Today I'm talking about leverage, the third
and final variable in the equation to turn
your expertise into scalable revenue.
In case you missed them last week, I talked
about the first and the second variable,
which is protection.
And the week before that, I talked about the first
variable, which is Audit.
So to briefly recap, we start with an audit to
make sure you understand what assets you currently
own and control in your business right now.
We want to know what assets we have and what
rights we need because we don't want to build
these new leveraged assets without owning
all of the rights.
Many of you ask me because you worry
about, , can I use this other resource?
Can I refer to this other expert?
And we do, we do our, audit to make sure
that we do own or control all the things
we want to include in our leveraged assets.
We don't want to be on the receiving
end of a cease and desist letter because
we're using materials that we do not own.
At best, you wasted money and momentum,
but at worst, you'll incur legal fees and
maybe even permanently damage your reputation.
Then the audit stage lays the foundation for the
second step protection.
You don't want to find out too late that you
failed to put into place protections that prevent
clients, subcontractors, and facilitators
from using your materials without you.
And that might be.
By infringement, or by permission, because we've
granted them the rights to use those, materials.
So we talk about that in the protection episode.
So, now we come to the 3rd and final
leg, which is leverage the plain meaning of
the word leverage is.
The application of a lever levers are machines
used to increase force.
In other words, a lever multiplies the
impact of our efforts In business terms,
leverage means increasing profitability, not just
increasing revenue.
We have leverage in our businesses where we can
increase revenue without also increasing costs,
or we decrease costs without also decreasing
revenue, preferably both.
Typically, we think of leverage, we think
about, digital products or online offerings,
things like courses and books, subscriptions, you
maybe even memberships, group coaching, and
absolutely each of these provides leverage with
one to many offers or one to several offers.
We create the materials once or we provide
our time once and we sell it to multiple.
parties.
So yes, and you can even have leveraged
one on one services.
So we can lower the cost of delivery of a one
on one service by using standards and procedures
by having framework, having models, having
templates in place.
These are all things that help us become more.
Efficient in delivering the service and therefore
decreasing the resources or the cost required to
deliver that service.
And remember that you and your time are the
most expensive resources in your business.
So anytime you're able to decrease your time
in the deliverable while maintaining
the price, you are increasing profitability.
That's leverage.
So what is the basis of every leveraged offer,
whether it is digital online course, a book,
or a leveraged one-on-one service assets that you
own and control before you can legally offer any
type of one-to-many or one-to-several product
or service you must own or have the right
to use those assets.
Let's talk about assets.
If you have followed me for a while, you know
that I like to ask my audience, is there a
Rembrandt in your attic?
For our expertise based businesses,
this question is the business equivalent of
a treasure hunt where we look for unidentified
and undervalued assets that are
hiding in plain sight.
Rembrandts are assets that are primed to
provide leverage in your business.
My favorite Rembrandts are assets that have
been created for internal purposes only.
So examine your business for these
or similar assets.
Framework, methodology, workbooks.
SOPs, models, even an email list, employee
training practices, market research
reports, white papers, industry insights,
resource libraries, databases, even your
online community.
Those Rembrandts that we just talked
about, those are the effort or the input.
Levers are tools and then leverage is the
output leverage is the magnification
of our efforts.
So, Rembrandts, these are things we put in place.
Upfront and we have those we incur those
costs upfront and then we create that Rembrandt.
So we put the effort up front to create models.
We put the effort in up front to
create as a piece.
We put the effort in up front to, put together
our database or to create our community
and then we are able to reap benefits over
time by using a lever.
To increase the output from those inputs.
Now, I don't think there's any such thing
as purely passive income because you do need
to put in the effort upfront to create
those Rembrandts.
They don't make themselves, but it's the
application of leverage from that investment
or effort that creates the conditions for
residual low input recurring revenue.
So those are the Rembrandts.
levers, some of the levers to apply to
your Rembrandts.
You can then use your Rembrandts to delegate.
Again, you're the most expensive resource in
your business, so you can delegate tasks
to less expensive resources, whether
internally or with an employee or externally
with a contractor, but you need to have some
of those Rembrandts in place to do that.
Systemization, when you have processes or
systems, you create efficiencies, whether
you're delivering yourself or again,
delivering with one of those other, resources
specialization when we are, Creating
communities, creating thought leadership,
developing insights, doing research.
