Risk & Business Magazine Lloyd Sadd Insurance Brokers Fall 2015 | Page 15

The Fundamentals
2 Second Lean:
How to Grow People and
Build a Fun Lean Culture
BY: PAUL A. AKERS

2 Second Lean will flip your
world right-side up. It’s a
practical way to improve
your life every day by
making a simple 2 second
improvement. Join author,
business expert, radio show
host, and international
speaker, Paul A. Akers, as he
takes you on a LEAN journey
that will transform every
aspect your life... from your
home to the office.

their clients to focus on booking the rooms and appointments
without having to worry about running out and buying flowers.
For companies looking to make the switch to a subscriptionbased model, the best strategic approach is to simply
grab a marker and whiteboard and start jotting down
what the ideal customer experience would look like.
“If you could reach inside the head of your customers and rewire
things so that they bought from you exactly the way that you
would want them to buy from your company, what would that
look like?” says John. “Start plotting that out. That becomes the
real raw material, the sketch for your subscription offerings.”
When switching to a subscription-based model, it’s important
to phase out any existing business model in order for the
subscription-based one to work successfully—running
a subscription-based model and a “traditional” model at
the same time is a mistake John sees far too often.
“Companies try to be ‘half-pregnant’ by running two
parallel models, but if your customers are used to your
original, custom pricing model, that’s the one they’re
most likely to pick when given the option,” says John.
If you’ve got an existing business model and want to convert your
current and prospective clients into a subscription business, it’s
necessary to give your customers an ultimatum—force them to
change their behavior by saying, “we no longer offer traditional
services like we have in the past.” When trying to launch a
subscription offering, doing so in a half-hearted way only
leaves open the possibility that your customers will pick the
non-subscription offering and play it safe with the
traditional methods.

John Warrillow, the author of The Automatic Customer,
is the founder of The Value Builder System™ where advisors
help company owners increase the value of their business.
Previously, he founded Warrillow & Co., a subscription-based
research business dedicated to helping Fortune 500 companies
market to small business owners. A sought-after speaker
and popular Inc.com columnist, he lives in Toronto.

The Automatic
Customer

Creating a Subscription Business
in Any Industry
BY: JOHN WARRILLOW

The lifeblood of your
business is repeat
customers. But customers
can be fickle, markets
shift and competitors are
ruthless. So how do you
ensure a steady flow of
repeat business? The secret
– no matter what industry
you’re in -- is finding
and keeping automatic
customers.
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) to razor blades (Dollar Shave Club).

RISK & BUSINESS MAGAZINETM FALL 2015

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