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

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Speaker 3 What's up, everyone? This is Russell. Welcome back to the Selling Online/slash Marketing Seekers podcast.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Someone from Australia.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 But then secondarily, a lot of you guys who have online businesses, you have online continuity, your membership sites.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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 life.

Speaker 3 In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars of my own products and services online.

Speaker 3 This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Dunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

Speaker 3 I'm excited to be hanging out with Simon Devlin from Australia, all the way here in Boise.

Speaker 1 Idaho, right? I'm very excited to be here.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 After we bought Dan's company, you came to a mastermind in Boise, and then

Speaker 3 at the most recent super conference, you were in Later Hosen, I think.

Speaker 1 Right? Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And so I'm excited to get to know you a lot better and your business and some of the things you're doing that are unique.

Speaker 3 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 will be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 So to start off, we don't want to tell people a little bit about your background, your story, what your business, I know you got a lot of stuff you're doing, but what your core businesses are.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I started my business back in 1997

Speaker 1 importing, wholesaling, and distributing cigars. So I

Speaker 1 have retail stores in Australia and a private club as well.

Speaker 1 Bigger cigar club?

Speaker 3 A cigar club.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's a physical location, you know, where people pay an annual membership fee to be a member.

Speaker 1 It's a great, great community. And we also distribute cigars for some of the biggest brands in the world.
And

Speaker 1 we do retail online as well. So I have a different, a separate business, which is, I started a couple of years ago to try to do something a little bit different,

Speaker 1 with a different character to sell cigars online.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, it's been an incredible journey. It was 2010 that I actually

Speaker 1 first found Dan Kennedy and started learning about 2010.

Speaker 3 It was Kennedy.

Speaker 1 When when did the cigars 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 I was actually a guy that I met it was actually a basketballer Australian basketballer who actually played for the Australian team his name

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He lives on the east coast of Australia and you're going to absolutely love him. And his name was Gary Dean Atkins.
And so I go to the other side of the country one time.

Speaker 1 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 Psychocybernetics by

Speaker 1 Maxwell Maltz.

Speaker 3 One of the greatest.

Speaker 1 Dan Kennedy. And that, of course, blew my mind.

Speaker 1 Oh, you got the co-author version with Dan.

Speaker 1 the co-author okay 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 of him it was gkic days back then where it was all sold piecemeal and i was buying, you know, CDs and DVDs and just consuming it all.

Speaker 3 And I saw this entire bookshelf full of Dan Kenny CDs and DVDs. So I was the same way.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, I need one of the things wasn't in the whole CD player. I said that to him.

Speaker 3 I'm like, do you have a CD player?

Speaker 1 And he's like,

Speaker 1 CD player.

Speaker 3 Like an eight-track player, right?

Speaker 1 So I go online and buy 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 work this out.

Speaker 3 That's so awesome. That's what I learned too, though.
I bought every course, every manual, every CD, every DV.

Speaker 3 And that's like you glued to it, you know, by driving CDs or a TV with the DVD watching to learn, you know, back in the day, that's how we all consumed stuff. And it was, it was so exciting.

Speaker 3 Okay, so I'm, I'm Mormon. I've never smoked a cigar in my entire life.
Right. So, um,

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 3 what should I know about cigars that I don't know?

Speaker 1 I think the biggest thing is cigars are all about flavor and taste. So people think,

Speaker 1 and this has been a problem in Australia. And when I actually started the cigar business back in 1997,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You actually just draw it in your mouth and you blow it out.

Speaker 1 But I think the true

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Because it actually takes time to enjoy. a cigar.
Generally, you don't say smoke a cigar, but you enjoy a cigar.

Speaker 1 It's there is

Speaker 1 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 um yeah it's it's pretty amazing experience does it have like nicotine tobacco similar stuff like that in it or yeah it does but um you're not going to deepen your lungs yeah and so 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.

Speaker 1 So that was that movie with Russell Crowe, The Insiders, was all about is how they'd worked all that out. So I was thinking about this actually

Speaker 1 this morning. So I smoke cigars.
I love cigars. I would have

Speaker 1 on average a couple of cigars a day,

Speaker 1 which is a lot of cigars. And like most people might have one cigar a week kind of thing.

Speaker 1 I left home a week and a half ago. I haven't had a cigar, you know, like going crazy, and I hadn't even thought about it, you know.

Speaker 1 So, 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 pastime.

