A summary of things you should know about The Automatic Customer according to John Warrillow: Introduction In this episode John Warrillow takes a deep dive into his book, The AutomaticRead More
The post A Preview of The Automatic Customer with John Warrillow appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode John Warrillow takes a deep dive into his book, The Automatic Customer, where he discusses how to create a subscription business in any industry.
In his book Warrillow provides 9 unique business models based on a simple step-by-step guide for building an online subscription based business that are designed to fit nearly any kind of industry. The goal of the book is to teach you the fundamentals of recurring revenue, how to attract automatic customers, ways to market subscription products, and the statistics you need to measure results.
This books is perfect for entrepreneurs who are technology savvy and want to own a business that allows them to work from home while building a large, sustainable income.
I think the nine subscription models are really easy for businesses to comprehend and apply to their business. We try to explain that no matter what business or industry you’re in you can apply one of these nine models to create some form of recurring revenue.
This book has three major sections. The first section is dedicated to really making the case as to why you want recurring revenue. So if you already know that you absolutely want recurring revenue than you can skip section one and go straight to section two which is the nine subscription models.
What these nine subscription models are going to do is help you think through all the different forms of recurring revenue that you might use in your business. And you can cherry-pick through those as you see one that is more relevant and less relevant. The final section is scaling up your subscription business which is all about the metrics you want.
The LTV (Lifetime Value) to CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) ratio is the most important metric any subscription company operator focuses on and we give you a formula on how to calculate it.
The key is to find some way to create some form of recurring revenue because that is going to both improve the value of your company as well as make your business a whole lot easier and more enjoyable to run. I believe that the essence of what we are trying to do can be encapsulated in a story I tell in the book. This story is about a guy named Sonu Panda who took a different approach to selling flowers. If you think about it a flower shop doesn’t have much hope unless it’s Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day. In this business you constantly have to throw out rotten un-bought inventory because it simply wasn’t purchased which is a big waste of profit. Sonu Panda is trying to get you to think differently about what business you are in, even the low-tech business of selling flowers. So he tried to figure out who out there buys flowers on a recurring basis and realized that spas, restaurants, and hotels actually buy flowers relatively frequently. And so Sonu went to the individual establishments and negotiated with them on scheduling a time to bring fresh flowers every two weeks so that they could get back to the business or spa treatment etc. and not have to worry about whether their flowers are fresh. With that value proposition he started H. Bloom and today there are thousands and thousands of H. Bloom customers and subscribers around the world. So really the book is trying to convey that no matter what you do and no matter what business you are in you can rethink your business to create recurring revenue.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:04
“Happiness bombs.” – Bark Box
I am the founder of something called The Value Builder System where we help business owners improve the value of their company. I found that business after I wrote the book Built To Sell a couple years ago.
Most of the inspiration came from me screwing up writing Built To Sell. In Built to Sell I talked about the importance of making the business thrive without you personally doing all the work. The one thing that I didn’t spend enough time on was recurring revenue and it turns out that recurring revenue has the biggest impact on whether or not someone wants to buy your business. With The Automatic Customer I wanted to kind of write that wrong and really dedicate an entire book to how a business creates passive income and recurring revenue streams that are not necessarily reliant on the owner themselves.
Small Giants by Bo Burlingham
Buy The Automatic Customer by John Warrillow on Amazon today
Visit AutomaticCustomer.com to learn more about the book and get your free e-book
Visit ValueBuilderSystem.com to learn more about John’s company and services
Follow John Warrillow on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter
High Paying Clients by Trevor Crane
Unselling by Scott Stratten
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Recommended Books on Starting An Online Business
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Automatic Customer with John Warrillow appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about The Membership Economy according to Robbie Kellman Baxter: Introduction In this episode online business expert Robbie Baxter gives an in-depth look insideRead More
The post A Preview of The Membership Economy with Robbie Kellman Baxter appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode online business expert Robbie Baxter gives an in-depth look inside her book, The Membership Economy, where she discusses how subscription-based businesses succeed.
