White-Labeling & 6 Other Hidden Revenue Streams for New Consultants

Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. So what's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Revenue beyond billing, revenue beyond client work and project— projects and hours. See, when I started consulting many years ago, I thought the only way to grow was to sell more hours, to sell more projects, to do more client work, which makes sense. But also that, that translated into more calls, more networking events, more contracts, more time. And the issue there is that there are only so many hours in a day. And if you're new, those hours aren't even fully booked yet. So when I was networking with peers and speaking with other consultants, especially those who were ahead of me and they were successful, I realized that many of them weren't, weren't just selling time, they were creating multiple revenue streams. And a revenue stream is is, is a way you're selling a service, but you're also making money. That would be one, one revenue stream. But then you have other ways, other mechanisms to generate revenue for your business. And when I realized that these successful entrepreneurs and consultants were making revenue from different, from different streams, it changed. That shift changed everything. And I started to build a nice recurring a number of recurring revenue streams that were running in parallel to the core business of selling hours and projects at the time we were doing digital marketing. And this applies to all consultancies. And what I want to cover today is the 3— the 7 ways that you can generate revenue beyond just billing for hours and getting client projects. And when you think about your business that way, that you're making money from selling hours and projects, that's important, that's core to the business. But you can add to your profitability, you can add to your revenue, then your profitability, and you have that. I think that's really key. What's important is that you'll have a recurring stream of revenue that will help you pay the bills when project work is not around. So establishing these mechanisms of generating revenue, not only it's helpful in the sense that you increase your revenue and your profitability, but also when you have recurring revenue part of your business model, it gives you a lot of stability in terms of knowing what's coming every month, paying rent, those expenses are fixed in terms of if you've hired people or you rely on contractors, you know that this consistent month-to-month, this recurring revenue, it's going to help you cover some of those expenses. So, so with each of these streams that I cover, some of them will, will be of a recurring type, some, some of them will not be. But my goal is to bring these ideas out to you so you can choose from them whatever works for your business, and then I will— I'll cover— I'll define each of these streams. I'll give you examples that you can apply to your business. I'll give you examples from what worked for me throughout these 7 businesses that we've built. And then I'll— for each, I'll share pros, cons, and gotchas. So, and don't worry if you're just listening to this via podcast or you're not taking notes. I will have in the link— actually, after we're done with this episode, I'll leave a link so So you can download— I have a full slide deck with 7 slides. Each slide has the revenue stream and then the definition, the examples, and the pros and cons. So if you don't have time or can't take notes, don't worry about it. I'll have that file for you. Before we dive in, a couple of other administrative items. One is that whether you're watching now live or listening or tuning in later, I'd love to hear from you. Email me, leave a comment, direct message me, whatever works for you. Let me know about the questions you have. Let me know about the challenges you're going— you're facing in terms of growing your business, maybe starting the business. Maybe you have this idea in the back of your mind and you really, really want to start a business, but you haven't started for a number of reasons. Maybe you're not sure how to package your offer, you're not sure how to do market research, you're not sure how to how to niche, or how far to niche, or not to niche. Or maybe, maybe you're having some success. Maybe you're having some— you're making— you're having some wins, small and big. I'd love to hear from you. And what I typically do is any questions, any challenges that I get from, from the community, I address those on these— in these episodes. I have these every other week on Thursdays at 1 PM Pacific. 4 PM Eastern. I cover a topic and then answer the questions that we get from the community. And if it's something that you don't want to make public for whatever reason, uh, just, just email me. Email me at feras@startupwithferas.com, and then I will reply back to you. I keep it all confidential, and I look at every email that I get from the community. All right, so Uh, let's, let's dive in. And again, if you have a question, if, or if you have come across a scenario or maybe a revenue stream that I won't be covering today, um, but it works for you, I'd love to hear from you as well. Cool. So the 7 revenue streams, the first one, and let me just make sure here we have the slides working with us. There you go. Yeah, white labeling. So what is white labeling? This is basically you're selling a solution or maybe some deliverables under your own brand, your own name, your own logo, but the actual solution or these deliverables are fulfilled by someone else. So the producing company, whatever, whatever the product or the deliverable is, the producing company allows you as a, as a reseller to put your own company brand on the product or on the technology or on the deliverable. So, um, that's, that's what white labeling is. Now in terms of examples, let's say you provide analytics dashboard, you provide reports to your client about whatever it is. Could be marketing, could be HR analytics, could be sales