Podcasts about peninsula strategies

Would you like to know the inner workings of today's Membership and Subscription Economy? Join Robbie Kellman Baxter and me on Wednesday, April 3rd, from 10 to 11 A.M. Central Time U.S. Our conversation will be about her remarkable life journey and why the membership and subscription economy models are so successful in today's business model. Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a consulting firm. She helps companies use subscription pricing, digital communities, and freemium models to build deeper customer relationships. For over 21 years, she has worked with over 100 organizations in over 20 industries. Robbie has presented globally as a keynote speaker at major conferences, association meetings, trade shows, elite universities, and private audiences at many of the world's most well-known companies. She hosts the podcast “Subscription Stories,” where she interviews business leaders to discuss how they use subscription pricing and membership models to redefine the biggest industries and generate predictable recurring revenue. Robbie also developed and taught nine video courses for LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership. Robbie's first book, “The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue,” was named one of the top ten marketing books of all time by BookAuthority. Her second book, The Forever Transaction, walks readers through every step of the subscription business process. Robbie received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College. She was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, a New York City Urban Fellow, and a Silicon Valley product marketer.

This week on the Expert Voices podcast, Randy Wootton, CEO of Maxio, speaks with Robbie Baxter, CEO of Peninsula Strategies and a leading expert on subscription business models and monetization. She has worked with companies like Netflix and has written two books on the topic: "The Membership Economy" and "The Forever Transaction." Robbie shares her background and interest in subscription models, as well as the key concepts and best practices outlined in her books. Robbie shares insights on the importance of designing products for ongoing value, the need for organizations to focus on customer outcomes, and the challenges of scaling and staying relevant in a subscription-based business. She also highlights the example of Strava and how they successfully built a community of loyal customers. Quotes"You need a lot of discipline, I think, in a SaaS model. So you need to know this kind of customer, this is how the relationship is going to expand over time and I think together to kind of start to set expectations about where is this relationship going to go after the moment of sale. The moment of transaction is the starting line, not the finish line.” -Robbie Baxter [13:03]“One of the interesting things about the SaaS business model, in general, is, obviously for Maxio, we help people understand their SaaS operating metrics, and we're able to pattern match across the 2300 customers. I think all VCs and PE firms are doing the same. So they say, look, if you're a SaaS company, this is what your net retention should be. This is how much you spend on sales and marketing. So I do think there's pattern matching going on, and everybody has the playbook now.” -Randy Wootton [21:50]Expert Takeaways Subscription business models require products that solve ongoing problems and are designed for easy deployment and expansion over time.Organizations need to focus on customer outcomes and align their pricing with the value they provide.Balancing acquisition metrics with retention metrics is crucial for long-term success in the subscription economy.Subscription fatigue is a real challenge, and companies need to continuously demonstrate value to retain customers.Listening to the voice of the customer means considering not just existing customers, but also lapsed customers and prospects.Timestamps[01:28] Robbie's career journey [08:33] Focus on customer success and engagement for retention [11:44] Sales-led growth vs. product-led growth models [13:35] Aligning pricing with customer outcomes in SaaS models. [17:06] Moving from short-term revenue to long-term customer relationships. [17:46] "The Forever Transaction" as a playbook for B2B SaaS success. [20:52] Loyalty vs. Inertia [25:31] Subscription fatigue and managing multiple subscriptions is complex. [29:30] Staying current and responding to market evolution is crucial. [31:31] Subscription dieting and the pressure to demonstrate value and justify prices. Connect MAXIOUpcoming Events

This week we're talking the membership economy with the knowledgable expert, Robbie Kellman Baxter. In this explained episode, Erica and Robbie chat through what exactly the membership economy is, why Robbie thinks those companies are best set up for success in the coming decade, and how Robbie coins terminology that the industry adopts. She has a fascinating path starting off in consulting and carving her niche as the world's expert on the membership economy.Robbie Kellman Baxter helps companies leverage subscription pricing, digital communities, and freemium models to build deeper relationships with customers. Over the past 21 years, she has worked with over 100 organizations in over 20 industries like the National Basketball Association, Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, and Ingram Micro.  As a keynote speaker, she has presented globally at major conferences, association meetings, trade shows and elite universities as well as to private audiences at many of the world's most well-known companies. She hosts the podcast, “Subscription Stories,” where she sits down with business leaders to discuss how they're using subscription pricing and membership models to redefine the biggest industries and generate predictable recurring revenue. Robbie has also developed and taught nine video courses for LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership.Her first book, “The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue,” anticipated and defined the massive transformation from ownership to membership and the rise of subscription pricing. It was named a top 10 marketing book of all time by BookAuthority. Her second book, “The Forever Transaction,” takes readers through every step of the subscription business process – from initial start-up or testing of a new model to scaling the operation for long-term growth and sustainability. Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, a New York City Urban Fellow, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. She received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College. Twentysomethings, tune in now for a jam-packed chat on all things membership economy.Follow Us!Robbie Kellman Baxter: @robbiebaxBuy The Membership Economy hereBuy The Forever Transaction hereErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

Subscriptions are ubiquitous today. From streaming services to wellness to F&B and productivity, most of us have subscriptions to match our lifestyles. But have you ever wondered just how much thought goes into the layers of subscription apps - from pricing to marketing, to early user experience to ongoing personalization?In today's episode, we're in conversation with Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of the books  "The Membership Economy” and “The Forever Transaction,” and founder of Peninsula Strategies. What's fascinating is that Robbie has worked with offline and non-digital subscription services as well as SaaS and consumer subscription companies, including Netflix in the relatively early days of their subscription model. She is able to connect the dots of the elements that make for a great subscription business and experience, be it online or offline, in app or on the web.KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Most people today have a subscription to some product or service. Or leaching a streaming subscription from a friend or family member… No judgment. But when we think about subscription services as a business, what keeps us renewing month after month and how can businesses continue to improve that experience? We speak with Robbie Kellman Baxter, Strategy Consultant at Peninsula Strategies, and author of "The Membership Economy" and "The Forever Transaction", about businesses transitioning to subscription-based, the associated benefits, and the challenges those businesses will have to navigate. In this episode, we discuss: Discussing a subscription based economy Cultural changes for businesses moving to subscription-based How to leverage data effectively Advice to the audience Now that you know the benefits of subscription-based and how to transition your business, are you ready to learn how to build trust and confidence with your content strategy or how to optimize your tech stack? Check out the full list of episodes: The B2B Revenue Executive Experience. 

Most people today have a subscription to some product or service. Or leaching a streaming subscription from a friend or family member… No judgment. But when we think about subscription services as a business, what keeps us renewing month after month and how can businesses continue to improve that experience? We speak with Robbie Kellman Baxter, Strategy Consultant at Peninsula Strategies, and author of "The Membership Economy" and "The Forever Transaction", about businesses transitioning to subscription-based, the associated benefits, and the challenges those businesses will have to navigate. In this episode, we discuss: Discussing a subscription based economy Cultural changes for businesses moving to subscription-based How to leverage data effectively Advice to the audience Now that you know the benefits of subscription-based and how to transition your business, are you ready to learn how to build trust and confidence with your content strategy or how to optimize your tech stack? Check out the full list of episodes: The B2B Revenue Executive Experience. 

