Paul Higgins Podcast

Why you should listenDima Negodiuk had never written a line of code when he arrived in the US after losing almost everything. He now runs six businesses on AI agents and spends about two hours each morning approving or denying what they have prepared.Learn Dima's audit-first approach: a free light audit to find the first fix, then a heavy audit that sits inside the team's daily workflow and turns into a step-by-step build plan the owner can pick from. In one audit it uncovered roughly $100,000 in missed, unpaid invoices.Get his practical safety rules for AI agents: set a token budget before you build, add a second model or a plain calculator to check the first, and never let an agent touch money without a human pressing approveYour clients keep asking about AI agents, and you are still not sure whether to build them yourself or stay in your Zoho, HubSpot, or NetSuite lane and bring someone in. In this episode, I talk with Dima Negodiuk, an AI automation consultant who rebuilt his life as an entrepreneur after leaving Ukraine and now runs six businesses with agents doing most of the work. He started out not knowing what a terminal was, sending screenshots to ChatGPT one step at a time, and that beginner's lens is exactly why his view cuts through the hype. We get into what an agent really is, where they go wrong, and the honest trade-off between your time and someone else's practice. If you have been feeling like the AI train already left without you, this conversation will change how you see your next move.About Dima NegodiukDima (Dmytro) Negodiuk is the founder of Negodiuk AI Consulting in Brooklyn, New York, where he builds AI systems inside small and mid-size businesses, typically companies doing $1M to $10M in revenue. Before AI, he spent more than a decade as an entrepreneur in Ukraine, co-building a distribution business that supplied retail chains across eight countries. When the war forced his family to leave Kyiv in 2022, he arrived in New York having lost most of what he had built, with no coding background. Rather than rehire the sales, marketing, and support departments he once ran, he taught himself to build AI agents, starting with his own Amazon e-commerce brand. He now runs six businesses, from paint to his AI consultancy, without a traditional team, and helps owners hand their most repetitive work to AI. Dima offers free guidance on LinkedIn to anyone starting out with AI.Resources and Linksnegodiuk.aiDima Negodiuk on LinkedInNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 711 - The Monday partner who 10x'd his deals by never mentioning MondayCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

You are brilliant at the tech, and that is exactly why your deals keep stalling at the same number. You run the 60 minute demo, share the screen, grind through the features, send the proposal, then get silence, a price objection, or "we will circle back." In this episode, I break down what changed when one Monday.com partner stopped talking about the platform on his calls: his average deal had sat around $10,000 for years, and six months after that one shift it crossed six figures, with the same tech, the same certifications, and the same delivery team. Buyers do not buy platforms, they buy where they end up, and most partners are still selling the plane instead of the destination. If every discovery call turns into a feature tour and you keep losing on price, this is the shift to make before your next one.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 710 - Your Vendor Won't Warn You the Wallet Is MovingCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Your vendor referral pipeline has quietly slowed over the last six months, and you cannot put your finger on what changed. In this episode, I explain why the deals that would have been a certain size last year are landing at less than half, and why your platform will never be the one to warn you. I have spent 35 years on the partner side of the two biggest franchises in the world, Coca-Cola and then SaaS, always the side making the truck run, never the one holding the secret formula, and the pattern repeating now is one I watched play out at Coke 20 years ago. The wallet is moving, AI is compressing the work partners used to bill for, and the vendor's share price depends on you not noticing. If you are the number one partner in your platform community and have nowhere else to send your business, this is the bet worth looking at before it gets made for you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 709 - The Brand Gets Rich. The Bike Shop Doesn't.Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Your commission cheque is smaller than it used to be, the leads your platform sends you have slowed to a trickle, and every month there seem to be more partners fighting over the same deals. In this episode, I share a conversation I had with someone deep inside the HubSpot ecosystem about where the partner model is heading, from falling lifetime commissions to Salesforce territories starting to overlap. The picture that stuck with me was the bike shop. The big brands market brilliantly and sell a great product, yet most of the dealers carrying them barely make money, propped up by a brand that will be fine either way. Consolidation is coming, and partners will either merge, add platforms, exit, or rebuild themselves. If you have ever wondered whether you own a business or just run a dealership, this one is for you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 708 - You're selling the pieces. Not the puzzle.Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