analytics, whatever the case might be. But then the underlying tech or the reporting is not something that you have created. It's something that is built by another company, by a third party, but they allow you to put your logo. So when these reports go out, when these dashboards are sent to customers, they don't see this XYZ company that produced the dashboard. They see your logo. So that is an example of, uh, white labeling. And I remember when we were selling early on, early on, 2003, 2004, 2005, we were selling web design services. We built design websites for small businesses. That was pretty cutting edge at the time. We also sold website hosting services. You know, if you have a website, you got to have a hosting plan. And instead of asking the clients to go and find their own hosting provider. And it was, it was, was not as easy as it is today, not as accessible. And people didn't know what, what a maybe a reputable hosting provider is. Some people were hosting in-house on their own servers. So we found a reputable hosting provider, and that provider had allowed white labeling. So we, when people log into their hosting environments, they would see our, our name, Enoor, at the time, and they would pay us. And, and, and it, it worked really well for us because it was a very reput— reputable, a pretty solid established vendor in the hosting services space. And we would actually— you, you were using them and putting our logo and our, our branding on it. Now we were paying them, I think, $10, $12 a month for, for a basic website to host. and we were charging the clients $50, $60, you know, a month for hosting. So, so that it worked out really well for us. And if you think about it, if you have 20 clients and you're making $50 per client on hosting, 20 times $50, that's $1,000 a month of more or less easy money because you're not working, you're not putting hours. You know, if it was, if it was a let's say $100 an hour, that's what we were billing at the time. You'd need— I would have, I would have needed to put in 10 hours a month to make that $1,000. But now it's happening every month. I pay the hosting providers and then I get, I get the rest. You know, that difference is something we pocket, right? So that is what white labeling is. You can find it in different industries, in HR consulting, IT consulting, you'll see companies, providers of technology, of tools that they allow this white labeling to take place. Now, pros and cons and gotchas. Pros, you can— you don't have to invent. Like in our case, we didn't have to go and figure out how to have servers and host websites. We just rely on— we relied on that third party. So you can scale without having to reinvent and build things. You can also go faster to market because again, the provider is there for you to use and leverage their services. And then you are maintaining your brand, you're building your brand equity, you are— client is seeing you as a provider of not just the services, but also as hosting, and it helps you get more bang for the buck because your brand is there and the client knows it's you. Now in terms of the cons and the gotchas, quality control. So basically if your partner fails, let's say that hosting provider, if the partner fails, your reputation takes a hit. So in this hosting, website hosting example, if the provider wasn't reputable and didn't have a solid infrastructure and their websites are going down every other day, that's going to reflect bad on you, not to mention all the customer support and you have to maybe give clients credit and whatnot for the downtime. So choose your partners carefully. Make sure in your industry they're established. Make sure they have this white labeling model as an established model, they support it. Make sure they have the guarantee. There's like in hosting, there's something called uptime. So they have some guarantees. So look, Look for partners who are reputable, who are established, who have a developed white labeling program that you can, you can tap into. So that is, that is the first revenue stream, and that is white labeling. Now the second one, again, for those of you who are just joining or just tuning in, we're talking about 7 revenue streams, uh, to help you grow the business faster and give you some stability to establish and grow a, a sustainable business without just relying on billing our billable hours and, and projects and client work. Client work and billable hours are important, that's the core of the business, but if we can add 20-30% of revenue from other sources and other mechanisms, that will give you a whole lot of stability, you know, from, from a cash flow perspective from a revenue perspective, just from a business perspective overall. All right, so the second one is here. Yeah, is selling, or in, in some cases reselling products. So basically you are offering products that complement your consulting. Example, it could be books, it could be templates, it could be ebooks that you produce, maybe some niche industry reports, or potentially some spreadsheets that you have constructed that are together, and they're maybe advanced premium spreadsheets used to, um, tie to your expertise. So give me one second here. Yeah, good. Want to make sure we got the slides working for us. Yeah, cool. Uh, Excuse me. And I remember in, um, in 20— uh, 2016. Yeah, in 2016 we published a book. It was called The Google Analytics Breakthrough, and we were a Google partner at the time, pretty established in that niche. And that book, we published it with Wiley. We sold 15,000 units over the next couple years. It made us some money. Not a whole lot of money, but it made us some money, but also the exposure that we received becoming authors, becoming— the book became the reference, actually the guide for Google Analytics implementations at the time. It was, um, it helped us tremendously from a positioning perspective. So, so yes, we made a little bit of money, um, but, but that exposure, that the sort of the non-tangible benefit of having a book, a— it was like