EP 111: The Expert-preneur’s Guide to Growth: Leveraging IP & Smart Delegation with Maiko Sakai Transcript

Erin Austin: Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of scaling expertise, where we talk to experts who have successfully scaled their expertise and give you tips about how you can scale yours. So this week, I'm very excited to have a great guest, Michael Sakai, who is a quiz alchemist, among other things.

That's not the only thing she does, but I love the fact that she is a cell styled, Quiz Alchemist. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to talk about this topic as well as digging into other aspects of scaling her expertise. So before I go any further, I wanna welcome you, Micah to the podcast.

Maiko Sakai: Thank you so much for having me, Erin.

I'm really excited to be here because of the main theme for your podcast being going beyond the IT and the scaling. Those are my favorite. Topics on the quiz. So I'm very excited to be here.

Erin Austin: Thank you for that. Not many people talk about the beyond IP part of it, but it is absolutely an essential part as well because it's not IP for the sake of IP.

It is for what it does for us. And thank you for that. So before we dive in, I'm going to let you introduce yourself to the audience.

Maiko Sakai: Yeah, thank you so much. So again, my name is Michael Sakai, and I am a business consultant and also a quiz alchemist, which we're going to get into a little bit deeper. But I started out working for a bunch of record labels in New York City.

Erin Austin: Oh, I didn't know that.

Maiko Sakai: Yeah. So, I was there. I always had this inkling of starting my own venture, so what I decided to do intentionally was to sort of create my own intrapreneur program unofficially. So what I aimed for was to be able to manage an entire sub label under the big corporation so that I get to learn this, all the and outs of how to operate that.

Section of the business, and I felt good about it. So, of course, long story short, I went on to start my own business. But with that, I did have a few different iterations as well. So I get to talk about my Failures, mistakes, and all those things, when I work with a bunch of agency clients. Mm hmm.

Yes.

Erin Austin: Wonderful. What type of music was it?

Maiko Sakai: So, interesting enough, it was a very small DJ, electric music, Centric label. So we worked a lot with a bunch of European DJs for the record label was BMG. Now it's Sony BMG turn and use Sony. So yeah, we got a lot of European acts. Our job was to bring them into the United States.

So going on tour going to conference. Good times. That sounds like a lot of fun.

Erin Austin: That is awesome. So how did you come to be where you are today? Like, what was the journey from there?

Maiko Sakai: Well, it has a lot to do with that particular industry. so back in 2000, so anywhere from 2000 up to 2010, technologically, if you remember, any of your audience can remember, you know, there was this whole Napster to iPod and iPod.

It's iPod, the whole business model shifted. So I survived as long as I could in that industry. But around the 2007, I realized that, well, it's going to be my next chapter. So I left that world and started to manage, high net worth entertainment clients as a business manager. that was my act two back then.

Then, of course, I started to see a lot of things that are not really done correctly, so. Again, I wanted to start my own so that I get to come up with my own framework to help a lot of creative entrepreneurs like a PR agencies, you know, digital marketing agencies, architectural design, all those companies, because I was already working with them when I was in the whole corporate world, I was familiar with their struggles, you know what they are faced with.

So, Yeah, that's how it evolved.

Erin Austin: for those clients, like what are they going through in their businesses if they think like, I need to go talk to you?

Maiko Sakai: Yeah. So there are two opposite. extreme spectrum. So let me illustrate that. The one is OPUD. You might've heard of it, but they do this unintentionally, by the way, they're not trying to scam anybody.

They're just very excited about their business. So they're very good with marketing and sales side of their businesses.

Erin Austin: So

Maiko Sakai: they tend to over promise what they can deliver, but their back end, the capacity is not set up to undertake all of them. So they ended up under delivering, which is OBUD. Now I've also seen the complete opposite.

Scenario where their backend is so immaculate and built out, but they're not very great with marketing or promoting their businesses or when it comes to sales, they're just gun shy about it. Mm-hmm. Which is also programmatic, so.

They do under promise and over deliver, but they need more leads coming in.

Mm-hmm . So, mm-hmm . I work with both cases. Okay.

