We always go Meta on the podcast, but my guest Eva Jannotta and I really doubled down as we learned more about her thought leadership as a coach to women entrepreneurs on thought leadership. Eva has some truly progressive approaches to her own business and her work with clients, which she generously shared with us. In this podcast, you will hear about

· How business owners can use their profits to do good works downstream or bake good works into their business model through things like equity pricing

· The ingredients to the secret sauce that makes for Magnetic Thought Leadership

· A case study on turning ideas into IP, looking at Eva’s Women Leaders Round Tables

· Bonus: Some tough, meaningful talk about B2B Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

I felt like I learned so much from our conversation and was inspired to learn how much she’s done with her business since she formed it eight years ago. If you think your IP is ready to be transformed into a scalable product, contact me to discuss your options.

Eva Jannotta (she/her) helps women defy the status quo, amplify our influence, and expand our wealth and power with thought leadership. Eva and the Medusa Media Group team train and advise authors, speakers, coaches and consultants to generate strong leads and grow engaged audiences by publishing their best thinking. She works with women in her programs "Micro Marketing Method" and "Exponential Audience", and privately. Eva lives on O'odham Jeweḍ, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam ancestral land in Phoenix, AZ.

Connect with Eva:

https://medusamediagroup.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/evajannotta/

Free email course: 5 Pillars of Magnetic Thought Leadership (https://5magneticpillars.com/)

We would love it if you would consider supporting Eva’s charity of choice: https://www.iwrising.org/

Connect with Erin and find the resources mentioned in this episode at hourlytoexit.com/podcast.

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

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

Music credit: Yes She Can by Tiny Music

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Welcome to the Hourly to Exit Podcast, ladies.

I am so excited for the episode today.

I'm very pleased to welcome Eva Jannotta to the podcast.

Welcome Eva.

Hey Erin.

I'm so excited.

Yeah, me too.

Me too.

I've known Eva for a while.

You're gonna really enjoy our conversation today.

But before we get going, Eva, would you introduce yourself to the audience?

Yes.

So this is Eva Janotta, I use she her pronouns, and I am a

thought leadership advisor and trainer for women entrepreneurs.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

I mean, you could even tell she is, I'm positive my first guest to, uh,

use her pronouns and that will be part of what we're gonna talk about today.

Eva is, a leader in the, I'm gonna call it equity and inclusion, although

I know that's more of an employee employer type of terminology, but it's

kind of the way that I think about.

You know, Eva is super inclusive in the way that she markets herself

and in how she provides services,

and so, that dei equity inclusion, you know, we see it all the

time in the employment space.

You know, DEI consultants can't get enough people to help them.

You know, they're so busy providing those services, but we don't

really see it in the B2B space.

You know, it's like, Well, if they're not your client, if they can't afford

you, frankly, we hear that all the time.

If they can't afford you, then they're not your client, right?

Mm-hmm.

. And, uh, you're not, you're for, you're a for-profit.

You're not a non-profit.

You gotta make a profit.

And, uh, I feel like you've done a really good job of balancing all those things.

And so first I wanna say that, you know, in your bio that you submitted

to me, you mentioned, I cannot pronounce this, but the ancestral

lands that you live on in Phoenix.

Tell me about that, why you include that, what that means to you.

Yeah, thank you.

So I realized right when I was introducing myself, I thought, shoot, I should have

pasted names of those tribal lands right in front of my face so I could have said

them right at the outset with my pronouns.

So that was a, a quick learning moment for me as I, just think about all the

ways I wanna prepare to introduce myself.

So I'll say it now.

So I do live on O'odham Jeweḍ, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam

ancestral land in Phoenix, Arizona.

And that along with the pronouns and some other, I guess, small but cumulative

choices that I make and I seek to model are some of the ways that I strive to

be inclusive and to think about equity.

And I must tell you, Erin, it was very meaningful to hear you describe

me as a leader in that, because I don't identify that way, you know,

in terms of the, in the fact that.

I don't offer services specifically about D E I B or anything of that nature.

You know, I'm in, thought leadership and it's kind of companion, which is

marketing, but it's really meaningful to me to hear that as someone who's in my

audience as a colleague, that you have that impression or that experience of

leadership from me, that means a lot because I have, I do think about it

often and try to do what I can, always improving to make that a priority.

Yeah, absolutely.

