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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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 first 2 years of being on LinkedIn, I had almost no followers, I had very little traction the first year. If 1 or 2 people liked it, that was a good day. It was always like my wife was always 1 of them.
16:00 – 16:02
Rochelle Moulton: Lesser heart. Right? Right.
16:03 – 16:38
Rob Fegan : But for me, it was just staying with it and focusing on education for me was really core to my strategy or is core to my strategies. I will bend over backwards to share information. I tell people I don’t have any secrets. You can find my entire portfolio of knowledge on LinkedIn. It’s just in little bits all over the place, but I’m all about sharing. I’m all about adding value to the community and for those folks that feel like they want to speed up the execution of that information, that’s where I’ll spend time going down the path
16:38 – 16:57
Rob Fegan : of potentially working together. But for me, the strategy has wholly been around adding value. Not to say that I don’t reach out to people and start to build my network intentionally. I absolutely do that. But I would say the majority of how my network has grown is through that education content. Yeah, it
16:57 – 17:16
Rochelle Moulton: could be because you’re giving. Yeah. Right, and you’re building authority as you’re doing that. Speaking of content, you have a very clever partner score freebie on your website. I’m just curious for anybody that wants to look at it, take a peek, is that as good of a lead generator as it looks like it could be?
17:17 – 17:56
Rob Fegan : Full disclosure, it doesn’t get downloaded very often, which is surprising to me. But when somebody does download it, almost universally, we will end up on a call together. And they are potentially a good fit. So for me, it’s been very valuable in that it’s not a lead generation tool. It creates or adds hundreds and hundreds of email addresses to my network. But what it is good for is delivering prospects that are really in line with my vision, with how I approach the world. So from that perspective, it’s been great. Just, you know, some people think of
17:56 – 18:01
Rob Fegan : it in terms of, oh, you need to get thousands of email addresses. For me, that’s not the goal.
18:01 – 18:21
Rochelle Moulton: Well, you don’t need it. I mean, with the way you’ve structured your business, you could have a very small email list and still do very well. And I really appreciate the way that you described that because I agree. I feel like there is this belief out there that if you’re not attracting hundreds and thousands, you’re not doing it right.
18:21 – 18:21
Rob Fegan : Right.
18:21 – 18:33
Rochelle Moulton: But it depends what you need to drive your business. So it feels like it takes them from a tire kicker to somebody who’s actually aligned with you before you even speak.
18:33 – 19:08
Rob Fegan : Yeah, absolutely. And to your point about knowing what I need to run this business is that 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.
19:09 – 19:26
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So when it comes to revenue, totally correct me if I don’t have this right, but It feels like you tend to shoot for big leaps versus incremental growth. We certainly know this is what you did in your Q1, your first full year in business, but how has that impacted your growth trajectory?
19:28 – 20:04
Rob Fegan : Yeah, it’s very interesting. I do agree with you and I’ve been spending time thinking about, am I looking for just a small increase in my business or do I want to make these big leaps? For me, I’m more interested and more excited by making these big jumps, by being able to deliver much larger value equation to my clients. So I’m always thinking about how instead of 10X, can I, or how can I 10X it? I don’t like, how can I 25X the value I deliver, or 30x the value I deliver, so I can make these big
20:04 – 20:22
Rob Fegan : leaps in my customers’ businesses and then that translates to a fair exchange for them and myself? So yeah, I do really focus on these big sort of monumental shifts versus these little incremental growth tactics.
20:22 – 20:44
Rochelle Moulton: It’s interesting when you think about it, because when we’re talking about growing your LinkedIn audience, for example, that was very incremental. But when it comes to delivering value, it’s big leaps or exponential. And I just want to make the point to our audience that you can do both, right? You can have that situation depending on how your business model is designed.
20:44 – 21:22
Rob Fegan : Absolutely. Yeah. Now, you absolutely can have both. And I think that for me, it works really well to incrementally grow my audience and be very intentional about who I’m growing it for and that I’m speaking to the right people. Now My message won’t resonate with everybody. And it’s not designed to resonate with everybody. It’s designed to resonate with a very niche market. And even inside of the Microsoft ecosystem, which is a massive ecosystem, it’s designed to resonate with even a smaller group inside of that audience. So I’m very intentional about that and sort of that slow
21:22 – 21:32
Rob Fegan : methodical growth on the learning education side so that I can build and focus on these big monumental leaps inside the business.
21:32 – 21:45
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So I bet I know the answer to this question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Do you see adding employees at some point or have you turned yourself into a confirmed soloist? I
21:46 – 22:11
Rob Fegan : am probably a confirmed soloist. I have a wonderful executive assistant who helps me part-time throughout the week. She leans in to really help give me the space to focus on the more strategic components of the business. But for me, this really is the lifestyle that I’ve realized is a great fit for me, for my family. So I think we are where we are now and we’ll be there for a while.