Erin Austin: Oh, interesting. I love that. And so let's get into, the podcast is scaling expertise. So let's talk about your expertise in particular, like quiz alchemist. Let's talk about that. But also, how you have kind of chosen a nation, how you specifically work with your clients.

Maiko Sakai: Right. So, It's ironic enough that when I started my own business, I was working with those agencies, helping them with the back end and those things. But a lot of times, they didn't really want to hear about it until they got into real trouble. And they would reach out to me and say, we're in trouble, we need help.

So I was trying to find the ways to combat that problem so they can come to me earlier on. So, before doing this whole quiz thing, I had this whole niche Offer that I had a framework for them that could help them and niche down so that they don't have to feel like they're missing out on opportunities by niching down all of it.

And, you know, I had a great time with my clients, but one day. Very recently, some of my clients came to me and said, I love your quizzes, and I want that for my business. So this time around, while I'm going through this pivoting phase, the validation was already done. So the point that I'm making is, it gets easier and easier, you know, the more iterations you go through in your business, things become easier.

So I'm trying to leverage anything that I can. is low hanging fruit. So if my client's already validated the need for it, sure. Why don't I cater to that? So that's where this whole quiz thing came about.

Erin Austin: Well, I, for one, you know, and I selfishly, I'd love having experts on, the podcast, you know, I get my own free advice here.

 I. Love the concept of quizzes. I get, you know, and I realized I was getting questions about like, how do I know I'm ready to scale? How do I know I'm ready for you? And I had frankly, too many conversations with people who weren't ready for me. and so I tried, to do the quiz and it's just wrong.

 my quiz is terrible. I need to rethink it. Cause you know, one of the things that helping, if you help your clients think like their clients, like what are the questions they're asking, not. What I'm asking, and my quiz is very, you know, this is what you need to know versus what are the questions my client, one of the clients are asking.

So I feel that.

Maiko Sakai: Yeah, no, no, no. Well, first of all, wanted to, Emphasize on the fact that the how self aware you are, which is, you know, obviously you're seasoned entrepreneur. that may be obvious, but I want to point that out for those who are listening only because I also get exposed to people who are interested in creating, a quiz as a marketing tool, but they really have no clue.

So for example, they would put their ideas into ChachiBT, which I absolutely have no, nothing against that. You know, we should use any tools that are available. So I'm all for it, but They don't have this benchmark or filtering system to kind of assess what they get back from that tool is whether good enough or not, right?

So knowing that what you just said is so Remarkable in the sense that you know what to fix, right? But most of the cases, they don't know what to fix. So that's where I come in to sort of, you know, like I use a lot of use cases and examples to say what's wrong with this title. Or, is there any other ways to ask the same question, that would help quiz takers to put their guard down?

There's so many things that are involved with quiz crafting. I can go on and on about it. Right.

Erin Austin: Yeah. It is, you know, for those of us, I mean, we're all experts here and we have the vocabulary that we use as experts, which is not always the same vocabulary as, our potential clients. And so being able to translate so very important.

So let's talk about your business and how you've scaled. I mean, so many of us. We start with our one on one services and, you know, which is great. They're high value. We enjoy that, interaction with our clients, but when we want to add some leverage to our business, so how have you approached that and what are you doing to help build leverage into your business?

Maiko Sakai: Right. It's such a timely question for me because this whole quiz thing is semi new in my business. So I have to deploy everything I know about scaling that I teach my clients, all the agencies. And I just have to walk the walk, right? So the most important part for me is that at this stage I do one on one and I also do a group.

Then I'm exploring other avenues as well, just so that I can leverage different forms of business models to be incorporated into my business. what I wanted to do right now, this year specifically, my goal is to really Beef up my affiliate program because that's another extension. I haven't leveraged that for other ventures that I went through.

So I'm really excited for this collaborative revenue stream so that I do less sales.

Erin Austin: Yes,

Maiko Sakai: but I give them all the tools that they need to refer my services to me and let's just share the revenue. Why not? You know, I'm all for it. So that's another extension to scale, right? On the back end of it, I'm working with a few contractors that I just love working with So that I get to either Expand when it's needed in the contract when it's needed.

