April 22, 2025 • 40 mins
Tired of hitting a wall with your client-based business? You don’t have to build a course or start a membership to scale.
In this episode of Calm is the New KPI, host Susan Boles talks with Janet Alexandersson—an international licensing lawyer and founder of Piggy Bank Legal—about how licensing can become a powerful, margin-creating revenue stream for service-based business owners.
If you've ever wondered how to productize your existing client work without burning out or shifting your entire business model, this episode is your permission slip. Janet walks us through the practical, strategic, and protective aspects of licensing, and shares how this often-overlooked business lever can change how you earn, design, and rest.
What You’ll Learn
- What licensing actually is—and why it's not just for tech or big corporations
- The step-by-step process to start licensing your existing IP
- Common pitfalls to avoid in licensing deals (and how to protect yourself)
- Why pricing should reflect their value, not yours
- How licensing can support a hybrid model with clients and passive income
Learn More About Janet
Learn More About Susan
- (00:00) - Introduction: The Struggles of High-Touch Client Work
- (01:21) - Exploring a New Revenue Stream: Licensing
- (02:16) - Understanding Licensing with Janet Alexander
- (05:35) - The Licensing Process: Step-by-Step
- (10:18) - Protecting Your Intellectual Property
- (19:58) - Real-World Licensing Examples
- (38:49) - Final Thoughts on Licensing and Business Design
Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan Boles (00:06):
As a consultant or small agency founder who loves
doing high touch client work,you probably hate how fragile
and unsustainable it can feel.You're great at what you do,
your clients love you, butcapacity is a brick wall that
you're constantly brushing upagainst or maybe running head
first into. You want morebreathing room, more margin,
(00:30):
maybe more revenue. But you'renot really interested in scaling
by managing a team, launching agroup program, or building a
course. Everything out thereseems to require replacing
client work with something else.
But what if the exact same workyou've been doing with clients
could quietly earn you revenueeven when you're not in the
(00:51):
room? Imagine this. You've builta rock solid service. Clients
get results. You've got casestudies and rave reviews.
You're fully booked. Buthonestly, you're a little tired.
You can't keep squeezing in moreclients without dropping balls
or burning out. Everyone says,create a course or start a group
(01:11):
program or create a membership.But those don't feel right.
So it seems like your onlyoptions are keep grinding or
pivot to a whole new businessmodel. But there's a third
option most people overlook,licensing. What if you could
take the exact same frameworks,tools, and assets that you're
already using with clients andpackage them up so others could
(01:34):
pay to use them too? Welcome toCalm Is The New KPI, the podcast
where we challenge defaultbusiness advice and break down
the levers you can pull tocreate a calmer business that
actually works for you. I'm yourhost, Susan Bowles.
In this episode, we're tappinginto two of the levers from the
Calmer framework that we can useto engineer Calm into our
(01:56):
business. First, we're tacklingbusiness design. So shaping your
offers in a way that makes roomfor rest, resilience, and
revenue. Number two is usingefficiency to create margins.
We're doing that by repurposingwhat you've already created so
it can do more heavy lifting inyour business without adding
more to your plate.
(02:16):
To help us explore how licensingcan open up new revenue streams
without ditching client work, Ihave Janet Alexanderson. Janet
is the founder of Piggy BankLegal, and she is an
international licensing lawyerwho helps consultants, course
creators, and service providersturn their intellectual
property, IP, into scalable,protected, and profitable
(02:39):
licensing products. With twentyyears of legal experience and a
sharp eye for strategy, sheguides clients through the full
licensing journey. So frompackaging their IP to
negotiating big ticket dealswith corporations and
universities. And if you've everwondered whether the systems and
tools you use with clients couldbe valuable to someone else,
(02:59):
this episode is your permissionslip to stop trading time for
money quite so directly.
So you help business licenselicense their content, their
services, but I don't know thatpeople are super clear on what
that actually means. So kind oftake me through high level what
(03:20):
it means to license your IP.
Janet Alexandersson (03:24):
Yeah. That's a really good question. I
hear that a lot. So I think it'sImagine something you've made in
your business. It could be alittle training snippet or a
checklist that you help yourclients work through, or a step
by step somehow that gives thema reliable outcome every time.
And you're usually out theredoing it with them or for them
or kind of handholding in someway. And for content licensing,
(03:48):
you repackage that as somethingthat another business can
implement for their employees.They can follow the step by
step. Or if they have customersthat are having the same
problems as yours, they couldresell that as a standalone
content piece to them. And fromyour
Susan Boles (04:04):
experience, what are some of the advantages of
licensing your content? So ifwe're thinking about, like, a
traditional service basedbusiness, they're off, they're
doing client things, we'retalking about, you know,
potentially diversifying or theylose their one big client, which
(04:24):
happens all the time. We havethat one big client, and then
all of a sudden it disappears.Talk to me about why someone
might want to consider licensingsome of their content.
Janet Alexandersson (04:34):
I think there are several different
reasons. So one is definitely,yes, you want more revenue. And
this is a way to scale revenuewithout scaling overhead as
much, or having to scale a team.From, from my own experience
with licensing, it's a wayknowledge to work without having
to like market it yourself orlike find an audience for it or
(04:56):
like do all the things that youdo to acquire your clients,
because that's someone else'sproblem now. They're just
essentially venting what youhave made so that others can
benefit from that.
And it's kind of their problemto monetize it and do whatever
they need to do to do that. Andyour job is then just to
maintain your knowledge, updateit and sort of make that
continuously relevant. So to me,that's the sweet spot that you
(05:18):
get to have more control overyour business model and the way
that you weigh your businessagainst how you want to live.
Susan Boles (05:26):
We're going to take a quick break to hear from our
sponsors but when we come backJanet is gonna take us step by
step through the licensingprocess. So take me through kind
(06:23):
of a typical licensing process.Like, how does this process
actually work when you're like,great. Cool. That sounds that
sounds fantastic.
Fantastic. Let's do it. And thenat least for me, I'm going, so
now what?
Janet Alexandersson (06:39):
Yes. I think the first thing is to
acknowledge what you've made.Because a lot of people are only
acknowledging the content. We'resaying content here, but
knowledge piece or guidedresource that they have made
that they're currently selling.So the first step is to look on
all the things that you havelike in your archive or that you
(06:59):
aren't using, or that you didn'tfinish and kind of think of
people that you can't reachmaybe, but could find this
useful.
So do you have something thatcould upscale an employee in a
large corporation? Do you havesomething that would help them
work more smoothly with aclient? Or do you have something
that would help the end clientexecute better as an add on in
(07:21):
their ecosystem? And you couldjust add that on to what they're
doing. So let's say that you'rein branding and you help people
figure out how to express theirbrands through their marketing.
And you have a system for it.There's a formula and all the
things for how to like build outa post and how to keep your
brand guide relevant. So thatcould either be for a large
(07:43):
brand department in acorporation where they want all
of their staff to be up to speedalways and use the same system.
Or it could be for the agencythat needs their customers to
follow the brand guides, andthey're not getting them to do
that. But you have a system toget them to do that.
So now instead of them doingtheir own R and D and spending a
lot of hours developingsomething that they don't know
(08:04):
if it's going to work, they canjust rent your solution and then
have that be something that youupdate every year. There's
different levels of what you cando. So you can also add hours of
your time. So maybe you do a Qand A, or you do some sort of
review. But at the core, it'sjust them applying that piece of
content or deploying it in theirecosystem.
Susan Boles (08:25):
So how do you see people structuring the step by
step of this? So you've come upwith the idea. You know what you
wanna license. Yeah. You knowwho you want to license it to.
What is the process to actuallydo that?
Janet Alexandersson (08:41):
So the first thing you need to realize
is that the content that youmade for you to use or for your
clients to use will not be thesame piece of content that you
license.
Susan Boles (08:50):
Okay, tell me more about that.
Janet Alexandersson (08:52):
Because you're not going to be part of
the equation. So the licensedoffer has to be the dummies
version. The thing that you cantrust people to execute without
you pointing them in the rightdirection. So you're going have
to subtract and give up like theperfection of your thing that
you made and kind of extractlike what are the two or three
things that I want them toabsolutely nail and you should
(09:13):
focus it on that. I also thinkthat the best success is if you
don't build that out, yououtline it, you have some like
content pieces that are ready,and then you go talk to the
people that you want to sell itto.
