EPS 55

Erin Austin: Hello ladies. Welcome to the Hourly to Exit podcast. I am excited for this week's conversation because I'm always trying, I think you know this about me, that I'm always trying to figure out a way to make the intellectual property concepts more accessible and applicable to your businesses. So I've been thinking about, you know, instead of.

Attacking it from the intellectual property side, which is a bad habit of mine. I'm gonna attack it from the business side. And so what is happening in your business that suggests that you need an intellectual property solution? And so, When we are growing our businesses, of course this podcast is called Hourly to Exit, where we're starting out and we are providing one-on-one services.

Maybe we're still providing them hourly. Maybe we have developed packages, um, but we're still doing it on a one-on-one basis, and so we will hit a few kind of road bumps that'll be very hard to get over if we aren't thinking about. Creating intellectual property that we can use in our businesses. So typically this happens when we are selling ourselves as the expert.

I'm selling me Aaron Austin. Not that I'm selling my expertise, I. In harnessing the power of intellectual property. And so when you're selling yourself instead of selling your expertise, it will show up in a number of places because the fact is that the prerequisite for scaling your business is to turn your expertise, uh, into something that you can create complimentary products.

Complimentary services, uh, typically productized ones that compliment your existing services. I will never recommend, assuming you wanna continue to provide one-on-one services that you stop doing that there's a lot of value to providing those one-on-one services. First of all, you learn so much, um, when you hear that feedback from your clients and it helps, uh, increase your expertise.

That's a, those one-on-one services are a huge part of continuing to develop our expertise. Uh, but is it the only way, uh, that you are. Providing value to your clients. And so while I call, I entitled this, you know, eight Business Problems that have Intellectual Property Solutions. You know, the honest answer is there is only one problem, but what we have are eight symptoms.

And so, you know, the big problem you know, is that you haven't developed assets, whether that are products or processes. That allow you to decouple your income from your time. You know, we talk about that all the time. Um, you need to be able to decouple your income from your time in order to scale your business.

And by scaling, we, we mean not just increasing revenue. 'cause we can increase revenue by. We could double our revenue by billing twice as many hours, but that's not how we wanna grow our business. We want to scale by increasing our revenue, while also decrease, uh, increasing profit, which means we're decreasing the cost of generating that revenue.

So whether that's, uh, increased, uh, decreased. Time, um, or, you know, other resources if you have other things that you use from third parties. Um, so that is what intellectual property is about. It is about creating assets that allow you to decouple your income from your time. Um, you know, it's not any more complicated than that.

It's not, you know, uh, You know, patents and software and all those things, it are the things that we do in our business that allow to decouple our income from our time are generally intellectual property. Some register registerable, some that is not. Uh, but we'll, we'll, we'll talk about that as well. So let's get started.

So the first business problem, client concentration. So there are only so many clients you can serve at a time if you are the expert providing one-on-one services. And, you know, high client concentration, the danger is that, you know, you lose one client. That could be the end of your business. Maybe you have, you can only serve one client at a time.

Maybe you can only serve two clients at a time. And because they are so, uh, time. Uh, consuming. You don't have time to do business development while you're on doing this. And so even if you have very happy clients, when the engagement comes to an end, you've got, uh, you don't have any more clients coming along.

So client concentration problem. So what is your intellectual property solution? You know, you can continue to do those one-on-one services, but how can we get you to be more effective so that you can serve more clients? On a high level, on a one-on-one level, if that's what you desire. So that would mean making sure we're creating efficiencies in our business and these things will, we'll, we'll see these, um, as we go forward as well.

We're creating standard procedures. We have templates, we have models, so that allows us to become more efficient in how we deliver our. One-on-one services to our clients. And those systems and processes could be also by the way, your, your sales funnel. So that's not just about delivery, it's also about the operations in your business, about how you, um, uh, bring people in, how you move them through your pipeline, uh, how you onboard them and offboard.

Then those are all things that can be, um, systematized so that you become more efficient and therefore you can serve more clients. Within the same kind of box of time that you have available. Um, so that you don't have, uh, the same client concentration problem, business problem too, revenue concentration.

So if you have a client concentration problem, you certainly have a revenue concentration problem, and that means that all your revenue is from, is coming from a single type of revenue, such as from one-on-one services, so you don't have a one to several model. For a one to many model or something else, um, that is a different.

