17 Ways (Plus 2 Bonus) to Monetize Your Corporate Experience w/Brett Trainor

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Welcome back to another episode of the Corporate Escapee podcast. I'm your host Brett Trainer and today I'm going do something a little bit different. I'm going solo. So no guests. We've had some great ones in the recent episodes, really showcasing what's possible for GenXers post corporate. And today I wanted to tackle the topic, basically how you can monetize your corporate experience. I talk about this all the time, at least conceptually.

that there's ways to do it. So I wanna do this, and we'll come to these bite-sized episodes or the Cliff Notes version of the Escapee Podcast. For you Gen Xers, you remember that term back from our grade school days, maybe junior high, when you didn't have to read the entire book, you could find the Cliff Notes version of that. And today I wanna talk about how to monetize your corporate experience.

Cause one of the things that I have found over the course of the past five years is there's just not one path. There's multiple paths and you'll see today 17 different ways. I'm actually insured 19 different ways you can, you can monetize and basically make money, right? Should throw out the corporate jargon and say, Hey, here's how you can make money from your corporate experience because there are small businesses, startups, nonprofits that really do need your, your expertise, your knowledge, your experience, and they're willing to pay for it.

maybe not on a full-time basis, but as a fractional or part-time advisory, which we'll get into today, that you can charge a premium and actually make your corporate income in 25 hours per week. I just had a LinkedIn post on that not too long ago, but we'll save that for different topics. So today, if you're still in corporate thinking there's no way or how I don't want to start a full company, I don't open a restaurant, you can if you want. The beauty is you can follow really what you want to do.

But what I want to talk about today is how to start making money from your experience so you can get out of the corporate BS, right? Get out of that rut of, especially if hate your job. And I'm guessing if you're listening to this podcast and you're still in corporate that you're looking for something better. anyway, so let's dig into this. Like said, I think I've got a series of these clip notes that I'm going to start to release. I'll probably put this on YouTube as well, but.

Brett Trainor (: 02:11

Let's kick it off with, with monetizing your corporate experience. And last thing I'll say before I dive into it is, where I, if I remember to do this, cause I'm sure I'll get sidetracked is I think 10 different, 10 of these revenue streams I've actually done myself. Some have worked out better than others. and I'll dig and try to remind folks that this is one of the revenue streams I had. and if you're listening out there and if you found another revenue path, let me know, drop it, connect with me on LinkedIn.

or email me at bt at brettrainer.com and I'd love to start including what others are doing as well. anyway, to kick it off, I'm gonna start with some of the more traditional paths with the first one being solo consulting. I was in management consulting, decided I could do this on my own. I was doing a lot of the work anyway, so I decided to go solo. Did that for about a year and basically you're helping small to mid-sized companies on a project basis. So that's what consulting is. Fixed fee, fixed time.

and fixed outcomes usually, but once you get started, there's other projects that you can do. For me, this was great. It was a great entry, but found just didn't excite me that much, right? To track down virtual stakeholders and do project plans and deliver on the work. I know a lot of people that absolutely love it. Fahim Musa and others have a community of folks that do this. definitely a really, and you don't have to be a consultant in corporate to be able to do this. You just need to have experience. So.

Anyway, if that's a path interest, definitely check out Fahim and his community. Uh, the second one that I stumbled into was fractional leadership. don't think it was even called that, you know, for three or four years ago. And that's just where you act as a leader of a function. Some people will tell you it has to be, you know, a C-suite type. I found these small businesses, if they need something stood up, they need leadership in a certain role. Like as I use CRM all the time as a potential, right. If they need to have a CRM set up.

They can hire somebody as a fractional to come and build this out and lead it. But essentially what fractional is, is you're working eight to 10 hours per week per client and you're providing leadership and strategy to that group. Either trying to build something out or fix something and you're coming in on an interim, not an interim basis, I'll get to that in a second, on a part-time basis where you own it though.

Brett Trainor (: 04:28

The beauty of this model is you don't get asked to do anything that's not adding value. There's no unnecessary meetings. There's no busy work because they're just really paying for your outcome. So you can charge a premium for the hours that you're doing. Small business is still going to benefit because they wouldn't have access to somebody like you as a junior level. I mean, this model makes a ton of sense. It's growing. Small businesses are starting to adopt it. John Arms and Karina Mikola are two folks that are leading the charge in this space. So check them out.