I literally have not heard other people talking about it

in the B2B space the way you do.

So I, I am very inspired by that.

And of course, you know, this podcast is about, the mission is to help get more

wealth in the hands of women because, you know, I, and I think you believe

that we do better things with it.

And, uh, and so I, I love to see that.

So we are gonna talk about your services, I promise, but, one of the things also

that you have in your business is you have, I don't know if sliding scale

is the right term to use, but you have different ways for people to get access

to your brilliance and tell us about that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So I rolled out, this concept that I did not invent called equity pricing.

I actually don't know.

If there's one person responsible for kind of coining that term, but the

concept of equity pricing is based on the work of Kimberly Crenshaw.

And you know, she published what's super well known now, her

intersectional theory in 1989.

And that's the idea that if you have multiple historically

marginalized identities, they don't each exist in a vacuum, right?

Like they all can compound each other and impact your access to

resources, your ability to feel like you belong or are welcomed in

different spaces, and on and on and on.

So the notion of equity pricing is to allow someone who's purchasing a group

program with me, so if they're enrolling in my micro marketing method program

or in my exponential audience programs, depending upon the identities that.

Live that they identify with that will impact and reduce the total amount

that they invest to be in the program.

And it's partly material, You know, they do pay less to enroll, but it's

also symbolic because I wanna provide my clients with the experience of their

identities, which in some ways may have

been barriers to access over the course of their lives.

I want them to have the experience of their identities being a

benefit, like a tangible financial benefit, and have a really material

experience that they're welcome here and their perspective is desired.

And one of the ways I try to make that clear is through the equity pricing offer.

And what feedback have you gotten from people who come to

you just based on, your profile as a marketing, thought leadership, marketing

person, and they find this out.

Like what, what kind of feedback do you get from them?

So far, it's been very positive.

So I work at this time exclusively with people who identify as women, so I

find that the women who come to enroll in my programs are overwhelmingly,

like, surprised slash really delighted because most of them,

or maybe all of them, haven't had this kind of experience before.

And, you mentioned the concept of a sliding scale, and so many of them

have purchased a service with a sliding scale, which can be really important.

But this is different because it's tied closely to how you self-identify.

And what I do is I give my client a list of potential identities.

Some of them might be visible identities, some of them might be identities that

aren't so visible, such as chronic illness or mental health challenges,

and I just ask them to give me a number.

You know?

How many of these historically marginalized identities do you experience?

They don't need to tell me what they are, because if they wanna

keep that private, I understand.

Although they're also welcome to share if they wanna do that.

And they just give me a number and from there I calculate what their total

investment in the program will be.

And everyone that I've offered this to so far has loved it.

Mm-hmm, that is fantastic.

Yeah.

And so did you have any fears about this going in?

Because again, you know, you are a for-profit business.

In order for you to continue to share your message, you have to stay in business.

Did you have any fears about doing this?

One concern I had is, you know, I work in my group of programs and

I work privately with one to one clients.

So one concern I had is I was worried that my private clients would say, Hey, how

come you don't offer equity pricing to me?

And so far, none of them have asked that.

So my fear about, you know, having to kind of address that

with them, I haven't had to yet.

But even if I did, what I made sure was clear to myself is, and this speaks to

just what you mentioned, Erin, which is like the fact of being a for-profit

business is the way my business model is now, because my work for private clients

includes a lot of deliverables that I pay other workers to help me produce,

I need to keep my profit margins at a certain place to be able to

afford to provide those services.

And my hope down the line is that my group programs will continue to grow.

And since those are more scaled offerings, you know, the more people I offer them

to, the more I can make a profit on those.

So I'm hopeful that over time I will be making enough of a profit

off the group programs that I will be able to afford to offer equity

pricing to my private clients.

I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

how slash when that will come to be, but that was something I had to think

about before I kind of debuted this equity pricing model for the group

programs is just how do I make sure that I convey why group and not private.

Mm-hmm.

and I'm, I'm hopeful that should any of my private clients raise that concern, I'd be

able to address it comfortably with them.

Yeah.

What seems interesting about this, one of the things that I have emphasized to

business owners is sometimes, you know, our businesses are just about maximizing

our income so that we can downstream use it for the things that we care about.

For charitable giving or following whatever your passions are.

And so maybe it's not in the business that we have to give away our

services or do things like that.

