September 25, 2024 • 22 mins
#290 - How do you turn your unique methods and processes into licensed products? How do you even know if you have a process or product to license? Our guest today is Janet Alexandersson, a lawyer with two decades of experience, who is here to answer those very questions. Janet helps professionals add revenue streams through licensing by offering a unique combination of business advisory and legal services. She is celebrating 20 years as a lawyer and loves to chat about business opportunities, licensing, and negotiations.
Learn how you can identify and monetize proprietary knowledge within your operations—be it guides, checklists, or courses—to create new revenue streams. Janet offers practical examples and encourages you to recognize and capitalize on your unique assets.
We also delve into the promising world of licensing intellectual property to universities and other organizations. Janet explains the benefits of generating passive income, repurposing content for different markets, and the importance of aligning licensing strategies with your business goals. Understand the challenges of negotiating with larger entities and the patience required to close deals. Check out this special freebie exclusively for our listeners.
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Connect with Teresa on: Instagram or Podcast Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is
Organized Chaos.
We take a deep dive into livingwith intentionality, focusing
on what's important in our livesso we can truly feel our best.
It may feel chaotic at times,but with a little organization,
the right mindset and a ton ofself-love, we can still thrive.
Join me as we talk to otherbusy moms and experts who will
(00:31):
share tips and strategies tohelp you reach your goals.
Hope you enjoy this episode ofOrganized Chaos.
Now on to the show.
Hey friends, welcome back toanother episode of Organized
Chaos.
So I have a special guest today.
Her name is Janet Alexandersonand she helps professionals add
revenue streams throughlicensing by offering a unique
(00:53):
combination of business advisoryand legal services.
She is celebrating 20 years asa lawyer and loves to chat about
business opportunities,licensing and negotiations.
She founded the boutique lawfirm Anderson Law back in 2007.
She spends her time advisingprofessionals who have created
courses, systems, frameworks andmuch more on all things
(01:15):
licensing, and worldwide.
So if you have a business andyou have a special process or a
method or a framework, janet isgoing to answer all the
questions that you have aboutthis.
So welcome to the show, janet.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Thank you so much for having me, yeah, of course.
So I'm really excited aboutthis, because when we have our
own business and everything, wehave our special or unique way
of doing certain things, andsometimes that's really what
makes us stand out from thecompetition.
But most of the time peopledon't really know if they
actually have something specialor a special method that
(01:54):
actually requires licensing.
So that's what you're going tobe here to talk about and share
with the audience today, butbefore we get to that, I would
really love to know a little bitmore about you.
If you could please share howyou got to where you are today.
But before we get to that, Iwould really love to know a
little bit more about you.
If you could please share howyou got to where you are today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so I was an eager teenager wanting to do
human rights, going way back,but that's kind of how I got
into law school.
I wanted to save the world,essentially, and realizing that
the world didn't need savingfrom me after a while so late
2000s I decided to start my ownlaw firm instead of tracking
(02:31):
down ways to practice in otherways.
So I started out with generalbusiness law anything, contracts
, anything, international,anything where I got to interact
with entrepreneurs, essentiallybecause I really like people
who have ideas and are curiousabout things and create
solutions.
And over the years it's becomemore and more focused on
(02:54):
licensing.
And the reason was because Igot an opportunity to license my
own legal templates about sixyears ago and friends started
asking me but how do you do that?
I wish I could do that.
I wish I could make moneywithout doing anything extra and
just sell what I already have.
So I started explaining and Igot more and more clients that
were doing that in their own way, with their own assets.
(03:16):
And I know you mentioned peopledoing it with the methods and
frameworks that they had created, but they can also do it with
really tiny things that aren'teven the core of their business
idea.
Everyone has an ops system intheir business that is working
for them.
That could be something theycould package.
So to me it's really excitingto work with people who have big
ideas but also are executorsand doers and are usually quite
(03:40):
organized.
I really like that.
So to me it's becomeessentially honing in on who is
my favorite client, which I knowis kind of a weird way of doing
business, but it's become thatway.
So these are my favorite people.
Even if they weren't my clients, I would love to hang out with
them.
They're really interesting andthey do interesting things.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I love that.
And we go into sometimes likenot really knowing what to do or
like what to start off with,and I think that sometimes we
come into it where we're likefearful, because it feels like
there's so much that you need tolearn and do and I think that,
(04:26):
like you said, there's aparticular thing that you might
be doing in your business, evenif it's like operational, that
you wouldn't think would besomething that you could license
right.
