Shaun Buck – Customer Retention and Maximising Referrals
Shaun Buck is the founder of Newsletter Pro, based in Boise, Idaho. A 5% needle move in customer retention is equal to an 80% increase in profits. Everyone is so focused on growth via new clients. But they rarely focus on the costs of acquisition. It is one of the most expensive things we do as business owners.

Shaun said to himself that if he could get customers and keep them he’d make a whole lot more money. Customer retention became his focus

Shaun talks of “tax free day” the day in the calendar that you work to before you’ve paid your taxes. In the US, it’s around the 24 April. In the UK, per the Adam Smith Institute, it is a whole month later at the end of May!

Shaun Applying this to customer retention for businesses. The “Day” for most businesses where new customers helps the bottom line is more like October, November or even December! This is because they get a new customer, then they lose a customer. It takes so long to grow that way. It is a drag on profits. So, a little time spent focusing on retention, not only helps you grow faster, but you’ll see bigger profits.

With existing customers, they already know, like and trust you. People don’t typically give their money to people they DON’T know like and trust.

Perry Belcher – an associate of Shaun’s – “today we live in the single most difficult time to get a new customer, that’s the bad news, but the good news is that it is the single best time to get a second sale.”
Why do most customers leave?
Rockefeller Institute study showed 67% of people leave because they feel the business doesn’t care about them. They feel the business is indifferent to them. If the business doesn’t care about you, and there is no relationship, then what is the determining factor for doing business with the company? Price. Without relationship, it is only price.

Relationship and making your customers feel appreciated and valued and like they are being heard, that you are there to help them and you are on the same team, that’s what keeps customers from leaving.

Shaun doesn’t expect to lose his customers. Last month, Shaun lost 1 from 400+ customers. He expects his customers to be with him for ever. He is realistic. People sell businesses, go out of business, come up on hard times, or they just decide they want to change approach. He sees his job is to minimise these things from happening – by relationship, by providing amazing service.

Shaun figured all this out a long time ago. That apathy breeds attrition.

In 2002/2003 he had a dry-cleaning company. One of the ways he got customers was going door to door every evening, signing them up, for his pick up and deliver dry-cleaning service. He said, that was brutal hard work. Shaun quickly realised he just didn’t want to lose any of them. He needed to do everything he could to keep them.

That was Shaun’s start point in customer retention.
What got Shaun into newsletters?
The co-author of Shaun’s book, Dan Kennedy, was an inspiration to Shaun. Shaun started reading Dan’s books when 16/17 years old – around the late ‘90s. More recently Shaun has written about customer retention with Dan.

No BS Guide to Maximum Referrals & Customer Retention – Dan S. Kennedy & Shaun Buck (Check it out on Amazon in UK http://amzn.to/2eL86wJ and in USA http://amzn.to/2g0kEwt )

Dan talked about newsletters. So, Shaun started using a newsletter to his dry-cleaning clients. But it was a pain in the butt to get out every month. Every time he sent out his newsletter, he got more referrals. Customers would give him good comments, leave him notes about it and enjoyed it!

When Shaun was looking for a new business to setup, he figured that if newsletters were hard for him, it’s got to be hard for everyone else too.

Shaun’s business – Newsletter Pro – was 120th last year in Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growth Privately Held US Companies 500. This year he is 343rd!

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