The Soloist Life Building A $100 Million Business vs. Going Solo with Rob Fegan
When you’re focused on building a $100 million business with a co-founder, what could possibly make you peel off to become a Soloist? Consultant Rob Fegan shares how he pivoted from his first business to a highly profitable (and life-enhancing) Soloist consulting practice:
Why he transitioned from co-founding and growing their potentially $100 million business to become a Soloist.
The value of experimenting and failing—or succeeding—fast.
How he 5x’ed his prices in a single quarter by focusing on the value he was delivering to his ideal clients.
When to shoot for big leaps vs. incremental growth (and why you don’t necessarily need a big audience to build a 6-7 figure Soloist business).
How a failed experiment convinced him to double-down on his genius zone.
LINKS
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Rob Fegan is an author, speaker and the founder of Venvito Consulting. He is a highly sought-after expert and leading authority for Microsoft Partners. Rob is on a mission to help founders and individual contributors demystify the success formula to become a go-to partner working with Microsoft.
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RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:30
Rob Fegan : For me, I'm focused on working with 5 to 10 clients throughout the year. My business is not set up to work with thousands of clients or even hundreds of clients. It's really finding the few clients that I can help and serve in a way that allows me to be really part of their business to help me grow their business versus trying to touch a lot of people with just a little bit of value.
00:35 - 01:07
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm here with Rob Fegan who is an author, speaker, and the founder of Venvido Consulting. He is a highly sought after expert and leading authority for Microsoft partners. Rob is on a mission to help founders and individual contributors demystify the success formula to become a go-to partner working with Microsoft. Rob, welcome.
01:08 - 01:11
Rob Fegan : Rochelle, thanks a lot. I'm excited for our conversation today.
01:12 - 01:42
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, me too. So there are all kinds of things we can talk about today. But the thing that most, I guess, captivated me the last time we talked was your story about becoming a soloist. So set the stage for us. So before you started soloing in 2022, You had a business and a business partner. So what was your plan together for that business? It started off in 2015 where my partner and I, we wanted to continue to grow.
01:42 - 02:18
Rob Fegan : We were both in the Microsoft ecosystem working for partners. And we realized that we had an approach that we thought was really unique in the market. So we created a company back in 2015 and we grew that to millions of dollars in revenue in a really short time. And so we were super passionate about what we were doing. We had a mission to get to $100 million was the goal for the company. And as we grew and as the problems got bigger and the numbers got bigger, My partner and I, we had a different approach or
02:18 - 02:42
Rob Fegan : a different view on how we were going to move forward from there. And it became a real challenge and something that I felt I knew what I wanted to do. I knew the mission I was on and we just couldn't see eye to eye on that. So I decided to move on from that business and to make the transition into a soloist career. So it was a huge change, but 1 that I don't regret for a second.
02:42 - 02:50
Rochelle Moulton: Well, now, refresh my memory on this. Was the 100 million, like, was that what you were planning? Like, that was your dream?
02:50 - 03:23
Rob Fegan : That was the goal that we had when we started the company back in 2015. That was our joint vision it was to get to this you know hundred million dollar mark and You know what? I don't think either of us had a good feel for was what that entailed and the sacrifices that we'd be making individually and as a partnership to get to that mark and so for me it was just a decision about how I was going to run my life and what I wanted from life, what I wanted from my business. And so it
03:23 - 03:25
Rob Fegan : was just a time to make a real change for me.
03:26 - 03:38
Rochelle Moulton: And can you talk just a little bit about the sacrifices? Like, is it about how you spend your time with employees, or was it the hours, the quality? How did you see the sacrifices you were making?
03:39 - 04:12
Rob Fegan : It was really all of the above. It was the amount of time I was spending in the business. It was the time away from my family. I was traveling a lot to grow the business, to spend time with employees, to recruit employees, to overall manage the entire business as we were growing and we were growing rapidly. So we were growing quarter over quarter. We had just excellent growth and consistent growth, but that came at a real price for me, for my family, and I didn't see that as being sustainable for me. I wanted something different that
04:12 - 04:38
Rob Fegan : gave me more control over how I approach life and the time I was able to dedicate to not only the business, but to my family and full disclosure, I love what I do. I loved what I did back then, but it was just getting away from me. It was becoming all consuming and I was losing sight of the things that were important across the board, not just business or just family, but living in sort of more holistic approach to life.
04:38 - 04:41
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, be careful what you wish for because you might get it, right?
04:41 - 04:55
Rob Fegan : Yeah, it was absolutely, oh, Michelle, that is such a great way to say that is that it was that It was, you know, careful what you wish for. We were ultra successful, but it came at a price that I didn't clearly appreciate when we set out on the business.
