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    Episode 235: How To License Your Course, Content, or Program – with April Beach

    SweetLife Entrepreneurs Podcast April Beach

    This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?

     

    Episode Bonuses:

    Free Webinar: How to License Your Content to Scale Your Business and Increase Profit

    Who This Episode is Great For:

    This is a great show for established entrepreneurs who are interested in learning how to scale your business exponentially through licensing your content, course or program.

    Summary:

    If you’re an established entrepreneur with proven programs, courses, or content, and you’re looking to grow exponentially, then this episode is for you. By creating content to license you can demonstrate thought leadership in your space, increase credibility across your audience, expand your business to B2B or create a dual business model. 
     
    This an intro to licensing for entrepreneurs who want to know how content licensing works, those who want to demonstrate thought leadership in your space through Licensing, those interested in transitioning from B2C to B2B in some capacity. This show will give you a good foundation and knowledge base to consider your options. 

    At the end of this episode you will:

    1. Know what licensing is and how to make money doing it
    2. Know the business model of licensing and if it’s right for you
    3. Know the prerequisites to license your content

    Resources Mentioned:


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    Full Show Transcript:

    You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach, and welcome to episode number 235. This one is really juicy. It is jam packed with the secrets to how I grew my first business consulting firm to over seven figures. So I’m super excited to share this with you and all of the resources that we have here available for you on the show can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com.

    And this is episode number 235. Welcome to the suite life entrepreneur and business podcast. If you’re new, my name is April beach. I am the host here of this show. I am a business consultant and strategists that works with entrepreneurs and experts to design, launch, and scale. Your business in today’s episode is literally a secret weapon. If you are listening to this,

    if you’re a regular subscriber or you just happened to land here, this is something that nobody’s talking about, and I’m so excited to share it with you on today’s show, we’re talking about how to license your content to scale your business and increase profit. And this particular episode is a best for you. It’s most appropriate for you. If you are in phases three,

    four or five of my entrepreneur roadmap, what that means is that you have to be in a specific phase to be ready for this level of business scalability and this level of growth. And so if you’re in phases three, four or five, this is a great episode for you to listen to. If you don’t know what phase of business design growth scale and impact you are in,

    please take a second pause here and cruise over to Sweetlife co.com forward slash quiz. And you can take a really short quiz and I’ll tell you exactly where you are in your business and what you should be working on right now. You can also text the word quiz to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0. Okay. So here’s what we have in today’s show. It’s really great for those of you guys who are established entrepreneurs,

    and you’re interested in learning how to scale your business exponentially through licensing your content course or program. If you have a proven program course or content, and you are looking to see even the greater impact that you can make, you’re trying to find even more ways to make more money into create the impact that you know, that your program can, then this episode is for you.

    And so at the end of this episode, you are going to know what licensing is and how to make money doing it. You are going to know the business model of licensing and be able to have insight on whether or not this is even right for you. And you’re going to know the prerequisites that you need to have in place in order to license your content.

    And there is a super special bonus with today’s episode. If you want to know more about this, you do not want to miss this bonus. I am giving you a completely free one hour licensing your content quick start video training, and you really don’t want to miss it. It’s one hour training on the quick start guide of how to prepare and license your content.

    And you can find that totally free by visiting licensed to scale.com. It’s the word license, the number two, and then the word scale.com. And I’ll make sure that that is in the show notes for you. So that’s another resource for you to grab here at love, giving you guys awesome, very highly valuable stuff here for free that other businesses charge you thousands for.

    So definitely go grab that. Okay, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode. This is episode number 235. And so all the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. Number 2 35 under podcast<inaudible>. So let’s start out by answering the question. What is licensing licensing is creating content for other companies to use. Think of it as renting your content,

    renting your course, renting your program. So it’s creating content for other companies to use and they rent it from you and it’s called licensing so that they can grow faster or so that they can make more money or so that they can provide better services or training or support for their people, whoever their people happen to be. And now let me read you the legal definition of licensing,

    but just so you know, I wanted to make sure I gave you the April entrepreneur, regular person’s definition of it too. So the legal definition of licensing is content licensing is a legal agreement between two parties known as a licensee and a license or licensees can purchase the rights to re-publish content from a license or licensing is extremely versatile and allows her brands to repackage content in a variety of forms across desktop and mobile platforms.

    And that official definition came from news cred. So let’s go ahead and dive in a little bit more. You have a program where you have a course and you want to make more money. You want to go from what I call in our business, where we take our clients from scale to amplify, there is a difference between scaling your business and amplifying your business in this.

