A few months ago I had a conversation with a colleague who has developed some fantastic materials for her business. As a HR consultant who runs a knowledge based practice, other than simply offering her time and her consulting services, she was brilliant in her foresight and ability to generate packaged “products” she can sell.

As oppose to worrying about other consultants stealing her intellectual property, she was very generous in sharing her knowledge with me, another consultant (though I am not in the same line of consulting).

But consider this: if you have a fantastic product, why not sharing it with your competition, FOR A PRICE? Product licensing can be a good source of revenue for your company. Do some research and figure out who your competitors are, select a suitable one, and offer to license your product to the company. Monthly fees, royalties, and a one-time fee to cover a time period are a few ways to create passive revenue. This is not to mention that your product will get introduced to a new market without you being the distributor and doing the work.

Beyond licensing your products to competitors, you can also do so with strategic alliances to create synergy.

Big companies, like Disney, license their products, in this case, Shrek, to other companies. The benefit now goes beyond what one company alone can achieve.

Do you have that product or service you can potentially license?