But it's like you found like this kind of really interesting balance of being

able to one, maximize the value of your expertise while also providing

benefits within the context of a for-profit business, about supporting

people that you wanna support.

So wow, that is so cool.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You know, you make an interesting point and I'm, if someone listening,

if your goal is like, I wanna maximize now cause I've got big plans

later, I think that's fantastic.

And if you're clear on how that's gonna work and you're

content with it, then cheers.

Mm-hmm.

and I know, but I know for myself, you know, For many of us, and I think, and

I identify as a white woman, so I'm gonna speak just to my experience, but

I know for myself and many other white people that I know, the murder of George

Floyd in 2020 was a huge wake up call.

And my ego would love to be able to tell you that I was already practicing

anti-racism in my business and I was already being public about some

of these decisions, but I wasn't.

Like many, many, many white people,

we kind of knew there was a problem, but, and that was sort of the extent

of the actions we took about It was just sort of like, Yeah, I know

it's bad and I sometimes donate.

And that was sort of the end of it.

But when that happened, I realized like it felt non-negotiable to

immediately to make changes and to use my platform, as small as it is,

mm-hmm.

to quote unquote be the change.

And to also just, like walk my talk.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, I got my undergraduate degree in gender and women's studies and it

was a very intersectional education and it was the first time I understood

why things are the way they are.

And they are the way they are, not just because of gender oppression.

And just to live with myself,

that was part of it, but also to be a leader and to, you know, I think

especially like, again, talking about white people, we have such

a rich legacy of doing nothing.

And that changes with every single one of us doing something, even if

it's a little something to start with.

So over the years, since 2020, I have is just wanted to try to do a

little bit more and a little bit more.

First I have to do it within myself and then sharing it with others.

And so the equity pricing is one of those things.

You know, donating 1% of our profits every quarter to an organization

led or serving black women and or indigenous women is another.

So my hope is that the cumulative effect of those things, You know, has a small

but mighty ripple effect, and not just the impact of of my actions, but how

the people in my community might be inspired to do the same or similar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You used the word legacy, many people think that legacy is like that big grand

thing that we do at the end, right.

But it's the little things we do every day, like we are creating our legacy

every day with the things that we do, how we impact the people around

us, our communities, the environment, that's all part of our legacy.

And so, yeah, you are a great example of doing something every day.

So thank you for that.

All right, so.

What do you do?

Who do you do it for?

How do you help people?

Why do they come to you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Just a little question.

Little couple of questions there.

Yeah.

So thought leadership, training and advisory.

That's what I do.

But what does that even mean?

So first I wanna just define thought leadership.

So this is a phrase in the business world that has a jargon flavor.

It's like tossed around a lot.

It's maybe not always clear what it actually is.

And a very basic definition is that thought leadership is the

expression of ideas that demonstrate you have expertise in your field.

So that could be through writing or studies or books or speaking, podcasting.

And that's a serviceable definition, but I work with my women clients on

something a little deeper, which I call magnetic thought leadership.

And this is to provide provocative insights and a strong position in our

unique voice to make an intellectual impact and position ourselves as

authorities so we can build wealth and power and drive social change.

So what that means to me is, of course thought leadership has a lot

of powerful business applications.

It's dynamite for marketing, for prospecting, for pitching

yourself to opportunities for becoming known, you know, building

a body of work, of intellectual property, and that's all great.

There's another aspect of it, which I think doesn't get as much air time

in the marketplace, and that's the self-actualization of really committing

yourself to discover or to excavate.

What do I really think?

What is my insight into this that might nudge against the status quo?

What strong opinions do I have and how can I build the courage muscles

to share those strong opinions?

Because strong and bold and provocative opinions are magnetic.

You know, bland stuff is not memorable.

, right?

A lot of the quote unquote thought leadership that I come across, and that

probably you and anyone listening does.

It's pretty bland.

It's maybe repeats the same stuff.

It doesn't, doesn't stop you in your metaphorical tracks.

And then the final aspect I'll share about the work I do with clients

which, practically speaking, is usually teaching them how to write

their magnetic thought leadership.

Writing and reading are my love language,

so that's my thought leadership specialty as opposed to like, I

know you've interviewed Carol Cox, our colleague who specializes in

public speaking thought leadership.

So mine is writing and so I'm helping my clients to, through

the process of ideating.