Revenue model. So the revenue model is how do you charge for, um, the value that you provide? So could it be hourly? It could be by retainer, it could be, um, project based, value based. Um, and so when you. Create different revenue models. Um, typically that goes with different type of products as well. Um, then you can have new revenue streams that are less dependent on you and your time.

And so that could look like things like. Um, you know, online workshops that you can deliver more efficiently or you can deliver at a lower price point, and therefore you can bring in a different kind of client that you can fit in inside of the time that you have available. Um, It reminds me, I wasn't even thinking about this, but it reminds me of the how do you get the most in most rocks in a jar?

And you put the biggest ones in first, and then you put the little ones in to go around, and then you put the sand in at the end. But if you did the other way, then you wouldn't be able to get nearly as much in. And maybe we think about, um, our revenue models in that way. Like we think about the biggest ones, the one-on-one, and then we think about what's the medium rocks that we can get in there.

And then maybe down the line, uh, you know, digital products as a whole separate animal. Um, but. That's something to think about is the way of filling your jar is big, big, medium, and then small. So revenue concentration, earner concentration. If you are the expert, they only want you providing one-on-one services for them.

You're available to them, you're the one, um, creating. All the revenue, you're the sole earner in the business. Then when you aren't out there delivering services, you aren't making any money. Very hard to take a vacation, very hard to work on product, uh, business development, very hard to, um, you know, get a manicure even.

Right. Um, so. That means you need to create systems, templates, and models. So that allows you to create leverage through other earners. So when you have, and it was just, it was just your genius out there being genius, a. And that's what people are paying for, then you gotta be out there being GenY all the time in order to make revenue.

But if you can create systems, have some templates, have some models, and you can use either employees or contractors to help deliver some, or maybe even all of the output, um, you know, in. The, on the legal side, um, in inside of, you know, in-house legal departments, you'll often have the business person who, you know, does a term sheet with the client and then they send that term sheet to the legal department and it is a contract manager to the non-lawyer who does the first draft of that agreement.

The lawyers don't do those. And then, you know, once they have that first draft, then the lawyer looks at it, of course, before it goes out. But that's a way to create leverage in your business. Anytime you are using a resource that is less expensive than you, that allows you to do higher level things, then you're creating leverage in your business.

And so that is one way to help you not being the only person that is driving revenue in the business. The fourth business problem, revenue, ceiling. You know, there's only so much you can charge for facilitating a workshop or for pro providing a a, a coaching session. I mean, I, I, Tom, Tom, uh, is it Tim? How can I not remember?

Is it Tim Robbins, um, who came up today and, uh, I know that he's, he charges like a million bucks a year or something for his coaching. Um, so if you're not, you know, him, how can I not remember his name? Um, then, you know, there's gonna be a ceiling on how much you can charge, right? And so you need to, again, Figure out a way to decouple your income from your time.

Once you hit your, what the market will bear in terms of pricing and you have hit, um, an, uh, time, uh, limits on how much you can work, then in order to keep growing, then you need to decouple those things. And so that means. Creating some sort of asset that can create revenue without you. We talked about employees and contractors, but another way to do that is through licensing.

So if you have a workshop, for instance, that right now you are going out and delivering, you're facilitating your workshops personally with your clients and if you are able to create a license where, Other facilitators who you know, like and trust can use your workshop to either service your clients, 'cause you can only service so many.

You know, the demand is there that you can't meet. Or maybe they have their own clients, but they have a need for this type of workshop and they don't have their own, they can license yours and deliver it to their end clients. And that means that. You are getting revenue from the delivery of your workshop, but you aren't delivering it, so that's another way to bust that revenue ceiling.

The fifth is inconsistent cashflow. When you're doing custom services, we all. Are familiar with the feast and famine cycle of selling custom services. You know, especially if you don't have the capacity for multiple clients. And you know, this all feeds together with that client concentration problem as well.

Um, so you. Have that whale client, you know, who doesn't love a whale client, that will keep you busy for, you know, a year. Um, then what happens when they're gone? Um, because a client that will keep you busy for a year is not gonna be signing, you know, um, off of your website. There's gonna be a long sales cycle that goes along with that, and that can be pretty unnerving.

