Discover The Power of Certification Programs to Scale Your Expertise

In this solo episode, Tara Bryan delves into the advantages of creating a certification program around your expert framework. By doing so, not only do you scale your delivery and leverage your intellectual property, but you also meet both the supply and demand side of the customer equation.

Tara Bryan shares insights from her agency experience and highlights the exponential growth potential and various revenue streams through certification models.

Tune in for a detailed outline and examples of how to effectively grow your brand and expertise through certification.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:21 The Power of Certification Programs

01:09 Building Your Authority Framework

02:07 Agency Model Example

06:56 Client Success Story

09:27 Scaling Your Business with Certification

11:23 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

12:58 Call to Action and Subscription Reminder

Check out more details around this episode at www.taralbryan.com

Links referenced in this episode:

• storybrand.com
• profitfirstprofessionals.com

Takeaways:

• The creation of a certification program can significantly amplify both supply and demand in your business model.
• Establishing a certification model enables you to leverage your intellectual property in innovative ways.
• By training certified facilitators, you can expand your reach and impact exponentially beyond your personal capacity.
• A robust authority framework is essential for anyone contemplating the development of a successful certification program.
• Certification programs enhance your authority and create a community of trained practitioners representing your brand.
• It is advisable to examine existing certification programs as a source of inspiration for your own initiatives.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to today's episode of the podcast.

I am thrilled to be here.

It has been a minute since I've done a solo episode, so needed to come back and, and do one.

So it's summer if you are watch or watching or listening to this at a different time.

For me right now it is summer and things are heating up.

We've got lots of things going on and one of the things I wanted to talk about today is the certification model.

So if you have been thinking about building a certification program around your expert framework, then this episode is going to be for you.

One of the things I want to talk about is how creating a certification program actually creates both sides of the customer equation, both the supply and the demand side of having a customer.

So I'm going to explain that today and why a certification program is not only going to help you scale your delivery, but it's going to provide you so much leverage that you didn't even know was possible just based on packaging your ip.

So let's just break that down.

So, first of all, as if you are a listener of this podcast, you have heard around the foundation to becoming a scalable expert is actually creating your own authority framework.

And, and so you've probably heard some of those episodes in the past.

If you are brand new, I encourage you to go back and listen to some of the podcasts that I've done that really outline how do you create your expert framework, how do you really package and monetize your intellectual property and your expertise?

If you have that, if you have your authority framework, the thing that you own, the unique way that you go out and help your customers get results, then you could be ready to create a certification program or a way where you're really leveraging your intellectual property in a completely different way.

So I'm going to use a couple different examples today as I talk through this.

But the first thing that is, is really interesting is so when I was owning the agency and, and coincidentally, I have been dipping my toe back into working with some of the clients that I had in the agency.

And I got to tell you, it's so much fun.

So sometimes if you're in the middle of something and you feel like you need to step away from it to, to come back to it, I highly recommend it.

But what's interesting about it is as an agency owner, I have a lot of clients who come to me and they have an increasing need to have talent come in, right?

And, but they don't really want to source their own talent.

Or they're overwhelmed with sourcing their talent, or they're not exactly sure who to hire or how to hire them, which is a great reason to hire an agency because we take care of doing all of that.

And so companies don't have to like Onesie Twosie, hire people because we come in, we do everything from top to bottom as a full service agency.

But one of the challenges obviously, is if we're doing the hiring and they're not doing the hiring, we have to have the right talent who can execute on our expert framework on the way that we do business, the way that we help our customers.

And, and so what's interesting is the customer comes to us because there's a need in their business to create something, and, and then we have to find the right people who can match that need, which is a really perfect position to be in to create a certification model.

So if you think about it, you have people who are coming in who want the work done and people who want to learn how to do the work.

And so you match that together and your expert framework becomes the intersection to both parties being happy and getting exactly what they need.

So sometimes it's coming in and creating your own program or delivery system where you can train end users to do it themselves or to do it with you, but the other way to do it is to find people, train them in on your system, and then deploy them to those companies so they can do the implementation.

So a lot of times what happens is you may be coming in, teaching the framework, doing coaching, and helping these companies grow, but there's still a need for execution, there's still a need for implementation.

That's where you can build, bring in some people who want to learn how to implement, how to execute, train them on your methodology, and then match them.