    My friends is how you do it. So the benefits of licensing are really important to think about as you’re considering whether or not you want to license your program to other companies. Here are some of the benefits that you can flow through your mind. As I’m saying these to you and really hold each one up and see if it fits you right. The first one is,

    if you want to demonstrate thought leadership in your space, if you want to become a thought leader in your particular niche, your particular area of expertise, then licensing is a benefit in that area. Number two, licensing increases credibility across your own audience. So even though you’re creating content, that’s used by other companies, when your audience knows that other companies are buying your content,

    all of a sudden, they are really confident in your ability to get them direct results. Number three, licensing enables for what I call exponential scalability. So let’s talk about scale for a second scale. In most cases, as we talk about here on the podcast in most entrepreneurs and online businesses are familiar with it. In that case, we’re talking about taking a one-on-one service or a one-on-one program and turning it into one on group or creating different business models so that you can reach more people and increase your profit.

    Usually in the same amount of time, scaling is a precursor to licensing licensing is where you still create that one piece of content, and then you’ve tested it in the scale capacity. And now you are willing to rent it or allow other companies to borrow it from you called licensing it for them to distribute. So we have gone from scaling you to literally exploding so fast,

    your reach with your content through licensing. And then another benefit of licensing is for those of you, if you’re listening to this and you want to figure out how to go from B to C, so you have a consulting firm or a coaching firm, or you’re a speaker, an author, and you are used to serving one particular client that gets direct results from you.

    And you want to transition. You want to start coaching other businesses. Licensing is also a really great benefit for you. So there are multiple benefits to licensing your content, if any of those fit into what aligns with your strategic objectives for your life in your brand. So really the question that we need to dive into here before I share anything else is,

    is licensing right for you, but not only that are ready to license. I have so many people, literally we have a waiting list of entrepreneurs who really want to learn how to license their materials, but they aren’t ready yet. So let’s talk about what is the prerequisite for being able to join my masterclass called license to scale, to learn how to do this.

    The prerequisite is that you have to have a proven course or program or content. That’s gotten people transformational results in the past. Okay? So this means if you have never created a course before, or if you do not have a membership community with curriculum, if you have not developed transformational curriculum or a transformational program, and you have not tested that you are not ready for licensing.

    And so at this point in time, if that is you, of course, you’re welcome to sit here and hang out with me for the rest of this episode, but I would put it on pause because we have a program to teach you how to do that. It’s you can find that program by visiting signature offer.com. And so the process we take companies through is first we help businesses launch.

    And then the second phase is scale where entrepreneurs join our transformational program, design masterclass. Again, you can find that@signatureoffer.com at this is where you are, and then you can go onto licensing your material. So the prerequisite is you have to have a proven program course or content. That’s gotten people results in the past. If you don’t have that, you’re not quite ready for that yet.

    And that’s okay. This is a very Coopa. So to know what is the potential for you is in the future. So I’m going to give you guys a peek behind the scenes. I’m pulling back the curtains, and I’m going to share with you two case studies out of five different case days in which I have licensed my content for over 12 years,

    because I want you to get your wheels spinning about what you have or what you can do with your business, all five case studies, and they’re all different. All five case studies are available by going to license to scale.com and joining that licensing 1 0 1 webinar. But I’m just for the sake of time and to get your wheels spinning, I’m going to share with you two here.

    Okay. So the first case study I want to share is the fact that I had a collection of courses, a collection of online courses back in 2009, I’ve been doing all my courses before. They’re even a thing. If you listen to the show, you know that right? So I had a collection of eight full online courses, and there were eight different courses that were as for a very specific niche audience.

    And they were totaled 198 slides, 13 hours of recorded classes. And they came with teacher guides and supplemental worksheets and even project plans. I licensed that collection of courses, and I have licensed these collection of eight courses that is currently still to this day, licensed in over 13 countries to other businesses. They included business coaching videos, swipe files, and we licensed it in different formats so that the business could use it.

    And even co-branded. So that is case study number one. So I had a collection of courses that served a specific audience and people line up, people literally joined my waiting lists to license my courses. I only release them once a year in the month of November. And they join a waiting list to license my courses once a year. And I have been doing that since that beginning of 2009.

    And so that’s one way. So if you have a collection, of course, it’s not just one course. Think about all of the material you have created all of the mini videos, all the things that you’ve done, that we can package together into a complete package. And I promise you when it’s done correctly, they will line up to license that from you.

    And so I’ve done this for years and I’m still doing this today. So that’s case study number one and then case study number two is that I have a full coaching program that includes the courses, but it also includes consulting for corporations and content that that corporation can distribute to all of their people in this case, it’s a corporate program. And so they want to take my content and my courses and use my consulting.

    And that’s another case study. And I first started doing this back in 2010. So these are two case studies. And again, I have five, some smaller ones for those of you guys that are just getting started and you can see all five by going to the license to scale.com and you can join that information webinar. So hopefully that gets your wheels spinning a little bit about what you already have.

    We want to dive into your assets, dive into your method, dive into your process and what you’ve already created, and then have a conversation about who can this really benefit. So it’ll benefit your business and it’ll benefit their corporation and their company as well. The next thing I want to kind of transition here, because I know that for many of you,

    this is a new conversation. This is a new topic is sharing with you that there are three primary ways to license your content. And each one of these ways is going to equal the branding in the future goals for you that you have for your company. So the first way you can license your content is straight as it is with your branding, your logo all over it.