So let's dive into that.
First, how can someone identifyif they have intellectual
property and or like a brandstrong enough to even license?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah.
So I think the first part is doyou have some sort of
proprietary knowledge?
So that can be that you havevery deep expertise, or that you
have cross industry expertisethat no one else has, or that
you have new to the marketknowledge.
So explaining those they'requite a little bit different.
(05:05):
So deep expertise means thatyou have a solution no one else
has because you know more, orknow more than most people in
that industry or about thatindustry.
And then the next one would bethat you maybe worked on the
edges of two industries and youhave like a combined solution.
The example that I always giveis how the pit stop workers for
(05:28):
the ferrari or the formula oneraces help surgeons develop
their routines, and most peopleknow that story.
That's a cross-pollination ofknowledge.
So if you have something likethat and you can make a
proprietary checklist, as theydid together, for how to better
keep hygiene and refraining frommaking mistakes in surgery,
(05:50):
that's a great cross pollination.
And then the final one, the newto market, can be something as
simple as now Anyone who's firstin their industry with some
sort of repeatable process forhow to include AI as an add-on
in an already existing process.
That's a way to do somethinglike that.
So those are kind of the threebuckets, but we can talk more
(06:12):
practical things as well.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
If you want to have more examples, yeah, that would
be great if you could go intothat.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think a lot of us thinkmostly about like, what do I do?
What do I offer?
So if you already have guides,checklists, courses, even if
they haven't really worked foryour market because maybe you
don't have big enough of anaudience, it's more of the
quality of what you have.
So is it something that someoneelse can tag on to, um, an
(06:40):
internal system?
Maybe employee performancecould be increased if they have
a system for how to processemails that's really efficient
that you use.
Or maybe there's something inyour business where you teach
people something in your craft?
Is that something that theycould use internally or, even
better, their audienceexternally that they could
resell?
(07:00):
So it's more, if you're feelinglike you're like a small fish in
a big pond, that's a goodopportunity for licensing,
because other people alreadyhave audiences and customers and
they could sell what you'reoffering.
And you also talked about thebrand being strong.
Sometimes you don't have tolicense them to sell your brand.
You can also license for themto white label, and that's
(07:24):
sometimes something they prefermore and they can pay more for
that.
So you don't really have toworry about your own name
recognition.
You only have to worry aboutknowing your thing and being
good at it and having it putinto a system that is repeatable
(07:46):
and delivers results.
So, yeah, it's really takingstock of what do I have, what
could, what could be interesting, what have I created, what do I
use in my own practice and whatdo people see that they think?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
is clever that I made .
Yeah, that is so interesting.
I would have never thought ofthat.
And even when you talked aboutlike the cross pollination, like
who would think that you knowpit stop, like the process that
goes along with that, which isamazing if you've ever seen that
happen, where it's like it'sseconds, where it would be so
(08:15):
easy to make mistakes, but alsoyou know, with surgery and like
how you have to be so delicateand so precise because it could
be catastrophic if you make amistake, but how those two can
actually go together when itcomes to a process.
That is so interesting to me.
And you mentioned somethingabout like how, if you have
(08:37):
something that you can pass onto another company that would
use that, how does that actuallywork when it comes to actually
receiving revenue from that?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah.
So the way that most of myclients come to me is that they
have already something, aprocess or a product that they
have gotten interest from acompany.
But some people come earlierbut that's kind of why they're
starting to think about it andthey have been asked if they can
resell that's essentially thelanguage that we hear or be an
affiliate or if they canpurchase it from them.
(09:13):
So the licensing part isessentially you come into
agreement that they can use it,maybe for a year, and then they
can renew, or they can licensefor longer, meaning that they
can use it in a specific way orsell it for a specific price or
whatever price that they want,maybe to a specific set of
people or in a specific areageographically.
(09:33):
I'm not going to get into muchto the legal side, but it's
essentially just having acontract saying you're allowed
to depending on how, what youwant to release to them,
depending on what you want torelease to them use this brand
that I made for this product andsell it and make revenue in
this way.
Or you can put your own brandon the thing and I'll support
(09:53):
you in delivering thisexperience and sometimes you can
also tag on consulting on it.
So they want you to be morepresent because they value your
expertise.