In her book Baxter provides an online business roadmap that is packed with step-by-step digital strategies, useful resources, and case studies of super successful dot-com companies. The goal of the book is to show you how to get the most revenue from your online product, create an engaged community of customers, place your revenue on autopilot, and create sustainable loyalty programs.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who already or plan to sell an online, subscription-based product or service and are not sure where to begin when it comes to building revenue.
There are a lot of books about specific types of models, there are books that talk about different kinds of trends or behavioral economics but my book really takes a broad and strategic look at what is driving this major transformational trend. My book talks about specific examples across a wide spectrum of organizational structure and I look at how those trends apply across everything in between.
I wrote this book to be read in whatever order you decide.
I want the readers to remember that the goal is no longer about the transaction being the finish line. The transaction is the starting line and the ongoing formal relationship with the customer is going to make the difference between the winners and the losers in the next 20 years.
The book is divided into four sections.
The first section talks about what the membership economy is, why it’s happening right now, what the drivers are, and gives the reader a sense of what the implications are across the social and professional landscape.
The second section is what I think of as the deep meat of the book, the most tactical section and that goes into the seven steps to the membership economy which I outline in detail. This is where you can get tidbits that you apply to your own business right away. I talk about what the implications are of the membership economy for the way you organize your company. I discuss in detail everything you need to know about onboarding. I believe that most organizations under invest in onboarding new customers which needs to happen in the first 30 days. The fourth and fifth chapters, pricing and the use of free, talk about how your members should pay and how to think about your pricing structure. We talk about the use of subscription model s but we also talk about other sources of revenue that membership organizations can layer on top of one another in order to build a robust model. And I talk about the use of free as a really useful tool for extending the reach of your organization. I talk about technology and what kinds of technologies are available for managing ongoing relationships, building loyalty, and mastering retention. I talk about the importance of a focus on the customer over the product. I believe it’s all about the customer and I go over how an organization can build out a customer success team and a culture that promotes a focus on the customer as more important than the product.
Section three goes into the six different types of organizations that are currently benefiting from the membership economy. That’s the digital natives which are subscription businesses and online communities. Then I talk about small businesses and professional services firms and then I talk about nonprofits and professional societies and trade. And finally I talk about what I call the gateway to the membership economy which is loyalty programs.
In the fourth section I talk about the specific points of opportunity in the membership economy which are the hardest spots for entrepreneurs to be successful. This is things like going from idea to startup. I talk about going from being a hot startup that’s really edgy to being a mainstream mature organization. I talk about going from offline business to online business and I also talk about going from a fixed product base pricing ownership model to an access model.
At the very end of the book I take you through very specific steps to get started at looking at your own business and get the reader thinking about where there might be opportunities to leverage the principles of the membership economy. And then I invite you to give me feedback on your own journey and ask me any questions you might have. Ultimately I want there to be a community around the book as well as the book that talks about community.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 06:15
I have been a strategy consultant for the last 25 years and for the last 15 years I’ve been an independent consultant. I have always been interested in how the psychology of the customer ties in with business models and currently run a successful consulting firm called Peninsula Strategies.
The inspiration behind writing this book was from a consulting project that I did about 12 years ago. I was asked to do a project at Netflix and I fell in love with their business model because of the recurring revenue and the quantity of data they were collecting about their customers. From that point on I really only wanted to work with companies that were thinking about those kind of issues and I felt like I needed to document my experience.
