Creating more revenue-generating opportunities with a strategic service delivery structure

Small But Mighty Agency Podcast

Episode 70: Creating more revenue-generating opportunities with a strategic service delivery structure

Speakers: Audrey Joy Kwan

Audrey Joy Kwan

Are you Ready to discover the secret sauce that separates your service from the pack?  

We’re digging into the art of crafting a repeatable structure for your service delivery that makes it possible to transfer your knowledge to others 

We’re in Part 4 of the series on finding and developing IP in your service business; while structuring your service delivery isn’t the sexiest topic, it’s a game-changer and a cornerstone of your intellectual property? 

Whether you want to enhance your competitive edge, create processes that liberate you from the nitty-gritty or craft a magnetic marketing presence, this series shows you the power of IP to make it happen. 

And it’s not just about the mechanics of intellectual property; it’s about the magic that happens when you align your unique value proposition with a structured approach. It’s about making your mark and creating a legacy that stands the test of time.

Ready to make your mark. Let’s go. 

Audrey Joy Kwan

Welcome to the Small But Mighty Agency Podcast. If you’re a marketer or consultant, or a creative on a journey of growth from solopreneur to agency owner, follow along because I pull back the curtains on the realities of growing and running a scalable, service-based business and building lean team. I’m your host, Audrey Joy Kwan, I know what it takes to build an agency, whether it’s from solo to three, five or twenty. I’ve done it, including supporting an agency owner to sell and exit. I’ve coached and consulted over 120 marketers, creatives, and consultants. And I’ve been behind the scenes of seven figure businesses. I also have a master’s degree in communications specializing in organizational development. All this to say, I know what it takes to grow lead and operate a multiple six, and seven figure small but mighty agency. And here on this podcast is where we’ll dive right in.

Audrey Joy Kwan

Hello friends, welcome back to the Small but Mighty Agency Podcast.

We’re in a series on how to find and develop your money-making IP for marketers, consultants and creative agency owners.

In this five-part series, we’re deep diving into how to find and develop your money-making intellectual property and carve out a game-changing unique positioning for marketing when you get clear on your IP (in other words Intellectual Property).

Part one is where we help you set the stage, say “Yes” to money-making IP in your service business, and understand why now is the ideal time. You want a competitive advantage; you want processes that get you out of client delivery; you want to stand out in marketing. You want to listen to this series.

in parts two to three and now four, I’m taking you on the journey to thinking about and finding the assets in your business that will help you grow with less stress. 

We identified foundations that make developing intellectual property easier in Part 2

We uncovered “hard-to-see” intellectual property already in your business in Part 3,

And now we’re in Part 4, where I want to share the revenue generating opportunities available to well-structured delivery systems and a resource for what that looks like. To be clear— A well-structured delivery system is one where you can transfer your knowledge to others. 

Then we bring it all together in Part 5 on How to Leverage Intellectual Property for Your Competitive Advantage and Marketing that Stands Out.

Intellectual Property is a marketing asset. We’ll explore how service providers can monetize their IP assets and use it to carve out a game-changing unique positioning to attract more clients.

I give a sneak peek at the end of this episode, so stay till the end. 

A little while ago, I came across a quote (that said), “Intellectual property is the currency of the knowledge economy,” which inspired this series. That one little sentence has so much packed into it. I want to dissect it for you. 

To understand how this sentence impacts you, you have to know what is the knowledge economy. You are part of the knowledge economy. If you have a service-based business, you are part of the knowledge economy.

The knowledge economy is the things you know or learn, your experiences, and how you sequence them in your business to help others get results. 

And second, what is currency? That’s an easy one. Currency is money, but it’s also how people pay you and the value you provide. 

When you get clear on what the knowledge economy is and what value is exchanged, you get a clearer picture of the impact of intellectual property. 

So why is intellectual property required in the knowledge economy?

If we remove all the jargon and get down to the basics. IP is the knowledge in your service-based business that creates results for clients. Your knowledge is your IP, and your IP is currency. Taking your knowledge to produce repeatable results requires structure. 

IP is only an asset if it’s pulled together strategically and structured into a system so others can follow. When you transfer knowledge in a structured approach, you can hire for skill and easily share the knowledge. 

Although not a sexy topic, the structure is sexy when you know how it’s required to get you out of the messy middle of your business and transition out of day-to-day activities to leading growth.