So even if licensing is not theonly thing you want to do and
you want to become more known asan advisor or an expert, that's
also a way to go.
So a lot of my clients arelicensed to universities for
(10:15):
courses or for processes in theuniversity, so they're also
doing some things in-house.
Some of them not everyone wantsto.
Some people just like to earnmoney and be on the beach, but
some of them want to be morehands-on and make a name for
themselves.
So they go in and teach like acore thing in the program and
then the university does therest.
So some people sell acurriculum, so it's more of a
(10:38):
structured system.
And some people deliver theentire experience, so it's more
really tailoring a document tomake sure that you keep your IP,
because you don't want to sellthe IP.
They're just renting yourknowledge.
That's how I like to put it.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh, wow, that's so interesting.
So how do you think thislicensing can impact your
business model?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So from what I've seen with the people that I work
with and I own, it gives youfreedom.
If you do it right and if youget licensees, it's usually very
low impact on you when it comesto adding things to your plate.
So you will free up your timeto do more because now you have
the leverage of having moremoney for your time.
So it doesn't really add a lotof admin, unless you design it
(11:25):
to add a lot of admin or a lotof extra responsibilities.
But it's just a nice way ofgetting as you said, it's not
really like real estate money,but for your knowledge.
So you earn that on the sideand then you can go on to do
what you want to do with yourbusiness and develop it at your
own pace, which I think is themost important part.
So a lot of us feel thepressure to like I have to earn
(11:47):
this much money and I have tolike do more time and do more
time and find more people andlike.
It's a never-ending sort ofcycle and with licensing there's
usually quite high numbers, forif you're licensing to larger
corporations, so even onelicensing deal could be almost
all you need to earn for thatyear yeah the urgency of like
(12:07):
having more and more and morewell, like you might get
addicted to the licensing model,but you don't really have to
trade your time as urgently,which is nice, yeah that's what
I was going to ask, becausewould you call this more like
creating passive income?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
yes, actually, I would.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, I know that's like almost like a dirty word at
this point there's so manyscams.
But yeah, you can set it up tobe mostly passive on your part.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Do you have clients who you know started off in one
industry and then found thatthey can license something and
then actually created multipledifferent licenses for multiple
different industries?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah.
So some things really translatewell, especially if you're in
like the ops or things that areadd-ons, so any like AI
component that could be added onto.
I'm saying AI now, but there'sso many things that can be
add-ons to a system.
So when you figure out and thisis kind of the thing you need
to switch your thinking fromserving your clients to how can
(13:09):
this be useful in general?
So, instead of having somethingthat's maybe really in depth
and delivers this specificresult, how can it be a little
bit more broad and still delivera result, but not as specific?
And then you can sort ofbroaden yourself to more
industries.
So I think it's both industriesand geographies, because
sometimes you're very tied tolike this is my market in this
(13:32):
area or in this language, but alot of things translate really
well.
So say that you've made a courseteaching marketers how to use
canva.
Yeah, but they don't have to bemarketers, right, because it's
probably not marketing materialspecific.
You might have a module that ismarketing material specific,
but what if you remove that andjust has had a module on like
(13:52):
quickly getting up to speed onusing canva?
That is now an in-houseemployee upgrade for any company
, university organization, or itcould be something that someone
is a marketer and they wanttheir customers to be able to
themselves edit what they havegotten, or graphic designer, so
they can also sell it.
So thinking of all the waysthat what you have can be
(14:15):
repackaged for someone else tosell or use if you remove the
specificity.
So if you remove that, that isfor your industry and your niche
and for your specific use casewhen you're selling it, it can
apply quite broadly.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, so you know what steps should someone take
to determine if licensing isreally right to or like, the
right path for them?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, I think they need to understand what type of
business they want to do.
If they really like theone-on-one interaction with
people and like seeing someoneachieve and seeing them getting
the results from what you'vemade.
Licensing is probably not foryou unless you want to see it on
a broad scale but not be inpersonal contact with those
(15:02):
people.
Yeah, sure you want to thinkbig.
You can still see an impact insome way, like if you create a
course and the university sellsit, you're going to see some
impact but you might not see itas personal.
So that's one.
And then I think some peoplefind that it's sometimes scary
to stretch a little bit fromworking with smaller contracts
(15:24):
or working with organizationsthat are sort of on par with
their own to working with reallybig organizations that are
sometimes of on par with theirown to working with really big
organizations that are sometimesquite intimidating in their
negotiation because they arevery rigid or they try to appear
rigid or they have a lengthyprocess.
