“Income, Profit, Equity.” June 2008
Why would someone pay me for my information?
As I speak with people about the value of their ideas and experience, I’ve found most people think of intellectual property in a legal sense or don’t really know what it means. I’m often amazed at how many people don’t think they actually have intellectual property. If you’ve been reading Income, Profit and Equity for a while, you know intellectual property is defined by American Heritage Dictionary as “a product of the intellect that has commercial value.” What is a product of the intellect? In my opinion it’s any idea, skill, system, process or other knowledge that is of value to any other person or business.
One question that often comes up is, “If I search online, I can find almost any information I want. Why would someone pay me for my information?” Good question.
While you can find virtually anything online, there are a few challenges. First of all, the value of your time. Time is our most valuable commodity. What is your time worth? Do you have hours to search, validate, assemble and find the precise information you need?
You’d be amazed at how much time you can waste searching down rabbit trails and still not get what you need. Given the option, if I have the choice of paying someone who’s done the work for me and presented what I need in an easy to use format, if the price is right, I’ll buy it.
Secondly, people often think IP is just content, but it can also be a skill set; i.e. how you do something. We focus on three primary categories of IP. The first is content and the second and third categories are skill based areas.
1. Content - Here are a few examples: specific information about how to do improve your sales, research about an industry or topic, or location of best romantic hotels, etc. While these are simple examples, the possibilities are limitless…
2. Marketing & Sales – Content is only valuable if someone will pay for it. No kidding. Here’s what I mean. Your primary intellectual property may actually be connecting buyers of content with sellers of content. In other words, if you love to connect people (natural networkers) your highest and best use may be to focus on creating income, profit and equity by facilitating sales of products and services by end users. Marketing & sales can be very valuable IP.
3. Delivery of content – We’ve found that while some folks are great at creating content and others are excellent at marketing and sales, there is a very important third area of valuable IP. That is actually delivering the content that has been purchased by the end user. This may be counter-intuitive because if you are a good content creator, you might also be good at selling and delivering your own stuff. However, imagine having a marketing and sales network representing your products and a qualified team delivering, fulfilling, training, coaching, consulting on your materials. It doesn’t matter if you have online or offline content, you could get a lot more done if you didn’t have to do all this yourself.
Certainly there are companies who do all three areas well. However, in today’s world staying flexible and maintaining low overhead requires new thinking. Technology is simply a way to get things done faster or more efficiently. In today’s economy, technology allows us to create new business models that enhance our capabilities and fuel our ability to focus on our strengths, passions and most valuable intellectual property.
Think about which of these three areas is your most potent intellectual property.
Cheers,
Steve
Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com