Paul Higgins Podcast

If you are doing services and have an idea to productize it, this is the podcast for you.  We cover: Change from service to product funded by a client.  How to leverage Sales Force to build a vertical solution. Changing B2B sales and how to adapt. Tom Burton has over 30 years of experience helping forward-thinking businesses (ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies) develop and im...

Is SEO right for your business? Believing that every business needs an SEO strategy is one of the reasons many business owners have a bad experience with SEO. It all comes down to your customer acquisition strategies, sales cycle, and whether your customers are looking for your solution on Google. Farzad Rashidi is here today to help you figure out if SEO is right for your business and, if so, how...

This is the last solo show of the year, so I want to go through the key podcasts of 2022 and the outlook for 2023. We aired 68 podcasts, so I will only cover my favorites of the year. In these episodes, we had amazing guests and covered topics from LinkedIn outreach, personalized video, how channel partners can grow sales, how to improve your delivery margin, and a few other things. What’s coming...

Increasing your prices by 5-10% to keep up with inflation is not the type of price adjustment that will reposition your company and set you up for successful growth. In this episode, Mandi Ellefson will explain in detail how to increase your fees by 50-200% by attracting an entirely different kind of client. All you have to do is be very intentional about the type of growth that you want for your...

When the economy is strong, you can rely on referrals from your network and SaaS platform to grow your revenue. However, when it goes the other way, you have to work harder for sales. I don't have to spell out to you that the current global economic headwinds are massive. What was easier has now become harder.  Many of the factors are uncontrollable, but not all. So what can you do today to improv...

If you don't understand the kind of outbound process your organization needs, you need to listen to this episode. Antoine Marsden, who helps business owners to accelerate sales revenue, is here to explain why outbound is a huge developer of mid to long-term pipelines. Crafting your message, getting it out there, and creating a list of people potentially interested in your product or service are th...

When working with a SaaS partner, building a relationship with your direct reps will return in the form of more new business. Why? Omi Diaz-Cooper, a marketing genius with 25 years of experience, is here to paint a clear picture of how to use partnerships to close sales earlier. Her approach is to let the direct reps know you're well-versed in a specific vertical or industry, and they will come to...

Did you hit your sales targets last week? If you don't have a weekly target, don't worry because that's more common than you think. At Coca-Cola, I was taught to break annual targets into cases sold for the day because that's how you can only impact the actions for today, not the future. But if you want to scale your business, you should know the answer to this question. So what are those three da...

Today, 75% of world trade flows indirectly. Things are changing, industries are progressing, and the world is becoming embedded. Jay McBain is here to share his perspective and predictions on the partner ecosystem future based on a ton of research he has made.  In Jay's words, the ecosystem has always been around us, just not at the scale. But SaaS companies are bringing more and more partner...

Creating a business with an exit plan in mind will only help you build a healthy business, even if you don't ever sell. It's basically a business strategy that makes you keep the operational and financial side of the company in order and create solid marketing and sales engine.  But let Lorne Kaufman tell us from his experience what lessons he learned from exiting three businesses. He's a man...

I work with many cloud consultants daily, and two key problems come up in almost every conversation: They don't have enough clients, and they can't find good team members. Does that sound like you? In this episode, I will cover the second one and show you how to use staffing companies to continually recruit the best talent around the world. Links 433 - Show Notes Cloud Consultants Collective SendS...

Most business owners believe that sales is their problem when it's actually just a symptom of poor and unclear messaging. What is messaging, then? In this episode, Karthik Vijayakumar explains what messaging really is and how the right words can help you convert sales. All you need to do is tell people what you do for your audience and how you help them solve their biggest problems. And your websi...

In this episode, Nick shares how creating an audience helped build two businesses in parallel: The consulting side of things and the thought leadership. Both feed leads to each other, in addition to those coming from partnerships.  But how do you leverage those partnerships to get more leads? From his experience, it's all about being strategic. You need to get involved with their communities,...

While your role is to help clients to avoid mistakes, it can be much bigger. Clients often underestimate the potential of their business, but you are there to help them think bigger. How can you do that? In this episode, you will learn about the helicopter view and how that helps you think bigger for your clients. But most importantly, the value for you to doing that. Links 430 - Show Notes Cloud...

It's a fact that the partner industry is changing and will consolidate in the next few years. The question here is, what are you doing to keep up to remain relevant? Doug Wendt is on the show to share his perspective on the evolving partnership ecosystems. Doug is the Co-Founder, senior partner, and Chief Growth Officer at Wendt Partners , an Elite HubSpot Partner and comprehensive technological s...

The channel reseller model is dying quickly, which makes us rethink everything we know about partnerships and ecosystems. In today’s episode, Des Russell , Chief Partnership Officer at Partner Elevate , explains why you should take ownership of moving your business forward and not rely on your vendor to get leads. You will learn how the vendor/partner ecosystem is changing and what are the three p...

As a business owner for 11 years, out of revenue, profit and cash flow, I lost more sleep over the last one and sometimes I still do. I don't miss that feeling when you have taxes or payrolls to pay and no cash in the bank. Or you want to go and invest in an expert that you know will help you grow, but you just don't have the cash in the business to afford it. In this episode, I go through five tr...

Starting a marketing agency is challenging, but everything gets easier when implementing the right systems and procedures for you and your clients. In this episode, Clodagh S. Higgins shares her insights on how to build a happy and healthy agency. She is a business coach and consultant for digital marketing agencies and an ex-HubSpotter who helps owners in the areas of sales, marketing, services,...

Businesses of all sizes and industries have one problem in common: Marketing. And that’s why they bring in someone externally to help them build their marketing strategy. In this episode, Alisha Conlin-Hurd , co-founder at Persuasion Experience , helps businesses to increase conversions and scale their systems by uncovering what their target market really wants. You will learn the number one rule...

There are typically four ways to generate revenue in your cloud consulting business: Referrals, SaaS vendors, outbound and strategic partners. In this episode, Paul goes deeper into how to self-generate outbound leads. You will learn some of the common challenges cloud consultants face when generating high-quality leads, three steps to solving them, and multiple opportunities to get some help.   L...

If you’re struggling with your systems and processes, you need to listen to this podcast episode. Kylie Harker , founder and director of Squirrel Business Solutions and a Zoho partner, works with businesses to implement robust systems and processes so they can make decisions based on numbers. In this interview, she shares how rebuilding her website has been a game changer for her business, her rec...

We all know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. But most consultants remain hesitant to add this channel to their marketing strategy. Why? Yes, it might take some work but what you get in return makes it worth day. Gareth Pronovost is here to explain how you can use YouTube to build your email list and bank account. But he also shares tips on starting your own channel an...

Sales doesn't come naturally for some business owners, so they instead spend extra time on delivery. But balancing sales and delivery is essential to meet your growth ambitions. In this episode, you will learn how to allocate time to sales and how to reduce your time in delivery.   Links 421 - Show Notes Cloud Consultants Collective SendSpark Ep. 415 – How to Spend 25% of Your Time on Sales Ep 221...

Whether you’re starting a new business or changing the direction of an existing one, picking a niche is the best decision you can make as a small business owner. And Allison Strickland can confirm that.  She is a Salesforce developer for a large life sciences company and owns two of her own businesses in the same niche: healthcare and higher education for healthcare.  In this episode, Al...

Did you know that an entrepreneur will spend anywhere from 30 to 60% of their week bogged down doing administrative tasks and projects rather than working on sales? Valerie Trapunsky , a professional problem solver, is here to explain how an executive assistant can relieve business owners from doing it all by themselves. In this episode, we will all learn three options for clearing 30-60% of your...