EP231 - The Forever Transaction author Robbie Kellman Baxter Robbie Kellman Baxter (@robbiebax) is the best selling author of “The Forever Transaction” and “The Membership Economy.” She has become a well known subject mater expert on subscription and loyalty programs. In this broad ranging interview, we discuss well known subscription based brands including Dollar Shave Club, Blue Apron, Stichfix, BirchBox, and Netflix. We also cover issues including subscription fatigue, cancelation friction, and Rundles. You can find out more about Robbie’s consulting work and her podcast at her website. Disclosure: links to Amazon are affiliate links. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 231 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, July 30st, 2020. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 231 being recorded on Thursday July 30th 2020 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners We are continuing our I’m doing air quotes you can’t see me Summer of awesome guests and we’re really excited to welcome to the show Robbie Kellman Baxter. Robbie has a ton of experience working in the trenches at subscription companies and is leverage those experiences to write two great books that we strongly recommend the first was published in 2015 called the membership economy and then she has a new book that’s hot off the presses came out in March so good timing with covid I guess and that’s called the forever transaction welcome to the Jason Scott show Robbie. Robbie: [1:16] Thanks so much for having me. Jason: [1:18] Robbie we are thrilled to have you on the show is you know it’s a little bit of a tradition on this show we like to get to know a little bit about the guest Scott obviously already mentioned your books but can you give us a little bit of background about how you sort of got in the world of marketing and subscriptions. Robbie: [1:36] Yeah well it I guess it’s you know I’ve been in marketing for most of my career but my Consulting in the subscription while and I was a product manager for about five years after business school and then I got laid off what I was on maternity leave with my second child and I decided during that time that I need to be independent and able to manage my own career and my own income as a consultant and very soon after that I realized that if you want to thrive as a consultant you really need to have an area of expertise so I was trying to figure out what is big enough that it could juicy enough that I could be interested in it for a long time and it would be valuable to people but also narrow enough that I could credibly. Say I was an expert and then my I think it was my fifth client you know the first for clients I was really just trying to pay the mortgage and provide some value but the fifth client was Netflix. And I just fell in love with the business model I’d already fallen in love as a consumer I loved three out at a time which it was back in the day but as a business person I love the recurring revenue and the focus on the long-term with the customer and that’s really where I got interested in you know what I’ve come to call the membership economy. Jason: [2:57] Yeah I understand that investors have one of the recurring business model of Netflix as well. Robbie: [3:03] Yeah everybody loves the recurring Revenue you know that the valuations are you know whatever 5 to 7 x what their transactional episodic counterparts get which is pretty much making every business interested in subscriptions it’s kind of crazy. Jason: [3:22] Yeah yeah I feel like it was already hot pre-pandemic and then if anything the pandemic is only accelerated that conversation I know Scott’s eager to jump in to Netflix but I do want to just say that that seemed like super morally dubious to lay you