E84: How to Build IP that Allows Your Business to Scale with Pamela Slim

Erin Austin: 00:00:00

Hello, ladies.

Erin Austin: 00:00:01

Welcome to this week's episode of the hourly to exit podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:00:05

I am extremely excited about this week's guest, Pam slim, Pam.

Erin Austin: 00:00:10

Welcome to the hourly

Erin Austin: 00:00:10

exit

Pamela Slim: 00:00:11

podcast.

Pamela Slim: 00:00:12

I'm so happy to be here.

Erin Austin: 00:00:13

Well, we have lots to talk about, this audience loves to

Erin Austin: 00:00:16

talk about, scaling their expertise based business, and that fits right

Erin Austin: 00:00:20

in with what you do, but before we get started, would you introduce yourself to

Pamela Slim: 00:00:24

the audience?

Pamela Slim: 00:00:25

For sure.

Pamela Slim: 00:00:25

So I am Pam slim or Pamela slim, depending upon I'm in trouble or not.

Pamela Slim: 00:00:30

And I am a author and a agency owner of a certification agency.

Pamela Slim: 00:00:36

So we build certification programs for thought leaders.

Pamela Slim: 00:00:39

And this really evolves out of many years of being a business coach and

Pamela Slim: 00:00:43

advisor for service based businesses.

Erin Austin: 00:00:46

Fantastic.

Erin Austin: 00:00:47

Well, it's no surprise to my audience that I frequently have business coaches

Erin Austin: 00:00:52

on the podcast because, working with you is a great synergy between, the

Erin Austin: 00:00:57

business coach, helping businesses create scale in their businesses and

Erin Austin: 00:01:01

intellectual property lawyer, of course, but Special one, because I have not

Erin Austin: 00:01:06

before had a business coach who has the specific expertise in creating

Erin Austin: 00:01:10

licensing and certification programs.

Erin Austin: 00:01:13

So I'm really looking forward to digging in on that.

Erin Austin: 00:01:16

Now, while of course, I am a huge fan of licensing programs.

Erin Austin: 00:01:20

Obviously you are, but not always a solution for everyone.

Erin Austin: 00:01:25

Although some people think they are, so we're gonna dig into,

Erin Austin: 00:01:28

when, certification or licensing may be appropriate for a business.

Erin Austin: 00:01:33

But, before we get started, I'd love for you to give an overview

Erin Austin: 00:01:37

of the types of licensing and certification programs that you see.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:40

For sure.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:40

You probably get more questions than I do.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:42

given your profession, I find a lot of people might throw around terms.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:46

about what licensing and certification is.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:48

So please check me if you feel like legally my definitions are accurate.

Pamela Slim: 00:01:53

The basic way that I describe it for folks is when you think about building IP in

Pamela Slim: 00:01:57

your business, intellectual property, that can be methods and models and frameworks,

Pamela Slim: 00:02:01

approaches that you have to work.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:03

There can be situations where you might, have a licensing agreement.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:07

In my, layperson's terms, I will say it just spells out who exactly can use what

Pamela Slim: 00:02:13

type of IP for how much and how long.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:15

And so, there can be certain situations where a, entity, a company, an

Pamela Slim: 00:02:21

organization could be licensing IP.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:24

Without them needing to go through a certification process, a certification

Pamela Slim: 00:02:29

process is a specific learning experience that you set up in certain

Pamela Slim: 00:02:34

cases to make sure that those who are licensed to use your IP have all the

Pamela Slim: 00:02:39

skills, resources, information tools they need to be good stewards of the

Pamela Slim: 00:02:43

material and so that you can also predict more of a consistent output.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:47

of people who are certified to use the methods.

Pamela Slim: 00:02:50

So you can have a licensing program without a certification learning

Pamela Slim: 00:02:55

experience tied to it, but you can never have a certification

Pamela Slim: 00:02:58

program without licensing because when you're teaching people stuff,

Pamela Slim: 00:03:01

they need to have that agreement.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:03

The one example that I use in, with Susan Cain who wrote the book Quiet

Pamela Slim: 00:03:08

about the power of introverts.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:10

I worked with her for about 18 months of launching what she

Pamela Slim: 00:03:13

called the Quiet Revolution.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:14

So we had built a number of programs.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:17

One of the licensing deals that she did was with the office furniture maker

Pamela Slim: 00:03:21

Steelcase It created what are called quiet spaces that were office furniture

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specifically designed for introverts.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:28

So in this case, they were using a lot of the thoughts, the IP design

Pamela Slim: 00:03:31

principles from her book, quiet.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:33

In a licensing agreement that had nothing to do with a certification, but typically

Pamela Slim: 00:03:38

people think about certifications like coaching certifications are being

Pamela Slim: 00:03:41

certified in a particular method.

Pamela Slim: 00:03:43

And those are usually the areas that I operate in with our agency.

Erin Austin: 00:03:48

yeah, that is a cool example with, regarding the introverts, because,

Erin Austin: 00:03:51

you we definitely generally think about it certainly in the space that I work

Erin Austin: 00:03:54

in with experts who work with corporate clients that we only think in terms of

Erin Austin: 00:03:59

very large programs that are, kind of.

Erin Austin: 00:04:03

Serving lots of different clients, and it can be something that's

Erin Austin: 00:04:06

just a 1 on 1 relationship, right?

Erin Austin: 00:04:09

It doesn't need to be a whole program.

Erin Austin: 00:04:12

the end of the day, whenever we have our pre existing materials

Erin Austin: 00:04:15

that we bring to a client, because, there's a reason that client.

Erin Austin: 00:04:19

Engages us instead of the next guy.

Erin Austin: 00:04:22

It's because there's something that we have some asset in

Erin Austin: 00:04:24

our business that they value.

Erin Austin: 00:04:26

And when we are, including it in the deliverable for their internal use,

Erin Austin: 00:04:30

that is a license in and of itself.

Erin Austin: 00:04:32

It's just a 1 on 1 license between you and your client.

Erin Austin: 00:04:36

But licensing is everywhere.

Erin Austin: 00:04:37

So, you know, is everywhere, but licensing is everywhere to when you are working

Erin Austin: 00:04:42

with clients and you have deliverables.

Erin Austin: 00:04:44

So,

Pamela Slim: 00:04:44

yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:45

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:45

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:46

Well, I totally appreciate that because it is something that mystifies people.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:49

And I laugh with clients sometimes because either they think it's.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:53

Too complicated to ever get involved with.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:55

So they learn more and they're like, Oh my gosh, it's not that complicated.

Pamela Slim: 00:04:58

Or they don't realize, especially if they're building a certification

Pamela Slim: 00:05:01

program that in order to do it effectively, there actually are a

Pamela Slim: 00:05:04

number of pieces to put in place.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:06

Or I think as you and I will talk about a little bit later.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:08

There is a certain stage or maturity of business in which it's a good

Pamela Slim: 00:05:12

idea to be investing in building it.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:14

But just other piece of our approach to what we build when we think about

Pamela Slim: 00:05:18

different types of certifications, we look at it in four different levels that really

Pamela Slim: 00:05:22

have to do with a user's experience.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:24

And that's what we're Interaction and use of the material.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:26

So a level one, a certificate program, think about it like a skill that could

Pamela Slim: 00:05:31

be a self directed kind of training experience you could have where you're

Pamela Slim: 00:05:35

learning something that you would be proud to put on your LinkedIn profile.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:38

So it could be, I'm certified to use Excel pivot tables and you go

Pamela Slim: 00:05:41

through self directed training.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:42

You might take an online exam and a certificate is generally information

Pamela Slim: 00:05:47

that is used by an end user.

