I Thought My Problem Was Marketing. It's Not.

0:00My name is Alberto. I own a software consulting firm based in Puerto Rico. So, we do software businesses and automation, mostly for government agencies, just because in Puerto Rico that's the biggest customer. So, we started exporting a few years ago and it's going good. Um Um we are exporting >> What? >> pay no taxes or do you have to pay taxes? >> We we can we can have that conversation later. >> Yeah.

0:24Yeah. >> We pay we pay less taxes compared to >> We pay less taxes on exports. >> Yeah, yeah, of course. >> And we do >> Export services. >> And we get tax credits on R&D. We are at the 4 million mark and I put in the intake form 10 million just because I want to get out of that place. >> Sure. >> Um but I really after doing the EBITDA exercise yesterday, I think I want to I want to do 20 to 50.

0:50>> Okay. >> Just so I can grow my multiple and maybe exit. >> Sure. >> Um my biggest problem when I came here, I thought it was marketing and sales. >> Mhm. >> And after being here 2 days, I think it's hiring and focus. >> Okay. >> Um we do very little ad spend, like very little. >> Okay. >> Almost less than 5,000 a month or less than 1,000 a month. >> Well, government's your your customer, right?

1:18>> Yeah. >> I mean, are they res- is the government responding to ads? That's a real question and like genuine question. >> Yeah, yeah. Well, we get we get appointments, yeah. >> From people who work at agencies? >> Yeah, they need they have needs and >> You're the first person I've actually ever heard >> Well, it's not the federal government in Puerto Rico is kind of a little bit different. >> [laughter] >> It's the government. Got it. >> Um okay. >> But but we we have found traction by outsourcing services to companies in the US

1:45>> Okay. >> that have to do the business or the software inside of the US. >> Right. >> But they want a cheaper price or less expensive. >> Okay. >> And so we have been getting traction with those clients. Um for the federal government, not directly. >> Okay. >> Um so uh we want to increase the revenue. >> So let me ask the question. So you said that you feel like you're stuck. Is focus, which I'll get to you in a second, and the other was manpower, right?

2:13>> Yeah. >> Okay, so right now, if we go through all this thing, do you have more business than you can handle? >> Uh no, I could I could do more business with the people I have on hand. >> Okay, so then do you still feel like you're manpower constrained? >> Well, maybe not the right people for the right job. Um on marketing, we're doing very little videos and we have a production >> But all that stuff is demand. >> What? >> All that's demand, though. >> Yeah. I should be doing more. >> delivery-wise. >> I'm okay.

2:40>> Okay. >> I can do more with what I can I can get up to 6 million with what I have right now. >> Got it. So you have a 50% that's sitting there. >> Uh when I meant hiring, I think it it's more in the sales um sales people. >> But you are demand constrained. >> Yeah. >> Okay. You could use more customers than than you have. >> Yeah. >> Okay. But to get more customers, you need to get leads and then convert those leads, right? The getting lead side the ads seem to work okay.

3:06>> Yeah. >> Okay. So then down funnel, right? So is it that the sales rep that you have is fully allocated or that they can't close the door? >> No training, no scripting. I learned all that yesterday. >> Yeah, those are important. >> Yeah, they I have like a few unicorns that they go out and do face-to-face and they close leads, but I have only two. >> Okay. >> And uh I used to do that myself. I I wanted it to get out of that area.

3:33>> Yeah. >> And um so I that's what I learned yesterday that I need to systematize the selling process because I'm an engineer myself, so I'm I was very good on SOPs for the operating area. >> Okay. >> But I have no sales experience. I used I used I don't know if I want to say I was lucky enough to be able to talk to clients and sell them. >> Yeah. >> Um and then I trained a few people that are doing that job. >> Got it.

3:59>> But only two. And I was talking to one of your guys and he said like 35 people in the team and setters, closers. I never thought of it that way. >> Yeah. >> So that's why I said a focus problem maybe because um I never thought of that. Like I never thought >> say it's a focus issue. I'd say it's an ignorance issue. >> Ignorance, yeah. >> Yeah, which is fine. We all are ignorant. We all don't know a lot of things that we should know. Um okay. So uh it sounds like you know the answer to your question, which is that you need to build an entire sales system.

4:28>> Well, I learned it here, so >> Yeah. Um well, I think you should do that. Um uh >> the the advertising? Like uh one of your guys said that I should be posting more. I do very little posting like from my account. >> If you let more people know about your stuff, you it's unlikely that you'll make less money. Um that being said, the point of the theory of constraints is to focus on what the rate limiter of the business is. And so right now, if you can just dial up your spend and then you would have more leads than your current guys can handle, the constraint is sales. And so whenever you have a whenever you have a pipeline, as long as you have no supply constraint, any increase on any like you could get your page to convert better, you could get your ads click-through rate to go up, you could all of these things will will yield an increase in throughput if you're not supply constrained. But the choke point of the business is sales cuz if you improve your landing page, they're booked out. If you improve your ads, they're booked out. There's nothing you can do here. So this is the rate limiter. So we do this and then we can we can basically push more in the front end. So the second step would be increasing the marketing. The first is that we have to increase sales capacity.

5:31>> Fix that. Yes. All right. >> This was good. This was fun. >> Yeah, thank you. >> If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling roadmap that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you can click here and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free. And since you're a business owner, I appreciate you and enjoy.