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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.

(0:54): Hello, I'm Paul Higgins. And welcome to the cloud consulting solo show episode number 470. If your business is underperforming, and you hear yourself say that you don't have enough time to fix it, you need to listen to this. 

(1:08): So today's topic is debunking the myth that you don't have time. If it's your first show, welcome, I share my learnings from scaling selling a cloud consulting business and mentoring hundreds of cloud consultants to do the same. Also, the solo shows typically about 10 minutes this one will be about that. And you can check out past shows just search cloud consultants show. 

 (1:31): And also check out those brilliant interview shows with peers as well. If you love what you hear, please subscribe if you're a regular thanks for your support, please email me at Paul at Paul Higgins mentoring.com. The link is in the show notes to let me know that you listen and also suggested topic. Right? I will give a shout out when you do. And before we start, I'd like to talk about the world's only revenue focus collective exclusively for cloud consultants. Forget YouTube, Google. And now of course chat GTP, ask a question a business question of your peers and get a firsthand experience answer very fast. If you don't believe me, try it out for yourself, cloud consultants collected.com. And you can join for free today. 

(2:16): So if you have so much going on in your business and nothing seems to be working, it's not your fault. It is not because you don't have the time to change it. Right? It's because you are working on the wrong things. And how do I know this? Well, I was you. Back in 2016, we started a cloud consulting business. And we worked hard to build a team of 30 people, mainly based in the Philippines, and clients around the world. And my mentor at the time didn't like the SAAS platform we picked. His rationale was that it was a very super competitive market that we're in. And our platform didn't really have any competitive advantage. If anything, he thought it was a little confusing. And it was in the project management space. And yes, it was a very crowded market. 

(3:05): But my business partner and I had fallen in love with the product because it had helped us in our businesses, then we thought that everyone else should like it as well. And we sort of lost sight of the result, we were sort of so focused on what it could do for people. And we didn't take his advice. And we thought we knew our world better. He was very successful in setting up startup communities. And he'd had a huge exit at a young age. So we thought, well, he's good at that. But he's not good at what we do we know best. And then the company that we worked or supported was bought by Citrix. And I went to a meeting in Copenhagen in 2016. And sort of realized that it just wasn't the right direction or was headed in the wrong direction. And unfortunately, we'd sort of spent four years of hard work, and it all sort of came on stack. 

(3:58): So we had to find different ways to do the team, we could move some of the team into my other business which I had a, an outsourcing business, but it's really hard. And you know, if we just listened to our mentor and picked another SAS, we would have been far better off because you know, the way I looked at it is we're in the right industry, say horse racing is an example. And we're in the right race in a way but we just picked the wrong horse. And we changed to the right horse and had a nice exit by 2019. However, the opportunity cost of not listening to a mentor was incredibly high. And this is why I do what I do now right to stop others making the same mistakes. 

(4:35): And I remember back then I used to always say that we're just too busy to fix the business. If the harder we work, it will sort itself out right because that's what I've always done in corporate and my business partner always done the same and we just thought we could work it out. 

(4:48): But before I go into some signals that you might be working on the wrong things, or more importantly, what you should be working on. Instead, I'd like to tell you about a blueprint. I've pulled together hear that from my experience that I've mentioned before, and also mentoring many others, you can go to Paul Higgins mentoring.com Ford slash blueprint to get your free copy today gives you more detail on finding the right business model, building a sales marketing engine developing a high performing team. Just go to Paulhigginsmentoring.com/blueprint to grab it today.

(5:21): So what are some of the signals that you might be experiencing your business and obvious one is you're telling yourself, you don't have time, or you tell your team that you don't have time, right? The harder I work, the better it's going to be. You might also be stuck in delivery, you know that you need to be the face of the business, you need to be doing more sales and marketing, but it's just easier to be stuck in delivery. You don't necessarily like it, but you are. 

(5:43): And the other one is you're not paying yourself commercial wage, right? Often people show me their profit and loss statement. I said, Okay, well, where's your wage in this both in the cost of goods sold, and also below the line, they're like, Oh, we don't really pay ourselves at the moment. We're investing everything in. That's not a great strategy. And we've learned that the hard way, when after four years, our business hadn't gone. Well. My wife sort of looked at me and said, Hey, you left a massive corporate job to do this. And you know, where is the income? 

