How to Turn Repeat Customers into Subscribers

How to Turn Repeat Customers into Subscribers

John Warrillow on behalf of Matt Gilbert


March 8, 2021

Many people mix up re-occurring and recurring revenue, but one is much more valuable than the other.

Re-occurring Revenue

Re-occurring revenue comes from customers that have a re-occurring need for whatever you sell and buy from you on an unpredictable yet regular basis.

Imagine a health food store. Customers come in to replenish their supply of vitamins when they run out. The owner is never quite sure when a customer will be back, but she’s pretty sure they will return when they run low on a critical supplement.

Recurring Revenue

Recurring revenue comes from sales to customers that buy from you on a predictable, automatic cadence, for example, a subscription or service contract.

Let’s take the same health food store owner. She recognizes her customer comes in every month or so to buy Vitamin C. She decides to offer a subscription for Vitamin C capsules, where she ships a new bottle to her subscribers each month automatically. The customer doesn’t need to make a dedicated trip to her store, and the owner automatically gets repeat sales.

Compared to one-off transaction revenue, both re-occurring and recurring revenue contribute positively to your company’s value, but one is much more valuable than the other.

For example, Mike Malatesta created Advanced Waste Services (AWS), which helped businesses dispose of their industrial waste. Energy giant Covanta (NYSE: CVA) saw acquiring AWS as the perfect way to enter the industrial waste industry and sent Malatesta a Letter of Intent to acquire AWS for $54.5 million.  

Covanta liked that AWS had repeat business from loyal customers that they assumed were on recurring contracts. However, when Covanta started their diligence before closing their acquisition of AWS, they realized some of AWS’s revenue was re-occurring, not recurring, and used that as justification to lower their offer by $4 million.

To convert re-occurring revenue into recurring revenue:

  1. Start by segmenting your customers that buy on a re-occurring basis.
  2. Look for a segment whose purchase cadence is relatively predictable.
  3. Design an offer for your regular, re-occurring customers that makes it more convenient for them to buy on a subscription or service contract rather than on a transactional business model.
  4. Aim to give re-occurring customers three compelling reasons to subscribe.

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If any of this resonates with you, I would encourage you to take our Sellability Assessment and talk with us to see if your business makes the cut as one who can still command a great exit in this M&A environment. We will be in touch quickly to discuss the results. Click here to take the assessment.

‍‍About GaP Business Advisors

Gilbert & Pardue Business Advisors (GaP) is a Houston-based business advisory firm serving lower middle market and middle market business owners from coast to coast through representation for Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) and through business value-growth services such as Fractional CFO, Advisory Board, Executive Coaching, and Consulting.

Matt Gilbert and Bret Pardue established GaP to provide owners of lower middle market and middle market businesses – those businesses generally enjoying annual revenue of $5-$75 million – with the quality of M&A representation and value-enhancement services previously only available to upper middle and large businesses. GaP brings highly experienced executives, sophisticated financial and marketing products, proven-effective processes, and fully integrated expertise to every engagement. No other M&A firm serving the lower middle and middle markets provides the quality of representation and transactional expertise that we do.

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