22:12 – 22:43
Rochelle Moulton: So you may have answered my next question, but I just want to give you a chance to say more about this because at this point in the evolution of your business, you’ve got a very successful six-figure, soloist business. So when you think about the next stages of growth, we talked a little bit about financially how you see that, Is it all about your experience? And when I say that, I mean the experience, like your life, your happiness, the level of impact you’re making, or are you on a definitive path to keep growing revenue no matter what
22:43 – 22:47
Rochelle Moulton: short of hiring employees? How do you make those kinds of decisions?
22:48 – 23:16
Rob Fegan : Yeah, for me, it’s more about, am I happy when I’m doing it? Am I balanced in terms of, I mean, as I alluded to earlier, I love what I do. So I don’t feel like I’m ever working. Like, I always feel like I’m having a lot of fun. I’m figuring stuff out. We’re figuring it out with my client. A lot of times, my clients already have the answers. We’re just coming to the conclusion together. Although I won’t say I’m not focused on the money, I don’t do it for the money. I do it for the excitement
23:16 – 23:53
Rob Fegan : and the growth of figuring things out. And I really just use the money as a scorecard to say, yeah, that worked or that didn’t work. And I move on and I’ve been very fortunate that it has worked and that the problem is big enough in the Microsoft ecosystem that people do need help navigating it. So I’m focused on what it brings to me and my family emotionally and as the enjoyment factor And the money’s nice. I won’t say no to the money. But we don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, so we don’t need a lot to be
23:53 – 23:55
Rob Fegan : very happy. Well, it’s funny
23:55 – 24:11
Rochelle Moulton: you say that because I didn’t think of it that way. But you always seem like you’re having fun to me, Like that you’re enjoying the experience, whether it’s working on your business or like working through something with your clients. Like it’s a mindset really.
24:12 – 24:39
Rob Fegan : It really is a mindset. And for me, I’ve been so fortunate that after making this shift, that really all of the things that I’m working on today, whether it’s working on the business or working with my clients, I’m just loving it. I’m having so much fun doing it. I’m having, you know, even the times that I was like, oh, I really don’t want to do this. But I’m like, yeah, you know what? I’ll get it done. Obviously, there’s little parts of the business that I don’t love doing, but I just get them done and really focus
24:39 – 25:08
Rob Fegan : on the parts of the business where I can help people, where I can see people see the light and be like, oh, my goodness, this is how this works or this is done. I’m like, yeah, absolutely. And we see that integrated into their business and then we see them start to drive revenue. At the end of the day, that for me is the real win and why I do what I do is to help other people get the experience that I had as a business owner back starting in 2015 because when you get it right and
25:08 – 25:14
Rob Fegan : you start to see those wins compound, it’s just so exciting to see that growth.
25:15 – 25:44
Rochelle Moulton: Well, yeah, I mean, you’ve just given a commercial for the soloist life, right? Because it’s without having the complexities of a business. And don’t get me wrong, there are great reasons to do that if that’s what you want to do. There are all kinds of reasons I’ve grown that kind of business myself, and There’s definitely a fun factor to that too. But getting rid of all those complexities, getting hyper-focused on the people that you’re serving and the life you wanna lead and the impact you wanna make. I mean, it makes for a happy life.
25:44 – 26:14
Rob Fegan : Absolutely, Absolutely. And I have to say, going back a few years now when you and I first got introduced, for me, you were such a great role model in terms of having the experience of coming out of a large consulting firm, being in that large corporate environment, building your own company that was in the consulting space with employees, and then transitioning into the soloist life, for me, I’m like, okay, there is the role model. That is, you know, I want to get to where Rochelle has been.
26:14 – 26:15
Rochelle Moulton: It’s awesome, right?
26:16 – 26:43
Rob Fegan : It really is. And part of me is thankful for great mentors, too, and having mentors that when, for me, I didn’t have that sort of vision at first when I started this journey of, you know, you can do this as a soloist, you can be successful. You can provide for your family, you can do things you love to do, and you can work with people you love working with. It was a huge shift and I wouldn’t trade in for the world now.
26:43 – 27:11
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I’m with you. I’m curious, have you thought about an exit plan? I mean there are soloists who plan to keep going and then at some point they’ll dial their work back a bit. Sometimes it’s when they start a family, sometimes it’s when all of a sudden your kids are teenagers, other times it’s you know an off-ramp to retirement and then there are others who have very definitive plans to create a saleable asset. I mean where do you come out on that?
27:11 – 27:45
Rob Fegan : Yeah I have to say I do not have a definitive plan to create a sellable asset. For me I am much more focused on creating a business that gives me the flexibility to deliver to who I want, when I want, and from where I want. Because I love, as I said, I love what I do. I can’t imagine not having an opportunity to help people. To me that just, you know, I can’t even envision that in my world. So I’m trying to build this business where I can do this. I mean, I’m in my mid-50s now
27:45 – 27:49
Rob Fegan : and, you know, I want to be able to do this for a decade or 2 more. I love it.