On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.In this episode, you'll learn: Identifying and attracting lifetime value customers How to get and maintain customer loyalty Three causes of subscription fatigue Why customers cancel their subscriptions Links & Resources Strava Intuit Survey Monkey Oracle The Subscription Economy Tien Tzuo: Subscribed Eric Crowley Seth Miller CrossFit Shopify Calm Matthieu Rouif PhotoRoom GoPro Elevate VSCO Robbie Kellman Baxter's Links Robbie Kellman Baxter's website Follow Robbie on Twitter Robbie's book: The Forever Transaction Robbie's book: The Membership Economy Robbie's LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard, and with me, as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Hey Robbie, welcome to the podcast.00:00:58 Robbie:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you both. 00:01:00 David:I was introduced to your work by somebody recommending your book, The Membership Economy, and it really struck me. I was so excited that you agreed to be on the podcast, because here's a book written in 2015, and we'll talk about your other book that was written more recently, but written in 2015. I was looking through it, scanning the chapters, so I bought the book. I was like, this is everything we're talking about now, thinking it's all so novel with subscription apps, but really consumer subscriptions have been around for decades. You've been working in this space way longer than any of us.So, I thought it would be really fun to have you on the podcast to talk more broadly about these principles of consumer subscriptions that apply equally to D to C subscriptions, as well as the app space that we work in. That's where I wanted to kick things off.So, how did you get your start in consumer subscriptions?00:01:57 Robbie:A couple of threads came together. I was in product-marketing for what is now called SaaS, for five years, right before I hung out my own shingle and started consulting. So, I had that background as a product manager working with software products that were being sold as subscriptions, and then as an independent consultant.My fifth client was Netflix. I fell in love with their business model, and I was wondering why isn't everybody else falling in love with their business model, too? This is amazing. Recurring revenue, predictable cashflow, the amount of data they were collecting on their customer. The fact that they're offering was just a much better way of delivering on a promise that many of us wanted delivery for, which is a professionally created catalog of video content delivered in the most efficient way possible. It meant not having to put a raincoat over your jammies to go pick up a movie, with cost certainty and no late fees.I was consulting with Netflix. I was already a customer, and a few people started calling and saying, “Hey, we heard you worked with Netflix. We want to be the Netflix of our space.” Whether that was news, or music, or bicycles, or dental pain management products, or clothes, there was a lot of interest in what it was that Netflix was doing.So, I started trying to create frameworks, trying to say, what are they doing? Which parts are applicable to other businesses, and which parts are just unique to that group of people solving that particular problem?That's really where I got started, and it turns out to be big enough and deep enough that it's kept me really busy for, it's been 20 years, 20 years. 00:03:55 David:Fifth client to, to land as a consultant. That's a. Really great. And so you were with them before they even introduced the, video on demand on the internet, right. You started with them when it was DVDs in the mail, 00:04:09 Robbie:Yeah. 00:04:10 David:Traditional D to C subscription service. 00:04:13 Jacob:But, but even then was satisfying a lot of those, almost all of those conditions. Right. I didn't have to go outside just to my mailbox, not too bad price certainty. I didn't have late fees. and then like, you know, insanely large catalog. Right. you know, it was, it was, it wasn't. We tend to wait for the technology to get that right.And then, then we had VOD being, 00:04:33 Robbie:Yeah. And they were already thinking, I mean, it was amazing to me. So I was there, you know, the time that I worked most actively with dev 2001, 2003, even during that time, which was all DVDs, all three DVDs out at a time, they were already thinking about streaming versus, you know, should they let you download it?And then have it explode after, you know, you know, some duration. What was the best way to deliver it? Should they come through your, you know, for awhile? I remember I think it came through your PlayStation or your, your we, were thinking like, 00:05:06 Jacob:My first like set top box experience with Netflix would have been on Nintendo. Yeah.00:05:10 Robbie:Yeah. I mean, so they, they were already thinking about it and I think that's a really important part of any subscription is even if your subscription works great today and it's good enough to get people to sign up the product team has to be thinking, how are we going to continue to evolve it in particular fringy? Right. How do we continue to stay relevant to these people while also having those new and improved features that bring new people in? And I think a lot of organizations. I have been taught to over-index on acquisition benefits and not thinking as much about those, the sticky engagement benefits that often are really hard to talk about credibly. Right? If I say to you, you know, sign up for my subscription, my, my video subscription, because it's the most, it's the easiest to find the next piece of content. And you're going to love our algorithm, right? People aren't going to believe you. You don't have credibility. So, all they're going to say is, oh, you have Hamilton, I'll sign up for that.And then I'll cancel. And then it's still up to you, you know, if you're Disney plus to get them from Hamilton to princess movies, national geographic titles, ESPN, all the other great stuff that they have. Star wars.00:06:26 David:I'm 00:06:26 Robbie:Yeah. 00:06:26 David:My son right now. Yeah. That's great. And then I do want to kind of step back and you're kind of right into the weeds with some really actionable advice, but I want to, I want to step back a little bit and talk more broadly. So after working with a few, companies in the subscription space and Netflix so early eventually wrote this book, The Membership Economy, which I love.Phrase and wanted to ask actually, did you, did you coin that phrase then how did you at the time and how do you still kind of define this membership economy that you wrote about. 00:06:57 Robbie:Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd love to say that, like I just came up with it and it was so natural and obvious, but, you know, I was thinking, I was like, is it, is it about subscription pricing? Is it about premium services? Is it about recurring revenue? Should I call it the recurring revenue that I was trying to think?What is it? And where I came out was it's not about the subscription pricing, which I think is a tactic. it's a tactic that you earn the right to do by having. Relationship that is trusted with your customer. The customer trusts you so much that they're like fine. You can charge me every month or you can charge me every year and I will just keep paying you and not look for alternatives.And for me, that was based on a certain kind of human relationship. And that's where I came up with this concept of membership that you belong. That it's, you're committing upfront to a long-term relationship as a vendor, and then you earn the right to have subscriptions. So that was kind of where I came up with it.I worked with Netflix. I also worked. At that time Intuit. I worked with a survey monkey and their predecessor. Uh Zoomerang and I worked with Oracle on the B2B side, and those were some of the companies that helped me sort of connect the dots and figure out how. The framework, of, you know, here's some ways to think about what happens when you treat your customers like membership members.Here's what you need to track. Here's how you need to think about it. And here's what it, what it can do for you. Honestly, the first book, all I was trying to do is say, this is a good idea. You might want to consider it for a bunch of reasons.00:08:26 Jacob:Think of it in opposites. I think it's is it the. the Zuora founder's book subscription economy,but but you're right in the sense that subscription kind of implies like 00:08:37 Robbie:Okay. 00:08:38 Jacob:Particular tactic for monetization that does go really well with this concept. But when I think of membership, as opposed to just subscription, like membership implies also community to me, right.00:08:48 Robbie:Yeah. 00:08:49 Jacob:Like building this. This, this ecosystem, this community that, that, which was then in genders trust, which then allows you to monetize, right. And and this great business model. about it in those terms, I think is a really nice way to put it as opposed to like, let's take something.Let's take something that, that we were monetizing another way and just slop noodle on it, which is something a lot in the, in the app world, this transition from paid upfront or micro-transactions driven apps to subscriptions, some have made it and some have not. And I think the ones that have made it are the ones who look at it in that light, in the membership light, in the.Earning their business repeatedly through content or through community. so I, yeah, that, that framing I think is really accurate.00:09:36 Robbie:Your point about, you know, so many companies to slap a subscription price onto whatever they already had, you know? Okay. We have a usage based model. Let's see what happens if we do a subscription based model for the same product, or let's see what happens if we take, you know, a model where you have ownership, where I download the app and it's mine, and I can use it forever, even if it's really, really obsolete.If it solves my problem, who cares, to one where you're being forced to pay every month. Yeah, extensively to get upgrades and maybe access to your peers and some kind of community functionality. It really is a different product. You need a different product for subscription than for, you know, a purchase or usage based model.And, you know, I love teens books. Subscribed is a great book. I recommend it to people. It's very, well-read has a lot of interesting ideas. but I didn't go with that, you know, subscription economy model just because I really want. To focus more on the culture and the relationship and not jump straight to let's get some of that subscription pricing stuff so that we can get a good valuation, you know?00:10:39 Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. I, it, you made me think of this one experience I had just as an anecdote was, X-Box in for three or four years ago, released an Xbox subscription. And I thought this is a really cool one because I could defer, I buy another X-Box every three or four or five years. So it was like, oh, I'll just spread that cost out.I didn't have a lot of cash at the time. I was like, this is a great 40 bucks a month. I get a new Xbox, right. And so I went in to do this at the, at the Microsoft store. What it really was, was they were giving me like a cash advance, like they were giving me, like, basically I had to get a credit check to get a subscription.And I was like, this is 00:11:12 Robbie:That's not a subscription. 00:11:13 Jacob:In mind. Exactly. Right. Like I thought I was joining the, the X-Box club and I was going to just get an expert and they're going to place my Xbox for me. Right. example. of that case of just like slapping subscription pricing on what was essentially a loan.00:11:26 Robbie:Yeah. Yeah.00:11:27 Jacob:Now my credit score, I have loan for a 19 20 16 Ford edge and a next box, on those are my two like credit items I've ever had. So it's really weird.00:11:37 Robbie:And they've come a long way. I mean, Microsoft has come a long way with their subscription strategies, you know, not just on the gaming side, but you know, with, with office 365 and you know, they've done a lot of thinking about subscription, but it really is super complicatedto, to make it work. 00:11:54 Jacob:Right? Like with software zero marginal costs or whatever you can It makes a lot of sense. will say, I will say, I want to give Microsoft some credit, back in the gaming world there Xbox game pass product product, which I also subscribed to has been amazing.I bought a new X-Box game in forever, cause I don't really care about title individuality. I just, whatever it is, $10 a month or $15 a month. And I get access to like 50 different games that rotate. Plenty. That's plenty for me. And I will probably never unsubscribe from that. Right. But it feels like a 00:12:22 Robbie:Yeah. 00:12:22 Jacob:Cause it's, software-driven, in there. There's like there's changing and there's events stuff that comes in and out and they make it a big thing. built it up into this, into this. Yeah. This kind of, it feels like a membership, as opposed to, yeah, just slapping an affirm loan on an X-Box purchase, basically.00:12:39 David:I do want to step back to your, to your book, The Membership Economy, and, I love the subtitle. Find your super users, the forever, transaction and build recurring revenue. finding super users is something we've actually talked a lot about here on the podcast. So looking for those cohorts, one of our recent podcast, guests, Eric Crowley.Talked about locals versus tourists. Seth Miller, another recent podcast guests talked about how, you know, figuring out these cohorts was just a huge unlock for their business. so what's your process? How do you recommend clients find these super users and how do you think about these, super users?You mentioned all the way back in 2015 before any of us were thinking about these things.00:13:24 Robbie:Yeah. Well, so for me, what I think about with super you. So I think about, you know, anybody does subscriptions knows. Segmentation is like re like the most important thing. You have to know who your customer is. Not just at the moment of acquisition, what they look like. You know, when you're like, that's the person I want, but how are they going to behave once they join?The moment of transaction becomes the starting line for understanding your customer, not the finish line. What like, oh, we knew them well enough to get them to buy it. We knew them well enough to get them to buy. And then to get them to make this a habit and then to get them to go deeper and to stay for a long time and maybe even bring their friends.So, you know, the first thing I always do with my clients, I say, let's focus on who you're, who you're making the problem. What is the promise you're making, who are you making it to? and that's kind of part one. And then we map out the journey. What is it? What is the goal that they have that is ongoing or the problem that they have that is ongoing?And what are the moments on their journey where you might be able to intervene and help. Right. So in the beginning it might be just one or two places, right? I'm I'm, I'm QuickBooks. I help you at tax time, but then it might be, oh, and I'm going to help you with some other key moments in your process of adulting financially.Right. You know, one of the things is you move at your parent's house and you pay your own taxes. Another is you might take out a loan for that. Awesome. You know, for whatever car you said, you know, you're going to get an, get a car and you need a loan and you know, they can help you. And so you're layering in those different beds.On a journey cause you want them to stay. You want to keep providing value. and then once you know what that person looked like, then you go tell your marketing team to go get lookalikes, get more people like that. Super users goes one step beyond that, which is not only are they great customers, you know, high customer, lifetime value, easy to serve, whatever.They also were putting their own money and effort, their own resources into strengthening your model. So these are people that bring in. These are evangelists who bring in other members. These are people who give you feedback on your products and services, which sometimes doesn't feel like a gift, but always is a gift.And it's, people who are willing to help onboard. New members. Right? So the ones that, you know, explain in the user group, you know, that, you know, this is, this is how you use that product, or this is, this is my workaround, or this is, you know, what was hard for me and how I fixed it. So those people, you know, that make referrals, that that speak out on your behalf that gather, you know, others they're so valuable.And I got really into this idea actually with CrossFit. my sister is a, is a big CrossFitter and watching her. in addition to all the money she was spending to, to be a member of this CrossFit box, the amount of time and effort she was spending to onboard new members to invite them over. When the, when the box was closed, she and her husband would put out their equipment on their live on a cul-de-sac.They put it all out on the street and invite the whole box, come over and get their workout done there because they love the community so much, right. Their own time and money to support the community.00:16:27 David:There kind of specific, Ways, especially digitally like, with, with or customer service, what are the tools that, that you see people be successful in finding those kinds of users and understanding those patterns and who they are and what they 00:16:45 Jacob:Yeah. 00:16:45 David:Like. And those sorts of things. 00:16:47 Robbie:So the, the starting point, I think is always lifetime customer value. So. You look at the group of customers who stay the longest and spend the most right. And the ones that people would say, we wish we could make more of these, you know, and then you look, you develop hypotheses. What does this group share?And it can be as simple as writing the names of your first 10 customers on a boards. These are the 10 customers we had. These five have been awesome. These. You know, didn't stick around long canceled, complain a lot, you know, whatever the reason is. And then you try to come up with what is, what did this group share that this group doesn't share?That's the simplest way in a, in a data world where you have the data you're doing the same thing, but digitally, how did they onboard? What was the source of the lead? what time of year? Like which cohort are they in? Did they join? You know, people like, for example, with QuickBooks people that join in tax season, Might be behave very differently than people who join as a new year's resolution or who joined in August.Right. What kind of person starts thinking really hard about managing their money in August? Great. you know, so, so looking for those things, developing hypotheses, looking at the data, trying to say what's the difference between our most valuable customers and our not most valuable customers, which is not your worst customers, because your worst customers are often outliers, but just the ones where you're like, they're just not that good.They came for two months, they left, they binged, they used up, you know, they were using us really heavily for six weeks. And then they left. What's different about them than the ones who continue to use this gradual. For five months. and I think that's where the hypotheses come out and then tactically, what you do after, you know, as you look at the difference in onboarding those different groups and you optimize your onboarding experience.To build those habits and then you mark it. This is often requires a tremendous amount of discipline. You mark it to only attract the high value people and not to attract the others. So if I walk into McDonald's with a gown on with my husband and I say, it's our 20th anniversary, show us to your finest team.Give us the best you've got. And we'd like a nice bottle of champagne, right? Customer's not always right at McDonald's. Right. They're not going to say, oh man, Robbie needs champagne. Somebody scraped down to the seven 11 and you know, get a bottle of Prosecco and you know, we'll try to pass it off. They say, that's not really what we do here.Dummy. They might not say dummy, but they might be thinking it, right. That's not what we here, you know 00:19:10 Jacob:The 00:19:12 Robbie:Right. We're here, you know, we're cheap, we're fast. It tastes good. Your kids love it. You can drive through and eat it. But we don't do, we don't do special occasion stuff. And so they know who they are.Right. And they're okay with me not coming in. Right. They're even okay with me saying, by the way, don't go to McDonald's, it's a terrible place to celebrate your anniversary. Right. They're kind ofCause it. 00:19:32 Jacob:Just all 00:19:33 Robbie:Right. The leaning is terrible. It makes your skin look awful. You know, the point is that if they took care of. Right. What am I going to do? I'm going to tell you, you know what, just go there for your anniversary. Just tell them it's your anniversary. They'll run out and get all the stuff you need. Right? And then they have all these people that are expensive to serve. Right? It's the same thing digitally, right? If you bring in the wrong people who are going to binge on your content in the first month, or the people who are going to push you to create features that nobody needs, except that.Right. It's just going to throw your whole business off in the wrong direction. So having that discipline upfront to know what you do and you don't do well. And to say no to some prospects, it's really hard to say no to prospects, right? If they have money and they're like, just add this feature and I'll pay.You know, Netflix in the early days, a lot of people wanted them to have video games. Right? Video games were also on discs seems easy, right? As an outsider, as an expert, right? I'm like, ah, video games, same thing. Video games work in a totally different way. And what Netflix said is we don't really understand how people would view.Games. We don't understand how they've use them. We don't understand how many we need. We don't understand how they value that. We don't understand how to negotiate terms with gaming companies, but that's a whole different thing we're going to, we have plenty of runway here. Just focusing on video content.00:20:51 Jacob:Yeah, it's, it's really interesting that, that, that feeling as a founder, especially true in SaaS, when you have literally 10 customers and like you will do 00:20:59 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:00 Jacob:For the, your 11th, it's a little bit true in consumer. Two in the early days, like you, you're just kind of like, how do I get the funnel bigger?How do I, how do you, I think you are a little bit myopic on, the top of the funnel and not thinking about this long-term thing, partially because we don't have a lot of data. You launched your app six months 00:21:19 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:19 Jacob:Trying to make decisions on customer lifetime value. And you don't really have a good sense because you don't know who's sticking around.You probably don't have a ton of data, but one thing you said. That really got my gears turning was that of putting them on a board and just looking at them, looking at the 10 customers or whatever it is, a hundred, even in consumer SaaS, where you have hundreds of 00:21:37 Robbie:Yeah, 00:21:38 Jacob:So it's not that many, you can grab it.You'll be surprised at how many things I've in my old days in consumer's house of like just clicking into a customer and just watching how they use the app, like an individual, right. It doesn't, not data, but it gives you hints and you can start there. And then, and 00:21:54 Robbie:Yeah. Hypotheses, right? 00:21:55 Jacob:Yeah. Hypothesis. And then you actually talk to those people, if you can, like get them on the 00:22:00 Robbie:Yeah. 00:22:00 Jacob:Surprised what they tell you. One of our, our guests Matthew and photo room a few weeks ago talked about, they would take their app to McDonald's and just show it to people to keep the McDonald's references going, and get like in-person feedback.And that helped them learn, you know, they, they were, they were an app that thought that. For everybody and find out later that they're actually like, kind of like a pursuer app for Shopify people, people 00:22:23 Robbie:00:22:24 Jacob:And people with, with e-comm and, and that like kind of exploded their business for this exact case.You're talking about where they found out. Okay. Yeah. We're not for this entire, like long tail of low intent users where for this really core set, but that can be really scary if that sets kind of 00:22:39 Robbie:It's always scary to niche down, but it's almost always. a good strategy. And I wanted to tag onto something else that you said, Jacob, which I think is really important. People often say, how can I make any decisions about, you know, based on, you know, who has the highest customer lifetime value?When, you know, we've only been around for three months or six months, we have to wait until they leave. Hopefully not for three years or five years, but what I've found. And, you know, I wonder if you've seen the same thing. Most people who leave leave in the first two months. So what you really want to do is optimize for onboarding, you know, are they adopting habits that look like people who are steady users getting value, and you can often tell that in the first month, by how many people drop off by who stays and buy, you know, are they bingeing or are they using it in kind of a normal way? And so you don't have to wait for 18, 18 months or however many periods, a lot of it, you get your answer right away. Do they cancel at the end of the first period?00:23:43 Jacob:Yeah, it's good to think about your product in terms of not just. Like signups and getting through the end of onboarding, like that day one experience, but think about what hooks are like, what are the things that people are actually investing contingent on? I always think that that's, that's a, know, you think about this long-term relationship, giving users, in your product to invest and to give back and to connect, like putting in 00:24:05 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:06 Jacob:Themselves.Like there's passive usage consumption. Netflix does a good job. Like you can save, listen stuff that they do a lot of this just in passively, right? Like you consume content and they learn about you and then they have a profile. but I think some of the best apps, like let put in and that's going, gonna also not only probably make them stickier users, but also it gives you early indications and some things to hook on and be like, okay.I mean, Dropbox, this was a big thing in Dropbox. This story. they, they could get people to like understand the concept, but we had massive product issues, getting people to put a file in the thing, right? Like 00:24:41 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:42 Jacob:Not necessarily the most user friendly thing. Like is some sort of app that runs in the background whenever they would, they did, they pulled users in, they watched them do it and totally fail.And then they fixed the product. Right. and, that's, that's. core product problem, but it relates to this this story of getting somebody to membership, right? Like getting them 00:25:00 Robbie:Yeah 00:25:00 Jacob:And focusing on that.00:25:02 David:One of the things that you talked about in your most 00:25:05 Robbie:No. 00:25:05 David:That I think, is so important to understanding the activation. Is is this concept of a forever promise. And so, so your most recent book that forever transaction we'll we'll link to in the show notes and whatnot. but in order to activate, in order to even just build a business, especially a subscription business, you need to start with Promise that you're going to make to customers. and then, especially again, like you said earlier to justify recurring payments, like, so tell me how you think about a forever promise and how, how any app, any business that wants to set up recurring payments should be thinking about this forever promise.00:25:47 Robbie:Yeah, it's, it's really simple. You take a step back and you say, when my customers come to. What is the ongoing problem they're trying to solve, or what is the ongoing goal they're trying to achieve and how can I best align my product and my messaging with that goal, that ongoing goal or that ongoing problem.So what can I promise them about it? So with a Netflix, it's about, you know, entertaining. You know, I'm going to provide you with the biggest selection of professionally created video content delivered in the most efficient way, right. With cost certainty. you're never going to have to pay extra fees and you know, there's a lot of, a lot of apps that are around.You know, helping you with some part of your business process, getting a certain kind of work done or tracking your finances or creating beautiful images for, you know, personal use for your hobbies. What have you gaming apps for fun? And I think first getting really clear on what your promise is and who you're making it to, and then you design the features and benefits to support them.Forever on their journey. And you say, as long as you continue paying me regularly, I am going to continue improving the way I deliver on my promise to you. Right? If I'm a gym, I'm going to have new equipment, I'm going to have new classes. I might offer you stuff online. If I'm news source, I'm going to offer it maybe through an app.Maybe I'm getting the access to the journalists. Maybe I'm getting, get the access to conferences or webinars on top of news because. My promise is I'm going to help you understand the world around you so you can make better decisions. And I don't have, like, if you even think about that promise, There's nothing about that promise that makes you say it needs to be a newspaper, right?It could be a conference. It could be classes, it could be a community of like-minded people sharing their learnings and their observations. So why not layer all of that in over time so that you get closer and closer to guaranteeing that they're going to get the impact that they hoped for on an ongoing basis.00:27:55 Jacob:It's interesting. in some ways relates to like what a company mission can be for a different audience. Right? You say, you know, revenue has as a mission. And that's one thing that I won't change, right. That that's kind of what we do. And that's part of joining the company and whatever. But, but I do think there's value in communicating that as well.This is like the customer facing version of that. Like, what's our 00:28:15 Robbie:Exactly. 