 Hi, I'm George Cowell and I'm super excited to be with Pam Slim today. We're gonna be talking to you about how you can turn your body of work, your knowledge into IP that you can package and use as an asset in your business. She's such a pro at it. She's worked with some major authors to do this and she's gonna bring some wisdom to us. But first, Pam, let me say hi to you. Hi, Pam. Hi, George. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for doing this. So I want to be sure people know the background of your work and then y'all just read your bio a short short version of it and then we'll get into the conversation. So Pam was slim is an author community builder, which I'm going to talk to ask you about as well consultant and then she has a successful corporate career in her past work and now of course she works with entrepreneurs small business owners as well as some companies and she's been doing this her own work since at least 2005 and she partnered with Susan Cain to build and launch the Quiet Revolution and Quiet Leadership Institute. That's something I didn't know. So that's that's amazing. You may have those of you watching this may know of Pam's books. Her first book is called Escape from Cubicle Nation and which was named the best small business entrepreneur book of 2009 from 800 CEO Reed. So that's amazing and her follow-up book was called the body of work or body of work and both books were published by Penguin Portfolio. So that's impressive the traditional publisher. A couple years ago, 2016, Pam launched the Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona, which is a grassroots community based think tank for small business economic acceleration. So that's amazing and I will put the links to Pam's website and the Main Street Learning Lab and her books in the notes of this video. So Pam, again, welcome and thank you for doing this interview. Thanks so much for having me and it's funny that you're right. 2005 is when I started Escape from Cubicle Nation, but I also actually went in business in 1996. So it's been 23 years. Yeah, yeah, because recently you've been doing your 23 lessons from 23 years. That's why I was going to say at least 2005, which is amazing. It's so great to get your kind of your tidbits of wisdom from from helping small businesses to larger businesses. So I want to ask you about, well, let's, you know, I want to ask you first about the Main Street Learning Lab because that's where you are situated right now and it's such a creative space. So community building and small business, tell us a bit about the intersection of that. Yeah, well, I feel like I've come home literally and figuratively in opening up with my husband, the Main Street Learning Lab. I believe it or not was a community development major in college. So my degree in college, like who actually does what their degree in college was? My degree in college was nonformal adult education in Latin America. I lived in Mexico and Colombia in Brazil and in college. And the focus was really in looking at economic development from a grassroots community driven perspective. Definitely not the top down large agency model, but really looking at the power and wisdom that exists within communities for making social change. And especially for communities that have been really impacted by inequity, by unjust systems, etc. And so the journey for me has been a really interesting one of at first spending about the first 10 years of my business doing work for large companies. So I was a consultant to large companies, always on the human side of business, which I really loved. It was so fascinating to get to be inside a lot of bigger companies. And that was the stage of my business where I did building, create a lot of programs for companies like Charles Schwab or Hewlett Packard. So it's really great experience of just getting in there and understanding how to sell into corporate and what people needed. And just to be a total nerd about training and development, which is still something I feel. And then in starting my entrepreneurial journey of really starting Escape from Cubicle Nation, which began as a blog and turned into a book of working with a lot of people. I really built a very large virtual community, which is pretty wonderful and amazing. Just through the magic of the internet, through blogs, through Facebook, a lot of the social media that didn't even exist when I first started my blog. That was a really beautiful process of engaging people. And what really brought us to the place of then opening up a space in our own community was in 2015, I did a 23 city tour in the US, places I had visited before in prior book tours. And we went to Vancouver in Canada. And I was teaching community building skills for entrepreneurs. I called it the Unbook Tour with sort of a wink to my friend Scott Stratton from Unmarketing, where I was doing the tour and really shopping the model that I was thinking about building my next book on, which I'm still finishing the proposal for. But it was really the idea to see what were the ideas that people resonated with when it came to the model that I had learned all the way back in college and practiced in person and practiced in a virtual environment. And the very first class that we kicked off in Berkeley, California, I asked the question, how many people there had ever seen a Native American business presenter as a business expert at a conference, not as somebody who's doing a blessing, which is wonderful and my husband's a traditional medicine person. And that's a very beautiful thing or as entertainment, which is also very wonderful. A lot of folks might have a where you go to a place where there's cultural entertainment. So they're beautiful things to do in and of themselves. But very often that is the extent of the representation of Native people within a business context. So I had asked people specifically, how many of you seen an expert that happened to be Native American presenting? And I asked that same question in every single city. And after 23 cities, there was a sum total of seven people and four of those were in Vancouver, Canada. So three people in 23 cities in the United States had ever seen that. And as parents of Native American children, it really was concerning because I think it's so important for all of our kids or nieces and nephews and everybody in our community that comes from their own identity in their own background, where they can see themselves represented in positions of leadership and authority. And what we realize is it's not because there's a shortage of amazing expert business professionals that are Native American. It's that there is just no connection. There's all kinds of deep historical context for that of just a policy of invisibility within this country as part of a way to kind of erase that history. And so that's where my husband and I realized we wanted to do something specifically in our community that's not historically been known as a very friendly place for folks of color to specifically highlight the leadership of leaders in our community that are already doing great work. And with that intention and with a very open mind to see what needed to take shape, that's what we opened three years ago. That is so amazing. Wow. It's interesting about Vancouver. I mean, I guess Canada has more connection and respect to the First Nations, right? Like, it seems to me, anyway, whenever I'm talking to First Nations folks, some folks would agree. Some folks may not agree, but I think you're right that generally there might be more information on a consistent basis, more acknowledgement from government and so forth and more awareness. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So now to this topic of body of work, a lot of people watching this, you know, people who follow my content know I always preach the idea of the importance of creating content and how that fuels our creativity and our business and our leadership sort of among our audience and our network. And so a lot of people have created content now, bringing it together into an asset. What's that overall process? So what is very common, and we were laughing before we started interviewing, because I very often have a case of the cobbler's children have no shoes. Because as a profession, I have always helped people to take their great ideas and information and package them in ways that can be sold. And very common for a lot of entrepreneurs to do something like write an ebook or create a class that you could be teaching in a live workshop or teach a virtual class, and then not really take that next step of putting it in a form in which it can be a workable asset for you so that you might have it for sale on your website or it might be something, let's say you're a speaker where you could sell a class that accompanies your keynote. So it's common that a lot of people aren't aware of the opportunities that come from really packaging your IP or intellectual property in a way that you could sell it, but also really thinking about it as a way to be very thoughtful and creative of how you help people make the change that you want them to make through your IP. So for example, in all the years that I wrote my blog Escape from Cubicle Nation and worked with people who were leaving corporate to start a business, really my intention was to reduce any kind of risk and anxiety and misinformation that people would have in making that choice because it's such a serious choice. I take it very seriously as do my clients. I never suggest anybody just willy-nilly up and quits their job because you can put a lot at risk. So through everything that I did throughout the mainly 10 years or so in which I worked in that particular market, all of the podcasts that I created and blog posts and all of that workshops, classes I did a class for Creative Live that was a three-day workshop on Escape from Cubicle Nation, all of that is intellectual property that can be used in different ways. And in fact, the early days of the blog are I ended up being utilized in my book because my publisher actually found me through my podcast initially and then my blog. And it was through that process when I was writing the book that I was able to leverage a lot of things I had already written about on the blog before. So the first step I think is just realizing that when you have knowledge for some people, it's just a whole bunch of information they might have in their head. There could be a really wise consultant where you give advice to people every day. So some people have that in their head and the first step is getting it out on paper. For other people, you do have a lot of intellectual property that's contained in some different formats. And in that case, it becomes a way of thinking about how do you want that IP to be working for your business and how do you want it to be working for the people who you want to impact with that information? Yeah, this is great. So maybe the concerns some people might have as well, if I turn this into, you know, package it together, what if I'm one concern I can imagine is like what if I change it because what if, you know, it's still in process. So kind of this fear of putting it out there as a body of work. How do you, how might you assuage that concern? I think it depends on what it is. In the case of books, absolutely, when I go back and I read certain chapters of books that I've written, I think, oh, boy, I sure would approach it differently because now I've worked with people and I might have a little different perspective or give different advice. Some parts of our IP are going to be final snapshots in time where that is the way that there has been a vetted process to make sure there's a there's a coherent way in which your work fits together. And sometimes there's something like an updated edition of a book. So what color is your parachute, which I know was the career book I used. I don't know, 30 years ago every year, every single year is updated. Other times, a guy Kawasaki just came out recently, maybe a year or so ago with an updated version of The Art of the Star, which was a classic entrepreneurial book, which then he updated. So there can be things like that, even with what feel like finite assets like books. In other cases, when you are the person managing it in your business, you always have the ability to be refreshing. So let's say that somebody purchases a program that you have that's an online program where you learn new things or want to edit or update. You can update that information and then the people who have purchased, if you so choose within the agreement, could also receive the updated versions. It's also something that people do a lot in something like a membership type of a model where part of what people might be paying for continually are new and additional insights and updates. That makes a lot of sense. Yes. And so when people, so let's run through a couple of, so we got the books as a possibility. We've got sort of an online course as a possibility. We've got that membership model as a possibility. Do you recommend people start with one or another? Is there a pathway? I think it really depends on who your audience is and what is the best way in which they want to get access to the information, paired with your budget. And then sometimes your own expertise and resources and getting certain things done. For example, I know a lot of people who are really super smart and they hate to write like writing is just not their jam. So where you have the resources to hire somebody to do the writing for you, that's fantastic. Otherwise, those same people might be really great on video. And so maybe they, I know you use video a lot because you love it. It's a medium that works for you. It's highly flexible and your audience relates to it. So that can make a lot of sense to create something like a video