Monetizing Your Business Brain

Business Brain, the Show for entrepreneurs, episode 437 for Wednesday, April 5, 2023. Greetings, folks, and welcome to welcome back to Business Brain, the show where we take our business brains, and I mean collectively, our not just mine and Shannon's, but yours too. And we apply them to all kinds of things in our lives to help make ourselves a little more efficient. Sponsors for this episode include Thinkific plus this awesome training platform. You can get a month free@thinkific.com businessbrain and also factormeals.com brain50 where you're going to use code brain50 to get 50% off your first box of these ready to eat meals. Never frozen, always fresh. We'll talk more about both of those in a minute here. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, midweek, I'm Dave Hamilton and out in.

Sunny California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm doing all right. Hey, I got a thing.

Okay.

As you might imagine. So as happens, you have, I was going to say you have a little bit of success and this happens, but it really just happens if you make it known that, that you are running your own business.

Okay.

And not failing. Right. Although we always fail. Like I like there is failure left and right. That happens. But, you know, mixed in with that is some success. So running your own business, people come to you. People come to me. I'm sure people come to you. People come to all of us and they say, hey, I have an idea. I have a thing I'm doing. I, I would love to get your opinion. I would love to get your advice. Sometimes they, they say a version of, I would love for you to sprinkle your magic fairy dust on my idea, you know, thing, whatever it is, and make it a success. And that's great, that's flattering. It's awesome. And I highly recommend that you find a way to say yes to this, folks.

However, it's one of the reasons why I, I, I wanted to start this show was to share that, that knowledge.

Right.

But it sounds like there's a little more to what you're talking about.

There is, because what often happens is, is that some version of that fairy dust comment. Now, nobody has ever asked me to spread fairy dust on their business, but what they do ask is, I don't know how to make this successful. You have made other things successful. How are you going to help me make my idea successful? And the answer, of course, is, in general, there is no such thing as fairy dust. At least I don't know about it. It's generally hard work and, you know, just grinding it out and finding the, you know, figuring out what the. The actual business is, and then just go and put the blinders on and do it every day for a couple of years and then let's talk. Right. And if I said yes to every opportunity where that happened, I'd have to work somewhere between 80 and 100 hours a day.

Yeah.

And I don't have 80 to 100 hours a day, Shannon. I don't really even want to work that much in a given week, although there are some weeks when I do. And so I want to get your take. Do you get people that say this to you? And then I also want to talk about how to take those conversations and guide them down a path that is both going to be productive for the person who's asking and for me. So mutually productive.

Okay.

But also not going to make me find myself in the position where I'm just running somebody else's business for.

Well. And is this something that you would want to monetize at a certain point?

Oh, well, yes. I. I mean, if somebody asked me to be involved in their business, I. I have an expectation. I mean, look, yes. If I want to make this clear to listeners on the show. If you write in and you have an idea and you want our opinion on it, we are going to give you, you know, we're going to reply to that email and not charge you a thing like, there's. There's no world where that's the case. However, if that conversation proceeds and there's now seven emails and it sounds like we're about to go into business together, I want some part of the take. If I'm part of this, I want something to.

That's the tough part is how you.

How do you change the dynamic at that point. How do you morph the conversation? Right. I mean, is that.

Yeah, yeah, mentoring is great offering, you know, tips and ideas. We do it here every week, and we obviously, we enjoy talking about business. And one of the reasons we shifted the name over to Business Brain is because we felt like we apply that to various aspects of our life. And I think the question is, if you want to, how you then make that leap to, okay, I'm going to be a paid consultant, analyst, some sort of thing for you to help your business.

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Of course, of course.

For a little while.

But yes, for a little while. But at some point, I think if you're going to have to lay something out, put something together, package of little information that you can provide to somebody like, oh, this is great, I'm glad to help. After a certain point, I do. This is part of my business that I would be glad to help you. Here's how it works.

Oh, so like, like Dave Hamilton, the advisor business. Yeah, Dave. Because I have my. Dave the nerd consulting business where I help people with their computers. But that's not just consulting with their computers. That's actually doing the work. A lot of the times. This is Dave, the advisor business.

Oh, yeah, I like that. But, but I think you have to have that conversation and maybe even in the beginning, it's just a casual hell, I'd love to help you talk. You just kind of going. And then if it goes beyond that or they ask you, oh, do you, you know, I'd love to talk to you on a regular basis. I'd love. Can you come by my office? Can we do a zoom call then? I think if you had some kind of packet that you could give them or like, oh, yeah, I do this jump on my website, you know, shannonjean.com advising or whatever. And here's how this works. And here's the thing, because I think what I struggle with on it is how the compensation works. How much time do you give them? I've not done consulting, but I've had these questions. I have done it but not charged for it. Like we're talking about.

Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I mean, if you're a business consultant advisor and you'd love to share your Story with us feedbackusinessbrain show. So you can educate Dave and I on how to take that step and. Or, you know, Dave's question. What's the best way to do it? Because your time is the most important thing. You have to be very protective of that.

And the only way I've done it, and it's really. It's going to sound strange because I've had phenomenal success, a few phenomenal successes with this path and then several mediocre failures and a couple of terrible failures with this path is by saying, okay, you know, if I'm going to be involved as an advisor, you know, whatever that role is.