So that's another thing toconsider that you have to up
your confidence a little bit toget after that.
(15:46):
And then also, the bigger theorganization you go for, the
lengthier the process is to landthe contracts because they have
so many people who have to havea say.
So the smaller you work with,the faster you can close the
deal.
But if you want money fast,licensing is usually not the
game you want to play you haveto be patient yeah, and I'm not
(16:09):
saying like it's going to takeyears, it's more like it's not
going to happen this week, maybelike this quarter.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, so let's, let's go into the legal side a little
bit, because you did mentionyou know like it can't like, if
you go the route of trying towork with, like bigger entities,
like it may be kind of scary todive into that just because of
the legal aspect of it.
So what are the most important?
Like early legal protectionssomeone should have in place
(16:37):
before considering licensingtheir product or their brand.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, I think the most important part is to have
the intellectual propertyprotected in some way.
So the people that I work withhave three kinds usually.
So the first one would be atrademark.
If they have like a logo or alicense and they want their
brand to be on it, it's goodthat that is registered, or at
least that you have applied forregistration, so that's in
(17:04):
process.
If it's copy, so the content youcreated, the course, the videos
, the audios, all of that orgraphics copyright is automatic
but it's usually good for you ifyou've had it registered and
witnessed so that you can pointto like I did this, I created
this, this is part of it.
And then for the people wholicense know-how, which is a
(17:26):
process or a method or aframework or even sometimes a
course because that also appliesknow-how and the way to protect
that is to treat it as abusiness secret.
So having language in yourcontracts already with people
who get to experience it, thatis essentially non-competition
or confidentiality, so thatpeople know that they can't
(17:49):
share it in any which way.
And then having that also, inall of these key cases, carried
on into the license agreement aswell, so that you essentially
keep being the owner of what youhave made.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, because that can be scary.
Right To go out there and putyour stuff, that you put a lot
of work in and you know.
Kind of speaking of that, likewhat are some of the pitfalls or
at least maybe like the numberone pitfall to avoid when
considering licensing.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I would never do anything.
On the honor system.
A lot of people are like can wejust try this thing for
everything?
Yeah, no, but really not beingsort of persuaded by the first
person who approaches you,they're very likely to try to
undersell you because you don'tknow the value of what you made
yet you didn't understand how toprotect it.
(18:41):
So if someone approaches youand gives you a contract, don't
ever just sign that.
Have someone read over it orstart thinking strategically if
this is something you want to doon a larger scale beyond this
one deal.
So I would sort of caution youas to doing like one-offs just
because they present themselves,without actually digging into
(19:03):
what that means.
And some of these contractswill have clauses that
essentially makes that dealexclusive to that particular
licensee or gives them sort ofco-ownership over your ip or, at
even worse, ownership of yourip, and it's not really going to
flat out say that in thecontracts because it's going to
be legalese so my, yeah, thenumber one pitfall is really
(19:27):
jumping in on an opportunitythat someone is presenting you
because it looks really good,and then you don't know how good
it could have been.
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, so probably consult a lawyer before you dive
into something like that, or atleast when you get information
from them, to have somebody lookit over to make sure that you
know what you're getting into.
Right, yeah, okay, so therethere is something that I want
to ask, and it's really aroundlike more of a personal thing.
(19:57):
So what do you find is like thething that lights you up the
most when it comes to yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
For me, it's all the ideas.
To be honest, I've always beenlike an ideas person, seeing
people come up with somethingnew.
I think newness is kind of thedrug that I'm chasing in many
ways when it comes toentrepreneurship.
It's really fascinating to meto see people's inventiveness
and how they also actuallypursue and create something that
(20:26):
didn't exist before.
So to me, it's really appealingto see them create this thing
and we get to co-create a littlebit and like shaping it into
something that is licensable.
That is the thing that I lovethe most.
I should probably say that Ilove the legal the most, but I
don't.
This is the thing that reallyis.
That lights me up, and I reallyenjoy having those
conversations about the waysthat they can have an impact
(20:49):
with their work and how they cansort of make their business
work for them in many ways andalso have access to more capital
in their business.
So, yeah, that's what lights meup.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I love that, so this was wonderful.
This was great information,janet.
