Occasionally we're privileged on our HumaniseTheNumbers podcasts to welcome a guest who has deep, personal experience in a profoundly important aspect of business directly relevant to you, your firm and your clients. With John Warrillow, we've got that, plus we've got his extensive research into how to successfully sell a business.
He's the author of three books – Built to Sell, The Automatic Customer and The Art of Selling Your Business – and in this podcast, John shares insights which can help you change the conversation, become fluent in the conversation – to be not just the manager, but the owner, of a business conversation. These are two distinct and different conversational styles with unique questions and content.
When you listen to John, you'll receive insights into some of the eight key drivers for improving and increasing the value of your firm. But more importantly, I think these insights can help you drive or support a conversation with your customers, your clients, so that they can improve the capital value of their own businesses.
Please join John and me on one of HumaniseTheNumbers' most impactful podcasts – and there have been quite a few of those! I hope you enjoy this discussion with John as much as I did.
The Solution:
Tech and compliance work is the table stake that gets you in the door, it’s the trusted relationship that allows you this beautiful platform to have a strategic conversation.
We asked business owners in a survey, who would you trust for advice on building the value of your company?
We gave them a whole list of professionals: your lawyer, your banker, your exit planner, your financial advisor, your business broker, your business transfer agent.
The number one profession business owners would turn to is their accountant, so I think accountants have this wonderful platform of trust in order to have this strategic conversation, yet, in so many cases, they’re missing the boat.
They’re talking to owners about how they did last year, and are too busy looking in the rear view mirror.
If you want to be considered a trusted advisor to business owners, you have got to have fluency in talking about their biggest asset, which is not their home, and is unlikely to be their pension - it is likely to be their company.
I think this is a wonderful platform of greenfield space to have this conversation.
SHOW NOTES
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Resources relating to this podcast:
John is a successful author, sought after speaker, founder of The Value Builder System™ and Podcast host.
Here are the details of John's published books and his podcast.
Do you want your business to grow and prosper without sacrificing the freedom to live the lifestyle you want? Do you want to build a company that you can cash out and sell one day so you can retire comfortably or go after your next big idea?
In Built to Sell, we discover that these ideas are not mutually exclusive. The idea that you have to work your fingers to the bone for years to build a sellable company is flawed. In fact, the opposite is true. If you want to sell your business for the maximum amount of money, it needs to be designed to thrive without you so the next owner can continue to grow and profit from your hard work when you’re gone.
Inside Built to Sell, you’ll discover how to create a fast-growing, profitable, scalable business that will give you the flexibility and freedom you desire. After all, that’s why you became an entrepreneur in the first place. And you’ll find out how to leverage that automation and profitability into a big cash buyout when you’re ready to move on to your next endeavor.
These days virtually anything you need can be purchased through a subscription, with more convenience than ever before. Far beyond Spotify, Netflix, and New York Times subscriptions, you can sign up for weekly or monthly supplies of everything from groceries (AmazonFresh) to cosmetics (Birchbox) and razor blades (Dollar Shave Club).
According to John Warrillow, this emerging subscription economy offers huge opportunities to companies that know how to turn customers into subscribers. Automatic customers are the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth, and boosting the value of your company. Consider WhatsApp, the Internet-based messaging service that was purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. While other services bombarded users with invasive ads in order to fund a free messaging platform, WhatsApp offered a refreshingly private service on a subscription platform, charging just $1 per year. Their business model enabled the kind of service that customers wanted and ensured automatic customers for years to come.
This book shows you how to master the psychology of selling subscriptions and reduce churn and also provides a road map for the essential statistics you need to measure the health of your subscription business.
Every owner must part with their business one day. Many will close their doors, realizing little for their life’s work—while a select few will become fabulously wealthy.
The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top is the last in a trilogy of books by author John Warrillow on building value. The first, Built to Sell, encouraged small business owners to begin thinking about their business as more than just a job. The Automatic Customer tagged recurring revenue as the core element in a valuable company and provided a blueprint for transforming almost any business into one with an ongoing annuity stream.
Warrillow completes the set with The Art of Selling Your Business. This essential guide to monetizing a business is based on interviews the author conducted on his podcast, Built to Sell Radio, with hundreds of successfully cashed-out founders.
Built to Sell Radio is a weekly podcast for business owners interested in selling a business. Each week, we ask an entrepreneur who has recently sold a business why they decided to sell their business, what they did right and what mistakes they made through the process of exiting their business. Built to Sell Radio is the ultimate insider's guide to approaching the most important financial transaction of your life.
Listen to Paul and John talk about leading your firm with purpose and the importance of having a core purpose to galvanise your team and that is meaningful to your all.
John talks about Business Owners often being motivated to right a wrong or to prove someone wrong and the importance of this 'villian' in the strategic planning and core purpose of their firm.
This Bitesize Business Breakthrough will show you that being a successful firm isn’t just about delivering your products or services to your clients for a profit – it’s about having a deeper meaning that connects with your clients, your employees and other stakeholders.
Click the link on the button to read this report to work out what you and your firm stand for and how your firm can make a real difference.