You know, excavating the ideas, uncensoring themselves through drafting,

through polishing and formatting and making the thought leadership

asset really magnetic to read,

and that stops the scroll.

And a key part of that is helping my clients to use their unique voices.

And throughout schooling and if you've had a corporate career,

often you're, you're kind of trained to quash your unique voice.

You know, you're not supposed to swear, you're not supposed to be

goofy, you're not supposed to be playful, you're not supposed to

use slang, et cetera, et cetera.

Mm-hmm.

. And sometimes you know, it's important to be able to

communicate a certain way, sure.

But when you are trying to magnetize people to work with you and hire you, the

more you you can be, the more you'll stand out and attract your right fit people and

repel those that aren't the right fit.

There's a couple of things I hope that I made a good enough notes here.

That one was, you know, you use the term bold and provocative and you work

with people who identify as women.

And so do you find that in particular with this group, that we have the

most trouble being bold and taking risks because, you know, we're women.

And so just sometimes it's a little harder for us.

So tell me about how that plays into how you work with your clients.

Definitely.

So, being bold is not a item you check off your to-do list, but an ongoing process

of self-discovery and trial and error.

And so some of the things I work on with clients is just like building

and feeling safety in the body.

You know, how can you start your thought leadership practice in a way that doesn't

send you into fight or flight, or that doesn't open you up to negative feedback

or strong pushback that you might not have the confidence or the kind of like

resilience muscles to address comfortably.

And all of that is built with time and that's why I talk about

thought leadership as a lifestyle.

You know, not like a one off.

Mm-hmm.

. This is something I recommend that people do over time and

that I do for myself over time.

And so part of it is, yeah, like the, you know, it's like not sexy,

but like the more you practice, the better you get at something

and the more confidence you build.

So, right, There's that very practical aspect.

But the other thing that I need to be very careful of as a white person is,

my likelihood for getting pushback or negative criticism, or someone

asking me to put in the receipts, cite the studies, prove my points.

My likelihood for facing that is much less than a woman of color.

And so I need to be mindful of that when I'm working with my women of

color clients to just have a level of awareness that the advice I might

give to myself or another white person might not be safe or appropriate

or applicable to a woman of color's experience, or her more likely situation.

So when that's the case, I just try to listen, never gaslight, um, never

misbelieve anyone, but just do what I can to suggest other ways that these women

of color clients can practice building resilience and courage muscles, but also

do they need to take extra measures?

Do they need to cite studies more than I would have to, mm-hmm.

to circumvent or try to avoid that kind of pushback?

That's an unfair reality.

Mm-hmm.

, but it is a reality that I do my best to acknowledge and address.

All right.

I'm going to hit on that and then go back to my other point.

It's just like, how did you come to this?

Like is this through working with women of color that they gave you

the pushback that made you aware of this, or is that part of your studies?

Or like how did you know that you needed to bring this sensitivity to

this for your different audience?

Yeah, so all of the above, You know, some of it came from

learning and reading and like I said, my undergraduate education in gender

to women's studies, which was an intersectional field, really helped.

The thought leaders I was exposed to back then really helped lay the foundation.

But, and now I would say it's a combination of the women of color

thought leaders that I read and follow, and also my women of color clients who

are

so generous with their feedback and their

perspective and their stories.

And so I just pay close attention to what they're telling me and just every

instance of that is just another kind of like, it goes in the back of my

mind in the little filing cabinet in my brain of like, Okay, this is how it

is for some people, and you're gonna remember this and apply this forward.

Mm-hmm.

So I, I'm always just like very grateful to.

Just anyone who teaches anyone anything, you know.

So many people are just generous with their stories and their

experience and, you know, those can be very tender and very vulnerable.

So I really cherish the relationships that I have with women of color,

just like my, in my personal life and also professionally and their

willingness to be open with me about their experience so I can be a

better steward of my work with them.

That's awesome.

Well, that kind of ties into the point I wanted to go back to, which was, you

know, kind of evolving from our corporate voices to having kind of our individual

voices as business owners and as thought leaders and the challenge, you know, like.

I talk about, getting outta that hourly mindset and getting into, you

know, a profit based mindset instead of just an income based mindset.

And for you stopping the corporate speak, but being more yourself,

and that's different for everybody.

Right?