So the business model there is infinitely scalable because of the fact that you have at least just what I outlined four different ways to monetize your expertise.

And, and you've met everyone else's needs, including your own, as you are exponentially growing.

So you can license your model, you can train people on your model, you can certify other people, they can help your customers, your customers will purchase or hire the people that you're you've trained.

So that's another revenue source.

So it's a really powerful model.

I'll do a little illustration of that and include that with this podcast or if you're watching on YouTube, on our YouTube channel.

So you can see in sort of a diagram format the exponential potential for Creating a certification program.

So, so in our business, it we're just primed to do that, right?

We have our proprietary methodology for how we help our customers so we can really maintain our level of quality, our level of professionalism, and obviously deliver an amazing product.

And we can also continue to grow because we can put people in place who are trained in our methodology.

And then the companies continue to hire us because we have the right talent.

They don't need to go off and try and figure it out on their own, which is obviously a value add for them.

So really think about that.

Are you in a position where you have your authority framework and you have people who want the delivery or done for you work?

How can you start putting some people in place, teach them your framework and how to actually do that done for you, and, and then do a revenue split or share around all of it so that everyone benefits and it starts to grow your brand exponentially.

So that's one example from sort of an agency model.

The second example is a client of mine I've been working with.

And so she has taken her expert framework, her authority framework, and created a certification program where it's a facilitated certification model, meaning she's created all the curriculum.

So she created the framework, she created all the curriculum, it's her doing all the teaching.

But she has certified trainers that she is certifying in her approach as facilitators.

So they are running live classes and they're facilitating.

When she's teaching, right, she's doing video teaching, asynchronous, meaning like recorded videos.

They play the video, then they facilitate the conversation and discussion and help their participants to go through the entire program.

And what happens is now she is the owner of the intellectual property.

She's the owner and licensed her approach.

She has certified trainers.

So she went from being able to deliver this one on one or in a group to being able to have put in tens and hundreds and potentially and eventually thousands of certified trainers to train hundreds and thousands again of people who are going to go through this program.

So she took something that was just her intellectual property and infinitely scaled it past herself so that she's involved in licensing her model and not actually delivering her model.

So again, when you are creating that, you're creating demand on the end user side, right?

People want to be trained in this approach.

You're creating demand for certified trainers, people who want to train and facilitate in this approach, and people who want facilitated trainers and who want their teams trained.

And so you've just completely created a model that Starts to grow despite yourself, right?

To grow with all of the parts and pieces that start to move the ball down the hill, which then starts to add exponential growth.

So if you look at the opportunity with a certification program, it is the second dimension to really creating a program that you're delivering.

And it automatically elevates your status.

It elevates your status for those participants who are going through it with a trainer and watching you, but they don't have access to you.

So that adds to your authority for whatever it is you want to do.

Write a book, do speaking, have higher ticket coaching programs where those people ascend forward or something in between there.

And then it also creates a group of people, certified trainers who are representing your brand, who are growing their own business, growing their own skills with your intellectual property.

So it is an amazing way to start growing your business in a different way than just continuously trying to get in new customers or churning through new content or whatever it is that you're doing to try and go from where you are today to becoming scalable.

So I encourage you to think about a certification model.

If it's something that you're like, oh yeah, like I'm really interested in taking this step.

You have your authority framework, you have really great assets, or you have an idea for really great assets and you know that you have, you've created some demand on both sides of the customer equation.

Then it may be time for you to start thinking about how do you create that infrastructure behind your, your expertise and create a certification program and create an entire sort of new ecosystem around your, your expertise.

So if you're interested in that, if you have questions or you want to talk through it with me in the show notes, you will find a link to book a call with me.

I encourage you to do that.

This type of model helps you leverage your time, your impact and your income.

As you start to look at how do you grow that, that framework that you have created and really start scaling your expertise.

All right, until next time, start to get curious around certification programs.

Go out into the market and look at other experts who have certification programs, a couple that I will mention that you can go out and look at.

Donald Miller has a certification program called StoryBrand where he certifies people to use the StoryBrand framework in their business.

Or Mike Michalowicz has Profit first where he certifies Profit first professionals to use his methodology in their business to help their customers.

There are dozens and dozens more certification programs that are out there where experts have taken their proprietary framework and turned it into something that scales.