Does subscription acumen permeate your organisation? From your board, to your SLT and into your teams?
This article is about the Substribe approach to transforming your subscription brand.
The Challenge: Bridging Technical Excellence and Commercial Success
“How do you go from book smart to street smart? Because street smart is going to be the bit where you win against your competition.”
A common challenge is bridging the gap between technical excellence and commercial success. This challenge is acute where the power base is product / content / editorial. Brilliant minds create sophisticated things, but struggle with turning that brilliance into revenue.
The Three Pillars of Systems Transformation
1. Leadership Mindset Shift
The foundation of successful transformation begins at the top, not innovating in processes, or renewal wheels, or the latest technology.
A mindset shift means reorienting on customer results, effective product and capable teams. And while everyone – if asked – will say they have this, it is rarely the case.
2. Cultural Evolution
Team members across the functions need help to embrace new ways of thinking. This can be particularly challenging in established organisations with long-tenured employees.
“The key is to set expectations and help remove the scales from people’s eyes. But if they still don’t get it, and don’t want to get it, then they should realise they are blocking the transformation journey and move out of the way.”
3. Self Organisation Around Clear Goals
The final pillar is self organisation around defined objectives. This makes leaders nervous. Rightly so.
The key is communication of goals and alignment with business outcome. And an environment designed to enable performance.
Redefining Product Management
Product efficacy is at the heart of the subscription system. This means a critical aspect of subscription business transformation is to reimagine. Rethinking how product teams operate and measure success.
“I always find it odd that product is often considered a back office function. How on earth do you know what you’re building is good and of value if you’re not in front of customers, or exposed to the market, all the time?”
Product Division and Metrics
Recurring revenue is the lifeblood of a subscription business. Asking the question, “how am I impacting our recurring revenue” is of paramount importance. And yet, knowing the answer to the question is rare.
A controversial, but practical, approach segments product responsibility:
- Maintenance Products: “If you’re on maintenance product, your job is gross revenue retention. If that dips, it’s on you.”
- New Products: “If you’re on new product, your job is net revenue retention. That’s how you’re measured.”
Subscription System Triad
Success in subscription businesses relies on three interconnected elements: measurable customer results… product efficacy… and team capability.
“If you create a form of measurable customer result, your subscription is bulletproof….or bullet resistant at least. How do you do that? With an effective product. And teams who know how it works.”
A Framework for Action: The Protect and Grow Matrix
Substribe created a simple, powerful framework for rethinking transformation. It draws from successful implementations across subscriptions. And is Substribe copyright.
Substribe Performance Framework in Practice
The framework is great for spotting patterns across segments. But at another level, it’s useful for understanding subscriptions in general. One telling example comes from an experienced analyst in an established subscription business. The analyst explains, “I am thrown into board level meetings about the price of x and the impact of regulatory changes.” But they weren’t maximising the subscription model’s potential. The breakthrough came when they thought through the framework. He saw the power of asking three crucial questions about every customer interaction:
- Is my role in the interaction to protect a renewal?
- Is my role to expand revenues?
- Is my role to get the right kind of customer in the first place?
The key insight is not that meeting clients is valuable. Instead, it is to see analysts as strategically valuable to defend and grow the customer base. Therefore, helping analysts understand their value will drive better performance.
Proven Results
The framework is guiding high growth teams. Turning around declining subscription products. And in the case above, frames the way analysts are deployed as a commercial lever.
Implementation Steps
- Map where you are on the protect-grow matrix
- Identify resource allocation patterns
- Align team activities with strategic objectives
- Track and measure impact on retention and growth
- Adjust deployment based on results
The success of a subscription business depends on how well these elements – results, product, team – work together as a system.
By applying the Substribe framework, organisations align expertise with commercial outcomes. In doing so, ensuring every interaction contributes to protecting or growing their subscription base.
Would you like to see your position on the performance matrix – what’s happening, why, and what to do about it?
Contact andy@substribe.co for a consult.
Copyright Substribe Ltd
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