Five Ways to Sell What You Know

What this is for

You have twenty-five years in something and a growing sense that the next part of your working life should not be another job. Every article about this assumes you are going to build an app. You are not, and you should not have to, and the advice that assumes otherwise is why this decision has stalled.

This is the menu instead. Five shapes an expertise business actually takes, none of which require you to write code or hire a developer. For each: what it is, who it suits, what a realistic first year looks like, the specific thing that kills it, and the cheapest way to find out whether it is for you.

Read it once, pick two, and test them. The test matters more than the picking; the shape people end up running is rarely the one they picked first.

Before you start

One number first, because it changes which of the five make sense: what do you actually need this to earn, and by when?

Not your old salary. The amount that makes this sustainable, after whatever pension, savings, severance, partner's income or paid-off mortgage you have. Write it down before you read on. Someone who needs to replace $180,000 next year and someone who needs $40,000 within three years should not pick the same shape, and most advice ignores that they are different people.

Second, the honest framing on all five: these are businesses, not retirements with a hobby attached. Each one needs selling. If your reaction to that is that you would rather not sell, the last two of the five are the ones to read carefully, because those are where the selling mostly happens through people who already know you.

The five shapes

1. The productized service

What it is. One specific piece of work, same scope every time, fixed price. Not consulting by the hour. "I review your manufacturing contracts for risk and give you a marked-up copy and a one-page summary, two weeks, $2,500." The scope does not flex, which is the entire point.

Who it suits. Anyone whose expertise produces a deliverable. Reviewers, analysts, auditors, diagnosticians, anyone who looks at a mess and tells people what is wrong with it.

Realistic first year. This is the fastest of the five to first revenue, often inside a month, because you can sell it before you have built anything. Income scales with your hours, so the ceiling is real and arrives quickly.

What kills it. Scope creep. The first client asks for one more thing, you say yes, and within four jobs you are back to bespoke consulting with a fixed-price invoice, which is the worst of both. The discipline is saying "that is outside this, and here is what it would cost separately" in month one, to someone you want to keep happy.

Cheapest test. Write the one-page description and send it to five people who already know your work. Not a website. Five emails. The Fractional One-Pager is the document, and Pricing Your Expertise is the number.

2. The expertise course

What it is. You teach the thing, once, recorded, and sell access. Could be six hours of video, could be a four-week cohort where you actually show up live.

Who it suits. People whose expertise is a method others want to learn, and who can stand in front of a camera or a Zoom room without hating their life. Also people who have already taught this internally and know it lands.

Realistic first year. Slow and lumpy. The recorded version earns almost nothing until you have an audience to sell it to, which is a second job that takes a year or two. The live cohort version earns sooner and more per head, because people pay for access to you rather than for a video. Most people who succeed here run cohorts first and record later.

What kills it. Building the course before finding out whether anyone will pay for it. Six months of filming into an empty room is the standard failure, and it is expensive in the one currency you cannot get back.

Cheapest test. Sell the live cohort before it exists. Announce a date, a price, and six places. If four people pay, build it. If nobody pays, you have learned something in two weeks that would otherwise have cost you half a year.

3. The premium community

What it is. A paid room where people with the same problem talk to each other, and you are the reason they trust the room. Monthly or annual fee, small, recurring.

Who it suits. People whose real asset is a network plus a point of view. If your phone rings with "do you know anyone who..." you are already doing this for free.

Realistic first year. Recurring revenue that starts tiny and compounds. The arithmetic is plain and sobering: at $50 a month you need 100 people for $60,000 a year, and getting to 100 paying members takes most people longer than a year.

What kills it. Silence. A community with no conversation in it is a subscription people cancel, and the work of starting conversations every week falls entirely on you for the first year. It is the highest ongoing effort of the five and people consistently underestimate it.

Cheapest test. Run it free for eight weeks with twenty people you already know. If you have to manufacture every conversation, it will not survive being paid for.

4. The licensed framework

What it is. You have a method. Instead of applying it yourself, you train and license other people to apply it, and take a fee for the training, the materials, and often a continuing share.

Who it suits. People with a method that already has a name and a track record, ideally one that colleagues have asked to borrow. This is the least common of the five and the one most often attempted too early.

Realistic first year. Usually nothing. This works when there is already demand for the method and you are the bottleneck. Attempting it before that point means selling a license to a thing nobody is asking for.

