Built To Sell:
Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You

Many business owners find themselves trapped in their business. Customers ask to deal with the owner, who is oftentimes the company’s technical expert. The owner then becomes personally involved in serving the customer, reinforcing the customer’s reliance on the owner, and the cycle continues. The ultimate goal of any business should be to be able to thrive without the owner, giving the owner the most attractive set of options:

• Continue to run the business and cherry-pick his or her favorite tasks
• Hand the day-to-day operations to a management team and take more time away from the company for travel or other projects
• Sell it

John’s talk will show how business owners can pull themselves out of the day-to-day business and create a company that can thrive without them. Attendees will learn:

• The 3 criteria of a scalable company
• The 6 forms of recurring revenue
• The secret to erasing cash flow concerns
• The biggest mistake business owners make in trying to get their business to run without them

To inquire about booking John to speak at your next event, please complete this form.

What people are saying about John Warrillow…

John is a visionary … he understands the concept of customer and does an amazing job delivering a simple yet motivational message.
— Linda Craenen, Director, Small Business Marketing, TELUS

John is an excellent speaker and author; he presents well and has a deep understanding of both business and marketing. His 1,000′s of conversations with both small and large businesses give him credibility and insight that he uses to maximum advantage when presenting
—Shane Lawrence, AVP Segments and Distribution, TD Canada Trust

I’ve worked with John when I was at Bank of America and Wachovia / Wells Fargo. John has tremendous insights / knowledge on Small Business owners and does an incredible job on sharing those.
—Chris Heale, SVP Business Payroll Services, Wells Fargo

I’ve had the pleasure to work with John Warrillow as we both share a focus and passion for the small business market. John is an excellent presenter and event moderator. He served as the keynote for many conferences I’ve attended and was interesting and engaging in his presentation content and style. I’ve also co-presented webinar and lecture series events with John where he demonstrated a great ability to adapt to the channel, format and audience needs in his presentations.
—Denise Hopkins, VP Marketing and Product Development, Experian

John’s presentation style is engaging and informative. He takes the time to understand his audience and deliver the message in ways that resonates. He takes time to educate and share his knowledge and insights.
— Jo-Anne Wade, B2B Marketing Strategy, RBC

John is an exceptional speaker. He has a commanding, articulate, passionate delivery, backed by an intimate, firsthand knowledge of his subject. His talks are structured for the audience’s clear understanding, with relevant take-away – action items for use the next day.
—Ted Matthews, Keynote Speaker, Instinct Brand Equity Coaches

John Warrillow is an excellent speaker. He captivates his audience with clearly presented insightful information, flavored with personal and professional stories that illustrate his salient points. I have had the pleasure of hearing John speak at various events for the past 8 years, and I wouldn’t miss the chance to attend another presentation. He’s one of the best!
—Heidi Tucker, Senior Vice President, Bank of America

John’s insight into the issues of small business owners is remarkable. And he is very engaging in the way he shares those insights in a group setting. His use of both data and stories works well to captivate an audience. I always learn something listening to John speak.
— John Ellett, CEO, nFusion Group

John Warrillow is truly one of the best speakers I have known. He is extremely knowledgeable, but more than that, understands how to connect his knowledge to actionable ways to address issues and problems. He has a gifted way of connecting with his audience and an uncanny sense of how to get his point across in a way that is well-received – even if the audience is at different levels of understanding. I would hire John in a heartbeat for any speaking event as he is always professional, well-prepared, and downright interesting!
— Deborah Herman, Vice President – Commercial Banking Marketing Manager at SunTrust Bank

John is an excellent public speaker with exceptional ability to understand and connect with entrepreneurs, small business leaders and marketing leaders at companies targeting the small business audience.
—Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, R.H. Donnelley Interactive

I have had the opportunity to hear John speak on a number of occasions. John is always up to date and his material is presented in a clear and concise manner. He has the ability to tailor his presentations to meet the client expectations and adapts to a multitude of market segments. I would highly recommend John as a speaker for your industry or business
—Bruce Poore, President Consumer Finance, Cards and Private Label, GE Money Canada

John is an articulate, engaging and insightful speaker. He has a great ability to engage and teach his audience.
—Michael Alter, President at SurePayroll, Inc

I have worked with John many times over the past 12 or so years. One of his most consistent traits is his positivity – he is always “on” and makes people around him feel positive also. As a speaker – he is dynamic and he connects with his audience. Part of this is his preparation (which he always is) – but more so his natural ability with people and in communicating.
—John Hillis, Head, Business & Client Strategy at RBC

John is an very engaging subject matter expert and educator on the small business market. Over the last several years I’ve had the opportunity to attend several of John’s presentations, and have learned more each time as he continuously updates the material and examples he references. I would highly recommend John as an articulate contributor to strategy and positioning in the small business market, as well as an educator on the challenges and opportunities presented to small businesses.
—Matthew Morrison, Director, Business Planning, Strategy and Program Development at Bell Canada