27:50 – 27:56
Rochelle Moulton: Love it. You don’t have to have an exit plan. That’s the beauty of being a soloist. You can go in a variety of directions.
27:57 – 28:09
Rob Fegan : Yeah, absolutely. That might change at some point down the road. But for now, I’m loving what I do and I’m loving the way the business is unfolding. So I’m just going to keep going and keep trying new things.
28:09 – 28:24
Rochelle Moulton: Love it. So I know you’ve listened to some of the episodes so you know there’s a question I like to ask everybody, which is if you could go back to who you were when you started your business, and it wasn’t very long ago for you, what’s the 1 thing that you would advise him to do?
28:24 – 28:59
Rob Fegan : The first thing that I would do is I would just do it faster. And I know you joke about how quickly I’ve gotten to where I am, but I think looking back now and the amount of worry I put into different things like getting on video, like raising my prices, I would just tell myself don’t worry about it, you’re gonna make mistakes anyway, so don’t try and avoid them, just have them faster. And for me, that really is the 1 piece of advice is just do it, just execute and learn from your mistakes, take good notes
28:59 – 29:02
Rob Fegan : and try not to repeat those mistakes.
29:03 – 29:21
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, and just from the outside looking in, you iterated really quickly. Like when you’ve tried something and it works, you know, like you 5 X’d your prices in a quarter, but you’ve also backed out of things that didn’t work quickly too. So I think that’s been a really successful strategy for you.
29:22 – 29:52
Rob Fegan : Yeah, yeah. Well, if you have a moment, I’ll share a story of 1 that for me was just it really changed my outlook. And it goes back to the sort of leaps in the business and growing the business was, it was mid last year, I got a lot of advice to do some group coaching. People were like, you need to do group coaching. And I had hired a business coach or a couple of different business coaches and they had all said group coaching, group coaching. I thought, okay, I’m going to do group coaching and I’m all
29:52 – 30:09
Rob Fegan : in. I made the decision. I’m like, okay, I’m going to create people up on email. I’m going to get out there and really promote this And I think Jonathan made a joke about this in 1 of your other podcasts, The Business of Authority, is that the worst case scenario was 1 person signs up for your group coaching.
30:10 – 30:12
Rochelle Moulton: Yes, it’s always the worst.
30:12 – 30:47
Rob Fegan : Well, I got the 1 person, group coaching for 1 person. Oh. It was a phenomenal decision and it was a wonderful client and I still to this day spend time with them. So very fortunate that it happened but it made me sort of step back and say be true to myself is that that’s not the business I want to build. I don’t want to build a business where I’m pushing 100 people or 200 people into a program and just try to get them through that program as quickly and as successful as I can. I thrive on
30:47 – 31:14
Rob Fegan : that one-on-one contact, that one-on-one coaching and consulting. So it was a decision, I made it, I executed, and then I looked back and said, nope, we’re not gonna do that again. So yeah, I do, learning from your mistakes, executing quickly, and then not being married to them has been a really important factor for me is that I just, I try not to get married to any decision that I make. If it doesn’t work, I just let it go.
31:14 – 31:43
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and the thing that’s so interesting is it could have been had you stuck with a group coaching that your next round would have produced more because you were growing your audience, but what you recognized was, this isn’t me. Yeah. This isn’t me. I don’t like what I had to do to get my 1 person. I think it’s so important to figure out, what’s our genius zone and how can we spend as much of our time there as we possibly can. And it sounds like the group thing just didn’t ring your times.
31:43 – 32:01
Rob Fegan : It didn’t, no. I really realized that for me, the ability to spend time one-on-one with a client and really get to understand who they are, what their problems are, what they’re struggling with, that’s really what gets me excited when I want to just jump in both feet and help them solve.
32:02 – 32:12
Rochelle Moulton: I love it. So Rob, we’ll be putting all sorts of links to you and your content in the show notes, but where’s the best place for people to learn more about you?
32:12 – 32:27
Rob Fegan : Yeah, the best place is absolutely LinkedIn. I spend tons of time on there. It’s probably the 1 part of my business where I just get lost in it sometimes. I’m like, oh my goodness, I actually have other things I have to do. Please reach out to me on LinkedIn. That is the number 1 place to get all
32:27 – 32:38
Rochelle Moulton: to me. Well, thank you, Rob. I so appreciate your sharing your story and some of the stumbles, but some of the wins as well. So thank you so
32:38 – 32:40
Rob Fegan : much. This has been my pleasure, Rochelle.
32:40 – 32:48
Rochelle Moulton: I really have enjoyed it today. Well, that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time for the soloist life. Bye bye.