If people want to learn moreabout you and the things that
you offer, how can they get ahold of you?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They can visit alexandersonlawcom it's double
S-O-N, very Scandinavian or theycan just find me.
Search by my name.
I'm the only one in the worldand you'll find my LinkedIn and
some information as well, sothat's one way to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Awesome, thank you so much.
And you're also providing afreebie for the audience, which
I will go ahead and put in theshow notes, and I'll put all
that information down so thatpeople can connect with you and
see if this is the right pathfor them, right?
So again, thank you so much,janet, for being here.
This was a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is
Organized Chaos.
We take a deep dive into livingwith intentionality, focusing
on what's important in our livesso we can truly feel our best.
It may feel chaotic at times,but with a little organization,
the right mindset and a ton ofself-love, we can still thrive.
Join me as we talk to otherbusy moms and experts who will
(00:31):
share tips and strategies tohelp you reach your goals.
Hope you enjoy this episode ofOrganized Chaos.
Now on to the show.
Hey friends, welcome back toanother episode of Organized
Chaos.
So I have a special guest today.
Her name is Janet Alexandersonand she helps professionals add
revenue streams throughlicensing by offering a unique
(00:53):
combination of business advisoryand legal services.
She is celebrating 20 years asa lawyer and loves to chat about
business opportunities,licensing and negotiations.
She founded the boutique lawfirm Anderson Law back in 2007.
She spends her time advisingprofessionals who have created
courses, systems, frameworks andmuch more on all things
(01:15):
licensing, and worldwide.
So if you have a business andyou have a special process or a
method or a framework, janet isgoing to answer all the
questions that you have aboutthis.
So welcome to the show, janet.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Thank you so much for having me, yeah, of course.
So I'm really excited aboutthis, because when we have our
own business and everything, wehave our special or unique way
of doing certain things, andsometimes that's really what
makes us stand out from thecompetition.
But most of the time peopledon't really know if they
actually have something specialor a special method that
(01:54):
actually requires licensing.
So that's what you're going tobe here to talk about and share
with the audience today, butbefore we get to that, I would
really love to know a little bitmore about you.
If you could please share howyou got to where you are today.
But before we get to that, Iwould really love to know a
little bit more about you.
If you could please share howyou got to where you are today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so I was an eager teenager wanting to do
human rights, going way back,but that's kind of how I got
into law school.
I wanted to save the world,essentially, and realizing that
the world didn't need savingfrom me after a while so late
2000s I decided to start my ownlaw firm instead of tracking
(02:31):
down ways to practice in otherways.
So I started out with generalbusiness law anything, contracts
, anything, international,anything where I got to interact
with entrepreneurs, essentiallybecause I really like people
who have ideas and are curiousabout things and create
solutions.
And over the years it's becomemore and more focused on
(02:54):
licensing.
And the reason was because Igot an opportunity to license my
own legal templates about sixyears ago and friends started
asking me but how do you do that?
I wish I could do that.
I wish I could make moneywithout doing anything extra and
just sell what I already have.
So I started explaining and Igot more and more clients that
were doing that in their own way, with their own assets.
(03:16):
And I know you mentioned peopledoing it with the methods and
frameworks that they had created, but they can also do it with
really tiny things that aren'teven the core of their business
idea.
Everyone has an ops system intheir business that is working
for them.
That could be something theycould package.
So to me it's really excitingto work with people who have big
ideas but also are executorsand doers and are usually quite
(03:40):
organized.
I really like that.
So to me it's becomeessentially honing in on who is
my favorite client, which I knowis kind of a weird way of doing
business, but it's become thatway.
So these are my favorite people.
Even if they weren't my clients, I would love to hang out with
them.
They're really interesting andthey do interesting things.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I love that.
And we go into sometimes likenot really knowing what to do or
like what to start off with,and I think that sometimes we
come into it where we're likefearful, because it feels like
there's so much that you need tolearn and do and I think that,
(04:26):
like you said, there's aparticular thing that you might
be doing in your business, evenif it's like operational, that
you wouldn't think would besomething that you could license
right.
So let's dive into that.
First, how can someone identifyif they have intellectual
property and or like a brandstrong enough to even license?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah.
So I think the first part is doyou have some sort of
proprietary knowledge?
So that can be that you havevery deep expertise, or that you
have cross industry expertisethat no one else has, or that
you have new to the marketknowledge.
So explaining those they'requite a little bit different.
