Eps 43 - How to Clone Yourself

Erin Austin: Hello everyone. Welcome to my Wednesday, 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.

Erin Austin: 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, you know, this comes on the heels. I, I think it was this week that I released, uh, a podcast episode about ai where you can use ai like literally to clone yourself and do complete videos and your voice and.

Erin Austin: Everything. Um, and, uh, 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, uh, 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.

Erin Austin: 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, um, all something that allows a third party or. A third thing we wanna call a product that, um, to be able to replicate, um, the results that you provide to your services on a one-on, uh, provide to your clients on a one-on-one basis.

Erin Austin: And so I wanna just, uh, you know, 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.

Erin Austin: 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. You know, 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, um, something that you are born with and, uh, and that, uh, so it would be pretty hard for her to clone herself.

Erin Austin: But if you're like most of us, where we have used our experience and, uh, Our training and our education and our, you know, grown our expertise over time. Emotional intelligence, I like that. Um, to help us, uh, provide the services, the excellent services that we provide to our clients. Those are things that can be packaged.

Erin Austin: In a way that other people can help us deliver them. Now I wanna, this is not going to be about mindset, but I do wanna just say this about the idea of, you know, what you do. Is magical. The transformations that you provide your clients are magical and that is why they're highly valued. But those results can be delivered in more than one way and by more than one person for, for the most of us.

Erin Austin: And so, uh, finding, you know, being able to, to. Let go of some of that control by allowing other people to deliver your services is a step in, you know, creating that independence that you really want in your business and be able to do, um, work with other clients, work on other projects, um, you know, create new programs, um, do other, uh, you know, higher level strategy work.

Erin Austin: 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, um, this example. So, You are a D E I A consultant. You developed a workshop, you know, include written exercises, maybe you have some video, you know, vignettes and a discussion guide and a training manual.

Erin Austin: And you know, your workshop is in very high demand and it is demand that you can't meet yourself. And so maybe even I, I hear this from, you know, people in this space who have clients who have. Uh, 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.

Erin Austin: 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.

Erin Austin: I mean, we all probably started as employees, you know, unless you're Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or Elizabeth Holmes, go forbid, um, 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, you know, personal appearances, speaking, things like that, that.

Erin Austin: Require us. And so when there are, you know, 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.

Erin Austin: I mean, we know there's a lot more of that to it than that. Not to mention, you know, taxes and, and benefits, but there is that emotional cost and psychological cost to having an employees, you know, to ask someone to, you know, leave their current employer. Um, 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.

Erin Austin: 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, you know, again, using that, um, HR consultant scenario, um, 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.

Erin Austin: Two, uh, 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.

Erin Austin: And so we want to make sure that it is properly documented. Um, even, you know, 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, you know, one, to make sure you're on the same page about.

Erin Austin: You know, delivery and about, um, uh, payment, but also that relationship with the client, that relationship is yours. But you wanna have a way to determine like, what, 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?

Erin Austin: Um, so you need to have all these things addressed in your facilitator. Agreement as well as you know, they're going to be using your materials, you know, do you want them to follow it, you know, by the tea or can they use some of their own? Experience to bring some of their own genius to the, the workshop, if you will.

Erin Austin: 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 the program, what happens then? So you just wanna make sure all these things are set out in your agreement.

Erin Austin: You know, 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.

Erin Austin: One that's competitor license, another a 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.

Erin Austin: Um, the thing about your competitor is, you know, maybe you know, 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, you know, I really need an accessibility module to add to my program.

Erin Austin: Can I license yours? Maybe it makes sense to just license that accessibility piece. Maybe you only want to use to, for them to use your program in its totality because it all builds on each other and it's all integrated. Uh, and so there are different ways to structure a license, again, as a contract. You know the term, uh, you mean the length of the license?

Erin Austin: The, any restrictions regarding use? Uh, what happens if someone, uh, creates improvements? Um, if they are mixing, you know, one of your modules with one of their modules, making sure those rights. Stay separate. Um, what happens with, um, you know, 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.

Erin Austin: 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, you know, um, the legal industry. And of course, um, 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.

Erin Austin: 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 uh, 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.

Erin Austin: 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 into, uh, one-on, uh, 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.

Erin Austin: That's also known as the train the trainer model. And in this case, um, you are still servicing them, but you're not doing it on a one on one basis. You know 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.

Erin Austin: 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 know where you fish for them, where to find them.

Erin Austin: 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.

Erin Austin: Their roi, you know, 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, uh, have basically two different businesses, um, when you go that competitor, uh, licensee route. Uh, So those are two ways to, to, to have to, to fill that with external sources.

Erin Austin: So products, you know, those D I y 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.

Erin Austin: You know, with your in-person workshops, I imagine there's lots of similarity about the type of client that you work with and you know, if they're big enough, maybe you only have the one client, which is kind of the worst kind of client. Diversity of course, but having. Other options at different price points.

Erin Austin: I mean, you can have different types of clients and you can serve, uh, maybe, um, 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, you know, of course one of the things I talk about all the time, um, to create that new IP based revenue stream.

Erin Austin: So, you know, to no one's surprise, you know, 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, um, you know, a lot of consultants and coaches get certifications and they will receive. Materials, maybe they'll get an assessment tool.

Erin Austin: 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.

Erin Austin: Creating a licensing program either with your client or with a competitor, um, or creating a product, uh, 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.

Erin Austin: So implementing the clothing process back to the systems and procedures. You know, if right now you're just using your brilliance, you wanna start documenting that brilliance. So you have some systems and you have some procedures that you will be able. To train your clones on whether they're employees.

Erin Austin: You still need systems and processes. If you, um, 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, um, process. Um, Contracts. You know, obviously as an employer you have certain, uh, rights under employment laws, uh, but for your licensees and for your facilitators, that is a contractual relationship.

Erin Austin: 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, uh, in the US copyright office, protected under copyright law, and.

Erin Austin: As you know, if you've followed me for a while, you know among 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.

Erin Austin: 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.

Erin Austin: So, uh, the key. Registration agreements and, uh, of course tracking. Um, 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, um, of your. Uh, of your expertise.

Erin Austin: And so another thing that came up yesterday during conversation is, you know, 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, um, the results. And I would argue that that is even.

Erin Austin: 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, to the workshops and the delivery and the results that people are getting. You know, it's not selfish to want to make sure that your materials are being used responsibly.

Erin Austin: 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, that is, um, 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.

Erin Austin: 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, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn or send me an email at Erin think beyond ip.com. And of course, uh, this is being recorded as a podcast episode as well, so you can also rehear it if you haven't gotten enough of it.

Erin Austin: Uh, at Hourly to Exit podcast, you could find that at all of your podcast distributing. Places. Uh, 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.