On demand: Making revenue retention your ‘true north’


Collingwood Advisory Director and B2B Information Practice Lead Andy Baker was delighted to host Ben Agnew, CEO of The Payments Association, Sarah Cox, co-CEO of Burlington Media and Conor Dignam, Chief Executive of Media Business Insight to dig into the relevance of revenue retention and to uncover some real life examples of how it is applied and creating results in media and events business.

 

The webinar is full of insights and practical advice form three leading B2B CEOs, including:
 
Importance of revenue retention in buying or selling your business
“It all boils down to are your customer happy and why ? The due diligence you go through in a transaction is the same diligence we should be applying to running our own businesses. There’s no silver bullet, it’s more of a dashboard. you’ve got to understand a multiple number of things at the same time, and then you’ve got to have the right people”
 
Engagement stats
“how engaged they are will be correlated with how likely they are to renew; you can measure and manage by exception like the bottom 10%”
 
Customer success
“these are senior roles, they’ve got to be credible because they are the face of your business with clients; they’re not selling, they’re not renewing, they’re basically running an index of value for each client”
 
Data product lines
“launching our data products has given us more certainty about our revenue and confidence to invest; it means we’re not scrabbling around for new business”
 
Event rebook
“The rebook doesn’t start onsite; planning should start six months out and Sales 3 months out; biggest mistake is entering an event without knowing and agreeing what success looks like for a particular client; having flexibility in payments terms is important especially where a client isn’t used to rebooking”

 


Here’s the recording:

Drop Andy a line to discuss your business’s revenue retention strategy.


Speakers

Andy Baker

Andy Baker, Director & Practice Lead, B2B Information, Collingwood Advisory (Moderator)

Previously, Andy was Managing Director of The Lawyer 2017-2021, and a member of the 5-strong Executive Committee of Centaur plc. He led the development of a market-leading subscription and information business, based on double-digit increases in subscriber usage, outstanding retention rates and yield increases, market penetration gains and new data-led product development.

Prior to that, Andy spent 6 years as Managing Director of HSJ, the Health Service Journal. Andy led the team that transformed HSJ from advertising to subscriptions-based, from print-centric to digital-only, and from declining performance to healthy growth. Andy led the sale of HSJ from Ascential plc to Wilmington plc for £19m in early 2017. Andy holds a first degree from Oxford and an MBA from IMD, Switzerland.

Ben Agnew, CEO, The Payments Association

An experienced leader and business transformation specialist, Ben has held senior positions at Clarion Events, Informa, Datacenter Dynamics and was recently appointed the CEO of The Payments Association. With 15 years+ experience in B2B events, communities, digital media and marketing services, he has a strong record in delivering revenue growth, product development and digital transformation.

The Payments Association is a commercial membership and trade association, exclusively serving the payments industry. It helps to connect the ecosystem, encourages innovation & collaboration and runs over 50 events each year. Through insights, connections and powerful outcomes, the Association is at the heart of the Payments sector and supports the interest of its members; developing their profile/reputation, enhancing their network and providing new opportunities to partner and do business.

Sarah Cox, Co-CEO, Burlington Media Group

Burlington Media Group is the place where law firm management communities access industry insight and thought-provoking content through magazines, reports, conferences and virtual events.

Aside from a brief dalliance with retractable syringes in the medical sector at the start of her career, Sarah has lived and loved legal. She started out life on the marketing team of a legal technology supplier, becoming a client of Burlington Media in the process and in 2009 joined the business as its first employee to grow revenues as Head of client services and commercials. Now she owns and runs it alongside her Co-CEO and together they have taken the pandemic as the driver to digital, successfully pivoting all aspects of the publishing brands Burlington Media owns (Briefing, LPM and LSN) into thriving online content platforms. During this time they also launched the data arm of the business.

Conor Dignam MBIConor Dignam, Chief Executive of Media Business Insight

MBI is the UK’s largest independent B2B publisher and events company for the TV, film and creative production sector. Conor is an experienced media leader with a track record of building and managing highly successful brands and teams. He led the carve out and acquisition of media group from EMAP and Top Right Group and subsequent acquisition of Wilmington media titles in 2015. He implemented new digital strategies at group level for EMAP and MBI including restructuring content teams and introducing new platforms and content management systems. Conor has a record of delivering growth and product launches and innovation including the launch of Broadcast Intelligence, The Media Production and Technology Show, Broadcast Digital Awards, Screen Awards and Broadcast Tech Innovation Awards.