Pamela Slim: 00:05:49

Typically in a professional development setting that really is just to up level

Pamela Slim: 00:05:53

their specific skills a level two, which is a practitioner certification is

Pamela Slim: 00:05:58

where you are certifying practitioners.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:00

To be utilizing your IP, so your methods and your frameworks, with their clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:06

This is typically in that area where you have a coaching certification

Pamela Slim: 00:06:09

for a particular method or approach.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:11

So you would be certified as a practitioner to be using those

Pamela Slim: 00:06:15

methods with your clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:16

The licensing agreement will usually spell out very clearly.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:19

can you share the worksheets and how do you share them and so forth.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:23

And that's a really common thing for a lot of coaches or consultants.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:27

The level three is a trainer certification.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:30

And so that often is where you are certified not only to be utilizing tools

Pamela Slim: 00:06:35

as a practitioner, but also teaching the method to others and other end users.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:40

A lot of folks are familiar with Brene Brown's.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:43

Certifications that she did during greatly, it was a big part of her

Pamela Slim: 00:06:46

business kind of pre COVID, but in that particular certification, people, were

Pamela Slim: 00:06:52

learning how to be teaching workshops.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:54

So they could lead, dare to lead workshops.

Pamela Slim: 00:06:56

They had access to materials, coaches, social workers, therapist.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:01

use some of those materials with their end clients as well.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:04

And so you can see that it's like at each level you have another

Pamela Slim: 00:07:07

wrapper of usage on top of it.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:10

The final level, level four, train the trainer is often for a situation where.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:15

Particularly in B2B business to business sales, you, for example, have an amazing

Pamela Slim: 00:07:21

workshop that your client loves and they say every single leader in our

Pamela Slim: 00:07:26

thousands of people organization should, experience this method, but usually for

Pamela Slim: 00:07:31

you as the one delivering that there, you don't want to be flying around

Pamela Slim: 00:07:34

on planes or training 5, 000 people.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:37

So in that case, you could train inside the company.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:40

Trainers who were certified to train other trainers that would

Pamela Slim: 00:07:44

be in the organization rolling out the workshops to the end users.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:48

These types of agreements usually have a larger licensing agreement

Pamela Slim: 00:07:52

for the number of end users impacted.

Pamela Slim: 00:07:55

We like those for our clients because they're often bigger

Pamela Slim: 00:07:58

checks, as we say, right?

Pamela Slim: 00:08:00

you can be, go from maybe a train that it's pricing is all relative.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:04

It's a whole other topic, but somebody could be getting a trainer

Pamela Slim: 00:08:08

certification and pay, I don't know, 15, 000 in order to get that to teach

Pamela Slim: 00:08:12

your workshop for a train, the trainer licensing agreement that could be.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:16

000.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:19

So those are ways to think about it.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:21

and so as you look at what you're trying to do with your own method,

Pamela Slim: 00:08:25

part of it is realizing for a lot of people, you could start smaller.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:28

You could start with a practitioner, then maybe could build a trainer component.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:32

And then if you really get a lot of interest, you could

Pamela Slim: 00:08:34

build the train, the trainer.

Pamela Slim: 00:08:36

Yeah, I love

Erin Austin: 00:08:36

that.

Erin Austin: 00:08:37

and there are lots of different ways to, dissect it.

Erin Austin: 00:08:40

And 1 of the things I like to emphasize that a license, you know, it is

Erin Austin: 00:08:43

a contractual really arrangement and you can make it, if it is a 1

Erin Austin: 00:08:48

on 1, 1, negotiated with whatever terms make sense for both parties.

Erin Austin: 00:08:52

So there's not kind of some standard license out there.

Erin Austin: 00:08:55

It is relationship between the parties.

Erin Austin: 00:08:57

And so you can make it work for everybody and negotiate it.

Erin Austin: 00:09:00

So.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:01

One thing I love about your experience from our conversation

Pamela Slim: 00:09:04

before is you have been inside the B2B world of really negotiating

Pamela Slim: 00:09:08

on behalf of large companies.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:10

And I know for a lot of my clients, they get very freaked out.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:13

It's very unnerving.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:14

Maybe you're a smaller shop.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:16

you're not used to negotiating with a, huge company that might

Pamela Slim: 00:09:19

have a whole team of lawyers.

Pamela Slim: 00:09:21

And so I find that experience to be so important that you have where you

Pamela Slim: 00:09:25

know how to navigate and, I'm imagining that you're pushing a little bit of the

Pamela Slim: 00:09:29

assumptions people have, but maybe just saying, I have to just accept anything

Pamela Slim: 00:09:33

that that big company says, if they were, I imagine you're like, and no, you don't.

Erin Austin: 00:09:38

Exactly.

Erin Austin: 00:09:39

Oh, I like to say that, I have looked at many, many, many, commercial,

Erin Austin: 00:09:43

transaction agreements, B2B agreements.

Erin Austin: 00:09:45

And in my career, there is only one company and we could probably lay odds

Erin Austin: 00:09:51

on being able to guess which one it is.

Erin Austin: 00:09:53

That said, absolutely no, take it or leave it.

Erin Austin: 00:09:56

so long as you are asking for something that's fair that, it makes sense.

Erin Austin: 00:10:01

That is, you're protecting your intellectual property or, making sure

Erin Austin: 00:10:05

that you're preserving the profitability of the deal, People will absolutely

Erin Austin: 00:10:09

consider reasonable requests for changes.

Erin Austin: 00:10:11

So, yeah, and it is, intimidating to get, oftentimes these corporate clients

Erin Austin: 00:10:16

have their own master services agreement that applies, whether you're doing

Erin Austin: 00:10:20

consulting or doing, market research or doing, some, web design, they still

Erin Austin: 00:10:24

have the same MSA for all their vendors.

Erin Austin: 00:10:27

And it's.

Erin Austin: 00:10:28

50 pages and it's got a couple of exhibits on it and it can be intimidating.

Erin Austin: 00:10:32

But again, all things, negotiable at the end of the day.

Pamela Slim: 00:10:37

And I do, and I'm not just saying it because I'm talking

Pamela Slim: 00:10:39

to you, I say it to all my clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:10:41

It's why many people will come and say, do you just have a

Pamela Slim: 00:10:44

copy of a licensing agreement?

Pamela Slim: 00:10:45

And I just say, I actually don't, I'm not an IP attorney.

Pamela Slim: 00:10:49

Always work with an attorney when you're doing that final agreement because

Pamela Slim: 00:10:52

you can really miss a lot of things.

Pamela Slim: 00:10:54

You can leave things on the table and as you said, you may not realize

Pamela Slim: 00:10:58

the kind of leverage that you have.

Pamela Slim: 00:10:59

So just in general, I think when you're finalizing a contract, try to

Pamela Slim: 00:11:04

prepare our clients to put together the recommendations for the attorney when

Pamela Slim: 00:11:09

we really help The client understand exactly how they want to be operating.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:12

People have very different expectations, levels of risk, desire for control.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:18

And so that's again, why some people are, they want to basically have

Pamela Slim: 00:11:21

a lawyer on retainer to be sending cease and desist letters all the time.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:25

Other people are like, whatever you paid me for it, like what you will.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:30

but when it comes to the final legal agreement, Please talk to an attorney.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:34

Yeah, I'm going to

Erin Austin: 00:11:35

just ask, regarding the whatever person versus

Erin Austin: 00:11:39

the, lawyer on retainer.

