From Cigars to Continuity: Simon Devlin’s Secrets to Building Customer Loyalty

What's up everyone? This is Russell. Welcome back to the Selling Online slash Marketing Secrets podcast.
We're still in the middle of transition with the names, but I'm excited to be with you guys here today. We are actually at the Prime Mover Mastermind meeting here, downtown Boise, Idaho.
And before the event started, I was looking at people who were coming to Boise and I was like, I want to do some interviews. And the person I pulled for you guys this time is really fascinating.
Someone from Australia, I'll announce his name during the official intro. But what I think you're going to get a lot of benefit from this one is he's got an offline business selling cigars and he's using continuity and he's using offers and he's using all the things offline.
A lot of us internet nerds do online, but he's doing offline at a really cool level. He's using Ascension.
He's doing like a whole bunch of really cool things. But then secondarily, a lot of you guys who have online businesses, you have online continuity or membership sites uh some of the things you'll get from this conversation are really fascinating on ways you can increase your retention get your stick rate get people to not cancel get people not to message your support desk which is the greatest thing of all and a whole bunch of other things so i really enjoyed this conversation i'm excited for you guys to jump in to learn about continuity income and both online and offline how it's going to change your In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars of my own products and services online.
This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.
I'm excited to be hanging out with Simon Devlin from Australia, all the way here in Boise, Idaho, right? I'm very excited to be here. I'm glad to have you here too, man.
So this is a podcast I'm actually really excited for because I've been watching you now for a couple of years. You came into the Dan Kennedy world, right? After we bought Dan's company, you came to a mastermind in Boise and then at the most recent super conference, you were in Lederhosen, right? Lederhosen, yes, yeah.
On stage. And so I got to kind of know you a little bit through that, but I've also been watching you and your business for a little bit.
And so I'm excited to, to get to know you a lot better and your business and some of the things you're doing that are unique. Um, I think a lot of times when I have people on this podcast, we're solely like internet marketing nerds, whereas you have a business that's a little bit different, but you're using similar principles and stuff, which I think would be a lot of fun.
So to start off, we don't tell people a little bit about your background, your story and what your business, I know you got a lot of stuff you're doing, but what your core businesses are. Yeah.
So I started my business back in 1997, importing, wholesaling and distributing cigars. So I have a, I have retail stores in Australia and a private club as well.
Like a cigar club? A cigar club, yeah. So it's a physical location, you know, where people pay an annual membership fee to be a member.
It's a great, great community. And we also distribute cigars for some of the biggest brands in the world.
And we do retail online as well. So I have a different separate business, which is – I started a couple of years ago to try to do something a little bit different with a different character to sell cigars online.
And, yeah, it's been an incredible journey. It was 2010 that I actually first found Dan Kennedy and started learning about.
2010 was Kennedy. When did the cigar business start? Started in 1997.
Okay. So three years.
Wait. 13.
13 years. 13 years later.
13 years. Interesting.
Okay. Yeah.
How did you find Dan initially? What was the? It was actually a guy that I met. It was it was actually a basketballer Australian basketballer who actually played for the Australian team his name uh Damien and I met him we had lunch and we had these amazing conversations and we had sort of similar philosophies and he said you need to meet a mentor of mine um he lives on the east coast of Australiaralia and you're gonna absolutely love him and his name was uh gary dean atkins and so i i go to the other side of the country uh one time i meet this guy and i'm like wow this guy's amazing he's got similar sort of philosophies anyway he gives me a book which was uh psycho cybernetics by maxwell maxwell yeah Yeah.
One of greatest dan kenny and that of course blew my mind and oh you got the co-author version with dan the co-author version with dan and then i was like who's this guy dan kennedy guy and so then i i searched him online and i found the ultimate sales letter and i read that book and then i was like oh wow i'm gonna sell a lot of cigars yeah and i was like up until that point in time i thought hey i'm a pretty good sales guy um but then that just that just changed my world just all the different pieces of it and then i just started buying everything i could have him it was gkic days back then where it was also piecemeal and i was buying you know cds and dvds and just consuming it all and i saw an entire bookshelf full of dan kenny cds and dvds so i was the same way so the other day i got a young guy working for me and i'm teaching him marketing i'm giving him a marketing apprenticeship at the moment and i was like oh i need one of the things wasn't in the whole enchilada i said that to him i'm like do you have a c have a CD player? And he's like, uh, CD player. Like an eight track player.
So I go online and buy a, like a DVD player and I buy a stack of blank CDs and I'm like, I'm going to burn it. And then I can't wait this out.
That's so awesome. That's what I learned too, though.
I bought every course, every manual, every CD, every DV. And that's like you glue to it, you know, driving CDs or a TV with the DVD watching

