IAM1075- Entrepreneur Builds Customer Win-back Process

Dan Pfister is a partner at The Business Source Corp., they’ve generated over 50k customers and have worked with brands like American Express and Tony Robbins. In 2016 Dan built a customer win-back process for The Business Source, and based on its success, he founded Strategic Winback Research & Advisory.

• CEO Hack: Meditating
• CEO Nugget: Gone today doesn't mean gone forever
• CEO Defined: Enabling people around you to deliver the best possible

Website: https://www.strategicwinback.com/

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmpfister/
Benchmark Study – https://clientwinback.s3.amazonaws.com/Client_WinBack_Benchmark_Study.pdf

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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00:13 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:40 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dan Fittster of strategic win back. Dan, it's great to have you on the show.

00:49 – Dan Pfister

Thanks for having me, Gresh.

00:51- Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. Before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Dan so you hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Dan is a partner at the Business Source Corp. They've generated over fifty thousand customers and have worked with brands like American Express and Tony Robbins. In twenty sixteen, Dan built a customer win-back process for the business source. And based on its success, he found a strategic win back research and advisory. Dan, great to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:17- Dan Pfister

I'm all ready. Let's do this thing.

01:19 – Gresham Harkless

Let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:26- Dan Pfister

Yeah. Sure. So what happened was, I was responsible for, bringing in new customers for this, this at the business source. And we've done pretty well. Right? Like you said, you know, we brought in a fair number of people. And I was also responsible for attrition. Right? So when we lost customers, I was responsible for bringing them back in. And we had a really bad year in two thousand and sixteen, and so we lost just a ton of people. So, I was so I decided, you know, we gotta go and do something. We gotta do something.

So I decided, okay. Let's try to win some of these people back. Now so I, you know, I put together a program and stuff, but, you know, we had already done so much work on attrition and keeping people and keeping people happy. And, you know, we also did outreach to people after we lost them to try and get them back right away. You know, it's just ad hoc and everything. So, you know, I wasn't really that, psyched that this was gonna work. So anyway we we just lost a pile of customers. Right? And these when, you know, when you lose a customer, it's not just like the amount of money you lose that year. Right?

You lose all the referral revenue that these people would have given you. You lose all that upsell, all that cross-sell revenue, and then you gotta win them all back. And it costs a lot of money to win back a customer. Right? So you add up you know, I added up all those numbers, you know, and that's a fair number. And then I multiplied it by the number of customers we'd lost in the last year. So, like, my back was kinda against the wall. I had to try this even if I didn't think that there was, you know, that much chance it was gonna do much. Anyway, it did fifty-seven ROX. I mean, it was ROX. ROI.

02:54 – Gresham Harkless

ROI. I gotcha.

02:56 – Dan Pfister
It was nuts. Like, you know, I've been doing marketing for at that time for, like, twenty years. Right? Nothing had ever cost that little where we made that much money in that little time with that little effort. It was it was nuts. So I just became like an evangelist. I started telling everybody, like, you know, you gotta try this. You gotta do this windbag stuff. It's it's it's nuts. And so over the last, four years I've been really optimizing it. And, about a year and a half ago, I actually built this business because there are just so many people who wanted to learn how to win back these low-cost customers.

03:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. I appreciate you sharing that, and I feel like that's what I've always heard and I don't know if you would agree, like, obviously, you get the opportunity to potentially get that revenue, which is, I guess, momentarily lost, but I also feel like there's a great source of information on, you know, just having those conversations and at least trying to, open up or reopen those doors to get those customers back.

03:45 – Dan Pfister

Oh, yeah. That's it's it's huge, you know. Like, we're really good at, you know, when we're in sales, we're we're going out, we're talking to the customer, understanding their needs. You know, when we're missing a pitch, we find out what we did wrong, you know. And when we get a customer or customer success, we do everything we can to figure out how to keep them and, you know, how to keep them happy and, you know, what are they looking for. And we do the same thing with expansion. But when people leave, we just do very small amounts. You know, we do maybe, like, some ad hoc outreach or just, you know, ask them, you know, maybe a little bit down the road like, you know, when you come back.

But we don't have any real strategy. So, you know, I take my hat off to you for going out and talking to these people because they're the ones who know you know you, where you fell short. They know what your strong suits are. They're in the market. So who can, you know, better tell you what you need to fix to get them back? And then, when you figure out what it'll take to get them back, you've got all these at-risk customers. Right? Like, they got one foot out the door. You don't even know they got one foot out the door. So if this person tells you, you know what? There's this one part of your onboarding that doesn't do the trick, or this part of your software doesn't work so well, or whatever the problem is. Right?

