Strategy Session:

Leveraging IP: Licensing Your Expertise

    Licensing may not be the first word that comes to mind when you're considering how to increase your business, particularly if your niche is a knowledge based service business - coach, consultant, trainer, speaker or some other kind of specialist and you have devised and developed your own methods, processes and procedures.

Creating a license based on your expertise (otherwise known as know-how) can be a very lucrative revenue stream. Professional expertise businesses who create licenses based on their processes, systems, and procedures can increase their profitability without adding to their workload.

Here are five big benefits to licensing your expertise.

 

1. More Work Than One Office Can Handle

 

If you are finding that new clients are waiting longer for your services, it may be time to consider licensing your expertise. Rather than lose these clients to a competitor who can see them quickly, why not funnel them to one of your licensees? That way you continue to profit from the relationship, without adding more to an already overloaded schedule.

 

2. Geographical Challenges

Getting referral business is great as long as you can deliver your services. But often times, distance can be a limiting factor on where you can go to deliver your services. Licensing can be the ideal solution when customers want your services yet are further afield than you're able to travel. By creating licenses, you can expand your geographic range, creating a far larger footprint than you'd be able to on your own.  

 

3.Time Limitations

As a service provider, you only have so many hours in a day. Your options for increasing your business are limited by the amount of time you are available. If you're having real trouble meeting all of your professional obligations and keeping a good balance of family and personal time, it may be time to consider how you can make your business more efficient. Licensing is one tool that you can use to capitalize on the finite number of hours in the day. 

 

4. Desire to Increase Profitability

 

If your goal is to increase revenues and profitability, but the challenge is having the time or capacity to do so, then licensing is your opportunity. License arrangements vary: some expertise based businesses sell licenses to use their information, others enter into ongoing arrangements allowing licensees to use the name, logo, and methodologies they've created in return for a periodic royalty fee. Depending on your type of expertise, understanding how to develop and manage a licensing program will help you realize more profit. 

 

5. Interest from Would Be Licensees

 

Interest from would-be licensees is a great signal that you may be ready to license. Sometimes others are in a better position to see the opportunities that we're blind to: either because we're too close to our own businesses or just too busy to notice the profit waiting to be realized.

 

Be cautious at this point: just because someone has expressed interest in entering a license agreement with you doesn't mean they're the ideal person to represent your brand. Knowing the right way to create a license relationship is the critical to making your licensing program profitable.  

Video Licensing Lesson

IP-Intangible Asset with Tangible Rights

When preparing or reviewing a licensing agreement, it's always best to seek qualified legal advice before you sign anything.  

This Month in IP History

• 1871 -  Mark Twain received the first of his three patents for suspenders.
• 1955 - The car Volkswagen was trademark registered.
• 1966 - The words from the theme song for "Star Trek", were copyright registered.  

 Source:About.com

 

 

Licensing Webinar - How to use Social Media to License Your Intellectual Property

• How to connect with the marketers and companies looking for IP to license i.e. agents, manufacturers, marketers and others.
• Understanding the different type of social networking communities (web sites, search engines, blogs and others) and how to use them the right way,
• Strategies to advertise and promote your licensing opportunity that costs virtually nothing and reaches an extensive group of prospective licensees.
• How to get free publicity, send tweets about your licensing opportunities, and build licensing followers,
• How to put it all together in a social media licensing campaign.

Social media is a way to quickly build a network with potential licensees, chat with business owners, and keep abreast of licensing opportunities for your intellectual property. But social media is only worthwhile if it's effective, and knowing how to use social media to promote your licensing opportunities is essential to making it all work.

 

To view this webinar,click here or use this link -http://wp.me/P2LywD-4d.

Ask Rand Brenner 

 

Q: How does one decide if they should sell their intellectual property out right versus just licensing it?

 

A: One of the biggest challenges you have in selling your intellectual property out right is understanding how much it's worth.   

 

A lot depends on what you have done to commercialize your IP. If it's been in the market and has a track record of sales, you can develop a value based on future projected sales. On the other hand, if you have not yet commercialized your IP, meaning generated some sales, then you may not be able to determine a reasonable value.   

 

Licensing is an option to selling an IP. It's a strategy that can be used to build IP value. In fact, licensing can be the beginning stage to ultimately selling an IP. At some point, if your IP and licensees become successful, the IP value increases which in turn leads to a higher selling price.

 

 

Got a question about licensing? Send an email to askrandbrenner@ licensing4profits.com.  You'll get an answer to your question which will be included in a future issue of this newsletter.

Latest Blog Postings