You built AI into your delivery this year, your team ships faster, and your close rate is still sitting exactly where it was at the start of the year. In this episode, I break down why that happens, and why it is the same shift accountants faced 20 years ago when software started eating their compliance work. The ones who survived stopped selling the pieces and started selling the puzzle, while the ones who stayed stuck poured their best hours into delivery no customer ever sees. I walk through the free move that turns the work you already do into a named, customer-facing methodology, and why selling hours lets AI compress your revenue while selling methodology grows your margins. If every deal still comes down to price and your customers cannot tell you apart from the other partners on your platform, this one is for you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 707 - One Coffee. One Insider. Six Months Off Your Build.Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Your prospects can tell within about 10 minutes of a Zoom call that you don't really know their industry. In this episode, I share the coffee meeting that stopped me from launching a hotel and cafe service line at Coca-Cola that would have made me the laughing stock of the trade, and the one detail 50 trade articles never mentioned. I break down what an industry coach is (not a professional coach, but a peer with 20 or 30 years of operating scars and nothing to sell you), why most SaaS partners resist finding one, and what the ask looks like in verticals like estate law, industrial automation, and MSPs. I finish with three questions you can answer before you build your next vertical offer. If you've picked your niche but still catch yourself using platform words instead of industry words, this one's for you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 706 - Your P&L Is Lying About Your MarginCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Your P&L says you made 60 percent margin last year. The real number could be half of that, and it is not an accounting error, it is the hours you spend on delivery costed at zero. In this episode, I break down a partner agency I evaluated for acquisition that looked healthy on paper, until we moved the founder's delivery hours out of drawings and into the cost of delivery and watched the net profit collapse. I show you why drawings quietly doing the work of a salary means you are subsidizing your own business and calling that subsidy profit, and the one adjustment that rebuilds your pricing on the truth. If your margin feels fine but your bank keeps raising an eyebrow at your numbers, this is the reality check to run before your next pricing decision.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 705 - Being a certified partner is not a business.Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Your certification feels like the asset. It is closer to a rented seat on someone else's platform, and AI is quietly pulling the chair out from under it. In this episode, I break down a conversation with a peer of mine, an ex-client who built a Zoho consultancy from scratch, kept a strong team, and retains clients better than almost anyone I know, and still cannot sell the thing he built. So he is starting a second business in parallel, and it looks nothing like the first: one vertical, one buyer, one price, 72 percent his own software and 28 percent platform. I walk through why setup and implementation work is drying up, what stays billable when it does, and the difference between a partner sitting in a trap and a partner working a plan. If your revenue still leans on selling licenses and billing implementations, this is the shift worth hearing before the vendor forces it on you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 704 - You Can Beat Them At Everything And Still LoseCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

You are one of forty partners on your platform, and every website, every LinkedIn profile, and every pitch says the same three lines: Salesforce implementation, Zoho work, Monday builds, HubSpot onboarding. In this episode, I break down the WHO decision that separates the partner who owns a vertical from the forty who blend into the directory. I share how one Monday partner became the only name listed under nonprofits, then did the part almost nobody does: she rewrote the product's own language for that buyer, renaming the CRM as a DRM so donors, donations, and households replaced leads, opportunities, and pipeline. Sales slowed while she made the pivot and two verticals stopped feeding her, but she held the line, and now the platform sends her the nonprofit deals. If you are tired of competing against partners who sound exactly like you, this one shows you the two moves that let the right buyer find you first.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 703 - You Can Beat Them At Everything And Still LoseCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

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 LinksNeed 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