Because they're going to tellyou if they need something
different, something smaller,something bigger. So coming with
something that is like, I'vespent two years on this and it's
(09:35):
finally ready. It's not theenergy because you're going to
just be crushed by theirfeedback because they're going
to want something that is muchmore practical usually than what
you're thinking about right now.
Susan Boles (09:47):
That makes sense. And I think it mirrors, you
know, how we think about sellingour own products to consumers.
And that, like, you should tryto sell the thing before you
build the thing. Becausefrequently, you'll go try and
sell it, and you'll hearcrickets, or you'll get feedback
that it's not quite right. Sothat feels very aligned.
(10:08):
So we've created a dummyversion. We're testing it. We've
found people who do want tolicense this content. Now what?
Janet Alexandersson (10:18):
Now you start to think about how to
protect your content becausethis is your business asset now,
your IP. So what are thelimitations for their use? What
do you want them to pay you? Andhow do you want them to pay you?
And how engaged do you want tobe in the delivery and so on?
But I think the most importantpart is really protecting your
ownership and the ways that theycan engage with it. Can they,
(10:41):
for example, white label thisproduct and say that it's like
from their corporation? Shouldit be co branded? Should there
always be your brand on it? Andthis is determined by the
strategy you want.
So if you want to have yourbrand growing in knowledge, it's
good if your logo is on there.But if you're in an industry
where you know that they wantwhite labeled the most, maybe
white label should be the mostexpensive option. So like
(11:03):
figuring out your tactics aroundyour content and also having
rules about how it can bereleased, how it can be shared,
who can alter things, who cannotalter things. So I always tell
my clients they should see theircontent as a rockstar and the
release rules, which is legalspeak, is essentially the writer
that goes along with this rockstar.
Susan Boles (11:23):
It's the I only want green Skittles in my
dressing room, please.
Janet Alexandersson (11:28):
Exactly. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's those things.
Like, what are the things thatyou you want to go along with
this content?
What is the context?
Susan Boles (11:37):
What are the limitations? At what point
should people be getting lawyersinvolved or consultants?
Janet Alexandersson (11:45):
It makes sense to do it when you're
packaging or deciding what youwant your packages to be. So
when you're in the process ofcreating one pagers or for your
offers, I think that's a goodpoint because your release rules
will determine what type ofoffer you set out. So it's more
practical than legal, I wouldsay, when it comes to licensed
(12:06):
products. So it's everythingfrom, you can only access the
product on my server, meaningthat you'll have a login. This
is like how we deliver content.
Or you have one year access andevery year you get X amount of
updates or you get X amount oflike Q and As. So thinking that
through when you're packagingit, I think it's the best. So
(12:27):
that's when you start talking tosomeone who's at least
knowledgeable about it. And Ithink the lawyer, as soon as you
get to what are the limitationsin their use and what do I want
to protect? Because that alsokind of impacts how you deliver
content and how much control youhave over delivery and how they
use it.
Susan Boles (12:45):
So where in the process do you see things
typically going wrong or some ofthe places where folks might get
tripped up or run into issues?
Janet Alexandersson (12:57):
Okay. I see I see two places. The first one
being when they're approachedwithout really knowing what
licensing is. So they arehappily studying a course or
like delivering a service andthen a larger company comes and
say, Hey, could we license this?We'll offer you this.
Or could we buy this even? Andusually what they're offering is
(13:20):
likely to match what you'reselling it for as a course, for
example. So if someone comes inand say like, hey, can we
license this for four times whatyour course is sold for? That's
someone trying to rip you off.And that happens a lot.
So they try to get in on a lowerprice. But for you, it's going
to feel like you're like, oh,yeah, I'm going to sell five
(13:40):
seats in one or 10 seats in one.But they just do that as a
consumer and don't really evensend you agreement or anything.
So essentially, you've just soldthem your IP and they can
continue using it forever, butthey're calling it licensing. Or
they just send you a contractand they put it so that the
licensing is in perpetuity,whereas it's much more usually
(14:03):
periodical.
That's an inflection point wherepeople get into trouble. And I
think the other one is thenegotiation phase. So once
you've sent them yourconditions, they're probably
going to have thoughts andfeelings about that and push
back. And this is probably goingto be one of the biggest
transactions that you've beeninvolved in, in your business.
(14:24):
So coming from that, you're kindof keen to make this go through.
So you might compromise too muchor compromise on the wrong
things. I think those two pointsare critical.
Susan Boles (14:34):
Yeah. I think one of the hesitations that folks
would have around kind ofconsidering this process is this
feeling that you are letting goof your baby. This is, you know,
your brainchild. This is stuffthat you have developed over
(14:55):
probably many years. And nowyou're gonna let it go and maybe
feel like, you know, what is theright level of compensation for
me to give this thing away thatis not no longer going to be
exclusively mine?
How do I protect it so nobodyelse steals it? How do I make
(15:17):
sure that I'm getting fairlycompensated? What would you
normally say to people in thatscenario where they're like, it
feels really scary?
Janet Alexandersson (15:26):
I think it's gonna feel scary because
it's something you haven't donebefore. And I think that if we
start with the pricing part,you're going to have to think
differently because it's nolonger what it's worth to you or
to the singular end user. Thisis what it's worth for the
entity that is licensing. Sothat either means that they're
improving something in theiroperations or with their workers
(15:48):
so that they can have a higherROI, or they're improving their
bottom line by reselling it.That's the value now.
And that's more ephemeral foryou to grasp. So you have to do
different kinds of research andkind of figure out what that
means. But I think the firststop is to kind of figure out
what would it mean for them todevelop this on their own. And
(16:10):
even just looking at courses,there's a statistic that for one
hour of a produced and ready todeploy course, that's at least
thirty work hours. Anyone who'smade a course will feel that
that is
Susan Boles (16:24):
That feels accurate. So I had a financial
course a few years back that Istarted the process of, like,
trying to license and then kindof collapsed. But, like,
thinking about developing thatcourse, that thirty hours feels
very real, especially if you aretrying to deliver a lot of value
(16:45):
in a very condensed amount oftime. It takes so much more time
to iterate enough to, like,really deliver the value for the
short amount of time. If you'regonna do a course where, like,
you're delivering, like,everything, all you know, if you
pack everything in, that'sfaster.
Janet Alexandersson (17:03):
It's faster, and it's also they
already know that this isaccurate because you've had
results with this before, andthis is only for a course. So
imagine if you have a processfor this is how you achieve XYZ,
and there's a multi stepprocess, and it's proprietary to
you. They can't just use itwithout you. Like, they need to
have your approval to use it.So, coming to the protection
(17:23):
part, this is a nice seguebecause if you have a process,
can trademark it.
If it has a name or if you havea lot of content, copyright
applies here as well. So usingthose IP protections that you
can sort of do upfront and thenin your contract have protection
for your business secrets.Include NDAs and non
(17:45):
competitions and like, theycan't develop something that is
similar to what you are offeringto them, or they can't build
upon it. Those are safeguardsthat could be in your contract.
So them finding what you dointeresting and wanting to
deploy it tells you that they'realready valuing it.
And they would rather take thisshortcut, because we're also
talking about how much timewould it take them to develop
(18:06):
something similar or somethinggiving them the same outcome.
They don't know that. So I thinkwe undervalue what we have made,
because to us, it's been easy.Because this is how our brain
naturally works. And this is howwe explain it to clients.
And we see it working for them.And we never really own it, even
for yourself to kind of figureout that this is valuable. Just
name it. This is the X frameworkto deliver X. Or this is the
(18:31):
step by step process for this.
Like, give it a name. And eventhen, it starts getting its own
identity outside of this is justsomething I do.
Susan Boles (18:40):
No. I love that. So when you are talking about the
protections, a lot of the timeswhen it comes to trademark or
copyright protection, theprotection is one thing, and the
enforcement is entirely anotherthing. Yes. Right?
So, like, in order to claimthose protections, you still
have to be, like, activelyenforcing that when people are
(19:03):
ripping off your content or whenyou see them using it out in the
world and they're not you don'thave a licensing agreement. Talk
to me about that a little bit.