John is a fantastic presenter – very polished, engaging and interesting. He has a great stage presence and a good sense of humour so that you are intrigued to listen to the discussion and time flies by. I would highly recommend him – he is a very professional and engaging speaker.
—Karen Sawyer, Senior Manager, Customer Programs & Marketing, Commercial Banking, Bank of Montreal

John is a very well informed speaker regarding SMB best practices and value associated with key elements of that marketplace. Knowledgeable, detailed, engaging, and a very positive delivery. Just outstanding in every regard!
—Randy McCollum, Senior Vice President, Administaff

John’s unsurpassed knowledge of the SMB market combined with his compelling and engaging speaking style makes him an excellent speaker on the topic of small business marketing and entrepreneurism. I would highly recommend John to anyone interested in learning more about marketing to small businesses, or about the topic of successfully selling a service business.
—Mike Handelsman, General Manager, BizBuySell, LoopNet

While at John Harland and PayCycle, I attended each annual Warrillow Summit since 2003. And each year, my colleagues and I eagerly anticipated John’s keynote address or any other forum he led. John’s a masterful speaker with the unique gift of insight into trends that take the audience to a new level. I would love to hear him speak again soon!
—Carol Popp, Director, Business Development at Intuit

John is a great speaker that helps you visualize the topic with clarity. His delivery is engaging, thoughtful, and powerful. One of the highlights of the Warrillow conference was hearing John’s ideas on small businesses, marketing and entrepreneurship. I look forward to hearing him again in the future.
—René Lacerte, Co-Founder & CEO /CFO, PayCycle

John is an exceptional speaker. He has spent the last several years learning and teaching major corporations how to market to small business clients. His insights are keen and he presents them in clear, engaging way. I looked forward to his small business seminars each year.
—Jim Heeger, President, CEO, PayCycle, Inc

John is engaging and very personable. Either working one on one or with a very large group his genuine qualities translate so effectively and result in captivating and interesting presentations. Really I would so recommend John for any opportunity to speak. His experience and insights and approach translate into fantastic results.
—Craig Bentley, Vice President of Sales, ADP

John is an engaging speaker that makes his audience consider things in creative ways. I have seen John speak in small workshops, and present to medium and large audiences. With all audience sizes John is excellent. After seeing John the first time I recommend to management at Cisco to stay involved with him. For years since Cisco has benefited from its engagement with John. If you have the opportunity to see John present or hire him to present or support you – do it!
—Steve “Gator” Wood, Business Development Manager, Cisco Systems

I have worked with John for a number of years leveraging his deep knowledge of the SMB marketplace. John is always on top of his game, is professional, articulate and very smart. I have had the opportunity to co-present with John and he made it easy! We kept the audience fully engaged and received high marks. You can’t go wrong hiring John for your next speaking engagement!
—Karen Larrimer (Smart) Chief Marketing Officer / EVP PNC Bank

I have had the pleasure of hearing John speak numerous times over the past 12 years as a consultant, key note speaker, moderator and M.C. While it’s clear John has a commanding knowledge of entrepreneurs that he is able to parlay into usable insights for his audience, what makes John an excellent speaker is a highly personable, casual charm that engages the audience and fosters a sense of personal connection. As such, I enthusiastically recommend John Warrillow as a highly effective public speaker.
—Steve Nikifork, Marketing Director, Small Business with Citi Cards Canada.

Engaging, thought provoking, riveting. That’s how I’d describe John as a speaker. I’ve heard him deliver his marketing and business insights many times to large audiences of marketing leaders from Fortune 50 companies. He combines thoughtful analysis with sparkling delivery to hold them in thrall every time.
—Jay Fiore, Vice President, Partner, General Manager, Slack Barshinger & Partners, California

We worked with John as a presenter and attendee at one of the Warrillow summits. John is an expert in the understanding of small businesses and his presentations and insights were very useful to our team. He is a great speaker and while we did not involve ourselves in many smaller events, this one was exceptional.
—Brian Boland, Director, adCenter Product Management, Microsoft
John is a charismatic presenter who makes a clear connection with his audience, and provides deep insight and powerful ideas that his audience can easily identify with and action. He does so with a very engaging style that endears himself to his audience.
—John Cooper, Vice President Marketing at Purolator Courier Ltd

I had the opportunity to work with John since 2006 when he was leading his consulting business. I had the opportunity to attend events when John was speaking and in 2008 also I hired him as a speaker to tell about Small Business Needs to our international and domestic field. In all those occasions John has delivered a very effective presentation combining deep insight on the research data with great illustrative stories of Small Businesses and Big Companies selling to Small Businesses. I personally got a lot of inspiration out of those speeches and immediately started to apply the learning to our Small and Medium Business Strategy. Some of those practices produced a sizeable growth in our revenues.
—Glauco Ferrari, Acting Global Business Leader Breadth Business at Microsoft

I have known John for a while. He has tremendous insights in the small business space that we gained much from. At Discover business card, we used his firm to gain insights that led to a successful launch. I have seen John speak a few times and every time, I have walked inspired and with more commitment to the small business segment. Keep going, John!
—Vish Sastry Rachakonda, CEO at Small Biz Express