Getting to 50/50 by Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober
Buy The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter on Amazon today
Visit MembershipEconomy.com to learn more about the book
Visit PeninsulaStrategies.com to learn more about Robbie and her services
Follow Robbie Kellman Baxter on LinkedIn and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Escape The Expected by Tom Trush
Unselling by Scott Stratten
High Paying Clients by Trevor Crane
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Recommended Books on Starting An Online Business
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Membership Economy with Robbie Kellman Baxter appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Evergreen according to Noah Fleming: Introduction In this episode Noah Fleming takes a deep dive into his book, Evergreen, where he revealsRead More
The post A Preview of Evergreen with Noah Fleming appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Noah Fleming takes a deep dive into his book, Evergreen, where he reveals a way to create longer lasting relationships with customers.
In his book Fleming provides a practical roadmap packed with strategies, stories, and tips on improving your business by cultivating deeper, more profitable relationships with your customers. The goal of the book is to teach you 3 significant rules that create loyal customers, how to build effective loyalty programs, and how to incorporate social media into any loyalty plan.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run a business based on building relationships with customers and need a simple guide for creating the best customer loyalty system.
What makes it different is that I start long before the point of closing the sale. I believe that customer loyalty and customer relationships start long before the sale has ever been made. Evergreen provides a deep look at what happens before the sale, to the point of the sale, and then into what I call happily ever after.
The book is broken down into two parts. The first half of the book is a very strategic framework and so I recommend reading this part because I think it’s applicable to any type of business. That said if you’ve already got a successful business you can certainly hop to the second half of the book which is very tactical in nature with very specific action steps you can take.
I want the reader to understand that everything you do is equally about getting and equally about keeping the customer. Just understanding this one principle can change your entire outlook of your company, business, or career.
As I mentioned there are two sections of the book. The first half is a strategic framework which I call The Three C’s of Evergreen Company. Let me explain to you how this started. When I started to look at my own company I had subscription base services, I had my own online community, and I had really strong retention and loyalty. So I wondered if what I was doing was something I could apply to my own clients and so I did. I started to work with clients and I started to help them implement this strategic framework. Then as I started to research the book years later I started to look at bigger companies and I wanted to figure out the commonality between great companies that have truly loyal customers and that seem to thrive all year long. I started to notice there were three key things happening with the best entrepreneurs, the best solo professionals, and the best companies and they had these three things just right. So the first C is character and character is why you do what you do and I walk you through very specific steps to really build your character. The second C is community; the best companies in the world right now are building a strong sense of community amongst their customers. The third C is content and is the shorthand that I am using as the thing you give for money. So your content is your core product, you core service and the big mistake is to believe that content is enough to bring people back again and again. Content is not enough to bring people back so you want to make sure your character and your community really boasts up your content.
Once you define those three C’s then you can get serious about learning about your customer base. In the next half of the book I walk you through how to learn about your different types of customers which I call Archetypes. This is where you start to tailor your sales and marketing messages to them on a much more personal level. I start to try and help people break away from the addiction mentality and help you really focus on where your ideal customers are right now. It’s about how to most effectively, efficiently, and affordably reach them, attract them, and keep them as quickly as possible.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 06:58
I am a Canadian who lives in Ontario Canada. I am also a father of two girls and married ten years now. In the business side of my personal life I am a strategic marketing consultant. I work with small to midsize companies but also with entrepreneurs personally mentoring and coaching them.
I saw in my clients an addiction to the new customer mentality that we need to focus all of our efforts into driving people through the doors. I knew there had to be a better way to do it which inspired me to do my research and write about my findings.
Linchpin by Seth Godin
Buy Evergreen by Noah Fleming on Amazon today
Visit NoahFleming.com to learn more about Noah, his book, and newsletter
Follow Noah Fleming on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Customer Experience 3.0 by John Goodman
High Paying Clients by Trevor Crane
Nice Guys Finish First by Doug Sandler
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Simple Ways An Entrepreneur Can Attract Customers To Their Business
How To Become an Effective Communicator in the Business World
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Evergreen with Noah Fleming appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Nice Guys Finish First according to Doug Sandler: Introduction In this episode Doug Sandler gives a full preview of his book, NiceRead More
The post A Preview of Nice Guys Finish First with Doug Sandler appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Doug Sandler gives a full preview of his book, Nice Guys Finish First, where he discusses how a great experience can make someone a customer for life.