Janet Alexandersson (19:11):
Without a licensing agreement, it is
tricky. The cease and desist isyour friend here. But if they're
bigger corporations, they cantake the legal fees and, like,
they don't care, essentially. Sothen you probably want to go the
PR route and involve giving themsome bad press about ripping
smaller companies off. I feellike that is the tricky part,
enforcing it, as you said, andhow far you want to go towards
(19:32):
enforcing it.
I think that is also why it'sgood to put your IP in these
situations into a gated licenceproduct. Because then you can
also state like, none of this ispublic data. None of this is
available outside licensing. Soif it's being spread, it's one
of your licensees. And in yourcontracts, there's going to be
(19:53):
penalties for that, and you cantrack it more readily.
Susan Boles (19:59):
So let's put a little bit of a real world
example to this. So you did thisin your own business. Right?
Yeah. You started licensing yourown content.
So what did that process looklike for you?
Janet Alexandersson (20:14):
So for me, it was a happenstance kind of
situation. So I met someone whoran a professional community for
VAs, and she needed legaldocuments that were specifically
tailored to them for theirservices, but also website
agreements and such. So we had aprocess of figuring out what do
(20:35):
they need specifically for theiruse case. She'd had the
community for many years. Theyhadn't found docs that were a
good fit.
So I took the time, which intotal was, if we're being
transparent, eight hours tofigure out how to like fully
make that work for them, butalso give, set up explainers for
how to use it and all of that.And then we struck a deal where
(20:55):
I deliver the documents and shesort of sells them and we split
the revenue. And after that, I'malso available to answer
questions in the community aboutthe documents technically, not
so much like giving advice. Andthat's been the system for other
communities I'm also doing thiswith for a long time. And some
of them prefer to not sharerevenue.
(21:16):
They just pay an annual fee forbeing able to resell the
document. So those are the twokind of modules. So for me, it
was kind of organic. And I thinka lot of people slide into it,
but you can also be morestrategic about it and say, I
know I'm solving a problem. Andusually it's like, in this case,
a tag along problem.
She has a course that teachesthem how to become VAs in a
(21:38):
community to support themthrough their starting up and
like executing and gainingclients as a VA. But all of them
need legal docs to do that. So alot of the times it's kind of
figuring out what would be agood tag along. Because it's
almost never going to be using,oh, I would have sold to these
people through this specificchannel and you wouldn't have
(22:00):
because you wouldn't have accessto this channel.
Susan Boles (22:03):
Yeah. So how did that change kind of your
approach to selling to people?Because you are then changing
the kinds of businesses you'relooking to connect with. You're
changing your approach. It isone to many, but it's one to
many in a very different waybecause the sale still happens
(22:24):
one to one.
The delivery happens one tomany, but that's a very
different sales system.
Janet Alexandersson (22:30):
Changes the avatar.
Susan Boles (22:32):
Then most you know, if you're switching from service
you know, you're a serviceprovider to this is now your new
model, what does that look like?
Janet Alexandersson (22:40):
How did you account for that? I think for
me, I've always been bad atsales, as in, like, not wanting
to do them. Not necessarily badat converting someone when I'm
talking to them, just, like, notinterested in convincing anyone
of anything. So instead of goingfor like, I need to meet as many
like end consumers one on one, Ijust need to meet people who
host in some way, shape or form.Or if they don't host, they have
(23:04):
access to people who host, likeit's some sort of community
aspect, I feel like, even ifit's not necessarily community,
it could be a professional, oreven a corporation that has a
lot of distributed teams.
I would say it's a slower pace,because you are building
relationships. Whereas before Iused to sell legal documents on
my website and I didn't reallydrive traffic to that. So this
(23:28):
is not really a drive traffictype of game, I would say. It's
more relationship building andmeeting people who you could
maybe even have a thought like,oh, actually, I don't have that
type of product, but that wouldbe a good match, and then have a
conversation. Do you want toexplore that?
Susan Boles (23:45):
Yeah. I think that is probably the piece that maybe
is underestimated. So say thatyou want to license part of your
IP, part of your knowledge, andyou don't have somebody Yeah.
Come and approach you. This issomething where you wanna take
your business model in thatdirection, or you're trying to
(24:07):
do this very strategically.
When we're thinking about, hey.I have to go test selling this
to people, or maybe those peopleare not in your network yet, so
you don't even have access to gotry to test this with the ideal
customer avatar. How do you seefolks approaching that problem
(24:30):
of we need to develop thenetwork in order to then build
the relationships to be able totry to test this idea? And how
does that kind of impact thetimeline?
Janet Alexandersson (24:42):
I think it doesn't impact the timeline as
much as you would think. The keyhere is to essentially develop
an idea of what your licensedproduct would be. This is coming
back to the one pager. Becauseas you start talking to new
circles and then expanding intothe areas where you could find
someone who want to license yourcontent, you need something for
(25:03):
them to remember you're bi. Soyou're going to have to like,
take a bet on like, one of thesethree permutations of this
content piece would be relevant.
And you can sort of say welicense content for people who
want to achieve this thing. Andthat's a good conversation
opener. And for finding them, Ifind that they're closer than
(25:24):
you think. It's just that you'renot having conversations that
are about licensing. So this isa much more corporate than it is
a peer to peer, especially likeonline business thing.
So there's probably someone inyour network that knows someone
working at a company that wouldbe interested in this. So that's
the first step. And then thesecond one is go to one expo.
(25:47):
That is an industry that youidentify that this is the one
that I think would be mostinterested. And it's usually
really helpful to do that, evenif you're sure that they'll be
interested, because you'reprobably going to be the
standout.
There's going to be so manypeople selling the same thing,
same old way and you're going belike, hey, we can solve this
knowledge problem for you. Andthat's not going to be the same
(26:09):
same old competing with peoplein that industry. So that's a
good dip into the thing. And ifyou can't go to an expo, find a
community group forprofessionals in that arena and
see if you can host a talk withthem to talk about way of doing
things and something like that.
Susan Boles (26:25):
I didn't really think about it. But, yeah, it's
a very fast way to get a wholebunch of feedback Yeah. All at
once. I think a lot of times,those of us who have primarily
online businesses forget aboutthere are places in the real
world where local businesses aredoing this or more corporate
businesses are doing this, andwe kind of forget the real world
Janet Alexandersson (26:47):
business.
Susan Boles (26:47):
Yes. So when you are working with clients on
this, what part of the processare you helping them So
Janet Alexandersson (26:55):
I help them take what they already have
knowledge wise and repackagethat for licensing. So what we
talked about, like, coming upwith your different offers, the
different tiers. I make them doa little bit of homework and
figure out like, what are theone pagers? What are the
potential industries that thiscould be applied to? So we do a
lot of this work on identifyingindustries and how they want to
(27:18):
be interacting with your contentupfront.
And then I create a draft for amaster licensing agreement. And
I also make my clients sitthrough a masterclass on their
licensing agreement so that theyknow what it means and how to
defend it. And I also buildingconcession points so that
they're prepped fornegotiations. So there's always
things that they know they cangive on and also things that are
(27:40):
more likely to be targeted. Andthen also help them start
onboarding other licensees withtemplates for hosting kickoff
calls and like tracking usageand evaluating them for renewals
and such.
But a lot of them come when theyare either first tapped like,
hey, do you do licensing? Orthey come knowing that they
(28:00):
wanna grow their business, butthey really, in most cases,
don't wanna build out a team anybigger than they have. So
they're like, what what do I
Susan Boles (28:08):
do instead? Okay. And how fully formed does the
idea of what they wanna licenseneed to be?
Janet Alexandersson (28:17):
It doesn't have to be formed at all, the
idea. What they wanna know,system that they are using
already has to be something thatthey know gives a reliable
outcome when they do it or whenthey help someone through it.
Susan Boles (28:29):
Okay. So there does need to be some evidence of
proven results, but the idea ofhow we're going to create a
product to be licensed from thisprocess or system or piece of
IP, that piece doesn't need tobe.
