186: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part 1) on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process
Free Time with Jenny Blake
How to Choose the Right Profit First Professional for Your Business
For me, just to start the conversation around licensing, they need a budget of at least 50 grand. I am not going to be great with licensing for a 10 person startup company. The best types of clients for me already have an L&D function. Ideally, they already licensed at least one program from somebody else.
“A shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it.” —Deloris Jordan
When negotiating Michael Jordan's famous shoe deal with Nike, his mom Deloris “made an additional demand: Her son must receive not only a $250,000 fee, but also a cut from every sneaker sold,” making her case with that mic drop moment above (as retold in the movie Air via The New York Times article ‘Air’ and the Argument for Letting the Talent Share in the Profits).
That, my friends, is the power of licensing :) Today’s episode is the first of a two-parter — an in-depth addition to 140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property), thanks to a set of wonderfully thorough follow-up questions from BFF member Al Dea.
Al is the founder of MBASchooled.com, author of MBA Insider, and host of the MBA Insider podcast. He asked a series of questions across five categories, and in this episode I’ll be addressing the first two: product development and client attraction strategies. A caveat as always, when it comes to this notoriously opaque arena: what I’m sharing is not the way, it’s just what I’ve learned along the way in nearly a decade of building out licensing as a revenue stream.
Check out episode 140 if you haven't yet, paired with 135: How to Rapidly Prototype a Course, 016: IP Licensing with Lee LeFever, 185: How Licensing Helps Serve the Queen Bee Role with Mike Michalowicz, and 045: Behind the Free Time Brand with Adam Chaloeicheep.
📆 Join us in the private BFF community for a related workshop coming up! We’ll be diving deeper into Certification and Licensing on Thursday, May 11 at 1pm ET. Even if you can’t make it live and/or if you’re listening after May 11, you’ll get instant access to the entire private podcast feed with years of special content archives.
In this special BFF bonus workshop, my longtime friendtor Pamela Slim—who taught me the early ins-and-outs of licensing—will walk us through: how to know if/when adding a certification or corporate licensing program to your business makes sense, the first steps involved in creating them, ways you can work with her team on build-out, and anything you can think to ask during Q&A! You can also hear Jenny on Pam's Widest Net podcast in episode 005: From Friction to Flow and Finding Joy in Systems.
❤️ Learn more and join us at http://itsfreetime.com/bff (apply promo code PODCAST)
📝 Permission: To be overwhelmed. Even if you need to listen to this three times, even if you're still scratching your head, it will start to make more sense, slowly over time.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Join us in BFF to learn more and develop your materials alongside fellow Heart-Based Business owners!
📘Books Mentioned
- Built to Sell: Creating a Business that Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow
- Inked: The Ultimate Guide to Powerful Closing and Sales Negotiation Tactics by Jeb Blount
- Value-Based Fees, Million Dollar Consulting Proposals and Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
- Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
- Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
🔗 Resources Mentioned
- Community: BFF (apply promo code PODCAST)
- Article: NYT—‘Air’ and the Argument for Letting the Talent Share in the Profits
- Movie: Air (Trailer)
- Attorney: Francine Love at Love Law Firm
📓 Examples of Certification and Licensing Programs
- Pivot Programs: Rollout Options, Pivot Workbook, Companies (Overview), Pivot in the Classroom, and Pivot Programs Overview (Made in Canva)
- Jenny’s LinkedIn Learning Courses: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, Coaching New Managers
- Assessment Certifications: Sparketype, MBTI, Kolby, #lovework, True Colors, Gallup Strengths
- The Energy Project: Licensing tracks—LeaderFuel and PeopleFuel
- Others Mentioned: Box of Crayons and MBS.works, Getting Things Done Practitioner Certification, Duct Tape Marketing Certification, Profit First Professionals Certification
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