Erin Austin: 00:11:41

Do you see any gender differences in that type of just because

Erin Austin: 00:11:45

this is a mostly female audience?

Erin Austin: 00:11:47

Do you see?

Erin Austin: 00:11:48

No.

Erin Austin: 00:11:48

Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:11:48

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:11:49

Good.

Erin Austin: 00:11:49

I'm glad

Pamela Slim: 00:11:50

to hear.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:50

Yeah, I do not.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:52

I do not.

Pamela Slim: 00:11:53

See it in that it is a cool example of an affective characteristic that

Pamela Slim: 00:11:59

I think there are certain areas of socialization that I totally noticed

Pamela Slim: 00:12:03

that have gender relations and then to be intersectional about it.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:06

It also depends, I think, on somebody's like identity and

Pamela Slim: 00:12:09

background and so forth that there can be a little different experience.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:13

and so level of privilege, expectations that one can have, like me as a white

Pamela Slim: 00:12:18

woman, how much am I sitting back, like worried or wondering if I'm

Pamela Slim: 00:12:21

going to be screwed over versus if I'm a black woman or indigenous woman.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:24

It's like interesting when you sometimes have things in place that are related

Pamela Slim: 00:12:28

to needing to have legal grounds where you know that you can't assume that you

Pamela Slim: 00:12:33

will be treated fairly in the system.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:35

So there's some interesting things there.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:37

I do find from a gender perspective that Women are less likely to think

Pamela Slim: 00:12:43

about building in, things like certifications or IP protection in

Pamela Slim: 00:12:47

order to eventually sell the company.

Pamela Slim: 00:12:49

That that can be a little bit more related to men, but I've seen across

Pamela Slim: 00:12:53

the board, in a couple of cases of, some men I know that have certification

Pamela Slim: 00:12:57

programs that have been very successful who were like, there's a flat fee and

Pamela Slim: 00:13:00

then I really have no control over it.

Pamela Slim: 00:13:02

Like go and do what you will.

Pamela Slim: 00:13:04

Where.

Pamela Slim: 00:13:05

Just taking maybe more of the stereotypical gender, behavior that

Pamela Slim: 00:13:09

we might attribute is where a man might be wanting to just milk every

Pamela Slim: 00:13:12

single penny out of a transaction.

Pamela Slim: 00:13:14

I realize it's a bit of a stereotype, but I haven't really seen it play out.

Pamela Slim: 00:13:18

and just the experience I've had working with people.

Erin Austin: 00:13:21

Awesome.

Erin Austin: 00:13:21

Well, thank you for sharing that.

Erin Austin: 00:13:23

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:13:23

So I thought we would do something that lawyers love to

Erin Austin: 00:13:25

do, which is issue spotting.

Erin Austin: 00:13:27

I'm going to provide a couple of scenarios of experts who are coming and they want

Erin Austin: 00:13:34

to, have a licensing and or certification program and we can talk through whether

Erin Austin: 00:13:40

or not It would be right for them.

Erin Austin: 00:13:41

And if it's not like what they would need to do to get ready for one.

Erin Austin: 00:13:45

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:13:45

So my first example is a marketing consultant who provides one

Erin Austin: 00:13:50

on one services to businesses.

Erin Austin: 00:13:52

They have fished out their referral pond and the pipeline is empty and they

Erin Austin: 00:13:57

don't have a robust marketing engine.

Erin Austin: 00:14:00

They want to add licensing, a certification.

Erin Austin: 00:14:03

To other consultants to other practitioners as an additional

Erin Austin: 00:14:06

revenue stream to boost their income.

Erin Austin: 00:14:10

So they want to add because they have run out of 1 on 1 income

Erin Austin: 00:14:14

and they think, oh, let me.

Erin Austin: 00:14:17

What do we think about

Pamela Slim: 00:14:18

this?

Pamela Slim: 00:14:18

you sort of softball this to me, but this is such a good one because I

Pamela Slim: 00:14:22

totally get the feeling it is a natural reaction that you might have as a

Pamela Slim: 00:14:26

business owner to think, Oh my gosh, like things aren't working for me.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:30

I need a new offer.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:31

And I've heard that licensing and certification eventually leads to

Pamela Slim: 00:14:35

that mythological passive revenue.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:37

The issue in this one.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:39

is around market fit, where you're generally ready for a certification

Pamela Slim: 00:14:44

where you actually have overwhelming market demand for your materials.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:49

There are lots and lots people who are aware of what you're doing.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:52

They're aware that, you have great work.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:54

There is high demand.

Pamela Slim: 00:14:55

You're exhausted from jumping on planes because you're delivering or

Pamela Slim: 00:14:58

your team is delivering yourself.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:00

That is often the market position where you've really found that market fit.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:03

That people want your stuff.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:05

And in particular, when you look at, if you're going to be certifying individual

Pamela Slim: 00:15:10

consultants, say on your marketing method, generally when we do certifications, it's

Pamela Slim: 00:15:15

because we say, Oh my gosh, we know that person has it all dialed in because look

Pamela Slim: 00:15:19

at how they've grown their own practice.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:22

It seems like.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:23

Very often, there can be somebody who literally has the best IP in the world.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:27

Maybe this marketing consultant, their actually works anybody.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:31

have to get the market fit first in order to be driving the sales.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:35

And it's actually harder in my experience to be driving certification sales.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:41

If you don't have overwhelming marketing demand, then it is

Pamela Slim: 00:15:44

just to land individual clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:46

So I would send them on a path to really be looking more deeply.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:50

If they were interested eventually in building more the certification path,

Pamela Slim: 00:15:54

they would be doing a lot more events in what I call new watering holes.

Pamela Slim: 00:15:59

places where they would have ideal clients that would be interested in their work.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:02

And then probably they'd be cranking up their own practice to try to figure out

Pamela Slim: 00:16:06

and solve the issue as to why they're not getting clients for their stuff.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:11

The other thing that can be interesting, and I do see this sometimes, is

Pamela Slim: 00:16:15

sometimes you can build market fit and the engines for that, or in

Pamela Slim: 00:16:19

some ways you can buy or sell that.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:22

And what I mean is Maybe you do find somebody who's in your ecosystem who knows

Pamela Slim: 00:16:27

that your stuff is the most amazing thing.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:29

They are amazing at really dialing in the marketing and sales side of

Pamela Slim: 00:16:33

it, where they can generate demand.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:35

So that could be a where they could do a straight, purchase of your stuff, or you

Pamela Slim: 00:16:39

could have some kind of marketing or sales relationship where they're, pulling it in.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:43

But if you're doing it yourself.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:44

It's a big red flag.

Erin Austin: 00:16:46

Oh.

Erin Austin: 00:16:46

So in your, in this later example, then the marketing consultant is not

Erin Austin: 00:16:51

creating that marketing engine that they are licensing it to someone

Erin Austin: 00:16:55

who already has the ability to reach

Pamela Slim: 00:16:58

that audience.

Pamela Slim: 00:16:59

Like that's right.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:00

Cause I've seen, there's some people who just got it.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:02

I get so jealous cause I'm more of a connector, a connector Maven,

Pamela Slim: 00:17:07

but we've probably all seen that.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:09

Sometimes there are people who just have it dialed in.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:11

They really know how to sell and market.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:13

And so that's another Avenue.

Erin Austin: 00:17:15

yeah, that is interesting.

