Erin Austin: Hello ladies, welcome to 2023. As we enter the second year of the Hourly to Exit podcast, I am super excited to share some of the changes that we're implementing starting immediately. So as I mentioned at the end of every episode, the podcast is very, I am an expertise-based service provider, and I am working right alongside you and my clients in the process of building and scaling a business that I can hopefully sell someday.

So it's no surprise that I get inspired by my clients, by my fantastic and generous hourly to exit podcast guest who I use as a source to answer all of my questions as well as. And from the many people that I get to hear from on LinkedIn and webinars and other public forums. So all of these inspirations have led me to rethink [00:01:00] my business, and I'm excited to share the new approach that we will be taking to get more wealth in the hands of women.

Now, you know, That there is no profession more wedded to the hourly model than lawyers, and I am guilty as charged when I went out on my own in the early two thousands, you know, after being a general counsel at a big company, I started the same way that many of you did. Billing hourly? Yes. I sold my time.

I quickly changed to a flat fee model, but that was not because of some grand strategy. I just hated tracking my hours. And that worked well for me and provided a comfortable income and a comfortable lifestyle for me and my family for many years. And then, as you know, came the circumstances that brought on the unquenchable urge to do more meaningful work.

For me, that meant being part of creating a more equitable economy, [00:02:00] and my sweet spot is in the professional services area, so I pivoted to working with experts. Of course, that has forced me to make sure that I am drinking my own Kool-Aid. And the truth is that as of today, as I record this, unscalable one-on-one services are the sole source of income in my business.

So I started asking how do I turn my expertise into scalable and saleable intellectual property? You can guess what Recommendations immediately started coming in. Sell legal agreement templates. Well, creating another agreement template site. It's a hard no for. Yes, I wanna increase my income. Yes, I wanna decouple my income from my time, but equally important is increasing my impact.

That's why we're here. And selling legal templates alone would not further my mission. So I've continued my one-on-one work. Having many, many [00:03:00] wonderful conversations both privately and publicly with exceptional entrepreneurs who founded expertise-based businesses. In all of those conversations, although I didn't recognize them as such at the time, are fantastic market research, and with every conversation, the right direction for me became increasingly clear.

I need to provide more education. So in order to increase my impact, in order to get more wealth in the hands of women who can then change the world, I need to reach more people than I can on a one-on-one basis only. I can only serve a limited number of clients on a one-on-one basis, and there are many women who cannot afford, who are not ready for my one-on-one offering.

And that's where education comes in. To increase my impact, I need to reach more of you. So my goal for 2023 is to make sure that [00:04:00] everyone has access to the knowledge and resources required to create the foundation for building wealth. That means building assets and assets in the expertise based business.

That means intellectual. So in future episodes of the podcast and across all the platforms where I communicate with you, please look forward to hearing more information that focuses on creating that foundation. That will be the basis for turning your expertise in intellectual property and transforming your business from an income producer to a wealth builder.

There'll also be a lot more solo episodes that'll be focusing on the four key steps to. A new IP based revenue stream. Those are creation, ownership, protection, and monetization. So, As always, the guest experts on the podcast will continue to share their wisdom on different aspects of the hourly to exit journey.

However, my [00:05:00] offerings will change to focus more specifically on the first step of that transition. Turn your expertise in intellectual assets so that you can stop selling time. . But before you can do that, you must own and control the intellectual property created with your expertise. You know, all of the experts that I've had the pleasure to speak with have built successful businesses.

They've used their expertise to generate comfortable income. They've built their reputations as experts. Those are all wonderful accomplishments, but like me, they're starting to ask what's next? So maybe they're getting a little burned out from one-on-one work and are looking to step back, or maybe they've hit a revenue ceiling and wanna grow without working more hours.

Perhaps they're eager to get out of implementation and focus on strategy and thought leadership, and all these experts are savvy enough to know that they need to create assets to grow their [00:06:00] business to the next level. So I was having these conversations. There was this specific question that I kept hearing over and over, am I ready to create intellectual property?

Now, this was such a frustrating question for me to hear. You know, I've heard other experts in the consulting space say that you need to read just a certain level of authority before you're ready to create ip. Well, that's simply not true. Not only are you ready to create ip, you already are as an expert.

You are creating intellectual property every day. Intellectual property is created every time you use your intellect and every time you pay someone to use theirs. I'm creating intellectual property as I speak to you right now. . So the answer to the question, what's next? What's next is making sure you own and control the intellectual property that you create using your expertise.

That is the first, and it is the essential step to starting your [00:07:00] hourly to exit transit. So expect to see offers that focus on this initial step. And in particular for the B2B professional services provider, we are going to be digging deep into the effective use and negotiation of services agreements with your clients.

Because this is the number one way that service providers lose control with the intellectual property. If you don't understand what you're signing, you're not going to be able to own and control the intellectual property that you are creating every day. So we have to make sure that you understand that , that's step one, and once we start owning and controlling the ip, then we'll be ready to add a new IP based revenue stream to our business.

for most of us, myself included, of course, IP-based revenue will be additive to our current one-on-one services revenue. So in other words, we add that IP-based revenue stream to provide [00:08:00] revenue diversification in our businesses. in addition to that, revenue diversification, there are a number of other benefits from that IP-based revenue stream.

These include. Obviously decoupling income from time, it helps you create a business that can operate independently from you. Your business moves from being expert, a k a time base to expertise, a k a IP based. It enhances your revenue visibility, meaning you're better able to forecast your revenue. It decreases client concentration.

We know how dangerous having a few whale clients can be and is a pitfall of many one-on-one service providers. it increases your reach and impact. Of course, it reduces performance risk, and it reduces collection risk. It increases profitability. It simplifies the sales process and my favorite, it [00:09:00] transforms your business from income producing to wealth building.

I believe in the value that each of you brings to your clients, and I'm here to support you in your journey to building a business that thrives. I'm so excited to be on this parallel adventure with you. I'll be creating and releasing educational materials that will be my IP and my IP based revenue stream that propels me.

My hourly to exit journey, and as you receive that knowledge and apply that to your business, you will travel along your hourly to exit journey. So I'd love to hear from you, please. Any questions that you have about any of the topics that I talk about, in my net newsletter on the podcast. On LinkedIn.

I'm always here to get your feedback and answer your questions, so thanks for listening and I'm looking forward to a wonderful 2023.