to learn, you know, back in the day, that's how we all consume stuff. But it was, it was so exciting.
Okay. So I'm, I'm Mormon.
I've never smoked a cigar in my entire life. Right.
So, um, so what should I know about cigars? I don't know. I think the biggest thing is cigars are all about flavor and taste so people people think, and this has been a problem in Australia, and when I actually started the cigar business back in 1997, you couldn't buy cigars anywhere.
It wasn't part of the culture, whereas it had been more part of the culture in the United States. People just saw it literally as a big cigarette.
Now, I've never smoked cigarettes in my life and never will, but cigars are actually about flavor and taste. You don't actually inhale a cigar.
You actually just draw it in your mouth and you blow it out. But I think the true value of cigars and why so many people smoke them and successful people actually smoke them is people think it's a status symbol, but it's actually because it's the only time that really busy people stop because it actually takes time to enjoy a cigar.
Generally we don't say smoke a cigar, we enjoy a cigar. It's, there is a rhythm to the, to the breathing almost, you know, I often say it's like a form of meditation, you know, and when you can share that with other people, yeah, it's a pretty amazing experience.
Does it have like nicotine, tobacco, similar stuff like that in it? Yeah, it does, but… You're not going deep into your lungs. Yeah, and so the thing is about nicotine is what makes it highly addictive in cigarettes is the other chemicals that they add into cigarettes to make the increase of the uptake of the nicotine into the bloodstream.
So that was that movie with Russell Crowe, The Insiders, was all about is how they worked all that out. So I was thinking about this actually this morning.
So I smoke cigars. I love cigars.
I would have on average a couple of cigars a day, which is a lot of cigars. Most people might have one cigar a week kind of thing.
I left home a week and a half ago. I haven't had a cigar.
You're not like going crazy going crazy i hadn't even thought about it you know so i i really really enjoy the experience but i don't feel the need to want to have a cigar so yeah it's interesting it's a very very enjoyable pasta my only experience with cigars is uh mark ford and rich sheffron did a mastermind event and mark ford michael masterson aka mark ford uh he's got a cigar bar in florida and so that was where the event was at so we all flew out there and there was like 300 internet marketers jammed in this little tiny room and everyone's smoking and like video and filming and everyone's like influencing it was just like it was total chaos um but it was you tell like it was a cool vibe and people were hanging you know like when there's not 300 people jammed in a little tiny room it's probably like a really cool yeah the smoke can get a bit much there and the eyes can water a little i imagine yeah 300 in a room yeah so my question first question then so you went for 13 years running a business before you met dan how did it so how did that part of the business change and transform you went from like running a traditional business to like applying dan kennedy style marketing into a cigar business yeah so it i really it started out as a uh well it started initially importing wholesaling and distributing cigars and i actually had a had a business partner at the time that i had in the early days um and i found that he wasn't he wasn't my kind of guy and we didn't really know each other. Perhaps our values weren't quite aligned.
And we kind of split and he took over the wholesale distribution at the time. And then I took over the retail side, which was in a tiny little cigar shop in a little beautiful little alley called London Court in Perth.
And that shop is so small, I always joke that you have to go outside to change your mind, right? So it's this tiny little shop. And then so really I started out that in 2002 as almost like a one-man band.
And, you know, just learning, learning how to have team members learning how to um uh you know make sure that you've got the right cigars and teaching people and those sort of things and that that progressed um and eventually i i put on some more team members and i kind of worked out well actually i had a problem so I first of all I put on some team members and their sales were nowhere near what my sales were they were just I couldn't understand you know it's not that hard you guys come on yeah and I hired people that were passionate about cigars so I at first I thought oh is it technical knowledge and then it was like okay no it's not it's not the technical knowledge um so what is it and then I started observing what it was about my own interaction that was different and what I realized was I never actually um talked about cigars with the first of all. I actually talked about them and I got to know them.
And then eventually we would get round to cigars. Like there was a different level of engagement.
And by that time, we'd kind of made friends, if you like. And, you know, that whole thing, people want to do business with people they know and like.
So then I decided, oh, great, that need to do i need to teach my guys how to build rapport right like how to um and so i started to create this idea of an engagement funnel so rather than a sales funnel like how to truly engage with the with um customers and clients when they came in and i i taught them this and but the sales that i got a bump but i didn't get to where i definitely thought we should be so i i i was a bit sneaky i actually there was a it was a tiny little shop and i would hang out just around the corner um from the shop and actually listen to their interactions to see

actually yeah to see what was actually happening and the interesting part was is it just sounded

really clunky like it sounded put on like the way they were interacting was just you know natural

yeah it wasn't natural that's not what they naturally did and therefore they weren't getting

the benefit out of it and i was like okay so i actually need to hire a different type of