Speaker 3 My only experience with cigars is Mark Ford and Rich Sheffern did a mastermind event, and Mark Ford, Michael Masterson, aka Mark Ford,

Speaker 3 he's got a cigar bar in Florida. And so that was where the event was at.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 It was just like, it was total chaos.

Speaker 3 But it was, you could 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

Speaker 1 smoking game as much there and the eyes can water a little, I imagine, yeah, 300 in a row. Yeah.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 You went from like running a traditional business to like applying Dan Kennedy style marketing into a cigar business.

Speaker 1 Yep. So I really, it started out as a

Speaker 1 well, it started

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And we kind of split and he took over over the wholesale distribution at the time.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 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 2000 and

Speaker 1 2002 as almost like a one-man band.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, just learning, learning how to have team members, learning how to,

Speaker 1 you know, make sure that you've got the right cigars and teaching people and those sort of things.

Speaker 1 And that progressed.

Speaker 1 And eventually I put on some more team members. And I kind of worked out, well, actually, I had a problem.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 It's not that hard, you guys. Come on.

Speaker 1 And I hired people that were passionate about cigars. So at first I thought, oh, is it technical knowledge? And then it was like, okay, no,

Speaker 1 it's not the technical knowledge.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 talked about cigars with the customers, first of all. I actually talked about them and I got to know them.

Speaker 1 And then eventually, we would get around to cigars, like there was a different level of engagement. And by that time, we'd kind of made friends, if you like.

Speaker 1 And you know, that whole thing, people want to do business with people they know and like.

Speaker 1 So then I decided, oh, great, that's all I need to do. I need to teach my guys

Speaker 1 how to build rapport, right? Like how to.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 I was a bit sneaky. I actually, it was a tiny little shop and I would hang out just around the corner from the shop and actually listen to their interactions to see actually

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And that's where I started developing this idea of who that person was.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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 an incredible experience.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 inside the, and you could smoke inside back then,

Speaker 1 they'd smoke cigars inside the little shop and also in the London Court alleyway as well.

Speaker 1 And they'd bring a bottle of wine and it became this huge thing until, you know, some Fridays, there'd be 30 or 40 people kind of hang out there because they were coming for that community and that engagement as well.

Speaker 1 And so that was

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That was having a system to get people to come back again and again.

Speaker 1 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, I'm here. Don't forget about me.

Speaker 1 Right. And I hadn't, I hadn't actually done that.

Speaker 1 The experience and engagement, that's the rocket fuel that can turbocharge the return path.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that was the next step. So then I started thinking about how can I add different pieces to the puzzle? And

Speaker 1 then that eventually evolved into

Speaker 1 a membership. It actually started with private cigar keeps, putting private cigar keeps in the next evolution of our store.

Speaker 3 Is that like a locker? Yeah. They put their own stuff in there.

Speaker 1 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 work?

Speaker 3 Yeah, how much would you charge people for that?

Speaker 1 So, look, I think of originally, when we originally opened, so that

Speaker 1 Subiaco store we opened in 2000 and

Speaker 1 2006,

Speaker 1 sorry, no, 2003.

Speaker 1 And I think we were maybe charging like five, $600 a year for the keep.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And we're testing, you know, how much people would actually pay for it as well.

Speaker 1 And then I guess the next evolution was,

Speaker 1 so that was in 2003.

Speaker 1 In 2006, the smoking laws were changing we actually had a we'd built a joint venture with a private club in western australia which is the was the oldest private club at the time and we built a cigar lounge as a joint venture with them called churchills and that they had a they had a membership business you know they were a private club

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And we worked out we needed another location and there was an opportunity across the road.

Speaker 1 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 I, as often as marketers do, I

Speaker 1 sold it before I'd made it

Speaker 1 and sold these memberships. So I sold these founding memberships, which were based around the keeps.
We had originally

Speaker 1 60 odd keeps in there.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you had one of these keeps, you had access to a private lounge behind the retail store, which has swipe cards and like nondescript doors.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And that became our private club.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 It was that 500 bucks a year still at that point, or did shit change now that you had the clubs?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, our initial membership was like $550 a year, right? We hadn't really worked out that whole thing. And

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 I need to stop making this about the keep, about the product.

Speaker 1 And now I need to make this about an offer, you know, all the different things that we actually add into that offer stack and call it a membership rather than just your locker.

Speaker 1 You have a locker.