a 600-page book, pretty, pretty solid in color, nicely produced. Thank you, Wiley, at the time. So it made us some money, but also it helped us from a positioning perspective when we were bidding on these large contracts or when— and also when we were meeting leads in person. We used to go after the Fortune 500 by that time. We'd always take a book with us. And, you know, we wrote the book on Google Analytics. You know, we, we wrote the book on Google Analytics. We wrote the book on, on the services that we were offering. So, so that helped us a lot. Um, maybe we should have a whole entire episode on, on writing and thought leadership and books. But for now, reselling products, selling your own products, or reselling related products that are related to what you offer to your area of expertise, that, that helps in terms of establishing, in terms of establishing your authority and also in terms of generating some revenue. So now the pros of this is that I'll figure out these slides in one second here. Um, passive income. I'm not a big fan of the word passive income in general. If you follow this channel, you listen to what, what I share and what I write, there's no such a thing as as passive income. Of course, if you have to have— if you've made a lot of money and you put this money in a, in an investment account, or you buy real estate, or those— of course that's, that's passive, um, but you have to put a lot of time, you know, to earn that money. But in a way, if you have these tools, or even digital products, maybe a course or a tutorial or what have you, if you do invest some time in producing these assets and then you sell them— let's say you sell them I don't know, $59, $99. And they're easy, easy to sell, easy to upsell. Um, there's not a, there's not a huge barrier for people to come in and, and get to know you and get to know what you, what you, what you produce. Um, that's— and I think it always adds to the credibility that people know that this person is an author, he produced such and such. So, so keep that in mind. If it takes some time to produce some of these assets, there's some upfront work and also there's some maintenance to keep the content and these assets updated, but it does support, uh, works really well. Now in terms of the cons or the gotchas, a lot of times these, these assets, they're low margin, they have low margins, and then, and then unless you really go and start to sell in the hundreds or maybe in the thousands of these, it'd be hard to make a whole lot of money. But you know, when you're starting out I mean, every little thing helps. When we were starting out, we had no customers, and later as we implemented a few projects, we were able to start to have templates, actually design templates. And we were thinking actually of starting a business line to sell this. You know, we had an in-house designer at the time, so we're thinking to package and sell design templates. Again, all this was cutting edge This is way before AI. This is way before GoDaddy. But this idea is still applicable, is that if you have something that you've developed or something that you can borrow from a, a, um, uh, you can buy from a third party and then you can resell, all of these are ideas for you to generate more revenue and to have this another, this other stream that, that adds to your top line and hopefully also to your bottom line. So that, that's the second. So we talked about white labeling, first revenue stream, then selling, reselling products. That's the second, second revenue stream. And then what's the third one? The third, the third revenue stream. Again, I'm challenged with moving slides around here, but that's okay. We'll figure it out. All right, the third one is reselling services. So we talked about reselling products, but reselling services— so, so you can bring, you can bring in an outside provider to deliver part of your client work, and then you manage this deliverable that a third person, a third party is doing. And then you mark it up. So for example, you can look at, let's say, a consulting— you maybe, let's say you're a consultant that focuses on strategy, marketing communication strategy, or maybe HR compliance audits or strategy, and then you've identified gaps in what the client has, then you can bring in someone who will implement, do the work So if identified the client is out, out of compliance, their handbook is outdated and missing many of the new regulations in, in your state. So that's, that's what you did as, as maybe an HR consultant. You went in and you did your audit and identify, identify the gaps. You can bring in someone else if you just focus on, on this sort of strategy type of work. You can bring someone else to do the implementation of, of what you've identified as a problem. So that person can come under your wing and they can go and do the work, and then you mark up their, their rates, whether hourly or project, and then you deliver the service— not just the strategy but also the implementation of those services. You deliver those to, to your clients. So that is this model. Now, in terms of Pros and cons. Well, before I get to the pros and cons, again, what, what worked for us when, when we were selling web design services, again, back, back in 2003, '04, '05, and '06, um, we were focusing on initially on, on small businesses and selling basic websites, just listing their products or services. But when it came— and we were doing all the stuff in-house— when we started to go after bigger clients and take on bigger projects. We had e-commerce clients, we had clients who want us to build portals. So that was way beyond our— we learned the hard way— way beyond our capabilities. So we worked with third-party vendors who specialize in e-commerce or complex portal and, and web development projects. So we focus on the design component And we brought in a third party to do some of the heavy lifting, some of the backend, some of the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting for, uh, for our clients. So, so that