Eps 100 -  From Hourly to Exit: Reflecting on Three Years and a New Direction Transcript

Erin Austin: All right, I lost my script. Here it is. All right, today is an exciting milestone for the hourly to exit podcast. This is episode 100, and it is also the last episode, at least for now, I'll be taking the summer off. And when I return in the fall, we will have a new title and a new brand that reflects the evolution of my thinking over the last three years.

It's hard to believe it's been 3 years since I started the podcast. So I love to talk about the hourly to exit journey, moving from that unscalable hourly billing model to moving to a revenue model that is scalable. And to build a business that we can hopefully sell someday. But if you've been hanging around here for a little while, you know, that my focus has really been on the legal protections required to create leverage.

So no protection, no leverage that has been kind of the thumb, the, the drum I've been beating on a lot. And so looking forward, uh, expect to find a lot more information that's Lane, which is that legal protection regarding creating leverage. It's better for you. You know, I can really give you a lot more value from focusing on your questions.

And I get lots of questions about, uh, how to, uh, uh, make sure you're protecting your expertise. And it also helps me better define my market position, you know, the hourly to exit title. Great title, love that title, but people think I'm an exit planner sometimes, or they think I'm a business coach and I am not.

I am a lawyer. So speaking of business coaches and exit planners, you know, those are great referral partners. I love working with them. You know, it is not. Possible to build a scalable or saleable expertise based business without having those legal protections in place using the power of intellectual property law and contracts.

So we make perfect partners. So letting go of the title is. Kind of, you know, I, I just love the title. I really like it. It's so cool. I, and I really like it, but at the end of the day, I really do want to make sure, you know, clever, you know, being clear is always better than being clever. I know a wise man told me that, uh, I think it was Jonathan Stark actually.

And speaking of which, um, you know, when I first chose the title hourly exit, it was in response to something that Jonathan said about creating like that solar system that you talk about. And when you are starting a podcast you're thinking, how am I going to like find enough topics to talk about. Uh, you know, you're looking at this blank screen of, you know, uh, deciding what.

What you're going to talk about week in and week out, you know, having the biggest solar system possible made a lot of sense. And there was some comfort in it, you know, by going with hourly to exit everything from that entire journey, including, uh, to selling the business. And, um, and so it made a ton of sense, but now as.

My work with you has, has, uh, developed, you know, getting feedback from you, hearing the things that you're worried about, the questions that you have, uh, it has made it really clear that my focus should be really digging in on the protection of your expertise. And so now the future content will emit from a single bright star.

And that is, you know, how. To protect your expertise so that you can grow legally, safely, and profitably. And those three elements growing legally, we think about, do I own what I think I own, and if I don't own it, do I have the right to use it very important to make sure that you have the legal rights to use the elements in your training or product.

And I talk about. You know, the increased risk when we move from one on one services to one to several to one to many. So it's really important to make sure we have the legal rights to use those elements, uh, safely. We want to be able to get our ideas out there without losing control of them. People play small because they're afraid people are going to steal their stuff.

How do we make sure that you can grow safely? And we don't, we want to make sure we have the protections in place to make sure that our competitors and our clients aren't using or reusing Our work without our permission or without getting paid for it. And then we want to be able to grow profitably.

That's when we get the leverage piece. How do we create income streams that are decoupled from our time? And the only way to do that, of course, is through intellectual property assets. Um, and so that is our profitability piece. So for old time sakes, before I retire the hourly to exit title completely, I wanted to give you an update on what's happening and think beyond IP and, uh, like kind of going through the hourly to exit a self assessment.

So I was looking in my notes and the last time I did this was February 2022. Where did the last two and a half years go? And so if you are not familiar, the hourly to exit, uh, self assessment is a beautiful graphic. I'm going to share my screen if you're watching this on YouTube. Um, that has it, but, um, if you don't have it, if you're listening to this on, on audio only, I'll have links to it in the show notes.

And of course, anywhere you find the podcast on YouTube, on LinkedIn, And, uh, and so it is a graphic that illustrates through 19 different variables, what the indicators are, where you are on that hourly to exit journey. Are you still at that unsustainable freelance model? Or have you moved along to more sustainable expertise based model model?

All the way to the fully saleable, complete independence from the owner ownership of assets that can be sold, revenue, visibility, client diversity, all sorts of good things. And so that is what it looks at. So where is think beyond IP on this journey? And so We have mindset, the, oh, hold on, let me start sharing my screen.

Uh, let's see. You're gonna have to do a lot of editing here. Sorry. Okay. Line show.

Wait. Okay. There we go. All right, so this is the self-assessment and so we, and here are the 19 variables. Starting from unsustainable, the freelancer model, uh, operator model, CEO model, and legacy model. And these are kind of your mindsets. What kind of business are you thinking of yourself as? So where am I?

So right now I am in the, I am moving from the operator model to the CEO, operator mindset to the CEO mindset. And why am I kind of stuck here? Um, I am a lawyer and I am the only lawyer in my business. I absolutely have a team. I depend on them very much. Um, but I'm kind of stuck here so long as I am pro the only lawyer providing legal services.

Uh, but what I am transitioning to is really building out, um, my team, especially with respect to the things that I don't have to be a lawyer for that. You don't have to be a lawyer for. I am still doing too much of the marketing and too much, frankly, of the sales. And so I am going to build a marketing and sales function that requires less of me and lets me kind of stay up here at the CEO level.