00:28:16 Jacob:Charter. Like, why are we here? And what can I 00:28:18 Robbie:Right, 00:28:19 Jacob:That's not going to change. Right. It, especially when you think in those terms of not the like person who's coming to do a very quick transactional thing as in, I'm going to binge you put it, or maybe I just some trying this out, or I have this like one limited life or limited pain, like a limited time pain. Like what's 00:28:35 Robbie:Yeah. 00:28:36 Jacob:Engagement that we're going to do, is really interesting ground when I read the, framing of just the forever transaction forever promise. It's really exciting because we have the infrastructure for the first time in human history to really make this efficient at scale that like computers can do these sort of like, patronage relationships for us.Yeah. And, rethinking how we frame and, and relationships with customers, I think. Yeah. I mean, it's some of the work are a bit ahead of us on.00:29:05 Robbie:Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been here a lot. Like I got here first cause I was here for a long time, but you know, it kind of a dubious distinction, but you know, I think you're right. Like you step back and you say, what are the problems? What's the ongoing problem. The ongoing problem is I'm constantly running out of laundry detergent.Right? The ongoing problem is I look in my closet and I have nothing to wear for this occasion, whatever this occasion might be. Right. you know, something that I think is really interesting to think about, you know, Amazon. Talks about removing all friction from all buying decisions, right. They started with just books.Right. And you still have to wait two weeks to get the book right when you ordered it, but they had this. All the different friction in all the different buying decisions. We're just going to, you know, layer by layer. We're gonna remove all of those things. And, you know, at some point, you know, I think they want to get to the point where I think to myself, those are really cool headphones that Jacob's wearing.I wish I had those. And before I even say. They're on my ears. And then I'm like, oh, these are uncomfortable. And they make my hair look bad. They're gone. Right. That it's almost magical. That's what they're moving to. No friction. I don't even have to say a word. It just happens. you know, I think having that kind of guidance of like, that's what we're trying to do, there's so many times when I've gone shopping and I've needed something, whether it's like buying a new house or buying a white blouse for an event and thinking this shouldn't be that hard.I have enough money to pay for. I know exactly what I need it for. And I've already spent four hours or four months, or in the case of buying a house for years, trying to find, you know, the needle in the haystack. It should not be this. When, when you say it should not be this hard, that's probably00:30:46 Jacob:An 00:30:46 Robbie:Good, 00:30:47 Jacob:Opportunity. 00:30:48 Robbie:Opportunity.Yeah, 00:30:49 Jacob:No, I I'm. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking about revenue. Cats are, you know, this is a shameless plug time to talk about my company, but, I think about our forever promise and we, our mission is like we help developers make more money. That's our goal. but I almost think that. Kind of like a short, pithy way of like phrasing. It really it's about how do we remove the way he put his barriers? Like, how do we remove all the barriers for a developer to make money? How do we remove all the for a developer to value with software for other people? and often like people see a lot of these.Yeah. Subscription, infrastructure problems, data problems, all these, all these things are not why somebody got into it. Right. When they started Netflix, it wasn't like, I just can't wait to do like cohort analysis. 00:31:35 Robbie:Okay. 00:31:35 Jacob:Like all these things, it's like, no, we want to deliver entertainment to people the easiest way possible.And so, you know, for us, like, In some ways, our particular problem that we're, we've committed and, and going to the forever thing to, you know, our product is, it's a subscriber, it's a, it's a subscription essentially. but it's a long-term commitment by the nature of it. It's very infrastructure-related so like I've always talked how to, you know, is there something the early days had to give a lot of assurances to folks like yeah.We're, we're sticking around like, yeah, this is, 00:32:06 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:07 Jacob:The long-term goal for us. But I think, I think that comes down to consumers too. Like the best companies I've seen. In our space doing consumer software apps, subscription apps essentially have like a really deep connection to the mission. And the problem I think of calm, I think of, 00:32:24 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:24 Jacob:Photo room, this app, we work with that the, you know, they've been in vision, computer vision, and they've worked for GoPro and they've just, this is in their DNA to 00:32:34 Robbie:00:32:35 Jacob:Of image manipulation.And then, and then on the other spectrum of that, you think of. Companies that are just stamping out, don't know anybody ever heard that company stamping out utility apps or like whatever it is, and then slapping a subscription thing on it. Yeah, it works. I'm going to get marginally more LTV than they were, you know, before, but 00:32:54 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:54 Jacob:Not going to, that's 00:32:55 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:56 Jacob:The level of like computer or like problem solving for consumers that we were then we were doing before.00:33:02 Robbie:I think you have to be really passionate about the customer needs and the customer's journey rather than on your product. And this is, this is always a really rough conversation because a lot of businesses, really, really, really hold their products in high regard, whether it's. Automobiles or, you know, software, I mean, software, you know, most companies around here in Silicon valley, like the software team, they run everything.Like that's, that's the talent and everything, you know, they can build what they want. And, you know, I, I used to joke that, you know, when you work with. The car world, right? Sometimes it's just about the cup holders, right? It's not about, it's not about the big engine, right. Which is what a lot of the people, a lot of people go into the world of cars, automotive because they love cool cars, but a lot of people who buy cars.Don't buy cool cars. They buy practical cars that solve certain problems for them. And you have to be passionate about the problems you're solving for the customers. That again. So I did a lot of work early on with, in my sort of subscription life in the high-end bicycle industry. I was working with the bicycle product suppliers association, really, really interesting space.But one thing about it is that most people who own bike stores and work in bike stores and sell bikes and manufactured by. Our bike researchers and off-road, you know, risk-taking bike enthusiasts that have nine bikes at home, there's a whole huge untapped market of people who just need a bike to get to school or a bike to get to work or a bike for, for Saturdays to go to the farmer's market.And they ask really annoying questions at the bike store. Like, does this come in pink or can I get a basket for this? Or, this going to get em, you know, Reese on my, on my work pants and at some point, even, you know, like there's always this tension because the people who create the products, sometimes they're like those aren't problems I want to work on.Right. Or, you know, I worked in the hospital, you know, kind of in the, in the, in the health industry. And I talked to a lot of surgeons and they're like, yeah, you guys can do whatever you want around customer, this customer that treating customers like patients, whatever. But I want to see my patient unconscious on a table and I'll cut them open and I'll fix them and make them better.And I don't want to do all that other stuff. Right. it's hard because they're the talent. you know, I think this is a big issue with subscriptions because those Mark Key elements, aren't always the thing that's going to drive engagement, retention.00:35:30 Jacob:It's falling in love with your own product, right. It's falling in love with the 00:35:33 Robbie:Yeah. 00:35:34 Jacob:And not the problem, you know? you 00:35:37 Robbie:Exactly. 00:35:38 Jacob:I mean, I've been in the, you know, in the past, when I was in the weeds, like you start to really over it. I think analytics can actually like be, this is where, yeah.Back to the discussion of like, just throw 10 users on the board and maybe don't like, get the finest. Tooth comb to like go through your data. First is like, when you have like super high fidelity data on everything, you can start to get really data oriented. But if your product is the thing, collecting the data, you sort of inherently bias the data collection you're doing based on the product you have.You miss a lot of opportunities because you're not just thinking about the problem space. I worked on this app called elevate, which was training, and I can remember so many. So many like heated discussions about, this flow, should we do this or X and Y and Z. And not as many as we should have had about like, why are people actually coming to this app like addressing those questions from like head-on, and thinking about ways that we can improve the product with that.The beginning. And I haven't seen that revenue cat too. Like we have a lot of which are really deep and rich and people use and they're in love with, and we can, you know, you can spend a lot of brain power and a lot of focus thinking about the next iteration of that thing. The re yeah, like you said, the, the, the, the bike shop owner who's really into bikes are like really into some particular technology touch with.Yeah, these bigger things, it's like forever promise this, like, what are we actually building? Like what does revenue cap mean? And in a decade when the problems we're solving now, actually, maybe aren't that relevant the case. We've talked a lot about media companies and I almost snuck in a metaverse joke.And now I will just refer to OMA 00:37:14 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:15 Jacob:Joke your headphones, but like, Yeah, we think about this as like modes of consumption are going to be changing. that's where these, like, missions, customer mission or forever promises kind of come in. It's like making sure that regardless of a Netflix delivered on a DVD or on a streaming set top box, or into some sort of like brain 00:37:34 Robbie:Okay. 00:37:35 Jacob:Like this, the subscribers will transfer.Right. 00:37:38 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:39 Jacob:Yeah. And this is one of my, like now I'm now I'm ranting, but think is one of the reasons I'm still really excited about all of these pieces coming together, is because it does just feel like we've reached some stage in our economy where we can align a lot more incentives this way.Then maybe we have been able to in the past, which I think is just exciting.00:38:00 David:But as we align those incentives and people get more and more subscriptions. Nice little transition there. Thank you, 00:38:07 Jacob:That's great. David, you're getting this podcasting thing, like really turning it in.00:38:11 David:There is a growing, chorus of, but subscription fatigue, People are tiring of all these subscriptions and no matter how much you can align incentives And everything else, people are just not going to want to pay subscription. So having, having seen the, the growth in subscription, consumer subscription starting way back at Netflix in the early two thousands, and now we are layering on more and more and more.What what's your perspective on this, this concept of subscription fatigue, our consumers really tiring of, paying in this way. 00:38:49 Robbie:Yeah. So the upside of, you know, this explosion and subscriptions is that consumers, and actually businesses alike are much more receptive to subscription offerings. They understand them, they understand the value they can provide if they're done. Right. and they're easier than ever before for any kind of company.You know, from the smallest mom and pop up to the, you know, the biggest multinationals to offer subscription pricing. The downside is there's this glut of subscriptions. Every company has them and not all of them are well-designed as, as we've been discussing. and that leads to subscription fatigue, and, and there's sort of three things.Contribute to that. One of them is where these, the product does not justify subscription pricing, right? This is a product I'm going to need once and you're requiring me to subscribe to it. That feels unfair. you know, or I'm never, I'm hardly ever going to use this in. You're making me subscribe, even though, you know, my use case doesn't justify that investment.Second problem is kind of the flip side of that, which I think of the subscription overwhelm or subscription guilt, which is. This great value. Actually, your product is fantastic, but I can't use all the value because of my own issues. And that makes me feel bad about myself. Like this is when you, you know, you have the new Yorker magazine piling up on your bedside table.Right. And you just cause you just want to Netflix and chill cause you're tired. But like your thought at the beginning of the day is I'm going to get so smart. I'm going to read all these great. That makes you feel bad about yourself, you can't, you know what I would suggest for example, that a new Yorker does is to educate consumers, that you only have to read one or two articles to get the full value of your subscription.It's all you care to consume, not consume all of it or you're, you're lazy. but I think that overwhelm, or, you know, same thing with blue apron where the meal kits are in your fridge and you're not using 00:40:34 Jacob:No, Don't even fatigue. it's a rough subject.00:40:39 Robbie:Yeah. Cause you feel bad, like the meals are calling to you and you're like, don't go out with your friends. 00:40:44 Jacob:Yeah. 00:40:44 Robbie:In the fridge. Don't be a waster. 00:40:47 Jacob:With my spouse about cooking because we have the giant meal kit to do. but it's great. I love the time.00:40:53 Robbie:Yeah. So then, and then, and then I think the last one, I mean, but it's, it's great. Cause it's not the fault. The meal is great. It's I don't feel like eating it today or someone invited me over for like the crazy one is when someone invites you to dinner. And so then it's not even a question of finances.You're like, well, either way, I'm not going to have to spend any more money and I'm going to get a delicious dinner. Do I want to make the blue apron dinner or go to my friend's house? Who just invited me? Well, I can't go to my friend's house because I feel bad throwing the blue apron in garbage 00:41:19 Jacob:To, the lettuce is going to be wilted by the next by tomorrow.So. 00:41:22 Robbie:Day I can cook. And then the last issue, so there's there's know, bad product-market fit. There's this subscription overwhelmed or subscription guilt. And then the last one is hiding the cancel button. And I'm really interested in what you guys think about that one. Cause a lot of subscriptions, make it really hard for you to get out of this.Cancel anytime relationship, even though. That's what they pitched. Join and cancel any time. If you can find the cancel button, which we've hidden behind 27 clicks with a call us on Tuesday, you know, extra hurdle.00:41:54 Jacob:Yeah, I think it's, well, my take is it's terrible. And anybody that does, it should really reevaluate what they're doing in software. Cause like, I think it violates that trust, right? Like, welcome. We're going to ask for this thing where you're gonna you're you're gonna let us charge. We're just going to suck money out of your bank account every month, because you've decided to like enter this relationship with us and then we're going to go ahead and betray that trust.Right. We can turn around and betray that 00:42:16 Robbie:Yeah,Advantage. 00:42:17 Jacob:But, yeah, I hadn't. Thought of fatigue in so many channels like that are so many aspects, but like the, the overwhelming aspect is interesting. And I resonate. I feel that, like, I feel that with, with dinner boxes, for sure, but even in software too, there's certain pieces of software.Like, I feel like, ah, I can't cancel it cause I have these intense and things like that. And that's not really what you want to, those, aren't the relationships you want to focus on. Right? Like so. 00:42:40 David:Side there, I think like I use this example a ton, but, Visco, I'm not a daily user. I'm not even necessarily a monthly user, but when there's a photo of my kids or just a photo, I took that I really cherish. I important into Visco and Fisco makes it better. And that to me is so valuable that I didn't even care.I mean, 20 bucks a year, I think is too cheap for their product. I would pay a lot more, even though I maybe only use it quarterly sometimes, or maybe once a month or, you know, when I'm on vacation, maybe I use it every day for a week, but it's interesting that that product. Doesn't create that sense of, oh, I'm not getting enough value out of it because I get so much value when I do. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe if it were $60 a year, it would be too much. But I mean, I just, I just would never consider canceling because I it's just, when I have a photo I care about, I take it to Bisco and it's better and it like, that's their forever promise and it just resonates so well with me that I don't, I don't get that, guilt you know, I get more than $20 a year of value out of 00:43:49 Jacob:00:43:50 Robbie:Yeah, I think, I mean, it's interesting. I think one of the things about this, you know, sort of dealing with subscription overwhelm is, you know, is it framed like whatever the customer is, anchoring their pricing to. where they say it's valuable enough. So, so for example, I worked with, one of these produce box companies, and one of their challenges was that most of their customers said that most weeks they ended up throwing something away.Right. Because it's never the exact right amount of produce. Right? So you end up at the end of the week with like soggy kale or, you know, turnips, and then you go on vacation and you come back and they put them into with these turnips. But one of the things that we did is we set expectations. That it's okay to throw out a little bit of produce that you're still getting a better price than you would at the store.And you're still supporting farmers, local farmers. So sometimes it's as simple as just reframing what the expectation is like saying for Visco. You know, if you, if you use, you know, if you use this for two or three, you know, memory pictures a year, You know, doesn't that pay for itself in 20 bucks worth, you know, three great shots of your life.You know, the three best moments of 2021. a lot of it is about, is about, I think, expectation setting and understanding your customer and what the value is. Like. I don't know how much I pay for Amazon prime. I don't care.00:45:05 Jacob:Yeah, 00:45:06 Robbie:I it almost every 00:45:07 Jacob:I 00:45:07 Robbie:Mean, I don't. 00:45:08 Jacob:A decade ago and haven't thought about really 00:45:11 Robbie:Right. But I use it every day. Like I don't care what it costs. I mean, if they start charging $3,000, I would care. But like, if it's a hundred dollars a year or $85 a year or $115, I don't care. And that's a really important point about pricing is that at least I've found with many of the subscription companies I've worked with and a lot of, you know, software products when they don't sell well, when their business isn't growing, they immediately jumped to the. Must be too expensive. We'll have to lower our price. But in so many cases, it's not about the price. It's about the value. I'm not using it. If I'm not using it, it doesn't matter if it's a dollar or a hundred dollars. and so thinking about why aren't they using it before you jump right to, well, I guess I'll take 10% off the top.00:45:56 David:Yeah, let let's let's talk pricing real quick.Cause you, you do have several strategies that you get through in the book and in what you were, what you were just explaining was one of the things I really took away from your book. is it you say in the book that it's more important to understand product-market fit and willingness to pay than finding the exact right price.And so you, you were, you kind of backed into explaining that, but let, let's elaborate a little bit. And essentially what you were just describing was that a product that doesn't have product-market fit, it doesn't matter what you price it. You know, what are, what are your, what else, what are your thoughts on that?00:46:36 Robbie:Yeah. I, I just think, I mean, in so many things in life, you're kind of on a continuum. Like, you know, I remember when many years ago I started doing weightlifting and, you know, I told people that I was doing it to be more fit and you know, stronger, and now it's very common, but at the time a woman doing weightlifting, you know, working out with weights and people would say to me, I don't want.Huge muscles. And I was like, oh honey, you are so far from that being a problem. Like we're at the other end of the continuum. Like there are certainly people, women who work out and get too muscly and that's not what they want men to wear. Like then it intervenes with my ability to do my sport. But for most people it doesn't just happen.And I think in the world of apps, I think most people. Kind of over index on pricing and think that that's going to be the key thing to figuring this out. When a lot of times there's actually a pretty big gap between, you know, kind of where you can make money and where your customer is willing to pay there's lots of room, lots of different prices. And as long as you launch somewhere in that. You're going to make some money and over time, there's lots of ways to become more sophisticated and get to a better and better price point. But a lot of people assume that if they have a highly elastic product, meaning that for every dollar you increase your pricing.Your number of customers drops by a predictable percentage. And I think in many cases for a lot of products that are inelastic, if I use it, I'll pay anywhere between five and $10 month. And if I don't use it, I will pay nothing. And so if you notice that people aren't are canceling and they're the same people who aren't using the product, it's probably not a pricing problem.It's probably a product problem.00:48:17 Jacob:Right. I mean, if you're talking about product-market fit and a forever relationship like that, I'm going to pay incident money in terms of my lifetime. Right? Like I'm going to pay 00:48:27 Robbie:Great. Right. And it's, and the thing is that people assume like, so what I would say is if. If you're trying to figure out your first price, I'd say, don't worry about it too much. if you need to do a land, grab like a Spotify priced low and you can raise your price later, although that's hard, but just do it cause you, you want people to adopt your solution.If you're worried about, you know, hurting your core business, And so, you know, then start by pricing really high and you can lower it as you have increased confidence and understanding of use case. But there's a lot of room in there and that's really, my advice is be somewhere in that range. And if people aren't buying it or aren't staying.Look for the other signs of what might be driving it besides pricing, like, is it that they, you know, failure to launch? They never onboarded. They never activated, they never used the best features. is it that they were using it for a while and then their usage trickled off. Maybe they used it up, right?Either they binged or, you know, they've watched everything they've seen, maybe their job changed. So these features are no longer relevant to their work, but really try to be a detective about where the problem is like. it's like you have a party, in a bar you're not making money from the party in the bar. Like before you lower the price at the front door, see like, are people walking by and not recognizing that you have a party, so you have nobody in there because that's an awareness problem or is it that people come in the front door and can't find their way to the food and drink and music. And so they think it's a lame party is that they leave and they never come back.You know, that's an onboarding problem. Is it that they've been eating all the food and dancing to all the music and they're like, I'm tired of these songs. I'm tired of this food, which is a different kind of product problem, product assortment problem. Or is it, I went downstairs to the food and there was no food and the music, you know, the speakers weren't working and that's an operational issue.Right. So fix the problems before you drop the price.00:50:20 David:That's such...00:50:21 Jacob:I mean I think about it, if you have product-market fit, you're going to go this way (up and to the right on the curve). All the price is going to do is maybe define that inflection on that curve. Exponential curves, the slope doesn't matter often all that much in the longterm. You can optimize it eventually, but it's really getting that product-market fit. Then it just takes care of itself.00:50:52 David:That that is a great bit of advice to wrap up on.Your book, The Forever Transaction, is fantastic. Reading it was so fun just to think about—we put our blinders on with this podcast and in the space we work in with apps—but realizing that so many of the ideas that we think about, so many of the problems we work on, are things that are across the entire industry, across all consumer subscriptions, even a lot of overlapping in B2B SaaS.So, it was just so fun reading your book, and then getting to ask you questions here. I had 30 more questions that I wanted to ask you. I could go another hour or two, but I'll, put links to your LinkedIn, to your website, to your Twitter in the show notes.Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience as we wrap up?00:51:42 Robbie:No, I think we covered a lot. If there's one thing that I want to leave people with, it's this idea that if you start with the promise you're making to your customers, helping them with an ongoing problem, or achieving an ongoing goal that's important to them, and then you optimize your offering around that, your chances of both acquiring and retaining your customers going to go way up.00:52:06 David:Such great advice. Great place to end.You mentioned that there's some extra goodies listeners can get if they click on the link in the show notes, they can get your book and some extra goodies along with that.So, thank you so much for being on the podcast.00:52:22 Robbie:Yeah. A real pleasure.