In his book Sandler shares a very original consultative approach to putting the “human” back into client relationships in order to build trust that results in exceptional customer service. The goal of the book is to show you how to advise customers on making good decisions, build a longer lasting relationship with them, and develop a stronger sense of personal character.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are having a hard time keeping customers and need a practical way to overcome the challenge of taking their business from good to extraordinary.
I wanted to make a simple book and an easy read. There is no magic bullet in business today but there is a system that I’ve put in place that is so simple.
You can pick this book up and read it from any chapter. Half of the book is based on systems and the other half is based on the behavioral approach you can take.
That’s any easy one for me because the title of the book, Nice Guys Finish First, is really what it’s all about. The one concept that I would like the reader to walk away with is that nice guys finish first.
The book came together as a result of trying to figure out what I would like to read and what I thought entrepreneurs would like to read in trying to advance their business forward to the next level.
I start with a little bit of a background on me. The book is called Nice Guys Finish First because the philosophy behind this entire system is that you can be nice in business today and still be very successful. Being nice is giving back just as much as you are taking.
I talk about technology because in today’s technology age we really have a tough time with those sixteen digit numbers that we’ve all become to the company’s that we work with. I talk about how to use technology to your advantage as opposed to using technology as a tool to hide behind the issues that you may be having with your business.
Then I start to get into what it means to put the customer first in your business and how we can create an attitude that represents that.
As you get into three or four chapters of the book we start to get into the systems. We talk about the system of investing energy in your resources, investing your time in your client, inspiring your client to take action and come up with a plan, and then execute. It’s really not just about executing a plan to bring your product to this customer or to create a great culture of customer service; it’s to execute your plan excellently.
As we start to get into the second half of the book we talk about how your customer needs to trust you and how you want to take a consultative approach to selling.
As we get into the last 3rd of the book I talk about empowering others and how important it is especially as a solo business owner. This includes delegating responsibilities and not being the ironfisted leader. I talk a little bit about leaders and how important it is to be a leader that leads by gratitude rather than a leader that does not show the way but tells the way.
In the last couple of chapters of the book we take a look at the positive environment that you have to create within your own head.
As I get to the final two chapters I talk about the importance of failure as a part of success. As we conclude the book I really get into the important areas that you need to focus on in your life. You need to focus on time management, money management, and relationship management. I wrap up the book talking about where to go from there.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:49
“The shortest answer is doing the right thing.” – Unknown
I spent 48 years running an entertainment business as a DJ. About two years ago I turned a switch and decided that I could teach people to do what I have done which is build a business.
A few years ago I made a call to a credit card company and I was asked to enter my sixteen digit number followed by the pound sign. As I went through this phone call I kept thinking that there has got to be a better way than this. I figured that there had to be a way that I could teach what I’ve done over the last 30 years to those that are just getting started now so that they can avoid the mistakes that I made.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard
Buy Nice Guys Finish First by Doug Sandler on Amazon today
Visit DougSandler.com to learn more about Doug and his book
Follow Doug Sandler on Facebook and Twitter
Get a personalized book insert by contacting Doug via email here
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Customer Experience 3.0 by John A Goodman
The Trusted Advisor by Robert Galford
Advisor Selling by Mark Hunter
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Reasons Why Your Sales Skills Suck
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Nice Guys Finish First with Doug Sandler appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Customer Experience 3.0 according to John A. Goodman: Introduction In this episode John Goodman takes a deep dive into his book, CustomerRead More
The post A Preview of Customer Experience 3.0 with John A Goodman appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode John Goodman takes a deep dive into his book, Customer Experience 3.0, where he shares his high-profit strategies in the age of techno service.
