John Corcoran 5:57
it would continue forever.
Shaun Buck 5:59
Well, I mean, yeah, and and and that’s, you know, that is that what we saw was this fear and panic Stop, don’t do a whole lot. Put, you know, put on hold, then we saw a some businesses open back up and just be inundated with business, and others open up and just struggle, you know, your bars or nightclubs, not our customers. But you know, I know some people who own a few of those. And, you know, like it’s like and just struggle, struggle, struggle restaurants, some did some didn’t. So what’s going on is is that, that the initial reaction was fear and stop everything. Okay, then it was opened back up. But if we don’t have a lot of business, don’t don’t start right back up on marketing, because we don’t have any business. Right. And if we are flooded with business, don’t do marketing, because we’re flooded with business. Right? And, and now where we’re at, if that’s like in the beginning, into fall, that was that was what we were seeing, not like for our own personal business, not a lot of new new clients coming on for the first four or five months.
Jeremy Weisz 7:07
Shaun, I have a quick question on that for one second. Because, you know, we know that obviously, you want to dig the well before you need it type of situation. And how do you advise people when they’re calling to go against their instinct? Because really, what we’re saying is you’re going against your instinct, things are shutting down, you shouldn’t stop things are great. You shouldn’t stop. How do you convey to them they should go against their instinct?
Shaun Buck 7:34
Well, it’s not go against your instinct. Okay? Right. So even if your guts telling you, right, just because your gut is telling you to go one way. I mean, we don’t make decisions solely based off what our guts telling us we look at the facts, we look at the history, we look at how business works, I mean, look, business, a business isn’t that complicated. If you’re willing to review what’s already worked, what hasn’t worked, you know, and put some systems and processes in place and some effort, it’s not that it really isn’t that difficult, but, but if you’re going to just listen to your gut, you’ll just you’ll always be small, like it just you’re gonna, you’re gonna struggle cuz you’re gonna make the wrong decision. Because our guts are never 100%. Right, with, you know, that fear fight or flight type of an idea. And so how do we convince them? You know, we, some of it, everyone’s different. So if it’s data driven, right, you know, we’re gonna give them the data, some of it saying, Hey, no, look, think about it. This is the point if when you think about some of the some of the biggest companies right now currently started in the Great Depression back in the 1930s. Right. And they started there, and and they and they grew, my company started during the Great Recession. Right? We had tremendous growth, right during the Great Recession. So what was it It wasn’t because we were holding back, it’s because when it’s kind of like what Warren Buffett says, when everyone else is being greedy, you know, you should be fearful. So when everyone else is saying, We don’t need to market, we don’t need to do any of this stuff. We don’t need to have a podcast, we don’t have a newsletter, we don’t need to communicate, we’re so busy. That’s when you should be like, holy crap, I better be doing marketing. I bet that’s when you can get great prices on that stuff. Even, you know, some places negotiate, right? That’s where maybe you can buy ads at a discount Facebook was at a discount there for a little bit. Right? Um, you know, right, that’s it. And then when people you know, when people are being fearful, that’s, you know, that’s when you’re in, that’s when you’re in buying. So right. They’re being greedy, you’re fearful, right? When they’re when they’re being fearful. You’re out there buying because that’s where the opportunities are. And so that’s what I would tell you like, that’s how it works in the stock market. That’s how it works in business as well, too. When I see my competitors going, right, and they’re all doing it, I’m like, well, that’s that probably sucks because most of them are not smart. So let’s go over here and look and see what’s over here and probably go do that because I bet that makes more sense. And so, you know, I think when you kind of show them the examples, both in their industry out of their industry in other you know in The stock market things like that you’re like, Look, this is this is what the smartest people on the planet tell you to go do. So go do it. Yeah. Oh, right. So that’s, you know, I’m not saying it always works that
John Corcoran 10:12
talk about and I know you’re a big proponent of retention, keeping your clients happy once you’ve retained them. Let’s talk a little bit about that, particularly in the context of the importance of retention in this economy that we’re in.