Speaker 3 I have a question because

Speaker 3 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 keep.

Speaker 3 And it usually just looks like there's a liquor bottle and some other stuff that they can have. So,

Speaker 3 my question for you is: so, people would buy cigars, they put their own cigars there, so when they don't have to carry them back and forth, they just have it 100% there.

Speaker 3 That's the whole reason, right?

Speaker 1 So, you'd sell them the cigars and then they would place it in the locker.

Speaker 3 The stores when you come hang out with us, you can absolutely.

Speaker 1 And when you come out, and they could put a bottle of uh whiskey in there, or they could put, you know, um, you know, 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.

Speaker 1 But they had that, you know, and it, you know, it gave us different things to sell as part of the membership and as part of the thing because I have an event center that we're launching, and it's like a library museum thing.

Speaker 3 I was like, wouldn't it be cool to have, and I saw the one in Vegas, I was like, that'd be such a cool thing.

Speaker 3 But I'm like, what are people putting that put their book in there that they want to read and they come back? You know, I'm like, I don't know.

Speaker 3 But it's crazy that they would buy a cigar from you and then put, like, I could sell a book in there and they could store the book.

Speaker 1 Yeah, or we could do a JV and I could sell cigars and they could put some cigars in there. Maybe a little bit.
Maybe that's the secret.

Speaker 3 So fascinating. Okay.
So started there and then you started bundling in the offer stack in other stuff membership so you could increase the value, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And

Speaker 1 we started adding in different products to our store as well.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And, but all the beauty of cigars is actually the toys that go along with it.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 and then just kept adding to the membership. So,

Speaker 1 and realizing that

Speaker 1 we could keep adding membership levels, and then our members would want to ascend. Now, because we did the experience and the engagement part so well, they just love hanging out there.

Speaker 1 And it's become quite an incredible community. We're just amazing bunch,

Speaker 1 predominantly men.

Speaker 1 Though, you know, women are incredibly welcome as members. members, and we do have some fantastic ladies as members.
It tends to be that

Speaker 1 it's the men that generally enjoy the cigars more

Speaker 1 just by their nature. But yeah, we've got an amazing, amazing group of members there.

Speaker 3 We walk you through, so what do the levels look like? What do you charge each level?

Speaker 3 What are people getting at each level?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's evolved over time. So first of all, there's a joining fee.
So we charge a joining fee.

Speaker 1 So the joining fee is currently $995.

Speaker 1 And then they

Speaker 1 and then there's the different levels. So we've actually changed it recently.

Speaker 1 So there's the, we used to have a bronze level of membership, but we've done away with that.

Speaker 1 And we actually, the opening level of membership is a gold level of membership.

Speaker 1 And with that, they get their private cigar keep.

Speaker 1 They actually get a 10% discount on everything in the in the store as well and they also we added things into the stack which

Speaker 1 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 uh 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 really valuable to add in to the stack as well uh so that's gold they pay around about sixteen hundred dollars uh a year uh then we have our platinum um so they get everything obviously that's in gold um plus they actually get uh a whiskey keep so actually so 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 um

Speaker 1 uh 60 um

Speaker 1 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 um like a mesh to the front of it and it's lit up and so you can see what bottles they can or see what bottles they have in their 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,

Speaker 1 where,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 they are fantastic days where we have three cigars and we have a huge amount of food, a lot of barbecue, American-style barbecue stuff as well. Got a great guy, BBQ Events Australia.

Speaker 1 They look after us amazing. And

Speaker 1 a little bit of wine, a little bit of whiskey as well.

Speaker 1 And of course, now we made it kind of a sales event where we have a particular raffle item, which will be something really, really special, hard to get, or you can't get.

Speaker 1 If you purchase a certain amount of boxes of cigars on the day, you can actually

Speaker 1 go into the drawer for that as well. And you get a platinum members jacket,

Speaker 1 which is a smoking jacket, is really cool and of course you get a platinum members pin and you know we follow the formula a platinum members pin um

Speaker 1 uh and um platinum members card as well all those things which are really really important and then we have platinum plus

Speaker 1 um which is

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 sorry platinum doesn't have the jacket platinum plus has the jacket um again different card um a couple of other different events as well which are even more exclusive because there's only a 30 or 40 of those.

Speaker 1 And finally, we have our

Speaker 1 membership that we launched this year, which actually

Speaker 1 it actually came to me in the mastermind meeting with

Speaker 1 Dan.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was like, I was telling 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 for platinum plus.