Erin Austin: 00:17:16

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:17:16

I'm a lawyer, not a business consultant, but people think licensing agreements

Erin Austin: 00:17:20

and then they will come directly to me for the licensing agreement.

Erin Austin: 00:17:23

so they've self diagnosed that they need a licensing agreement,

Erin Austin: 00:17:26

and they want to do this, to train other practitioners in what they do.

Erin Austin: 00:17:31

And the conversation that we have basically what you said,

Erin Austin: 00:17:35

but that, you know how to.

Erin Austin: 00:17:36

fish or hunt with your corporate clients and though you have great

Erin Austin: 00:17:41

results like this is a new market.

Erin Austin: 00:17:43

To fish with other practitioners, like, even though if you're well respected,

Erin Austin: 00:17:46

but it's still a whole different engine.

Erin Austin: 00:17:49

And so are you ready to create a new business?

Erin Austin: 00:17:52

Basically, side by

Pamela Slim: 00:17:53

side.

Pamela Slim: 00:17:54

yes, it's really, really different, especially if you're selling into 1, like,

Pamela Slim: 00:17:57

you're selling into corporate clients and then you want to be developing a

Pamela Slim: 00:18:01

more B to C reaching out for individuals.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:03

It's a whole different marketing model.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:05

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:18:06

Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:18:06

Awesome.

Erin Austin: 00:18:07

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:18:07

Example number 2.

Erin Austin: 00:18:08

Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:18:09

I feel like I'm on like a game show or something.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:14

It's like a game show and shark tank like together.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:17

I love it.

Erin Austin: 00:18:19

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:18:20

So we have a growth consultant who provides one on one services to businesses

Erin Austin: 00:18:25

and they've successfully incorporated the value builders assessment and

Erin Austin: 00:18:30

their other tools to create a waiting list of clients that they can serve.

Erin Austin: 00:18:34

And they want to license their to other growth consultants.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:40

Well, what I know is that value builder is John Warlow's product

Pamela Slim: 00:18:46

who wrote built to sell the art of selling your business, a lot of other great books.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:50

And so my issue spotting here would be.

Pamela Slim: 00:18:54

Maybe you use ValueBuilder in your own business, but you do not

Pamela Slim: 00:18:57

own and you cannot license other people's intellectual property.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:01

So either John would feel super generous and he would say, sure,

Pamela Slim: 00:19:05

take my proprietary software and sell it as your own, unlikely.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:10

Or you would really have to find the thing that is uniquely yours.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:14

Again, in packaging what you do.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:16

because I know John really well, and I know a lot of the ways that his model

Pamela Slim: 00:19:19

works, it could actually be interesting where you could be a certified value

Pamela Slim: 00:19:23

builder consultant, which is a whole path that he's done with his methods where

Pamela Slim: 00:19:27

the consultants are using that software.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:29

so maybe you have that where you are utilizing those tools and that brand

Pamela Slim: 00:19:33

recognition, but then there's some of your own IP that you could use.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:36

Maybe it's supplemental.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:37

Maybe it's vertical specific where you're the salesforce person that knows how to

Pamela Slim: 00:19:42

apply value builder into a new system.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:44

And therefore.

Pamela Slim: 00:19:45

Um, that's probably one of the things that you and I do a lot of sifting

Pamela Slim: 00:19:52

through where it's like, okay, when I start to look at the big picture of

Pamela Slim: 00:19:56

somebody's materials and they're like, oh, yeah, I remember in 1984, like

Pamela Slim: 00:19:59

I grabbed this model from somebody.

Pamela Slim: 00:20:01

And that's where we have to go through and really scrub it and make sure that

Pamela Slim: 00:20:06

what you have is yours, or you have legal permission to be using somebody else's IP.

Pamela Slim: 00:20:12

Yeah,

Erin Austin: 00:20:12

absolutely.

Erin Austin: 00:20:13

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:20:13

I like to call it, with increased visibility, there's increased scrutiny.

Erin Austin: 00:20:18

You may have rights to do for your one on one clients.

Erin Austin: 00:20:21

You may not have the rights to do for a larger audience.

Erin Austin: 00:20:24

And so, we look at, the legal foundation, like, let's say that

Erin Austin: 00:20:28

your one on one services is a one story building and having a licensing

Erin Austin: 00:20:33

program is a two story building.

Erin Austin: 00:20:35

Well, you need a different foundation for two story building than you

Erin Austin: 00:20:38

need for a one story building.

Erin Austin: 00:20:39

And so we need to go back and make sure that we have.

Erin Austin: 00:20:42

The right legal foundation to build that 2nd story on.

Erin Austin: 00:20:45

So, yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:20:46

That is definitely one of people, and then I get the question, well,

Erin Austin: 00:20:49

I'm influenced by so many people.

Erin Austin: 00:20:51

We listen to blah.

Erin Austin: 00:20:52

I mean, listen to podcasts.

Erin Austin: 00:20:53

We read blogs.

Erin Austin: 00:20:54

We read books and say we're influenced by so many people and, you know,

Erin Austin: 00:20:58

where's the dividing line between being influenced and creating something that's

Erin Austin: 00:21:01

derivative that you need rights for.

Erin Austin: 00:21:04

And of course, there's no easy answer for that.

Erin Austin: 00:21:06

but we do need to make sure that we are looking at.

Erin Austin: 00:21:09

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:21:09

the materials that you're going to be licensing to new licensees and

Erin Austin: 00:21:13

make sure that you do have the rights

Pamela Slim: 00:21:15

in those.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:15

So, yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:16

I have very strong opinions about this and it's a really just, I think terrible

Pamela Slim: 00:21:22

practices that we have in general.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:24

Some of it is fueled by the, memes, the internet sharing things where

Pamela Slim: 00:21:29

we see very deliberately sometimes like a quote, somebody might

Pamela Slim: 00:21:31

originally have a quote, that is.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:33

Attributed to whoever it is that actually said it, and then somebody lifts it

Pamela Slim: 00:21:37

because it's really inspirational and they share it on Instagram.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:40

And all of a sudden you lose the attribution to that.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:43

and then all the way through, as you said, to looking at methods

Pamela Slim: 00:21:46

and models that, people use that really are other people's stuff.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:49

I look through the world with a lot of lens of power dynamics and, sociology.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:54

And it was funny just the other day I was talking with one of my clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:21:58

It's about the internet marketing world.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:01

Some of these original models that were created by a lot of the internet marketers

Pamela Slim: 00:22:05

have just specific ways in which you might sell or like types and structures you

Pamela Slim: 00:22:09

have for mastermind programs and stuff.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:11

And we were working it backwards and I am not a lawyer.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:14

I'm using an example for anybody's.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:16

lawyers who are listening, but somebody was saying, like, it works

Pamela Slim: 00:22:19

back a lot through, we look at the Dan Kennedy's, like Tony Robbins

Pamela Slim: 00:22:23

originally, like creating some materials.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:25

And I was like, I bet there was a woman who originally created it by Jody Robbins

Pamela Slim: 00:22:31

or I should, you know, TR, , if any lawyers are listening, and they were

Pamela Slim: 00:22:34

like, yeah, actually that was the case that there was maybe somebody on the

Pamela Slim: 00:22:37

team that was originally creating it, and it's like, it's so, It's why we always

Pamela Slim: 00:22:40

need to know history in our schools and in our businesses because when often we

Pamela Slim: 00:22:45

begin to move backwards and notice the original, creators of things, and this

Pamela Slim: 00:22:50

can get super deep when it comes to, especially people who are in the healing.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:55

Spiritual worlds.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:56

I have, my husband is a Navajo traditional healer.