Thank you. natural yeah it wasn't natural that's not what they naturally did and therefore they weren't getting the benefit out of it and i was like okay so i actually need to hire a different type of person i actually need to hire someone who most naturally does that someone that was more similar to me and um and that's where i started developing this idea of um who that person was.
And eventually it evolved over a number of years where I realized that that person is actually someone we call that has the service gene. So someone that has not only the desire but the innate need to want to look after people.
and that was quite a point where I turbocharged my business because then I had a system for finding the right people and then when I found them I taught them how to fly with their most natural what they do best and so my business really started to expand fast because people were having incredible experience. They were getting incredible engagement.
It was actually, it started out in that little cigar shop. And on a Friday afternoon, people would come and they would smoke cigars inside the, and you could smoke inside back then.
They'd smoke cigars inside the little shop and also in the London Court alleyway as well and they'd bring a bottle of wine and and it became this huge thing until you know some Fridays there'll be 30 or 40 people kind of hanging out there because they were coming for that community and that engagement as well and so so that was the where I really worked out that whole experience and engagement circle but what I was kind of missing was how do I consistently get them to come back again and again? And it wasn't until 2010 when I discovered Dan Kennedy and Magnetic Marketing that the next piece of the puzzle really fell into place. And that was the return path.
That was having a system to get people to come back again and again that whole number one reason why people stop doing business with you is they forget about you and you constantly sticking up your hand and saying i'm here i'm here don't forget about me right and i and i hadn't i hadn't actually done that the the experience and engagement that's the rocket fuel that can turbo charge the return path. But that was the next step.
So then I started thinking about how can I add different pieces to the puzzle? And then that eventually evolved into a membership. It actually started with private cigar keeps, putting private cigar keeps in the next evolution of our store.
Is that like a yeah they put their own stuff in yeah okay and i'm like oh this is this is like a little real estate play here right like a tiny little box you can charge them an annual fee so how'd that worry how much would you charge people for that um so look i think of originally when we originally opened so that that uh subiaco store we opened in 2006, sorry, no, 2003. And I think we were maybe charging like $500, $600 a year for the keep.
It was a small amount and it was us dipping our toes into what would people pay? You know, like I think often as business people and marketers, we always undervalue it, right? And we're testing, you know, how much people would actually pay for it as well. Then I guess the next evolution was, so that was in 2003.
In 2006, the smoking laws were changing. We actually had a, we built a joint venture with a private club in Western Australia, which was the oldest private club at the time, and we built a cigar lounge as a joint venture with them called Churchill's.
And they had a membership business. You know, they were a private club.
And the smoking laws were changing, and we weren't going to be able to have it there anymore. We'd opened another store in Subiaco.
So that was in 2003 that I was talking about before. And we worked out we needed another location and there was an opportunity across the road.
And I thought, okay, maybe we build a private club at the back of the retail store. And we make it really, really discreet.
And as often us marketers do, I sold it before I'd made it and sold these memberships. So I sold these founding memberships, which were based around the keeps.
We had originally 60-odd keeps in there. And you had one of these these keeps you had access to a private lounge behind the retail store which has swipe cards and like nondescript doors you know it was kind of get smarty and it's how you get through to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing And that became our private club.
And so 2010, I had this private club, but we had one level, you know, and I hadn't really worked out. We were underselling it and I hadn't, it was 500 bucks a year still at that point, or did it change now that you have the club? No, I mean, our, our initial membership was like $550 a year a year right we hadn't really worked out that whole thing and uh and then learning for the first time about ascension and you know ascension equals retention and you know and the different ladders and you know that sort of thing and then going oh okay so i i need So I need to stop making this about the keep, about the product, and now I need to make this about an offer, all the different things that we actually add into that offer stack and call it a membership rather than just your locker.
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Again, that's northwestregisteredagent.com slash R-U-S-S-E-L-L. I have a question because there's a place in Vegas I get all my clothes done and they have a locker system like that and in the locker everyone's got their own whatever, like whatever they want to want to keep in it usually just looks like there's a liquor bottle and some other stuff that they can have so my question for you is like so people would buy cigars they just put their own cigars there so when they kind of have to carry them back and forward they just have it 100 there that's the whole reason right so you'd sell them the cigars and then they would place it in the locker stores when you come hang out with us absolutely and when you come out and and they could put a bottle of uh whiskey in there or they could put you know um you know some some would have their locker absolutely full of cigars and then others would come in and their locker would be empty and they would just buy a cigar and consumption as well but they had that you know and and you know it gave us different things to sell as part of the membership and as part of the, I keep thinking, cause I have an event center that we're launching and it's like a library

museum thing.

I was like, wouldn't it be cool to have, when I saw the one in Vegas,

I was like, that'd be such a cool thing.

I'm like, what are the people going to put in there?

Put their book in there.

They want to read them.

They come back, you know, I'm like, I don't know,

but it's crazy that they would buy a cigar from you and then put,

like I could sell a book in there.

They could store the book.

Yeah.

