This week I’m sharing some amazing insights on turning your expertise into scalable income.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

1. Assets are the Foundation: Before creating leveraged assets, it's crucial to own and control all the necessary rights. An audit of your assets ensures you're not at risk of legal issues and helps lay the foundation for the next steps.
2. Leverage Increases Profitability: The application of leverage in business leads to not just increased revenue, but also increased profitability. This can be achieved by creating digital products, online offerings, systematizing services, and more.
3. Cloning Yourself as Leverage: Developing systems that allow others to deliver your services, frees up time, enables consistent customer experiences, and promotes business growth without sacrificing quality. This can be done through products, employees, facilitators, and licensees.

I can't wait for you to tune in once the episode airs! Keep an eye out for it, and don't forget to stay updated with all the amazing content on Hourly to Exit.

Connect with Erin to learn how to use intellectual property to increase your income and impact. hourlytoexit.com/podcast.

Erin's LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/

Hourly to Exit is Sponsored By:

This week’s episode of Hourly to Exit is sponsored by the NDA Navigator. Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are the bedrock of protecting your business's confidential information. However, facing a constant stream of NDAs can be overwhelming, especially when time and budget constraints prevent you from seeking full legal review. That's where the NDA Navigator comes to your rescue. Designed specifically for entrepreneurs, consultants, and business owners with corporate clients, the NDA Navigator is your guide to understanding, negotiating, and implementing NDAs. Empower yourself with legal insights and practical tools when you don’t have the time or funds to invest in a full legal review. Get 20% off by using the coupon code “H2E”.  You can find it at www.protectyourexpertise.com.

Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos

Music credit: Yes She Can by Tiny Music

A Team Dklutr production

Today I'm talking about leverage, the third

and final variable in the equation to turn

your expertise into scalable revenue.

In case you missed them last week, I talked

about the first and the second variable,

which is protection.

And the week before that, I talked about the first

variable, which is Audit.

So to briefly recap, we start with an audit to

make sure you understand what assets you currently

own and control in your business right now.

We want to know what assets we have and what

rights we need because we don't want to build

these new leveraged assets without owning

all of the rights.

Many of you ask me because you worry

about, , can I use this other resource?

Can I refer to this other expert?

And we do, we do our, audit to make sure

that we do own or control all the things

we want to include in our leveraged assets.

We don't want to be on the receiving

end of a cease and desist letter because

we're using materials that we do not own.

At best, you wasted money and momentum,

but at worst, you'll incur legal fees and

maybe even permanently damage your reputation.

Then the audit stage lays the foundation for the

second step protection.

You don't want to find out too late that you

failed to put into place protections that prevent

clients, subcontractors, and facilitators

from using your materials without you.

And that might be.

By infringement, or by permission, because we've

granted them the rights to use those, materials.

So we talk about that in the protection episode.

So, now we come to the 3rd and final

leg, which is leverage the plain meaning of

the word leverage is.

The application of a lever levers are machines

used to increase force.

In other words, a lever multiplies the

impact of our efforts In business terms,

leverage means increasing profitability, not just

increasing revenue.

We have leverage in our businesses where we can

increase revenue without also increasing costs,

or we decrease costs without also decreasing

revenue, preferably both.

Typically, we think of leverage, we think

about, digital products or online offerings,

things like courses and books, subscriptions, you

maybe even memberships, group coaching, and

absolutely each of these provides leverage with

one to many offers or one to several offers.

We create the materials once or we provide

our time once and we sell it to multiple.

parties.

So yes, and you can even have leveraged

one on one services.

So we can lower the cost of delivery of a one

on one service by using standards and procedures

by having framework, having models, having

templates in place.

These are all things that help us become more.

Efficient in delivering the service and therefore

decreasing the resources or the cost required to

deliver that service.

And remember that you and your time are the

most expensive resources in your business.

So anytime you're able to decrease your time

in the deliverable while maintaining

the price, you are increasing profitability.

That's leverage.

So what is the basis of every leveraged offer,

whether it is digital online course, a book,

or a leveraged one-on-one service assets that you

own and control before you can legally offer any

type of one-to-many or one-to-several product

or service you must own or have the right

to use those assets.

Let's talk about assets.

If you have followed me for a while, you know

that I like to ask my audience, is there a

Rembrandt in your attic?

For our expertise based businesses,

this question is the business equivalent of

a treasure hunt where we look for unidentified

and undervalued assets that are

hiding in plain sight.

Rembrandts are assets that are primed to

provide leverage in your business.

My favorite Rembrandts are assets that have

been created for internal purposes only.

So examine your business for these

or similar assets.

Framework, methodology, workbooks.

SOPs, models, even an email list, employee

training practices, market research

reports, white papers, industry insights,

resource libraries, databases, even your

online community.

Those Rembrandts that we just talked

about, those are the effort or the input.

Levers are tools and then leverage is the

output leverage is the magnification

of our efforts.

So, Rembrandts, these are things we put in place.

Upfront and we have those we incur those

costs upfront and then we create that Rembrandt.

So we put the effort up front to create models.

We put the effort in up front to

create as a piece.

We put the effort in up front to, put together

our database or to create our community

and then we are able to reap benefits over

time by using a lever.