The next one is interim leadership. didn't do this and this is kind of a cousin to fractional leadership and this is where you would step into a role for a fixed amount of time. So let's use CFO, Chief Financial Officer. Maybe they're replacing somebody, somebody went on maternity leave, they need somebody to come in for two or three months as a full-time basis. So you're working full-time but it's just for a fixed amount of time. You're stepping in to hold the role for a while.

Again, it's interesting. You'll need more of these. You'll get paid well to do this on the short term, but it's also still full-time work. Business development. This may be an interesting one that you have not thought of. I did get paid for this as well. There's a lot of smaller brands, smaller companies that need access to folks in your network, especially if it's a product or service in an industry that you've been in, you can start doing some connecting for folks.

And in some cases they'll pay you for the introductions. lot of the cases they'll just pay you, you know, a 20 % anywhere between 10 and 20 % for any deals that close, um, just for making the introductions, not a bad revenue stream, especially if you've already got the relationships. Uh, the next one is kind of an offshoot of this and it's affiliate marketing. And this, think we, lot of the times we think about, well, I need an audience and I need to be able to resell.

drive traffic, and then if they click on the link, I get paid. But there's also a way to do this more targeted, right? So if you really believe in a product or a service and you want to sell it, you think you can sell it better than the business is doing, which I think there's a lot of opportunity, right? You can start picking up commission every time, you know, they click on your link and buy the product. So something to check out if you're still in corporate, think about this. Next one I've actually done as well, and still do quite honestly, is advisory work.

Brett Trainor (: 06:45

And many businesses maybe aren't quite ready for fractional or they don't know what fractional is, but they need some strategic help and maybe even some tactical help. That's one thing that I found exiting corporate and escaping is you do still need to get your hands dirty because the small businesses need strategy, but they also need help with some of the tactics, a lot of foundational stuff. So advisory I found can be, five, 10 hours per month versus the

the fractional, is eight to 10 hours per week that they just need some guidance. You know, anybody full time, they're not quite ready to bring somebody and delete a project or a function, but need help to me. I like this, this one, if you can find it because it gives you a lot of flexibility in the time and you're really leveraging your strategic thought leadership, especially if in certain businesses. and again, you can charge a premium per hour where it makes sense. So advisory is one I've done.

one I've stumbled into again, you hear me say this quite a bit because I wasn't necessarily looking for some of these revenue streams, but I had my eyes open. I was listening to think about how can I solve this problem for the business or individuals and coaching is one that, popped up and it's been, you know, I started with, with helping some escapees coaching escapees out of corporate into a solo business world, but there's also an opportunity with businesses, right? Maybe a team.

If you're a business development, a sales expert, right? You've run sales teams, you know how to get the most out of a sales organization. There's some small businesses that maybe you could come in and coach their sales leader on how to grow, right? They need those mentorships. They need those programs. So again, just keep an open mind as you're starting to think through these revenue streams. But the one theme that you should start seeing as I'm talking is your problem solving. At the end of the day, that's what small businesses need.

They could care less about what titles you had. They do want to know where you worked, not necessarily that, but that you've actually been solving these problems for 20 or 30 years and you've been doing it with the biggest brands or at least large companies if you've been in corporate and you, it absolutely translates to helping these small businesses. But what they don't care about is that title. So we're in the corporate world. You lived off of titles in the small business world. It's more, what problems can you solve?

Brett Trainor (: 09:11

And where I'm going with this is you think about those problem solves, there's different ways to solve it, right? Like I said, advisory could be five hours per week. Um, you know, fractional can be eight to 10 hours per or five hours per month. Fractional can be eight to 10 hours per week, know, 30 to 40 hours per month. And maybe there's something in between, right? Maybe they just need a little bit more help for three months and they need to bring you in for a project and then they can bring you keep you on as a fractional or an advisor. So don't.

go into these deals with a specific offer before you even hear what the problems are. I found the path of least resistance is usually listen and then come up with the solution and say, I absolutely can solve your problem. And here's a couple of different ways to do it. So I'm giving you the labels of these monetization, these revenue streams, but you don't have to put a label on it. They just want to know you can solve the problem. anyway, all right, back to the list. The next one is services.