is, that is how we used it in, in our case. And again, you can apply this into many, many, many verticals and sectors. Now the pros here is that you expand what you offer. So a lot of clients don't want to go and work many with, with like 4 or 5 vendors. They want to work with a low— with a web design company and then get a web development company and then get maybe a third person to populate the content. If you can present yourself and if you can— if you have reliable partners that you can work with, you can be the one, one-stop shop for your client. Many clients like this. Now, some clients prefer to work with SMEs or with specialized consultants. So obviously you focus on your core area of specialization and support the client that way. But many clients, they just want to have one neck to choke, and you can be the consultant that's providing the variety of these services to your clients. So that's one of the— some of the pros is that you are expanding your offering and then you're making it easy for the client to go to to look at you, to perceive you, and to come to you for, for a one-stop shop to deliver and address many of their needs. In terms of the cons, the gotchas here of this model, of this revenue stream, is that potentially you could have thin margins if you're not managing these relationships well, these relationships well. So, so if you sell And then there's an issue of scope creep, which we talked about in previous episodes, where you sell them a square, you sell them a box this, this size, and they want a box this size. Or, um, you know, you, you, you tell them you'll, you'll do some content creation for them for their website, and you thought it's a 5-page website, it turns out to be it's a 15-page website. So, or they want to, they add, they've added more, more things for on your plate. Uh, we want you to write content for our newsletter as well. So scope creep, uh, can— will eat up your margin. And when it's only you, you're putting more time or effort to keep the client happy, especially if you're just starting out. You want to bend over backward to make— to make those clients happy. But if you are relying on a third party, a contractor, and let's say you and the contractor agree to 10 hours at $50 an hour, and then— and then The contractor ended up spending three times as much. Guess what? You are obligated to pay this this this contractor the hours that they spent on your project. They could care less on what happens between you and your client. So it's really important to avoid and to mitigate the situation here is that make sure the scope is well defined between you and the client, and you and the contractor, the third party that you bring in. The the entity or the person that you are reselling their services and make sure you agree with them on how you're pricing. If you're— my recommendation is that if you're pricing hourly with your client, then price hourly with the contractor. If you're doing project-based, make it project-based and define the requirements very well. And also agree on payment terms and on collection terms. So, so if the client is going to pay you in the 30th, Make sure in 30 days after a specific milestone, make sure you also have that lined up, you know, with the vendor. Maybe make it 35 days just so you have time to collect and pay your vendor. So, so be careful with definition, the, the requirement definition, the scope of work, when you get paid, when you have to pay the contractor, especially when cash flow is tight. These actually will, will become problematic if you don't manage them well. But it is a very good model. I've used it a lot in different ways where we identify some, some again reputable, strong partners and we resell their services. All right, the next one is affiliate partnerships. So what is affiliate partnerships. Think of companies that produce software tools or even services, and they don't have a huge sales force. They rely on consultants like you to promote and recommend their products or services or software or tools, and then you earn a commission. That's really what it is. So, so if you are, let's say, a consultant in— a CRM consultant, a sales consultant. So you can come in and you do some, some requirement definition, and you identify that HubSpot or Salesforce or any of these tools, they're a good— it's a good fit. Let's say HubSpot, it's a good fit for this client. So you go to the client and say, I recommend HubSpot. You give them a link, or depending what, what the affiliate program is, look, that looks like with HubSpot, and then they sign up with HubSpot, and then you get a commission. So it is— you're making money without doing a whole lot of work because HubSpot will be paying you a portion, whether that is 10%, higher, lower, that depends. But many, many of these vendors, uh, they, they have a very established, very thorough well, um, well-configured affiliate programs. So, so especially the larger ones. So, and they might have different tiers depending on how much revenue you bring them. They'll probably give you better cuts, better commissions. They give you more, more ways to market their product because you're, you're doing the marketing for them. So there is an incentive for a lot of these companies to give commission to consultants like you because they don't want to, you know, you're expanding, you're selling, you're recommending their product without them having to do any of the work, maybe just a bit of a partner support, right? So that is something definitely worth looking into. Some of these programs might require some certification, some evaluation of your capabilities. I think it's worth the investment. Again, not just because, I mean, you're making a buck, that's important, but also you'll be in a position to offer a solution to your clients and you'll also be listed on a lot of times on these partners, on these software vendors and tools. They list their own authorized vendors or authorized suppliers or resellers and you get a little bit of extra exposure. So keep that in