Janet Alexandersson (28:48):
And it doesn't have to mean that you
have a thing that is like, oh,this is how I always done. It
could be like several thingsthat you have done and then you
put them together. But it iseasier to sell something when
you can say, like, this issomething that I've been using
with clients for this long andyou can see someone have an
outcome or this is how weupskilled. So that's mostly for
the sake of me feeling confidentthat they can be successful. But
(29:09):
you can start with somethingthat you haven't made yet and do
it from scratch and license thatas well.
Don't let me stop. If
Susan Boles (29:17):
somebody was thinking about embarking on
this, how much time would yousay they should commit to this
project? How much of theircapacity or their availability
should they expect to commit tothe licensing process? Because,
essentially, we're talking aboutconsidering building a second
(29:38):
business while you're doing youroriginal business.
Janet Alexandersson (29:43):
Yeah. I would say a good rule of thumb
for kind of figuring out whatyour offer is and kind of
discerning the market, startingto get out to testing. If you
would just wanna do it slow andsteady, I would do a quarter of
that and do one day a week or,like, one of five working days.
Be fully in that mindset thatday, instead of like dotting it
(30:04):
out. Because if you dot it out,I've seen people kind of Trying
to spread it out.
Come back slowly creeping backto like the service business
model or like the productbusiness model. Cause that's
your default. So you kind ofhave to be in the, in that
environment solely. And then forthe sales process, I try to
encourage my clients to leveragethese bigger events. So it's not
something they have to doconsistently over and over and
(30:25):
over and kind of turn that out.
So it's more about becomingknown for someone who has this
asset in relation to thoseindustries more so than like
blasting social media with thiscontent. Also, like you don't
see a lot of people saying, hey,I closed the licensing deal
because most of these deals arenot public. They're white
labeled or like Yeah. So it'snot something where you really
(30:47):
have to market that on socialmedia in that sense.
Susan Boles (30:50):
Yep. Totally makes sense. Is there anything during
this process that you thinkfolks end up being surprised by
or they didn't expect some partof this when they, embarked on
the process?
Janet Alexandersson (31:07):
I think people don't understand how much
it can change your businessmodel for the better and how
much it can free up your time.What was appealing to me in the
beginning too, I essentially injust like a year or two was down
to a four hour work year, whichwas not what I was expecting. So
(31:28):
I think that is surprising topeople. And also it surprises
people how much control they canhave and how much they're in
charge of, this is how you useit. This is how I will update
it.
This is what I will do. You'rereally in the driver's seat more
so than you would be probablywith the service client. Because
then you have like a little bitof the client is right mentality
(31:50):
and you want to over deliver anddo the thing. Whereas with
licensing, you have like maybeone or three tiers that they can
engage with your content in. Andthat's kind of it.
And you've got into that spaceby considering what is the
lifestyle that I have? What whattype of team do I want to build?
How much revenue do I want tomake from this? Like, really
(32:10):
core things that you usuallydon't get to decide so
specifically, and you do more orless with licensing.
Susan Boles (32:17):
What do you see as being some of the defaults that
impact folks when it comes tolicensing, whether that's
default beliefs, decisions, etc?
Janet Alexandersson (32:27):
Sort of the pre work to even starting to
think about licensing is, Ithink we're very locked into the
business models that we hearabout on like, if you apply more
time or energy or effort, you'regoing to make more money. Or if
you do these things. So when Istart talking to my clients and
ask them like, what would beyour ideal work lifestyle? Like,
(32:48):
how many hours do you want toput in? How much money do you
want to make from every clientyou sign or licensee you sign?
Or ideally, like, how do youwant to communicate your
knowledge? It gives them almosttoo much freedom. So, they have
to kind of understand that theyactually do get to choose. And I
think that's something that mostpeople don't consider in their
(33:10):
business, because they look atother businesses like them, and
they're like, oh, I should do itlike that. And then they do it.
And licensing is not quite ascut and dry when it comes to the
content licensing. You get tohave a say. And I think we're
not used to having such a bigsay in how we build our
business.
Susan Boles (33:26):
Yep. I think a lot of people, we end up building
default businesses because wedon't know another way. You
know, people come out ofcorporate and they say, great.
I'm gonna do this same thing Iwas doing as a consultant
possibly with the same companiesyou were working with frequently
is, like, how I see a lot ofpeople starting their service
(33:48):
business. And then we just kindof replicate the same
environment that we had incorporate.
You know, we're working in thesame way. We are approaching
businesses in the same way, andwe're not intentionally thinking
about what how what are theconstructs? What are the
limitations that we have aspeople? And how do we build our
(34:12):
business to support us as humanbeings versus the default is
almost business first beforepeople first?
Janet Alexandersson (34:22):
Yeah. I agree. And I think it's it can
also go too far. So, like, whenI got my first licensing income,
it was very passive. So Iessentially like semi retired
myself in my thirties.
And that was not for me. It wasgreat to have a little bit of a
break, but like, I need to becreative and out there engaging
with people to feel good as ahuman. I realise this is a
(34:44):
privileged position to take, butit's also like, what do you need
to sort of feed you, not likephysical level? And what kind of
client and customer or industryinteractions do you really
enjoy? Not so much becausethey're paying you, but because
that is something that you findis energizing or like pulling
(35:06):
you in the right direction.
So thinking about the aspects ofyour work that you really enjoy
from that point of view, I thinkwe are rarely prompted to do
that.
Susan Boles (35:16):
Yeah. And I love that this idea of licensing, you
know, for you took you in adirection where you worked four
hours a year and then went, oh,man. I would like to be doing
something else. And brought youknow, gave you the ability to
take a break, but then come backinto something that is something
(35:38):
that energizes you, that you dotruly enjoy. And I think the
cool part about this is thatthis is something that can just
give you some margins in yourbusiness, whether that is
financial, whether that iscapacity wise, whether it's
operational, emotional, whateverkind of margins you need, this
can be a tool to give you alittle bit of breathing room and
(36:01):
reassess if the thing the waythat you have always operating
is genuinely the way you want tobe operating or if it's gonna
give you the time and the spaceand the energy to think a little
bit more creatively about howyou want to structure your
business and your work to have alittle bit more intentionality
behind it.
Janet Alexandersson (36:22):
Definitely. Definitely. And I think it's
also going to give you theopportunity to discern what type
of client you want to work with,because you don't now maybe have
to take every client that comesto your way. So you can have a
higher level of like, these arethe type of people that I enjoy
working with and execute that.And it's also eventually going
to become an exercise inboundaries.
I just love how entrepreneurshipis just like personal
(36:44):
development in disguise. But100%. It's going to be an
exercise in boundaries, becauseyou're now going to be working
with corporations that are kindof maybe larger or organisations
that are larger, and maybe muchlarger than you. So they're used
to being quite set in their waysand dictating the terms. And
you're gonna have to learn tosay no if you want to keep your
(37:06):
business model the way that youintended it to be.
Susan Boles (37:09):
So do you see people, when they start thinking
about licensing, is thatsomething where they tend to
shift their whole businessmodel? Or do a lot of people do
the licensing and also keepclient work or keep other other
things going?
Janet Alexandersson (37:28):
I think in the past, I saw people just
shift to licensing fully. But alot of the trends in the
licensing industry are towardsmore of a hybrid model these
days. So people want you to notonly give them the content, but
also educate their people inusing the content. So that can
be availability on manydifferent levels, but like an
(37:50):
office hours or Q and A or likean annual workshop or whatever
that is. So that usually meansthat you kind of have to figure
out how that would fit intohaving a lot of licensees.
Do you do that one too many? Doyou do one per licensee? So you
still get to keep a lot of yourkind of hands on work without
maybe doing consulting anddeliverables. And then some
(38:14):
people just see this as likeextra money to just like be more
selective about clients andmaybe raising their actual
service fees, because now theysort of are not worried about
people rejecting them. So it'susually comes with like a higher
fee being involved in getting adifferent of a client.
Susan Boles (38:30):
A higher fee because you can get this you can
get the results from the productif you can implement it on your
own, but there is more valuethan in having an individual
person customize thatimplementation. That totally
makes sense. Licensing yourintellectual property can be a
(38:52):
great way to build more diverserevenue streams in your business
and also just create some moremargins both in terms of time
and capacity but potentiallymore profitability as well. Now
you might not be aiming for afour day work here like Janet
ended up with. Those are prettyatypical results.