Speaker 1 And he goes, you know what that means, right? And I go, yeah.

Speaker 1 And he goes, your membership's too cheap. cheap you need another level

Speaker 1 so we just created a devlin's black

Speaker 1 and that's ten thousand dollars a year

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 invited them individually. And they get a beautiful Devlin's Black card, which is a metal card, and they get access to things that

Speaker 1 other people don't get access to. For example,

Speaker 1 Teresa, my partner and I, we go to a, or get invited every year to a special cigar dinner, which is in LA, which is hosted by Joe Mantenia, the actor, and Andy Garcia, and for their foundation.

Speaker 1 And it's a bit of a who's who of Hollywood. Arnie was there last year.
Like, it's a pretty special event. It's a cigar.
thing. And

Speaker 1 we've been lucky enough to get invited. And we're like, okay, so if if you're a Devlins Black member, you are going to get a golden ticket to this event.

Speaker 1 You get 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

Speaker 1 in early September and they just had the most incredible time as well, which just cements that whole relationship as well.

Speaker 3 So you handpicked those people and invited them personally. It wasn't like a, here's a sales letter.
Did

Speaker 3 what was the close rate? Did you get all of them?

Speaker 1 Everyone you invited? Uh, yeah, there were, there were just, there were two guys

Speaker 1 that because of their circumstances, they couldn't. And they, I know they really, really wanted, but it was because of their personal circumstances at the time.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, you're ruining my clothes rate.

Speaker 3 Come on, guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And like the first, you know, the first five, I was like,

Speaker 3 no one's going to say no.

Speaker 1 I am, and I'm, I'm batting 100%. I'm the greatest ever.
Yeah, yeah, I'm the greatest ever. You know, and we, we did it.
The guys will listen to this podcast and be like, yeah, yeah, you bugger.

Speaker 1 You knew what you were doing.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we had these Devil in Black cards made,

Speaker 1 and I put individual numbers on them.

Speaker 1 But I actually, before I went and sat down with these people, I

Speaker 1 had their name written already engraved on the card.

Speaker 3 I can't not say no.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm going through my perfect webinar pinch. And

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 you get this card and I hand it over and they turn it over and their names on it as well. And look,

Speaker 1 the guys were amazing. They just really appreciated being invited to it as well.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Because the truth is, they're actually my buddies as well, you know. So it's,

Speaker 1 yeah, but it's great.

Speaker 1 If you can, if you can 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 or doesn't re-up do you take the jacket and the cards and the pins back or they get those forever no no we uh we take them back do you really well we do you know let me take your coat back

Speaker 1 well you store it at devlin's oh gotcha yeah yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 3 so that's gonna be a huge pain of disconnect knowing like oh man this is my

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then there's zero, zero, one, zero, zero, two, zero, zero, three. I mean, we've never numbered anything like that memberships before.

Speaker 1 And so, and now what we did is we built a whole new set of whiskey keeps. Teresa actually organized it, and they were only actually installed this week.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then there's a plaque on there and everything that we do with the devlin's 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 do i spark you do i want to give up double zero seven or double zero eight or you know all of that as well So in fact, even at our events, so we actually did something with the Devlins Black

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 there, Teresa had organized that, 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.

Speaker 1 So the glass is completely black and it's got their name and their number on it. And, you know, there's a napkin embroidered with their name and their number on it.

Speaker 1 So just making things ultra special as well.

Speaker 3 What a cool experience for people.

Speaker 3 I'm just thinking like, obviously, it's funny because normally when we talk about continuity and memberships, everyone's like, oh, membership slide, they think online really easy.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 But it's like, both these principles work both ways, right?

Speaker 3 You know, I think when I got into the Dan Kenny world before we bought the company, back

Speaker 3 same time you were in it, right?

Speaker 3 Like GKIC had, there was like, what, there's diamond, diamond plus, gold, gold plus, uh, peak performers titanium titanium like there was like 20 different levels when i got it i think there's like six or seven still and i was like 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 this they'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 that 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 teresa 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

Speaker 1 100% the worst business in the world. But if you do it differently and add a membership into that, then that changes the numbers completely, you know?

Speaker 1 And so one of the things actually that I'm, this is my this week thing is getting my offer stack right.

