About
I enjoy the balancing act of growing revenues AND customer value for B2B information brands.
Before Substribe, I worked for information, data and high-value membership brands across markets from 1999, including Jane’s Information Group, Datamonitor, Informa and Procurement Leaders – playing my part in increasing ARR, renewal rates and average order values.
When I was leading teams, my focus was always on bringing teams across functions together to figure out value for the customer. While the results improved it took time to align.
Since founding Substribe in 2018, I created a method to improve predictable revenues by aligning teams on customer value. It’s been shaped by experienced B2B leaders in my network (the Substribe) and proven over a growing number of brands (see Substribe clients) as well as tested with the people who really matter for sustained growth (the executives who buy and use B2B information services).
What method does your subscription team follow?
I couldn’t find a method to improve B2B annual subscriptions – even after 20 years working in the industry. So I created a model to improve ARR with my independent network of B2B leaders – these are people actively working on strategic execution.
I continue to stress test and prove the Substribe approach with B2B brands across information, data, analytics and peer networks. Across different markets, around the world.
The Substribe approach is built on direct, in depth conversations with the executives who buy, influence, use (and cancel) subscriptions. As well as leaders from across functions within B2B information providers. And strategic guidance from Tony Jaros, ex-Sirius Decisions, known for creating useful models and frameworks.
I saw a need to create a method after working in enterprise sales, account management and corporate roles at a PLC and FTSE company. I’ve seen the other side too, helping a founder team scale their business for sale.
I’ve seen a lot go right – and not so right. The tricky bit is the gap between taking action and seeing impact in ARR. Plus the nuances of working across different stakeholders on your own team and the customer’s enterprise.
The key for B2B success is to link your customer problem to an effective product creating results the enterprise cares to measure. Otherwise you accelerate sales without thinking about the implications on growth in 2 years time.
If you’re an experienced B2B leader you already know that. But how will you make sure your know-how is understood by the board and transferred to your teams as you scale?
Received wisdom about growth makes it relatively easy to optimise for this year’s number while eroding next year’s base. But annual subscriptions have a lag time of 18-24 months meaning today’s growth can be tomorrow’s downward spiral.
Your lagging indicator alerts you to a crisis when it’s already late – NRR and GRR – how much revenue you keep from your installed base while you expand revenue from price increase, cross selling and up selling.
Because of the lag between action and result in annual subscriptions, it’s easy to go from one initiative to another. What’s missing is an informed point of view to understand the next best strategic lever to pull, why, how long to wait for results, and the conditions to influence success.
Subscriptions work when you stay genuinely customer-centric, and when the teams within brands (from pricing, product, customer success, commercial, operations) are collaborating with the customer in mind, instead of pulling the business apart in different directions.
“It’s a mistake to make enterprise value all about your own business – what about the enterprise of the customer? It’s a mistake leading to what I call, value cremation.” – Andy Burden, Founder, Substribe
Substribe improves results for B2B brands and their customers.
The first step in the history of Substribe was to invest in building an independent network of real-life practitioners – not academics, or consultants, or senior people one step removed from executing – to define what good subscription performance, across functional teams, looks like.
I continue to shape the Substribe model by gathering the network at the Substribe ‘SubsClub.’ It’s a small room of experienced subscription practitioners, testing ideas and sharing insights to help shape the Substribe model. My clients get to stress test ideas with the group – and the group play a part in other’s success.
Tony Jaros (SiriusDecisions, Forrester) advised on the foundational model and framework. Karen Prevezer (LexisNexis) on pricing strategy, Charmaine Chew (FastMarkets, Vortexa) on commercial product management, Shannon Hamer (The FT, The Economist) on customer success, Tash Joslin (Dunnhumby) on data science.
The Substribe model to optimise B2B revenue performance is shaped and tested with people who have skin in the game.
Backed up with deep research with more than 100 practitioners, 50 brands and 500 in-depth customer conversations, and more than 1000 data points from the Must-Have Score index.
Substribe continues to discover what value means to the customers of B2B information suppliers.
If what you sell isn’t genuinely “Must-Have” to the people using it – then the foundation of your value creation plan is unstable.
My mission is to improve the quality of your ARR growth.
I built the Must-Have Score™, xARR™ and SubsNoun™ to put real numbers on this. I’m still adding to the definitions and rule book for subscriptions, and have been since 2018.