Paul Higgins Podcast

Paul Higgins
  • 5.0 (36)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Biweekly

The Paul Higgins Podcast interviews the SaaS partners and platform leaders building consistent, cash-generating businesses on Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Microsoft, Monday, NetSuite, Acumatica, and more. Prior guests include Jay McBain (Chief Analyst, Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Omdia, and Channel Influencer of the Year), Sarah McDevitt (HubSpot), Heather Black (Salesforce), Marty Zigman (NetSuite), Brett Martin (Zoho), Barry Doucette (Microsoft), Robin Alex (GoHighLevel), Yash Tekriwal (Clay), Laurence Fitch (Slack), Gareth Pronovost (Airtable), Nick Sonnenberg (Asana), and Alex MacKay (Tequity). Host Paul Higgins helps SaaS partners escape the trap of billable hours, five verticals, and platform dependence, and move from lumpy months to consistent, cash-generating months. For episodes, show notes, and free resources, head to paulhigginsmentoring.com.

  1. 6d ago

    703 - You Can Beat Them At Everything And Still Lose

    You can beat the biggest partner in your ecosystem on content, on volume, on quality, and still finish the year at a quarter of their revenue with price as the only lever anyone hands you. In this episode I break down why that happens and what to do about it, starting with the rule Jack Welch laid down in a 1981 speech that almost nobody quotes correctly. Your platform, whether it is Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, or Microsoft, is a product, not a market, so the moment a buyer arrives the only question they can ask you is how much and how fast. I walk through the four moves that get you out of that queue, from reading back through your last 10 clients to find the industry where the scope held and you never bled hours, to packaging the fix as a priced outcome instead of billable time. If you are about to spend another year becoming a better version of a competitor you cannot beat, this one is for you. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 702 - Firing Your Agency Won't Get You More LeadsCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  2. Aug 31

    702 - Firing Your Agency Won't Get You More Leads

    Firing your agency won't get you more leads. I got on a call this week with an MSP owner in a market with over 2,500 providers, all deals mostly on price, who had burned two years and thousands of dollars on two different agencies with next to nothing to show for it. In this episode I break down why the problem was never the agency: it was that he had never picked who he serves, so every piece of content defaulted to generic, because generic is the only thing that fits everyone. I walk through the exact order that actually works, pick one type of client where your best results already live, rewrite your profile in your own words for that one buyer, and only then brief an agency or run the outreach yourself. If you've been throwing mud at the wall and blaming whoever's holding the bucket, this one's about the decision only you can make. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 701 - Why AI Makes You More Valuable, Not Less, with Sarah McDevitt Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  3. Aug 27

    701 - Why AI Makes You More Valuable, Not Less, with Sarah McDevitt

    Why you should listen Sarah McDevitt, a HubSpot leader and first-time author, breaks relational intelligence into five practical signals (Awareness, Presence, Empathetic Structuring, Connection Capital, and Human Differentiation) you can use to become the partner a client cannot swap out for a tool.Learn how to be a "context miner" in every meeting: the way sharp partners use full presence to extract how a business actually makes decisions, then feed that context into their AI agents to get outputs generic prompts cannot match.Get Sarah's read on where the retainer money moves next as AI creates a wave of "vibe coded" messes, plus the governance and platform cohesion work partners can charge for when customers realize they need one person to own the whole stack. You have spent years getting deep on the platform, and now AI can do a slice of that build work in minutes, so a quiet question sits at the back of your mind: what is a partner actually for now? In this episode, I talk with Sarah McDevitt, a HubSpot leader and first-time author of The Round Table, about relational intelligence, which she defines as the ability to build, sustain, and grow trust-based relationships that AI cannot replicate. We get into why the skills AI makes less scarce do not make you less useful, and why so many partners have their identity wrapped up in the exact technical work that is now being handed to agents. Sarah has spent years watching what separates the partners who stay in the room from the ones who get swapped out, and almost none of it is technical. If your value has always lived in the build, and you can feel that ground shifting under you, this conversation is about where your value goes next. About Sarah McDevitt Sarah McDevitt is the Senior Director of Partner Strategy at HubSpot, where she leads a global community of more than 7,000 partners through AI transformation. A native of Sligo and now based in Dublin, Sarah is the creator of the Relational Intelligence framework and the author of her first book, The Round Table: How Relational Intelligence Will Become Your Human Advantage in the AI Age. Her core thesis, "RI + AI = Trust," argues that the smartest organizations use AI to strengthen human relationships rather than replace them. A TEDx speaker and advocate whose work spans hybrid team leadership and responsible AI adoption, Sarah helps partners see that as technical skills become less scarce, the ability to build trust becomes their most valuable and defensible asset. Resources and Links Sarah McDevitt on The Paul Higgins Podcast: Episode 642 - Stop Being a Platform Expert - Why Business Growth Advisors Win in the AI Era with Sarah McDevittHubspot.comSarah McDevitt on LinkedIn20VC podcastNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 694 - The 60% ShiftCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  4. Aug 24

