Episode 111
E111: The Expert-preneur’s Guide to Growth: Leveraging IP & Smart Delegation with Maiko Sakai
In this episode of Scaling Expertise, I sit down with business growth strategist Maiko Sakai to dive into the key strategies expert-preneurs need to scale their businesses sustainably. Maiko shares her insights on finding the right balance with delegation—avoiding both hesitation and premature delegation—while emphasizing the crucial role that intellectual property (IP) plays in creating a leverageable business.
We explore how to develop unique frameworks, test and protect your IP, and transform your expertise into scalable assets. Maiko also breaks down how service-based business owners can structure their offerings to move beyond one-on-one work while still maintaining profitability. If you're looking to scale your business without burning out, this episode is packed with actionable insights you won’t want to miss!
Key Takeaways:
- The Delegation Sweet Spot: Avoid being too hesitant or too aggressive in hiring; instead, build systems that allow for smart, sustainable delegation.
- IP as Your Growth Engine: Your intellectual property is your most valuable asset. Develop, test, and secure your frameworks before scaling them.
- Testing Before Scaling: Ensure your methodologies and frameworks are robust by stress-testing them before rolling them out widely.
- Creating Scalable Offers: Keep your 1:1 services as a stable revenue source while developing both a gateway product for new clients and a high-ticket offer for deeper transformation.
- Quizzes as a Lead Generation Tool: A well-structured quiz can help filter ideal clients and boost engagement.
Resources Mentioned in the Episode:
🔗 Visit her website at MaikoSakai.com
📩 Free Quiz Blueprint: Download Maiko’s 10-Step Quiz Creation Blueprint on her website.
More About Our Guest:
Maiko Sakai is a quiz alchemist and business consultant who helps service providers attract ideal clients with psychology-driven quizzes—without the overwhelm. Using her Quiz Creation 10-Step Blueprint, Maiko transforms quiz-building into an inspiring, creative process that boosts email lists, builds trust, and delivers rave-worthy results. Her mission? To help small business owners turn their expertise into a scalable marketing tool that grows their visibility and revenue effortlessly. Originally from Japan and now a proud New Yorker, Maiko has an MBA from Cornell University, a love for ethnic cuisine, and a weakness for ultra-modern design and exotic houseplants.
Connect with Maiko Sakai:
Connect with Erin to learn how to Turn Your Expertise into Scalable Recurring Revenue.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/
Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos
Music credit: Paphos by Mountaineer
A Team Dklutr production
Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Speaker:Welcome to this week's episode of scaling expertise, where we talk
Speaker:to experts who have successfully scaled their expertise and give you
Speaker:tips about how you can scale yours.
Speaker:So this week, I'm very excited to have a great guest, Michael Sakai, who is
Speaker:a quiz alchemist, among other things.
Speaker:That's not the only thing she does, but I love the fact that she
Speaker:is a cell styled, Quiz Alchemist.
Speaker:I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to talk about this topic as well as digging into
Speaker:other aspects of scaling her expertise.
Speaker:So before I go any further, I wanna welcome you, Micah to the podcast.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me, Erin.
Speaker:I'm really excited to be here because of the main theme for your podcast being
Speaker:going beyond the IT and the scaling.
Speaker:Those are my favorite.
Speaker:Topics on the quiz.
Speaker:So I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker:Thank you for that.
Speaker:Not many people talk about the beyond IP part of it, but it is absolutely
Speaker:an essential part as well because it's not IP for the sake of IP.
Speaker:It is for what it does for us.
Speaker:And thank you for that.
Speaker:So before we dive in, I'm going to let you introduce yourself to the audience.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker:So again, my name is Michael Sakai, and I am a business consultant and
Speaker:also a quiz alchemist, which we're going to get into a little bit deeper.
Speaker:But I started out working for a bunch of record labels in New York City.
Speaker:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, I was there.
Speaker:I always had this inkling of starting my own venture, so what I decided to do
Speaker:intentionally was to sort of create my own intrapreneur program unofficially.
Speaker:So what I aimed for was to be able to manage an entire sub label under the big
Speaker:corporation so that I get to learn this, all the and outs of how to operate that.
Speaker:Section of the business, and I felt good about it.
Speaker:So, of course, long story short, I went on to start my own business.
Speaker:But with that, I did have a few different iterations as well.
Speaker:So I get to talk about my Failures, mistakes, and all those things, when
Speaker:I work with a bunch of agency clients.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:What type of music was it?
Speaker:So, interesting enough, it was a very small DJ, electric music, Centric label.
