The Level

Hey Reader,

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Hope you’re crushing it this week, and thanks for inviting me back to your inbox :) Let’s talk about leverage. I bet you’re on the edge of your seat… whichever seat you may or may not be reading this on 🧻. If you’re on that seat, maybe scoot back a skosh. *There’s a video at the bottom that mirrors this content, albeit in less depth, if you prefer.👇🏻

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I posted a video this week with a strategic breakdown of the playbook I would implement if I were Caitlin Clark (or her business manager). Caitlin Clark is the newly-minted highest scoring college basketball player of all time (amongst a laundry list of other accolades, awards, and broken records). She just finished her senior season at the University of Iowa and will go #1 in the WNBA draft on Monday. Caitlyn has done more to elevate women’s basketball than any other individual in history, full stop.

Here’s the scoop on how she could should shift from rented audiences on social (not to mention renting out hers to companies she has exactly ZERO equity in) to OWNED audiences and a portfolio of companies to the tune of $1 billion by the time she’s 30. Based on my research, this would be a first for a female athlete. Not even Serena Williams has a billion dollars.

Don’t think this applies to you? Think again. Stay with me. View this playbook through the lens of your own unique leverage points, whether they’re your expertise, wisdom, network, audience, course, membership community, newsletter, speaking opportunities, etc.

We all have points of leverage that we can use to earn more money doing what we love while serving those whose precious attention we have.

Here’s how Caitlin should do it:

1. Caitlin’s points of leverage are: her name, image, and likeness (and the millions she’s making off of them), her crazy basketball skills, and the attention of 1.8 million people across social media. And Caitlin’s no stranger to drawing a crowd – almost 24 million people tuned in to the women’s NCAA National Championship Basketball game this past Sunday afternoon. That’s more than any basketball game, at any level, since 2019.

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2. ***Caveat: none of what I propose is possible without a highly experienced e-commerce and digital product team, period. Every wildly successful person has a strong, reliable, accountable, capable team behind them.*

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3. Caitlin should be looking for 2 main things: Ownership and Recurring Revenue (and the relationship between the two).

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4. Ownership chess move #1: Caitlin is already flush with brand deals and sponsorships, BUT instead of taking money up front, negotiate EQUITY in the sponsoring business. This creates long term incentive alignment between the sponsoring business and Caitlin (their new biz partner), which will produce consistent incentives for her to promote that brand over the long haul. Thing long term and delay gratification for the mega payout later.

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Anyone remember when Beyoncé forwent her $6M private concert fee for an event at Uber in favor of an equity stake in the company back in 2015? Care to guess what that measly 6 mil became in 2019 when Uber went public…? $300 million. Yes – that’s three-hundred-million-dollars. EQUITY people, it’s all about equity!

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5. Ownership chess move #2: what I’ve coined the “Ryan Reynolds Celebrity Flip Move”. Reynolds has purchased significant ownership stake in companies like Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, a Formula 1 team, etc. He buys in low → uses his celebrity to drive sales → and resells his stake for exponentially more.

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Caitlin should use her NIL (name/image/likeness) royalties from her college ball days and invest in undervalued businesses whose products & services cater to folks who happen to match the demographics & psychographics of her super fans. With Caitlin serving as the face of a handful of the right brands, their value will become exponential. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Always doubling down by reinvesting earnings from one ownership stake into the next, and so on.

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Bonus points if she partners with a private equity team who forks over the cash to accelerate this process.

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6. Recurring Revenue (digital): Caitlin has 1.8M followers across social platforms. Imagine what she could do with their email addresses!! She’s got to own her leads (her audience) and own what she’s selling, otherwise, she’s not fully leveraging the opportunity in front of her, but rather leaving the fate of her audience and reach up to fickle social media algorithms and elevating other people’s businesses instead of her own. Don’t settle for the Civic if you’re a Mercedes G-wagon kinda gal.

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With the one-two punch of social reach and email inbox real estate, Caitlin’s hypothetical team could launch and scale a subscription service that offers basketball skill-building videos from Ms. Clark herself, delivered straight to your daughter’s phone once a week. This subscription should also include a LIVE component where subscribers get to join live monthly Q&As and hangout time with Caitlin – with the opportunity to get their own question answered by Caitlin, live. Access + content are key to this working. Typically a community component is the 3rd leg of the subscription stool, but this can be foregone in this instance – it works as a standalone. And there is a community vibe to live calls, so there’s an injection of that at regular intervals.

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She needs a library of past training videos and Q&As for any subscriber/member to access at any time. Content can also be recycling strategically according to how long the average subscriber is a paying customer. And you should be recycling content, too!

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7. Recurring Revenue (merch): Caitlin should develop a monthly subscription box that sends out products from the companies that she has an ownership stake in. This is a double dip on both recurring revenue and equity – an absolute pro move. This is a direct-sales play and would be a massive incentive for equity awards (rather than her having to buy-in). The line of brand suitors would never end for this opportunity. Obviously there must be commonalities amongst the portfolio companies whose products are selected for this curated sub box, but those are the companies she should have a stake in in the first place because they jive with her audience.

The key lesson:

The more interplay between companies she has equity in and the recurring revenue products and services HER company sells, the more her net worth will increase, all the way to a billion. And is it all about the money? Of course not. But I’d love to see a female athlete hit this milestone and Caitlin Clark has a real opportunity to start young, compound wealth, whilst having a massively positive influence on young women all over the world for decades to come. Win-win.

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What ideas does this spark for you? What are you unique points of leverage? Have you thought about recurring revenue in your own business via a paid newsletter, membership community, exclusive mastermind, or high-ticket small group coaching programs?

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If you’re not sure how to definitively determine your leverage points and use them to level up your income and impact, hit reply and let me know, or just go ahead and book a quick half hour session with me (gratis) right here.

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Here’s the high-level overview ⬇️ (Also, follow me on IG for more content like this!)

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