On this episode, we chat with the world's leading membership and subscription economy expert Robbie Kellman Baxter about ways to create patients for life within your practice. Robbie is the founder of Peninsula Strategies and has worked with large  companies and organizations alike, including Netflix, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal, SurveyMonkey, and The National Restaurant Association. Key Takeaways:The Membership Economy focuses well beyond the transaction. It's about creating long-lasting customer relationships so the individual gets all their future needs from one business. Your patients always have choice, so you have to optimize your business around their long term desired outcomes.When you have a patient that refuses to return for a comprehensive exam, really be curious about why. Understanding why they leave is critical to your long term success in meeting patient needs.Take the time to define who your best customers are and who are your middle of the road customers. What are the differences between them? Re-evaluate your onboarding/ engagement process. Are there areas you can improve?Remember to meet the patients' needs when they're in the awareness phase of the patient journey. What Robbie is reading: Presenting Virtually by Patti SanchezThe Long Game by Dorie ClarkCrossroads by Jonathan FranzenRobbie's Books:The Forever TransactionThe Membership Economy 

This week we welcome special guest Robbie Kellman Baxter, the world's leading expert on subscription pricing and membership models--and bestselling author--for a robust discussion of "The Membership Economy." We delve into what's been behind the phenomenal success of brands like Netflix and other disruptors that employ deep insight and the latest technology to build enduring long-term customer relationships. We also unpack how companies can re-imagine their business models to create a "forever promise" by leveraging commerce, content and community. Lastly, we discuss the cultural benefits of adopting a membership mindset. But first we open up the episode with our quick takes on recent retail news that caught our attention, including Best Buy's new membership program, a potential spin-out of Macys.com, Home Depot teaming up with Walmart for home deliveries, the somewhat shocking paucity of store closings and retail bankruptcies of late and the profitless prosperity revealed by Rent-the-Runway's IPO filing.Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue.  Her new book The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave was released in April of this year. Robbie hosts a podcast as well, Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches, which has featured subscription practitioners from Weight Watchers, HP, Bain & Co, and Impossible Foods, as well as numerous researchers and authors.She coined the popular business term “Membership Economy", which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond. Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Microsoft, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer.  Robbie has been quoted or interviewed by dozens of media outlets, including CNN, NBC, and NPR. As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities. She has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. You can find more about Robbie on her website https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/Additional goodies for your audience are available here: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/audience Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his       website.    The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book  Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at  Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a      Forbes senior contributor and on       Twitter and       LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel      here.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus        Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  and       The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.  You can learn more about Michael       here  or on       LinkedIn. 