(6:09): And the other one is, you're not doing what you love to do outside of work, right? I think that's a really good factor. And often, if you're a little recluse, you're not spending time with the people you'd normally spend or not doing the sporting activities, or whatever it might be. I think it's a really good sign that you are working too hard, but not on the right things. Right. And using I don't have time as sort of the reason. So what should you be spending time on? My book, or the ebook that I spoke about - the Blueprint does go into that so you can get it Paul at PaulHigginsmentoring.com.

(6:40): Just couple of key things. First, is your business model, right? Always like the analogy of the ladder up against the right wall? Right. So often, we've got the ladder against the wrong wall. So for us, it was that platform, that project management platform, which hurts me too much even mention it? And yes, you know, we thought we're doing a great job, but it just didn't work. And if we had have realized that picked a better partner platform that would have helped. And also, if we had have gotten more recurring revenue and more consulting revenue, it certainly would have helped as well. 

(7:11): The other is your pricing, right? So you know, when was the last time we actually put the price up? Right. And often the reason we don't is just from our own mental or mindset change, right? Or the need to change our mindset. So you know, you should be spending time on that. And, look, I think at best, you might lose 10% of your customer base. Now, if you don't have too many big whales, and you're not, you're quite diversified, you should be okay.

(7:38): The next one is selling more to existing clients right. Now, once again, you're always too busy to sell more to existing clients. But that's going to be the most affordable way to grow your business is through existing clients, and also coming up with a time to think of new offers. Right? Often, we're once again stuck in the details stuck in the weeds, and not actually really focusing and thinking about what could we offer these people, right. And I must admit, that's my experience in fast moving consumer goods. That's where we constantly had the same client, but we had to come up with new offers to sell more to them. 

(8:11): The next is recruiting high talent. So you've probably heard me on other podcasts, if you're a regular or other shows, saying that you should always be recruiting. And I think that's really important. 

(8:21): The next is spending time with peers. Now, you know, we've got a community called the cloud consultants collective where peers support each other. But often, once again, people are too busy to get in there and actually learn from others ask good questions. And instead of making the expensive mistakes yourself learning from someone else.

(8:38): Another is strategic partnerships, right? So who's already got your customer that you can learn from? So I just spoke to an Active Campaign partner and he was talking about the fact that, you know, some high end agencies and there's also some copywriters, etc, that he's getting client work from to diversify from only getting work out of Active Campaign, which I think is a really smart strategy. And once again, that's just one example of a strategic partner. 

(9:05): The other is building your authority. Right? So you've there's many, if you go back to my solo shows, and also some of the podcast shows, just search YouTube, when you're looking through the show, and you'll get a theme where YouTube has been a brilliant way to build a business, right? What are you doing? Are you spending time on building YouTube as an asset for your business to bring in leads, and as I said, go back and listen to some of them. There's probably too many to mention now. But there's some great podcasts and I've got a few that are coming up as well in the future that talk about that. 

(9:38): The next is researching unrelated industries, right? Because what's happening in industries that aren't akin to us, so you can do that easily these days with podcasts, right? I listen to two and a half times speed. So I get through them quickly. But you know, what's happening in the AI space that's going to come in so it's not directly related to us, but it's definitely going to impact us. 

(9:58): And the last one is mentors right, you might have paid or unpaid mentors, but going and talking and get their perspective, I think that's what you should be spending time on versus some of the other things that I mentioned that you're not. And like I said, it's not your fault that you've got yourself to where you are, right? Because running a service based business is difficult, right? We learned that the hard way. But it is your responsibility to change it, right. And if you'd like to talk about my journey a bit more, and how I might be able to help you go to talk paul.com, there'll be a link in the show notes where you can book a quick chat with me.

(10:32): So couple of key actions from today. One is don't buy into the myth, you don't have enough time right to stop that myth. Stop saying it, stop talking about it. It's not the case, in reality, work on what matters most. And I gave you some good ideas today. And also get some help, right? Don't do what I did, which was ignore the advice of the mentor list. I had one. So that was a good thing, but I ignored their advice. 

(10:57): Please follow me on LinkedIn to get content specifically for cloud consultants. If you know someone that is struggling with this and you hear them say this, that I don't have time to change my business model, please share it with them. They'll think you're an absolute Rockstar for doing it. If you're a cloud consultant, and you want to join our collective, just go to cloud consultants collective.com. And please take action now to make your ambitions turn into 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 Paul paulhigginsmentoring.com 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.