Pamela Slim: 00:22:58

You wouldn't believe the kind of things I see sometimes of just people who might,

Pamela Slim: 00:23:02

sit for a weekend and ceremony, take some of the ideas that are coming from

Pamela Slim: 00:23:07

that teaching and not just from him, from people, from many different practices, and

Pamela Slim: 00:23:11

then create programs that is quote, their IP that are coming from those worlds.

Pamela Slim: 00:23:17

So it's like, it is an area that can be really deeply problematic.

Pamela Slim: 00:23:21

and at the same time, I do understand as we are experiencing

Pamela Slim: 00:23:25

ideas that by definition, we are influenced by things, right?

Pamela Slim: 00:23:29

we sometimes don't even know there's certain models or ways of

Pamela Slim: 00:23:32

thinking that feels like original thought that we may not realize.

Pamela Slim: 00:23:36

But I think if we take a little bit more time and put in place the practice, first

Pamela Slim: 00:23:41

of all, of acknowledging our teachers.

Pamela Slim: 00:23:44

Of making sure that we're tying back any kind of models or methods

Pamela Slim: 00:23:47

to maybe published, academic frameworks or things like that.

Pamela Slim: 00:23:51

It can help us to remember that we need to be giving attribution and then on a

Pamela Slim: 00:23:56

really tactical side for the materials that we're building in our own business.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:00

That's where I always recommend.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:02

let's say, for example, on an off site meeting, you might be excited to be

Pamela Slim: 00:24:06

using a tool, you know, an assessment or something from somebody else, but in terms

Pamela Slim: 00:24:11

of your core method, try to really just build in your own IP and your frameworks

Pamela Slim: 00:24:16

so that it becomes easier to disseminate and eventually create something.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:20

Like a certification program.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:21

I went on maybe what a minute 30, three hour rant as we start

Pamela Slim: 00:24:28

to, as we start to talk about it.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:30

Cause this definitely comes down to gender and gender and identity.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:34

When we start to look at whose IP has been, stolen and who is benefiting

Pamela Slim: 00:24:39

and profiting from many of the ideas.

Pamela Slim: 00:24:42

Okay,

Erin Austin: 00:24:42

we can definitely do.

Erin Austin: 00:24:44

Yes, we definitely have a conversation about that.

Erin Austin: 00:24:48

But one of the things I did want to follow up on is when you do have

Erin Austin: 00:24:51

something like, say, a value builders or some other, third party materials

Erin Austin: 00:24:55

that, the benefits of creating a niche it makes it easier kind of to.

Erin Austin: 00:24:59

Find your own layer on top of that.

Erin Austin: 00:25:02

So, say you have an issue work, do leadership development

Erin Austin: 00:25:06

for hospital systems.

Erin Austin: 00:25:08

you'd layer that, like, those issues on top of these general materials that you

Erin Austin: 00:25:12

may get from or from, PMP or whatever.

Erin Austin: 00:25:15

You may have some of these certifications, but you layer on top of it.

Erin Austin: 00:25:19

Well, I know this client super well, and I know what their issues are.

Erin Austin: 00:25:23

And create your own IP on top of that, that's specific to

Erin Austin: 00:25:27

your niche and their problem.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:28

So that's right.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:29

What my friend Phil Jones, who I interviewed on my podcast,

Pamela Slim: 00:25:32

not that long ago, he used the metaphor for his own certification.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:36

It's exactly what to say.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:38

So he has a very specific sales methodology that's based on a book.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:41

And he uses metaphor of Tabasco sauce.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:43

It's like Tabasco sauce can go in just about any dish on eggs, you know, pasta,

Pamela Slim: 00:25:48

I guess if you wanted it to, right.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:49

I put it on spaghetti.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:51

but he specifically designed his certification to be able

Pamela Slim: 00:25:55

to go really well with others.

Pamela Slim: 00:25:57

So it can be, as you said, this like addition that won't be conflicting.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:01

And I think sometimes We think about certifications as needing to be these

Pamela Slim: 00:26:05

huge, complex processes where we have to be certifying people and everything

Pamela Slim: 00:26:10

about, how to be a coach and how to use a method and all of that, where

Pamela Slim: 00:26:15

there are really powerful use cases.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:17

When, as you said, you have a very specific, maybe set of tools that

Pamela Slim: 00:26:21

would actually be highly complimentary.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:23

And there are people, I always tease my business partner, Darren

Pamela Slim: 00:26:26

Padilla, who I love so dearly that.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:28

One of the reasons I love working with him besides him being a genius at what he

Pamela Slim: 00:26:32

does is he loves certification programs.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:36

The man has more letters by his name.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:38

I'm like, what are you not certified in?

Pamela Slim: 00:26:40

And there's a certain type of person that is the end user for some of

Pamela Slim: 00:26:44

the programs we built that gets so excited to be learning new things.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:49

And so, it doesn't have to be something that's terribly deep.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:52

There can be really specific.

Pamela Slim: 00:26:54

Types of, like I said before, certificates, maybe that would just

Pamela Slim: 00:26:57

give somebody an edge and, bless those never ending learner kind of people

Pamela Slim: 00:27:02

that just get so excited when they hear of a new certification program coming.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:06

That's awesome.

Erin Austin: 00:27:07

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:27:07

And just the one last thing before I wanted to cover before we left

Erin Austin: 00:27:11

that third party materials is don't forget your prior employers.

Erin Austin: 00:27:14

If you're coming from corporate and you brought some stuff, even if you

Erin Austin: 00:27:18

created it there, let's say you wrote the employee handbook at your old

Erin Austin: 00:27:22

employer and you brought it with you.

Erin Austin: 00:27:23

That's not yours.

Erin Austin: 00:27:25

That is your old employers.

Erin Austin: 00:27:26

And so make sure you have permission to use that.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:29

that is a whole thing.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:31

Again, you probably have specific advice around that.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:34

When I did so many years of early stage entrepreneur coaching for escape from

Pamela Slim: 00:27:38

cubicle nation, that was my first book.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:40

I always, one of the first things that I encourage people before they

Pamela Slim: 00:27:42

start their side hustle is to read very carefully their employment

Pamela Slim: 00:27:46

agreement, because especially some of the bigger tech companies that

Pamela Slim: 00:27:48

people might work for, you could be a.

Pamela Slim: 00:27:50

Software engineer, and you could write a cookbook, but in some agreements,

Pamela Slim: 00:27:54

like literally everything, anything that you create while employed can

Pamela Slim: 00:27:58

be the property of that employer.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:00

So before you even start to mess around with it, read that agreement

Pamela Slim: 00:28:04

and figure out the particular parameters of what you can use.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:07

Right.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:08

Absolutely.

Erin Austin: 00:28:09

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:28:09

Our third, example here.

Erin Austin: 00:28:11

So we have a leadership consultant who walks into a room, feels

Erin Austin: 00:28:15

the vibe and instinctively knows just what needs to be done.

Erin Austin: 00:28:19

Big co client wants her to work her magic with every manager and all

Erin Austin: 00:28:23

the offices throughout the country.

Erin Austin: 00:28:25

So rather than do it all herself, she wants to train a big co personnel

Erin Austin: 00:28:29

to provide that transformation.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:31

So this would be a case where I would say I am walking around

Pamela Slim: 00:28:35

what we call our thumbprint method.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:39

which has three pieces.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:40

One of them is market fit that we talked about.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:43

Will it sell?