In his book Goodman provides a roadmap to enhance the customer service experience by using the best tools and strategies available today. The goal of this book is to teach you how to create an effective customer access strategy, use customer feedback properly to enhance your product, improve your marketing efforts, and use CRM systems and other tools to deliver customer satisfaction.
This book is for entrepreneurs who struggle to take advantage of and properly manage the customer service tools that are available on the market today.
We find that everyone talks about customer service and customer experiences really good because you’ll win more customers but there is no quantification done in a way that finance guys will ever agree to. The book is aimed heavily at how to quantify the payoff of better service and quality and customer experience in a way finance will actually accept. Another difference is that all the new technology has now allowed one to deliver great service and wow the customer at very low expense. We focus on the financial implication and how one intelligently implements technology.
You can jump in and out but to give yourself the ammunition you need to get finance and marketing to really invest with you it makes sense to read it from front to back.
It would be that the revenue and word of mouth implications of a better customer experience are 10 to 20 times the cost required to achieve it. So you are guaranteed 1,000% return if you do your quantification in the right way.
The first chapter is Why Good Service Might Not Result in a Great Experience and that’s about knocking down all the myths that everybody brings to the customer experience arena.
The second chapter is about how service is more than people. It’s more than smiling and being courteous. There has to be really good processes because most of your staff are implementing processes and if they’re constrained by that then they are backed into the corner oh well sir I’d like to do that but I can’t because. This is basically setting the stage that you need to have technology and processes that support the people.
The third chapter is about winning over the chief financial officer. In this chapter we show how you can quantify not only the revenue payoff of better service and quality but also word of mouth because successful companies have very positive word of mouth.
Chapter four is about how to deliver a product right the first time which entails setting proper customer expectations.
The next step after delivering the product is getting the customer to reach out to you if they have problems.
The sixth chapter is when someone comes to you for service you want to be sure that you satisfy them. Two things that most frontline staff lacks are flexibility and clear believable explanations.
The seventh chapter is Listen Passionately which is creating a unified voice of the customer. Most organizations say the voice of the customer are their surveys and their complaints but there are two other sources of data that are critically important and in many cases more powerful. The operational data internal to the company is going to tell you hours before the customers do. The fourth piece is the employee input because employees know real time and in many cases in advance what is going to happen. So we find that these data sources integrated in such a way that they create the economic imperative for action make a voice of the customer system that is dramatically more powerful than the average company has.
The last three chapters of the book focus on three key implementation issues where I see everyone is driven nuts. The first one is taming technology and here we have come up with a number of mechanisms for how the costumer experience area can play nicely with the IT department. I suggest how 10 different technologies can be used to enhance the customer experience.
The ninth chapter focuses on empowering the frontline staff and creating emotional connection with the customer. This chapter looks at a lot at training and incentives but the most critical factor that doesn’t work well in most corporations is the supervisor. The role of the supervisor is not catching people doing things wrong its recognizing people for doing things right.
The final chapter is about surviving as the customer experience leader. In this chapter I suggest seven roles that a customer experience leader should be performing and two that they should be avoiding because they are keys to disaster.
“No news is not necessarily good news.” – John A. Goodman
I am an engineer by trade and have been in this business for about 40 years. We started out doing research for the government and since then have worked with about 45 of the fortune 100 and a bunch of nonprofits in 17 countries around the world. We have worked literally in every industry enhancing customer service and the customer experience.
In 2009 I had written a book, Strategic Customer Service, which was how companies needed to array their operations to deliver really good customer service. In the last five years I saw technology coming in in so many areas that I felt I needed to update it.
In Search of Excellence by Thomas Peters and Jan Carlzon
Buy Customer Experience 3.0 by John Goodman on Amazon today
Visit CustomerCareMC.com to learn more about John and download the national rage study
Follow John A Goodman on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Moving Targets by Gabriel Aluisy
Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
Aligning Strategy and Sales by Frank Cespedes
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Simple Ways Entrepreneurs Can Attract Customers
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Customer Experience 3.0 with John A Goodman appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>