But if you're wanting to grow aclient based business without
(39:14):
necessarily adding more clientsor getting rid of the clients
you already work with, thinkingabout licensing processes you've
already built or work you'vealready done can be a really
great way to do that. Moreintentionally considering the
design of your business, so whatrevenue streams you want to
have, how much of a percentageof your business you want to be
(39:35):
client services versus otheroptions, that is a super
powerful lever for creating abusiness. That's why it's a big
it's a lever in the calmerframework. So while licensing
might not be a particularlycommon option and it's certainly
not the right choice foreveryone, It is something to
consider when you're thinkingabout how you might want to grow
(39:58):
your business and still have acalm one. Thanks for listening,
and until next time, stay calm.
As a consultant or small agency founder who loves
doing high touch client work,you probably hate how fragile
and unsustainable it can feel.You're great at what you do,
your clients love you, butcapacity is a brick wall that
you're constantly brushing upagainst or maybe running head
first into. You want morebreathing room, more margin,
(00:30):
maybe more revenue. But you'renot really interested in scaling
by managing a team, launching agroup program, or building a
course. Everything out thereseems to require replacing
client work with something else.
But what if the exact same workyou've been doing with clients
could quietly earn you revenueeven when you're not in the
(00:51):
room? Imagine this. You've builta rock solid service. Clients
get results. You've got casestudies and rave reviews.
You're fully booked. Buthonestly, you're a little tired.
You can't keep squeezing in moreclients without dropping balls
or burning out. Everyone says,create a course or start a group
(01:11):
program or create a membership.But those don't feel right.
So it seems like your onlyoptions are keep grinding or
pivot to a whole new businessmodel. But there's a third
option most people overlook,licensing. What if you could
take the exact same frameworks,tools, and assets that you're
already using with clients andpackage them up so others could
(01:34):
pay to use them too? Welcome toCalm Is The New KPI, the podcast
where we challenge defaultbusiness advice and break down
the levers you can pull tocreate a calmer business that
actually works for you. I'm yourhost, Susan Bowles.
In this episode, we're tappinginto two of the levers from the
Calmer framework that we can useto engineer Calm into our
(01:56):
business. First, we're tacklingbusiness design. So shaping your
offers in a way that makes roomfor rest, resilience, and
revenue. Number two is usingefficiency to create margins.
We're doing that by repurposingwhat you've already created so
it can do more heavy lifting inyour business without adding
more to your plate.
(02:16):
To help us explore how licensingcan open up new revenue streams
without ditching client work, Ihave Janet Alexanderson. Janet
is the founder of Piggy BankLegal, and she is an
international licensing lawyerwho helps consultants, course
creators, and service providersturn their intellectual
property, IP, into scalable,protected, and profitable
(02:39):
licensing products. With twentyyears of legal experience and a
sharp eye for strategy, sheguides clients through the full
licensing journey. So frompackaging their IP to
negotiating big ticket dealswith corporations and
universities. And if you've everwondered whether the systems and
tools you use with clients couldbe valuable to someone else,
(02:59):
this episode is your permissionslip to stop trading time for
money quite so directly.
So you help business licenselicense their content, their
services, but I don't know thatpeople are super clear on what
that actually means. So kind oftake me through high level what
(03:20):
it means to license your IP.
Janet Alexandersson (03:24):
Yeah. That's a really good question. I
hear that a lot. So I think it'sImagine something you've made in
your business. It could be alittle training snippet or a
checklist that you help yourclients work through, or a step
by step somehow that gives thema reliable outcome every time.
And you're usually out theredoing it with them or for them
or kind of handholding in someway. And for content licensing,
(03:48):
you repackage that as somethingthat another business can
implement for their employees.They can follow the step by
step. Or if they have customersthat are having the same
problems as yours, they couldresell that as a standalone
content piece to them. And fromyour
Susan Boles (04:04):
experience, what are some of the advantages of
licensing your content? So ifwe're thinking about, like, a
traditional service basedbusiness, they're off, they're
doing client things, we'retalking about, you know,
potentially diversifying or theylose their one big client, which
(04:24):
happens all the time. We havethat one big client, and then
all of a sudden it disappears.Talk to me about why someone
might want to consider licensingsome of their content.
Janet Alexandersson (04:34):
I think there are several different
reasons. So one is definitely,yes, you want more revenue. And
this is a way to scale revenuewithout scaling overhead as
much, or having to scale a team.From, from my own experience
with licensing, it's a wayknowledge to work without having
to like market it yourself orlike find an audience for it or
(04:56):
like do all the things that youdo to acquire your clients,
because that's someone else'sproblem now. They're just
essentially venting what youhave made so that others can
benefit from that.
And it's kind of their problemto monetize it and do whatever
they need to do to do that. Andyour job is then just to
maintain your knowledge, updateit and sort of make that
continuously relevant. So to me,that's the sweet spot that you
(05:18):
get to have more control overyour business model and the way
that you weigh your businessagainst how you want to live.
Susan Boles (05:26):
We're going to take a quick break to hear from our
sponsors but when we come backJanet is gonna take us step by
step through the licensingprocess. So take me through kind
(06:23):
of a typical licensing process.Like, how does this process
actually work when you're like,great. Cool. That sounds that
sounds fantastic.
Fantastic. Let's do it. And thenat least for me, I'm going, so
now what?
Janet Alexandersson (06:39):
Yes. I think the first thing is to
acknowledge what you've made.Because a lot of people are only
acknowledging the content. We'resaying content here, but
knowledge piece or guidedresource that they have made
that they're currently selling.So the first step is to look on
all the things that you havelike in your archive or that you
(06:59):
aren't using, or that you didn'tfinish and kind of think of
people that you can't reachmaybe, but could find this
useful.
So do you have something thatcould upscale an employee in a
large corporation? Do you havesomething that would help them
work more smoothly with aclient? Or do you have something
that would help the end clientexecute better as an add on in
(07:21):
their ecosystem? And you couldjust add that on to what they're
doing. So let's say that you'rein branding and you help people
figure out how to express theirbrands through their marketing.
And you have a system for it.There's a formula and all the
things for how to like build outa post and how to keep your
brand guide relevant. So thatcould either be for a large
(07:43):
brand department in acorporation where they want all
of their staff to be up to speedalways and use the same system.
Or it could be for the agencythat needs their customers to
follow the brand guides, andthey're not getting them to do
that. But you have a system toget them to do that.
So now instead of them doingtheir own R and D and spending a
lot of hours developingsomething that they don't know
(08:04):
if it's going to work, they canjust rent your solution and then
have that be something that youupdate every year. There's
different levels of what you cando. So you can also add hours of
your time. So maybe you do a Qand A, or you do some sort of
review. But at the core, it'sjust them applying that piece of
content or deploying it in theirecosystem.
Susan Boles (08:25):
So how do you see people structuring the step by
step of this? So you've come upwith the idea. You know what you
wanna license. Yeah. You knowwho you want to license it to.
What is the process to actuallydo that?
Janet Alexandersson (08:41):
So the first thing you need to realize
is that the content that youmade for you to use or for your
clients to use will not be thesame piece of content that you
license.
Susan Boles (08:50):
Okay, tell me more about that.
Janet Alexandersson (08:52):
Because you're not going to be part of
the equation. So the licensedoffer has to be the dummies
version. The thing that you cantrust people to execute without
you pointing them in the rightdirection. So you're going have
to subtract and give up like theperfection of your thing that
you made and kind of extractlike what are the two or three
things that I want them toabsolutely nail and you should
(09:13):
focus it on that. I also thinkthat the best success is if you
don't build that out, yououtline it, you have some like
content pieces that are ready,and then you go talk to the
people that you want to sell itto.
Because they're going to tellyou if they need something
different, something smaller,something bigger. So coming with
something that is like, I'vespent two years on this and it's
(09:35):
finally ready. It's not theenergy because you're going to
just be crushed by theirfeedback because they're going
to want something that is muchmore practical usually than what
you're thinking about right now.
Susan Boles (09:47):
That makes sense. And I think it mirrors, you
know, how we think about sellingour own products to consumers.
And that, like, you should tryto sell the thing before you
build the thing. Becausefrequently, you'll go try and
sell it, and you'll hearcrickets, or you'll get feedback
that it's not quite right. Sothat feels very aligned.
