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 Unselling according to Scott Stratten: Introduction In this episode Scott Statten takes a deep dive into his book, Unselling, where he revealsRead More
The post A Preview of Unselling with Scott Stratten appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Scott Statten takes a deep dive into his book, Unselling, where he reveals the secrets of what really influences purchasers’ decisions.
In his book Stratten provides the keys to unlocking the mysteries of successful customer service and debunks a lot of nonsense that other marketers and marketing books talk about. The goal of the book is to teach you the most effective form of selling, how to create loyal, recurring customers, how to overcome customer service failures, and where to focus your marketing efforts.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have an understanding of sales and marketing, but are looking for a better, longer lasting solution to keep customers buying from you.
It has no cover and that alone should make it stand out. The brand is not about what we think it is, it’s about the customer and our book reflects that.
You can read it straight through but it’s written in a way that you can also jump around whenever you want.
Everybody in the chain matters.
The main pillar of Unselling is the customer pulse. People think we have two types of customers in this world, we have customers and we have noncustomers. The key thing with the customer pulse is that we really have three types of customers ecstatic, static, and vulnerable.
Ecstatic types of clients are the ones that refer others, the ones that renew and sing our praises in social media. Static customers are the ones who are there, they’ll probably renew, but they are only our customer because they haven’t seen or heard of a better solution to their need.
The vulnerable customers are the ones that are looking for an out and this process could be a day, a year, or even five years. The problem is we usually don’t find out we have lost a customer until we have lost them and then we do everything possible to try and get them back.
We have to understand that customers can be customers for life if we just value them. The book takes you through examples of our own personal experience, to examples that are out there in the world, and then to practical ways to keeping and maintaining your customers.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:23
“You treat your customers, and your employees, and your vendors all the same with the utmost respect and the utmost care and that will pay you back in spades.” –Keri Smith
I am the un everything, unmarketing, unselling, co-host of the unpodcast, and unsatisfied with the way things are being done in business.
I realized after being an old-school sales and training manager back in the day, that sales were focused on the transaction. You put all your eggs in the sales basket and once you had the transaction we handed it off to some other department and that’s where we kind of dropped the basket and all the eggs broke. The point I am trying to make is that everybody is in sales because the way to lead to future sales is to make sure that we make the customer ecstatic to be part of our organization and that starts at the transaction all the way through to the delivery.
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
Buy Unselling by Scott Stratten on Amazon today
Visit Unmarketing.com to learn more about Scott and his book
Visit Unmarketing.com to learn more about the Unpodcast
Follow Scott Stratten on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Escape The Expected by Tom Trush
High Paying Clients by Trevor Crane
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sleaze-Free Selling by Julia Kline
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 Unselling with Scott Stratten appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about High Paying Clients according to Trevor Crane: Introduction In this episode Trevor Crane takes a deep dive into his book, High PayingRead More
The post A Preview of High Paying Clients with Trevor Crane appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Trevor Crane takes a deep dive into his book, High Paying Clients, where he reveals a no-fluff, non-BS approach for selling to high-end clients.
In his book Crane provides a step-by-step guide derived from his personal experience training and consulting entrepreneurs to reinvent the way they do business in order to make more money. The goal of the book is to show you exactly how to find highly profitable clients, sell high-end products to high-paying people, make more money off less deals, and easily close a high-end sale.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are selling a high-end product or service, are tired of handling cheap, unappreciative customers, and need to guide for finding loyal clients.
One of my strengths is breaking something down into something really simple. This book has functionally created results in every one of my clients.
You can jump in and out based on where your strengths and weaknesses are.
It’s to get help. I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned in my businesses is that I’ve had successes and I’ve had failures but if you want to improve something the greatest way to get the result that you want is to get help. Go find somebody to help you create the result you want.
The content of the four initial steps of how you can train your entire staff are Hi, Why, Try, and Bye. Hi is just a very simple greeting and the building section of the process. If you do this well and someone knows, likes, and trusts you, that in it of itself can get people to want to buy from you right away. Because if people really like you and trust you they are going to want to buy from you and too often when someone is trying to make the sale they forget this part.
The second step is the Why and there are two things to probe for, first you want to probe for pain, and second you want to probe for pleasure. Step number three is after you find out what they want and why they want it you then give them Try and now make them an option. Often time’s people are given too many options and a confused mind says no. You don’t want that to happen so make sure to give people a very clear, consist, and compelling call to action.
In the Bye step I ask for you to close the deal and give you different strategies and benchmark questions to make sure you collect a decision. Yes’s are great, no’s are great because you don’t have to waste any more time, and maybes will kill you. So you want to avoid the maybes. I also highly recommend, no matter what your business is, that you at least talk about your guarantee when you are trying to close the deal.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 12:11
“A confused mind says no and does nothing.” “We can only see in someone else what we can also see in ourselves.” – Trevor Crane
For the last 12 years I’ve been a fulltime business coach and consultant. I work with small business owners, medium size business owners and my expertise is helping them find that extra money laying around in their business without spending more money. So I help them improve their systems and processes and drive bottom line revenue. All the tools and teachings came from my own experiences in owning a business is water sports and tourism, marketing and advertising, and also one in environmental protection. I’ve had a lot of failures and successes and put the best of what I’ve learned into High Paying Clients.
I decided to write this book because it was really the best of what I do for my clients. As I looked at what I wanted to promote I figured I wanted to give my best stuff away first. This is what helps people convert the sale.
The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone
Buy High Paying Clients by Trevor Crane on Amazon today
Visit TrevorCrane.com to learn more about Trevor and his book
Visit GreatnessQuest.com to learn more about his TV show
Follow Trevor Crane on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Trusted Advisor by Rob Galford
Never Chase Clients Again by Michael Moshiri
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sleaze-Free Selling by Julia Kline
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Reasons Why Your Sales Skills Suck
5 Simple Ways An Entrepreneur Can Attract Customers To Their Business
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of High Paying Clients with Trevor Crane appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>