Speaker 1 Maybe you can workshop that with me. So so basically the first part to the membership at this venue.
So the venue is called the the Embassy. It's going to be opening in February.
And

Speaker 1 it has a restaurant at the front. It also has a bar.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So we'll do like a wine club 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.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 how do I get that? Right. Oh, you need to be a member of the wine club.
You know,

Speaker 1 we're about to do a founding membership.

Speaker 1 for the embassy where it'll be for probably two or three years and we'll we'll 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

Speaker 1 but that just changes the business of the restaurant business, you know, because

Speaker 1 going back to

Speaker 1 our model of experience return path and offer is we do experience incredibly well.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 I've got a book coming out. Can I plug it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, let's go for it.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that framework, the experience, return path and offer,

Speaker 1 the first book is actually on retail. And it's called The Two-Legged Stool, Why Your Retail Business is Destined Destined to Fail.

Speaker 1 And it's because so many businesses,

Speaker 1 if they 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,

Speaker 3 people come and come back.

Speaker 1 Exactly, right? Like, ah, what's this? You know, great. You know, they concentrate on the offer.
We sell cigars at this price. This is what our store looks like.

Speaker 1 It's beautifully merchandised all around. That's the offer, right?

Speaker 1 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's the whole thing.

Speaker 1 So the two-legged stool is you, you've probably been to a restaurant before, you had incredible experience. Um, you know, the offer, the food was amazing, maybe the wine list was amazing.

Speaker 1 Um, you know, the staff were fantastic. On the way out, you said, you know, oh, thank you so much.
And the matrix deal, the owner said, yeah, please come again.

Speaker 1 And like you've never come back. But two years later, like, let's go back that place.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 much love restaurant closing its doors. And that's after three years, four years, five years.
And that's because the owner's been sitting on this two-legged stool and

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And business just continually goes up up and down like that but with different systemized return paths with all kinds of different return paths which include membership continuity um that completely changes you know you can you can pay your rent you know it's my goal with the embassy that we

Speaker 1 we we actually are making the repayments on the building from our continuity program right so then that changes the whole

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 the whole dynamics.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 That's like what I teach in 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.

Speaker 3 And, you know, this thing that we, that we get into where it gets more and more expensive versus like, if one out of ten of those people turn a continuity member, over time, that just starts stacking and stacking.

Speaker 3 And, you know, with Cliff Fronse, we had that, we got the point where we had 100,000 active members. It's just like,

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 1 It's crazy. And

Speaker 1 that is the true lifetime value, right? That is the thing. I actually

Speaker 1 took our framework and wanted to know whether I could take it online. So I'm kind of the opposite of

Speaker 3 off-on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. So I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 Could I do experience and engagement?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I keep hitting the mic.

Speaker 1 And so I decided to create a completely separate cigar business. So Devlins

Speaker 1 is our business

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 call it something completely different, create an attractive character.

Speaker 1 out of thin air a guy by the name of joe box was called cigarbox.com.au and the attractive character's this guy called joe box somebody you know who's like a cartoon character?

Speaker 1 No, no, cartoon character. You know, he's really Aussie.
G'day, mate. How hey, I'm Joe Box here.
And so when we write copy, that's how we write it all, right?

Speaker 1 Like in g'day, every day, everything's, yeah, how are you, mate? You know, it's kind of crocodile hunter meets, you know, cigar guy, right?

Speaker 1 Anyway, so we created this attractive character, and then the only, and because you can't advertise.

Speaker 3 So you can't advertise cigars? Yeah, because it's a anywhere just Australia.

Speaker 1 Well, in definitely in Australia, because it's a tobacco product, right? So it's illegal to advertise. So we couldn't do, we couldn't drive traffic.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 time, first thing that I did was like, okay,

Speaker 1 how do we change that whole experience? Like you buy something online and there's no human interaction and stuff arrives and all the rest of it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 literally just welcomed them to the CigarBox family. So welcome to the CigarBox family.

Speaker 1 So it literally, I'd call you and uh you'd answer and i'd say good is that russell and you go yeah okay it's simon devlin here well i wouldn't say simon devlin i would say it's joe here from cigar box um just saw you placed your first order with us and wanted to give you a call and welcome you to the cigar box family now it was not an add-to-cart call which goes against the grain a little um 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 uh what's happening we're packing your beautiful cigars today and we'd always make sure we ship same day um and we're going to send that out and you're going to get um an email letting you know about all of that um

Speaker 1 and um you know do you have any questions and that 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.