Speaker:So we worked a lot with a bunch of European DJs for the record label was BMG.
Speaker:Now it's Sony BMG turn and use Sony.
Speaker:So yeah, we got a lot of European acts.
Speaker:Our job was to bring them into the United States.
Speaker:So going on tour going to conference.
Speaker:Good times.
Speaker:That sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker:That is awesome.
Speaker:So how did you come to be where you are today?
Speaker:Like, what was the journey from there?
Speaker:Well, it has a lot to do with that particular industry.
Speaker:so back in 2000, so anywhere from 2000 up to 2010, technologically, if
Speaker:you remember, any of your audience can remember, you know, there was
Speaker:this whole Napster to iPod and iPod.
Speaker:It's iPod, the whole business model shifted.
Speaker:So I survived as long as I could in that industry.
Speaker:But around the 2007, I realized that, well, it's going to be my next chapter.
Speaker:So I left that world and started to manage, high net worth entertainment
Speaker:clients as a business manager.
Speaker:that was my act two back then.
Speaker:Then, of course, I started to see a lot of things that are
Speaker:not really done correctly, so.
Speaker:Again, I wanted to start my own so that I get to come up with my own framework
Speaker:to help a lot of creative entrepreneurs like a PR agencies, you know, digital
Speaker:marketing agencies, architectural design, all those companies, because
Speaker:I was already working with them when I was in the whole corporate world,
Speaker:I was familiar with their struggles, you know what they are faced with.
Speaker:So, Yeah, that's how it evolved.
Speaker:for those clients, like what are they going through in their businesses if they
Speaker:think like, I need to go talk to you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there are two opposite.
Speaker:extreme spectrum.
Speaker:So let me illustrate that.
Speaker:The one is OPUD.
Speaker:You might've heard of it, but they do this unintentionally, by the way,
Speaker:they're not trying to scam anybody.
Speaker:They're just very excited about their business.
Speaker:So they're very good with marketing and sales side of their businesses.
Speaker:So
Speaker:they tend to over promise what they can deliver, but their back end, the capacity
Speaker:is not set up to undertake all of them.
Speaker:So they ended up under delivering, which is OBUD.
Speaker:Now I've also seen the complete opposite.
Speaker:Scenario where their backend is so immaculate and built out, but they're not
Speaker:very great with marketing or promoting their businesses or when it comes to
Speaker:sales, they're just gun shy about it.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Which is also programmatic, so.
Speaker:They do under promise and over deliver, but they need more leads coming in.
Speaker:Mm-hmm . So, mm-hmm . I work with both cases.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And so let's get into, the podcast is scaling expertise.
Speaker:So let's talk about your expertise in particular, like quiz alchemist.
Speaker:Let's talk about that.
Speaker:But also, how you have kind of chosen a nation, how you
Speaker:specifically work with your clients.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, It's ironic enough that when I started my own business, I was working
Speaker:with those agencies, helping them with the back end and those things.
Speaker:But a lot of times, they didn't really want to hear about it
Speaker:until they got into real trouble.
Speaker:And they would reach out to me and say, we're in trouble, we need help.
Speaker:So I was trying to find the ways to combat that problem so
Speaker:they can come to me earlier on.
Speaker:So, before doing this whole quiz thing, I had this whole niche Offer that I had
Speaker:a framework for them that could help them and niche down so that they don't
Speaker:have to feel like they're missing out on opportunities by niching down all of it.
Speaker:And, you know, I had a great time with my clients, but one day.
Speaker:Very recently, some of my clients came to me and said, I love your quizzes,
Speaker:and I want that for my business.
Speaker:So this time around, while I'm going through this pivoting phase,
Speaker:the validation was already done.
Speaker:So the point that I'm making is, it gets easier and easier, you know,
Speaker:the more iterations you go through in your business, things become easier.
Speaker:So I'm trying to leverage anything that I can.
Speaker:is low hanging fruit.
Speaker:So if my client's already validated the need for it, sure.
Speaker:Why don't I cater to that?
Speaker:So that's where this whole quiz thing came about.
Speaker:Well, I, for one, you know, and I selfishly, I'd love having
Speaker:experts on, the podcast, you know, I get my own free advice here.
Speaker:I. Love the concept of quizzes.
Speaker:I get, you know, and I realized I was getting questions about like,
Speaker:how do I know I'm ready to scale?
Speaker:How do I know I'm ready for you?
Speaker:And I had frankly, too many conversations with people who weren't ready for me.