Service package almost think about as an agency. I absolutely love this path and if I was starting over This is where I would focus because most small businesses have different problems and they may or may not be ready to hire somebody full-time they may not be ready to hire somebody as a advisor or fractional but if you have a Pack a service program that hey I can come in and Let's you see RM as an example. I can come in clean up your data

One time fee, maybe that's a project to make sure your data is clean, which is we know most small businesses and large businesses really struggle with that. So there's probably a whole business and service that's run data cleansing, but let's say it's really about the CRM. Then you'll come in. So you'll make sure that you'll run the cleansing on the data. You'll update the CRM. Maybe they have some new processes or tickets or whatever it is, or you're helping them set it up.

Where I'm going with this is maybe there's a $2,000 or $2,500 a month package you can sell into small businesses where you are their CRM specialist. You come in and set it up this way. It's not project based. It's not consulting. You're not a, uh, fractional. It's like, Hey, this is what I charge to help small businesses clean and manage their CRM. And it's 20, $2,500 a month. You get four clients, you're building 10,000 per month. And who knows? I think you can get really efficient at how quickly.

Brett Trainor (: 11:32

You can service each of those accounts right small business is super thrilled because they're not locked in they're not Providing anything you don't have to hire somebody that's a 12 to 18 month, you know risk where this is right they're used to subscriptions they can budget for it, they know what they're getting for it and It's a good entry into other services So if you can find that subscription that service and then provide additional ad hoc type of consulting

You can build a nice, really nice solo business, you know, controlling your time can chime well. So, all right. So services, you get to the idea. I'm a big fan. influencer partnerships. This is, this was again, a newer one for me that 18 months ago wasn't even on my radar, but that's where a brand will partner with you in this case, me to help promote, their services and they pay you a fee. could be monthly. could be quarterly.

but it's really a partnership between the two. That's one thing I've absolutely found. There's folks that will chase the dollar, whether they believe in the partnership or not, or the product or not. I won't do that. I've been super slow to get on board with brands because I want to make sure one, I'm using it or two, that I have a strong belief that I like the company, I like the people, I like their mission. But at the end of the day, there's revenue to be had, even if it's not a large network that you have.

There's opportunities there. The one next one follows up is content creation. Again, this is something all of us could do, right? If you looked at me five years ago, I didn't have a podcast. didn't do any content creation. Now I've got almost what 300 plus episodes of a podcast, 76,000 followers on TikTok and TikTok pays me right for my content. Again, wouldn't have bet that it wasn't on my bingo card that that would be a revenue stream, but it's become a revenue stream and

Again, I'm not going to get rich off it, but when you start stacking these different revenue streams, it, starts to add up in a hurry. So, next one I more recent for me is the paid community, right? When I started the escapee, it started with the free Slack group, realized that I wasn't getting the engagement from a lot of the folks. So we moved to a paid model where I really wanted folks that were invested in either getting out and staying out of corporate and wanted to be part of a community. That's why we started the escapee collective.

Brett Trainor (: 13:53

Uh, and it's paid now, right? We've got over a hundred members. Um, if anybody shameless plug wants to join, uh, it's still $20 a month right now. And if you get in before December, I'll keep you locked in for life at $20 a month, but we're going to start to raise the price because of a number of programs and sessions that we've started to announce. So if you're curious, you've been on the fence, now's the time to, jump into that, you either DM me or you can find the links in my materials. Um,

Sponsorship is another one. This is, you know, now that I have the podcast and I've got the newsletter, I do have the ability and have charged started testing, you know, sponsorships for those two things. Same thing back to the influencer. I want to make sure it's a good fit for my brand. I want to make sure our values are aligned. And, yeah, there is, there's definitely a larger revenue stream here for me as we continue to grow, but this is still in the early stages with, sponsors workshops.

Again, I think anybody can do this, anybody that's got the experience. So if you're working with small businesses and let's use, let's use sales right there, or let's use customer success. It's set to relatively newer idea for small businesses. Most don't have a customer success function or strategy so that you could set up a workshop for small business owners that say, Hey, here's how to leverage customer success. And maybe it's a four hour.

nd we'll probably look in, in: 2026

o far, but it's something for: 2026

Brett Trainor (: 16:17

Uh, the next one is user generated content. If you're a long time listener of this, um, podcast, then you know that, uh, you probably heard the episode with, with Megan Collier, who is the UGC and she, all she does is coaches and teaches boomers and Gen Xers how to make money with user generated content. And she's got a course, uh, one of, by the way, one of most popular episodes that I've had on this podcast. So I knew it really hit a hit a nerve with folks on, on how to make money.