Or we could do a JV and i could sell cigars and they

could put some cigars in there maybe maybe that's a secret so fascinating okay so started there and then you started uh bundling in offer stack in other stuff memberships you could increase the the value right yeah and um and we started adding in different products to our store as well it went from being a cigar shop to a men's luxury gift store where we were selling writing instruments and beautiful writing instruments and we were selling you know luggage and wallets and um you know great great things like that so it really evolved into being a what i call a big boys toy store but still always had a heavy focus on the cigars and but all the beauty of cigars is actually the toys that go along with it you know the different cutters and lighters and humidors and they're just beautiful accessories as well so we started selling you know all of those products as well um and then just kept adding to the membership so and realizing that we could keep adding membership levels and then our members would want to ascend now because we did the experience in the engagement part so well they just love hanging out there and it and it's become quite an incredible community we're just amazing bunch predominantly predominantly men um though you know women are incredibly welcome um as members and we and we do have some fantastic uh ladies as members it tends to be that this they it's the men that generally join enjoy the cigars more just by their nature. But, yeah, we've got an amazing, amazing group of members there.
So what do the levels look like? What do you charge at least level? What are people getting at least level? Yeah, so it's evolved over time. So first of all, there's a joining fee.
So we charge a joining fee.

So the joining fee is currently $995.

And then there's the different levels.

So we've actually changed it recently.

So we used to have a bronze level of membership,

but we've done away with that. And we actually, the opening level of membership is a gold level of membership.
And with that, they get their private cigar keep. They actually get a 10% discount on everything in the store as well.
And they also – we added things into the stack which are from outside vendors, which is a really, really good thing. So if you go to this restaurant, you get, you know, an entree.
You know, if you go here, you get that or you get access to a private dining room or you get access to different things as well, which we found was really, valuable to add in uh to the stack as well

uh so that's gold they pay around about 1600 a year uh then we have our platinum um so they get everything obviously that's in gold um plus they actually get a whiskey keep so actually so the The cigar keeps, there's two walk-in humidor rooms with private cigar keeps.

So there's now 500 private cigar keeps. We started out with, you know, 60.
And the platinum members actually get a whiskey keep as well, which is actually inside the lounge. So that is a keep which actually has like a mesh to the front of it and it's lit up and so you can see what bottles they can see what bottles they have in there in their keep and they can keep whiskey in there or wine or or soft drink whatever you know we uh we obviously don't mind on that um but they also get four platinum member lunches a year which are special lunches that we actually host in the lounge itself where um and they are just fantastic they're some of my favorite events just a great bunch of guys we now have about 100 platinum members but it started out as a very very small group and they are fantastic days where we have three cigars and we have huge amount of food a lot of barbecue american style barbecue stuff as well got a great guy barbecue events australia they look after us amazing and a little bit of wine a little bit of whiskey as well and of course now we made a kind of a sales event where we, we have a particular raffle item, which will be something really, really special, hard to get, or you can't get.
If you purchase a certain amount of boxes of cigars on the day, you can actually go into the drawer for that as well. And you get a platinum members jacket.
So, which is a smoking jacket, which is really cool. And of course you get a platinum members jacket oh so which is a smoking jacket which is really cool and of course you get a platinum members pin and you know we follow the formula the platinum members pin um uh and um platinum members card as well uh all those things which are really really important and then we have platinum plus um which is um sorry platinum doesn't have the jacket.
Platinum Plus has the jacket. Again, different card, a couple of other different events as well, which are even more exclusive because there's only 30 or 40 of those.
And finally we have our membership that we launched this year, which actually – it actually came to me in the mastermind meeting with, with Dan. And it was like, I was telling him about all the memberships and all the rest of it.
And he's asking questions. I'm like, Oh yeah, there's a waiting list for platinum waiting list, platinum plus.
And he goes, you know what that means, right? And I go, yeah. And he goes goes your membership's too cheap you need another level so we just created a devlin's black and that's ten thousand dollars a year and we wanted to make that really extra special so we didn't actually market that i literally came to i hand selected the people that i wanted in that very very small group of 15 and i went and invited them individually and they get a beautiful devlin's black card which is a metal card and they get access to things that um other people don't get access to for example um theresa my partner and i we go a, we get invited every year to a special cigar dinner, which is in LA, which is hosted by Joe Mantegna, the actor and Andy Garcia and for their foundation.
And it's a bit of a who's who of Hollywood. Arnie was there last year.
Like it's a, it's a pretty special event. And it's a cigar thing.
And we've been lucky enough to get invited and we're like, okay, so if you'relin's black member you are going to get a golden ticket to this event you're going to get your way from australia and your accommodation and all the rest of it but you get to come with us and we took our first group um in um uh in early september and they just had most incredible time as well which just cements that whole relationship as well. So, so you handpicked those people and invited them personally.
It wasn't like a, here's a sales letter. Did, uh, what was the clothes rate? Did you get all of them? Everyone you invited? Uh, yeah, there were, there were just, there were two guys, um, that because of their circumstances, they couldn't, and they, I know they really, really wanted to, but it was because of their personal circumstances at the time and like you're ruining my clothes rate come on guys yeah yeah and like the first you know the first five i was like no one's gonna say no i am and i'm i'm batting 100 percent i'm the greatest ever yeah i'm the greatest ever you know and we we did it uh the guys will listen to this podcast and be like hey bugger i knew what you were doing um but um we had these these devlins black cards made and i put individual numbers on them um but i actually before i went and sat down with these people, I had their name written already,