(05:05):
So deep expertise means thatyou have a solution no one else
has because you know more, orknow more than most people in
that industry or about thatindustry.
And then the next one would bethat you maybe worked on the
edges of two industries and youhave like a combined solution.
The example that I always giveis how the pit stop workers for
(05:28):
the ferrari or the formula oneraces help surgeons develop
their routines, and most peopleknow that story.
That's a cross-pollination ofknowledge.
So if you have something likethat and you can make a
proprietary checklist, as theydid together, for how to better
keep hygiene and refraining frommaking mistakes in surgery,
(05:50):
that's a great cross pollination.
And then the final one, the newto market, can be something as
simple as now Anyone who's firstin their industry with some
sort of repeatable process forhow to include AI as an add-on
in an already existing process.
That's a way to do somethinglike that.
So those are kind of the threebuckets, but we can talk more
(06:12):
practical things as well.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
If you want to have more examples, yeah, that would
be great if you could go intothat.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think a lot of us thinkmostly about like, what do I do?
What do I offer?
So if you already have guides,checklists, courses, even if
they haven't really worked foryour market because maybe you
don't have big enough of anaudience, it's more of the
quality of what you have.
So is it something that someoneelse can tag on to, um, an
(06:40):
internal system?
Maybe employee performancecould be increased if they have
a system for how to processemails that's really efficient
that you use.
Or maybe there's something inyour business where you teach
people something in your craft?
Is that something that theycould use internally or, even
better, their audienceexternally that they could
resell?
(07:00):
So it's more, if you're feelinglike you're like a small fish in
a big pond, that's a goodopportunity for licensing,
because other people alreadyhave audiences and customers and
they could sell what you'reoffering.
And you also talked about thebrand being strong.
Sometimes you don't have tolicense them to sell your brand.
You can also license for themto white label, and that's
(07:24):
sometimes something they prefermore and they can pay more for
that.
So you don't really have toworry about your own name
recognition.
You only have to worry aboutknowing your thing and being
good at it and having it putinto a system that is repeatable
(07:46):
and delivers results.
So, yeah, it's really takingstock of what do I have, what
could, what could be interesting, what have I created, what do I
use in my own practice and whatdo people see that they think?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
is clever that I made .
Yeah, that is so interesting.
I would have never thought ofthat.
And even when you talked aboutlike the cross pollination, like
who would think that you knowpit stop, like the process that
goes along with that, which isamazing if you've ever seen that
happen, where it's like it'sseconds, where it would be so
(08:15):
easy to make mistakes, but alsoyou know, with surgery and like
how you have to be so delicateand so precise because it could
be catastrophic if you make amistake, but how those two can
actually go together when itcomes to a process.
That is so interesting to me.
And you mentioned somethingabout like how, if you have
(08:37):
something that you can pass onto another company that would
use that, how does that actuallywork when it comes to actually
receiving revenue from that?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah.
So the way that most of myclients come to me is that they
have already something, aprocess or a product that they
have gotten interest from acompany.
But some people come earlierbut that's kind of why they're
starting to think about it andthey have been asked if they can
resell that's essentially thelanguage that we hear or be an
affiliate or if they canpurchase it from them.
(09:13):
So the licensing part isessentially you come into
agreement that they can use it,maybe for a year, and then they
can renew, or they can licensefor longer, meaning that they
can use it in a specific way orsell it for a specific price or
whatever price that they want,maybe to a specific set of
people or in a specific areageographically.
(09:33):
I'm not going to get into muchto the legal side, but it's
essentially just having acontract saying you're allowed
to depending on how, what youwant to release to them,
depending on what you want torelease to them use this brand
that I made for this product andsell it and make revenue in
this way.
Or you can put your own brandon the thing and I'll support
(09:53):
you in delivering thisexperience and sometimes you can
also tag on consulting on it.
So they want you to be morepresent because they value your
expertise.
So even if licensing is not theonly thing you want to do and
you want to become more known asan advisor or an expert, that's
also a way to go.
So a lot of my clients arelicensed to universities for
(10:15):
courses or for processes in theuniversity, so they're also
doing some things in-house.
Some of them not everyone wantsto.
Some people just like to earnmoney and be on the beach, but
some of them want to be morehands-on and make a name for
themselves.
So they go in and teach like acore thing in the program and
then the university does therest.
So some people sell acurriculum, so it's more of a
(10:38):
structured system.