And again, this is something I've recently discovered and I think I can really leverage this because of, do have followers, user generated content. Again, I should take a step back is basically you or I creating content for a brand, right? In this case, right? I love, Travis Matthew. They're not a sponsor of me, but I could send or I could reach out to them and create content for them using their brand talking about how, you know, that's the only thing I'm sure there were whatever, poor example.

Megan's got a lot better examples, but brands will pay you for your user generated videos, right? You can structure a deal. it takes a little bit of work, but once you get that, that engine rolling, there's good cashflow in that as well. I encourage you to check that one out. E-commerce, seems like a little bit of an offshoot, but the number of escapees that we have that actually do in branched into e-commerce.

Uh, it makes more sense after I thought about it, right? So especially if you're in your IT and you understand how e-commerce works, or you were responsible for e-commerce in corporate, you know, finding a small brand or starting your own on Amazon is it makes sense. It's not something I've done, but something I'm still curious and paying attention to. I guess you can kind of say I'm doing e-commerce because I'm now selling, um, an online course and a couple of coaching programs online. I guess tech.

that's e-commerce, maybe it's content. Blurs the line, but anyway, it wasn't on your radar, if this is something you're passionate about, there's definitely a path there for you to make money as well. And then the last one is more of a tech enabled service. And this may sound like the agency or selling services, but this is maybe you're passionate about starting and building an app, right? You can do this vibe coding or no coding type of tools where you can build the app.

Brett Trainor (: 18:36

I'm just a big fan of adding some services to it because I think that's where our superpowers as Gen Xers are is that knowledge, that wisdom and just technology that's dumb technology isn't going to help anybody. But you partner a technology with your experience. That's why I think AI, I didn't even include that in here and I probably should, even though it's a service is that marriage of you and your experience with, with technology, what to automate, right? It just, it's going to be a,

A major opportunity it is right now, but so few of Gen Xers are going to actually take advantage of this. if you like technology, like AI, like small businesses, there's, there's an opportunity for you right now to take advantage of that. So, so those are the 17 that I've talked about and the beauty of every one of them, it doesn't take any money to get started, right? You may have to have a CRM, you know, website, which I'd argue when you get started, you don't need, right? You just need.

the ability to do some outreach and some networking. And that's probably another cliff notes session that I'll do here pretty quick about how I think you can, while still in corporate build a revenue stream, just using local businesses. And I'll walk you through what I think that that framework looks like here in an upcoming episode, but two more revenue opportunities and how to replace your income that I would include is franchises. We've got, again, not a number of folks in the, the collective.

that also do either bought into an ownership of a franchise or exploring franchises as a, know, think of it as a business in the box may or may not leverage your corporate experience. could be more of a personal passion of where you want to go, but another great way to get started. Um, the difference with this one, it's going to take some investment. are no free franchises, right? You're going to have to make that investment upfront. But again, I think there's a lot of benefits to that where you don't have to start everything from scratch and maybe you don't want to start things from scratch.

And then the second one is to buy a business. think this is a huge opportunity. And again, it's going to take some, some capital in order to get started in some cases, but you know, with the boomers and the number of business owners, family owned businesses that are looking to transition and the next generation doesn't want to take it over. There's deals to be had where you could probably even structure it where there's no cash out of your pocket. It's just coming out of future.

Brett Trainor (: 20:58

earnings you could pay off. Again, I think there's a wide spectrum, but a growing industry. Now that I'm saying this out loud, I should get somebody back on the podcast to talk about this opportunity because I think it's there. And even a partnership between two or three different Gen Xers, right? Or escapees starting to build this. I think there's some really unique opportunities there. So anyway, I hope this was helpful. I hopefully got your brain thinking a little bit. And if you're in corporate,

You know, some of these will not work right. As long as you're still doing just because of the time commitment, but I like the services. like the coaching and, potentially even advisory for folks that are still in, in corporate that you can do this on the weekends at night. So it doesn't conflict with your job, build up those revenue streams, gain the confidence. And then when corporate kicks you out or you decide to quit, you've already got a path forward, right? You're going to future proof what you're doing and what you like to do. So.

Anyway, again, hope you found this helpful. And if you do enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe. It helps the numbers. It's still an old game, but it makes sense. And I don't ask enough for folks to, subscribe if you enjoy it and drop me a note. If there is a separate topic or different things that you want me to discuss on this podcast, I will be happy to do it. But as always appreciate you listening. And if we haven't connected, please do connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you're still in corporate, good luck.