engraved on the card. I can't not say no.
And so, you know, I'm going through my perfect webinar pinch and then you get this card and I hand it over and they turn it over and their names on it as well. And look, the guys, the guys were amazing.
They just really appreciated being invited to it as well. And, you know, some guys were like almost to tears, you know, like, wow, you've included me in this, which was, which was really, really cool.
Cause the truth is they're actually my buddies as well, you know? So it's yeah, but it's great. If you can, if you offer that next level and and i'm sure you have it with your atlas group and your other groups as well so cool so if somebody cancels or leaves doesn't re-up do you take the jacket and the cards and the pins back or they get those forever no that we we uh we take them back do you really well we do you don't let me take your coat back yeah well you store it at devlins oh gotcha yeah yeah

so that's gonna be a huge pain of disconnect knowing like oh man this is my and and that's

what you have to do right it's the it's the pain of disconnect it's like with the devlins black

everyone has their own number so i am my number is triple zero and then there's zero zero one

zero zero two zero zero three i mean we've never numbered anything like that memberships before

Thank you. So my number is triple zero.
And then there's 001, 002, 003.

I mean, we've never numbered anything like that memberships before.

And now what we did is we built a whole new set of whiskey keeps. Teresa actually organized it.

They were only actually installed this week.

And they're three times the size of the other whiskey keeps.

And they're a different color.

And they're next to each other.

And then there's a plaque on there. And everything that do with the devlins black is all their number so it's double zero zero two you know and then their surname as well so the pain of disconnect is you lose your spot you do i want to give up double zero seven or double zero or, you know, all of that as well.
So, in fact, even at our events, so we actually did something with the Devlin's Black quite special in that we actually did, instead of just doing the events at Devlin's, we actually have a private dinner at my house or at our house, I should say, and their Teresa had organised, organized you know they have a steak knife which has got their number and name on it there's a riddle black tasting glass which is a completely blind tasting glass so the glass is completely black and it's got their name and their their number on it and you know there's a napkin embroidered with their name and their number on it so just making things ultra special as well what a cool experience for people um i'm thinking like obviously it's funny because normally when we talk about continuity and memberships everyone's like oh membership site they think online really easy like i don't know how this would work offline right and then as you explain offline it seems so cool like well that would never work online but it's like both these principles work both ways right um you know i think when i got into the dan kenny world before we bought the company back back same time you were in it right the gkic had there was like what there's diamond diamond plus gold gold plus uh peak performers titanium titanium like there's like 20 different levels when i got it i think there's like six or seven still and i was like i can't handle all these levels so we shrunk it down and simplified it but now we're like starting to reopen different levels but I think, you know, I think there's like six or seven still. And I was like, I can't handle all these levels.
So we shrunk it down and simplified it. But now we're like starting to reopen different levels.
But I think, you know, I want to make sure people are listening to this. You're not going to be like, oh, well, I don't have a brick and mortar.
So I can't do lockers. So it's not going to work.
It's like the concept is you create an offer at each level. And like these exclusive things where people like they feel status, they feel excitement, they feel these things to be able to be there.
And that's what they're plugging into, right? It's not that it has to be a locker it's just the the concept of how you structure the offer and then how you give status and any things people don't want to lose yeah and i honestly believe there's not a single business in the world that you can't add a membership to so um theresa and i have just um acquired a venue which is going to be a great new hospitality venue which is not far from Devlin's as well and there's great obviously synergies there it's actually part of it is actually the worst business in the world which is the restaurant business right 100% the worst business in the world but if you do it differently and add a membership into that then that numbers completely. You know, and so one of the things actually that I'm, this is my this week thing is getting my offer stack right.
Maybe you can workshop that with me. So basically the first part to the membership at this venue, so the venue is called The Embassy.

It's going to be opening in February,

and it has a restaurant at the front.

It also has a bar.

There's actually three different levels to it,

and it has a rooftop as well, which would be a whiskey and cigar lounge,

which is awesome, and it has some private cellars down underneath,

which we're calling the symposiums, which are private dining rooms

where you're actually in a wine cellar as well.