Pamela Slim: 00:28:44

Do you have the marketing and sales engine to be supporting this?

Pamela Slim: 00:28:47

The second component, your method, will it work is that method anywhere

Pamela Slim: 00:28:52

outside the amazing, beautiful brain of said leadership consultant.

Pamela Slim: 00:28:57

And I use magic a lot as a metaphor for.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:00

Literally what happens when you are a service provider, that's one of the

Pamela Slim: 00:29:04

biggest highs I know that I feel I could be here at our community lab doing

Pamela Slim: 00:29:08

an all day intensive with a client.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:09

And sometimes like, I'm shocked myself at what comes out of

Pamela Slim: 00:29:12

my pen on the whiteboard.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:14

Like, where did that model come from?

Pamela Slim: 00:29:16

So there is magic that can happen based on your own unique

Pamela Slim: 00:29:19

set of skills and experience.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:21

Everything about building a certification program is taking out

Pamela Slim: 00:29:26

the frameworks, the methods so that they do not have to be fueled by you.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:30

You're the person, the human, the individual, your skills.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:34

And then there are two ways to address.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:37

How you can make sure that you're certified, leaders are building magic

Pamela Slim: 00:29:42

with their clients, either that you are spelling out maybe some specific magic.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:46

So in some cases, like somebody's magic can be that in addition to.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:50

Leading strategic planning retreats, for example, that they have an amazing

Pamela Slim: 00:29:55

way of creating and holding space.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:56

They're very deliberate about it.

Pamela Slim: 00:29:58

They're very thoughtful for how they, , layout expectations.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:01

Maybe they light a candle.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:03

Maybe there's all these specific things that actually contribute systemically to

Pamela Slim: 00:30:07

the types of conversations that happen.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:09

That could be something that you would be codifying as part of that method.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:13

If that is part of the magic that you want people to be executing, otherwise.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:18

It's, it's in your prerequisites of how it is that you have selected

Pamela Slim: 00:30:22

your, certification candidates.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:24

And that's where I say, you don't have to put everything

Pamela Slim: 00:30:28

in that certification program.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:29

You could say before somebody goes through my program, they already

Pamela Slim: 00:30:33

are an experienced certified coach.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:35

Maybe they have demonstrated experience of working successfully

Pamela Slim: 00:30:38

with executives at a high level, right?

Pamela Slim: 00:30:40

So therefore you're not teaching them how to do that.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:43

And your thing, they're bringing it with them.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:46

Oh, yes.

Pamela Slim: 00:30:46

Oh, I like that.

Erin Austin: 00:30:47

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:30:48

I had a woman, it's been a couple of years now and she is a business

Erin Austin: 00:30:53

coach and she is in, I don't know if the word is empath or intuitive.

Erin Austin: 00:30:59

And so she kind of reads her clients and.

Erin Austin: 00:31:04

makes her recommendations based on, how she reads her clients.

Erin Austin: 00:31:08

And I'm like, well, how do you teach anybody else how to do that?

Erin Austin: 00:31:13

I mean, that's an interesting one, extremely valuable if you have happy

Erin Austin: 00:31:16

clients, but how would you ever not be the center of that service

Pamela Slim: 00:31:23

Well, and I've had some clients through the

Pamela Slim: 00:31:24

years, more on advising side who

Pamela Slim: 00:31:32

And there can be certain things that somebody might say, depending upon

Pamela Slim: 00:31:35

where they're coming from and what space they work in, if it's more of

Pamela Slim: 00:31:37

like a spiritual inclination versus a particular approach or a process.

Pamela Slim: 00:31:42

I have seen it where part of a training somebody can have is, what

Pamela Slim: 00:31:45

are you tuning and listening to?

Pamela Slim: 00:31:47

And there are certain things that can actually be taught and codified,

Pamela Slim: 00:31:50

but other things definitely are just related to the individual.

Pamela Slim: 00:31:53

And so that can be wonderful for you to have that skill.

Pamela Slim: 00:31:57

The way to be thinking about materials you have for a certification is by definition,

Pamela Slim: 00:32:02

you get excited about the fact that other very different people can take it and

Pamela Slim: 00:32:07

run with it and make their unique magic.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:09

But the part that you want to be designing for is that.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:12

There is some kind of a rigor maybe for the use of the tools or the approach

Pamela Slim: 00:32:15

so that you can have a little bit more predictable outcomes for your clients.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:19

So it just won't be like a wild swing in one certified practitioners

Pamela Slim: 00:32:24

results versus the other.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:26

you can't control all of it, so sometimes you do your best job, but.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:29

Yeah, really look in it and it is kind of surprising I think through the years and

Pamela Slim: 00:32:33

it has been really fun as we've really dug in deep now for building certifications.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:37

It is really amazing of how it is that you can draw out of somebody things

Pamela Slim: 00:32:42

that they just thought were completely intuitive to them and it's often the

Pamela Slim: 00:32:46

power of working with outside partners.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:48

Is where you can hear and see things that they may not realize.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:51

And it's funny, a typical response people have, well, doesn't everybody know that?

Pamela Slim: 00:32:54

Like, what's so deep about that?

Pamela Slim: 00:32:56

that's not valuable.

Pamela Slim: 00:32:57

And we're like, literally, that is the most valuable thing that

Pamela Slim: 00:33:00

you have in this whole process.

Pamela Slim: 00:33:02

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:33:02

I

Erin Austin: 00:33:02

will say I've been surprised since I've been, basically educating.

Erin Austin: 00:33:06

The expert space, I spent a career inside of large intellectual

Erin Austin: 00:33:10

property driven organizations.

Erin Austin: 00:33:12

And so I P was literally just part of everyday conversation.

Erin Austin: 00:33:17

It and obviously it's the most valuable asset.

Erin Austin: 00:33:19

It's of course, you know, and the number of people, once I started,

Erin Austin: 00:33:24

with posting and blogging and things about intellectual property with,

Erin Austin: 00:33:27

small business owners, and how many of them It was like an other thing.

Erin Austin: 00:33:33

It was Microsoft and, Tesla, but has nothing to do with what I do.

Erin Austin: 00:33:38

I'm a services writer was like, wow, I was so accustomed to it

Erin Austin: 00:33:42

being just kind of common knowledge.

Erin Austin: 00:33:43

Doesn't everybody know?

Erin Austin: 00:33:44

Like, it's.

Erin Austin: 00:33:44

The 21st century, everybody knows about intellectual property.

Erin Austin: 00:33:47

It's 95 percent of our gross national product.

Erin Austin: 00:33:50

How could you not know?

Erin Austin: 00:33:51

we do get in our bowels and think, and don't realize how much value we

Erin Austin: 00:33:56

can bring with our kind of skills that we have that we use every day.

Pamela Slim: 00:33:59

I agree, I'd say 95 percent of people don't know what you

Pamela Slim: 00:34:02

think about intellectual property.

Pamela Slim: 00:34:03

So good for you.

Pamela Slim: 00:34:04

Well, there's

Erin Austin: 00:34:07

endless number of topics to I've discovered.

Erin Austin: 00:34:10

So it has been fun to do that.

Erin Austin: 00:34:11

Honestly.

Erin Austin: 00:34:12

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:34:12

So our last example here.

Erin Austin: 00:34:14

Web designer has a killer trademark for her company name.