What kills it. Doing it before you have proof. If you cannot name people who have paid for the method itself, there is nothing to license yet. The productized service is how you generate that proof, which is why these two are often the same business two years apart.

Cheapest test. Ask one respected peer whether they would pay to be trained and certified in it. Their hesitation is the answer, and read the hesitation rather than the politeness.

5. The retained advisor

What it is. A small number of organizations pay you a monthly fee for access to your judgment. Not a project. A standing arrangement: a call or two a month, and the right to ring you when something happens.

Who it suits. People with a long reputation in one industry, where the buyer is someone who already knows your name or knows someone who does. Almost always the fastest route for anyone leaving a senior role in a specific sector.

Realistic first year. Two to four clients at a few thousand a month is a real and common outcome, and it is the shape most likely to reach a meaningful number within twelve months for a senior person with a network. Revenue is steady, ceiling is low, and it is the least scalable of the five, which for many people is fine.

What kills it. Being available for everything. A retainer with no shape becomes an on-call job at a fraction of your old salary. Define what the fee buys, in writing, in the first month.

Cheapest test. List ten people who have asked your advice for free in the past two years. Call three of them. The first one who says "I would have paid for that" is your business.

Choosing between them

Two questions get most people to a shortlist of two.

Does your expertise produce a deliverable, or a decision? A deliverable, something you hand over, points to the productized service or the course. A decision, where the value is that you said so, points to the retained advisor or the community.

Do you want money sooner or compounding later? The productized service and the retainer pay soonest and cap lowest. The course, the community and the licensed framework pay much later and keep paying. Your number from the top of this page decides which of those you can afford to want.

If the honest answer is that you need money within six months, pick from the retainer and the productized service, and treat the other three as year-two questions. That is not settling. It is the order almost everyone who makes this work goes in.

A prompt for the shortlist

Use either ChatGPT or Claude.

ROLE: You are a blunt advisor helping an experienced professional
choose between five shapes of expertise business. You are not a
cheerleader and you do not tell people to follow their passion.

CONTEXT: My background: [YOUR FIELD AND YEARS, e.g. 24 years in
commercial insurance, last role head of underwriting at a mid-size
broker]. What people ask me for: [THE THING COLLEAGUES ACTUALLY COME
TO YOU FOR]. What I need this to earn and by when: [YOUR NUMBER AND
TIMELINE]. What I do not want: [e.g. weekly video calls, travel,
managing people].

THE FIVE SHAPES: productized service, expertise course, premium
community, licensed framework, retained advisor.

CONSTRAINTS:
- Recommend exactly two, ranked, and say plainly why the other three
  are wrong for me specifically.
- If my earnings timeline is not achievable with my stated
  constraints, say so directly rather than softening it.
- For each of the two, name the single hardest thing I will have to
  do that I am probably not expecting.
- Do not suggest building software or an app.
- Base everything on what I told you. Where you are guessing, mark
  it as a guess.

OUTPUT FORMAT: Two short sections, one per recommendation, each with:
why this fits, the hardest part, and a first test I could run in
under two weeks for under $200. Then three lines, one per rejected
shape, saying why not.

Where this goes wrong

• You pick the shape with the highest ceiling. The course and the licensed framework have the best stories and the longest runways. Picking on ceiling rather than on how soon you need money is the most common and most expensive error here.
• You build before you sell. All five have a version where you can take money before the thing fully exists. Use it. Every one of the cheapest tests above is designed to get a yes or a no before you spend a season building.
• You price against your old salary. Your rate is not your salary divided by working days. Work the floor math properly in Pricing Your Expertise before you quote anyone.
• You treat "I do not want to sell" as a preference rather than a constraint. It is a constraint, and it rules out three of the five. Say it out loud and choose accordingly.
• You do all five a bit. Each of these needs a year of focused attention. Two is a portfolio. Five is a hobby with invoices.

The 2-minute version

Write down what you need this to earn and by when. Then ask two questions: does your expertise produce a deliverable or a decision, and do you need money sooner or compounding later. Deliverable plus soon means a productized service. Decision plus soon means a retained advisor. Either one plus later opens up the course, the community or the license. Pick two, run the cheapest test for each inside two weeks, and let the results choose rather than your preferences.

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More where this came from. The resource library has 23 free guides like this one, written for people with real careers rather than developers.

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