And I can say personally for me, you know, my writing has evolved.

, if I went back two years to my LinkedIn staff, it would all be, this is what I

p I mean, it would be really legal, like very, I mean, it would just be just.

Terrible . I'm not even saying that what I'm doing is so brilliant

now, but it's feel, it's me.

Like it's, it's just, it's me.

It's easy.

I feel like when I'm writing my newsletter, I feel like I'm talking to

the person who's on the other end, I don't feel writing a newsletter, you know?

Wonderful.

And, uh, and it just kind of makes everything flow honestly.

and so it's not, when you're trying to be someone that you're not,

like, it just affects everything.

I mean, just, and being able to get comfortable with that is, is so important.

Yeah, and you hit on a couple of the ways that we are able to do that.

One of them is practice and also not judging our past selves too

harshly for the fact that we were inevitably not as good as it back

then as we are now, or will be later.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, like you said, being yourself, feeling like you're addressing one

person or a close friend, that's really the energy that I encourage myself

and my clients to bring to the table.

And truthfully, I think you do great at this.

And I, I actually have a screenshot of one of your LinkedIn posts in one of my

presentations because I think you do a really good job of like being engaging

and educational and it's valuable and it's often a little bit funny.

Mm-hmm.

or a little unexpected.

All you kinda, you hit on a lot of these points that make social media

posts likely to stop the scroll.

And you know, you ask like, how do we do it?

And so it's practice and it's like, you know, certain tricks like picture one

person or other, maybe writing advice that you've heard is a big part of it.

I think also it just takes time.

And so being really patient with the process is, it's hard,

but like really important.

And, you know, I'll give you an example that that's actually has an

application, not, you know, outside of, of thought leadership itself.

But I recently had, uh, the experience of doubling my prices for my private clients.

Yay.

Yay.

Yeah.

Seeking hourly to profit mindset and.

, You know, this really defied the conventional wisdom I'd received,

which is that you never raise your prices for existing clients.

You only raise them for new clients, or you only raise them by like 10%

a year or something very gradual.

And I actually doubled my prices for nearly all of my long term

thought leadership clients,

my private clients.

some of the newer ones had already been raised to that rate, but many of of

the ones that had worked with me for a few years were at a much lower rate.

And it was time to change that.

I was extremely nervous.

Mm-hmm.

But I had a really helpful conversation with my coach who

helped me write a template for these price increase conversations.

And what worked so well is that the template was super honest and in my voice.

I didn't make myself try to persuade them in a certain way.

I didn't act like there was this specific reason like, Oh, I,

my expenses have increased and that's why I have to do that.

No, I just explained that this was what me and my business needed, and I hoped

that they would continue to work with me and I would understand if they didn't.

And so that is another.

Example of how having practiced for so many years really using my voice

and having learned to trust that my voice is enough, that I don't need

to rely on persuasive arguments all the time, especially in these long

term relationships was so valuable.

But I wouldn't have been able to do that a few years ago.

It was only now that I think I had the courage and the practice to

be able to do that with confide.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Well, one place where we have worked together is your round table.

So tell me about your round tables and how they work and all the

things.

Thanks for asking.

I love these.

So my round tables are, they're called the women Leaders round table.

It's invitation only, but the way to get an invitation is

just by asking me for one.

anyone listening, if you're interested, once I describe them,

reach out to me on LinkedIn and I would love to have you join.

So I started this series because I'd never met a networking opportunity I liked Mm.

Even though I identify as an outgoing person, I love making new

friends and meeting new people.

I just, if I never have to go to another, like networking happy hour

or luncheon again, it'll be too soon.

Like I just want nothing to do with those.

They just, they tended to feel very transactional, very rushed.

They were often kind of overstimulating environments and the way I most

enjoy connecting with people, and what I find most nourishing about it

is in much more intimate contexts.

But as we all know, one to one now is not very scalable.

So I knew I didn't want my fulltime job to be coffee dates

on Zoom or whatever, Right.

You know, virtual coffees.

So I started, I was actually, um, introduced to this concept by

my, uh, colleague, Isha Coborn, who's also here in Phoenix.

She invited me to one, it was a 90 minute zoom call with a couple of other

people, and she had some slides and they each had a few questions on them,

and we all took turns answering them.

And I was extremely skeptical.

Cause I thought 90 minutes with some strangers, like,

hmm, it seems kind of risky.