The forever customer is someone who trusts you to solve their problem. They've taken off their consumer hat and put on their member hat. They aren't looking for alternatives anymore. In this episode, I interview Robbie Kellman Baxter, Strategy Consultant at Peninsula Strategies, about how to achieve forever customers with customer-centricity. Robbie also talked with me about: - Why short-term revenue matters so much less than long-term relationships - Her journey toward the forever transaction — and what that looks like for businesses - You want to balance acquisition and retention - The importance of knowing what your best customers have in common Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: - Robbie's books are The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction - Robbie's podcast is Subscription Stories Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.

In this episode, Owen speaks with Robbie Baxter, who is the founder and lead Strategy Consultant for Peninsula Strategies and is the bestselling author of The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction. She has over 20 years of experience working in strategy consulting and marketing. Key points shared in the show: Learn the overview of how to run a subscription business model Advice to get involved in the technology industry Learn about her view and tips on networking Grab her books below: The Forever Transaction: https://geni.us/NkO5Ntn The Membership Economy: https://geni.us/pcYl8K2 Use the code: UNLEASH to get 20% your Knowable membership: https://www.knowable.fyi/ Check out Owen's new startup, Gura: www.gura.io Follow Unleash The Knowledge: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashtheknowledge/?hl=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/UnleashTheKnow_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashTheKnowledge/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleash-the-knowledge/ Subscribe to our email newsletter and get 3 bestselling ebooks after sign up: https://unleashtheknowledge.ck.page/9844648e75

Robbie Kellman Baxter is best known as the creator of the popular business concept Membership Economy. She is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling book, "The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue" . She coined the popular business term “Membership Economy", which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. She has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In this episode Scott Howland is joined by Robbie Kellman Baxter of Peninsula Strategies, or maybe better known being the author of The Forever Transaction and Membership Economy. They caught up about Subscription Strategies, why they're so popular and why Robbie herself fell in love with this business approach.Why Robbie loves recurring revenue strategies(clue, stems from Netflix!)Why they are becoming so popularThe shift from one-time to recurring relationshipsCuration, replenishment and access subscriptionsThe Forever Transaction and Membership EconomyTaylor Swift, Lizzo and a glass of white wine!