04:56 - 05:14
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, and if it makes you feel any better, I don't think anybody really does know, you know, until you're in it and you deal with employees and hiring and firing and traveling for clients I mean, it's it's I think a lot of that is hard to see ahead of time But it's really easy to see in the rear view,
05:14 - 05:15
Rob Fegan : right?
05:15 - 05:22
Rochelle Moulton: So once you severed your relationship with that business, so what did you do like immediately afterwards? What did you do next?
05:22 - 05:59
Rob Fegan : So immediately afterwards I am well it was March of 2020 when the When we actually separated company so oh goodness About some fortuitous timing so I took a little bit of time off. I think I took most of the pandemic off, which was nice. It was an amazing opportunity to spend time with my family. That was the first thing that happened. But by 2021, mid-2021, I was ready to get back at it. I was like, okay, I love what I did back then. I love being part of the larger ecosystem, the Microsoft ecosystem. And so I
05:59 - 06:30
Rob Fegan : was looking for a way to get back into it and just in a more balanced way, in a way that I had more control over what I would take on and what I would do and how I would do it. So I just started sticking my toe in the water of helping a few friends that had businesses in that same space, doing a little bit of coaching for them, just to kind of feel out if this was something that the market was going to be willing to bear, was having someone come in and coach founders, owners,
06:30 - 06:40
Rob Fegan : and sales leaders on how to partner with Microsoft. So now that's in the 2021 timeframe is when I started to dip my toe back in the water.
06:40 - 06:43
Rochelle Moulton: And then when did you actually start the business? Was that 2022?
06:44 - 07:17
Rob Fegan : It was, yeah. So by the end of 2021, I had had enough interest and enough people had said yes, just to even coming in and a lot of it was done pro bono and hindsight, I probably wouldn't do that again. I was like, wait, I've delivered a lot of value. But it really did give me the confidence to say there is a need in the market. And so come 2022, I decided to make a real legitimate go of building a practice around coaching Microsoft partners and founders of partners. So that was really when I decided, okay,
07:17 - 07:30
Rob Fegan : I have to start to think through what it's gonna take, who can I serve, how can I serve them? And I have to say there was lots of trial and error at the beginning, but overall. Shocker. Right?
07:32 - 07:41
Rochelle Moulton: Well, now I know you have a very, very successful business, Rob, but how long did it take you to hit your first 100K? Did you do that in your first year?
07:41 - 07:50
Rob Fegan : I did not. I did not hit 100K in the first year. I was, I think I finished the year around $75, 000 or $80, 000.
07:51 - 07:51
Rochelle Moulton: Okay,
07:52 - 08:19
Rob Fegan : so I sat back and thought, okay, I know how much value I'm bringing. I wasn't charging accordingly to the value I was bringing. So I made a concerted or I made a decision that I was going to change the entire pricing model for the business going into 2023. And so Q1 of 2023, I hit the $100, 000 mark in that first quarter.
08:19 - 08:19
Rochelle Moulton: That's quite
08:19 - 08:20
Rob Fegan : a change.
08:20 - 08:30
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So what did you do? Did you link your fees specifically to the value or did you just rethink them in terms of their overall value to your ideal client?
08:30 - 09:02
Rob Fegan : So I really, initially I just said, okay, I know I'm delivering more value, I'm going to up the price. And In the first quarter, I think I upped it 5 times Wow I was like, okay, you know, they said yes to that and didn't think it they didn't think twice so the next time I doubled it and the next customer did not bat an eyelash, they just said yes. So it took 5 times doubling my price to get to a point where I felt like, okay, now it's a real decision for them. They still see the
09:02 - 09:28
Rob Fegan : value. They see the additional value I can bring. I tell owners and founders and leaders is that if you do this right, you should be adding half a million to a million dollars in top of funnel activity for your salespeople in partnering with Microsoft. So that's a massive value for them. And so I'm always trying to think in the back of my head, whatever I charge, can I deliver 10x the value?