course. And we've seen that a lot within the world of internet marketing where a lot of materials are put together in videos. When I put on my snobby instructional designer hat, that's where I love to make a discernment between a choice that's made about the instructional means or the format that you do your course materials. That's just because it's the way that you like to do it versus who is your audience? What's the best way for them to learn? What's the best way to teach this material? There could be certain things. Let's say you're trying to teach me how to use a create an Excel pivot table or something like that. If you're just on video explaining it to me with words like this, that probably would be would be really hard for me to conceptualize. And in that case, I might need to see a different type of a format of you doing a screen flow of actually walking through the steps or who knows exactly what the components would be. So I always like to think about this intersection between what it is that you really feel is the best format for folks to learn it from. And then what are the things that you're resourced and you're comfortable doing? And that can be something that iterates through time because we do see format a lot now in IP in the form of apps. A lot of people who have more resources can be building apps, especially I think for things that might be a little bit more behaviorally based. So where you're trying to get somebody to do something in their business to be more mindful or more essential or whatever it could be, sometimes having an app for such thing is really a supportive thing. But it's a little bit more expensive to create. That's really good to know that it's not just information, but it's really about behavior change. And I like that a lot. And so how do you work with people on doing this? What's your process? So I love to figure out, asking some of those fundamental questions, where somebody is, where their IP is. So there's somebody like Susan Cain, who you mentioned that I work with, who's such a joy, just brilliant, amazing person who wrote an incredible book and one of the top 10 talks of all time, which I think is incredible. For those who don't remember, she's very well known for her TED talk on introversion basically. The power of introverts. The power of introverts, yes. And she wrote the book Quiet, which you helped. So yes. Yeah. So it's like something like that. Obviously, Susan put so many years of time and energy and resource into creating an exceptional body of part of her body of work and IP that that became leverage for not just me, but an entire team of people where we begin to really grow that in a number of different ways. And in that case, it was who are the different audiences. So there was a corporate audience where we created the Quiet Leadership Institute, which were materials about how it is that you lead introverts and extroverts effectively in a work environment, knowing we have a lot of extrovert bias in the way that people generally are raised in corporations. You know, not having an understanding of how introverts may need some more time to reflect and think before responding, etc. So that was one format is actually creating materials. We actually, our pilot test was at NASA. So no pressure for that. We literally were testing our first materials with rocket scientists at NASA. So that was, yes, that was a bit of a professional heat flash right there, no pun intended. And then so, you know, that can be a case where there's a particular use for a market. There was also another project that came out of that, the Quiet Leader, the Quiet Revolution project, which was actually office furniture. So there was a partnership with Steelcase where they created what are called Quiet Spaces, which were spaces specifically designed to really be effective for introverts. So in working with somebody, that was a case of amazing IP, a resource project in which a lot of creative things could happen. More frequently, it could be something like a project I'm working on right now with my friend Jonathan Fields, if any of you are aware of his Good Life podcast, it's amazing. And he has this really cool tool called the Sparketype, which is a free assessment you can take to understand your particular approach to work, what would be work that would really light you up. And so we approach that with creating a certification for that tool. Again, looking at the audience, looking at how to set learning objectives, what do they need to know, how would they be using that assessment? What's the best way to teach it? What's information that they need to have in order to be well-versed in the tool so they can support their clients and understanding it? And then it becomes once you do that initial audience definition and you define what needs to what need to be the concrete outputs, then you go through the actual instructional design process, which is tried and true. And it's really fun where in this case, it'll be a live certification training. So we're designing the days of certification and then the assets that go along to support that, including things like sales page and all that, which thankfully Jonathan is a masterful copywriter. Which is not my area of expertise. Very often people will use resources like marketing folks to be doing the sales assets related to those things. That's amazing. It's so great to kind of hear about all the possible ways to use the body of work. So thank you for kind of giving these examples. So somebody watching this and saying, wow, this is interesting. What's the next step to take? Or how do we learn more? I think the first thing is just for you, if you're pondering first asking the question that what is my, what is my IP? What are there specific things that are methods or workshops or classes that I teach on a regular basis that may have some legs beyond the way that I'm currently using them? Maybe you are an advisor, let's say you do strategic planning or something as a service. You can really look and say, is there something here that I feel is really unique to my method and what I put together? And so from that, the first step is always just codifying it, really getting it down clearly so that you understand it, which generally helps your practice as a service provider and a consultant. But from there, then you can start to look at what would be ways that I want to leverage it. And for people who are at that stage with me, it's generally sitting down, having a conversation, reviewing, doing an audit of what are the different assets that they have, and then figuring out what makes the most sense in terms of putting a plan together and actually building things. Awesome. That sounds great. So I will have links, of course, to your website so people can follow up with you there. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks for having me, George. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been fun.