But after the call I felt so filled up and there was, something really

nourishing about being in that smaller, having someone lead the

conversation but with enough room for, you know, breakout talks to happen.

And so I started hosting these myself, coincidentally, right when Covid

kicked off and they are Covid approved.

So that worked in my favor.

So basically it's a 90 minute conversation between me and Max four other women.

I share some slides, we take some turns answering questions

about ourselves and our work.

And what is so valuable about it, I think, is that.

The format because it's loosely structured with time for spontaneity,

ensures that people who identify as introverted or shy or extroverted

and outgoing all have the space to share but not over or unders share.

Mm-hmm.

. Cause it's taking turns.

Right.

And you know, I get, I get overwhelmingly positive feedback from women who

attend these and it wasn't for about, I don't know, a year and a half after

I started doing them that I came across some research by, I can't

remember the name of the researcher, unfortunately, Shelly something maybe.

Anyway, she had done some research that found that women,

when we respond to stress, you know, we have the fight or flight or freeze

response that everyone's heard of.

She identified an additional behavior that women participate in to alleviate

stress that she titled Tend and Befriend.

And what it is, is plugging into social networks and like bonding and relying

on social ties to help alleviate stress.

And I thought like it was like a light bulb because these round table

conversations are providing exactly that.

This intimate, safe, confidential container to really share

what you're working on, what's going well, what's a struggle.

And while it might seem unlikely to, to kind of get that stress

relief from a couple of strangers, what I've found is that it

actually works really, really well.

You don't just have to talk to your mom or your best friend or your sister.

You can actually get these same tend and befriend stress relieving benefits from

talking with people who you just met.

Mm-hmm.

, Erin Austin: right?

Well, as a participant, I can also provide a point of benefit as well.

I mean, I Wonderful women there.

Super smart people, which is, you know, that's why I like

that curated element to it.

It's not just anyone that invitation and the small setting

so that you all do participate.

You know, I am actually an introvert and so I tend to, if it's a large

group of people, I'm just gonna like hang out and, uh, but being, you know,

everyone on the screen coming together.

And having those prompts encourage participation.

And we've all been in those groups where somebody, you

know, hugs the mic, so to speak.

And so it is a wonderful balance of all of those things and Yeah.

And continuing to be in touch with those ladies and Absolutely.

Have building relationships.

So It is, it is wonderful.

So, so thank you for that.

And, uh, and thank you for, for sharing that.

Now, one of the things that you mentioned is that you don't

consider it intellectual property.

Why is that?

Do you mean the round tables particularly?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

So it's, this is interesting because I remember in our round table conversation

cuz you know, the other women knew that you were an IP person and a lawyer.

Someone asked like, Well, would Eva's round table format be considered ip?

And I believe you said no, and I forget why.

, you had good against it.

I don't remember, but they made sense.

And I guess in my not as educated mind compared to, you know, you'll be able to

really lay the knowledge on us on this, but you know, it's, I didn't invent it.

You know, I got the idea from someone else and I share the idea widely.

That's, that's kind of my main, This can't really be ip.

I don't, I didn't make it up.

But also, I guess that raises the question for you to answer, which is

like, where are the lines between mm-hmm.

IP and not ip, and that's a tricky one with, you know, written or

spoken thought leadership too.

I mean, there's that, there's that phrase like, there are no new ideas, Right.

, Where, how do you determine if something's yours?

What, what makes it yours versus something that's part of the public domain?

Well, you're, you are correct that ideas are not intellectual

property, but how you, execute on them.

Mm-hmm.

can be if it is original to you.

And so let's take the example of your round table.

I mean, I.

Lots of people do round tables.

That's not unique to you, but you have a structure to it.

You have, prompts so the way that you lead your group through that

experience, if it is backed by, slides, questionnaires, prompts, things like that,

exercises.

Those things combine to create a system, a process for your round

table that could be protectable ip.

Well, I have a

follow up question.

So in your experience, Erin, like how do you help people determine

like, is this, you know, I public domain idea that I'm applying in a

unique way that might be IP-able,

I'm writing that down.

it might be IP-able, how do you help your clients determine

if it's worth really like going through the process to make something

a protected piece of your ip?

Cause like, There's probably various things that could be or

could not be, depending upon the different variables you mentioned.

