When rights revenue is such a significant contributor to publisher’s profits, why do publishers sometimes find it hard to grow their rights businesses? And why do rights professionals find it hard to advocate for what they do?
In this blog, Clare shares some of the most common challenges she hears about when talking to rights professionals and explains how good systems can go some way in helping you to overcome them.
4 common challenges with selling rights and growing the business
Rights professionals are full of energy and ideas about how to grow their rights businesses, but they sometimes feel like they face an uphill struggle.
Here are some of the most common challenges that rights teams tell me about. Perhaps some of these resonate with you too…
Lack of resource – “there are not enough people”
We meet a lot of rights professionals who are running a whole rights operation on their own, or with just a small team. It is hard to focus on growth when all of your time is dedicated to simply staying on top of your day-to-day business.
A rights workflow can be pretty resource heavy. There are lots of steps in the process and a lot of deals in progress at any one time. Building in as much efficiency to your workflow as you can is critical to ensuring you can do more with the people you’ve got.
Using a good system to support and streamline your processes can help you and your team to achieve more, without needing additional headcount.
A case study on RightsZone in the BISG report, Positioned for Growth, noted how one of our clients was able to do exactly that following their RightsZone implementation:
For the two team members who process the division’s approximately 200 new license sales per month, the new system saves 5–10 minutes for each transaction. It has also cut the time needed to enter metadata by half an hour for each contract. Researching information on existing licenses is performed by the staff approximately 2–3 times every hour — and what had taken 10 minutes each time now takes seconds.
– Positioned for Growth – BISG Rights ROI Research
Lack of time – “it takes so long to react to what is coming in, there is no time to build the business”
There are never enough hours in a day, days in a week or weeks in a year! Just as you start to feel you might get on top of things again, along comes another Book Fair or sales trip, right?
If you have worked out how to streamline your workflow (see above), you will have created yourself some valuable pockets of time. Make that extra time count, by using using it focus on strategic tasks that are going to help you build your business.
A brilliant consequence of using a rights system to streamline your workflow is that you are capturing business intelligence at the same time. You will have a goldmine of information about the rights types you sell most of, which content is popular with certain markets, what the value of particular customers is. That is information that you can use to determine where to focus your time and attention to deliver growth.
RightsZone has some fantastic analytics tools that you can use to get to know your rights business better.
Lack of budget – “barely enough money to get one person to a Book Fair, let alone increase travel or invest in systems”
We know money is tight in all areas of business, and, unfortunately, publishers have never given their teams generous budgets.
Having worked in rights for a long time myself, I know that this is particularly true for rights teams. Whilst sales colleagues might be given state-of-the-art CRM systems, the rights team is frequently making do with spreadsheets or creaking databases that can’t be supported and are no longer fit for purpose.
The most effective way I have ever found to ‘loosen’ the purse strings is to provide evidence of what a rights team can achieve when given the right tools. This is where analytics really come in to their own.
As an example, when you go to a bookfair report on:
- the number of meetings you had
- the diversity of the markets you were able to reach by attending
- the new contacts located
- the number of submissions that resulted
- the issues resolved whilst you were meeting customers face-to-face.
(as highlighted in Publishing Perspectives)
In addition, consider how much more could have been achieved with an additional team member there? How much would you be able to replicate, if you had the budget to attend an additional fair? The cost often looks small in comparison to the benefit you can deliver to the business.
The same is true for making a business case for systems investment.
How much additional business could you generate if you made the switch from your current spreadsheet or database to a more modern workflow solution?
Most of our clients realised a return on investment very quickly following implementation of RightsZone. The Positioned for Growth report noted various ways our client had been able to increase their revenue. This was over and above just increasing the number of deals agreed. For example, “license renewal rose 180%”. Plus, improvements in financial workflows enabled “the collection of an incremental $10,000 per month in otherwise uncaptured revenue”.
Lack of support – “the potential of a rights business is not always well understood, by senior management. Therefore, is not considered a priority”
This can be a really tricky thing to overcome but it is by no means insurmountable.
The first thing to do is to start making yourself heard. Help your colleagues to understand what it is you do, why it is important for the business and the very real value you and your team are contributing. This could include:
- customer care
- author retention
- brand building
- building global business intelligence
- protecting IP
- delivering bottom-line profit
- …all of the above, and more!
Work with your colleagues in finance to pull out the numbers that you have directly contributed to. Seek out opportunities to explain what you are doing, and share your success stories. Tell people about the potential you see in your part of the business.
Back in 2023, Richard Charkin was urging CEOs to focus on the ‘rights’ line on each P&L statement. Read his article in Publishing Perspective. We are not alone!
Explore more here:
It won’t be long before people are asking you how they can support you in your growth mission. When rights grows, company profits go up too!
As our client in the Positioned for Growth case study, explained:
Rights have been identified as a key area for development at the parent company. Rights revenue is tracked monthly by the finance director and is now reported monthly to the Board of Directors […] Senior management interest is surely heightened by the fact that rights revenue is valued by the commercial director at 5–6 times actual licensing revenue because in comparison to other sales, it is nearly pure profit.
Helping you over common barriers to selling rights and growing your business
When you have streamlined workflows and great systems at your finger tips, together with incisive business intelligence, you can be fully focused on developing new opportunities and negotiating great deals. The bits we bet you are best at!
When I worked at Palgrave Macmillan, I grew our rights business by 700% over a 15-year period.
I did that (working with an amazing team) using the 3-step process that we will share in our next blog. It’s also the approach that underpins how we developed our cloud software system RightsZone, to try and make it as easy as possible for rights teams to grow their businesses.
Want to know more today? Email to arrange a demo: emily@rightszone.co.uk