    700 - Free content kept me poor

    You subscribe to the newsletters, listen to the podcasts, watch the videos, sit in the partner events, and every quarter your revenue still falls behind the target you set for yourself. The smartest SaaS partners I know are usually the most stuck, and it is not because they are missing information, it is because they have too much of it. In this episode I tell the truth about my own trap: after I sold my business I decided I had all the frameworks and could coach myself, and that lasted about a month before I was back to 60-hour weeks spinning my wheels. I share the two decisions I made when I finally re-engaged my own coach, one about who I serve and one about what I sell, and how those same two moves reshaped my clients' businesses too. If your target is not moving no matter how much you consume, this one is for you, because you cannot read the label from inside the jar. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 699 - AI will expose youCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  5. Aug 10

    699 - AI will expose you

    Look at your last ten projects and ask an uncomfortable question: how many could the platform's own AI agent do most of within the next two years? For a lot of SaaS partners, the honest answer is most of them, and that is exactly the implementation, configuration, and migration work paying the bills right now. In this episode, I break down why AI is not going to replace you, it is going to expose you, and what actually gets exposed once the repetitive setup work starts to shrink. I share the call Chris, a Salesforce partner, made when he picked one industry and said no to everything else: revenue dipped for three to six months, then came back at a higher margin with less rework because he stopped learning every client's business from scratch. If you are spread across five verticals, known well enough to configure but not well enough to advise, this is the one decision that determines whether AI multiplies you or exposes you. Resources and Links Chris Widmayer on The Paul Higgins Podcast: Episode 691 - Why Going All-In on One Vertical Beat Staying a Generalist with Chris WidmayerNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 698 - SaaS is DeadCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  6. Aug 3

    698 - SaaS is Dead

    Every podcast in our space is telling you AI has killed SaaS, and not one of them can name a client who has actually walked away from their platform. In this episode, I show you why the "AI replaces the platform" story does not hold up right now, and where your attention actually belongs instead. Here is the test I run before I believe any of it: not what a guest or a host predicts, but what a client has actually done. The gap between "AI can build software" and "I will rebuild and maintain the tool I depend on daily" is enormous, and almost nobody's clients have closed it. So before you rip up your ICP over a threat that never shows up, ask what is actually costing you clients today: weak lead flow and conversions, not a version of your business AI might take in three years. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 697 - Five Verticals Feels Safe. It's the Riskiest Thing You Do.Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  7. Jul 27

    697 - Five Verticals Feels Safe. It's the Riskiest Thing You Do.

    The decision that scares you most is the one keeping you stuck, and the fear talking you out of it has a name: eggs in one basket. In this episode, I break down why that fear is a lie for SaaS partners spread thin across five verticals, and the two tests that kill it in under a week. I share how one client I work with crossed $100,000 a month for the first time with zero dollars spent on marketing, after finally committing to the one vertical he had avoided for years. You will hear why counting the real size of a market beats trusting the nerves, and why a niche you can reverse in 90 days is a test, not a bet. If you are tired of rewriting your pitch for every call and being shallow in five places while AI eats shallow for breakfast, this one is for you. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 696 - Wrong ProblemCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

  8. Jul 20

    696 - Wrong Problem

    You are about to spend months solving a problem you have never actually counted, and the real cost is not the wasted build, it is every move you do not make while you are stuck in it. In this episode, I break down three Slack conversations I had with SaaS partners in two weeks, each one convinced the complex solution was the answer: a platform migration, a staged AI email sequence, a full LinkedIn outreach system. In each case, one question flipped it, like the partner ready to switch platforms until he counted that the platform cost him $11,000 in lost deals while spreadsheets and homegrown builds cost him $140,000. I show you why AI can build the plan but can never tell you whether the problem is even yours, and the three simple moves that test the real constraint before you commit. If you are a SaaS partner staring down a major build, this is the glass of ice water, and the question is whether you will drop the O-ring in first. Resources and Links Need help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 695 - Stop Doing the Delivery Yourself: A Smarter Way to Add Capacity with Jim MarascioCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

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5
out of 5
36 Ratings

About

The Paul Higgins Podcast interviews the SaaS partners and platform leaders building consistent, cash-generating businesses on Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Microsoft, Monday, NetSuite, Acumatica, and more. Prior guests include Jay McBain (Chief Analyst, Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Omdia, and Channel Influencer of the Year), Sarah McDevitt (HubSpot), Heather Black (Salesforce), Marty Zigman (NetSuite), Brett Martin (Zoho), Barry Doucette (Microsoft), Robin Alex (GoHighLevel), Yash Tekriwal (Clay), Laurence Fitch (Slack), Gareth Pronovost (Airtable), Nick Sonnenberg (Asana), and Alex MacKay (Tequity). Host Paul Higgins helps SaaS partners escape the trap of billable hours, five verticals, and platform dependence, and move from lumpy months to consistent, cash-generating months. For episodes, show notes, and free resources, head to paulhigginsmentoring.com.

Information

  • Creator
    Paul Higgins
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    300
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Paul Higgins
  • Show Website
    Paul Higgins Podcast