And some people deliver theentire experience, so it's more
really tailoring a document tomake sure that you keep your IP,
because you don't want to sellthe IP.
They're just renting yourknowledge.
That's how I like to put it.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh, wow, that's so interesting.
So how do you think thislicensing can impact your
business model?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So from what I've seen with the people that I work
with and I own, it gives youfreedom.
If you do it right and if youget licensees, it's usually very
low impact on you when it comesto adding things to your plate.
So you will free up your timeto do more because now you have
the leverage of having moremoney for your time.
So it doesn't really add a lotof admin, unless you design it
(11:25):
to add a lot of admin or a lotof extra responsibilities.
But it's just a nice way ofgetting as you said, it's not
really like real estate money,but for your knowledge.
So you earn that on the sideand then you can go on to do
what you want to do with yourbusiness and develop it at your
own pace, which I think is themost important part.
So a lot of us feel thepressure to like I have to earn
(11:47):
this much money and I have tolike do more time and do more
time and find more people andlike.
It's a never-ending sort ofcycle and with licensing there's
usually quite high numbers, forif you're licensing to larger
corporations, so even onelicensing deal could be almost
all you need to earn for thatyear yeah the urgency of like
(12:07):
having more and more and morewell, like you might get
addicted to the licensing model,but you don't really have to
trade your time as urgently,which is nice, yeah that's what
I was going to ask, becausewould you call this more like
creating passive income?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
yes, actually, I would.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, I know that's like almost like a dirty word at
this point there's so manyscams.
But yeah, you can set it up tobe mostly passive on your part.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Do you have clients who you know started off in one
industry and then found thatthey can license something and
then actually created multipledifferent licenses for multiple
different industries?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah.
So some things really translatewell, especially if you're in
like the ops or things that areadd-ons, so any like AI
component that could be added onto.
I'm saying AI now, but there'sso many things that can be
add-ons to a system.
So when you figure out and thisis kind of the thing you need
to switch your thinking fromserving your clients to how can
(13:09):
this be useful in general?
So, instead of having somethingthat's maybe really in depth
and delivers this specificresult, how can it be a little
bit more broad and still delivera result, but not as specific?
And then you can sort ofbroaden yourself to more
industries.
So I think it's both industriesand geographies, because
sometimes you're very tied tolike this is my market in this
(13:32):
area or in this language, but alot of things translate really
well.
So say that you've made a courseteaching marketers how to use
canva.
Yeah, but they don't have to bemarketers, right, because it's
probably not marketing materialspecific.
You might have a module that ismarketing material specific,
but what if you remove that andjust has had a module on like
(13:52):
quickly getting up to speed onusing canva?
That is now an in-houseemployee upgrade for any company
, university organization, or itcould be something that someone
is a marketer and they wanttheir customers to be able to
themselves edit what they havegotten, or graphic designer, so
they can also sell it.
So thinking of all the waysthat what you have can be
(14:15):
repackaged for someone else tosell or use if you remove the
specificity.
So if you remove that, that isfor your industry and your niche
and for your specific use casewhen you're selling it, it can
apply quite broadly.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, so you know what steps should someone take
to determine if licensing isreally right to or like, the
right path for them?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, I think they need to understand what type of
business they want to do.
If they really like theone-on-one interaction with
people and like seeing someoneachieve and seeing them getting
the results from what you'vemade.
Licensing is probably not foryou unless you want to see it on
a broad scale but not be inpersonal contact with those
(15:02):
people.
Yeah, sure you want to thinkbig.
You can still see an impact insome way, like if you create a
course and the university sellsit, you're going to see some
impact but you might not see itas personal.
So that's one.
And then I think some peoplefind that it's sometimes scary
to stretch a little bit fromworking with smaller contracts
(15:24):
or working with organizationsthat are sort of on par with
their own to working with reallybig organizations that are
sometimes of on par with theirown to working with really big
organizations that are sometimesquite intimidating in their
negotiation because they arevery rigid or they try to appear
rigid or they have a lengthyprocess.
So that's another thing toconsider that you have to up
your confidence a little bit toget after that.
(15:46):
And then also, the bigger theorganization you go for, the
lengthier the process is to landthe contracts because they have
so many people who have to havea say.
So the smaller you work with,the faster you can close the
deal.