mind. Now here, a pro tip here, you know, depending on where you are in terms of— let me make sure the slides are working— depending on what country you live in, you work in, and the state you're in, there might be some regulations around disclosing the affiliate partnerships. And the commission. So, so because you don't want the end consumer, the end customer to be misled, like in the US, for example, the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, requires clear and conspicuous disclosure. It means you can't have it in the fine print, so you have to disclose that you are getting a commission. Again, check with your local, maybe if you have a lawyer, or, you know, research it in your area, but it's important to be aware of your obligations towards your clients or the people that you are recommending that software for. And at a minimum, it's always, it's always smart to be transparent, you know, with your clients. So those are some of the definitions and some of the examples. And, uh, you know, for us, like I said, I've I've, um, we, we've— I've used all these revenue streams, and, and we, we had a number of— early on, we had some SEO, search engine optimization tools that, that we referred clients to. And the good thing is, like, you're not really— you're not— you don't have to invoice, you don't have to package, deliver. You're just sending clients to this vendor, and then the vendor takes care of all the fulfillment, and then you get a check at the end of the month with— or at the end of the quarter with your commission. So, so something that is worth looking into for sure. In terms of the pros, again, simple to start, it adds value to the clients as I said earlier, and then there is this component of, of passive revenue that is ongoing. Cons and gotchas. Yes, there's It's always a trade-off. And if you overdo it, because it's tempting, excuse me, you're making money while you're asleep. So if customers feel that you are, you are pushing this product or this tool or this software, people are smart, they'll sense it. So, so stay, you know, stay genuine, stay authentic. If this tool or the service and this, or this product or the software, if it doesn't add value to the client, do not recommend it. And sometimes, you know, sometimes clients, they, they trust you, they, they just won't question it. And you can recommend a bunch of, a bunch of, you know, a number of tools to them they don't need. And then if they find, if they find out 6 months down the road, yes, you made a buck every month, but If they find out that you— they really did not need any of this stuff, and then you were making a commission off of their, you know, them paying these prices, you know, it's not going to leave a good taste in their mouth. They'll— it's going to erode that trust between you and the client. So yes, adopt this model. Yes, there's a lot— I think a lot of money to be had, but make sure you don't overdo it. You don't sort of impose it on clients, make it like they have to have it. So, so just, just, I'm all for selling. I'm all for being creative in selling. I'm all for highlighting the value that you can add to a client with a software or a tool, but make sure it does serve a need for the client. All right, moving on. Number 5, strategic alliances or JV deals, joint ventures. So So with strategic alliances or joint ventures, basically you're partnering, you're partnering with complementary providers and then finding, figuring out a way to split revenue. So for example, you deliver business strategy. I used that example before that's applicable here, and then your partners can handle the execution. So you come in and do a PR comms audit, that's maybe your specialty, or you come and do an HR audit or an IT audit, cybersecurity audit, and then you produce a report identifying what's working well and then the issues that the customer might have, the gaps that they have. So, and then you bring in someone else to do some part of that work for you, to do some of the implementation work for you, and then you figure out a way for you to split that revenue. And in our business, I remember when we pivoted and focused on analytics, we stopped doing digital marketing, offering digital marketing services like search engine optimization and search engine marketing, paid, you know, paid performance marketing as it's called now. But I remember getting RFPs, requests for proposals, where the client specifically— the client is specifically looking for one vendor to provide search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and analytics. So for us to even qualify to bid, to qualify to bid on these deals, and these were 6-figure deals, we had to include, if we wanted to be considered, we had to include capabilities of being able to provide all these services. A lot of times you hear the word contractor, subcontractor, it's sort of the same component, the same aspect here. So in our, we were focused, 100% focused on analytics by that time, but we had a partner, some industry friends that we've developed strong ties with. We would show them their requirements, they would provide their scoping, and they would provide their questions, and they provide us with their— the way they would approach this proposal. And we would bundle in their services, and we go to the vendor again with, with the same concept of one, one-stop shop. So, so that was— it wasn't very transactional, you know, with these, with these friends and with these partners became friends over time, we were able to bid on really big projects. I remember we had a global brand coming to us with websites here in the US, Canada, also in Europe, and they were very concerned about data privacy laws in Europe, and Europe was a bit ahead of the US at the time in this from a compliance perspective, And we did not— I did not want us to lose that deal. So we had— we found, researched, scratched our heads, looked into our contacts list, and we identified a good friend of ours, of the business, Holger, still a good friend, um, in Germany, who