The barber, blacksmith, butcher, baker, and candlestick maker used to have an intimate knowledge of their customers. This tacit knowledge got lost in the Industrial Revolution. It is now coming back.
The world is moving from products and services to subscriptions, favoring access and transformations over ownership and deliverables. Customization, not standardization, constant improvement and innovation, not planned obsolescence. McKinsey reports that the subscription ecommerce market has grown by more than 100% per year for past five years. Further, subscription-based companies are growing eight times faster than the S&P 500 Index (17.6% vs. 2.2%), and five times faster than US retail sales (17.6% vs. 3.6%).
The advantages to a subscription model are many, including: Predictable revenue; not selling services, but creating annuities with a lifetime value that far exceeds whatever you paid to acquire them; collective knowledge of your customers, which is a competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated; one-to-one marketing; not pricing a product or service, but rather customer transformation and peace of mind; you can predict demand and plan capacity more effectively; and it breaks down silos and creates a true “one-firm” model.
Learning Objectives:
VeraSage
Founder of the VeraSage Institute
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(707) 769-0965
Ronald J. Baker started his CPA career in 1984 with KPMG’s Private Business Advisory Services in San Francisco. Today, he is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally—and a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. As a frequent speaker, writer, and educator, his work takes him around the world. He has been an instructor with the California CPA Education Foundation since 1995 and has authored fifteen courses for them, including: You Are What You Charge For: Success in Today’s Emerging Experience Economy (with Daniel Morris); Alternatives to the Federal Income Tax; Trashing the Timesheet: A Declaration of Independence; Everyday Economics; Everyday Ethics: Doing Well by Doing Good; The Best Business Books You Should Read; Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Innovating Your Business Model. He is the author of six books, including: Professional’s Guide to Value Pricing; The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services, co-authored with Paul Dunn; Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value; Measure What Matters to Customers: Using Key Predictive Indicators; and Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth; and his latest book, Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms.
Ron has toured the world, spreading his value-pricing message to over 110,000 professionals. He has been appointed to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant’s Group of One Hundred, a think tank of leaders to address the future of the profession; named on Accounting Today’s 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012, and 2013 Top 100 Most Influential People in the profession; voted number six and nine of the Top ten Most Influential People in the profession in 2012 and 2013; selected as one of LinkedIn’s 150 Influencers; and received the 2003 Award for Instructor Excellence from the California CPA Education Foundation. He graduated in 1984, from San Francisco State University, with a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a minor in economics. He is a graduate of Disney University and Cato University, and is a faculty member of the Professional Pricing Society. He presently resides in Petaluma, California.