Do you ever find that clients are like, Well, is it even worth it for this?

Mm-hmm.

? Erin Austin: Yeah.

I mean, first of all, something might be, I'm gonna start with the public domain.

Just cause something's on the internet doesn't mean it's on the public domain.

Just because it's publicly available does not equal public domain.

It's public domain means there's no copyright protection on it.

So, You know, something written by Shakespeare or Beethoven's Fifth,

These things are in the public domain.

Other things you can get on the internet, but they're still owned

by someone has a copyright on it.

And, uh, and so what do you wanna protect?

Well, I mean, it kind of, does it have value to you?

Like that's the question.

Like is it something that you are selling, that.

Has an long term, like even if it's not, something that you're selling,

like maybe some marketing piece that you're going, it's a long term.

Like you have an ebook that, has your, manifesto on it, you know mm-hmm.

and you don't sell that, but it obviously has value for you.

So where, where does it fit?

And uh, you know, people generally don't copyright things like their

websites cuz it's fluid, it's changing.

I mean, I know I, you know, if I knew how to, if I knew how to work

with it more, I'd change it more.

I'll break something while I do it too much.

But there's always something, you know, things that are always changing.

You know, blog posts, newsletter, I don't, you know, Um, but things that

have longevity and that have value, like training programs, a framework perhaps.

And certainly if, if you, uh, have a brand that's a very strong brand and uh,

and you wanna protect it under trademark, that may be worthwhile as well.

Really, I mean, it, it's, it's an investment.

And so like what will be the roi?

It's an ROI question, right?

Mm-hmm.

, so

yeah, you're making me realize that, you know, I, I

would, I would guess that most people are underprotected, like

their IP is underprotected.

Is that true?

Uh,

well, I don't know.

Underprotected only because most people's IP is cutright, like things that they.

Webinars, things like that.

And so you own it, when you create it, so you don't have to register it to

own it, you own it because created it.

Where they might be underprotected is, you know, good old contracts is if they're

not using contracts and therefore they're not controlling how it's being used.

Mm-hmm.

is where, it's not the registration that's the problem, it's the

usage that's the problem.

Mm-hmm.

and, uh, so making sure that you're control, you know, who has access to it.

If it's a client deliverable that you know, you're not giving away your

own kind of preexisting ip mm-hmm.

if you're hiring a subcontractor, making sure that you're getting all the

rights to what they're making for you.

And so that's usually where people are missing something.

Got it.

Yeah.

So I guess going back to the round table example, I could

see how if I were to certify.

People in doing it themselves or really train it at a greater scale.

Mm-hmm.

or, yeah, have a more unique name for it.

Maybe like those would all be indicators that it's.

My IP versus something that's more general and that

Yes.

And so something that you're gonna exploit like that a hundred percent and you want

that registered Now I want us to say, you know, you have copyright protection even

if it's not registered, but you can't enforce it if somebody infringes it.

Until you register it.

So

fascinating.

That's why we need lawyers.

. Yes.

Yes, . All right.

Enough about me.

So, as you know, this podcast is about helping women make that journey

from hourly to exit so that we are building sellable businesses.

And so, Creating exclusivity in our businesses.

Scale, predictability of income, where does your work fit into

that hourly to exit journey?

Yeah, so it's really about building your body of work.

So what my experience when I started regularly thought leading, as I

said earlier, it's a practice or a lifestyle, not a one off, is I found

that the more I did it, the more unique turns of phrase or ways of

thinking about a concept or applying some, a finding from this field to my.

More and more of those connections started to kind of present themselves to me.

So I became known for things like social media, monogamy, which is

a phrase that I coined to describe the fact that I only use LinkedIn.

I don't use any other social, the concept of magnetic thought leadership, the idea

of building an exponential audience.

So all of these terms, I am becoming recognized for them.

They give me concepts I can bring onto podcasts that pitch and speaking

engagements that I can share with clients really convey to clients.

These are the kind of philosophies that we stand behind that we will help you with.

So I feel like it's

building the asset, like the intellectual assets of my

company and what we're known for.

So it has these really valuable long term marketing benefits.

You know, the social media monogamy, monogamy thing is from 2020 and I still

talk about it and I still get great reactions to it and people bring it up to

me and they tell me they remembered it.

