Summary:
In this week’s episode of the CEO Warrior Podcast, Mike Agugliaro interviews Shaun Buck. Shaun Buck is the CEO of Boise, Idaho-based The Newsletter Pro, the largest custom print newsletter company in the world—printing and mailing millions of newsletters annually for diverse industries all over the globe. He is the co-author of No B.S. Guide to Maximum Referrals and Customer Retention.
Main Questions Asked:
- What did you do to grow your business so much?
- How do you guys deliver such great value?
- How do you use newsletters to create emotional movement faster?
- Why do you use so many different forms of media?
- What kind of contests have you tried?
- What kind of scalability challenges have you faced?
- What are the top three things in the past you would change?
- What are some changes you see coming in the business world over the next three years?
Key Lessons Learned
Business Growth
- When your business is small, hyper focus on a single area is the fastest way to scale.
- If you’re building multiple products at the same time, you won’t be able to give them each the attention they need to grow.
- Build your relationship with your customer via lead magnets and small interactions before asking for the sale.
- People buy when they are ready to buy, not when you’re ready to sell. It can take months for some people, days for others.
- Give people something they would be willing to pay for and give it to them for free.
- Speed dating your potential hires can help narrow down the field very quickly.
- Everything and everyone you bring one should be filtered through the lense of your company’s core values.
- If you can get your culture right, your team will move mountains for you.
- You are often the main bottleneck in scaling your company, try to get out of the way as quickly as possible.
- Work with partners that already have the customers you want to reach.
- Lead with amazing culture.
- Marketing is going to get harder, you will have to be more in more places at once to break through the noise.
Newsletters
- Your cover story should be personal and connect with the people who are making the decision.
- You can’t be boring, people have access to an infinite number of distractions.
Retention
- The majority of customers leave a company because they feel the company is indifferent to them. Relationships combat indifference.
- Customers need to know who you are or remember who you are in order to do business with you.
- Test your different media options, people will respond differently to different delivery methods.
- Your on boarding experience has a major impact on how long a customer stays with your company.
- Having a great presentation can reduce your customer attrition.
- Your employees take care of your customers, take care of your employees or your customers will suffer.
Referrals
- Retention and referrals are closely related.
- You are combating forgetfulness, a consistent communication strategy is how you educate your customer and remind them to take up your offer.
- Do what you say what you’re going to do, on time, and on budget. The small slip ups can cost you big.
- Satisfied customers don’t refer, raving customers refer.
- Stay in communication and ask for the referral.
- Figure out how much money you can spend to get a referral. Referrals are usually more valuable than regular customers.
Final Tips
- Make a conscious decision to focus.
- Find out how long it takes for someone to buy from you.
- Create raving fans, not just satisfied customers.
- Stop being the bottleneck.
Links To Resources Mentioned
https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/shaun-buck
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