Episode 22 - Creating the Automatic Customer with John Warrillow

John Warrillow is a successful entrepreneur who is the founder of The Value Builder System and author of the bestselling book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, which was recognized by both Fortune and Inc. Magazine as one of the best business books of 2011 and has been translated into 4 languages. His newest book, The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry, was released in February of 2015. John is a sought after speaker, the creator of the Sellability Score, has started and exited four companies, and has been recognized by B2B Marketing as one of the top business-to-business marketers in the United States. On top of all that, he has done five marathon courses, one Ironman Triathlon, and the L’Etape du Tour bike race, as well as being a husband and the father of two children. John joins Charlie on the show today to discuss his career, his two books, and more.

 

Key Takeaways:

02:03 – John started out in radio production with the idea that entrepreneurs would want to learn from other entrepreneurs.

06:11 – John sees his career as and entrepreneur as solving one problem at a time and making it a little bit better as he goes.

06:47 – After John sold his last company, he and his family moved to Europe for three years.

09:10 – John was born in England and lived there until he was five.

11:09 – The idea behind Built to Sell is to get out of that trap of not being able to sell and into more of a company that can scale beyond just you personally.

13:41 – One of the biggest reasons people exit their business is disability.

16:43 – John felt he didn’t give enough attention to the idea of recurring revenue in his book Built to Sell.

17:53 – The subscription business is changing dramatically.

21:19 – The subscription economy is the antithesis to the demand economy in a lot of ways.

23:44 – People are willing to pay for good content.

33:49 – John doesn’t see doing PR for his books and products as something he is good at and doesn’t particularly enjoy it.

 

Mentioned In This Episode:

Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You

The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry

Greig Clark, College Pro

Tim Ferriss

The E Myth, Michael Gerber

Seth Godin

Starbucks

AMC Theatres

Apple

Amazon

Patreon

Uber

The Wall Street Journal

The New York Times

Financial Times

The Wood Whisperer

Who Moved My Cheese?

Gary Vaynerchuk 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.productiveflourishing.com/subscribe