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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 (483 ratings)
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Built to Sell cover art

Built to Sell

By: John Warrillow
Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
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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

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent content let down by terrible narration

I very nearly stopped listening to this book within the first 20 minutes. The narrator has an awkward tone to his voice with a very odd twang to the end of every sentence. How the guy is a professional narrator I do not know. However, the content of the book is great and after sticking with it I came away with a few gems that I will apply to my own business.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

AWFUL NARRATION! - But overall ok content.

Now I know you should not focus on a narrator too much (not really true I guess in Audible) but my point is not to moan about things too much....but....and it's a huge but....

This narrators inflections or whatever they call it when you go up at the end of words, like Australians, is just utterly distracting and weird, you have to listen to understand....

To the point that I literally focus on his annoying speaking style than the content.

I literally can't train myself quickly enough to not dislike his style, and just listen to the story.

My advice.

Try it for yourself, it's amusing at least but I find annoying at the same time, but clearly weakens the overall experience of this potentially much better Audible book,

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Simple story well written and well told. Very inspirational and it has been a catalyst for a lot of change within my business. Thoroughly recommend this to anyone who is looking to scale or sell their business.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Please fire this narrator.

This book came highly recommended to me, and a quick overview of the book makes me think it is filled with great information. I am sure it is a fantastic book. But I wont find out until later on when I decide to purchase the physical book because the guy reading it, Erik Synnestvedt, is so atrociously disgusting to listen to. He is by far the worst narrator I have ever listened to. Practically every single sentence he speaks ends with this weird dragging out of the last syllable. And his voice is quite nasally so whenever he drags out the last sentence, he sounds like he is moaning. It is incredibly awkward. I didnt even make it through the introduction because I just found his voice to be disgusting. Perhaps other people might enjoy his speaking style, but my honest opinion is that he should never do any sort of public speaking if he will be talking like he does in this audiobook.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Expert advice for building a scalable business

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If you're looking to develop a scalable business and an asset you can sell, this is THE book that you need to read.

What did you like best about this story?

It shares practical advice to help develop systems that design business owners out of the day-to-day operations of their business and ensure consistency when dealing with customers. Applying this to my business, has paid for the book a thousand times over.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great content disrupted by annoying narrator voice

Almost stopped listening after 60seconds of hearing the narrators voice... but, plowed through and ended up enjoying the book. Interesting to hear a business book read as a story with plenty of applicable advice along the way.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of my top 5

Great book for anyone wanting to sell, or even wanting to start a business. Fully recommended! *****

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Exit Strategy

This book really highlights the importance of having an exit strategy. So many of us take no notice of when people say have an exit strategy but this book points of why you need one. Written as a story so it is easy to follow along and listen to

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

narration made it impossible for me to follow...

it's probably a very personal issue but, for the life of me, I could not tolerate the pseudo theatricality of the narration. The first audio book that I could not stand to complete.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

can't listen to it

the narrator's voice extremely annoying can't listen and struggle to understand. Not the worst but close

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