Yes.

And define that role, by golly, is that's very important. Yeah. Is that I get a piece of the business, you know, I get cut in with equity.

Or you give them that. Yeah. You've done that each time. Did you ever bring up okay. Or I want this. This type of compensation.

No. Or only ever done it with equity.

Equity.

And. Yeah. And equity. Like I said, there have been some phenomenal successes that I have had by going down the equity path, but there are also tons of scenarios where I've basically made nothing. And a couple of. One in particular that ended in a fiery lawsuit and cost me a ton of time and money. And it was a fricking disaster just because I was brought in to apply my expertise, which, by the way, I did.

Yeah.

So, you know, like. And I was right. Which is why they weren't happy with me in the end because I told them some things about themselves that they didn't want to hear, and then they sued me.

And it's part of your job as an advisor, though, literally.

My. What they brought me in for.

Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway. But I rant one of them.

Yeah.

Like.

But you want to be able to. If, if this packet or info. This, you know, it's almost like a working agreement. But you're saying this is what I can do for you. Here's how the compensation works. And, you know, I may be telling you things you don't want to hear, and that's very important that they would understand that you would think anyone would under.

I, I think my. And I'm processing this. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm coming around on this, but I think this was a unique situation. It was someone that was not ready to hear. They just wanted somebody to tell them, you're so special and smart and all of this. And obviously there were parts of it that they weren't great at. Like all of us. So, yeah, they didn't want to hear that. But anyway, I move on.

Yes, but I do like this that I still struggle with how you have this conversation. Because if you say it up front, if somebody asks for your advice. Okay, there's two ways I see this going. Someone just asks for your advice, you start helping them. This kind of thing, that's one scenario. And at some point you would need to interject, hey, I'm happy to help you, but beyond a certain point, I do this for a living. Or this part of my.

Maybe, maybe the. I mean, that part I'm used to. I don't know why I've never applied it here. Maybe it's because in some ways I still feel like I'm kind of a, you know, faking it. Like I'm a fraud at being a business owner. I know that from the outside world I'm not. But in my own brain it's like, well, I just make it up every time. So why would you want my advice? Right? But when, when a friend asked me for help with their computer, right. Which is something where I have already decided I am able to provide value. Right?

Yes.

And been paid by the hour for this job. When a friend asked me for help, or one of you emailed and asked for help, either directly or through our MacGeek Gap thing, I'm happy to do it.

Right.

I love it, of course. But at a certain point we go back and forth, we're now at email number seven on the same issue and it's like, hey, we probably want to get on the phone and here's how I charge for that.

And then you never hear from them again.

No, no, no. Most of the time I do. Most of the time they're like, okay, yeah, I want to pay you for this. Like, that's right.

No, but okay, so that's scenario, that's the key.

But why, why have I never thought to apply that to these scenarios? Like, hey, I'm an expert at this too, or I have some expertise. Even right now I have trouble saying I'm an expert at that, but I have some expertise. I have some experience.

Obvious. Yeah. Experience is what you're talking earlier about, you know, the day to day grind and everything. What, what you're, what people are coming to you for is they're trying to save time and, and learn from your mistakes.

They want a shortcut.

You've done. They want.

And that's fine. I've made a ton of mistakes, by the way.

Right, of course. But that's Scenario one. The other scenario is you get a phone call from somebody that says, okay, hey, I've listened to your podcast, I've read your book, I look at your website. We need some help. We're starting a new company over here and I have a good person that's going to run it, but they need somebody to give them feedback on this and that and the other thing. So that's from the get go.

Yeah.

You need to figure out, you know, okay, how much I, you know, how much time it's.

And how do I price that? Because I know how to price my consulting thing.

It's 100 right from the beginning. Oh, great. If you hourly or you could say, look, I want, you know, my attorney charges 300 bucks an hour. I think I'm smarter than him. So, you know, why can't I charge that Or a monthly retainer that includes up to a certain amount of time perhaps.

I love it.

If, if you're going to give, you know, five hours a week or whatever it is and you're going to say, okay, I want X, you know, thousands of dollars per month or the equity angle. Although I think it's much difficult, it's a longer play as an advisor to get compensated out of the equity. It could be far more valuable. But you just, you're putting that, the.

Short term, the risk in.

Yes, but you're going to. Depending upon. I'm thinking on the shark tank guys, it's like, well, yeah, I'll take the equity but I want a, what do they call it when you pay per. You pay them out. I can't think, I'm blanking on the term. But they're going to pay you a piece of every item they sell.

Oh, so the equity is coming in it immediately. Like get it out.

And yeah, interesting. And yeah, you know, so it's an interesting thing. We don't have the answers. We haven't done it in a formal manner. Definitely love, you know, our listeners to share how they've done it or even if you want to come on the show and talk about how you've run your business consulting business feedback at BusinessBrain show.

That's right. Feedbackusinessbrain show. And if your email is feeding featured in an episode, you are entered to win a MacBook Air this year. Make sure to check out our sponsors@factormeals.com brain50 and thinkific.com businessbrain today. Thanks for listening. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next time.