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  • Built to Sell

  • Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You
  • By: John Warrillow
  • Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
  • Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (214 ratings)

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Built to Sell cover art

Built to Sell

By: John Warrillow
Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
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Publisher's Summary

A business parable about how to create a start-up that won't trap you when you want to sell it. According to John Warrillow, the number one mistake entrepreneurs make is to build a business that relies too heavily on them. Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency. Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable:

  • Teachable: focus on products and services that you can teach employees to deliver.
  • Valuable: avoid price wars by specializing in doing one thing better than anyone else.
  • Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers have to repurchase often.

©2011 John Warrilow (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

What listeners say about Built to Sell

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Great Read

A must read for any entrepreneur. Great read when you are starting out which can save you a lot of headaches.

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Easy listening with heaps of great learnings

Highly recommend this book for anyone in business. Whether you are intending to sell the business or not there are many powerful learnings to implement into your business. Take notes and implement.

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Valuable

Very worth the time to read (listen). Concise and filled with insights that one can implement.

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Insights Galore

The insights that come with this book are inspiring and the narration on point. Learned much and will be continuing to follow the author and narrator.

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Worth listening to BUT don't sell just logos :)

Being the owner of a group of companies (for 40 years) that include services making logos and customers art. Due to technology, I would have gone bankrupt doing what John has suggested in the book by just doing logos. We create them for free. It's part of the service. I agree with standardisation but.....
Getting past this, the book is well designed and worth listening to. Creating a Unique selling proposition is what young John was actually advising and that is exemplified at the end of the book. John knows what he is talking about and I fully empathise with his cash flow experiences. Government and banks are the worst payers. People, Banks have credit cards and they can use them...

BtS Chapter 16 is the one that you should listen to and listen to on a weekly basis.
I am now working on a 10-year plan to sell, my group. Prob in parts
I am glad I listened to this book.


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Awesome book

I read it 2 years ago and now listened to it again and still find it incredible, love it and always recommend to my entrepreneur friends, would love to read similar book like that!

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Excellent listen!

Loved it, well written, very engaging and highly recommend it. I'll be sure to listen to it again to ensure I get all of the nuggets out it.

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Awesome book!

Loving the information and the story! I learnt a lot through the story and what happened as he walked forward!

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  • Dee
  • 17-10-2020

New Perspective

This is my first book on how to shift your mindset from “owning” and build a company forever to scale up and sell. Great book, clear steps from the case study and I love the narrator too.

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Great concepts

Great concepts and strategies to know, understand and apply in your business depending on your objectives and life cycle.

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