So those kind of memorable nuggets are just helping to build the momentum of my

company and the powerhouse of my company and, yeah, position me to be able to

double my prices and offer group programs and offer equity pricing and have.

The systems and the foundation in place to do that.

Yeah,

yeah.

Positioning is absolutely an asset.

It is a mark of exclusivity, right?

And so having that is super important.

And this is a very meta podcast, you know, uh, working with women who hopefully

wanna build a business to sell some day.

Have you thought

about selling your business?

You know, I haven't thought about it in the short term, but I have, it's kind

of marinating in the, in the background.

You know, I'm 33, I just turned 33, and so I hope to be working for much

longer and to keep building my business.

I have like big plans for it and, and ways that I wanna make an impact.

But yeah, this conversation is making me realize, well, even if it's 20

years down the line, you could start.

Laying some of that brick work now.

And so, I have a lot to marinate on on that front because if that's,

that's a new territory for me.

You know, I started this company when I was 25.

I didn't have a sweet clue what I was doing, and so a lot of it was like

building the plane as you fly it.

So there wasn't much like formality or planning or anything of that nature.

But now I'm at the point where it's self-sufficient enough that I can

start to think more long term and consider what assets I would need

to build or how I'd need to position myself for that eventual end.

So I mean.

If slash when I'm ready, I know who I'm gonna call

. Erin Austin: Okay.

Well, by the way, you, you are not alone in building the plane as you fly

it because I mean, so many, especially, I mean, post corporate people, you

know, they Leo out and they just use your expertise by being a, basically a

freelancer for a black of a better word.

And that is their business, but it's not really a business.

Right.

But they grow it.

They figure it out as they go along.

Like how to make it an actual business, and, and not just an income

stream from selling their time.

And, and we all go through that evolution.

And you'd make point that the things that you wanna do to build a saleable

business, those are the same things that you do to build a scalable business.

So you wanna be doing those things for the next 30, 40 years, however

long you wanna run your business so that you have that, that big juicy.

Sale at the end.

So, finally to wrap up, you know, we've talked a lot about, um,

building a more equitable economy.

So, uh, we'd love to talk about organizations and people who are

doing great work in that area.

Is there one that you'd like to share at the audience?

Yeah, so I was really inspired by my

client, Mu Chico til Shehan.

She is the author of Inclusion on Purpose and um, a well known HBR contributor.

And there are lots of other things I could name after her name, but I'll stop there.

She's a client and lovely person and very inspiring to me and something

that she did when, The new Supreme Court decision removed protections

nationwide for abortion access.

People who get pregnant is she pledged to donate $10,000 to 10 different

organizations facilitating access to abortion services and reproductive

justice for women of color.

So I was really moved by that and she found and researched some

excellent organizations, and one of those is Indigenous Women Rising.

So we donated the 1% of our profits from last quarter to that organization.

It helps provide reproductive services and abortion access to indigenous women.

Don't remember where right now, but you can find all that information

on their website and you can also find more organizations like that

on cheka til Sheen's website, which is our til sheen.com.

Um, t u L s h y a N.

So r.

T U l s h y a n.com.

I'll share, Share that link.

Yes, we'll

absolutely share all of

these links in the, You don't have to s it if you're, but I

did wanna make sure, you know, she gets a lot of, uh, misspellings of

her name, so I like to always spell it properly when I have the opportunities.

So I'll provide that link as well if you wanna look at the other organizations she

researched.

That's fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Now where can everyone find you?

So as I mentioned, you can really only find

me social wise on LinkedIn.

So I'm the only Eva Janata on LinkedIn with spelling of my name.

My company is Medusa Media Group.

So you can find us, uh, on our non IP website as discussed

medusa media group.com.

And from there you can also join the short free email course I have on the five

magnetic pillars of thought leadership.

You can also go to the letter, five magnetic pillars.com, get access

there or from the website itself.

And as I said, writing and reading are my love language.

So I lurve to send emails to my list.

So my favorite content goes out there first.

I just adore that medium.

So that's that.

And LinkedIn are the best ways to connect with me and I, as I

said, I love meeting new people.

So send me a direct message, reply to an email, say hi, and introduce yourself.

Cause I'd love to meet.

Fantastic.

This has been a wonderful conversation, Eva.

Thank you so much for sharing yourself so generously with the

audience and, uh, hope we can do

this again sometime.

Thank you, Erin.