Um, so to even out your cash flow. Uh, having an intellectual property solution of creating an asset that you can sell access to on a recurring basis, also known as recurring revenue, ke, helps even out your cashflow. So maybe you have a library of DI digital resources that you can sell subscriptions to.

Maybe you have a community that you can sell access to, and these are ways to create recurring revenue streams so you can. Uh, stabilize your cash flow. Your sixth, uh, business problem, uh, is weak positioning. Uh, you know, if you're not developing some sort of signature solution that you are known for, um, or you aren't attacking a solution, uh, uh, a problem that you are known for in the industry, then you're then.

Probably you are just selling your time. You're just, you know, uh, responding to RFPs and you're letting the client tell you what you want from them. And then, okay, I can do that. And you, and you do it. You do, you, you, they're happy and you, they do it, but you're not creating the thing that you become known for, who you go to person, uh, for.

And so to be that go-to person, that means creating some. Intellectual property around that, you're creating some original thought leadership that is speaking to the pro, the specific problem or the specific niche that you want to serve, and around that you are creating some branded services or some branded solutions around that.

That of course, is intellectual property. The seventh stagnant profitability. So if you are out there juing with every new engagement, then you're probably, uh, not getting the benefit of the increased. Efficiencies of having systems, templates and models. You know, if you're starting from scratch with every engagement, then you're like, okay, you know, you're like, you, you, you meet with your client, you find out what, uh, their issue is and you go to the drawing board, you know, like an artist starting with something completely unique and original for your client.

And there may be a place for that, um, in your business. But that does mean that you will not be able to. Increase your profit and your business, um, because it'll be very hard to get more efficient, uh, in that model. So, systemization, systematization, templates, models, you know, if you're not billing by the hour, then you wanna become more efficient, because that means lowered costs and therefore increased profit.

And back to using less expensive resources. And that, by the way, could include technology. Like when you really kind of have a whole system in, uh, in place for getting from A to Z in delivering value to your business, there may be a spot for technology, and this is. You know, even more relevant obviously today with ai, um, to figure out like, what part of this can I use technology to help become more efficient?

But you have to, it can't be just about you being GenY. It has, there has to be a system to it for you to really be able to take advantage of that. And then our last, our eighth business problem, uh, or I should say, uh, symptom is, you know, you hit an impact ceiling and, uh, forgive my doggy, she's barking in the background is the impact ceiling.

You know, we all got into the business because there was some impact we wanted to make. There's something we believed in that we thought. We could make that happen, um, and create great value for our clients. We love our clients and we wanted them to succeed, but when we're doing it on a one-on-one basis, is there, again, there's only so many people we can impact on a one-on-one basis.

Now, personally, you know, I'm a lawyer. We do one-on-one a lot. But I also want to help women understand the value that's hidden in their businesses, to make sure they're capturing all the value so that they can use their businesses, not just for income, but also to create wealth. Because, you know, I believe wealth in the hands of women can change the world.

But how many women can I impact if I'm only doing it on with my one-on-one clients? And that's why I have this podcast, my newsletter, and I do workshops and I, you know, guest expert and things like that so I can reach more people and have a bigger income. And around that, of course, I am creating intellectual property around that.

Um, in the form of. Uh, courses to come, folks to come. Um, but, but right now it's mostly through my, uh, frameworks and that I work people through and I have, um, systems for helping them create licensing programs, systems for making sure that they are. Tracking and, uh, protecting and monetizing their intellectual property.

And so that's how you increase your impact by creating resources, whether they're for sale or for free. 'cause most of my resources are free, um, to make sure that you are impacting as many people as possible with whatever the special message is that you are bringing to the world. So, Again, it all boils down to that same issue, is that if you're doing something that requires you in person with your time, then you will hit.

All of these ceilings of impact and revenue, these concentration problems, these um, cashflow problems, positioning problems, profitability problems, all of them mean that you haven't developed some assets that allow you to generate revenue to increase impact. Without you working more. So if you have any questions about that, I'd love to talk to you about it more.

Um, you can find me at thinkbeyondip.com and there you can see how you could work with me and I'd love to hear your feedback on this. If there's anything that wasn't clear, please contact me. That's, that makes my day 'cause I want to be the most helpful to you that I can. Thanks again. Have a great day guys.