(10:08):
So we've created a dummyversion. We're testing it. We've
found people who do want tolicense this content. Now what?
Janet Alexandersson (10:18):
Now you start to think about how to
protect your content becausethis is your business asset now,
your IP. So what are thelimitations for their use? What
do you want them to pay you? Andhow do you want them to pay you?
And how engaged do you want tobe in the delivery and so on?
But I think the most importantpart is really protecting your
ownership and the ways that theycan engage with it. Can they,
(10:41):
for example, white label thisproduct and say that it's like
from their corporation? Shouldit be co branded? Should there
always be your brand on it? Andthis is determined by the
strategy you want.
So if you want to have yourbrand growing in knowledge, it's
good if your logo is on there.But if you're in an industry
where you know that they wantwhite labeled the most, maybe
white label should be the mostexpensive option. So like
(11:03):
figuring out your tactics aroundyour content and also having
rules about how it can bereleased, how it can be shared,
who can alter things, who cannotalter things. So I always tell
my clients they should see theircontent as a rockstar and the
release rules, which is legalspeak, is essentially the writer
that goes along with this rockstar.
Susan Boles (11:23):
It's the I only want green Skittles in my
dressing room, please.
Janet Alexandersson (11:28):
Exactly. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's those things.
Like, what are the things thatyou you want to go along with
this content?
What is the context?
Susan Boles (11:37):
What are the limitations? At what point
should people be getting lawyersinvolved or consultants?
Janet Alexandersson (11:45):
It makes sense to do it when you're
packaging or deciding what youwant your packages to be. So
when you're in the process ofcreating one pagers or for your
offers, I think that's a goodpoint because your release rules
will determine what type ofoffer you set out. So it's more
practical than legal, I wouldsay, when it comes to licensed
(12:06):
products. So it's everythingfrom, you can only access the
product on my server, meaningthat you'll have a login. This
is like how we deliver content.
Or you have one year access andevery year you get X amount of
updates or you get X amount oflike Q and As. So thinking that
through when you're packagingit, I think it's the best. So
(12:27):
that's when you start talking tosomeone who's at least
knowledgeable about it. And Ithink the lawyer, as soon as you
get to what are the limitationsin their use and what do I want
to protect? Because that alsokind of impacts how you deliver
content and how much control youhave over delivery and how they
use it.
Susan Boles (12:45):
So where in the process do you see things
typically going wrong or some ofthe places where folks might get
tripped up or run into issues?
Janet Alexandersson (12:57):
Okay. I see I see two places. The first one
being when they're approachedwithout really knowing what
licensing is. So they arehappily studying a course or
like delivering a service andthen a larger company comes and
say, Hey, could we license this?We'll offer you this.
Or could we buy this even? Andusually what they're offering is
(13:20):
likely to match what you'reselling it for as a course, for
example. So if someone comes inand say like, hey, can we
license this for four times whatyour course is sold for? That's
someone trying to rip you off.And that happens a lot.
So they try to get in on a lowerprice. But for you, it's going
to feel like you're like, oh,yeah, I'm going to sell five
(13:40):
seats in one or 10 seats in one.But they just do that as a
consumer and don't really evensend you agreement or anything.
So essentially, you've just soldthem your IP and they can
continue using it forever, butthey're calling it licensing. Or
they just send you a contractand they put it so that the
licensing is in perpetuity,whereas it's much more usually
(14:03):
periodical.
That's an inflection point wherepeople get into trouble. And I
think the other one is thenegotiation phase. So once
you've sent them yourconditions, they're probably
going to have thoughts andfeelings about that and push
back. And this is probably goingto be one of the biggest
transactions that you've beeninvolved in, in your business.
(14:24):
So coming from that, you're kindof keen to make this go through.
So you might compromise too muchor compromise on the wrong
things. I think those two pointsare critical.
Susan Boles (14:34):
Yeah. I think one of the hesitations that folks
would have around kind ofconsidering this process is this
feeling that you are letting goof your baby. This is, you know,
your brainchild. This is stuffthat you have developed over
(14:55):
probably many years. And nowyou're gonna let it go and maybe
feel like, you know, what is theright level of compensation for
me to give this thing away thatis not no longer going to be
exclusively mine?
How do I protect it so nobodyelse steals it? How do I make
(15:17):
sure that I'm getting fairlycompensated? What would you
normally say to people in thatscenario where they're like, it
feels really scary?
Janet Alexandersson (15:26):
I think it's gonna feel scary because
it's something you haven't donebefore. And I think that if we
start with the pricing part,you're going to have to think
differently because it's nolonger what it's worth to you or
to the singular end user. Thisis what it's worth for the
entity that is licensing. Sothat either means that they're
improving something in theiroperations or with their workers
(15:48):
so that they can have a higherROI, or they're improving their
bottom line by reselling it.That's the value now.
And that's more ephemeral foryou to grasp. So you have to do
different kinds of research andkind of figure out what that
means. But I think the firststop is to kind of figure out
what would it mean for them todevelop this on their own. And
(16:10):
even just looking at courses,there's a statistic that for one
hour of a produced and ready todeploy course, that's at least
thirty work hours. Anyone who'smade a course will feel that
that is
Susan Boles (16:24):
That feels accurate. So I had a financial
course a few years back that Istarted the process of, like,
trying to license and then kindof collapsed. But, like,
thinking about developing thatcourse, that thirty hours feels
very real, especially if you aretrying to deliver a lot of value
(16:45):
in a very condensed amount oftime. It takes so much more time
to iterate enough to, like,really deliver the value for the
short amount of time. If you'regonna do a course where, like,
you're delivering, like,everything, all you know, if you
pack everything in, that'sfaster.
Janet Alexandersson (17:03):
It's faster, and it's also they
already know that this isaccurate because you've had
results with this before, andthis is only for a course. So
imagine if you have a processfor this is how you achieve XYZ,
and there's a multi stepprocess, and it's proprietary to
you. They can't just use itwithout you. Like, they need to
have your approval to use it.So, coming to the protection
(17:23):
part, this is a nice seguebecause if you have a process,
can trademark it.
If it has a name or if you havea lot of content, copyright
applies here as well. So usingthose IP protections that you
can sort of do upfront and thenin your contract have protection
for your business secrets.Include NDAs and non
(17:45):
competitions and like, theycan't develop something that is
similar to what you are offeringto them, or they can't build
upon it. Those are safeguardsthat could be in your contract.
So them finding what you dointeresting and wanting to
deploy it tells you that they'realready valuing it.
And they would rather take thisshortcut, because we're also
talking about how much timewould it take them to develop
(18:06):
something similar or somethinggiving them the same outcome.
They don't know that. So I thinkwe undervalue what we have made,
because to us, it's been easy.Because this is how our brain
naturally works. And this is howwe explain it to clients.
And we see it working for them.And we never really own it, even
for yourself to kind of figureout that this is valuable. Just
name it. This is the X frameworkto deliver X. Or this is the
(18:31):
step by step process for this.
Like, give it a name. And eventhen, it starts getting its own
identity outside of this is justsomething I do.
Susan Boles (18:40):
No. I love that. So when you are talking about the
protections, a lot of the timeswhen it comes to trademark or
copyright protection, theprotection is one thing, and the
enforcement is entirely anotherthing. Yes. Right?
So, like, in order to claimthose protections, you still
have to be, like, activelyenforcing that when people are
(19:03):
ripping off your content or whenyou see them using it out in the
world and they're not you don'thave a licensing agreement. Talk
to me about that a little bit.
Janet Alexandersson (19:11):
Without a licensing agreement, it is
tricky. The cease and desist isyour friend here. But if they're
bigger corporations, they cantake the legal fees and, like,
they don't care, essentially. Sothen you probably want to go the
PR route and involve giving themsome bad press about ripping
smaller companies off. I feellike that is the tricky part,
enforcing it, as you said, andhow far you want to go towards
(19:32):
enforcing it.
I think that is also why it'sgood to put your IP in these
situations into a gated licenceproduct. Because then you can
also state like, none of this ispublic data. None of this is
available outside licensing. Soif it's being spread, it's one
of your licensees. And in yourcontracts, there's going to be
(19:53):
penalties for that, and you cantrack it more readily.