In this podcast with Robbie, we discussed various topics of increasing importance on the changing landscape of business models and what all it entails. Lots of businesses are struggling to get their business model right. Robbie went into details on some pitfalls and some challenges. In this book, she lays out a clear and actionable summary with stories and playbooks that are easy to follow for the readers. It's a great watch for anyone who cares to learn about forever transactions. Robbie's Book: The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave by Robbie Kellman Baxter https://amzn.to/2HBjJG7 Robbie's Recommended Read: Selling With Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud by Lisa Earle McLeod, Elizabeth Lotardo https://amzn.to/3jpitCU Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.) by Jennifer Aaker , Naomi Bagdonas https://amzn.to/35Ez0xO 1776 by David McCullough https://amzn.to/31PxNmK John Adams by David McCullough https://amzn.to/3hXoQ0f The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren https://amzn.to/31TNmKk Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance by Bob P. Buford (Author), Jim Collins (Foreword) https://amzn.to/2DoXQb3 Some of the many questions we covered: 1. Explain your journey to your current role? 2. Could you share something about your current role? 3. What does your company do? 4. What is the future of work, worker, and workplace? 5 How has the membership economy disrupted how we do business today? 6. What made you write this book? 7. What were some of the surprises you met during your journey through this book? 8. If I want to test myself through the subscription economy, what are my starting pointers? 9. What are some of the failures your encounter? 10. What is a picture-perfect scenario for covering your business model? 11. How prepared are consumer expectations when the business decides to shift its business model? 12. Why did you write THE FOREVER TRANSACTION after already writing THE MEMBERSHIP ECONOMY? 13. Why are subscriptions so popular right now? 14. How does the culture of a subscription-oriented organization differ from that of a more traditional organization? 15. What are some KPIs for successful implementation? 16. How to check if your business model is ripe for a subscription? 17. What are some cases where subscription is not appropriate? 18. What are 1-3 best practices that you think is the key to success in your journey? 19. Do you have any favorite read? 20. As a closing remark, what would you like to tell our audience? Robbie's BIO: Robbie Kellman Baxter is a bestselling author, speaker, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations including Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Electronic Arts. In the past ten years, her company Peninsula Strategies has advised over 100 organizations on subscription and growth strategy. Her first book, The Membership Economy was an international bestseller. Her new book, The Forever Transaction, was released in April 2020. It has been described as a true game-changer taking readers through every step of the subscription business process—from initial start-up or testing of a new model to scaling the operation for long-term growth and sustainability to revamping your culture so everyone works together to optimize customer lifetime value. For more information about Robbie go to https://www.robbiekellmanbaxter.com. About #Podcast: Work 2.0 Podcast is created to spark the conversation around the future of work, worker, and workplace. This podcast invite movers and shakers in the industry who are shaping or helping us understand the transformation in work.

Hear what we can learn from Companies like Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, and Fitbit when it comes to the Membership Economy.  Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer.   She coined the popular business term “Membership Economy", which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond.  Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue.  Her new book The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave was released in April of this year.  Next Event November 12th, 2020 featuring Jim Black  REGISTER www.davidsMeetUp.com Davids Coaching  email: david@davidihill.com for details on coaching  Monthly Training with David 35callchallenge.com David's Monthly Article - 5 Mistakes Realtors Make  FACEBOOK COMMUNITY Facebook – Please follow and join my Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/ptmastery/ OUR LEAD PROVIDER SPONSORS VULCAN7www.vulcan7.com/pathtomastery 2 weeks only $49.00 LANDVOICE www.Landvoice.com/pathtomastery 3 months special offer Free Audible Book www.davidsfreebook.com SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS  Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/davidihill/ Facebook – Please follow and join my Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/ptmastery/ YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/user/hillteam17 LinkedIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidihil  

Robbie Kellman Baxter has more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations, including Netflix, Fitbit, Microsoft, and Consumer Reports. She has been focused on subscription and growth strategies for the past decade. Baxter has been featured in the WSJ and on CNN. She has her MBA from the Stanford GSB, and graduated with honors from Harvard College. She's the author of the books, The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction, and a consultant with Peninsula Strategies. In this episode of the Product Science Podcast, we talk about what successful subscription businesses do right, and why retention is what you need to keep focused on the long term. Read the show notes to learn more.

This is one exciting episode as we dive into one of my favourite business models Subscriptions!  Meet top expert who coined the term "Membership Economy" Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling book "The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue." Her new book "The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave" was released in April 2020. Robbie is also the host of the podcast "Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches" Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Microsoft, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie has been quoted or interviewed by dozens of media outlets, including CNN, NBC, and NPR. As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities. She has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Big insights on one of the most powerful business models. Paddle in.  Robbie Baxter: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Robbiebax Website: http://www.MembershipEconomy.com Groundswell Podcast Website: http://www.Groundswell.fm Website: http://www.Groundswell.Marketing Scott Martin: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottadammartin/

Robbie Kellman Baxter has been advising entrepreneurs on business strategy for 20 years. Her clients have included solopreneurs and venture-backed startups as well as industry leaders such as ASICS, Netflix, Electronic Arts, and The Wall Street Journal. She has worked with nearly 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth initiatives. A sought-after writer and keynote speaker, Robbie has presented at top universities, associations and corporations, as well as to corporate boards and leadership teams around the world. Robbie has created and starred in 10 video courses in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership. As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 5 Marketing Book of the Year by Inc.com, Robbie coined the popular business term “Membership Economy”. Robbie’s expertise with companies in the emerging Membership Economy extends to include SaaS, media, consumer products and community organizations. Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College. What you will learn from this episode: Why membership and subscription plans are becoming ubiquitous across almost all industries and types of organizations What key trends Robbie is identifying around subscription models, and why subscriptions offer greater value to customers even for physical products Why embedding a “forever promise” into your long-term strategy is vital for helping you refocus your business, and how to achieve product/market fit and scale your model Why periodically reviewing how you are delivering on your promise is necessary to ensure that you’re doing so in the most effective way What common pitfalls to watch out for, anticipate, and avoid when setting up a subscription model Why a “dashboard of metrics” can offer you better insights into where your opportunities for improving engagement can be found Why identifying your problems and challenges using intentionality and strategy is the secret to providing great value for your membership Robbie shares the story of the founders of LinkedIn’s first business, a dating website, and the issues they had with a “short term promise” business model How to navigate the infinitely complex issue of pricing, and how to change your pricing in a transparent way How to avoid the trap of “subscription fatigue” with your customers by delivering the right amount of unique value, and why hiding your cancel button is a huge mistake Resources: The Forever Transaction by Robbie Kellman Baxter: https://amzn.to/3hLjsNh Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter Facebook: www.facebook.com/MembershipEconomy/ Twitter: @robbiebax Additional Resources: Sell With Authority book written by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner Predictive ROI Free Resource Library Connect with Stephen Woessner on LinkedIn

“Any subscription brand needs to know—what problem am I solving for my customers? What’s our forever promise?” With a career building subscriptions for brands like Netflix and Electronic Arts, Robbie Kellman Baxter knows what it takes to build lasting customer relationships. That’s been the focus of her books including her latest, The Forever Transaction. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Robbie Kellman Baxter Robbie Kellman Baxter is a bestselling author, speaker, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations including Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Electronic Arts. In the past ten years, her company Peninsula Strategies has advised over 100 organizations on subscription and growth strategy. Her first book, The Membership Economy was an international best seller. Her new book, The Forever Transaction, was released in April 2020. It has been described as a true game-changer taking readers through every step of the subscription business process—from initial start-up or testing of a new model to scaling the operation for long-term growth and sustainability to revamping your culture so everyone works together to optimize customer lifetime value. Episode Highlights What defines a subscription brand? “It’s all based on a trusted relationship that justifies a habit.” “Consumers know the difference between a good and a bad subscription.” I had to know more. Robbie pointed to Netflix as an example of a good subscription due to their “subscription hygiene.” What does it take to build ongoing relationships with customers? “You have to make sure you continue to solve their problems on an ongoing basis,” says Robbie. You also have to continue to onboard new subscribers for customer success. What should you do in the next five minutes? As Tom Peters says, excellence is the best short-term strategy. I asked Robbie what you can you do in the next five minutes to help build a forever brand with your customers. Robbie says: “Define your forever promise and your best customer.” That would be five minutes well spent! What brand has made Robbie smile recently? Robbie once again turned to Netflix based on their recent announcement that they canceled accounts that had been dormant for a year or more. “They don’t want revenue zombies.” This too reinforces the idea of building trusted relationships over time. To learn more, go to Robbie’s website and find special resources at robbiekellmanbaxter.com/audience. As We Wrap … Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you’d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show. On Brand is sponsored by my book Brand Now. Discover the seven dynamics to help your brand stand out in our crowded, distracted world. Order now and get special digital extras. Learn more. Subscribe to the podcast – You can subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, and RSS. Rate and review the show – If you like what you’re hearing, head over to Apple Podcasts and click that 5-star button to rate the show. And, if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review. This helps others find the podcast. OK. How do you rate and review a podcast? Need a quick tutorial on leaving a rating/review in iTunes? Check this out. Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

For decades, consumers and businesses have joined clubs, bought products and accessed services using a subscription model. But it has only been in recent years that the model has been transformed and perfected through massive changes in technology. Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling book The Membership Economy. Her new book The Forever Transaction was released in April of this year. Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Microsoft, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Join us as Robbie shares how you can radically rethink how your organization can build loyalty, viral growth, and recurring revenue.

For decades, consumers and businesses have joined clubs, bought products and accessed services using a subscription model. But it has only been in recent years that the model has been transformed and perfected through massive changes in technology. Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling book The Membership Economy. Her new book The Forever Transaction was released in April of this year. Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Microsoft, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Join us as Robbie shares how you can radically rethink how your organization can build loyalty, viral growth, and recurring revenue.

Netflix, The Dollar Shave Club, Amazon Prime—these are just some of the businesses that come to mind when we think about subscriptions. But there's more to it than just a monthly fee. More and more companies are using technology to shift from a customer to a membership model. One that deepens their understanding of customer needs while at the same time building loyalty—and improving revenue and cash flow. Here to discuss these trends, and her latest book, is Robbie Kellman Baxter. Robbie is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the bestselling The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue.  Her new book “The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave” was released in April of this year. She coined the popular business term “Membership Economy", which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond.   Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, and Microsoft, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer.  Robbie has been quoted or interviewed by dozens of media outlets, including CNN, NBC, and NPR. As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities. She has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  In this episode: In this episode of HAE Invites, host Philip Guarino interviews Robbie Kellman Baxter, Harvard alumnus and consultant with Peninsula Strategies, discuss her new book, The Forever Transaction. We are familiar with subscription-based services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, our local gym. But Robbie argues that a membership-based approach can be far more widely adopted by business, improving engagement, cashflow and profitability. Yet shifting from a purely transactional relationship requires organizational buy-in and commitment.

Robbie Kellman Baxter is a bestselling author, speaker, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations like Netflix and LinkedIn. In the past 10 years, her company, Peninsula Strategies, has advised over 100 organizations on subscription and growth strategy. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and CNN, as well as interviewed on over 50 podcasts—including once before on this one. In this episode, we’re diving into her zone of genius with subscription models and discussing the risks and benefits of moving to a subscription or membership model. Listen in to learn what to consider before taking the leap, how to measure the success of your subscription approach, and how subscription models have changed not just the marketing behind a product, but also the product itself. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/36er9qE

Robbie Kellman Baxter, author and founder of Peninsula Strategies joins Ward to chat about how she has spent the last 15 years helping businesses optimize their membership model within the membership economy.