Speaker 1 And then I would say to them, Whereabouts are you on your cigar journey? And they might say, Oh, look, I'm just starting out.

Speaker 1 And we'll say, Do you want us to send you some fact sheets on cutting and lighting or enjoying a cigar? I've been smoking cigars for a long time.

Speaker 1 We'd say, Hey, do you want us to send you a fact sheet on pairing your beverages with cigars? And they'd go, Oh, wow, that's amazing. And then they'd get a follow-up email straight away.

Speaker 1 And then they would actually go into a 11-email welcome sequence as well.

Speaker 1 And when they got their first order, it'd have a handwritten note in there with

Speaker 1 a little gift, a cigar cutter as well. Now,

Speaker 1 just that welcome call, people would write reviews before they even got the product, like it off the charts.

Speaker 1 And these reviews, I was like, I don't know if I can use them, it looks like I wrote them myself.

Speaker 1 And they're like, you know, things like, I have never experienced service like this online before. This is, you know, old school service, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 So then, when we started making offers in our return path, like our weekly Ligador,

Speaker 1 the uptake uptake on it is huge, all because they have a different interaction. And the other thing that happened is

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 they haven't felt before.

Speaker 1 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 up and they're like, hey, my parcel hasn't arrived.

Speaker 1 It was sent with the Australia Post.

Speaker 1 I can see that you guys sent it i know it's not your uh fault but is there anything you can do and we were like yeah no worries let us follow this up and they they might say oh i followed up with australia post and they said if you haven't received it in two weeks then you know um call us back you know and what we would do is we would offer to resend the entire package and generally it's like three or four hundred dollars worth of cigars and and they'd be like oh okay you just resend the whole thing And I'm like, yeah, we'll just resend the whole thing.

Speaker 1 And when the second package arrives, you let us know and we'll give you

Speaker 1 a postage to send it back to us now

Speaker 1 there's a lot of trust there right you you're trusting that people will send it back

Speaker 1 the reason why they send it back is that first welcome call

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Now, 90% of the time they go, all right, 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.

Speaker 1 And we took that business from literally zero

Speaker 1 to now doing 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 thing, which is a cigar of the month.

Speaker 3 So at this point, that only offer, there's no continuity.

Speaker 1 that's just a straight yeah so we so we have an offer that we send out every week which is called the weekly ligador which is

Speaker 1 yeah 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

Speaker 1 spanish for master blender it's called ligador which is a seven or eight stick offer and and we will throw in a couple of other things with it as well and it changes every week um and you know people we just send that out and we go deep on the stories behind all the cigars as well.

Speaker 1 Like, not just going, this cigar is like this and it tastes like this.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 we do the storytelling, right?

Speaker 1 And that just changes everything. So now we are now launching the continuity program, which is called Family of the Leaf.
So Joe, Joe is always talking about Brother of the Leaf.

Speaker 1 You're a brother of the Leaf or fellow Brother of the Leaf or Sister of the Leaf. So we're creating Family of the Leaf,

Speaker 1 which is the cigar box of the month, which you sign up for with three different levels. And And that's launching early next year as well.
That's cool.

Speaker 3 That's your price points. Do you know the price points will be at those three levels?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so

Speaker 1 we need to really finalize it, but I think it'll be $197, $297, and $597.

Speaker 3 That's a monthly or a quarterly? Monthly. People have $597 a month in cigars?

Speaker 1 Do you know what? Cigars in Australia are crazy expensive.

Speaker 1 Because the tax is really, really high. Like, your average cigar is, you know, $50, $60, $70.
Really? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 I had no idea. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, it's, you gotta, you gotta really love them. But mind you, the

Speaker 1 average wage in a straight is a lot higher than using the wage.

Speaker 3 What's your margin on that?

Speaker 1 Oh, should I say? I don't know. Maybe not.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't even know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's reasonably healthy. Let's just say that.

Speaker 3 Well enough that you're in Boise, Idaho hanging out with the city.

Speaker 3 No, that's fascinating. Okay, so I want to recap a couple of things.
Number one, so your three parts you always talk about.

Speaker 3 Walk those three things again.

Speaker 1 Experience engagement. So we write it as a Venn diagram because they are overlapping circles.

Speaker 1 You know, what becomes part of your experience engagement becomes part of your return path becomes part of your offer.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 return path, and offer.

