In this week's podcast, Tara shares the often-overlooked challenges of certification programs. She covers essential tips for safeguarding your intellectual property, defining ownership of materials, and establishing clear guidelines for certified trainers.

Learn how to avoid common pitfalls and ensure your certification model enhances your business without compromising your brand.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:14 The Dark Side of Certification Programs

01:07 Protecting Your Intellectual Property

03:02 Defining Ownership and Usage Rights

09:26 Managing Customer Relationships

13:28 Compensation and Benefits

16:49 Setting Clear Expectations

17:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Tara Bryan is the creator of the Infinite Scale Method™ and host of The Scalable Expert podcast. She helps expert business owners, coaches, and consultants turn their expertise into a scalable business built on a signature framework and systems that deliver results without requiring more of their time.

Learn more at www.thescalable.expert and www.taralbryan.com

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Hey, everybody.

Welcome to this week's podcast.

I am thrilled that you're here.

Hey.

Last week we talked about certification programs and why they may be a great fit for you and your business.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about the dark side of certification programs, because I think that it's one of the things that we don't talk enough about.

And, and so if you're thinking about it or if you have one, what I want to do today is give you a couple of tips and tricks so you don't get yourself stuck in a bad certification model.

So some of the things that you really need to put in place, if you have a certification or licensing model, anytime you have other people who are representing your brand, it's important to put some safeguards in place to protect yourself and your intellectual property so there's no confusion in terms of who owns what.

And so I want to give you a couple of examples today, a couple of things to think about, and a couple of gotchas that will help you not get yourself in trouble when you start your certification program.

So the first thing is, who owns your intellectual property, who owns your brand, who owns your material?

Who owns all of the things that you are putting out there from a certification perspective?

And the easy answer is, yes, you own a all of those things.

However, you have to be really intentional about how you design ownership so that someone doesn't just take what you have and repackage it and use it as their own.

Do people do that out in the industry?

Yes, they do, and they shouldn't.

And it's not ethical and it's against the law, but people do it.

So how do you protect yourself?

The very first thing is that when you have your authority framework and you have it packaged and you have it named, it becomes something that you can trademark, you can register, you can do all the things because it's something that's packaged and, and it doesn't really matter what you call it.

You can call it whatever you want, but that is the very first thing that you need to do is to trademark your.

Your packaged IP and make sure everything is copywritten and all of the different things.

If you don't know how to do that, all of that is something that you need an attorney for.

But you write all the symbols appropriately, use ChatGPT and, and they'll show you how to do that.

But first and foremost, just be mindful of at least putting a copyright symbol on all of your documents.

Put a registered trademark or even just a trademark sign by your Registered ip.

It helps to at least get you in the right, in the right place.

So start there and do that and really be clear about the fact that you own your license and your expertise.

So when you're starting a certification program, you need to decide what the certified trainer owns and what you own.

And really I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, I work with a lot of people who specialize in sales and marketing.

And this is the part where I'm going to tell you you have to slow down a little bit and you have to be really clear yourself in terms of what you own and what you don't own and what you're giving away when you have bring people in a certification program.

So if you're certifying other people in your brand, just be very intentional around what you're doing.

And, and so materials, your proprietary framework, all of those different things, that becomes as a whole easier for people to understand, right?

They're licensing your brand, they're licensing your materials, and, and your proprietary framework.

That tends to be something that's a little bit more black and white, that people have an understanding of, still have it in writing in terms of what their responsibility is, what their sort of creative liberty is around your materials.

So for example, if you have a certified trainer who is trained in your methodology, do you want them to be able to change it?

Do you want them to be able to create their own materials to support what you have in your framework, or are they only supposed to use your materials?

That's an important distinction.

If somebody creates their own templates or job aids or something around your methodology, is that protected or not protected?

Is that something that you want them to be able to do or not do?

If they co brand their materials with your materials, is that something that you want them to do or not do?

They are representing your brand.

So most of the time you want to control the intellectual property part of your program or whatever it is that you're having them deliver.

And so work through all of those details in terms of how much you want them to be able to change or adjust what you're doing.

If they are teaching your methodology, how do you want them to teach it?

Do you want them to follow it exactly?

Do you want them to put their own flair into it?

I have a client who has, she's actually on the videos, on the recorded videos teaching and her certified trainers are there to lead a discussion.

They are not there to teach the material.

They are not there to reinforce any of the concepts from a teaching perspective.

They are merely there to help guide the conversation, which is a very different approach than giving somebody your licensing model so they can go and teach it to other people.

And so just make sure that you're clear on how you want to handle your intellectual property and what the rules are around that a lot of times if you have a certification program, you are, you're charging those people, your certified trainers or whatever you're calling them, to just be able to use your brand.

And, and so if they're paying monthly or they're paying annually to use your brand, you can put some provisions and, and rules in place so that they know exactly what they're using and what they're not using out of your brand.

I would say that the place that gets the murkiest is if you are working with somebody who is a coach and they get certified in your approach and, and they're using your approach in their coaching practice.

How does that work?

I would think through that very clearly, because people tend to use lots of different tools, lots of different systems in their coaching practice, but wrap all of that into sort of their own brand, have very clear parameters around what that looks like for them as you build out a certification program that lets other people use your ip.

The other thing is how much are you going to be promoting your IP versus how much are they promoting your IP and making sure that if they're promoting it, that they're tying it back to you and that it's your approach and not something that, that they're using as their approach.

Profit first is one example I use often with Mike Michalowicz.

And I have a client that is certified in his approach and she has created an entire business that's.

That leverages his approach, but she is actually training on something completely, not unrelated, but different.

And so she can use his approach in her coaching business, but she's very clear about what the delineation is between it.