specialized in data privacy laws and European data privacies. And Germany was also, um, a bit ahead in this area. So, so we partnered with Holger, and we agreed that, um, when we have this deal, when, when, when the client signs this deal, we will take a specific number of hours and apply those. Those will be your hours. And you agree— we agreed on the payment terms, we agreed on the hourly rate. And while we did most of the work in our area of expertise, uh, analytics consulting and implementation, Holger came in and was the, the consultant who provided subject matter expertise on and opinions on data privacy. And I remember having him on calls with customers and who, like our main customers in the US, and he had colleagues in Europe who were very concerned about data collection and data transfer. And it worked out really well because we had local expertise here in terms of analytics, and then we had the European local consultant who knew about data privacy, and that worked well for us and for the client. So again, with these joint ventures, strategic alliances, it's not going to be very transactional. It's something that you build over time. I think when there's a bit more, you've done a few projects with a partner, You've sent them some business, they've sent you some business, you've cooperated, collaborated on some of the client work. I think you establish, you'll find out if there's chemistry between you and this client, between you and this partner, if the way they do customer service similar to yours, the way their responsiveness is similar to yours, the way they maybe they quote. It's really important, especially if you're looking for someone that's going to be, that you're going to rely on, or they're going to rely on you on more than just one project. Make sure there's alignment on these important things. You might, and you might have to do this with a few, 2, 3 different vendors till you find someone that you really, that works out really well for you and them. So those are some of the examples. Pros of this model, it's a win-win for you and the other partner. Typically, you can get bigger contracts for everyone involved, and then you can offer a whole lot more value for this client. And then this client, if they're happy with you and with your partner, partners, they'll refer you to other, other clients, right? In terms of gotchas and, and, and the cons and gotchas, if you do this very casually and you don't, you don't discuss revenue sharing and who's gonna get what of this contract, then you can run into a lot of problems. So make sure you have written, signed, agreed-upon revenue sharing agreements between you and the other partner in this joint venture. Make sure the expectations are also aligned. You don't want things to get messy in terms of, again, when the deliveries are all expected to happen, the timeline, the scope of the work, payments, when you are invoicing, when is it that this partner will invoice you. Or sometimes you, you, you also, if cash flow is not an issue, you can just pay the vendor right away. But I like to make things sort of aligned back to back. Whatever I commit to the client, I want to also commit to my partner. This way, when I get paid, they get paid. Right? So we're in it together. And a question that typically comes up here is, do I— do we go in as one legal entity and get this work, or do you go in as 2 legal entities? It really depends. Some customers, again, want you to be the legal and also operational sort of one-stop shop, and that's their preference, and it's less headache for everyone involved in terms of contracts and documentation. Other customers, they don't mind. They could work directly with, you know, with multiple entities. They prefer it that way. So I think be transparent. You know, we've had it. I remember in some of these JVs, joint ventures, where we actually created an email address for our partner From our own email. So again, from a client perspective, they see us all as one entity. That just made it easier for everyone involved. So especially if they have to give you certain permissions to access some of their systems and you have people have different email addresses, it confuses everybody involved. So again, it really depends. I would say start, if you're starting out, start small, find 2, 3 vendors, Um, work, work, work things out with them on, on, on maybe smaller projects. And once you find someone where, again, there's chemistry, there's alignment on values and goals, then those would be your strategic partner for, for future projects and for larger projects. All right, 2 more, 2 more revenue streams before we wrap it up. Number 6 is implementation services, and this is more applicable To those of you who are focused on providing just strategy or maybe some just advisory and you're not doing implementation services, and it is not uncommon. And if you're, if you're happy, if you happen to be, if you're still working full-time in a company and you're thinking about starting your business, I recommend you check out the other episode I have on the 3 different models, the DIY, DWI or DFY. Do it, um, do it yourself, um, do it with you, um, did I say DWI? DWY. And then DFY, done for you, right? Done with you, done for you, or do it yourself. Those are 3 different ways on how you can offer your package, your, your, your— how you can package— sorry, how you can package your offering. So if you are focus on just the strategy type of work, or maybe the audit type of work, but you don't do any implementation, there's many, many— there's a lot of money to be had. I know a lot of consultants who just focus on strategy, and they charge a premium, and they do really good work. So potentially, if that's— if that is your main revenue stream, implementation services, not something that you do, But implementation services could be a revenue stream that will bring you in some, again, some passive income. You can, you can have either do it this way, you could expand, expand what you're doing and do implementation