How to Correctly Price Your Course or Training for Licensing

They aren't really buying your training. They're buying results. And here is a secret for you. The bigger and the more elaborate the program, the less likely an organization is to license it from you. So it's just a trend we're seeing right now. It's another reason why I want to make sure you're subscribing to this, because this wasn't the trend 2 and 3 years ago. 2 and 3 years ago, companies were licensing huge programs and different levels. Now, how we're actually licensing into companies is changing. They want high value, short time. So B2B— B2C pricing logic does not align with licensing pricing. So I want you to just completely remove from your mind— it's kind of like this beginning thought process that people come to me when they are talking to me about licensing. They'll say, oh, well, I sell it for, you know, $900 to individuals, so do I just multiply $900 by the number of users? No, that is not how we price licensing, you guys. That is one of the biggest mistakes with licensing. However, If you are going to approach a company to license your program, or your curriculum, or your training, and it's so underpriced, you're actually going to lose that deal, because the organization is going to think that you aren't valuable, and that you aren't very good. So underpricing is just as much of a risk as overpricing. So that's what we're talking about here today, is how to correctly price your program, your workshop, your IP, your information, to license it into organizations. Step number 2 is really identifying identifying what companies actually buy. So companies, as an extension of what we just talked about, they aren't really buying your training. They're buying results. And here is a secret for you. So the first thing to know is that most experts price licensing wrong. And the problem starts with, you know, the story you're telling yourself in your head. Where do most business problems actually happen? It's usually up here. So, because if you have been selling your services or consulting for so long and doing such a good job out of it, you know what an individual will pay for it. And so, what we need to do is we need to actually change your mindset to realize that you are no longer selling to the same person, the same buyer, the same audience. Mm-hmm. So, what is the financial end result that that organization is going to be able to appreciate After they've brought in your training, not necessarily what they have learned. So understanding the value of what you deliver now as it's quantified to the company is separate from the value of what you deliver as quantified to the end user. And obviously, the more valuable to that organization, the more you're going to charge for that end result. OK, about 3 years ago, I had a new client come to me. She was referred by somebody else because she had been teaching corporate workshops. And she had been consulting in corporations, both to C-suite and management level. And she had a thriving corporate consulting position. She's very well known in her space, and she had a very lucrative Consulting practice. But the organization wanted more of her. And so, she realized that she needed to know how to price her IP and her workshops and trainings and methods to be left behind in that company. And what do I mean when I say left behind? That's what we call licensing. This is licensing your training or content, your methodology, your workshop, whatever it is in your expertise, like Cheryl. We needed to know how to bring that into the company. She came to me because she wanted help pricing. And so this episode is all about how to correctly price your course or your workshop for licensing deals, which are usually on the backside after you teach workshops or you've been providing consulting. So this is for you if you are consulting larger corporations or even individual small businesses. This framework applies to you, and we license to large companies and smaller businesses as well. And so, one of the problems you're running into is that you don't know how to price what you currently do on an individual basis for an enterprise or a corporate-level pricing. Most people are actually undercharging, and undercharging is oftentimes not a terrible thing when you're entering a new market, right? There are arguments for pilot pricing. However, if you are going to approach a company to license your program or your curriculum or your training, and it's so underpriced, priced, you're actually going to lose that deal because the organization is going to think that you aren't valuable and that you aren't very good. So, underpricing is just as much of a risk as overpricing. So, that's what we're talking about here today is how to correctly price your program, your workshop, your IP, your information to license it into organizations. So, let's go. All right. Hi everybody. I'm April Beach. I've been coaching leaders to design, scale, and grow their business for over 30 years now. In the area of content licensing for the last 17. So I'm so glad that you are here. First of all, like and subscribe if you have not connected to our channel before. Thank you so much. I'd love to deliver you guys step-by-step valuable trainings that you can take to the bank. So please subscribe so you're not missing any of these videos. Also, for detailed pricing help, I have a brand new workshop that I teach every single month live so we can actually go through this together. It's called the Profitable Licensing Blueprint. Join my next Profitable Licensing Blueprint because it's extension of what we're talking about here today. I will go ahead and make sure that link is here below for you. We're going to dive in and in the blueprint, we're going to literally align your IP with not only the right industry, we're going to break it