EPS 76 - The Crucial First Step to Scaling Your Business: Taking Inventory of the Assets You Already Own Transcript

Erin Austin: Uh, this is the recording for the episode that airs on January 16th. I don't know what number it is, but it's the one about, uh, ready, set audit. All right, here we go. Here is a fundamental truth that you will hear me repeating ad nauseum owning intellectual property is required to scale your expertise based business, period, drop Mike.

Erin Austin: Now I could stop right there for emphasis, but I persist. There are three steps to getting to the promised land. They are audit, protect, and leverage. So this week we're going to talk about that first step audit. You start with audit because we want to make sure that you understand what you own right now.

Erin Austin: And I guarantee, you know, unless you are an IP lawyer that you will be very surprised by what you find out. In other words, you might not own what you think you own, and you probably own a lot more than you think you do. So the audit step consists of two measurements. First, quantity. This is just a straightforward inventory of the assets in your business.

Erin Austin: In other words, it's just a list of all the assets in your business. The second step is quality. So this is an analysis of the value, the relative value of the assets. Those that you own and control exclusively are more valuable than those that you have non exclusive rights to use. You know, for instance, the training materials that you created that you own completely and that no one can use without your permission and paying you are more valuable to you than some.

Erin Austin: Tool that you license from a third party. It may still provide value. It's not that it's not valuable, but it's not as valuable as those things that you own exclusively. So why do we want to do our audit again? Because ownership of intellectual property Is required to scale your business. So if you're wondering, well, what assets do I have?

Erin Austin: I provide services. Here's the measure. The assets in your business are whatever you use to create value for your clients. So it's not just, you know, computers and software, anything that you are using to create value for your clients. Is an asset. So whether you provide high touch custom services, or if you have a proprietary methodology, or if you have a standard training program, or even if you're selling your time, those are all assets.

Erin Austin: Now, here's a list of assets. The assessment tool that you use to orient your proposals and asset the 50 page strategic plan that you deliver to your clients. That's an asset secondary research that you use as a basic for strategic plan and asset. An original DEI training program that you developed, worksheets that you required during a IFC certification or IMC certification, templates that you may have gotten from a business coach, web design that your contractor created for you.

Erin Austin: Or for an end client, those are all assets. And even the work product that you complete at a client request based on their specifications, that is an asset. They're all assets because they provide value to your clients. Some of them are assets that you own. Some of them Are assets that you do not own.

Erin Austin: What we want to focus on, of course, are the assets that you own, because the assets that you own, the intellectual property you own will be the foundation for creating a scalable business and creating assets that. can provide recurring revenue. So after we create our inventory of assets, so that's just our straightforward, straightforward inventory.

Erin Austin: Then we go to the qualitative part where we evaluate them to see the, the, the relative value of them. Do we own them? Did we create them ourselves? Uh, do we have control over them? Have we permitted other people to create derivatives from them? And so that will tell us the relative value of those assets.

Erin Austin: Do I own it? If I don't own it. What rights do I have to use it? So we do this because when we're building recurring revenue assets, it's a whole different ball game than providing one on one services. I like to say, you know, with increased visibility comes increased scrutiny. So when you're growing your business by leveraging assets, uh, including intellectual property assets, it's like adding Another floor to your house, so the foundation that's good enough for a 1 story building might not be good enough for a 2 story building.

Erin Austin: So we want to make sure that the legal foundation for creating recurring revenue assets is. Strong you, whether you've been using that intellectual property internally, uh, or if you've been using them with your one-on-one clients. I will call that, um, your first floor use of the assets internally or with one-on-one services.

Erin Austin: And that now using those, uh, assets in a one to several or a one to many environment. Excuse my doggy would be that second floor. And we want to make sure that we have a strong enough foundation for it to support the second floor. So we add a second floor. Here's a sample of some of the foundational cracks.

Erin Austin: You might, that might appear that didn't appear in your one on one work first with your contractors. Do you have a written agreement with the contractor for every deliverable that they provided to you? Certainly, if it's included in anything that you're going to be using in your one to several or one to many offers.

Erin Austin: If you paid, even if you paid the contractor, even if you told them and gave them directions about what to do, if you don't have a written agreement in place, you don't own that deliverable the contractor does. So we want to make sure that we are checking all of the assets, uh, that we're going to use for our recurring revenue assets to make sure you own all those rights.

Erin Austin: With your past employers. Most of us are corporate refugees or survival, uh, survivors, right? So if we took something from a former employer. Is that theirs? Even if you wrote it as the employee, uh, your employer owns everything that you created for them. So if you've incorporated that in some of your one on one services, probably no one's going to notice.

Erin Austin: But if you incorporate some of that in a one to several or one to many that increased scrutiny. Could get you in trouble and same thing with your employees. If you have employees, they came from a former employer and they brought this great resource with them. Where'd it come from? Did it come from their former employer?

Erin Austin: If it did that former employer owns that the employee and neither you, nor that employee owns that and cannot use it. With your clients, if you're signing services agreements provided by your clients, nine times out of 10, they'll have language in there that says they own 100 percent of the rights in any deliverable.

Erin Austin: Well, what if you have some of your preexisting work in that deliverable? Have you granted rights in your preexisting work to your clients?

So

Erin Austin: we want to make sure we are. Aware of that and then 3rd party materials, uh, like we mentioned things you may have gotten from as part of a certification program or as part of a coaching program.

Erin Austin: Um, you know, with your business coach, sometimes people provide resources that you can use, which are intended to be used either internally or with your 1 on 1 clients, but not to be, uh, used in a 1 to several or 1 to many environment. So we want to make sure that we are aware of the rights you have in those third party materials.

Erin Austin: So in sum, we audit because you don't want to be on the receiving end of a cease and desist letter from the owner of materials that you don't have the right to use. You know, at best you're wasting money and momentum. At worst, you'll incur legal fees and permanently damage your reputation. We audit because it lays the foundation for the next step, which is protection.

Erin Austin: You don't want to find out too late that you failed to put the protections in place to prevent clients, subcontractors, and facilitators from using your materials without you. So in the next episode, we'll talk about that second stage, protect how to protect your expertise. Thank you ladies. And remember.

Erin Austin: I. P. is fuel.