Speaker:and so I tried, to do the quiz and it's just wrong.
Speaker:my quiz is terrible.
Speaker:I need to rethink it.
Speaker:Cause you know, one of the things that helping, if you help your clients
Speaker:think like their clients, like what are the questions they're asking, not.
Speaker:What I'm asking, and my quiz is very, you know, this is what you need to
Speaker:know versus what are the questions my client, one of the clients are asking.
Speaker:So I feel that.
Speaker:Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker:Well, first of all, wanted to, Emphasize on the fact that the how
Speaker:self aware you are, which is, you know, obviously you're seasoned entrepreneur.
Speaker:that may be obvious, but I want to point that out for those who are
Speaker:listening only because I also get exposed to people who are interested
Speaker:in creating, a quiz as a marketing tool, but they really have no clue.
Speaker:So for example, they would put their ideas into ChachiBT, which I absolutely
Speaker:have no, nothing against that.
Speaker:You know, we should use any tools that are available.
Speaker:So I'm all for it, but They don't have this benchmark or filtering system to kind
Speaker:of assess what they get back from that tool is whether good enough or not, right?
Speaker:So knowing that what you just said is so Remarkable in the sense
Speaker:that you know what to fix, right?
Speaker:But most of the cases, they don't know what to fix.
Speaker:So that's where I come in to sort of, you know, like I use a lot
Speaker:of use cases and examples to say what's wrong with this title.
Speaker:Or, is there any other ways to ask the same question, that would help
Speaker:quiz takers to put their guard down?
Speaker:There's so many things that are involved with quiz crafting.
Speaker:I can go on and on about it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It is, you know, for those of us, I mean, we're all experts here and we
Speaker:have the vocabulary that we use as experts, which is not always the same
Speaker:vocabulary as, our potential clients.
Speaker:And so being able to translate so very important.
Speaker:So let's talk about your business and how you've scaled.
Speaker:I mean, so many of us.
Speaker:We start with our one on one services and, you know, which is great.
Speaker:They're high value.
Speaker:We enjoy that, interaction with our clients, but when we want to add some
Speaker:leverage to our business, so how have you approached that and what are you doing to
Speaker:help build leverage into your business?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's such a timely question for me because this whole quiz thing
Speaker:is semi new in my business.
Speaker:So I have to deploy everything I know about scaling that I teach
Speaker:my clients, all the agencies.
Speaker:And I just have to walk the walk, right?
Speaker:So the most important part for me is that at this stage I do
Speaker:one on one and I also do a group.
Speaker:Then I'm exploring other avenues as well, just so that I can leverage
Speaker:different forms of business models to be incorporated into my business.
Speaker:what I wanted to do right now, this year specifically, my goal is to
Speaker:really Beef up my affiliate program because that's another extension.
Speaker:I haven't leveraged that for other ventures that I went through.
Speaker:So I'm really excited for this collaborative revenue stream
Speaker:so that I do less sales.
Speaker:Yes,
Speaker:but I give them all the tools that they need to refer my services to
Speaker:me and let's just share the revenue.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:You know, I'm all for it.
Speaker:So that's another extension to scale, right?
Speaker:On the back end of it, I'm working with a few contractors that I just
Speaker:love working with So that I get to either Expand when it's needed
Speaker:in the contract when it's needed.
Speaker:So it's more of a dynamic agency that I am building.
Speaker:Aside from the fact that there will be some key people that I will be
Speaker:hiring as more of a static position.
Speaker:So yeah, that's my scaling strategy.
Speaker:Yeah, well, that's really important to talk about people as leverage, you know,
Speaker:not to be kind of transactional about it, but, we as our business owners are
Speaker:the most expensive resource, right?
Speaker:So anytime we can bring in other human resources, Yep.
Speaker:To
Speaker:help us, you know, with deliver some or all of that value to our clients.
Speaker:We are scaling, that in of itself because we are increasing our profit, without
Speaker:just putting in more hours, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm . And so.
Speaker:Very important people forget that, contractors and employees
Speaker:and, affiliates, are exactly,
Speaker:there are many different ways to approach it.
Speaker:I think you like this topic.
Speaker:So I just wanted to touch on this very quickly, but I've seen,
Speaker:again, two different scenarios with Entrepreneurs that I encounter, and I
Speaker:can tell you which group I'm part of.
Speaker:So the first one is the majority of it.
Speaker:the people, a group of people, entrepreneurs who are
Speaker:very hesitant to delegate.
Speaker:Now, I'm in that group.