Shaun Buck 10:27
Yeah, well, look right now. Right now, it’s probably, I’d say one of the most important times the some of the most important things you could be doing, regardless of your business right now is, first and foremost, take care of the existing customers, right? Take care of them, make sure they’re great, great communication, provide value, of course, make offers where appropriate, but provide value plus offers. The reason being is that these are the guys who will keep you in business. If If stuff goes out, again, if it gets hard again, we’re going to go rely on our existing we’re going to rely on our existing customers, right? And we’re going to go do marketing, get new ones, but like we were doing marketing during the pandemic, but new ones were hard to come by we got some it was it was difficult to get though, right? Now we’re getting some dividends from those leads we generated back then. And we’re seeing we’re seeing an increase in sales. But it took a little bit, right. And so so what I’m telling you is go after them treat them well. They’re the ones who pay your bills, right? These are the people who make your who make who make your money who keep you open. So take care of them put your systems and processes in place to maximize what you’ve already got. Now, that means you’ve already got a lead. They didn’t buy today, how do we maximize that lead? Right? How do we make how do we educate them? entertain them? How do we provide them with enough information to maximize that that lead and so you know, maybe if we get 100 leads and convert five Normally, if we sit there and work on on maximizing those leads, and how not efficient system, maybe over the next 12 months, we converted another five of them, right? Well, that that’s a really good investment, right? If we then take our existing customers, and we make sure they’re happy, and we decrease the churn the number of cancellations that we get right? And then maybe we sell them some more, or we get them to buy a new product or service, or whatever it is, right. Okay, that is maximizing what we’ve already got, it is a lot cheaper to do than to go out and get brand new. Right? It’s easier, it’s cheaper, more profitable. And so
Jeremy Weisz 12:32
yeah, since Shaun, you know, you’re an expert at content, you’ve been doing this for a long time. And you mentioned the education and the entertaining pieces, both are equally, maybe an arguably more important entertainer. They’re not going to listen at all, but what are some ways that you have found to engage people with the newsletter from the entertainment side in the different industries? What is what has worked well to for then entertainment? Look,
Shaun Buck 12:32
I think entertainment can be a lot of things, but like it, whether it’s a newsletter or podcast, right? The personality, right, so you guys, I know for a fact you guys have people who love your your guys’s stuff, like the stuff you guys put out and publish, right? Your podcasts, your newsletters, stuff like that they’re fans. Okay, that is entertainment on some level, right? The entertainment can be it could just be people like personal interests, they like to know what’s going on everyone else’s life, right. So it could be various personal interest. So I like to think about when you think about like, the old you know, Sunday newspaper, right? You would think about the newspaper, you had the comics, and you had crossword puzzles, right? There are people who got the newspaper for like, years, but that was the only reason I got it was for those things. Right. You know, and so you can put things like that in some of your printed media, if appropriate, like in a newsletter that would be appropriate, right? To have, like some funny means at the end of your newsletter or something like that. Right?
John Corcoran 14:00
Yeah. I love how you do that, by the way, and you’re nice. Yeah.
Shaun Buck 14:03
People who, you know that you get them and you put it at the end on purpose, by the way, right? Because then they have to kind of skim the rest of the content. Yeah, they go there for the means, like, Oh, that’s a cool, interesting article. I’m gonna go one, two, right. So so you can
John Corcoran 14:16
by the, by the way, so how do you go to a dentist and say, here’s what you need. You need a newsletter that has a means of the back I’m sure you’ve got dentists who are lawyers, law firms or something like that. No, no, no, we’re too professional with our clients. They don’t want to see that that why do you put that in there?
Shaun Buck 14:34
Yeah, I’m like, Look, I you know, we get that sometimes. And I’m like, Look, man, I I don’t know who you believe your clients are. But I think we should. We got to have a talk about that. Because I’m pretty sure that as a dentist, your your perfect clients like a 40 year old mom of three who’s married who makes 100, whose family makes $100,000 a year or more right? Like what do you what do you think? You know, like What do you think those people are reading and watching? Like, I mean, you know, like, most most women I know who are like in that category. I mean, they like reality TV, they like, you know, they like dramas. I like the crime. You know, they like those crime podcasts and stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, uh, you know what it goes
Jeremy Weisz 15:20
back to reflecting the client Avatar and kind of their interests.
Shaun Buck 15:25
Like, look, dude, no one’s no one wants. No one’s like, you know, white, Hot damn, I hope I get an article about Invisalign today, man, podcast, on Invisalign,
John Corcoran 15:35
right?
Shaun Buck 15:37
on planet Earth, except maybe the guy who owns Invisalign wants to see that. So once you put that content out, you need their attention. And when there’s so many things that can grab their attention, damn, you better get it fast. And that means you better be entertaining. Right? You better be entertaining. You know, over anything else?
John Corcoran 15:55
Yeah, that’s great point.
Jeremy Weisz 15:57
I will read article on gingivitus. No. Yeah. Okay.