You learn that problem. You fix that problem. You bring it into your customer base. So all those at-risk customers, all of a sudden, they don't have one foot out the door anymore. Right? Because it's a lot easier for it's it's tough for these guys to to to leave you. Right? They don't wanna leave you. They've invested in your product, in your service. They've been onboarded. They've had to learn, you know, how you how everything works. So they don't wanna leave. So, you know, the bar is set pretty low, for keeping these people.

05:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that that makes so much sense. I feel like it's, you know, a huge opportunity as you see, you know, use the phrase ad hoc. I feel like that probably describes most people's, you know, strategy just trying to figure it out and maybe touching on it a little bit. So I love that you've been able to kinda create, you know, that system and that process that people can go by and, you know, be able to take advantage of that opportunity. So, I know you touched on it a little bit, and I did too, you know, when I read your bio. Could you just take us through a little bit more about strategic winback and how exactly you serve the clients you work with?

05:46 – Dan Pfister

Yeah. So, what we do is the first thing we do is take a look, at your situation. We find out, like, is win back even something that you should consider? Right? So we've got a calculator. It's actually on the website at Strategic Winback dot com. And what we do is we plug in the number of past customers you've got, the actual, lifetime value, average lifetime value of your people, when the last time you contacted them, and this sort of stuff. Right? So you just plug that into the calculator, and that will give you, an ID of the potential sales and the potential ROI. Okay? So just, like, in three or four minutes, you can get an idea of if is there money real money sitting on the table or isn't there.

And, like, for a small business, the average campaign will generate four hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, and the average ROI starts at thirty-two x. Right? Then if you're an individual, it's down around one hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars But the point is maybe you don't have a bad attrition problem. You know? Maybe, you reach out enough. Maybe, it costs very little for you to acquire a customer in the first place. Then you don't need Winbach. But this calculator will tell you whether or not you need it right off the bat or whether it's worth looking into. Right? So if I were to would you like me to tell you, like, what a person should do to win back clients? It would result.

Absolutely. That would be huge. Yeah. Okay. So why don't we do that then? So let's say you go to my site. Yeah. Go to the calculator. You see, oh, wow. I can make eighty thousand dollars or there there's potentially eighty thousand dollars sitting there on the table. And just so you know, these numbers that I'm I'm quoting, they're they're the result of, of a large study we did, on, people who did win back campaigns, what their ROIs were, what the average cost to reacquire a customer was, you know, all that sort of thing. Okay. So this is all based in, based on our research. So you've got, some decent-looking money sitting on the the table.

So the first thing you wanna do is you wanna identify all your lost customers. Right? So you put them into a spreadsheet, and, beside each one, put in their lifetime value. Right? How much did they spend with you before they left? Right? Then what you do is you take a look at how recently, they left, okay, and you score it. Maybe you scored it, one in the last year, two years, three, and three years. Right? And then you, also, in the next column, you put in something like, do you what do you think the chances are that we could get these people back? Right? Because, you know, you already know your customers pretty well. Like, you know, these people laugh really mad.

There's no way they're coming back, or there's a shot we've got a shot at them. So you put all that into a formula, and I'm more than happy to share the formula with you. I just don't wanna go too far into the weeds just for this for this chat. So what you do is you rank these people. Right? So you identify them and you rank them, right, using this formula. Right? What their lifetime value is, how recently they left you, all that sort of thing. So you you take the top tier of those those people. Right? And what you do is you reach out to a bunch of them, and you ask them, you know, you left, for a reason.

Was it because your needs had changed? Because we had done something? And they'll tell you, you know, or many of them will tell you. And you approach from the idea that we're not trying to sell you or anything, we're just trying to learn. Okay? We're we're trying to do better. Right? And, and then you also ask them, what would it take for us to win your business back? Because sometimes they set the bar low. Right? Because they've gone and they've moved off to somebody else they found. Man, you know, the crush wasn't so bad after all.

09:16 – Gresham Harkless

You know, like the grass isn't greener.

09:18 – Dan Pfister

Yeah. He's he's, he did a way better job than these new these, this new vendor. So anyway, that's the next thing you do. Right? You do your research. So after you do your research, you're gonna find, you know what? We're really not up to snuff in one area, so we gotta fix that area up. Right? So you you fix things up if you need to. Chances are, though, you really probably won't have to do anything. Right? So the next thing is you package up, your solution. Right? So let's just say you've done a and b poorly and c is mediocre. Right? So you up your game and all that, and you, reach out to people and you ask them to come back.

And there are all sorts of different ways you can, approach them. You can just go back, with, with some kind of a special offer. You can go back with, you know, we messed up with you. We promise we won't. Here are all the reasons we won't. These are all the things we put in place to make sure we don't do it again. Whatever the problem was, here's how we fixed it. Give them some kind of enticement. If you don't want to reduce your margins by giving them some kind of a deal, you can do a bundle. There are all kinds of things you can do. Right? And the other thing is you wanna figure out when you're thinking about this offer, you wanna think, what is my goal here?