So it's more of a dynamic agency that I am building. Aside from the fact that there will be some key people that I will be hiring as more of a static position. So yeah, that's my scaling strategy.

Erin Austin: Yeah, well, that's really important to talk about people as leverage, you know, not to be kind of transactional about it, but, we as our business owners are the most expensive resource, right?

So anytime we can bring in other human resources, Yep.

Maiko Sakai: To

Erin Austin: help us, you know, with deliver some or all of that value to our clients. We are scaling, that in of itself because we are increasing our profit, without just putting in more hours, right? Mm-hmm . And so. Very important people forget that, contractors and employees and, affiliates, are exactly,

Maiko Sakai: there are many different ways to approach it.

 I think you like this topic. So I just wanted to touch on this very quickly, but I've seen, again, two different scenarios with Entrepreneurs that I encounter, and I can tell you which group I'm part of. So the first one is the majority of it. the people, a group of people, entrepreneurs who are very hesitant to delegate.

Now, I'm in that group. But not all entrepreneurs behave that way. I've seen some who tend to do premature delegation. They tend to come from big corporations where they used to handle a large budget. Whether, you know, multi eight figure for their marketing budget or whatnot. their mindset is more like a deploy, deploy, deploy.

Now they enter the world of entrepreneurship and they hire a bunch of people and they have a very. bismal oversight. So they don't know what's going on there. So that I call premature delegation. You don't want either of them, right? You don't want to be too hesitant, too gun shy about delegating. Or you don't want to be too gun ho about delegating.

So the balance is really important.

Erin Austin: That is a great point because I, you know, I am a huge, I guess I don't know where I am on that because as the lawyer, I'm kind of on both sides of it. I have really not wanted to bring another lawyer into me. Like, but I'm very clear on what I don't know. And I have no interest in, you know, I'm not a marketer.

I don't want to become a marketer. I'm not, you know, I'm not an operations person. I don't want it. You know, I'm not, these are things that I hire, contractors for to help me with, but then, but you do have to make sure that you then have the revenue to support it, obviously, having a very. bottom heavy organization can also be really problematic as well.

That

Maiko Sakai: is an excellent point. You know, can you or can you not walk away from your business, you know, abruptly for emergency over say two weeks or so, that's like the test that you can do to see what breaks, right. You know, if you are to leave for two weeks, suddenly, find out what breaks or what survives.

Erin Austin: Yeah, a good way to look at it, something I need to get into a little bit more. So we talked about human resources as a way to create leverage, but let's talk about intellectual property for a second. so how have you, I know you have your, how do you incorporate intellectual property into your business?

What was your thinking about it? Like, were you thinking, I need more intellectual property? Or are you thinking, I just need to create more systems? And that just happens to also be intellectual property. Like, which way did you approach that?

Maiko Sakai: So, it goes in phases, So it's the most important part that drives my business is the IP.

There's no doubt about it. And also that's my filtering system when it comes to my quiz business, who to take on and who's not to take on. I tend to work with expert printers who have their methodology worked out or systems or the framework, you know, or a unique approach to solve a problem. Otherwise, we can't create it.

This one of a kind unique curiosity inducing quiz based on nothing right like we need IP for that. And same goes for my business. I usually start from, can I build a framework for this, you know, can I build a system to teach. Other business owners, just so that they can retain information clearly and efficiently, of course, you know, like a why waste time trying to understand something that's too complex,

But after that, though, the what comes next is that how can I secure that? I have to beta test it. I need to try breaking it to see how robust it is, whether it's a framework or system. I do that and I also encourage my quiz clients to do the same. Try to break your quiz and make sure that they know that your quiz is accurate.

Right. Whenever the outcome that is going to be will be accurate. So after that phase is done, then protect it. Of course, that's where someone like yourself would come in to help someone like me to protect that IP.

Erin Austin: Yeah.

Maiko Sakai: Then multiply it. Right. Can you replicate it? Is it replicable? Is it repeatable? Is it trainable?

Those are the questions that I would ask myself. The same goes for my clients. I ask the same question to my clients, and you do that.