And so I'm looking for all the what are all the different parts that i can put as part of an offer stack as well so we'll do uh like a wine club uh to start with as well where people that love their wine you know they'll open the menu there'll be two different prices on there as well. You know, there'll be the member price, the wine club member price, and then there'll be the normal price, right? And there'll be quite a difference in those prices.
So they're like, oh, how do I get that, right? Oh, you need to be a member of the wine club. You know, we're about to do a founding membership for the embassy where it'll be for probably two or three years, and I'm in where i'm in the middle of creating that stack i'm trying to work out what to put in and what to leave out you know but that just changes the business of the restaurant business you know because going back to our model of experience return path and offer is we do experience incredibly well.
So only people that have the service gene will work in this venue, you know, so they will be automatically engaging with people, but how do we get them to consistently come back? And that is, you must have that systemized return path and that systemized return path must include a membership like that that i think with retail and hospitality um i've i've got a book coming out can i plug it yeah yeah let's go for it okay so so that that framework the experience return path and offer um the first book is actually on retail and it's called the two-leggedged Stool, Why Your Retail Business Is Destined to Fail. And it's because so many businesses, if they're just concentrating on the offer, which a lot of businesses do, they'll fail in the first 12 to 18 months, right? Because if they don't have the experience and engagement sphere.
People come and they'll come back. Exactly, right? Like, ah, what's this? You know, great.
You know, they know they concentrate on the offer we sell cigars at this price this is what our store looks like is beautifully merchandised all around that's the offer right the experience is the rocket fuel that makes people truly engaged but it's the return path that gives you the rivers of gold you know that is the that yeah that's that the whole thing. So the two-legged stool is, you've probably been to a restaurant before, you had incredible experience, you know, the food was amazing, maybe the wine list was amazing, you know, the staff were fantastic.
On the way out you said, you know, thank you so much, and the maitre d'oeuvre, the owner said, yeah, please come never come back two years later like let's go back that place and then what happens is you hear in the newspaper which is happening a lot in australia at the moment i'm sure it is in the united states um much love restaurant closing its doors and that's big after three years four years five years and that's because the owner's been sitting on this two-legged stool and not wondering every morning whether is it going to be a busy day, is it going to be a busy week, is it going to be a busy month and business just continually goes up and down like that. But with different systemised return paths, with all kinds of different return paths which include membership continuity, that completely changes.
You you can you can pay your rent you know it's my goal with the embassy that we uh we we actually are making the repayments on the building from our continuity program right so then that changes the whole you know the whole the whole dynamics well it's funny because like you think about every now every single customer is coming into your into your business walks through the front door it's like it's compounding on the continuity over time right that's like when i teach the linchpin i'm like if you structure this correctly like every time you sell something it's compounding your continuity versus just a one-off sale that you got to go pay zuckerberg for another click and another one and you know the thing that we we get into where it gets more and more expensive versus like if one out of 10 of those people turn a continuity member over time, that starts stacking and stacking. And, you know, with ClickFunnels, we got to the point where we had 100,000 active members.
It's just like it's insane. The revenue from that we never could have matched in bringing new people in the front door ever.
You know what I mean? It's crazy. And that is the true lifetime value, right? That is the thing.
I actually took our framework and wanted to know whether i could take it online so i'm i kind of the opposite of going back from after on yeah right so i was like okay could i do experience and engagement so i knew i could do return path and i knew i could do offer but could i take the experience and engagement online and therefore get the same kind of jet fuel propulsion into my return path? Sorry, keep hitting the mic. And so I decided to create a completely separate cigar business.
So Devlin's is our business and call it something completely different create an attractive character out of thin air, a guy by the name of Joe Box was called cigarbox.com.au and the attractive character is this guy called Joe Box. Is it somebody you know or is like a cartoon? No, no, cartoon character.
He's really Aussie. G'day, mate.
How are you? I'm Joe Box here. And so when we write copy, that's how we write it all, right? Like in, how are you mate you know it's kind of crocodile hunter meets uh you know cigar guy right anyway so we created this attractive character and then the only and because you can't advertise so you can't advertise cigars yeah because it's a anywhere just australia uh well in in deafland australia because it's a tobacco product, right? So it's illegal to advertise.
So we couldn't do – we couldn't drive traffic. And I was not going to use my existing database, right? So because I wanted to be a completely separate business at different price points as well, mainly focused on the east coast of Australia.
So the only thing that we could do was SEO and word of mouth. So we had to make sure that every person that came in stuck, right?

So the first thing that I did was like, okay, how do we change that whole experience thing?

Like you buy something online and there's no human interaction and stuff arrives and all the rest of it.

So I created something that I call a lifetime value call.

I initially called it a stick call, but basically what it is, is it was a welcome call.

So the first time you ordered from Cigarbox, you would actually get a phone call from a team member, and originally it was me, being Joe Box, and literally just welcomed them to the Cigarbox family. So welcome to the Cigarbox family.
So it literally'd call you and you'd answer and I'd say, G'day, is that Russell? And you'd go, yeah, okay, it's Simon Devlin here. Well, I wouldn't say Simon Devlin.
I would say it's Joe here from Cigarbox. Just saw you placed your first order with us and wanted to give you a call and welcome you to the Cigarbox family.
Now, it was it was not an add to cart call, which goes against the grain a little.