But if you want money fast,licensing is usually not the
game you want to play you haveto be patient yeah, and I'm not
(16:09):
saying like it's going to takeyears, it's more like it's not
going to happen this week, maybelike this quarter.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, so let's, let's go into the legal side a little
bit, because you did mentionyou know like it can't like, if
you go the route of trying towork with, like bigger entities,
like it may be kind of scary todive into that just because of
the legal aspect of it.
So what are the most important?
Like early legal protectionssomeone should have in place
(16:37):
before considering licensingtheir product or their brand.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, I think the most important part is to have
the intellectual propertyprotected in some way.
So the people that I work withhave three kinds usually.
So the first one would be atrademark.
If they have like a logo or alicense and they want their
brand to be on it, it's goodthat that is registered, or at
least that you have applied forregistration, so that's in
(17:04):
process.
If it's copy, so the content youcreated, the course, the videos
, the audios, all of that orgraphics copyright is automatic
but it's usually good for you ifyou've had it registered and
witnessed so that you can pointto like I did this, I created
this, this is part of it.
And then for the people wholicense know-how, which is a
(17:26):
process or a method or aframework or even sometimes a
course because that also appliesknow-how and the way to protect
that is to treat it as abusiness secret.
So having language in yourcontracts already with people
who get to experience it, thatis essentially non-competition
or confidentiality, so thatpeople know that they can't
(17:49):
share it in any which way.
And then having that also, inall of these key cases, carried
on into the license agreement aswell, so that you essentially
keep being the owner of what youhave made.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, because that can be scary.
Right To go out there and putyour stuff, that you put a lot
of work in and you know.
Kind of speaking of that, likewhat are some of the pitfalls or
at least maybe like the numberone pitfall to avoid when
considering licensing.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I would never do anything.
On the honor system.
A lot of people are like can wejust try this thing for
everything?
Yeah, no, but really not beingsort of persuaded by the first
person who approaches you,they're very likely to try to
undersell you because you don'tknow the value of what you made
yet you didn't understand how toprotect it.
(18:41):
So if someone approaches youand gives you a contract, don't
ever just sign that.
Have someone read over it orstart thinking strategically if
this is something you want to doon a larger scale beyond this
one deal.
So I would sort of caution youas to doing like one-offs just
because they present themselves,without actually digging into
(19:03):
what that means.
And some of these contractswill have clauses that
essentially makes that dealexclusive to that particular
licensee or gives them sort ofco-ownership over your ip or, at
even worse, ownership of yourip, and it's not really going to
flat out say that in thecontracts because it's going to
be legalese so my, yeah, thenumber one pitfall is really
(19:27):
jumping in on an opportunitythat someone is presenting you
because it looks really good,and then you don't know how good
it could have been.
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, so probably consult a lawyer before you dive
into something like that, or atleast when you get information
from them, to have somebody lookit over to make sure that you
know what you're getting into.
Right, yeah, okay, so therethere is something that I want
to ask, and it's really aroundlike more of a personal thing.
(19:57):
So what do you find is like thething that lights you up the
most when it comes to yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
For me, it's all the ideas.
To be honest, I've always beenlike an ideas person, seeing
people come up with somethingnew.
I think newness is kind of thedrug that I'm chasing in many
ways when it comes toentrepreneurship.
It's really fascinating to meto see people's inventiveness
and how they also actuallypursue and create something that
(20:26):
didn't exist before.
So to me, it's really appealingto see them create this thing
and we get to co-create a littlebit and like shaping it into
something that is licensable.
That is the thing that I lovethe most.
I should probably say that Ilove the legal the most, but I
don't.
This is the thing that reallyis.
That lights me up, and I reallyenjoy having those
conversations about the waysthat they can have an impact
(20:49):
with their work and how they cansort of make their business
work for them in many ways andalso have access to more capital
in their business.
So, yeah, that's what lights meup.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I love that, so this was wonderful.
This was great information,janet.
If people want to learn moreabout you and the things that
you offer, how can they get ahold of you?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They can visit alexandersonlawcom it's double
S-O-N, very Scandinavian or theycan just find me.
Search by my name.
I'm the only one in the worldand you'll find my LinkedIn and
some information as well, sothat's one way to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Awesome, thank you so much.
And you're also providing afreebie for the audience, which
I will go ahead and put in theshow notes, and I'll put all
that information down so thatpeople can connect with you and
see if this is the right pathfor them, right?
So again, thank you so much,janet, for being here.
This was a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
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