services in-house, or obviously you can partner with, with someone else. And I remember, um, in, in, in, in, uh, when we did some, some audit work and some strategy work, and that was out of our Dubai business at the time. We were focusing also on digital marketing and analytics for that MENA region. For a while, we were leading with this service where we come in and assess, we do requirements definition and requirements document— requirement documentation and do an audit. That was the offering. And then based on the results of the audit or the results of gathering the requirements from the stakeholders or from the executives, then we would offer recommendation options. And then you can bring in potentially a third party to do the implementation for you. So over time, we ended up building that revenue stream, that service model in-house where we did implementation as well. So you can come in if, let's say, you are a sales consultant, sales software consultant, you come in and say, Let me assess your sales process and let me assess your CRM needs. And then, yeah, I'll recommend you use this CRM. Let's say HubSpot or again Salesforce. I don't get any kickbacks from these vendors. But let's say you come in as a strategist, as a consultant who offers assessments and offers recommendations. You can come in and say, Okay, HubSpot is a fit for your needs. That would be one level of service. You can actually offer a service or bring in a vendor or use one of the models we said earlier to do the implementation, onboarding and customization and bringing up HubSpot and then maybe there's a monthly retainer package where you can run their email campaigns for them, their nurturing campaign for them. So again, if you just focus on one service, you can have implementation services that you add to your own, um, your own, uh, list of services, or you can bring in someone else to do it for you. So that's something to keep in mind. And I notice for those of you who are, are or will be watching, again, we have this on, on the screen. Now some of the pros here is that clients might just love the work you've done at the strategy level or maybe the audit you've done and they paid you handsomely for that and now they want to continue to work with you and they want you to— and you already sort of set the tone for the type of fees you offer, you charge. So, so they want to turn the strategy that you provided into action. So they want implementation help. So it sort of opens the door for you to do more work for them. And potentially, as I said earlier in that HubSpot email nurturing example, there could be a monthly recurring component to it, which I always recommend. So those are some of the pros. In terms of the cons and the gotchas, you know, if you're just focused on this high-value, you know, premium advisory work and you start getting into the tactical and billing hourly for, for some tactical work, this might actually pull you away from getting larger clients and bigger deals. So, so make sure again you process right, make sure it's something you want to do, uh, or again you can start building a parallel service line within your business or bring in a vendor, a partner to, to implement this for you. Cool. The last one, the last revenue stream, um, is similar to selling, reselling, reselling products and services, but this time it's about reselling software. And a lot of times it's reselling, um, SaaS. So from a definition perspective, um, selling, reselling software, or maybe you're bundling software or maybe sometimes it's a subscription directly with your consulting. A consultant, for example, can include an analytics tool. I'm using examples from analytics a lot today, or maybe like a reporting platform as part of their retainer package. So if you are in financial services, you can bundle, for example, you are a bookkeeper or you are maybe CPA. Yeah, I'll set up a QuickBooks and I'll set up a payroll software for you. And obviously I'll bill you hourly for my work. And potentially you could be getting a commission or you'll be making a buck on the software that you resold to this client. And I remember in our case when we were working with analytics, initially Google Analytics was free for everyone and the way we made money is we were building training programs. We're obviously doing implementation strategy work on, on what to track and how to look at your data, and we were doing implementation services and consulting and also training. But later, which was later, Google introduced a paid enterprise version of the platform that was $150,000 a year. So, so targeting the Fortune 500, universities, government entities. We became a certified reseller and we doubled down on that business line. It was selling consulting is different than selling licenses, but over time after our concentrated effort on focusing on this niche and then focusing on reselling the licenses, it required a different strategy than selling consulting services. We ended up being— becoming the top 3, 4 resellers globally. And then later, after we merged, um, we got bought by Dentsu and merged with, with Cardone Path, that we become— we became together the number 1 reseller, you know, globally. So, so there is— and, and that gave us a whole lot of a different level of positioning. And, and also with Google we would obviously get invited to, to go in and co-pitch some of the top brands like Fortune 15 or Fortune 100. So it made a huge difference in our business, and actually it helped us a lot when we, when we sold the business from a valuation perspective because it was recurring license, recurring license revenue from big companies. That was a big, big thing. Now, so in terms of, um, in terms of the examples, you know, I mentioned a couple of them. In terms of the pros you have this recurring revenue, especially if it's SaaS and not just one-time software, and it strengthens the stickiness of the client. It's hard. It's one thing to bring in a new consultant. It's another thing to remove this one software that you're