I've had another client, potential client that I've been working with that has completely just taken his model and put it into her business and called it something different.

That is not.

And she's not a certified and licensed practitioner in his approach, that is something that is.

Is not acceptable.

And so she needs to come up with what is her own unique framework that she can bring out to the world or, and pay for Mike's license so that those.

She's in compliance with his brand and his licensing agreement.

So there's.

The first thing is how do you deal with your material?

How do you want other people to represent your material?

Both in a training, in a coaching, and in an implementation standpoint, what does that look like in the agency when we train people to actually do the done for you work?

In our methodology, they're taking it a step deeper than they would get anywhere else.

And they're representing our brand, representing all of our tools and our systems.

We've trained them to be able to do that.

And so they're using those as they go.

And so it's very structured in terms of how that works.

Okay, so that's material and the actual IP that you own.

One of the biggest questions that has come up recently with clients in terms of certification programs is who owns the customer?

So if you are licensing your IP and giving people access to be able to use your network, use your marketing, use your referrals to get customers, who owns that customer?

Are you able to market to that customer?

Are you able to sell to that customer because they've come into your world and they're being trained on your proprietary methodology?

Or does the coach or certified trainer own that customer?

So this is a really interesting one.

So one of the clients I'm working with actually has all of everyone who buys, whether they're a certified trainer or a participant that's working with a certified trainer, they all buy through her CRM, they all buy through her landing page.

And so they're all put in as customers.

And then the certified trainers get their referral fee for each of the participants that they bring in.

And there was a conversation the other day about having somebody who is a coach be a certified trainer in her approach and then charge her customers a higher coaching fee to coach alongside the program.

And that brought up, well, then if she's charging them more, if she's charging them out of her own system and then just paying the referral fee, who owns that relationship.

And so it gets really murky really quickly.

And again, you want to just make sure that you're thinking through this, who owns that?

Technically, if a customer is coming in through a centralized CRM, they're coming in through a centralized system.

There's a standard curriculum for the.

This program in this situation with the certified training is owned by the person who owns the.

The certification program, not that coach who's become a certified trainer or the, the whoever else is doing the training.

They are facilitating a program based on becoming certified.

Right?

So they're licensed to facilitate the program, but they do not own the client relationship.

So at the end of the relationship, they don't have ownership of that customer.

They can't go off and sell to that customer on their own or sell a different program or sell something else.

That customer is not owned by that facilitator, incidentally.

They also don't own that customer relationship so that they should be using the system in order to communicate with those customers.

They shouldn't be emailing or communicating with them separately unless it's within the confines of that live class and what they're doing in a facilitation standpoint.

So there's a lot of moving parts and pieces there to think about.

If you want to provide ownership to that certified trainer for their customer, then do you also retain ownership?

Is that in your agreement that you both own the customer and you both can market to that customer after the fact that that becomes confusing for the customer and definitely impacts customer experience and the experience of how they are in your world.

But it's possible to do it if you're very intentional about what that looks like.

So that's definitely something to think about as you are looking at a certification program with that.

The other thing is, from a compensation standpoint, everyone should benefit in a certification program, right?

You are benefiting because you've got leveraged delivery.

Your certified trainers are benefiting because they are getting more customers.

You are either referring them people to them, you're selling for them, or they're just able to enhance their skill set so they can go out and sell to, to people to bring them in, right?

So they're getting compensated for that.

In the case of my client, she has an administration fee, which is just a small portion of that total participant fee and the trainer gets the rest of it for facilitating the class.

And so it's a win win for everyone when you look at that compensation model.

But again, you have to plan that out.

You have to be very clear when, when you are, when you have a certification fee, monthly or annual fee, what is that for?

So somebody is actually paying for your intellectual property and, and they need to keep, keep that, that payment going, right?

So again, whether it's monthly or annually or however you do it, they're paying for access and, and feel confident in that, feel confident that you're giving them a system that, that they're able to benefit from again, build their skillset, build their business, build whatever it is that they are interested in building that is worth that certification fee.

Plus of course you are giving them branding and you're giving them training and there could be a community.

We always recommend having a community of trainers to be able to practice together, to share best practices to share questions and answers.

You as a certified trainer, the, as the owner of the brand probably will have some times when you're getting in front of those certified trainers and helping them out and, and communicating with them, all of that is, is worth that monthly or annual fee for them to keep that license.

You're doing the authority building, you're doing the brand building.

It definitely helps for, for them in whatever capacity they're trying to, to build it in and, and so be confident in that.

But also then looking at the compensation model from a growth perspective and how it helps you get out into the market in a completely different way than you can just one on one or in, in an agency capacity.

So those are a couple of things to think about.

Highly recommend that you do a licensing agreement with all of the people that you are certifying as certified trainers.

So everyone is on the same page.

So everyone knows exactly what the rules of engagement are.

Right.

People like to have the structure and the guardrails that they need in order to be successful.

Most of the time people aren't coming into a situation and, and in trying to manipulate the situation or come in and, and do something that they shouldn't be doing.

Most of the time the problem is that the parameters haven't been set and things happen and then you have to deal with them.

I would say the last piece of this is giving people clear expectations for how they represent you and represent your brand.

How do you want them to show up?

How do you want them to use your brand?

Again, are you co branding?

Is it just your brand?

How did they fit into that?

How did they, how do they get their authority built based on your authority?

What does that look like and how are they outrepresenting you in the market?

Again, the more clear you can be, the more successful you'll be as you go through this process.

So hopefully some of these catches are good to learn now before you've gotten started or if you are in the middle of it, go and do this right now.

Or if you've learned from these mistakes, really just look at how some of these things could or would have enhanced your business.

All right, until next time.