We become the specialist and those things make
everything simpler.
You get better, higher referrals
and your expertise compounds over time.
Access is another lever.
you can sell subscriptions to those
Rembrandts, access to your community, access
to your, data, to your research, access
to your insights.
These all have values outside of your
business that you can use as levers.
And then last but not least licenses here,
we create an asset with the intention of
licensing to multiple.
Licensees.
So we talked about Rembrandts, which is
our input levers, which is the tool and then
leverage, which is our magnified output.
in a services based business, I like to think
of cloning yourself as the ultimate leverage
by developing a system that allows others to
deliver your services.
You free up time to focus on other tasks, but
still provide consistent customer experience and
continue to grow without sacrificing quality.
For example, let's a DEI training workshop.
written exercises, video scenarios, and
a trainer's manual.
You have, of course, registered
these in the U.
S.
Copyright Office.
Your workshop is in high demand, more demand than
you can satisfy alone.
One of your clients could keep you fully
occupied for a year you trained all of their
employees yourself.
you'd have no time left over for other
initiatives or for business development.
That's where clones come in.
I like to talk about four types of clones
that we can use to create leverage products,
employees, facilitators, and of course, licensees.
First products, books, courses, software,
and other DIY products are a great way to
diversify your revenue.
Depending on the desired result, the
customer may be able to get 100 percent of
the needs met with a product, but that is not
required for creating a valuable product.
Helping the customer advance toward their
goal with your expert advice is also valuable.
Also, you'll be able to reach a larger audience
of customers who might not be able to afford
your in person services, increasing your impact
and your brand awareness.
Employees, as founders, we are the most expensive
resource in our business.
A common method of cloning ourselves is
to use employees by hiring and training
individuals who can deliver your workshop.
You can free up your time for higher
level activities.
In addition to using less expensive resource
to deliver the service, employees reduce Risk.
If you're the only one delivering services,
what happens if you're ill or you hit a
wall with burnout?
Very few entrepreneurs have a plan for such
contingencies, which can devastate the business.
However, having employees deliver services
independently of you.
Can be very difficult if your clients are
only buying your time and not buying your
expertise, which you have, systematized or
product ties put into another package that can
be delivered without you.
Facilitators.
Outsourcing is a great way to expand your
business without taking on responsibility
of hiring and training employees.
Utilizing a facilitator or other subcontractor to
deliver your trainings is an especially effective
cloning technique.
When you have large corporate clients
who want several cohorts to receive
your training, you can serve the business.
That might otherwise dominate your time
while still being able to focus on other
parts of your business.
You protect your intellectual property
by entering into written agreements
with all facilitators that details the limits
of their use of your materials, ensures
that modifications or improvements will
be owned by you and prevents them from
poaching your clients.
This covered more in the last episode
about protection.
Last but not least licensees.
So we do this through licensing.
Licensing gives another party
permission to use your intellectual property
in exchange for a fee.
There are 2 types of licensees.
I'd like to talk about clients, your
current clients.
potential clients and other service providers.
You turn clients into licensees by training
their in house personnel to deliver your training.
That's also called the train the trainer model.
You turn other service providers into licensees
by licensing your IP to them so they
can provide your.
training to their own clients.
And again, that would be a license in
exchange for a fee.
Now I've heard from many of you that
you're concerned about your training being
reused by a client without you, more
importantly, or being stolen by competitors.
With a license agreement, you put in place the
structure to make sure that you're paid for all
uses of your training.
And it provides remedies for unauthorized use.
We've talked about several different
leverage strategies and to the surprise
of absolutely no one at the core of all
of those strategies is the development.
Ownership and protection of assets.
If we want to create scalable, leverageable
revenue streams in our business, we
must own assets.
And the reward for our investment in creating
and protecting our assets, and it is an
investment, is that we have that lever that
we can use to make our business more profitable
and more enjoyable.
This might be through IP based offerings
such as licensing or trainings, or it might
be through systemization or productization of
our one on one services.
What I love to do and what I look forward to
working with you with is helping you look at the
assets in your business.
Making sure that you're owning them, controlling
them and protecting them, measure them up with your
goals and your market, and finding out the
best way to maximize the value of your expertise.
I hope you've enjoyed this series.
Make sure you check out the last two
episodes as well.
If you haven't already, and remember,
ladies, IP is fuel.