.com/newsletter. This could be the difference between wasting time figuring it out yourself or scaling quickly with less effort to enjoy life.