Speaker:But not all entrepreneurs behave that way.
Speaker:I've seen some who tend to do premature delegation.
Speaker:They tend to come from big corporations where they used to handle a large budget.
Speaker:Whether, you know, multi eight figure for their marketing budget or whatnot.
Speaker:their mindset is more like a deploy, deploy, deploy.
Speaker:Now they enter the world of entrepreneurship and they hire a
Speaker:bunch of people and they have a very.
Speaker:bismal oversight.
Speaker:So they don't know what's going on there.
Speaker:So that I call premature delegation.
Speaker:You don't want either of them, right?
Speaker:You don't want to be too hesitant, too gun shy about delegating.
Speaker:Or you don't want to be too gun ho about delegating.
Speaker:So the balance is really important.
Speaker:That is a great point because I, you know, I am a huge, I guess I don't
Speaker:know where I am on that because as the lawyer, I'm kind of on both sides of it.
Speaker:I have really not wanted to bring another lawyer into me.
Speaker:Like, but I'm very clear on what I don't know.
Speaker:And I have no interest in, you know, I'm not a marketer.
Speaker:I don't want to become a marketer.
Speaker:I'm not, you know, I'm not an operations person.
Speaker:I don't want it.
Speaker:You know, I'm not, these are things that I hire, contractors for to help me
Speaker:with, but then, but you do have to make sure that you then have the revenue to
Speaker:support it, obviously, having a very.
Speaker:bottom heavy organization can also be really problematic as well.
Speaker:That
Speaker:is an excellent point.
Speaker:You know, can you or can you not walk away from your business, you know,
Speaker:abruptly for emergency over say two weeks or so, that's like the test that
Speaker:you can do to see what breaks, right.
Speaker:You know, if you are to leave for two weeks, suddenly, find
Speaker:out what breaks or what survives.
Speaker:Yeah, a good way to look at it, something I need to get into a little bit more.
Speaker:So we talked about human resources as a way to create leverage, but let's talk
Speaker:about intellectual property for a second.
Speaker:so how have you, I know you have your, how do you incorporate intellectual
Speaker:property into your business?
Speaker:What was your thinking about it?
Speaker:Like, were you thinking, I need more intellectual property?
Speaker:Or are you thinking, I just need to create more systems?
Speaker:And that just happens to also be intellectual property.
Speaker:Like, which way did you approach that?
Speaker:So, it goes in phases, So it's the most important part that
Speaker:drives my business is the IP.
Speaker:There's no doubt about it.
Speaker:And also that's my filtering system when it comes to my quiz business, who
Speaker:to take on and who's not to take on.
Speaker:I tend to work with expert printers who have their methodology worked out or
Speaker:systems or the framework, you know, or a unique approach to solve a problem.
Speaker:Otherwise, we can't create it.
Speaker:This one of a kind unique curiosity inducing quiz based on nothing
Speaker:right like we need IP for that.
Speaker:And same goes for my business.
Speaker:I usually start from, can I build a framework for this, you know,
Speaker:can I build a system to teach.
Speaker:Other business owners, just so that they can retain information clearly
Speaker:and efficiently, of course, you know, like a why waste time trying to
Speaker:understand something that's too complex,
Speaker:But after that, though, the what comes next is that how can I secure that?
Speaker:I have to beta test it.
Speaker:I need to try breaking it to see how robust it is, whether
Speaker:it's a framework or system.
Speaker:I do that and I also encourage my quiz clients to do the same.
Speaker:Try to break your quiz and make sure that they know that your quiz is accurate.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Whenever the outcome that is going to be will be accurate.
Speaker:So after that phase is done, then protect it.
Speaker:Of course, that's where someone like yourself would come in to help
Speaker:someone like me to protect that IP.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Then multiply it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Can you replicate it?
Speaker:Is it replicable?
Speaker:Is it repeatable?
Speaker:Is it trainable?
Speaker:Those are the questions that I would ask myself.
Speaker:The same goes for my clients.
Speaker:I ask the same question to my clients, and you do that.
Speaker:Yes, you're speaking my language.
Speaker:So there's a number of things that you mentioned that I want to just
Speaker:double back on one is making sure that you have something that you own
Speaker:right there are a lot of people who, I find that coaches are sometimes
Speaker:guilty of this where they've gone through lots of certification programs.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:And they have all these tools, you know, assessments even, you
Speaker:know, that they got from these third parties and there's nothing
Speaker:actually original in their business.
Speaker:And so financial coaches also do that as well.