out to 7 different industries and to your reasonable number that you can sell your first licensing offer for. It's beyond what we can cover here in this video. So I want to make sure you know that that's available. Join me in my next Profitable Licensing Blueprint. I would love to work with you personally there. Okay. Let's talk about what we're going to unpack here in this particular training. So we're talking about how to correctly price your program, course, method, or framework for licensing. And the deal is, is this is almost always done incorrectly. It's one of the things that you're probably Google searching or AI searching the heck out of if you are trying to move into licensing. And there's some of the— I mean, explain to you some of the reasons why you can't necessarily get that from just a Google search or asking a friend. And we're going to solve some of those problems here for you today. So we're going to talk about how to price your course. We're going to talk about what the corporate market values when it comes to licensing and why their values are different than yours. And we're going to give you 3 different levers where you can change your pricing based on who you are licensing to. So let's go ahead and dive right in. So the first thing to know is that most experts price licensing wrong. And the problem starts with, you know, the story you're telling yourself in your head. Where do most business problems actually happen? It's usually up here. So, because if you have been selling your services or consulting for so long and doing such a good job out of it, you know what an individual will pay for it. And so, what we need to do is we need to actually change your mindset to realize that you are no longer selling to the same person. Let me just say that again. You are no longer selling to the same buyer, the same audience. So, one of the first things that I work on with our clients is actually changing your mindset, saying that you're no longer selling to the end user. You're probably very good at selling what you do and talking about the results that you do to the person that you're delivering the results to. But now, all of a sudden, there is a buyer in between that isn't necessarily going to be the recipient. of your actual teaching. And this buyer is the company that's licensing it from you. And what they care about is totally different than what you have probably been sharing in your marketing and your messaging forever. So step number 1 is really identifying that there is a missed opportunity happening in your mind that why somebody is buying from you is totally different than actually learning what you teach. So, I'm just going to let that sit with you for a minute. That is the biggest mistake that people make is thinking that you are selling to the same buyer or the same decision-maker. So, the very first thing I want you to do is I want you to sit down and I want you to pull out of your brain all of the different reasons why a company would value bringing your training in beyond a workshop, actually licensing your training or your systems or your process or your framework different than the person that purchased it individually before? Why is this valuable to an organization? And this is absolutely where people go wrong because they don't understand that the value is different because they really don't take a minute to realize that the audience and the buyer is different. So, step number 1 is to reprogram your thoughts, your messaging, your marketing Realign your pain points with the organization that is spending money to bring in your training, not the person who is actually buying it. So let me give you an organizational context of that. So when we're talking about an organization, you may have a particular training for an employee, but the organization is not that employee learning the skill you're teaching. So, why would the organization value that when you may teach a certain skill to an employee? So, those are the things I want you to be thinking about. That's step number 1. Step number 2 is really identifying what companies actually buy. So, companies, as an extension of what we just talked about, they aren't really buying your training. They're buying results. And here is a secret for you. The bigger and the more elaborate the program, the less likely an organization is to license it from you. So, it's just a trend we're seeing right now. It's another reason why I want to make sure you're subscribing to this, because this wasn't the trend 2 and 3 years ago. 2 and 3 years ago, companies were licensing huge programs and different levels. Now, how we're actually licensing into companies is changing. They want high value, short time. That does affect your pricing as well. And so, let's talk about that. Why do companies want to bring in your training? So, every dollar a company spends is justified, and it's justified in 2 different ways: either a positive increase or a positive decrease. So, let's break down what that could look like for you. If you have a program, say a sales training program, which, by the way, 78% of companies last year brought in sales training experts and licensed sales training programs and sales performance programs. So, there's a data point for those of you guys who are in sales, right? That's kind of like a slam dunk, no-brainer. Companies are always investing in that. That is what we call a positive increase investment. So, if you sell something that directly correlates to some sort of a positive increase, then you need to start quantifying what that means for your pricing. But you know what else? I want you to realize that there's also something that is also equally as valuable. And that's what I call a positive decrease. So, we don't always need to increase something in an organization or make something bigger or better. Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can do for an organization is decrease things like wasted money, decrease lack of focus of employees, decrease absenteeism, decrease wasted time in meetings, decrease the amount of times that they're having to rework things because they didn't have an amazing system that teaches them how to develop new programs or services or software. So, a positive increase is just as valuable as a positive decrease. So, some programs do both, and that's awesome. But I want you to start thinking, in step number 2, does my solution that I am putting into an organization, again, small or large organization, does it positively increase something or does it positively Decrease something. And again, if you want specific help about this, make sure you're joining me in the Profitable Licensing Blueprint, because we talk about the measurements of increase and decrease as it relates to your specific offer. So make sure that you're there. So let's think about this and let's break down some of the numbers. So if you have a $3,000 program, for example, that you sell to individuals, and now all of a sudden we are bringing that $3,000, um, program into a company. It is more valuable to that company that they will have multiple people learning your processes and trainings and implementing it than it is to the one individual. But are you increasing something or are you decreasing something? So, step number 2 is I want you to go through and I want you to even like jot down. I love doing these trainings like with you and for you here. I hope you use these videos where you're like pausing and saving and writing things down as I go because they're really, really valuable, right? I want you to— Write down what are some of the positive things that align with an organization's bottom line that may or may not directly relate to the training that you deliver. And then, what are the decreased positives that would align or be valuable for an organization? So, you can see the thread here. We're thinking differently. I need you to be thinking differently about your IP because, again, when we are no longer selling to like this end user, we're now selling to an organization who may or may not be the recipient of your training at all. Some organizations actually license your training to pass through to their clients, and your training becomes an asset. It becomes a commodity and something that they actually resell. So just as a side note, and I have other videos about this as well, your program can either be used internally for employee or team trainings, or Or it can be used externally as something that that organization adds to their forward-facing products or services and sells. Both of those are priced separately, but it's based on their return on investment. And then the third thing I want you to be aware of is these levers of licensing. There are actually 7 levers of licensing, and we can't go in depth in them here. We teach our clients this in our programs and our consulting, obviously. But I want to talk about 3 of them here that are important and are pretty common sense. When I say these, you're going to be like, oh yeah, April, okay, this totally makes So once you understand the positive increase or the positive decrease, you certainly understand now that you're no longer selling to the end user. The next thing I want you to be aware of is understanding which one of these levers align best with how you can price your program. So lever No. 1 is the value of that end result. What is actually the value that that end result is going to fundamentally deliver to an organization? It's the same content that you have delivered to individuals over the past, however you've delivered it, whether it's in a workshop or a course or one-on-one consulting, or maybe you're even delivering your frameworks in a membership portal if you've been in the online consulting space for a really long time. But we're taking that same method, framework, and process, and what is now the value of what you are delivering to an organization? And I want you to hone in on the financial value. So, what is the financial end result that that organization is going to be able to appreciate after they've brought in your training? Not necessarily what they have learned. So, understanding the value of what you deliver now as it's quantified to the company is separate from the value of what you deliver as quantified to the end user. Rule number 1, that is a lever. And obviously, the more valuable to that organization, the more you're going to charge for that end result. Yeah. Number 2 is, what is the duration of access? So, with all licensing deals, almost all licensing deals, I do have a few clients where I'll advise us to do, or I'll advise them to do an unlimited license where there's no end to the term of the license. But usually, we have a term in our licensing. There's quite a few reasons for that, which I can unpack for you in a different video here. And certainly, There are a lot of nuances about that. But when you're understanding how long they're going to have it, that is going to compound the effects. So the longer an organization has access to your training, has access to your results, then of course, that is going to increase the value. Just so you know, just another little secret here, I don't want you guys licensing for really less than a year. That's not a scalable model. So the license term is always different depending on your expertise and the type of industry that you're licensing to. But I don't want you in this like membership model thing. It's terrible. It doesn't scale. And I really advise against that when we're actually talking about licensing, unless it's something like medical or AI licensing. And the third lever I want you to be paying attention to is the size of the organization. So, how many