John Corcoran 16:04
So you know, you have this great, well honed system. Shaun through your company, honed over many years where, you know, you’ve got your book on the front end, people get a package in the mail, I encourage anyone, by the way to go sign up Thenewsletterpro.com you can get a copy of your book you want? What’s the name of it?
Shaun Buck 16:24
Yeah, The Ultimate Guide to Newsletter Marketing.
John Corcoran 16:27
Yeah, it’s fascinating just to get it in the mail with a package you get, and then you get the ongoing newsletter. But for those who are a business owner who don’t have that perfectly set up yet, where do you recommend they get started? How do you get started with this kind of nurture, man?
Shaun Buck 16:45
You know, I mean, a lot of times what as you, you’ve got to find someone or a small group of people, right, that you’re going to follow. So you’re going to say like, Hey, you know, listen, I really like John, Jeremy stuff, I really like Shaun stuff. And I like, you know, Kim stuff or whatever, right? And then you’re going to follow those, you’re going to follow those people, because they are teaching what it is, whether it’s free or paid, you know, there’s a variety of you know, you guys have free podcasts, I have free newsletters, things like that, right? But they’re there, you’re gonna follow those people to learn that stuff. Or you’re gonna go buy books or courses, like you’ve got to go study and learn it, or you’ve got that’s one way. And most people don’t have time to do that, that that is one of the problems, or you’re gonna have to find the experts in the field, right? If you want to do a podcast, like seriously, is your time in your business? Like it better spent trying to figure out how to do a podcast? Or is it better spent hiring you guys, so that they have to spend this much time and it actually gets done? That’s the key, right? Like, our clients spend less than 30 minutes a month to have their newsletter on average, maybe it’s an hour, maybe an hour for some of them, maybe 15 minutes for others, right? But But you know, on average, they’re spending around 30 minutes a month, and they get it done. That’s the important part. And so you look you can you can, you can buy, you know, time with money, you can buy speed with money, right? You know, you can do, you can do all these things, to help improve your business. But we sometimes we just get a little we get we either get greedy, which is like that’s the ultimate like, thing that kills a lot of businesses and ruins people, right? greed, right? So we get greedy. We’re like, oh, man, I don’t want to spend this extra x dollar because I can do it for 10% less. And you’re like, well, first of all, you probably can’t do it as well. Even if you do it for 30% less, you’re gonna make so many mistakes, you’re probably not going to get it done, which means you’re actually just going to throw that money away. That’s that’s just garbage money right now. So hire the ex
Jeremy Weisz 18:36
during the time when I tried to fix something the handyman and then I broke it and then I had I broke it and then into paint now I would never do that. And my wife knows I if there was a changing of a light bulb, I’m like, hire someone. Yeah, I don’t even want to do that. Twice a month, honey, like totally, you ended up spending more time and money in the end when it comes back around? wasted.
Shaun Buck 19:02
Like that’s, that’s the part like it’s not even that you just spent it. It’s that it’s wasted because you don’t get any results because you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not an expert. Like I could probably grab that little scraper and clean my teeth. But
Jeremy Weisz 19:15
it goes into you know, it’s a it’s sometimes a tough habit to break. And John and i read who not how you write Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan, which is exactly talking about this, Shaun, which is like, Don’t think of how you’re gonna get just hire the who, right to get it done for you.
Shaun Buck 19:33
Well, yeah, it’s Dan Sullivan told me one thing once like, I know, Dan, and I were talking one time, and I’m sure you saw this before, you know, but um, he said, He’s like, uh, you know, she’s asked me about my workload and adopt, but that time, you know, many years ago, like it was really, really high in that particular moment. And I was like, Yeah, man, I’m working way more hours than I want to at the moment. And he’s like, why don’t you hire someone once you like hire a CEO. And, and step out of what you’re what you’re doing. And I’m like, oh, probably cost me 200,000 bucks to hire that person, right? And he’s like so and I’m like, dude, that’s a lot of money. And he’s like, um, you know, you make over, you know, your you guys make over you make over seven figures a year of profit, right? And I’m like, yeah, and he goes, so realistically, you could do nothing. Even if you’re just making a million, you could spend 200,000, and then do whatever you want with your time you own your time again. Or you can go kill yourself at your 4000 hours, or 3000 hours a year, and, and make an extra 200,000 bucks. Like, that sounds like a very foolish decision. And I was like, Oh, you’re right. Yeah. So
John Corcoran 20:51
hey, Shaun, how did the pandemic affect you? Like, what right after it happened? What will come to the decisions that you make in your business? And once the followed?
