Hello everyone.
Welcome to my last Wednesday of the
month LinkedIn Live.
I come here every last Wednesday of
the month at noon eastern to talk
about issues that are important to
you in building a scalable and
hopefully someday saleable expertise
based business.
So this week we're gonna talk about
cloning yourself.
How to increase your income and
your impact.
So this is a very timely one.
I had some interesting
conversation yesterday about
this very topic, and so when I talk
about clones, this comes on the heels.
I think it was this week that I
released, a podcast episode about ai
where you can use ai like literally to
clone yourself and do complete videos
and your voice and.
Everything.
and, to create things that c
clone yourself.
So I'm not talking about that kind
of cloning today.
Today I'm talking about human clones,
who can deliver the same or similar
results that your clients come to you
for, but without you having to do
that work personally to create some
independence in your business.
And so, We do that of course, by having
something that we can teach other
people, we need to have some sort of
system, whether it is a methodology
or a framework or training
materials or a workshop, something
that allows a third party or.
A third thing we wanna call a
product that, to be able to replicate,
the results that you provide to
your clients on a one-on-one basis.
And so I wanna just, tell you a
story about a woman who was in a group
coaching program I had a couple years
ago now, and she.
Did.
I wish I could remember exactly
what she called it, but basically
she was like an empath of some
sort and she was a business consultant
and she had a way of connecting
with her clients and using her.
Intuition.
I know that's not the word that
she would use, but she kind of,
the energy of her clients and she
would work with them to help them make
business decisions.
And so it would be very difficult for
someone, for her to clone herself.
someone would have to have her
same talents that.
Most of us don't have, and that
you probably can't teach and that are,
something that you are born with and
that, so it would be pretty hard for her
to clone herself.
But if you're like most of us, where
we have used our experience and,
Our training and our education and
our, grown our expertise over time.
Emotional intelligence,
I like that.
to help us, provide the services, the
excellent services that we provide
to our clients.
Those are things that can
be packaged.
In a way that other people can help
us deliver them.
this is not going to be about mindset,
but I do wanna just say this
about the idea of, what you do.
Is magical.
The transformations that you provide
your clients are magical and that
is why they're highly valued.
But those can be delivered in more
than one way and by more than one person
for the most of us.
And so, being able to, to.
Let go of some of that control
by allowing other people to deliver
your services is a step in, creating
that independence that you really want
in your business and be able to do,
work with other clients, work on
other projects, create new programs,
do other, higher level strategy work.
These are all things that require us to.
Let other people clones, if you will
help us deliver some of these services.
So I'm going to use an example so we
can talk through the stages of
cloning ourselves using, this example.
So, You are a D E I A consultant.
You developed a workshop, include
written exercises, maybe you have some
video, vignettes and a discussion
guide and a training manual.
And your workshop is in very high
demand and it is demand that you
can't meet yourself.
And so maybe even I, hear this from,
people in this space who have
clients who have.
offices all over the country, and
they want you to deliver your
workshop to all of their employees all
over the country, and that could keep
you fully occupied for an entire year,
keeping you from doing other things
in your business, keeping you from
servicing other clients, keeping you
from creating other programs, keeping
you from working on your thought
leadership, keeping you from taking
a vacation, or seeing your family.
And so in order to satisfy this
increased demand, there are a
number of options.
And so those clones that could help you
satisfy that demand include employees,
facilitators, licensees,
and products.
And we will take these one at a time.
So employees, that is a way
to help satisfy that demand with
internal resources.
I mean, we all probably started
as employees, you know, unless you're
Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or
Elizabeth Holmes, go forbid, we started
as employees, and so we understand
that from that side.
But as an employer, Sometimes we forget
that we are the most expensive resource
in our business because there are
some higher level strategy, thought
leadership, personal appearances,
speaking, things like that, that.
Require us.
And so when there are, established
workshops or trainings or
frameworks that you can train
other people to deliver, then that
is an efficient way to service
those, that access demand using those
internal resources.
Now, I'm not going to pretend that
the only expense with having an
employee is just their salary.
I mean, we know there's a lot
more of that to it than that.
Not to mention, taxes and, benefits,
but there is that emotional cost
and psychological cost to having
an employees, to ask someone
to, leave their current employer.
And come to you.
And now you are now not only responsible
for the care and feeding of your
family, you're now also responsible
for the care and feeding of their
families as well.
And so if you're not ready for the
responsibility of employees, there
are a number of external resources
that can help you fill that demand to
serve your clients.