Um, on the authority, uh, I, uh, Am viewed as a business partner. Actually, I just, you know, kind of mentioned, uh, earlier, uh, the way I think about working with, uh, business coaches, um, and exit planners is that I'm not just the lawyer, but I'm also the person that can help make get results for the end clients.

So, um, I'm working on. They recognize as an authority. Obviously, I do this stuff all the time. I talk all the everywhere and, um, and creating more content to help build the authority. I like to think that, uh, when I look at niche and specialization that I really have, uh, you know, unlike many lawyers.

Created this niche of expertise based business, especially those who work with corporate clients. You know, I have a my career. I've been working with large corporate clients. So I really understand their issues and and then, uh, obviously the intellectual property issues as well. So, both niche and expertise.

Uh, specialization, I do think I am working my way into the authority there, uh, the business model. So this is a tough 1 again, because of the legal service, what's the legal services? Um, I do have some. Productized services, um, that are solution based, but in some ways they're also time based. And that is, um, something that I am working on is really to get away from any time based solutions.

I don't bill hourly, but I do sometimes price things with a rough estimate of how long it not completely, but there's something in there that still Gets me so I am I am working on completely decoupling my pricing from time. Uh, my exclusivity. Um, I am developing, uh, as we speak, I'm developing a number of, uh, prices.

Products that will be available for sale, um, that will, um, be exclusive to me. And so I will, you know, register them, uh, for copyright protection and those will be mine. Um, they'll have enough, uh, creativity that they're eligible for copyright protection. And so I'm definitely working on the saleable end for that.

For visibility, um, definitely better. Like I can pretty much predict how many leads I'm going to get and, um, understand how, what my sales will be. I don't have complete visibility cause it's definitely referral based. I'm very referral based. Or, um, you know, people who will follow me for a while and then they'll be ready.

So it's not something that I can turn on and off like you can, um, like someone who has a very large, um, audience, they can kind of turn it on. They can say, okay, I'm launching something and they can turn it on and, and they can have it. And I don't have that yet. So, um, I'm in the scalable right now.

Standardization. This is a big part of creating my team. Um, lots of, and I am the worst at this, but that's what the team is for. And we have lots of, um, uh, Uh, S. O. P. S. that we're putting in place and standardizing some issues. So I'm feeling pretty good. We're not manuals. Well, I guess, you know, if it's digital, it's in click up.

I guess that makes it a manual. So we're, we're kind of between scalable and scalable here. Uh, absolutely. Um, professional liability insurance is a must when you're a lawyer. Um, and then also risk mitigation. That's something that I think about as I have products that. Provide legal education, but don't provide legal services.

So that is definitely part of the next stage. I did it again delegation. Also, um, my revenue generating tasks are mostly legal services. I'm the only lawyer. So, as I. Develop products that don't require me and a team that can sell them. I will definitely be moving over from scalable to saleable, uh, client concentration.

Uh, again, the more, the more variety of the ways you can engage with me, the more diverse my client base will be. If it's Only me, then there's a certain, you know, fee involved with that. And I'm going to have fewer clients, but as I have more variety of offers, then my, my client base will get more diverse, uh, profitability, uh, increases in revenue results and increases in profitability.

You know, there are ways to do that. Also while providing one on one services, I can still, uh, increase my profitability by having those productized services, the. Better I get at them, the more efficiently I can deliver them. The more I can read my client's minds and get to the solution quicker. And that increases profits.

So it's not just about products. It's also just about becoming more efficient, always sign contracts. And I do have standardized ones as well. Um, effective use of automation. Um, you know, I realized that I created this, you know, two and a half years ago before AI was really a thing. And, uh, and I do, uh, have implemented some AI in my business, mostly regarding, uh, Uh, you know, when I think about some of my content, um, I use it as a starting point, obviously, I mean, you know, my voice and you know, what, what comes, what gets published is different than what I got out of AI, but I do use it.

And I use it to think through something. Sometimes I'm not anti AI, as you know, um, and you can effectively use automation. Um, expertise based services. Yes, that is absolutely. Um, what. Uh, I am working on both in what I provide directly to clients and in the products that I will be developing a standardized sales pipeline and process.

Uh, that is something that I'm working on. That will be part of the marketing team that's coming on that will get a better, uh. process in place. Leveraged business model. Um, yeah, I left behind the hourly based a while ago. So I do have the leveraged business model through, um, um, you know, kind of having productized services.

I, I still tend to like someone needs something that's a little bit custom. I'll still do that. Um, but I definitely try to stay in the We're working with corporate client, your B2B client with corporate clients and the issues regarding your copyright, you know, protecting your expertise. I'm still sticking in that so I can create a leveraged business models around that and paid upon engagement.

All my engagements, you pay me in advance to book the time and my. Income decoupled from founder's time. Uh, it's not completely decoupled from my time again, because I'm the only lawyer. So as I move into some of these, um, other offerings, then I will be moving over there as well. So again, you can get this assessment.

On the website and all the places. If you can't find it, just email me and we'll get it to you. So have a wonderful summer. I'm looking forward to coming back with some new ideas. Uh, uh, in the fall, of course, I'm always happy to hear your ideas and what you'd like to hear more of. Uh, and, uh, and thanks again for, for hanging out with me for the last 100 episodes.

And don't forget IP is fuel.