Speaker:Those money coaches, they use those tools that are given.
Speaker:To them.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And so how are you going to create any sort of leverageable asset out of that?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So one is making sure we have something that is unique to us, that we own,
Speaker:that we have protectable rights in.
Speaker:And, then the testing piece.
Speaker:It's so important.
Speaker:why, create a product that will just use the term product out of something
Speaker:that hasn't been tested yet, you know, even though it's not, going up
Speaker:on a shelf that you're not, buying inventory for it, but you're still
Speaker:making an investment to create.
Speaker:whatever your methodology is, your framework, whatever it is, you still need
Speaker:to test it before you put it up on that
Speaker:verb.
Speaker:Can I get real with that?
Speaker:So, for example, you know, a lot of people wanted to create an
Speaker:acronym for their framework, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whether it's a passion or ignite, you know, those things are great.
Speaker:I'm not knocking on those, right?
Speaker:But.
Speaker:What if there's a piece that cannot be housed under that acronym?
Speaker:Those things do happen.
Speaker:I'm just trying to get real here, you know, don't overlook something just
Speaker:because it doesn't fit into your acronym.
Speaker:Like, well, then, you know, maybe you need to rethink that framework.
Speaker:it's a tough thing.
Speaker:I know that, you know, we're, we're laughing about this,
Speaker:but that's the real work.
Speaker:That we should be pouring our energy and time into not so much
Speaker:so about what tools to use or how to deliver or how much the price.
Speaker:Those things can just be solved by themselves.
Speaker:Once you really invest in your IP good enough, tested enough.
Speaker:Then you will know what to do the rest.
Speaker:But the problem is that a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up on this whole
Speaker:how questions other than creation of that unique property, an asset,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Well, that is great advice.
Speaker:So before we wrap up, is there one thing that you would tell every, I don't
Speaker:know, did you call it expert pernour?
Speaker:Expert
Speaker:pernour.
Speaker:Expert pernour.
Speaker:There's always a good one.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:Like one tip, like for that expert, they're doing one on one, maybe they
Speaker:don't know if they have anything unique, like where should they start?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So my tip is this.
Speaker:I love the number three.
Speaker:I don't know about you, but I like number three.
Speaker:Three in everything.
Speaker:So my tip is, your one on one can stay.
Speaker:That can be a stable retainer, running in the background in terms of a cash flow.
Speaker:That can stay.
Speaker:They'll be great unless you are completely tapped out, right?
Speaker:Then you need to really assess your capacity level, but that
Speaker:can be running in the background.
Speaker:But when you're ready to expand from there, you know, you're comfortable doing
Speaker:one on one your clients are coming great.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But then, you wanted to start thinking about what would be a
Speaker:gateway product for someone who are sitting on top of the funnel.
Speaker:You know, they may not know you, but they may be slightly aware of their problem.
Speaker:What can you give it to them?
Speaker:Now, on the opposite side, can you bump it up your one on one to be extra
Speaker:special so that it can be a high ticket where you get to cater to less number
Speaker:of people, but you make more money.
Speaker:So
Speaker:that would be my tip.
Speaker:You might want to spend one weekend exploring that.
Speaker:So important.
Speaker:Thank you for that.
Speaker:That is great advice.
Speaker:So I'd love to hear what is new and exciting happening in your business.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:So I host workshops all the time.
Speaker:So if you're interested in learning more about how you can use a quiz to drive
Speaker:a business growth in your business, just visit my website and, you know,
Speaker:download my 10 step blueprint for free.
Speaker:It's in pdf.
Speaker:It shows you step by step how to create one or just message
Speaker:me and ask me any questions.
Speaker:I'm around to answer any questions you have.
Speaker:Fantastical, where can people reach you?
Speaker:And we will put it in the show notes too, but
Speaker:yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Pretty much anywhere.
Speaker:But my main thing is my website, so it's my name.com.
Speaker:It's michael aka.com.
Speaker:You'll find a lot of good resources there for free.
Speaker:Mm-hmm . Or you can reach out to me over ig, LinkedIn X. They're all there.
Speaker:It's Michael, AKA Bizz, BIZ at the end of my name.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Well, I know I will for sure be downloading your quiz.
Speaker:Oh, so
Speaker:much.
Speaker:I need some help there.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Micah.
Speaker:It's been wonderful to have you on the show today.
Speaker:Great advice for everyone.
Speaker:to all you out there, please, connect with Michael and download that PDF.
Speaker:So thanks.
Speaker:And I'll see you again next week.