So outsourcing.
Facilitators, again, using that,
HR consultant scenario, you may
have a different type of business,
maybe a management consultant or
graphic design or something else, but
facilitators are a great way when
you're providing workshops with
to your clients that you use an
outsourced freelance facilitator.
who are skilled in facilitating
workshops to help you meet some
of that demand.
And so in the facilitator example
versus the licensee example, which we'll
talk about next facilitator example,
they are using your materials, your
workshops to service your clients.
And so even though they're servicing
your clients, this is a contractual
relationship.
we want to make sure that it is
properly documented.
I imagine you have relationships with
facilitators and hopefully you do
as part of your network, but you
still want to have a formal facilitator
agreement with them.
And there are a number of
reasons why.
One, to make sure you're on the
same page about.
delivery and about, payment, but also
that relationship with the client,
that relationship is yours.
But you wanna have a way to determine
like, in what ways will the facilitator
be part of that conversation?
If something goes wrong, if something
needs to be rescheduled, if God
forbid the client doesn't pay, like,
then what happens?
so you need to have all these
things addressed in your facilitator.
Agreement as well as they're going
to be using your materials, do you
want them to follow it, by the tea
or can they use some of their own?
Experience to bring some of
their own genius to the workshop,
if you will.
And what if they have some
ideas about how to improve it?
Who owns that?
What if they have something like,
oh, I remember this exercise that
I used last year with a similar
client and they.
Decide to bring that exercise and
make that part of the program,
what happens then?
So you just wanna make sure all these
things are set out in your agreement.
contracts are just about the, whatever
the parties decide it will cover.
And so you just need to make sure
that you're covering these things ahead
of time so that everyone is on
the same page.
So that's your facilitators
now as opposed to licensees.
Now with your licensees, we have
these two types.
One that's competitor license,
another client, but your competitor
license is another service provider.
Unlike the facilitator,
they're going to be licensing
your workshop and using it to serve
their own clients, and so a license
is an agreement to use somebody
else's intellectual property.
Again, this is something you
absolutely want to have in writing.
the thing about your competitor is,
maybe you're, that D E I A expert,
maybe they're just a D E I expert
and they haven't figured out the
accessibility part yet, but you have.
And so they come to you and like,
Hey, I really need an accessibility
module to add to my program.
Can I license yours?
Maybe it makes sense to just license that
accessibility piece.
Maybe you only want for them to use
your program in its totality because
it all builds on each other and it's
all integrated.
so there are different ways
to structure a license, again,
as a contract.
the term, you mean the length
of the license?
The, any restrictions
regarding use?
what happens if someone, creates
improvements?
if they are mixing, one of your modules
with one of their modules, making
sure those rights.
Stay separate.
what happens with, your existing
clients, like you are creating
competitors that are using your
program, and so, Some restrictions in
there about who they can use it with.
Maybe you specialize in working with
law firms and so you don't really
want them to use it with law firms,
so you can put that restriction in
there, that they can use it with these
other industries, but not with, the
legal industry.
And of course, the license fee.
So the terms of how you'll get paid
for their use of your workshop, and
that might be on an annual basis.
They pay you one flat fee and they
can use it as many times as they want
during the year, or maybe it's.
Every time they deliver it, that you
get a piece of that.
and so again, these are all
things that you wanna have in your
license agreement.
The other type of licensee is your
client licensee, so you're turning
your client into a licensee.
If we go back to that, Big client who
has multiple offices and could keep
you busy all year.
Maybe instead of you going all around
the country for a year to train
everyone in person.
You license the workshop to your
client and they.
Be use an internal facilitator.
They use someone on their team to
be the facilitator or facilitators
and provide your workshops
to the rest of their employees.
That's also known as the train the
trainer model.
And in this case, you are still
servicing them, but you're not
doing it on a one on one basis.
these are two, even though they seem
similar, they're pretty different.
One, I mean, obviously one
you're creating competitors.
The other, your clients probably
are not going to be your competitors.
So there are some differences there
and some different protections that
you'd wanna have in your license
agreement.
But the other thing is that they're
completely different market, right?
So, Currently you understand your
client, you know their pain points,
you know where you fish for them,
where to find them.
And so your sales process for that
may be very similar.
You have this one-on-one option
or in-person option, I should say,
and you have this license option.
And so depending on the client,
they may have.
Preferences, what, which way
to go versus your competitor
is completely different market.
They have different issues.
Their roi, the investment will look
very different to them than it does
for your client.