    So that would be somebody borrows or quote unquote licenses, rents your course, or your class. And they plug it into their LMS. They plug it into their system or wherever they’re distributing it, but it’s your logo all over it. That’s way. Number one way. Number two is co-branded where you allow your them to add their name and logo to it.

    It could be co presented by co-branded by, and that’s a really great way for you to retain the ownership and the authority of that content, but also to really help your licensee level up as well. And then the third way you can license your content is completely white. Labeled white labeled is where nobody even knows it’s yours. Some operations expect that to happen.

    So some companies will only license your content. If it’s completely white labeled some companies only want to license your content if it’s co-branded. And so every single one of the licensees has their own goals for licensing your content. Now let’s talk about for a second. What is really actually good for you? Those three levels. Number one straight as is, is your trademark number two co-branded or number three white labeled.

    They follow the flow of the value, which means that someone will pay you less to take it straight as your own, a little bit more to co-brand it, and a little bit more to white label it, or in some cases there’s significantly more amount of money to let white label content, but let’s ask the really important question here is that right for you?

    Is it right for you to have no stake? And for nobody to know that that was your genius and out of it, all the companies and all the entrepreneurs that I coach to license their courses and their content, very, very few of them go with the white label. Even though the end user, the licensee will pay all the tea in China,

    is that really worth it to not get recognition or your brand. And so those are some things that I just want you to be thinking about. I know this isn’t yeah. Intro to licensing conversation. So I wanted to make sure that you knew about those three primary ways to license your content. So as you’re going through, as you’re thinking about what you have,

    or that you can license, you’re also thinking about in what capacity that that could work best for you and what you want your branch to be 2, 6, 10 years down the road. And then the last question I want to answer for you today is who licenses your content? Who should you license it to? This is a very common question. I answer this in clubhouse rooms all the time.

    And I get emails very often, especially when we’re leading up to opening up my license to scale masterclass. And people are saying, well, who, who wants this? Who do I sell it to? So let me give you two very clear examples of who should you license your light, your content to the first one is other companies who are not in direct competition with you,

    but they serve the same audience and they want to look better or expand their reach, grow their list, increase their sales and save time. This second opportunity for an audience for you are companies that are exactly like yours, but they’re missing something they need. And they want your expert content. They want turnkey offers. So they want to be able to take your course and just plug it in to their system and sell it right away.

    And they want to have faster instant results. So you can license your content to a company whose audience needs it. But the company is not in direct competition with you, or you can license your content to a company that is just like yours, but perhaps they don’t have as great of content as you do. Perhaps they need some more content to level up where they already have to shore up their offering and they need your help to do that.

    So those are two general examples of audiences who you could consider licensing your content to. So today we’re talking about how to license your content to scale your business and increase profit. And I talked about a lot of things. We talked about, what is licensing? We talked about the benefits of licensing. We discussed whether or not you’re ready to license. I gave you two of five different case studies of when I have licensed my content and hopefully in doing so,

    your wheels are spinning and you’re thinking about what you already have, that you can license or how you can package together content, courses, programs, your framework, your methodology, to license, to other people. We also talked about three primary ways to license your content. And we talked about who should you license your content to? So we discussed a lot,

    but I’ll be really honest. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. I have so much more to share with you. So if you are interested in licensing your content or learning more about licensing your content, I highly recommend you join the licensing 1 0 1 training, and it’s totally free where I’m also going to give you a quick start guide to learn how to get your content licensed faster,

    and to determine if it’s right for you. And you can grab that anytime by visiting license and then the number two, and then the word scale, S C a L e.com. Or of course, all of the show notes will be found in the episode show notes. This is episode number 235, and you can visit us@sweetlifeco.com click on the podcast. And this is number 235.

    And just so you know, this is part one of a two part podcast episode I’m doing for you next week in episode number 236, I’m going to tell you the four types of content that companies line up to license. They will literally line up Fletcher list begging for you to license your content to them. And there’s four kinds of content that companies line up to license.

    We’re talking about that next week on the show, that’s going to be episode number 236. So thank you so much for joining me. I am very excited to share this. This has been my secret weapon. Many of you might not know. I own two different business consulting firms. And this is how my first, very first business consulting firm really broke through that glass ceiling.

    And I’m so excited to share this with you. It’s been kind of a secret. I’ve been holding in my pocket for quite a few years, and I’ve had the privilege of working with so many businesses one-on-one to do this, but we do have our license to scale masterclass, visit licensed to scale.com. If you are ready to take the steps and license your content to hit that amplify level in your business,

    all right, you guys have an amazing night happy July, 2021. When I’m recording this, I hope you’re doing something super fun that you love that really fills you up. I’ll talk to you on another episode soon.