 IP is based on special knowledge in your niche and the knowledge that compounds over time.  While someone may have skills, they do not have the unique knowledge that you’ve generated over time. You want to hire for skills and be able to transfer that knowledge so your team can deliver results. 

Sharing knowledge means you can step away from the business, and the company will still run without you. 

You’re stuck if the knowledge only stays with you. 

if you don’t have structure around your concepts, knowledge and insights that make it transferable and actionable. You stay stuck. 

Another way to think of structure is by codifying or sequencing your concepts, knowledge and insights. Doing these things protects your IP. 

For example, you might think that some things you do are similar to other businesses but *how you sequence, and structure things are unique. That’s why sequencing and structure make it your intellectual property. How you sequence and structure create differentiation. 

The effort you put into your IP is about transferring your knowledge to your team and much more. 

All of this strategic work can be leveraged into new opportunities: You can license your IP to others, enter into partnerships, or even sell the system when it’s well-structured. 

You can generate new revenue and grow your business in new ways. 

Such as: 

Using IP to grow an agency where others support you in client delivery  

Turning IP into a program and licensing it to other businesses

Turning IP into a certification program teaching others how to do what you do 

Turning IP into a course and sell it as a DIY product

If you ever want to trademark it: A solid structure gives you evidence and documentation to support intellectual property rights.

So, what are the key things to know when you structure a delivery system with Intellectual property in mind?

I have a link in the show notes that leads directly to the example of a delivery system blueprint. These are the six key points it covers: 

• Every service offering in your business has a delivery system 
• If you have more than one service offering, you have multiple delivery systems to figure out. 
• A delivery system has playbooks. 
• Playbooks are core milestones that have to exist for the service to deliver a result. 
• Each playbook has a set of processes. 
• Resources, guides and tools accompany every process. 

The blueprint in the show notes will have all the points I just covered, plus a visual to help you see it better. 

Before we wrap up, I want to bring up something that gets people stuck when structuring their delivery system for a high-value intellectual property asset. 

Sure, you can get stuck codifying intellectual property, and we covered that in Part 3. The link to that will be in the show notes. 

BUT stuck can also look like… you already have some processes, and you’re trying to figure out if those processes are intellectual property. 

And it’s not intellectual property if it’s ‘Hodge-podgy’ — that’s my way of saying you might have random processes here and there. 

It might look like ad-hoc processes sprinkled into your business. 

For example, you have a few processes for admin, a few processes for marketing, and random processes for client delivery that don’t make it a system, and it’s not IP because, remember, IP is a system that creates a result. 

In a quick summary, structuring your IP isn’t just about the organization; it’s about creating a system that helps your team deliver consistent results; it protects your IP, sets you up for differentiation and gives you assets to leverage into other opportunities. 

But to start structuring your IP, we first had to identify two foundations that make IP powerful and profitable (that was in Part 2) and then uncover IP already hidden in your business in Part 3. So, what comes next? We leverage Intellectual Property for Competitive Advantage and Marketing that helps you stand out. 

Intellectual property in a knowledge business is knowing where to look; when you’re so close to the work, you miss the small but mighty things in your business that have intellectual property power!  

I speak from experience working closely with over 120 business owners. We excel at teasing knowledge and expertise out of your brain and translating that expertise for your team so that the value you bring to clients in this lifetime does not live or die with you — your team inherits it.

And we turn it into your game-changing unique positioning.

How? I help you see the things you can’t see. For example, working with Melissa, we identified the IP which made her service-based business highly effective at helping course creators increase their conversions, 

but we didn’t stop there; we dug deeper to identify the gap in her niche where that IP was most needed. So, we structured her highly effective audience-message fit service into a system that is now her IP. 

Then we identified a gap in the market where this service is needed and not talked about enough, and we got to work on building out a marketing system for her business that generated 240 leads without paid ads. 

That’s the power of finding IP, developing your IP and then leveraging it for powerful marketing that makes you stand out in the marketplace. 

We excel at that. Taking your strategic systems and processes and helping you see what is unique and potentially buried in your business and turning it into your game-changing unique positioning. 

If you want to learn more, you know where to find me. Check out the link in the show notes. 

And don’t miss the next episode; I’ll see you there! 

Audrey Joy Kwan

Hey, there. Thanks for hanging out with me at the Small But Mighty Agency Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app and share it with a friend and I’ll see you in the next one.