Is my goal to win the client back so I can generate more revenue? Is it to win the client back to get more market share? You know, what what's was it is it to make more profit? Right? So if you wanna make more profit if it's to make more profit, you're not gonna reach out with this big discount. Right? But if you're out for market share, you're gonna give you might really wanna give a good discount, right, because that's what you wanna buy, market share. And if you just wanna buy revenue, then you're gonna you're gonna walk an in-between path. Right? So you test all that stuff out.

I like to go with at least two offers. And then you roll it out, to a test group. Right? So say you've got, say, two hundred peeps and two hundred lost customers at the top of your list. You roll you roll that out. Do you roll a test out to twenty? You know, for split test for the other twenty, so you've tested out forty. Then you go and you ask these people, why did you buy it? The ones who bought, you ask them, why did you buy?

11:27 – Gresham Harkless

Because sometimes they didn't buy why you thought they were.

11:28 – Dan Pfister

Right? It's kinda like, you know, we can go into detail about detail about that. But the bottom line is people buy often for reasons that we don't expect. We think they're buying because of this new offer or something, but they really aren't. So that's one thing. That's that's the way so before you roll out, you want to make double sure that what you're doing is really making is is what's what's causing, the win. And for the people who didn't buy, reach out to them and say, look. Again, I'm not trying to sell you, but just from my knowledge, we were told that this a and b were really important. We fixed a and b, and you didn't come back. You know? Why not? So that's gonna give you more intel. Right? So then you do what you need to do and you roll it all out. And, we could go one more level or we could leave it at that.

12:14 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Well, no. I think that's absolutely huge, and I would love to hear, you know, more. But I want to ask you, do you do you think your ability, I was gonna ask you for your secret sauce. Is your ability to kinda strategically kinda go through that? Because I feel like, you know, we use the word ad hoc where most businesses aren't really thinking about all those different aspects and seeing, like, all those different dominoes in place. Do you think your ability to kinda synthesize that and create this program is what you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

12:37- Dan Pfister

Yeah. Because I've been doing it for four years. Right? You know, you like I got I got really excited about it, so I got really good at it. But just the fact just doing these few steps that I outlined here, that'll take you a long way to get where you need to go. Okay? There's there's nothing magical about, reaching out to people and asking them. You know, just be, you know, be very you know, go with a, go with a humble mindset, you know, a learning mindset. And you'll learn amazing things. You know, people did these customers of yours, they did business. They choose they chose you above all the competition for a reason. Right?

It's not like they pick the person who they thought was gonna do crappiest job for them. They picked the people who thought they were gonna do best. There was that one time when they picked you above all the others. That relationship is really valuable, and it's your job to reawaken that.

13:28- Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And so, I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?

13:39 – Dan Pfister

Meditating, actually. My mind goes, like, eighteen miles a minute. I wake up, and it's just like I take a half hour after I wake up and I meditate, and it just kinda centers everything. And it's just like all this buzzing goes out of my head, and I just think, okay.

13:53 – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

13:53- Dan Pfister

This is the number one, two, and three things for the day. So that's kinda like my that's my hack. That's That's

13:58 – Gresham Harkless

That's That's your hack. Absolutely love that. I think that's so necessary, especially with those moving parts, to be able to kinda make sure that you're staying centered. So, I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be, you know, expounding more upon those next steps and what you would do from a win-back strategy standpoint. But what's something you might tell a client or maybe even your younger business self?

14:20 – Dan Pfister

Gone today doesn't mean gone forever. If somebody has left you today, that doesn't mean they're gone forever. You've got a really good shot at winning them back. So so so don't get down about that.

14:30 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. So I love, you know, everything you've been able to build. So now I'm on the soapbox too, it seems. So, so, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Dan, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:46 – Dan Pfister

It's kind of enabling all the people around you to do the best work they can. Right? So that we can all pull together and deliver the best possible service we can for our customers.

14:58 – Gresham Harkless

It's absolutely huge. So, Dan, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

15:14- Dan Pfister

No. If you just get one thing out of out of this talk, people will come back, pick up the phone five times, call five people, you'll be astounded by what happens. So that's the one thing. To get a hold of me, I think the best thing is, to go to my website, strategic win back dot com. You'll see the study there. You'll see all kinds of, resources to help you out. I've I've got probably a dozen articles on, great jobs that people have done, winning back their customers. And, so you get a lot of stories there about giving you some good ideas on how to win back your own people.

15:51 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dan. I know we kind of just scratched the surface because you have so much knowledge and information, so that's why I love that you have, you know, as much information as you do on the site and resources to kinda help us make sure that we're doing a good job with WinBet. So we will have the links and information in this in the show notes. I love that. I'm gonna call it homework. I love that homework you gave to us as well too because that's something that we definitely should all do as well too. So appreciate you for doing that and all the work you do, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

16:16 -Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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