Susan Boles (19:59):
So let's put a little bit of a real world
example to this. So you did thisin your own business. Right?
Yeah. You started licensing yourown content.
So what did that process looklike for you?
Janet Alexandersson (20:14):
So for me, it was a happenstance kind of
situation. So I met someone whoran a professional community for
VAs, and she needed legaldocuments that were specifically
tailored to them for theirservices, but also website
agreements and such. So we had aprocess of figuring out what do
(20:35):
they need specifically for theiruse case. She'd had the
community for many years. Theyhadn't found docs that were a
good fit.
So I took the time, which intotal was, if we're being
transparent, eight hours tofigure out how to like fully
make that work for them, butalso give, set up explainers for
how to use it and all of that.And then we struck a deal where
(20:55):
I deliver the documents and shesort of sells them and we split
the revenue. And after that, I'malso available to answer
questions in the community aboutthe documents technically, not
so much like giving advice. Andthat's been the system for other
communities I'm also doing thiswith for a long time. And some
of them prefer to not sharerevenue.
(21:16):
They just pay an annual fee forbeing able to resell the
document. So those are the twokind of modules. So for me, it
was kind of organic. And I thinka lot of people slide into it,
but you can also be morestrategic about it and say, I
know I'm solving a problem. Andusually it's like, in this case,
a tag along problem.
She has a course that teachesthem how to become VAs in a
(21:38):
community to support themthrough their starting up and
like executing and gainingclients as a VA. But all of them
need legal docs to do that. So alot of the times it's kind of
figuring out what would be agood tag along. Because it's
almost never going to be using,oh, I would have sold to these
people through this specificchannel and you wouldn't have
(22:00):
because you wouldn't have accessto this channel.
Susan Boles (22:03):
Yeah. So how did that change kind of your
approach to selling to people?Because you are then changing
the kinds of businesses you'relooking to connect with. You're
changing your approach. It isone to many, but it's one to
many in a very different waybecause the sale still happens
(22:24):
one to one.
The delivery happens one tomany, but that's a very
different sales system.
Janet Alexandersson (22:30):
Changes the avatar.
Susan Boles (22:32):
Then most you know, if you're switching from service
you know, you're a serviceprovider to this is now your new
model, what does that look like?
Janet Alexandersson (22:40):
How did you account for that? I think for
me, I've always been bad atsales, as in, like, not wanting
to do them. Not necessarily badat converting someone when I'm
talking to them, just, like, notinterested in convincing anyone
of anything. So instead of goingfor like, I need to meet as many
like end consumers one on one, Ijust need to meet people who
host in some way, shape or form.Or if they don't host, they have
(23:04):
access to people who host, likeit's some sort of community
aspect, I feel like, even ifit's not necessarily community,
it could be a professional, oreven a corporation that has a
lot of distributed teams.
I would say it's a slower pace,because you are building
relationships. Whereas before Iused to sell legal documents on
my website and I didn't reallydrive traffic to that. So this
(23:28):
is not really a drive traffictype of game, I would say. It's
more relationship building andmeeting people who you could
maybe even have a thought like,oh, actually, I don't have that
type of product, but that wouldbe a good match, and then have a
conversation. Do you want toexplore that?
Susan Boles (23:45):
Yeah. I think that is probably the piece that maybe
is underestimated. So say thatyou want to license part of your
IP, part of your knowledge, andyou don't have somebody Yeah.
Come and approach you. This issomething where you wanna take
your business model in thatdirection, or you're trying to
(24:07):
do this very strategically.
When we're thinking about, hey.I have to go test selling this
to people, or maybe those peopleare not in your network yet, so
you don't even have access to gotry to test this with the ideal
customer avatar. How do you seefolks approaching that problem
(24:30):
of we need to develop thenetwork in order to then build
the relationships to be able totry to test this idea? And how
does that kind of impact thetimeline?
Janet Alexandersson (24:42):
I think it doesn't impact the timeline as
much as you would think. The keyhere is to essentially develop
an idea of what your licensedproduct would be. This is coming
back to the one pager. Becauseas you start talking to new
circles and then expanding intothe areas where you could find
someone who want to license yourcontent, you need something for
(25:03):
them to remember you're bi. Soyou're going to have to like,
take a bet on like, one of thesethree permutations of this
content piece would be relevant.
And you can sort of say welicense content for people who
want to achieve this thing. Andthat's a good conversation
opener. And for finding them, Ifind that they're closer than
(25:24):
you think. It's just that you'renot having conversations that
are about licensing. So this isa much more corporate than it is
a peer to peer, especially likeonline business thing.
So there's probably someone inyour network that knows someone
working at a company that wouldbe interested in this. So that's
the first step. And then thesecond one is go to one expo.
(25:47):
That is an industry that youidentify that this is the one
that I think would be mostinterested. And it's usually
really helpful to do that, evenif you're sure that they'll be
interested, because you'reprobably going to be the
standout.
There's going to be so manypeople selling the same thing,
same old way and you're going belike, hey, we can solve this
knowledge problem for you. Andthat's not going to be the same
(26:09):
same old competing with peoplein that industry. So that's a
good dip into the thing. And ifyou can't go to an expo, find a
community group forprofessionals in that arena and
see if you can host a talk withthem to talk about way of doing
things and something like that.
Susan Boles (26:25):
I didn't really think about it. But, yeah, it's
a very fast way to get a wholebunch of feedback Yeah. All at
once. I think a lot of times,those of us who have primarily
online businesses forget aboutthere are places in the real
world where local businesses aredoing this or more corporate
businesses are doing this, andwe kind of forget the real world
Janet Alexandersson (26:47):
business.
Susan Boles (26:47):
Yes. So when you are working with clients on
this, what part of the processare you helping them So
Janet Alexandersson (26:55):
I help them take what they already have
knowledge wise and repackagethat for licensing. So what we
talked about, like, coming upwith your different offers, the
different tiers. I make them doa little bit of homework and
figure out like, what are theone pagers? What are the
potential industries that thiscould be applied to? So we do a
lot of this work on identifyingindustries and how they want to
(27:18):
be interacting with your contentupfront.
And then I create a draft for amaster licensing agreement. And
I also make my clients sitthrough a masterclass on their
licensing agreement so that theyknow what it means and how to
defend it. And I also buildingconcession points so that
they're prepped fornegotiations. So there's always
things that they know they cangive on and also things that are
(27:40):
more likely to be targeted. Andthen also help them start
onboarding other licensees withtemplates for hosting kickoff
calls and like tracking usageand evaluating them for renewals
and such.
But a lot of them come when theyare either first tapped like,
hey, do you do licensing? Orthey come knowing that they
(28:00):
wanna grow their business, butthey really, in most cases,
don't wanna build out a team anybigger than they have. So
they're like, what what do I
Susan Boles (28:08):
do instead? Okay. And how fully formed does the
idea of what they wanna licenseneed to be?
Janet Alexandersson (28:17):
It doesn't have to be formed at all, the
idea. What they wanna know,system that they are using
already has to be something thatthey know gives a reliable
outcome when they do it or whenthey help someone through it.
Susan Boles (28:29):
Okay. So there does need to be some evidence of
proven results, but the idea ofhow we're going to create a
product to be licensed from thisprocess or system or piece of
IP, that piece doesn't need tobe.
Janet Alexandersson (28:48):
And it doesn't have to mean that you
have a thing that is like, oh,this is how I always done. It
could be like several thingsthat you have done and then you
put them together. But it iseasier to sell something when
you can say, like, this issomething that I've been using
with clients for this long andyou can see someone have an
outcome or this is how weupskilled. So that's mostly for
the sake of me feeling confidentthat they can be successful. But
(29:09):
you can start with somethingthat you haven't made yet and do
it from scratch and license thatas well.
Don't let me stop. If
Susan Boles (29:17):
somebody was thinking about embarking on
this, how much time would yousay they should commit to this
project? How much of theircapacity or their availability
should they expect to commit tothe licensing process? Because,
essentially, we're talking aboutconsidering building a second
(29:38):
business while you're doing youroriginal business.
