Times Up! The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, by Paul Dunn and Ron Baker, is by far the best thing I’ve read on subscription models. Subscription models help turn goods into services and services into experiences, but done right many go further and turn them into transformations, the end goal of the book. The authors understand that professional firms in particular are really in the transformation business, and that they therefore should, at the ideal, charge for demonstrated outcomes.
I’ve talked about this with Ron personally, having appeared twice on his and Ed Kless’s podcast “The Soul of Enterprise” – in 2015 and, 400 (!) episodes later, 2023 – focused on transformations, the forthcoming Transformation Economy, and outcomes-based pricing. (Dunn and Baker also cite me a number of times in the book.) These folks get it.
Turning services into transformations is the end goal of the book
I have 25-30 Post-It Notes sticking out of my very yellow-highlighted copy of the book (thanks for the signature, Ron!) each one noting a point worth remembering or an example I want to use myself. What the authors call the “central theme of the book” is that “when you really understand the shift to ‘Transformation as a Service’ your job is effectively never done. You develop a powerful partnership-type relationship that clearly focuses on outCOMES – the transformation of your customers’ business through an ongoing relationship” (p. 7). Exactly.
Some of my favorite thoughts and exemplars:
This fee-for-service business model incentivizes doctors to things to you – ordering tests, diagnostic procedures, office visits, etc. – rather than for you.” (p. 108)
MD2, a high-end concierge medical practice in Seattle with no waiting rooms. (pp. 109-110)
A concerted focus on firms creating – no, discovering! – their purpose on pp. 136-144.
“[B]e remarkable”. (p. 149) It reminds me of Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens’ famous line: “Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
“A transaction can only take place when the buyer and seller disagree about value.” (p. 183) Think about that.
“[W]e believe it is beyond time for professionals to move off of charging for services performed and pivot to customer transformations. . . . and focus on doing whatever is necessary to effectuate higher value transformations.” (p. 200)
“Baker’s law: Bad customers drive out good customers.” (p. 215)
The authors also understand the crucial importance of time in today’s economy. As I like to say, the most precious resource on the planet is the time of individual human beings, so Paul and Ron note on p. 115 that their professional model “values the customer’s time more than the professional’s”, where “the time customers spend interacting with the firm” is of great value – what I call time well spent for experiences and time well invested for transformations – but so is “the time we save the customer so they are freed up to pursue higher-valued activities” – what I call time well saved. (I will note too that on the next page the authors say “It has become a cliché to say ‘Time is our most precious resource.’ It is not true. Ultimately, time is a constraint. In the end, it is what we do with the time we are given that matters.” IMHO, time is a resource – a gift! – even if a constrained one.)
The authors understand the crucial importance of time in today’s economy.
I’ll be returning to this book again when I add a section in Chapter 1 on charging for outcomes (for you are what you charge for!). If you are in any service business, buy this book and recognize how you can shift up into the transformation business by figuring out how to charge for the outcomes your customers achieve.
Joe Pine
© 2024 B. Joseph Pine II