Erin Austin: 00:34:18

As a result, sometimes she gets clients simply because people remember the name

Erin Austin: 00:34:22

of her business when asked for a referral to web designers, she does have a good

Erin Austin: 00:34:27

system ties, work process, but the work itself isn't terribly differentiated

Erin Austin: 00:34:32

because of the strength of her trademark.

Erin Austin: 00:34:34

She wants to create a certification program for other web designers.

Pamela Slim: 00:34:38

so this could be where it is more around, being very sticky and,

Pamela Slim: 00:34:43

having a sticky model, a sticky name just, you can't really discount the catchiness

Pamela Slim: 00:34:48

of something when you, I mean, a name like value builder that we were talking

Pamela Slim: 00:34:51

about earlier is to me, an example of just like a great name where we're often

Pamela Slim: 00:34:55

like, Oh, why didn't I think about that?

Pamela Slim: 00:34:56

That can help just by definition, when you think about the model and

Pamela Slim: 00:35:00

be something that other people want.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:01

It's great that model.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:03

Is protected.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:04

So to have that trademark on it, I think is a unique opportunity.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:07

I always think about it in the bigger picture in terms of, thinking about that

Pamela Slim: 00:35:12

audience, maybe of other web designers and also the nature of that person's business

Pamela Slim: 00:35:18

where you're choosing to be certifying in this case, maybe practitioners.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:21

Of other designers that are using that method that is sticky and you

Pamela Slim: 00:35:24

built that brand and protected it.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:26

Are you in some ways creating your own competitors if you're not ready

Pamela Slim: 00:35:30

to be giving up your regular business?

Pamela Slim: 00:35:33

So that's the thing to.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:35

Be careful of and it often again is a stage of maturity in business

Pamela Slim: 00:35:39

to where you say, I'm actually not interested anymore in doing most of the

Pamela Slim: 00:35:43

work myself that it makes me excited to take this method to have it as a

Pamela Slim: 00:35:47

tool to make it easier for others.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:49

And then your main focus becomes being the mentor, the capacity

Pamela Slim: 00:35:52

builder for people who can take it and run with it to have impact.

Pamela Slim: 00:35:56

it's always the market audience conversation that we have with people

Pamela Slim: 00:36:00

initially where they might, it is common that you can have a method or an approach

Pamela Slim: 00:36:04

that could be applicable for independent practitioners and for large companies.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:10

And so in that case, it really is about what is.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:13

Your vision for your own business model in the market dynamics.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:17

And some people don't realize, yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:19

You I mean, there's amazing, smart people out there and you

Pamela Slim: 00:36:22

could train and certify others.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:23

And let's say, for example, they have better sales and marketing

Pamela Slim: 00:36:26

mojo than you have inadvertently.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:28

You can end up creating a competitor.

Pamela Slim: 00:36:30

If you don't have any way of Financially benefiting from that you could be

Pamela Slim: 00:36:34

excited and proud that your name is out there, but you may not be

Pamela Slim: 00:36:38

an as strong a financial position.

Erin Austin: 00:36:40

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:36:40

in this example, the trademark is the business name As opposed to, say,

Erin Austin: 00:36:45

the process name, and so licensing the business name, obviously, would

Erin Austin: 00:36:50

be very tricky unless you were going to get out of the business yourself.

Erin Austin: 00:36:55

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:36:55

maybe you switching it over to a process, trademark The trademark applying to the

Erin Austin: 00:36:59

process, but, I am kind of ambivalent about trademarks and mostly because

Erin Austin: 00:37:04

I work in the, the B to B world.

Erin Austin: 00:37:08

And so we have experts, who come to me and they, like, they have

Erin Austin: 00:37:12

this trademark and they're very passionate about their trademark and.

Erin Austin: 00:37:15

I'll say, what kind of transformation do you pride for your client?

Erin Austin: 00:37:19

No, do this and that we, you know, what does that have to do with the trademark?

Erin Austin: 00:37:22

well, nothing it's, so do you think the client wouldn't work with you?

Erin Austin: 00:37:27

If you had a different trademark?

Erin Austin: 00:37:30

Like, well, no, it's still like, so, like, it's not that they're unimportant.

Erin Austin: 00:37:35

Yeah, and this is again, I'm talking about the B2B B2C world.

Erin Austin: 00:37:38

They're obviously important in the B2C, but for people to be overly invested in

Erin Austin: 00:37:43

their trademarks, as if that's some sort of magic bullet in getting corporate

Erin Austin: 00:37:49

clients, because, corporate clients, don't really care about your trademark.

Erin Austin: 00:37:54

Honestly, they care about the value you provide the transformation you provide.

Erin Austin: 00:37:58

And that is, with your methods and your trainings and the things that we copyright

Erin Austin: 00:38:04

and not with the things that we trademark.

Erin Austin: 00:38:06

but, there's certainly value.

Erin Austin: 00:38:08

Like, you have a trademark that is throughout.

Erin Austin: 00:38:12

the industry here, you we have a web designer who everyone knows

Erin Austin: 00:38:15

who she is because she's got the coolest business name and there's

Erin Austin: 00:38:18

something to trade on that.

Erin Austin: 00:38:20

So this is a harder 1, but just, you know, cause I'm definitely, I

Erin Austin: 00:38:23

go back and forth on trademarks.

Erin Austin: 00:38:24

So,

Pamela Slim: 00:38:25

which is why we always seem to have lawyers

Pamela Slim: 00:38:26

involved in the conversation.

Erin Austin: 00:38:30

That's right.

Erin Austin: 00:38:31

Well, I think that was a great conversation.

Erin Austin: 00:38:34

Thank you for indulging me with a little issue spotting there.

Erin Austin: 00:38:38

So, as you know, this is a very meta podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:38:41

It is for female founders of expertise businesses who want to create

Erin Austin: 00:38:46

scalable and saleable businesses.

Erin Austin: 00:38:48

And so I am wondering, are you thinking about building a

Erin Austin: 00:38:53

scalable and saleable business?

Erin Austin: 00:38:54

How do you think about your business?

Pamela Slim: 00:38:55

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:38:56

At this stage, I've been in business 28 years, believe it or not.

Pamela Slim: 00:38:59

So I get great joy of classically been somebody like who's creative and

Pamela Slim: 00:39:03

interested in doing different things.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:05

I named myself an author practitioner where I often write

Pamela Slim: 00:39:08

books around the things that I'm working with my clients on.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:11

And it's actually been.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:12

Since the last couple of years or so, where we really started to lean

Pamela Slim: 00:39:16

in to have an agency around building certifications and just really digging

Pamela Slim: 00:39:20

into the codification that I am getting more excited and we're practicing

Pamela Slim: 00:39:25

more within our own business and I do.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:27

Love the idea, especially with a kid in college and another one on the way of

Pamela Slim: 00:39:31

thinking about building that value in.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:33

I'm not, immune to not really having it be part of the way that

Pamela Slim: 00:39:37

I was thinking about, businesses.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:39

So I love the idea where we end up building a really powerful, model

Pamela Slim: 00:39:43

and a powerful machine for doing certifications, for example, and down

Pamela Slim: 00:39:47

the road, me and my team could exit it.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:49

in a way that makes us all money, that would make me really happy.

Pamela Slim: 00:39:52

in the stage where we are right now, we are very deliberate in the way

Pamela Slim: 00:39:55

that we're building it, where it is productized services, we do debriefs

Pamela Slim: 00:40:00

after every single project, we do improvements every single time, which

Pamela Slim: 00:40:04

brings me great joy as an instructional designer, but it really, I think will

Pamela Slim: 00:40:08

set us up to make it easier to do that.