Janet Alexandersson (29:43):
Yeah. I would say a good rule of thumb
for kind of figuring out whatyour offer is and kind of
discerning the market, startingto get out to testing. If you
would just wanna do it slow andsteady, I would do a quarter of
that and do one day a week or,like, one of five working days.
Be fully in that mindset thatday, instead of like dotting it
(30:04):
out. Because if you dot it out,I've seen people kind of Trying
to spread it out.
Come back slowly creeping backto like the service business
model or like the productbusiness model. Cause that's
your default. So you kind ofhave to be in the, in that
environment solely. And then forthe sales process, I try to
encourage my clients to leveragethese bigger events. So it's not
something they have to doconsistently over and over and
(30:25):
over and kind of turn that out.
So it's more about becomingknown for someone who has this
asset in relation to thoseindustries more so than like
blasting social media with thiscontent. Also, like you don't
see a lot of people saying, hey,I closed the licensing deal
because most of these deals arenot public. They're white
labeled or like Yeah. So it'snot something where you really
(30:47):
have to market that on socialmedia in that sense.
Susan Boles (30:50):
Yep. Totally makes sense. Is there anything during
this process that you thinkfolks end up being surprised by
or they didn't expect some partof this when they, embarked on
the process?
Janet Alexandersson (31:07):
I think people don't understand how much
it can change your businessmodel for the better and how
much it can free up your time.What was appealing to me in the
beginning too, I essentially injust like a year or two was down
to a four hour work year, whichwas not what I was expecting. So
(31:28):
I think that is surprising topeople. And also it surprises
people how much control they canhave and how much they're in
charge of, this is how you useit. This is how I will update
it.
This is what I will do. You'rereally in the driver's seat more
so than you would be probablywith the service client. Because
then you have like a little bitof the client is right mentality
(31:50):
and you want to over deliver anddo the thing. Whereas with
licensing, you have like maybeone or three tiers that they can
engage with your content in. Andthat's kind of it.
And you've got into that spaceby considering what is the
lifestyle that I have? What whattype of team do I want to build?
How much revenue do I want tomake from this? Like, really
(32:10):
core things that you usuallydon't get to decide so
specifically, and you do more orless with licensing.
Susan Boles (32:17):
What do you see as being some of the defaults that
impact folks when it comes tolicensing, whether that's
default beliefs, decisions, etc?
Janet Alexandersson (32:27):
Sort of the pre work to even starting to
think about licensing is, Ithink we're very locked into the
business models that we hearabout on like, if you apply more
time or energy or effort, you'regoing to make more money. Or if
you do these things. So when Istart talking to my clients and
ask them like, what would beyour ideal work lifestyle? Like,
(32:48):
how many hours do you want toput in? How much money do you
want to make from every clientyou sign or licensee you sign?
Or ideally, like, how do youwant to communicate your
knowledge? It gives them almosttoo much freedom. So, they have
to kind of understand that theyactually do get to choose. And I
think that's something that mostpeople don't consider in their
(33:10):
business, because they look atother businesses like them, and
they're like, oh, I should do itlike that. And then they do it.
And licensing is not quite ascut and dry when it comes to the
content licensing. You get tohave a say. And I think we're
not used to having such a bigsay in how we build our
business.
Susan Boles (33:26):
Yep. I think a lot of people, we end up building
default businesses because wedon't know another way. You
know, people come out ofcorporate and they say, great.
I'm gonna do this same thing Iwas doing as a consultant
possibly with the same companiesyou were working with frequently
is, like, how I see a lot ofpeople starting their service
(33:48):
business. And then we just kindof replicate the same
environment that we had incorporate.
You know, we're working in thesame way. We are approaching
businesses in the same way, andwe're not intentionally thinking
about what how what are theconstructs? What are the
limitations that we have aspeople? And how do we build our
(34:12):
business to support us as humanbeings versus the default is
almost business first beforepeople first?
Janet Alexandersson (34:22):
Yeah. I agree. And I think it's it can
also go too far. So, like, whenI got my first licensing income,
it was very passive. So Iessentially like semi retired
myself in my thirties.
And that was not for me. It wasgreat to have a little bit of a
break, but like, I need to becreative and out there engaging
with people to feel good as ahuman. I realise this is a
(34:44):
privileged position to take, butit's also like, what do you need
to sort of feed you, not likephysical level? And what kind of
client and customer or industryinteractions do you really
enjoy? Not so much becausethey're paying you, but because
that is something that you findis energizing or like pulling
(35:06):
you in the right direction.
So thinking about the aspects ofyour work that you really enjoy
from that point of view, I thinkwe are rarely prompted to do
that.
Susan Boles (35:16):
Yeah. And I love that this idea of licensing, you
know, for you took you in adirection where you worked four
hours a year and then went, oh,man. I would like to be doing
something else. And brought youknow, gave you the ability to
take a break, but then come backinto something that is something
(35:38):
that energizes you, that you dotruly enjoy. And I think the
cool part about this is thatthis is something that can just
give you some margins in yourbusiness, whether that is
financial, whether that iscapacity wise, whether it's
operational, emotional, whateverkind of margins you need, this
can be a tool to give you alittle bit of breathing room and
(36:01):
reassess if the thing the waythat you have always operating
is genuinely the way you want tobe operating or if it's gonna
give you the time and the spaceand the energy to think a little
bit more creatively about howyou want to structure your
business and your work to have alittle bit more intentionality
behind it.
Janet Alexandersson (36:22):
Definitely. Definitely. And I think it's
also going to give you theopportunity to discern what type
of client you want to work with,because you don't now maybe have
to take every client that comesto your way. So you can have a
higher level of like, these arethe type of people that I enjoy
working with and execute that.And it's also eventually going
to become an exercise inboundaries.
I just love how entrepreneurshipis just like personal
(36:44):
development in disguise. But100%. It's going to be an
exercise in boundaries, becauseyou're now going to be working
with corporations that are kindof maybe larger or organisations
that are larger, and maybe muchlarger than you. So they're used
to being quite set in their waysand dictating the terms. And
you're gonna have to learn tosay no if you want to keep your
(37:06):
business model the way that youintended it to be.
Susan Boles (37:09):
So do you see people, when they start thinking
about licensing, is thatsomething where they tend to
shift their whole businessmodel? Or do a lot of people do
the licensing and also keepclient work or keep other other
things going?
Janet Alexandersson (37:28):
I think in the past, I saw people just
shift to licensing fully. But alot of the trends in the
licensing industry are towardsmore of a hybrid model these
days. So people want you to notonly give them the content, but
also educate their people inusing the content. So that can
be availability on manydifferent levels, but like an
(37:50):
office hours or Q and A or likean annual workshop or whatever
that is. So that usually meansthat you kind of have to figure
out how that would fit intohaving a lot of licensees.
Do you do that one too many? Doyou do one per licensee? So you
still get to keep a lot of yourkind of hands on work without
maybe doing consulting anddeliverables. And then some
(38:14):
people just see this as likeextra money to just like be more
selective about clients andmaybe raising their actual
service fees, because now theysort of are not worried about
people rejecting them. So it'susually comes with like a higher
fee being involved in getting adifferent of a client.
Susan Boles (38:30):
A higher fee because you can get this you can
get the results from the productif you can implement it on your
own, but there is more valuethan in having an individual
person customize thatimplementation. That totally
makes sense. Licensing yourintellectual property can be a
(38:52):
great way to build more diverserevenue streams in your business
and also just create some moremargins both in terms of time
and capacity but potentiallymore profitability as well. Now
you might not be aiming for afour day work here like Janet
ended up with. Those are prettyatypical results.
But if you're wanting to grow aclient based business without
(39:14):
necessarily adding more clientsor getting rid of the clients
you already work with, thinkingabout licensing processes you've
already built or work you'vealready done can be a really
great way to do that. Moreintentionally considering the
design of your business, so whatrevenue streams you want to
have, how much of a percentageof your business you want to be
(39:35):
client services versus otheroptions, that is a super
powerful lever for creating abusiness. That's why it's a big
it's a lever in the calmerframework. So while licensing
might not be a particularlycommon option and it's certainly
not the right choice foreveryone, It is something to
consider when you're thinkingabout how you might want to grow
(39:58):
your business and still have acalm one. Thanks for listening,
and until next time, stay calm.
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