people are actually going to have access to that? So, you have the value of what you deliver. You have how long they have access to it for. And then, we have how many people actually have access to it. So, those are 3 different levers of scale. Yeah. I want you to be considering. So, certainly, the larger the organization, the more the ROI and the value it's going to be for that company. If that organization is a small business, which I love small business licensing, it's my favorite thing to do, actually, even over corporate licensing, because small business licensing is like licensing quick sells and it's so valuable. So, if you are licensing to a smaller, you know, Main Street USA company and it's not a Fortune 100 organization, they're obviously gonna have less people that'll use it and their ROI is going to be less. And so, you're not gonna obviously charge the same thing that you're charging to an organization with 500 employees that are gonna have access to it. So, certainly, we have the value of what you deliver in your IP as it is seen in the eyes of that organization, not in the eyes of necessarily the end user and the buyer. Number 2, how long they have access to it. And number 3, how many people are going to be leveraging your training? How many people are actually going to be taking what you've done and applying it? And what does this application look like as far as either a positive increase or a positive decrease for that business? So, here are some things that I want to just go through and recap again for you. So, B2B, B2C pricing logic does not align with licensing pricing. So, I want you to just completely remove from your mind, you know, the, the, it's kind of like this beginning thought process that people come to me when they are talking to me about licensing. They'll say, oh, well, I sell it for, you know, $900 to individuals. So, do I just multiply $900 by the number of users? No. That is not how we price licensing, you guys. That is one of the biggest mistakes with licensing. You really do need to have the deep work and the research to understand the ROI to an organization, to correctly price it for an organization to actually buy it from you, and for you to be able to go to sleep at night and know that you priced it ethically and correctly for that licensee buyer. That's a big part of it as well. So, if we're turning around and, you know, saying, listen, the math for this is $125,000, you can go to sleep at night going, yeah, that was a really steal of a deal. That's great. And, you know, the pricing was right on. If you're going to sleep at night and saying, hey, listen, I licensed it to a smaller business for $15,000, you're still thinking the same thing. You're still knowing that you priced it correctly according to that business's return on investment. And so, those are some of the things even more in that Profitable Licensing Blueprint. Again, join us right now at the recording of this. It's free. It's such a popular event, it might not be free for long. Either way, it's going to be a very good use of your time accessing our tools. And then one of the things I want to share with you guys also is AI is a really important part of deep research. We use a lot of AI and we have a lot of AI systems when it comes to aligning licensing offers with the right buyers and then pricing them correctly. But I do wanna warn against, as much as I love AI, don't go and just say, I have a $900 training, what can I license it for? Because there are so many other things that you wanna bring together into context. I will give you all of the AI prompts to figure this out in the Profitable Licensing Blueprint. That's part of what we do together in this workshop. And so the numbers you're getting are actually correct directional numbers. Based on your business. Listen, if you're thinking about going into licensing, you're, I mean, you're a business owner. You're really smart. The way I think about things when I'm considering my time and investment is how much money can this make me? Is this actually a viable way for me to move forward in the business? So, you know, these aren't secret numbers on what a company will pay you. I want you to know these numbers and I want you to know this pricing and this directional pricing. within the context of what you do. That's also why I don't do it here in our on-demand videos, because there's so many nuances for your IP, the type of licensing model you want to release, the type of— we have 7 different industries so we can align your licensing product with and your IP with. I just want you to have the right numbers. So please know that, that just going to AI without understanding the formula to plug in there, is usually a way to price things incorrectly if you're going to market. So let's go ahead and wrap it up. First of all, thank you so much for being here with me and subscribing to this. I always try to bring you teachings and trainings to elevate your business. My area of expertise is helping leaders design the next level of their business that scales, and licensing is one of those offers. We do a lot of business design, but licensing certainly is a, uh, is a hot model because it scales so well and it certainly expands the reach of your work. So today we talked about how to correctly price your course or your training for licensing. I hope this led you in the right direction, and I hope you're feeling more confident than you were. Please like and subscribe here. I would love to continue connecting with you. And of course, I would love to see you in our Profitable Licensing Blueprint Workshop so I can work with you personally and give you our AI research tools and give you a clear directional pricing. So that you know whether or not licensing is a good offer for you to add to your business moving forward. All right. See you guys next time.