Erin Austin: Yes, you're speaking my language. So there's a number of things that you mentioned that I want to just double back on one is making sure that you have something that you own right there are a lot of people who, I find that coaches are sometimes guilty of this where they've gone through lots of certification programs.

Oh yeah. And they have all these tools, you know, assessments even, you know, that they got from these third parties and there's nothing actually original in their business.

Maiko Sakai: And so financial coaches also do that as well. Those money coaches, they use those tools that are given. To them.

Erin Austin: That's right. And so how are you going to create any sort of leverageable asset out of that?

Right. So one is making sure we have something that is unique to us, that we own, that we have protectable rights in. And, then the testing piece. It's so important. why, create a product that will just use the term product out of something that hasn't been tested yet, you know, even though it's not, going up on a shelf that you're not, buying inventory for it, but you're still making an investment to create.

 whatever your methodology is, your framework, whatever it is, you still need to test it before you put it up on that

Maiko Sakai: verb. Can I get real with that? So, for example, you know, a lot of people wanted to create an acronym for their framework, right? Yeah. Whether it's a passion or ignite, you know, those things are great.

I'm not knocking on those, right? But. What if there's a piece that cannot be housed under that acronym? Those things do happen. I'm just trying to get real here, you know, don't overlook something just because it doesn't fit into your acronym. Like, well, then, you know, maybe you need to rethink that framework.

 it's a tough thing. I know that, you know, we're, we're laughing about this, but that's the real work. That we should be pouring our energy and time into not so much so about what tools to use or how to deliver or how much the price. Those things can just be solved by themselves. Once you really invest in your IP good enough, tested enough.

Then you will know what to do the rest. But the problem is that a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up on this whole how questions other than creation of that unique property, an asset,

Erin Austin: right? Yes. So

Maiko Sakai: Yeah.

Erin Austin: Absolutely. Well, that is great advice. So before we wrap up, is there one thing that you would tell every, I don't know, did you call it expert pernour?

Expert

Maiko Sakai: pernour. Expert pernour. There's always a good one. I love that. I like that.

Erin Austin: Like one tip, like for that expert, they're doing one on one, maybe they don't know if they have anything unique, like where should they start?

Maiko Sakai: Yeah. So my tip is this. I love the number three. I don't know about you, but I like number three.

Three in everything. So my tip is, your one on one can stay. That can be a stable retainer, running in the background in terms of a cash flow. That can stay. They'll be great unless you are completely tapped out, right? Then you need to really assess your capacity level, but that can be running in the background.

But when you're ready to expand from there, you know, you're comfortable doing one on one your clients are coming great. Right. But then, you wanted to start thinking about what would be a gateway product for someone who are sitting on top of the funnel. You know, they may not know you, but they may be slightly aware of their problem.

What can you give it to them? Now, on the opposite side, can you bump it up your one on one to be extra special so that it can be a high ticket where you get to cater to less number of people, but you make more money.

Erin Austin: So

Maiko Sakai: that would be my tip. You might want to spend one weekend exploring that.

Erin Austin: So important.

Thank you for that. That is great advice. So I'd love to hear what is new and exciting happening in your business.

Maiko Sakai: Thank you so much. So I host workshops all the time. So if you're interested in learning more about how you can use a quiz to drive a business growth in your business, just visit my website and, you know, download my 10 step blueprint for free.

It's in pdf. It shows you step by step how to create one or just message me and ask me any questions. I'm around to answer any questions you have.

Erin Austin: Fantastical, where can people reach you? And we will put it in the show notes too, but

Maiko Sakai: yeah, absolutely. Pretty much anywhere. But my main thing is my website, so it's my name.com.

It's michael aka.com. You'll find a lot of good resources there for free. Mm-hmm . Or you can reach out to me over ig, LinkedIn X. They're all there. It's Michael, AKA Bizz, BIZ at the end of my name.

Erin Austin: Excellent. Well, I know I will for sure be downloading your quiz.

Maiko Sakai: Oh, so

Erin Austin: much. I need some help there.

Thank you so much, Micah. It's been wonderful to have you on the show today. Great advice for everyone. to all you out there, please, connect with Michael and download that PDF. So thanks. And I'll see you again next week.