Pamela Slim: 00:40:11

So that was the long answer.

Pamela Slim: 00:40:12

The short answer is yes.

Pamela Slim: 00:40:13

Absolutely.

Pamela Slim: 00:40:15

I think the timeframe is a thing that will be interesting to see.

Erin Austin: 00:40:17

yeah, I agree.

Erin Austin: 00:40:18

And they're in the timeframes.

Erin Austin: 00:40:20

tend to be longer than we think, you know, but then sometimes people, you

Erin Austin: 00:40:23

hear about a, 2 year exit, who knows?

Erin Austin: 00:40:26

So you never quite know, but always, it's never too early to think about

Erin Austin: 00:40:30

creating your own intellectual property.

Erin Austin: 00:40:32

if you get some comfort out of 3rd party materials in order to get started, but

Erin Austin: 00:40:37

always be thinking about creating your own intellectual property, because that's the

Erin Austin: 00:40:40

only way you're going to be able to build a truly scalable and saleable business.

Erin Austin: 00:40:44

That's right.

Erin Austin: 00:40:45

Yeah, well, thank you.

Erin Austin: 00:40:46

So, we love to talk about, creating a society that works for more of

Erin Austin: 00:40:50

us and more equitable society.

Erin Austin: 00:40:52

I love to say wealth in the hands of women can change the world,

Erin Austin: 00:40:55

but it's both in the hands of more of us could change the world.

Erin Austin: 00:40:59

And so, is there a.

Erin Austin: 00:41:01

person organization that is working to create an economy that works for

Erin Austin: 00:41:04

everyone that you'd like to share.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:06

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:07

Locally, I work with rail, which stands for retail art, innovation,

Pamela Slim: 00:41:11

and livability, which is a local community development corporation, CDC.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:16

And so this is an example my husband and I opened a community lab just

Pamela Slim: 00:41:20

about eight years ago, and we're just completing the cycle of having it open.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:23

It's a bit of self funded space, specifically focused on by entrepreneurs.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:28

And so in the work that we've done with rail over the years, they have a

Pamela Slim: 00:41:32

very deliberate approach to how they're working in our case with community.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:36

We are probably similar to many other.

Pamela Slim: 00:41:39

areas where in Arizona, anybody who's been tuned into politics know, there's

Pamela Slim: 00:41:42

all kinds of things that are happening here in Arizona in terms of, how things

Pamela Slim: 00:41:46

work and in our specific downtown area, we have around 70 percent folks of color,

Pamela Slim: 00:41:51

primarily Latino, in the downtown area, but there is really not the same kind

Pamela Slim: 00:41:56

of, Connection access to resources, even though literally it's like one street

Pamela Slim: 00:42:01

away for what happens on main street.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:03

So I've been super excited through the years to be building more connections

Pamela Slim: 00:42:07

with them and watching the way that they specifically work literally on

Pamela Slim: 00:42:11

a person to person basis with a lot of the much smaller entrepreneurs.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:15

It can be folks who have mixed documentation households.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:18

It can be for street vendors.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:21

It can be for neighbors who have cottage industries coming out of their home.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:25

But during COVID times, they were working, they go door to door.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:29

Sometimes they'd be standing, you know, with three masks on walking through

Pamela Slim: 00:42:32

helping people to fill out the PPP forms, to get access to resources.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:36

And to me, it's, combining the really hands on approach with a very specific

Pamela Slim: 00:42:42

theory of change about how they are.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:44

Helping, renters purchase their home so they don't get pushed out with a

Pamela Slim: 00:42:48

gentrification and to help business owners move from leasers to owners

Pamela Slim: 00:42:52

of their commercial buildings and really strengthening neighborhoods.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:55

So to me, it is intersectional for sure.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:58

in general, women.

Pamela Slim: 00:42:59

Are the powerhouses in the neighborhoods who are doing so much, and it really

Pamela Slim: 00:43:03

is looking at entire families and neighborhoods that are working together.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:07

So actually I'm gonna be moving my office in conjunction with them as a next

Pamela Slim: 00:43:11

step after we move out of here in June.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:14

And I couldn't be more excited 'cause it just fuels.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:16

Everything about my own, like local contribution, but it's also a model.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:20

It's like a microcosm of ways that I think about ways we can even be working

Pamela Slim: 00:43:24

virtually with people in community.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:26

Oh, that's fantastic.

Erin Austin: 00:43:27

Well, we will have the, URL for, Brill CDC in, well, I just said it

Erin Austin: 00:43:32

too, it'll be in the show notes as well.

Erin Austin: 00:43:34

And so as we wrap up, is there, something new happening in your business and offer

Erin Austin: 00:43:39

you'd like to share with the audience?

Pamela Slim: 00:43:41

I have rolling probably the best way to access

Pamela Slim: 00:43:43

more of our public classes.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:45

I love to teach.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:45

I love cohort based programs.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:47

So for those who might be a little bit earlier on where you're like,

Pamela Slim: 00:43:50

I think I have some good stuff, but it's not really codified.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:53

We have a class called productize your service, discover your

Pamela Slim: 00:43:57

unique thumbprint method.

Pamela Slim: 00:43:58

And that's for people who want to work on really codifying their method.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:02

I co teach it with my amazing.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:04

team, Josiah Owens and Darren Padilla.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:06

And so it's a really focused, like a two week sprint class that is very

Pamela Slim: 00:44:11

hands on where we work with folks to be building their own methods, which

Pamela Slim: 00:44:15

is the precursor for certification.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:17

So we do that a couple times a year.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:19

I think we'll have that in the show notes for the next one coming up.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:22

And we would love to see you there.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:24

Otherwise I highlight now, I started a few weeks ago, a newsletter

Pamela Slim: 00:44:28

on LinkedIn called smart IP.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:30

And so I'm writing specifically around issues related to, IP over there.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:35

Not IP law,

Erin Austin: 00:44:39

although I'll feature IP and the concepts out there,

Erin Austin: 00:44:41

the better it is for everyone.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:42

There you go.

Pamela Slim: 00:44:43

I will feature people like you, but yeah, all the rest of the stuff.

Erin Austin: 00:44:46

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:44:47

I just discovered the LinkedIn newsletter.

Erin Austin: 00:44:49

we found it accidentally, honestly, cause like, it was hosting and, cause

Erin Austin: 00:44:52

before I think it was kind of like an article I think was kind of, yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:44:56

And then the newsletter and we're like, Oh, this is like growing really fast.

Erin Austin: 00:44:59

Like what's happening here?

Erin Austin: 00:45:00

cause I think they're, promoting it and pushing them out.

Erin Austin: 00:45:02

So yeah,

Pamela Slim: 00:45:02

they're, great.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:03

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:04

It's amazing.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:04

had avoided it for a long time, but now it's amazing.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:06

And you know, and like.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:07

Yeah.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:10

And so think it's great to, drive that interest in places where people

Pamela Slim: 00:45:14

are looking for that information.

Erin Austin: 00:45:15

Perfect.

Erin Austin: 00:45:16

wonderful.

Erin Austin: 00:45:17

Well, thank you so much, Pam.

Erin Austin: 00:45:18

This has been such a fun episode.

Erin Austin: 00:45:20

I know it was extremely helpful to the audience and I can't

Erin Austin: 00:45:23

thank you enough for being here.

Pamela Slim: 00:45:24

Thanks for having me.