using, bring in a different piece of software. So it does increase the stickiness, especially if the software and your consulting, you know, adding, you know, delivering value to the customer. And also in terms of your overall value proposition, it goes back to this. I go to this one consultant, they provide the implementation, they provide the analysis, they provide the training, and they also provide the license. So I don't have to go chase different vendors. In terms of cons and gotchas, this, especially if you are partnering with larger service providers, in our case with Google, there were some thick contracts that we have to go through and get the lawyers involved. It was worth every penny of it, but be aware that there could be a bit of a— there could be an onboarding period and it could be a long cycle between you and you getting those, becoming an approved reseller of the software. you, you have just to go through that cycle because now there's liability. There could be, um, again, data privacy depending on the kind of— on what the software does for the client. You have to have some compliance and some back-to-back coverage, insurance coverage, and all sorts of things that the, the company that's producing the software requires and also what the client, the end client, is requiring. So, so there's a bit more work involved in terms of paperwork But it's worth it, especially when there's a need in the market for this software. Some, some consultants don't want to deal with any of this stuff and they want to just focus on consulting. I think that's fine, but I think there's a huge uptick here. There's a huge upside to, to diversifying your revenue streams in case something is dry and something is just— you're not getting the pipeline in one way, in one aspect of, of revenue generation. You also have these other, other revenue streams that can help you stay afloat and potentially increase your recurring, your monthly recurring revenue. That'll give you a whole lot of stability in, in your consultancy. So that's really, that's it for today. That's what I wanted to cover in terms of the, the revenue streams that are beyond your, your client work or your billable hours or your, your project-based, you know, work that you do. What I want to highlight here is that I mentioned the word passive income a lot, more than I probably say in any setting. Again, there's no such a thing as 100% passive income. There's some work required in, in all of these examples, so be aware of that. But it does— the whole concept here is that you're building mechanisms, streams to get revenue with less work than you would do otherwise with you actually spending the time and the effort to, to produce that. Whether it's hosting, reselling hosting services, reselling a product or a service, or reselling a software, you are still on the hook to support this software. You're on the hook to obviously go through the contracts, but you're not actually building the software, you're not building this product, you're not actually implementing the service, you're relying on someone else to do it. And you can make some good money, some good margins, hopefully some good profitability with, with the amount you get, the amount between the difference between what, what you pay for the service or the software, this tool, and then what you offer it for the client. It could be also a differentiator where you, you wouldn't have won that deal if you did not bundle this tool or the software or this product, you know, with your services. So keep all that in mind. And again, uh, for those of you who maybe are joining later or listening later, let me know what other revenue streams maybe have worked for you, what have not. And if you have any questions about that, let me know. I'll be more than happy to answer. But the idea here is that client work is only one way to earn and to generate revenue and to grow the business. If you want to have a bit more resilience in your business, more scale, more stability, multiple revenue streams is the way to go. And the idea here is that we want to— I want to help you grow faster, reduce the risk of failure or delayed growth, and build a consulting business that lasts. So you don't have to do all of these different streams day one or like at the same time. Try, try different ones. Maybe try white labeling something that is— that works in your industry and, and see how it works. And then look, look into a joint venture or try to see if there's a software that you can package and you can include it in your services. Get something going. Some, some might work, some might not work, and then, and build on it from that point on. But the best consultants out there don't, don't just sell time, they build ecosystems. And then that's how they grow from surviving to thriving. That's what I want you to be at. I want you to be thriving. So if you are liking this material, this content, I'd love for you to Hit like, share. If you're on, go to our YouTube channel Startup with Feras, @StartupWithFeras, and, and subscribe. Click the like button, share this video with others who would find it beneficial. And then also it's a signal to YouTube to show this video and other videos on the channel to, to other entrepreneurs so they can benefit. And I would appreciate that a lot. Also check out startupwithferas.com. And sign up for my weekly newsletter. Every Saturday you get an email with a topic that is related to entrepreneurship, and then I share— I have an Ask Feras questions where people ask me questions and then I answer them. And then I also have this Sharpen the Blade section with a specific tip for you to implement that week. And that's really it for today. Thank you for tuning in. Let me know if you have any other questions. Leave us a comment— leave me a comment or email me directly at Feras, F-E-R-A-S, at startup@feras.com, and I'll be more than happy to help you out and get, get you to start a business, grow the business, and scale it to 7 and potentially 8 figures. All right, see you next time.