Time's Up!
The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms
1. Edition November 2022
400 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Further versions
Put values--and value--over volume with a professional services subscription model
Professional firms are built on relationships. But you wouldn't know it by observing their predominant business model -- a model centered on selling transactions and inputs, not outcomes that deepen and strengthen relationships.
Time's Up! offers you a guide to building a more valuable firm, one where relationships and lifetime customer value are at the center of how you create and capture value. You'll learn how to:
* Create customer lifetime values that far exceed acquisition and retention costs
* Move customer relationships to the center of your firm
* Leverage the collective knowledge of your customers
* Elevate customers from where they are to their desired future by providing transformations, where the customer is the product.
Only uncommon offerings command uncommon prices. Time's Up! introduces you to a revolutionary new business model that transforms your firm, your teams and your results with the customer right at the center of the process.
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xxiii
About the Authors xxix
The Keynote and the Workshop: How to Read This Book xxxiii
I The Keynote 1
1 What Got You Here Won't Get You There Thank Goodness! 3
2 We All Have a Story-- Here's a New One for You 11
3 Time- Driven Sucks Impact- Driven Matters 27
4 How Aretha Got It Right 41
5 This Could Be the Most Important Business Question Ever 47
6 Thank Goodness-- A New Definition for ESG That Really Does Make a Difference 79
7 The Ongoing Upward Spiral--Perhaps a Different Kind of Legacy 87
II the Workshop 97
8 A Renaissance: The Subscription Economy 99
9 The Direct Primary Care Disrupters 107
10 Business Model Evolution 119
11 Purpose, Strategy, and Positioning 137
12 Marketing, Innovation, and Risk 151
13 Customer Transformations 167
14 Two Timeless Truths and Two Theories 179
15 Pricing the Relationship 189
16 Customer Segmentation and Pricing Tiers 205
17 Pricing the Portfolio 217
18 Measurements and Moral Hazards 239
19 Subscription Business Income Statement and KPIs 257
20 Knowledge Worker KPIs and the After- Action Review (AAR) 279
21 From Zero Defects to Zero Defections 297
22 Adoption Models 311
23 What's Next? 327
References 335
Index 349
--ED KLESS, Radio Talk-Show Host, The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy
"Ron Baker has written a magnificent and provocative book on the evolution of the business model and effective and adaptive pricing for value. It is a new paradigm that every professional firm must adopt to remain competitive and profitable. As an economist, I found Ron's historical overview of economic history and anecdotal business examples and pricing strategies of disruptors to be both inspirational and profound. This book is required reading for any profit oriented 21st century business leader."
--VICTOR H. MIESEL, CEO, Chief Economist, M+D Bespoke Financial Group
"Time's Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms is a compelling catalyst for the revolution brewing in the accounting profession. This book proves how the subscription business model can solve the problems that have plagued our profession for decades and will propel practitioners towards the achievement of their greatest goal - transformation of each customer's financial future."
--SUSAN BRYANT, CPA, CTC, Principal, MB Group
RONALD BAKER is the Founder of VeraSage Institute, author of seven bestsellingbooks, and co-host, with Ed Kless, of the VoiceAmerica.com radio show, The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy (Thesoulofenterprise.com). He is also a faculty member of the Professional Pricing Society.
