484: Where to Start on Subscriptions, with Robbie Kellman Baxter
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 August 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robbie Kellman Baxter: The Forever Transaction
Robbie helps companies leverage subscription pricing, digital community and freemium to build deeper relationships with customers. She has been quoted on business issues in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Consumer Reports, and many others. She has created and starred in eight video courses in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership.
She is the author of The Membership Economy*, a book that has been named a top 10 marketing book of all time by BookAuthority. She recently released her new book, The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave*.
In this conversation, Robbie and I discuss the shift to subscriptions and memberships in many industries in recent years. We address implications for leaders who are considering strategy on making changes to how they do business — as well as some of the tactical steps. Finally, Robbie highlights some of the myths and best practices when beginning with subscriptions.
Key Points
- There’s been a significant shift to memberships and subscriptions in recents years in many industries.
- It’s critical for organizations considering a move in this direction to create and articulate a forever promise.
- Be cautious about simply building existing products and services under a membership banner.
- It’s critical to speak to your best customer.
- Beware of treating members worse than strangers or taking advantage of your most loyal customers.
Resources Mentioned
- Free downloads of Robbie’s keynote presentation slides, membership manifesto, and book chapter.
Book Notes
Download my highlights from The Forever Transaction in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes
- How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430)
- How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470)
- How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (episode 476)
Discover More
Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You've probably noticed that you, like us, have a lot more subscriptions and |
| 0:04.8 | memberships these days than you did five years ago. It's a trend that many of us |
| 0:09.6 | have experienced in our own purchasing decisions, but is it one that perhaps your organization would benefit from too? |
| 0:16.7 | On this episode what leaders should know if their organization is considering memberships or subscriptions. |
| 0:23.8 | This is coaching for leaders episode 484. |
| 0:27.8 | Produced by Innovate Learning |
| 0:30.2 | Maximizing human potential. |
| 0:39.0 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is coaching for leaders and I'm your host, Stahophia. Leaders aren't born, they're made and |
| 0:46.8 | this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. |
| 0:52.6 | Leadership of course is so much about relationships and one of the most important |
| 0:57.5 | relationships for leaders to be thinking about is the relationship that we have with |
| 1:01.7 | our customers, clients, stakeholders, and anyone else that the |
| 1:06.0 | organization's mission is designed to serve. |
| 1:09.8 | Today, a look at how that relationship is changing a bit around business strategy and |
| 1:14.8 | particularly how many of us have seen not only in our own organizations of course |
| 1:19.4 | but in the organizations that we are partnered with of how things are moving a bit to the membership |
| 1:26.7 | and subscription economy. I'm so glad to welcome today Robbie Kelman Baxter to the show. |
| 1:32.0 | She is an expert on helping organizations really make the |
| 1:36.0 | transition to consider how memberships and subscriptions may be a part of creating a wonderful customer |
| 1:41.8 | experience. |
| 1:42.8 | Robbie brings over 20 years of strategy consulting and marketing expertise to |
| 1:47.5 | Peninsula Strategies, her firm that's focused on helping companies leverage subscription pricing, digital community, and |
... |
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