Speaker 1 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, no, mate, this works in everything, but that's what I know.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I have a good offer, but I don't know where my customers are coming from, you know? So, oh, okay, I need to put a membership in it, you know? So that's the other thing, too.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So the idea is obviously the money is in the list, right? But it's actually, the money is actually not in the list, it's in your relationship to the list.

Speaker 1 Experience and engagement is what changes that. So at the top, we have customer and client.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Then we have herd, then we have tribe, then we have community. And finally, we have the richest vein, which is what we call BFMs, which is business family members.

Speaker 1 So you're part of the ClickFunnels family. You're part of the magnetic marketing family.

Speaker 1 And it's where they

Speaker 1 not only

Speaker 1 feel like that. but they're treated like that as well.
It's where they identify like that. I mean,

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 funnel hackers, they're your BFMs. And they're the most hyper-responsive to your offer is where you could get them into BFMs.

Speaker 1 And it's the experience engagement circle that pushes them down that lifetime value pyramid.

Speaker 1 You want to get them all to be BFMs as well. So that's the.

Speaker 3 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're doing it on the online.

Speaker 3 I think a lot of people online, same thing, like, how do I, how do I create an experience?

Speaker 3 They're buying on through a funnel and then 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah, I said to a mate of mine, he had a purely online,

Speaker 1 actually, a guy that I met had a purely online business. And I asked him, and it was reasonably sizable.
I said, How many people do you have in customer service? And he said, I have four.

Speaker 1 And I said, what do they do? And he's like, oh, I mainly answered calls. What's happening with this? How's that feel? You know, all the rest of it.
And I said, oh, how quickly do you ship?

Speaker 1 And he's like, oh, we ship within two or three days. And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 Take your two best customer service people

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Solve all your problems.

Speaker 1 Because you don't need them anymore. Because you're not going to get the inbound

Speaker 1 because they're like, oh, wow, like I already know what's happening.

Speaker 1 Plus, I said, get all your people, put them into your warehouse and get to shipping same day.

Speaker 1 People think that Amazon win because of price.

Speaker 1 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 There were the two things that actually matter more than price.

Speaker 1 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 speed of delivery.
That's so cool. That's it.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Again, we have so many people who are online businesses. I think the things that you're doing offline will help them.

Speaker 3 But I think also there's a lot of, we have a lot of offline businesses who are like, I don't understand these funnel things. How could it possibly work for me?

Speaker 3 And I think you show kind of both sides of that, which is super fascinating. So I appreciate you coming and Sharon.

Speaker 3 Is the book out live? Is it live already?

Speaker 1 So the book officially comes out in February.

Speaker 1 If you go to simondevlin.com forward slash book or you can actually go to the two-leggedstoolbook.com.

Speaker 1 Either one,

Speaker 1 you can

Speaker 1 start ordering a pre-copy.

Speaker 3 And if they're down to Perth, they can order some cigars or come to the shop and upgrade to the top level of membership.

Speaker 1 If you make the little flight out of the 30 hours

Speaker 1 to get cigars, I promise you it'll be completely worth it.

Speaker 3 it.

Speaker 1 And if you're in Australia and I'm sure there are there are so many ClickFunnels people in Australia as well.

Speaker 1 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 Rocketby Road.

Speaker 3 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 the laws and regulations

Speaker 1 here the laws and regulations. Actually what I'm working to now in the States is why I'm coming here is really the coaching information business.

Speaker 1 I worked out that framework and I worked out how badly it is needed in retail and hospitality.

Speaker 1 And I really came to the Renegade Millionaire Masterminds to work out how I was going to do that in Australia.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So I'm partnering with some people here, Kim Walsh Phillips,

Speaker 1 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 we teach them what their superpower is. And

Speaker 1 yeah, and have another great business and have a lot of fun doing it, which I think is my calling.

Speaker 3 Yeah, come to America more often. So keep second home and boise.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. My second time here, and I love it.

Speaker 1 Awesome.

Speaker 3 I appreciate you being here. And that was an awesome episode.
So thanks so much. Thank you.
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Cheers.

Speaker 3 Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way.

Speaker 1 You want to sell those wheels?

Speaker 1 So fast. Wanna take a sec to think about it.
Or like a month. Wanna keep tabs on that instant offer.
With offer watch. Wanna have CarMax pick it up from your driveway.

Speaker 3 So, wanna drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere.
Restrictions and fee may apply.