09:28 - 09:54
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I like that. I like that ratio. But the other thing I want to ask you is, and this is for people who are struggling with raising their prices with doubling their prices, never mind 5 Xing. Did you ever have to like have these conversations with yourself about, yes, I really can double this because I see this value and I can 10X the value of what they pay me? Did you have to have these sort of internal debates with yourself or did you just
09:55 - 10:20
Rob Fegan : do it? Oh my goodness, the first few times I literally, I would be arguing with myself, I think people must have thought I was crazy. I was like, I'd literally be like, no, you can't do that. There's no way. So I would just have these in my head going over and over that I can't say that number. I can't. Nobody would pay that number for this. And then I was like, okay, I'm just going to do it, no matter what they say. And so finally, I just said, okay, I'll do it. And by the third time,
10:20 - 10:49
Rob Fegan : I was like, okay. Now, every time they say yes, the next one's getting twice the price. Yeah. Until I got to that place where it was like, okay, they have to think much deeper about are they going to move forward with this? Do they really see the value? Do they really believe in, are they really committed? And that was the big thing that for me, I realized is that when I got to the right price, I was only working with people that were 100% committed to making this work. You know, when I first started, people will
10:49 - 11:11
Rob Fegan : be like, oh, well, it was, you know, it didn't work, no problem, just move on. Now I'm like, no, we need to do all these things together and to make this business work for you and to really leverage the Microsoft ecosystem. And when they got to that final pricing structure where I am today, now they're 100% committed to everyone will know it now.
11:11 - 11:41
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I mean, there's so much we could unpack there. And what's fascinating to me is this idea that you get better clients by increasing your prices. Now you're not doing that in a vacuum. You are relating those prices to the transformations you're producing. So I don't want to give the impression that anybody can just go out and 5X your prices and be fine, right? You've got to be delivering value, but when you do that, it literally can change overnight the quality of your clients.
11:41 - 12:09
Rob Fegan : Oh, that is so true, Rochelle. I can tell you today, I love working with the clients I'm working with today because they are so committed. They're equally as passionate about making the system work, their system work. They're equally as passionate about working in the Microsoft ecosystem. So it really did. The right people to me and me to them when I've got the right pricing structure and we're all committed 100% to making it work.
12:11 - 12:38
Rochelle Moulton: Love that. So 1 of the other things that really struck me since I've had a little bit of a front row seat to your business growth the last couple of years is how you seem to experiment with new ideas in your business. Like I have watched you grab an idea that you heard from somewhere like a podcast or a book and you go and run with it and you experiment and then you come back, like ready for the next thing. Will you talk a little bit more about the role of experimenting? We've talked a little bit
12:38 - 12:47
Rochelle Moulton: about it with pricing, but I think you've done some other experiments as well. Yeah, for me, and 1 of the big areas, Probably the most difficult area for me and the
12:47 - 13:27
Rob Fegan : experimentation that I had to go through here was in my Marketing efforts. I don't buy ads. I don't do any paid advertising for me I'm out there just educating my audience and part of what I invest in is LinkedIn. And so I started off and I was absolutely terrified of putting myself out there, but I watched people like yourself and like other consultants out there educating and delivering high value content on the platform specifically for me, LinkedIn. And I was like, that seems like it's got legs for me. It seems like what it's authentic and true
13:27 - 13:56
Rob Fegan : to who I am is I wanna be out there teaching. I'm not out there throwing offers out of, buy today, buy by 05:00. It's, no, just let me educate you, let me share some interesting facts or some interesting information. And so for me, just even getting onto the social media platform and the LinkedIn platform and showing up every day was a challenge. And then I would see more and more people sharing content via video. And I was terrified of that. I was absolutely like, no way, can't do it.
13:56 - 14:00
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, you're great on video. I've seen some of your videos. They're really good.
14:00 - 14:34
Rob Fegan : Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. But it was so terrifying for me. I was like, I can't do this. I mean, who would want to watch a video from me? And so, you know, the first time I did it was just the camera in my laptop and no audio, no lights, just really, really rough. But I just kept doing it, and I kept doing it over and over again, to the point now where I'm comfortable jumping on a video and having a conversation, sharing information. But for me, experimenting is so important. I don't profess
14:34 - 15:06
Rob Fegan : to know all the secrets to social media or building a business, but what I do know is that if I can find a good idea, and I'm a big fan of podcasts, reading, all these different mediums to find new ideas that I can try in my business and see what works. And I'm not afraid to kill them fast. If it doesn't work, it's gone. But if it works and if I see traction, even if it's traction slowly over time, I'm going to continue to invest in that and work on improving my skills in that area just
15:06 - 15:09
Rob Fegan : to help grow the business and help grow myself at the end
15:09 - 15:34
Rochelle Moulton: of the day. Yeah. And when I looked at your LinkedIn profile just before I got on and you had, I think, 6, 000 plus followers. So you really became highly visible within your niche in LinkedIn very fast. And do you think it was more about the content that you were sharing, the relationships you were developing, or was it sort of a blend of both?
15:34 - 15:59
Rob Fegan : That's a great question, and I will just, I'll say, when you say very fast, it was probably, the 6, 000 probably came in the last 90 days for the...