Build, Accelerate and Harvest
the Value of Your Company
Built to Sell
Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You
Do you want your business to grow and prosper without sacrificing the freedom to live the lifestyle you want? Do you want to build a company that you can cash out and sell one day so you can retire comfortably or go after your next big idea?
In Built to Sell, we discover that these ideas are not mutually exclusive. The idea that you have to work your fingers to the bone for years to build a sellable company is flawed. In fact, the opposite is true. If you want to sell your business for the maximum amount of money, it needs to be designed to thrive without you so the next owner can continue to grow and profit from your hard work when you’re gone.
Inside Built to Sell, you’ll discover how to create a fast-growing, profitable, scalable business that will give you the flexibility and freedom you desire. After all, that’s why you became an entrepreneur in the first place. And you’ll find out how to leverage that automation and profitability into a big cash buyout when you’re ready to move on to your next endeavor.
Long Term Incentive Plan (LTIP)
John does a masterful job of illuminating the qualities that business buyers look for in a company, and he does it in a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging manner.
There is no tooth fairy for selling a business. It takes planning and a real understanding of what works. I bet you’ll find yourself (like me) recommending this book to your friends who want to sell their businesses one day but don’t understand what that’s going to take.
The Automatic Customer
Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry
The lifeblood of your business is repeat customers. But customers can be fickle, markets shift and competitors are ruthless. So how do you ensure a steady flow of repeat business? The secret – no matter what industry you’re in – is finding and keeping automatic customers.
These days virtually anything you need can be purchased through a subscription, with more convenience than ever before. Far beyond Spotify, Netflix, and New York Times subscriptions, you can sign up for weekly or monthly supplies of everything from groceries (AmazonFresh) to cosmetics (Birchbox) and razor blades (Dollar Shave Club).
According to John Warrillow, this emerging subscription economy offers huge opportunities to companies that know how to turn customers into subscribers. Automatic customers are the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth, and boosting the value of your company. Consider WhatsApp, the Internet-based messaging service that was purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. While other services bombarded users with invasive ads in order to fund a free messaging platform, WhatsApp offered a refreshingly private service on a subscription platform, charging just $1 per year. Their business model enabled the kind of service that customers wanted and ensured automatic customers for years to come.
This book shows you how to master the psychology of selling subscriptions and reduce churn and also provides a road map for the essential statistics you need to measure the health of your subscription business.
Whether your business is exploding or stuck in a rut, there’s something you can learn from John Warrillow in this book. Read, apply, and watch your bank deposits grow every month.
By page 40, The Automatic Customer will have you fundamentally reexamining your entire business. This is a brilliantly made case for why subscription revenue should be a part of every company. Highly recommended!
It’s rare that a book is able to have such a universal, immediate, and profound impact on the strategy of almost every business okay, every business. Warrillow’s case for adding a recurring revenue stream to your business model is convincing and he shows you nine ways to do it, as well as how to navigate the potential pitfalls.
The Art of Selling Your Business:
Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top
Every owner must part with their business one day. Many will close their doors, realizing little for their life’s work—while a select few will become fabulously wealthy.
The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top is the last in a trilogy of books by author John Warrillow on building value. The first, Built to Sell, encouraged small business owners to begin thinking about their business as more than just a job. The Automatic Customer tagged recurring revenue as the core element in a valuable company and provided a blueprint for transforming almost any business into one with an ongoing annuity stream.
Warrillow completes the set with The Art of Selling Your Business. This essential guide to monetizing a business is based on interviews the author conducted on his podcast, Built to Sell Radio, with hundreds of successfully cashed-out founders.
Built to Sell was one of the most influential books in my entrepreneurial journey, helping shift the way I run my business and creating real long term value. I wish I had the tools John has delivered in The Art of Selling Your Business when I sold my last company. This is the textbook that every entrepreneur needs to read if they are looking to exit.
When it comes to selling your business, you have one chance to get it right and you better make it count. The Art Of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies And Secret Hacks For Exiting On Top helps you win the day with little-known secrets and proven strategies. A must-read for every business owner.
Selling your business is not a simple matter. The uninitiated think it’s just a matter of sales and profit, and are ignorant or minimize the hundreds of little (and big!) things, any of which could sabotage everything. The Art of Selling Your Business arms you with the proven strategies, tactics and mindset you’ll need to maximize your chances of a mega outcome.
This book immediately races to the top of my recommended “must reads” for every entrepreneur. You’ll have to buy multiple copies though because your first one will quickly become dog-eared, highlighted, full of notes in margins…it’s THAT good!"
About the Author
John Warrillow is the founder of The Value Builder System™, a simple software for building the value of a company used by thousands of businesses worldwide. Offered by a global network of independent advisors known as Certified Value Builders, The Value Builder System™ incorporates several diagnostic tools, including the Value Builder Score. Those businesses that achieve a Value Builder Score of 90 or greater are worth double the average-performing business. His best-selling book, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You was recognized by both Fortune and Inc. as one of the best business books of 2011 and has been translated into 12 languages. John is the host of Built to Sell Radio, ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s 10 best podcasts for business owners. In 2015 John wrote another best-selling book, The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry. In 2021, John released The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top. This completes the trilogy of books which teach business owners how to build, accelerate, and harvest the value of their company. Prior to founding The Value Builder System™, he started and exited four companies, including one acquired by a public company. He lives with his family in Toronto. You can follow John’s work by signing up to Built to Sell Radio.