To increase the output from those inputs.

Now, I don't think there's any such thing

as purely passive income because you do need

to put in the effort upfront to create

those Rembrandts.

They don't make themselves, but it's the

application of leverage from that investment

or effort that creates the conditions for

residual low input recurring revenue.

So those are the Rembrandts.

levers, some of the levers to apply to

your Rembrandts.

You can then use your Rembrandts to delegate.

Again, you're the most expensive resource in

your business, so you can delegate tasks

to less expensive resources, whether

internally or with an employee or externally

with a contractor, but you need to have some

of those Rembrandts in place to do that.

Systemization, when you have processes or

systems, you create efficiencies, whether

you're delivering yourself or again,

delivering with one of those other, resources

specialization when we are, Creating

communities, creating thought leadership,

developing insights, doing research.

We become the specialist and those things make

everything simpler.

You get better, higher referrals

and your expertise compounds over time.

Access is another lever.

you can sell subscriptions to those

Rembrandts, access to your community, access

to your, data, to your research, access

to your insights.

These all have values outside of your

business that you can use as levers.

And then last but not least licenses here,

we create an asset with the intention of

licensing to multiple.

Licensees.

So we talked about Rembrandts, which is

our input levers, which is the tool and then

leverage, which is our magnified output.

in a services based business, I like to think

of cloning yourself as the ultimate leverage

by developing a system that allows others to

deliver your services.

You free up time to focus on other tasks, but

still provide consistent customer experience and

continue to grow without sacrificing quality.

For example, let's a DEI training workshop.

written exercises, video scenarios, and

a trainer's manual.

You have, of course, registered

these in the U.

S.

Copyright Office.

Your workshop is in high demand, more demand than

you can satisfy alone.

One of your clients could keep you fully

occupied for a year you trained all of their

employees yourself.

you'd have no time left over for other

initiatives or for business development.

That's where clones come in.

I like to talk about four types of clones

that we can use to create leverage products,

employees, facilitators, and of course, licensees.

First products, books, courses, software,

and other DIY products are a great way to

diversify your revenue.

Depending on the desired result, the

customer may be able to get 100 percent of

the needs met with a product, but that is not

required for creating a valuable product.

Helping the customer advance toward their

goal with your expert advice is also valuable.

Also, you'll be able to reach a larger audience

of customers who might not be able to afford

your in person services, increasing your impact

and your brand awareness.

Employees, as founders, we are the most expensive

resource in our business.

A common method of cloning ourselves is

to use employees by hiring and training

individuals who can deliver your workshop.

You can free up your time for higher

level activities.

In addition to using less expensive resource

to deliver the service, employees reduce Risk.

If you're the only one delivering services,

what happens if you're ill or you hit a

wall with burnout?

Very few entrepreneurs have a plan for such

contingencies, which can devastate the business.

However, having employees deliver services

independently of you.

Can be very difficult if your clients are

only buying your time and not buying your

expertise, which you have, systematized or

product ties put into another package that can

be delivered without you.

Facilitators.

Outsourcing is a great way to expand your

business without taking on responsibility

of hiring and training employees.

Utilizing a facilitator or other subcontractor to

deliver your trainings is an especially effective

cloning technique.

When you have large corporate clients

who want several cohorts to receive

your training, you can serve the business.

That might otherwise dominate your time

while still being able to focus on other

parts of your business.

You protect your intellectual property

by entering into written agreements

with all facilitators that details the limits

of their use of your materials, ensures

that modifications or improvements will

be owned by you and prevents them from

poaching your clients.

This covered more in the last episode

about protection.

Last but not least licensees.

So we do this through licensing.

Licensing gives another party

permission to use your intellectual property

in exchange for a fee.

There are 2 types of licensees.

I'd like to talk about clients, your

current clients.

potential clients and other service providers.

You turn clients into licensees by training

their in house personnel to deliver your training.

That's also called the train the trainer model.

You turn other service providers into licensees

by licensing your IP to them so they

can provide your.

training to their own clients.

And again, that would be a license in

exchange for a fee.

Now I've heard from many of you that

you're concerned about your training being

reused by a client without you, more

importantly, or being stolen by competitors.

With a license agreement, you put in place the

structure to make sure that you're paid for all

uses of your training.

And it provides remedies for unauthorized use.

We've talked about several different

leverage strategies and to the surprise

of absolutely no one at the core of all

of those strategies is the development.

Ownership and protection of assets.

If we want to create scalable, leverageable

revenue streams in our business, we

must own assets.

And the reward for our investment in creating

and protecting our assets, and it is an

investment, is that we have that lever that

we can use to make our business more profitable

and more enjoyable.

This might be through IP based offerings

such as licensing or trainings, or it might

be through systemization or productization of

our one on one services.

What I love to do and what I look forward to

working with you with is helping you look at the

assets in your business.

Making sure that you're owning them, controlling

them and protecting them, measure them up with your

goals and your market, and finding out the

best way to maximize the value of your expertise.

I hope you've enjoyed this series.

Make sure you check out the last two

episodes as well.

If you haven't already, and remember,

ladies, IP is fuel.