Marketing Campaign Licensing To A Fortune

I've had a bunch of people asking me questions about what this is, how it works, why it works and how to implement it.

If anyone watches Shark Tank, Mr Wonderful LOVES licensing deals: you should too.

First off I bought Million Dollar Licensing about 12 years ago(if I remember right, it's kind of hard to remember at this point I buy so much stuff). I bought the original, then bought MDL2 and then the 2009 add ons. I've also bought most of his material. He's a smart guy. The problem is he's no longer selling the course, the website is gone and everything. My only problem with the course is that you probably couldn't use just that alone to succeed. Although I still love it. I've also been a big student of Jay Abraham over the years and have probably spent over $100k in seminars and different Abraham things.

I'm just not sure I can adequately explain how to do it in a post without it being huge. I'm actually selling my entire offline business and one of the most valuable assets were my licensing agreements. They pay a much higher multiple than other things like my marketing consulting contracts even though it's more or less the same thing.

Put it this way, if you have a track record of $100k a year in SEO/PPC/Web Design and you were to sell it. It will garner you a .8 multiple. In other words it will sell for $80k a year. However, if you have a licensing business that has a track record of $100k a year it will net you somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-8x multiple. So you can sell that business for $500-800k. Make sense?

One of the reasons I love site rentals and lead gen is because it keeps you in control and is a never-ending stream of revenue. As long as you perform, you'll get paid forever. Good stuff, right?

Licensing is much like that, it's just thinking about it a little different. Let me explain how a typical pitch is different from a licensing pitch.

Here's your pitch to Bob the plumber- "Bob, are you getting enough customers in? I can help you with that. I can provide SEO to get your seen by all of your customers on Google, it takes around 3-6 months but as I'm sure you know the Yellow Pages just isn't enough any more we need to get you in front of your customers that are looking on Google."

Here's my pitch to Bob- "Bob, I know that everyone promises you the world, you have radio guys, newspaper guys, web guys all asking you for money and promising you the world. What I have is completely different Bob, I've got a proven system for generating an additional $200-500k in profit this year. When I applied this system to Lee's business in Des Moines within six months he had to hire 3 more teams and he's on track to another $1M in business. There's no guesswork here Bob, we've already done all of that. We've spent over $200k perfecting and tweaking the system so that it will immediately start producing money hand over fist. And there are other plumbers just like you who are using this system that converts every $1 spent on our system into $12 of revenue. When do you think you'd like to get started?"

It works best with a true marketing system. Not just SEO or web design. I typically like at minimum a site that I control with SEO applied that has also had over $20k of PPC(on my clients budget) testing offers, copy, calls to action, ads, so that it converts better than anything in the niche. But the best licensing deals I've come up with contain many more elements. Direct Mail, phone scripts, telemarketing scripts, referral scripts, etc.

I only target the top 5% of a niche. For instance in the case of Plumbers in most major cities there are 400-500 plumbers. Of those 80% are 1-2 trucks. Top 15% have 2-5 trucks and the top 5-6 plumbers are the big dogs with anywhere from 10-50 trucks. Those top dogs are who I target, they are the ones that are already spending money- Yellow Page full page ads, radio spots, tv spots, billboards, etc. When you work with the top dogs, they get it. You're not spending their cash flow, you're just making a better use of the budget they already have put together. Ideally I like the guys right behind the biggest dog in the pack, they are already spending money but they are ticked that they are not as big as the big dog and will do anything to get there.

I charge an up-front fee, usually in the $5k-$25k range. A monthly licensing fee of anywhere from $500-5k and a percentage of profits which is usually around the 10% mark, but I've also set it up as a straight up lead-gen type fee of $50-200 per incoming contact. The nice thing is it's extensible across multiple markets. What you do is you perfect a strategy once, and rather than try to sell a new client in the same niche you position it differently as a proven system and it's easier to close once you break through that trust and inertia factor.

The problem is this isn't a beginner strategy this is more for those who are moving on to the next step. If you're thinking you can pull this off through email you're not going to succeed. But I definitely think as you get some experience and you get some marketing prowess it can make great sense. And if you're preparing to sell your company(which you SHOULD be doing because as Michael Gerber says someone is going to buy your company either you or someone else), then you'll get a much better valuation for these types of contracts than almost anything else you can do.

Hopefully I've given you enough information to pique your interest. I wish I could give you other resources to access to get this information, but unfortunately Bob doesn't sell this course anymore. You can find his current stuff at www.profitalchemy.com

Enjoy!