But it was plugging the experience part you're missing.

Exactly. And then we would just say to them, Hey,

just to let you know what happens, what's happening,

we're packing your beautiful cigars today and we'd always make sure we ship same day. And we're going to send that out.

And you're going to get an email letting you know about all of that um and um you know do you have any questions and they'll be like oh wow thank you so much for calling like i've never got a call before when i've purchased something online and often they'd have questions and often they would do their own ad to cart but it was completely different and then i would say to them whereabouts are you you on your cigar journey? And they might say, oh, look, I'm just starting out. And we'll say, do you want us to send you some fact sheets on carting and lighting or joining a cigar? Or I've been smoking cigars for a long time.
We'd say, hey, do you want us to send you a fact sheet on pairing your beverages with cigars? And they go, oh, wow, that's amazing. And then they'd get a follow-up email straight away and then they would actually go into a 11-email welcome sequence as well.

And when they got their first order,

it'd have a handwritten note in there with a little gift,

a cigar cutter as well.

Now, just that welcome call,

people would write reviews before they even got the product,

like off the charts. And these reviews, I was like, I don't know if i can use them it looks like i wrote it myself you know and they'll you know things like i have never experienced service like this online before this is you know old school service that sort of thing so then when we started making offers in our return path like our weekly ligador that the uptake on it is huge all because they have a different interaction and the other thing that happened is um you don't get

as many calls people calling up saying what's happening with this what's happening because

you've built a level of trust that they've they haven't felt before so it in fact so much so that

one of the other things that we do with that whole experience and engagement is sometimes they call

I'll see that you guys sent it. I know it's not your fault, but is there anything you can do? And we were like, yeah, no worries.
Let us follow this up. And they might say, oh, I followed up with Australia Post.
And they said, haven't received it in two weeks, then, you know, call us back. And what we would do is we would offer to resend the entire package.
And generally it's like $300 or $400 worth of cigars. And they'll be like, oh, okay, you just resend the whole thing? And I'm like, yeah, we just resend the whole thing.
And when the second package arrives, you let us know and we'll give you a postage to send it back to us.

Now, there's a lot of trust there, right?

You're trusting that people will send it back.

The reason why they send it back is that first welcome call.

Now, what actually happens is this.

The second package always arrives the day after the other one it's like they kind of push each other out the system and then we call them and we say hey you can send it back or we'll give you a 10 or 15 discount off the off the second package and you can keep it now 90 percent of the time they go i'll keep it they'll keep it right but that experience and engagement they have not experienced before and it completely changes the model and we took that business from literally zero um to now doing you know over a million dollars a year in a couple of years and now we're adding in the true continuity program which is our new uh thing which is a cigar of the month so So at this point, that on the off, there's no continuity.

That's just a straight.

Yeah, so we have an offer that we send out every week,

which is called the Weekly Ligador, which is.

Ligador means.

So Ligador means master blender.

Actually, most people, cigar people don't know that.

It was kind of a name.

I was looking for a name.

I need something cool.

Spanish for master blender.

It's called Ligador, which is a seven or eight stick offer. And we will throw in a couple of other things with it as well.
And it changes every week. And, you know, people, we just send that out and we go deep on the stories behind all the cigars as well.
Like not just going this cigars like this and it tastes like this and I know we, we do the, we do the, the storytelling, right. And that that just changes everything so now we are now launching the continuity program which is called uh family of the leaf so joe joe's always talking about brother of leaf you're a brother of the leaf or fellow brother of the leaf or sister of the leaf um so we're creating family of the leaf which is the which is the cigar box of the month which you sign up for with three different levels and um and that's launching early next year as well so that's cool that should take it to another level do you know the price points will be at those three levels yeah so um so we we need to really finalize it um but i think it'll be 197 297 and 597 that's a monthly or quarterly monthly people have.
People have $597 a month in cigars?

Do you know what?

Cigars in Australia are crazy expensive.

Like,

because the tax is really,

really high.

Like,

your average cigar is,

you know,

$50,

$60,

$70.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

Huh.

Yeah.

You gotta really love them.

But,

mind you,

the average wage in Australia is a lot higher than it is in the US. What's your margin on that what should i say maybe not i don't know yeah it's reasonably healthy let's just say that well enough that you're in boise idaho hanging out with us today yeah no that's fascinating okay so i'll recap a couple Number one, so your three parts you always talk about.
Walk those three things again.

Experience engagement.

So we write it as a Venn diagram because they are overlapping circles.

You know, what becomes part of your experience engagement

becomes part of your return path, becomes part of your offer.

And the bigger you make those circles, the closer they come in together

and the faster they spin and throw off cash.