And so you need to think pretty
carefully about whether or not
you want to, have basically
two different businesses, when you
go that competitor, licensee route.
So those are two ways to have to
fill that with external sources.
So products, those DIY ways of getting
the results, or at least most of
the results that they would get by
hiring you directly, maybe books,
maybe prerecorded courses, maybe
software, depending on the nature of.
The results that you provide, and
this is a great way to, one, get
client diversity.
with your in-person workshops, I imagine
there's lots of similarity about the
type of client that you work with and if
they're big enough, maybe you only have
one client, which is kind of the worst
kind of client.
Diversity, of course, but having
other options at different
price points.
I mean, you can have different types of
clients and you can serve, maybe, parts
of the community that you were not
able to serve with your in-person
services and adding.
Products is additive.
I mean, it doesn't replace, or I mean
if you don't want it to, it doesn't
replace your in-person services,
but it adds a new revenue stream using
your intellectual property, which
is, of course one of the things I
talk about all the time, to create
that new IP based revenue stream.
So, to no one's surprise, it is
all about that intellectual
property.
So developing it, owning it, and
protecting it.
And so to talk about the ownership piece
for a minute, a lot of consultants
and coaches get certifications and
they will receive.
Materials, maybe they'll get an
assessment tool.
Maybe they'll get some workbooks
and things that they use in their
in-person services.
But those things are licensed to them.
Licensed to you as the case may be,
and you may but probably do not
have the right to further license.
That would be a sub license, those
materials that you've received.
So when you're looking at.
Creating a licensing program either
with your client or with a competitor,
or creating a product, you need
to make sure that you actually own
the things that will be elements
in that, because if they're licensed
from someone else, you need to be very
careful that you are not in breach
of that license.
So implementing the clothing process
back to the systems and procedures.
if right now you're just using
your brilliance, you wanna start
documenting that brilliance, so
have some systems and you have some
procedures that you will be able.
To train your clones on whether
they're employees.
You still need systems and
processes.
If you, use facilitators,
they need it.
If you use licensees, of
course they need it as well.
So you start with making sure you
are systematizing and proceduralizing
your, process.
Contracts.
obviously as an employer you have
certain, rights under employment
laws, but for your licensees
and for your facilitators, that
is a contractual relationship.
And in order to make sure you're
maintaining control of how
your intellectual property is being
used, you want to have written
agreements that are signed by
the parties.
And then registration.
What we've been talking about are
things that would be registered
under, the US copyright office,
protected under copyright law, and.
As you know, if you've followed
me for a while, upon creation of
original materials, the copyright vests
in the creator.
And so you don't have to register it
for that copyright to vest in you,
but you do need to register it if
you want a court of law to help you
enforce your rights.
So anything that is going to be
used to directly create revenue.
I recommend registration.
So certainly any product you're going
to sell, you wanna have it registered.
Your workshops that you deliver
to that are the sort main source
of revenue should be registered.
And when you're doing a license
agreement, you want the subject of that
license agreement to be registered
in the copyright office as well.
So, the key.
Registration agreements and, of
course tracking.
you don't know what you don't know if
you're not tracking the rights that are
coming into your business and the
rights are going out of your business,
and that is how you make sure that you
retain control of your, expertise.
And so another thing that came up
yesterday during conversation is,
wanting to spread your message as
widely as you can and what you do.
You believe in what you do, you
believe in the transformation that
you provide, and you want other people
to have access to, the results.
And I would argue that that is even.
More important that you have these
things in place to make sure that
you're controlling the integrity of
the materials that you put together to
the workshops and the delivery and
the results that people are getting.
it's not selfish to want to make
sure that your materials are being
used responsibly.
And that they're being used
competently and that people are
getting the promised results and that
requires you to take some control
of that process.
So that is, the what I wanted to share
with you today.
And so thank you so much for that
and I'd be happy to take any questions
that you have.
All right, so you know where
to find me.
You can always find me@thinkbeyondip.com.
You know, if you.
Couple of any questions later on,
or if you're just shy, connect with me
on LinkedIn or send me an email at Erin
think beyond ip.com.
And of course, this is being recorded
as a podcast episode as well, so you
can also rehear it if you haven't
gotten enough of it.
at Hourly to Exit podcast, you could
find that at all of your podcast
distributing.
Places.
so thanks again for joining me and
I'm always happy to cover topics of
interest to you.
So also, please feel free to send
me any questions that you have or any
topics that you'd like me to cover.
Thanks again.