A big brand comes to you and wants to partner with you to produce content for them. Business Insider sends an email to republish your great article they saw on Linkedin. The creative concept you pitched has picked up major traction and may get distribution on a larger platform like Netflix or Hulu.
What exactly should you be looking for when brands come knocking and want to partner with you?
This part two of negotiating with power covers exactly what you should be looking for plus 4 lessons you can learn in the current dispute for ownership between Nick Cannon and Viacom for his Wild-N-Out improv show.
First, let's talk about ownership.
When you get an agreement, do a Command F or Ctrl F and conduct a search for the following phrases: “assignment”, “assignment of rights” and “work for hire”.
It is likely accompanied by some phrasing that says, in exchange for $$$$ you here by assign or grant a license to us in perpetuity. Or it may say you “irrevocably assign the rights to this content (i.e. the video of your speaking engagement, your handouts, your slides, your worksheet, your framework) in exchange for payment”.
Or the most dangerous is that you agree that this is “being completed as a work for hire as defined by us copyright law and will effectuate all paperwork to assign appropriate rights necessary to company X, Y and Z” Either of those phrases in an agreement likely means that you are handing over the rights the legal ownership of your work over to whoever is paying you
Of course, I'm going to give my disclaimer, this is not individualized legal advice, I don't see your contracts, I don't know what's in front of you. I am going based on my decade of history experience in contracts, and it's been in more contracts than it has not. And so it likely may be in yours. However, I am not your lawyer, and I suggest you get a good lawyer on your team to look for these things. But in case you're DIY, these are the phrases. These are the key phrases that sign over your rights in exchange for money. So whether you are licensing irrevocably in perpetuity, or doing this as a quote unquote work for hire either way, you have given up your rights for life. What I do on behalf of my clients is modify that language.
As a lawyer I typically revise contract language to ensure it is only in connection with the specific campaign or event my client is being paid for.
So, while I cannot speak directly to what was in Nick Cannon's contract, from the stance that Viacom is taking and the fact that he is demanding ownership of wild-n-out, it seems as though we can hypothesize that Nick Cannon does not own the right to his work, he simply did not own his show. A lot of work as CEOs as entrepreneurs as a visionary is going out and pitching our ideas to the world for value. So you go and you pitch your concept to a major brand, you pitch to a major corporation. They may offer you an amazing amount of money that is well beyond what you thought you would get and it feels like a good deal. But is that really a good deal when at the end of the day, you don't own it?
The lesson here: Don’t get so caught up in the dollar amounts that you miss out on being an owner. You don't want to be the face of something that you ultimately don't own unless you knowingly enter into that scenario.
In a best case scenario Nick Cannon’s production company could have licensed the concept to Viacom for a period of time allowing the show to be distributed via MTV while he still retained ownership and as the show grew in popularity negotiated for more at the point of renewal.
Licensing is a whole masterclass in itself. However as a matter of principle for my clients if I'm licensing their work, it won't be in perpetuity.
I typically negotiate a limited license to content strictly for the purpose of the campaign, the conference, the event being paid for. Should you wish to reuse repurpose this content for anything other than what we have agreed to then it must be agreed in writing and negotiated for a separate amount by the parties.
If there is future use…. the price just went up!
If you want to reuse or repurpose this again then we need to come back to the table. You can come to the table now with some more money. Or we can go ahead and strike this and if you decide you want to repurpose it later, we can come back and talk about these dollars.
The last point that I want to make here from this Nick Cannon Viacom scenario is that:
You will not always be in a position to own your rights, especially when you're first getting to these major levels.
You may have worked hard enough to get a great opportunity to come your way, but you just may not have the leverage just yet to have ownership.
And so the question begs do want to take on this opportunity but cannot have ownership of it?
The answer is yes!
You want to see at least if you can get some bonus that can lead to something that you do in fact, own.
Can I promote my own book, my own merchandise, my other shows? Something that I mentioned that actually gotten Nick Cannon in trouble was Cannon’s Class. Honestly prior to this, I hadn't heard of Cannon’s Class. So was this an opportunity for him at the end of the show to get a commercial slot or some kind of mention during the show to also check me out over on YouTube where I am talking about social issues and politics?
If you aren’t in a position to own, is there some kind of promo that you can get in? A huge missed opportunity a lot of regular people miss in the public speaking world as thought leaders and experts is for free vendor tables, free merch tables, or collecting data.
One of the best things that I have ever seen done and this was done by a Lamar Tyler, I saw him do this at a Black Enterprise/TD Jakes entrepreneurship conference. He put a text code on the screen for people to get his PowerPoint presentation to their phone, or for them to get the notes to what he was talking about, or to follow the next step to the action item that he described in his talk. God that genius! He literally has this captive audience of hundreds of people and right now instead of hoping that they stop at his table afterwards Or that they give these email addresses somehow where people might opt in. He knows that if you text me right now, during my speech, I know that you were here in this seat, right? At a conference, you could have simultaneous sessions. And so it might not do you any good to get an email list for an entire conference, because they might not have been attending for you. But if they were within your session, then you know that they were there for your content. He has it up on the screen in an easy to interact manner, and it ultimately leads them to a product he owns and that's really the big bag here!
As a CEO minded entrepreneur when looking to build and scale brands to bigger audiences, you want to strategically take on opportunities that may just grant you exposure to your ideal client and may not be linked to a huge paycheck, but you still want to navigate it in a way that makes sense and ultimately is strategic.
I hope that you enjoyed these negotiating with power part one and two episodes hope to do more in this format for you, but there's just such powerful lessons that are being learned here and we hate to see it. But we prefer to learn from someone else then make these mistakes ourselves. Sometimes we are so blinded by opportunities that we're scared to negotiate, or at least to walk away like how I talked about in the Monique episode. Or that it's such a big opportunity, we don't realize what we're giving away in the small print like potentially happened in this scenario with Nick Cannon.
So if we are looking at the learning lessons in the Viacom vs Nick Cannon, Wild-N-Out dispute in summary the 4 lessons are
#1 Look at the small print, look for those words, work for hire or assignment of rights, and see who will ultimately have ownership if you are partnering with a brand for content.
#2 Understand the power of licensing the rights to your content. But first you MUST take active steps to own it by registering a copyright or trademark. (If you want to know how you can protect the intellectual property behind the brand and not sure if you need a copyright or trademark LISTEN HERE)
#3 Always try to negotiate a limited use of your content. You want to make sure another party is not going to reuse or repurpose your content unless they come to the table and negotiate for wider usage.
#4 Even if you are not in a position to leverage for ownership or you have yet to gain that ownership of your content still negotiate how you can utilize that opportunity in a strategic way to point to something that you do ultimately own whether it is merchandise, books, or a upsell that you are offering.
The BONUS here is let's not forget the $$$ value of data and the example that I mentioned with Lamar Tyler utilizing the QR code or the text to numbers to get immediate audience contact information. There's so much value in our subscriber list and having warm leads of people we know are interested in our products or services or brands.
If you enjoyed this series make sure you are subscribed to the Minute of Your Time podcast where each week I’m giving lessons just like these BEFORE they hit the blog! On episode 23 I’m talking about Beyonce being in her bag and in her BAGS with the Black is King project on Disney+ and the lessons in multi-level monetization through multiple LLCs.
You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcast and Spotify! Don’t miss out!