You know, so it's experience return path

and offer you know and once you start laying that framework over your business in terms of retail

or hospitality and in fact a number of my friends who have other businesses they're like no no mate

this works in in everything but that's what i know um you will just be picking the diamonds out

Thank you. number of my friends who have other businesses they're like no no mate this works in in everything but that's what i know um you will just be picking the diamonds out because you realize where you can tweak things you know oh we actually do experience reasonably well but now i know why that person is amazing and that person is not you know so we need to find some more of those people or okay i have great experience and engagement i have a good offer but i don't know where my customer comes from you know so oh okay i need to put a membership in it you know so that's the other thing too i'm always saying to people don't think subscription think membership there's a difference you know you can subscribe to something and turn it on and off, but with a membership, the pain of disconnect is greater because you're actually got to be part of something.
So we actually have, we actually have something called the lifetime value pyramid. So the, the idea is obviously the money is in the list, right? But it's actually, the money's actually in the list.
It's in your relationship to the list. Experience and engagement is what changes that.
So at the top, we have customer and client. So at the top, we have list, which is really cold.
No one wants to say like, hey, Russell, he's on my list. Let me introduce him.
Customer and client. Then we have herd.
Then we have tribe. Then we have community.
And finally, we have have the richest vein which is what we call bfms which is business family members so you're part of the click funnels family you're part of the magnetic marketing family so and it's where they um not only uh feel like that but they're treated like that as well it's where they identify like that i mean that you your you know funnel hackers they're your bfms they're and they're the most hyper responsive to your offer is where you could get them into bfms and it's the experience engagement circle that pushes them down that uh lifetime value pyramid you want the you want to get them all to be bfms as well so that's the i love it so so powerful and i think it's really cool to see how you did it in a local business and then now how you do it on the online i think a lot of people online same thing like how do i how do i create an experience they're buying on through a funnel and we ship them something you know just the way you took that and weave that in is really a unique way to look at it too for everyone, which is awesome. Yeah, I said to a man of mine, he had a purely online, actually a guy that I met had a purely online business.
And I asked him, and it was recently sizable. I said, how many people do you have in customer service? And he said, I have four.
And I said, what do they do? And he's like, oh, I mainly answered calls. What's happening with this? How does that feel? You know, all the rest of it.
And I said, oh, how quickly do you ship? And he's like, oh, we ship within two or three days. And I'm like, okay, take your two best customer service people and just have them call every single person on their first order and do this lifetime value call, this welcome call, and then fire the other two people.
And solve all your problems. Because you you don't need them anymore because you're not going to get the inbound because they they're like oh wow like i already know what's happening you know plus i said get all your people put them into your warehouse and get to shipping same day people think that amazon win because of price it's not amazon worked out and they actually got it from really the company they bought zappos but they they worked out they needed experience and engagement but the best way for them to do that was to get the product to someone as quickly as possible and make a no questions returns policy they were the two things that actually matter more than price um and you know that makes so people don't need to compete on price all the time they just need to compete on customer service and and speed of delivery that's so cool that's it well dude you gave me like 25 ideas for myself so i'm actually really really excited i hope everyone who's been listening to this gets ideas again we have so many people who are online businesses i think the things you're doing offline will help them but i think also there's a lot of we have a lot of offline businesses right i don't understand these funnel things how could it possibly work for me and i think you showed kind of both sides of that which is super fascinating so i appreciate you coming in sharing uh what is the book out live is it live already so uh the book officially comes out in february um it's uh if you go to simondevlin.com forward slash book or you can actually go to the two-legged stool book dot com um either one um you can uh start uh ordering a pre-copy and if they're down in perth they can order some cigars or come to the shop and absolutely upgrade to the top level of membership if you make the little flight out of the 30 hours it'll be worth it get cigars i promise you it'll be completely worth it and if you're in australia and i'm sure there are there are so many uh click funnels uh people in australia as well um yeah we're in we're in hay street subiaco and the new venue opens up also in early February, which is called the embassy and that's on Rockabee Road.
Very cool. Are you ever going to do the online business here in the States as well, or are you keeping it local to Australia because of laws and regulations? Yeah, the laws and regulations.
Actually what I'm working to now in the States is why I'm coming here is, is really the coaching information business. I, I, I worked out that framework and I worked out how badly it is needed in retail and hospitality.
And I really came to the Renegade Millionaire Masterminds to work out how I was going to do that in Australia. And it was actually Dan and Darcy and Marty that actually said to me, hey, don't do it in Australia.
Come and do it here. So I'm partnering with some people here, Kim Walsh Phillips, and hopefully we're going to teach that framework here and find millions of people with service genes and give them another boost in life as well as teach them them what their superpower is and um yeah and have

another great business and have a lot of fun doing it which i think is my calling it could

america more often so yeah second home in boise absolutely my second time here and i love it

awesome i appreciate being here and uh that was an awesome episode so thanks so much thank you

really appreciate it cheers