Robbie Kellman Baxter is the author of The Forever Transaction and The Membership Economy. She is a speaker, and consultant with more than twenty years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations including Netflix, Consumer Reports and LinkedIn. Her company Peninsula Strategies has advised over 100 organizations on subscription and growth strategy. “do it. If you have an idea… Actually, I would even say if you don't have an idea… If you want to build something from the ground up I think there are a lot of entrepreneurial people or people who wish that they were entrepreneurial but say I don't have that great idea to start the business, there are plenty of ideas out and that aren't always great entrepreneurs to help build those businesses. So I would say if you have the bug go and give it a try and I would say, don't put it off“…[Listen for More] Click Here for Show Notes To Listen or to Get the Show Notes go to https://wp.me/p6Tf4b-7vq

Today on the show we have Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of the best-selling book “The Membership Economy” and the newly launched “The Forever Transaction”.In this episode, we talked about what a Forever Transaction is and how to implement it in your business, what influenced Robbie to write her books, and how SaaS businesses’ have changed their view on retention over time. We also discussed why Robbie thinks providing real value is key to cementing trust with your customers during a crisis and if you’re one of the few seeing an influx of new customers how to make sure they’re here to stay.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

Episode #63 of Season 2 of The Social Impactors Podcast features #SocialImpactor Robbie Baxter, bestselling author, speaker, and consultant with more than twenty years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations including Netflix, Consumer Reports and LinkedIn, as well as leaders in industries including Software-as-a-Service, Media, Retail, Consumer Products, Healthcare, Financial Services and Hardware. In the past ten years, her company Peninsula Strategies has advised over 100 organizations on subscription and growth strategy. Kellman Baxter has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and CNN, interviewed on over 50 podcasts, and invited as a guest on numerous business shows. She received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College. Robbie and I talk about the importance of mission based businesses, why the membership economy leads to forever transactions, how businesses can get lost in their products and processes, and her experiences consulting with Fortune 500 and 100 companies on how to become better for their customers. Leave a #iTunes review to help new people find it! Link: https://apple.co/2WI5Ckn Email me if you have a special guest in mind that you want me to host on the podcast! Link: thesocialimpactors@gmail.com #SocialImpactEverywhere --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theimpactorspodcast/support

Robbie Kellman Baxter, founder of Peninsula Strategies, is a strategy and marketing expert with more than two decades of experience and an extensive list of blue chip clients. She is also a sought after keynote speaker and author of the bestselling book, The Membership Economy (which we interviewed her about in a previous podcast episode), […] The post Building the Forever Transaction with Robbie Kellman Baxter appeared first on Leading Learning.

My guest on the podcast today brings more than twenty years of strategy consulting and marketing experience. Robbie Kellman Baxter is founder of Peninsula Strategies, helping companies leverage subscription pricing, digital community and freemium to build deeper relationships with customers. Her clients have included start-ups and mid-sized venture-backed companies as well as industry leaders such as Netflix, Oracle, Electronic Arts and eBay. As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 10 marketing book of all time by BookAuthority, Robbie coined the popular business term “Membership Economy”. Her new book is The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave. Here's my conversation with Robbie Kellman Baxter in series two, episode seven of the Financial Planner Marketing Playbook.

Robbie Kellman Baxter, founder of Peninsula Strategies, is a strategy and marketing expert with more than two decades of experience and an extensive list of blue chip clients. She is also a sought after keynote speaker and author of the bestselling book, The Membership Economy (which we interviewed her about in a previous podcast episode), as well as the recently released, The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, Robbie is back to discuss what has changed since her last book related to the membership economy and key concepts behind her new book related to building forever transactions. She and Jeff explore ideas related to launching, scaling, and leading a membership-oriented business over time, as well as her thoughts on pricing and the powerful relationship between community and subscription. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode233. 

More than a decade ago, Robbie Kellman Baxter – a graduate of both Harvard University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business who worked as a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton – coined the phrase “The Membership Economy” to describe the trend of consumers to embrace subscription-based products and services. Popular examples include: Stitch Fix, Dollar Shave Club, Netflix, BarkBox, and Freshly. Now, in her just published book, The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave, Baxter details how any business – big or small – can create and attract membership clients and keep them for a lifetime. Especially as people hunker down in response to COVID-19, Baxter, founder of the consulting firm, Peninsula Strategies, tells host and award-winning reporter Dean Rotbart that subscription-based business models are proving invaluable. To purchase a copy of The Forever Transaction, click here.To order fresh-roasted coffee from Creature Coffee, click here. Photo: Robbie Kellman Baxter, Peninsula StrategiesPosted: April 6, 2020Monday Morning Run Time: 47:41

Episode 99 features Robbie Kellman Baxter, Founder and President of Peninsula Strategies, strategy consulting firm focused on helping companies leverage subscription pricing, digital community and freemium to build deeper relationships with customers. Her new book, The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave, releases in March, 2020. Connect with Robbie Online:Website: robbiekellmanbaxter.comFacebook: facebook.com/robbiebaxInstagram: instagram.com/robbiebaxTwitter: twitter.com/robbiebaxLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter About Robbie:Robbie Kellman Baxter brings over twenty years of strategy consulting and marketing expertise to Peninsula Strategies, her strategy consulting firm focused on helping companies leverage subscription pricing, digital community and freemium to build deeper relationships with customers. Her clients have included start-ups and mid-sized venture-backed companies as well as industry leaders such as Netflix, Oracle, Electronic Arts and eBay. Over the past 18 years, Peninsula Strategies has advised over 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth strategy.A sought-after writer and keynote speaker, Robbie has presented to alumni organizations at Stanford, Harvard and Haas, associations including the AICPA, the American Society of Association Executives, and the National Restaurant Association and organizations including the Wall Street Journal, and Coursera. She has been quoted on business issues in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Consumer Reports, and has had pieces published in HBR.org, CNN.com, Associations Now and the Journal for Quality & Participation. Robbie has created and starred in eight video courses in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership. Robbie is also on the board of Amava, an organization dedicated to helping people stay active and engaged post-career.As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 10 marketing book of all time by BookAuthority, Robbie coined the popular business term “Membership Economy”, which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond. Robbie’s expertise with companies in the emerging Membership Economy extends to include SaaS, media, consumer products and community organizations. Her new book, The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave, releases in March, 2020.Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College.........Follow the Just Get Started Podcast on Instagram at @justgetstartedpodcast or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/justgetstartedpodcast and to learn more about me and what’s going on in my world check out https://www.brianondrako.com/now/ or find me on Instagram at @brianondrako or twitter @brianondrako As always, I’d appreciate a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts if you believe I’ve earned it. -> Leave a Review Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Robbie Kellman Baxter has been advising entrepreneurs on business strategy for 20 years. Her clients have included solopreneurs and venture-backed startups as well as industry leaders such as ASICS, Netflix, Electronic Arts, and The Wall Street Journal. She has worked with nearly 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth initiatives. A sought-after writer and keynote speaker, Robbie has presented at top universities, associations and corporations, as well as to corporate boards and leadership teams around the world. Robbie has created and starred in 10 video courses in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership. As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 5 Marketing Book of the Year by Inc.com, Robbie coined the popular business term “Membership Economy”. Robbie’s expertise with companies in the emerging Membership Economy extends to include SaaS, media, consumer products and community organizations. Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College. What you will learn from this episode: How Robbie found her way into business strategy and consulting work and has spent most of her career in this space Why Robbie believes that narrowing her focus and niching down has actually strengthened her brand and created new opportunities How Robbie worked as a consultant for Netflix very early in their business, and why their subscription model appealed to Robbie Why subscription pricing is appealing to many businesses, and why being customer-focused to justify subscription pricing is key What “subscription fatigue” is, why consumers are learning to game the subscription model system, and why having the right content to fit the model is crucial Why Robbie recommends you clarify what promise you need to make to your customers to make a subscription worthwhile Robbie shares examples of surprising businesses that could benefit from a subscription model Why being clear in knowing who your customer is and what their needs are is the best starting point for determining how you can best serve them Why not every customer is the right customer for you, and why bad customers distract you and can cause you to deviate from your model What important daily habit Robbie has developed that helps her maintain focus on her priorities Additional resources: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/robbiebax Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MembershipEconomy/ The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter: https://amzn.to/2Gk3s4H

The changing face of business is getting our customers and our teams to buy into more than a single, or for that matter, a repeat purchase.Business, leadership, and most importantly, the way the economy moves, have all changed. We’ve all heard of the share economy, brought into popularity with shared cars. But do you realize there's a new emerging economy that business leaders and entrepreneurship are moving into called the Membership Economy?Well stay tuned because you are about to find out; our guest on this episode is Robbie Kellman. Robbie Kellman Baxter coined the term “Membership Economy”. She has been advising entrepreneurs on business strategy for 20 years and has worked with nearly 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth initiatives.She’s a sought-after writer and keynote speaker, who has presented at top universities, associations and corporations, as well as corporate boards and leadership teams around the world. Robbie's latest book, 'The Membership Economy, Find Your Super-users, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue', has been named a top 5 Marketing Book of the Year by Inc.com. Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie is the leading subject matter expert on membership and subscription models. She has advised companies including Netflix, the Wall Street Journal and Electronic Arts.On this episode we discuss:What is the membership Economy and why does it matter to leadersWhy Membership and Purpose fit so beautifully togetherHow to build a forever transaction with the people you serveThe difference between subscription and membershipWhy does the The Membership Economy matter to the leaders of todayFind out more about Robbie Kellman Baxter: www.membershipecconomy.com To find out more about hiring Dov Baron as a speaker or strategist for your organization: http://fullmontyleadership.com/consulting or http://fullmontyleadership.com/speakingRemember you can now also find us on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you tune into podcastsAnd on traditional radio stations across the US every Monday and Thursday on: 99.5 FM & 1520 AM Las Vegas102.1 FM & 1640 AM Lancaster, Philadelphia87.9 FM & 810 AM Macon, Gorgia 92.1 FM & 1630 AM Tampa, Florida97.7 The Villages, Florida96.3 FM Boulder, Colorado90.3 FM Milwaukee, Wisconsin 94.7 FM Pittsburg, Philadelphia87.9 FM Colorado Springs, ColoradoAlso look for us on ROKU TV where there’s 100K subscribers. If you are a regular listener, then a big thank you to you for making us the #1 podcast Globally for Fortune 500 listeners! And with a potential reach of 2.5 to 3 million listeners for every show, we’re honoured and grateful to be cited in INC.com as The #1 Podcast To Make You a Better Leader. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In recent years, we have experienced a massive transformation in the way organizations relate to the people they serve. The focus has shifted from ownership to access, from transactions to relationships, from single payment to subscription pricing, and from one-way conversation to open dialogue. In this new Membership Economy, businesses are called on to build trusted relationships with customers in order to earn their loyalty. Robbie Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies, a consulting firm that supports solopreneurs, venture-backed startups and industry leaders in developing business strategy. She has 20 years of experience working on growth initiatives with nearly 100 organizations in 20-plus industries, including ASICS, Netflix and The Wall Street Journal. Baxter is also the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue, an Inc Top 5 Marketing Book of 2015, and she received her MBA from Stanford, where she serves as the Vice Chair of Stanford Women on Boards. Today, Baxter explains the Membership Economy, describing how she supports entrepreneurs and startups in building authentic relationships with their clients and customers. She shares her transition from corporate product marketing to independent consulting, discussing how being the mother of young children made it difficult for her to be an A-player in a traditional nine-to-five setting. Listen in for Baxter's insight on defining your area of expertise and learn how to choose a career path that works for your life. Key Interview Takeaways Businesses benefit from building relationships with customers. Baxter coined the term Membership Economy to represent the massive shift in how organizations relate to the people they serve, developing trust with consumers in order to win their loyalty. Independent consulting requires niching down to a specific area of expertise. Baxter fell in love with the Netflix business model and leveraged her understanding of the Membership Economy to build a successful consulting business helping entrepreneurs and startups establishing meaningful relationships with clients and customers. Integrity is key in the membership economy. Subscription businesses that don't treat their customers well will lose them. As an independent consultant doing knowledge work, it doesn't matter WHEN you work on a project, as long as you complete it on time. The flexible model affords more control over your career and may be ideal for women who are the mothers of young children. Connect with Robbie Baxter Peninsula Strategies Robbie Baxter on LinkedIn Robbie Baxter on Twitter Resources The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue by Robbie Kellman Baxter Stanford Women on Boards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robbie is the founder of Peninsula Strategies, a management consulting firm and the author of the The Membership Economy (top 5 Marketing Book of 2017). Her clients have included Netflix, the National Restaurant Association and The Mail Newspapers in the UK.   I had so much fun talking with Robbie! We started off talking about the membership economy and then the conversation moved into talking about grocery stores of all things!   ALL SHOW NOTES AND LINKS AT: negotiations.ninja/podcasts

Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies and the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue. Resources: * https://peninsulastrategies.com/ – Website * @robbiebax – Twitter * The Membership Economy – Facebook Page * Buy her book, The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue Sponsored by: * LEADx.org – subscribe to become 1% better every single day Subscribe on iTunes to join our Ambassadors Club: Please click here to subscribe on iTunes, and leave a quick rating. Nothing matters more for bringing the podcast to the attention of others. After you subscribe and leave a review, send an email to info at leadx dot org to let us know, and we'll invite you into the private LEADx Ambassadors Group on Facebook. Group members are eligible for ridiculously good prizes each month, have special access to me and LEADx guests, discounts on live events, and of course it's a great forum for peer-learning and support. Share: And, by all means, if you know someone you think would benefit, please spread the word by using the share buttons below. — What is LEADx and The LEADx Show with Kevin Kruse? Imagine if you could have the world's best executive coaches and leadership mentors whispering into your ear every morning on your way to work. Every weekday, there will be a new episode of The LEADx Leadership Show with an interview from a different thought leadership or business expert. Many of these guests are thought leaders, famous authors or high-profile CEOs from innovative startup companies. Others are creatives, artists, entrepreneurs or corporate career leaders. They have all achieved extreme success and they are willing to share practical advice on how to advance your career and develop your leadership and management skills by offering daily career tips on time management, productivity, marketing, personal branding, communication, sales, leadership, team building, talent management and other personal development and career development topics. There will be a new episode waiting for you every day just in time for your morning commute, morning treadmill session or whatever else it is you do to start your day. LEADx isn't just the name of this new podcast, it's the name of a digital media and online learning company that is re-imagining professional development for millennials and career driven professionals looking to break into manager roles or excel in current leadership and management roles. If you're looking for management training or professional development that is delivered in a fun and engaging way, sign up for our daily newsletter at LEADx.org. It's packed with life hacks, daily career tips and leadership challenges that will turn you into a high potential leader in no time. What does LEADx stand for? We are exploring leadership. We are about NEXT GENERATION leadership. We believe that professional training and workplace education has not kept up with advances in digital media. Today's emerging leaders and management professionals just don't find 5 day workshops or eLearning modules to be very compelling. Today's talent is mobile and social. LEADx wants to help those that want to make an ...

Robbie Kellman Baxter served as a consultant to Netflix when all they did was mail out DVDs. That experience got Robbie thinking deeply about a new emerging business model.  She developed these ideas over a period of nine years before publishing in 2015 her book The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue. In our discussion, Robbie goes into some detail of how the book came about, how she promoted the book, and how it transformed her practice from more traditional consulting projects to work that is more advisory in nature .  She has made an investment in becoming a thought leader, and it has paid off: Robbie is regularly invited to give keynote speeches and she has clients who’ve read the book reaching out asking for her help.  You can learn more about her work by reading her book, the membership economy, and by checking out her website: peninsula strategies.com Robbie studied at Harvard College and Stanford Business School, and started her consulting career at Booz Allen. She has been running her own consulting firm, Peninsula Strategies, since 2001, so she has been a successful independent professional for 16 years.

The smartest, most successful companies are using radically new membership models, subscription-based formats, and freemium pricing structures to grow their customer base―and explode their market valuation―in the most disruptive shift in business since the Industrial Revolution. Today's guest, Robbie Baxter, unpacks The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue.   Key Takeaways: [1:09] The big idea behind the membership economy. [2:47] Cost certainty is part of the appeal to subscribers of membership-based organizations. [8:18] Robbie Baxter unpacks three components within the membership economy: suspension, community, and loyalty. [16:02] Businesses who adopt the membership economy business concept experience major benefits, including recurring revenue. [22:27] Incumbent businesses in classically organized industries can adapt to the membership economy by focusing on and building off of the mission of their members. [30:42] Robbie Baxter explains how a manicure business demonstrates the difference between fixed cost and incremental cost and why this matters in the membership economy. [36:24] How to best Contact Robbie at Peninsula Strategies and read The Membership Economy.   Mentioned in This Episode: Peninsula Strategies The Membership Economy @robbiebax on Twitter Praxent

Several months ago when I started looking at launching Hit the Mic Backstage and I went into research mode. I quickly found Robbie Kellman Baxter and her book The Membership Economy. Today I'm joined by Robbie to talk membership. A little about Robbie… Robbie Kellman Baxter is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, as well as the author of the Amazon Hot New Release in Sales & Selling, The Membership Economy. She coined the popular business term “Membership Economy", which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond. Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, SurveyMonkey and Yahoo!, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen; Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities. Robbie has been quoted in or written articles for major media outlets, including CNN, Consumer Reports, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Resources Join the VIP Community Get your Backstage Pass The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter Connect with Me Get YOUR question on a future episode Email me at hello@thestaceyharris.com Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

The Membership Economy with Robbie Kellman Baxter Robbie Kellman Baxter is an expert in membership sites and is the author of the book, The Membership Economy. She's the founder of peninsulastrategies.com and has clients that range from start-ups and ventured back to companies to industry leaders like Netflix, Yahoo, Oracle, and eBay. Over the last ten years, Peninsula Strategies has advised nearly a hundred organizations on their growth strategy. She's sought-after speaker who presented at Stanford and Harvard. She's been quoted in The Wall Street Journal and has been asked to write articles for American Venture, MarketingProfs and Management Consulting News. She also holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Management and graduated with honors from Harvard College and is an active volunteer with both institutions.   Share This Podcast: Click to tweet Resources Mentioned: Click here to download the podcast shownotes www.peninsulastrategies.com www.membershipeconomy.com Books Mentioned: The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue Free: The Future of a Radical Price Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies Getting to 50/50: How Working Parents Can Have It All Key points (with timestamps) 3:27 - Robbie’s background in management and subscription model 4:24 - Robbie's view on the evolution of membership model within the wider business community 6:23 - It costs a lot less to retain an existing customer than it does to acquire a new one. 8:37 - Membership model promotes referrals within your community and creates 'evangelists'. 10:50 - How Apple used evangelists to grow their community 11:00 - How Apple uses their 'closed ecosystem' to increase loyalty 12:28 - Apple music is Apple's first major membership model. 13:16 - The Beats' acquisition was as much about acquiring competencies around the recurring membership model as it was about acquiring the brand. 13:33 - Apple's Taylor Swift ninja move 14:44 - How the membership model can be applied to a brick and mortar business (Florist case study) 17:45 - How restaurants create successful subscription/membership models 20:07 - In today's information overload environment, "free" is no longer free. 21:13 - Risks associated with the membership model (Membership is a double edged sword) 22:38 - More doesn't mean better in a membership model. 24:11 - "We want the elegant solution." 25:29 - "Less is more." - when it comes to making a membership model work 24:50 - Direction of the membership economy in 5-10 years. What businesses are going to embrace this model. 27:57 - How Amazon is creating private label products and connecting directly with consumers through membership models 28:30 - How the dollar shave club is harnessing the membership model to leap frog over retailers 29:22 - Case study - How the 'Intel inside' campaign and Dolby digital converted their buyers into distribution channels 31:26 - Challenges when getting started with membership model business and how to overcome them 33:19 - It's not about technology, it's about getting clear on your why and then making the decision. 34:14 - Florist case study, revisited. - things that the florist can do to get started with the subscription model 35:08 - Pricing with membership models - Do you go for high-end pricing or low-end pricing? 36:13 - Quick actions to get started with a subscription-based business 36:49 - The one situation where membership models tend not to work 37:25 - Books that have impacted Robbie the most 39:27 - How to get in contact with Robbie If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your referral is the ultimate compliment!

Robbie Kellman Baxter created the popular business term "Membership Economy" and is the author of the McGraw-Hill book by the same name. She is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a strategy consulting firm. The Peninsula Strategies website is www.peninsulastrategies.com.  Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, SurveyMonkey and Yahoo!, as well as smaller venture-backed startups. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries.  Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer.  As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities.  Robbie has been quoted in or written articles for major media outlets, including CNN, Consumer Reports, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.   Robbie Kellman Baxter created the popular business term "Membership Economy" and is the author of the McGraw-Hill book by the same name. She is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a strategy consulting firm. The Peninsula Strategies website is www.peninsulastrategies.com. Her clients have included large organizations like Netflix, SurveyMonkey and Yahoo!, as well as smaller venture-backed startups. Over the course of her career, Robbie has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. As a public speaker, Robbie has presented to thousands of people in corporations, associations, and universities. Robbie has been quoted in or written articles for major media outlets, including CNN, Consumer Reports, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Cash Flow Diary podcast episode and founder of Peninsula Strategies, Robbie Kellman Baxter has worked with top companies, including Survey Monkey, Shopify, Yahoo and Netflix. However, she says she still loves to work with small companies, too! What’s great about this fact is that you as a small business owner can learn from her and then apply some of the same tactics to your business that the big dogs use. One of Robbie’s extra-special talents is in helping companies grow their community and membership bases. Before Robbie was a top membership-mogul maker, this self-proclaimed rule-follower who went to the right schools and took the right jobs realized when she was laid off during maternity leave that she wasn’t in charge of her own destiny. So she became an independent consultant at a time when it wasn’t common. Her second eye-opener was when she realized she wasn’t just a fantastic consulting generalist, but rather she discovered her super power of really honing in on a company’s specific challenges, particularly in what they need to do to create predictable revenue. She now uses her super-cool strategic consulting powers to help all sorts of companies succeed by strategically leveraging their capabilities to move into what Robbie calls “the membership economy.” She says that for today’s business owners, they have to understand that engagement with customers and clients is an absolute necessity if they expect to grow the company’s cashflow predictably. It boils down to your customers’ access to ownership. For example, instead of owning thousands of DVD movies you subscribe to the Netflix monthly membership to gain access to the movies you want to watch that are available to you 24/7 around the clock! In the real estate world that comes in the form of vacation properties you rent for a week or two, hotel rooms, time shares and the like. Robbie shares her deep expertise in how we can participate in and benefit big time from the subscription-based membership economy! She offers a tremendous amount of information you can use immediately. Get ready to jot down some new terminologies you need to know to give your business a boost, no matter what type of business you have. Learn more.