Shaun Buck 21:01
Yeah, well, initially, initially, I was really, really scary. Um, we had, we had for 185 days from when the pandemic hit. We, because we have our clients all over the country, a few other countries, but mainly in the US. And for 25 days, we had an average of $120,000 a year worth of revenue per day. Go on hold or cancel. Wow, immediately. And some of the day have an average day, 100,000 per day for 25 days. Wow. Yeah, I was losing some sleep. You know, um, you know, we were like, we would still made it even if none of those customers came back. Like we could have survived without hitting and what were you doing? Were
John Corcoran 21:57
you calling up these customers or your team calling up these customers and and saying us and we were trying to get on the phone to save or the to me, like, if they were close, like we were like, Alright, like, we’ll
Shaun Buck 22:10
put you on hold? Because I’m a dentist, right? Yeah. Or they’re closed, or whatever, whatever their business was, like, we’re like, okay, I mean, we were just, you know, we weren’t being jerks about it. I know, some some places were jerks about it, but like, they were put on hold, and then we have some just going out of business. Right? We had some Yeah, honestly, we had some who were jerks who, who were on hold under contract. And then, you know, what, I was trying to come back. They were they basically gave us the middle finger. Right, you know, but the vast majority of them all came back.
John Corcoran 22:41
And so we also looky loos you recover, you recover back from that now,
Shaun Buck 22:47
we recovered back? We didn’t recover? By the way we recovered by the end of the year. But But now here now? forward, right. we’ve recovered back from that. We’re growing. We’re actually we’re we’re having a good May we have Okay, April, April’s hard for us. Like, everyone’s, you know, paying taxes and stuff like that, like, yeah, you know, I just find that we just, you know, April and July slash early August, as a as an agency, those are those are the those are months that like, just we don’t do as well, we actually mark it harder in those months, budget. But yeah, we will, we didn’t used to, like in July used to just let it happen. And I was just like, forget it, like, just do whatever we’re doing, don’t you know, nothing special? Let it go. And I mean, we would we would close a third of what we would normally do in July. And then we started marketing like hard like I, we were, I think we increase the budget like 50% from what we were spending in a normal month. And and then we were we were still down. But we were actually down about usually about 10 12% over a normal month. So we have a lot more to get it. But we didn’t go down as far in the numbers work. So
John Corcoran 23:59
got it. Yeah, it makes sense. And and you didn’t have people the fear or the problem, there wasn’t a problem with people being on vacation and completely missing your marketing messages entirely during July or August. Oh,
Shaun Buck 24:14
no, that’s not part of the reason that it’s so hard. Everyone knows tension, right? Which is why I was so we’re like, Okay, we got to market more. So we try to get be smart about and then what we do like it, like what we’ll do is we’ll put out, we’ll put out promotions. Right? And, um, you know, we’ll do our best to find one that we think is going to hit. And then you know, maybe if we would normally send, you know, five, five emails and two direct mail pieces, you know, right? We might send 10 emails and over the course of a longer period time and, you know, and, you know, seven direct mail pieces, who knows, right? You know, we’ll just increase it or we’ll make more phone calls or whatever happens, you know, whatever, whatever it happens to be for that period.
Jeremy Weisz 24:57
You know, you mentioned something before Shaun about I tried to kick john out, but he came back No. But always try to some people that you follow, you follow the people you respect that you like that you learn from. And I’m wondering some of the people you follow and what you’ve learned from them. You mentioned, Kim Walsh Philips, something that you’ve learned from her that you’ve taken in your business, and then any anyone else that you follow and respect in what you learn from them.
Unknown Speaker 25:23
Sure. Um, look, I Kim Kim, I love She’s amazing. I mean, just like, the social media tips that I get from Kim are great. I like those, like, we’re just talking or silver content, right, you know, but like, some of the behind the scenes stuff I could see like, how she does, how she does webinars and stage presentations and stuff. Like it’s just she’s really really, really good. Right? You know, and it’s, it’s really interesting to watch her watch herself, because you just don’t even know you’re being like, You’re not even realize that she’s selling anything. And then also you’re like, well, I’m buying that. So like she’s amazing at it. Um, you know, another mutual friend of all of ours is Dave D. Um, and yeah, I mean, there is a guy you know, who does webinars selling from webinars or selling from the stage like, I don’t know if there’s a anyone better that I know of? Right. You know, we, you know, so talked about, we talked about them. And another guy who’s also a mutual friend of ours, Oli Billson, all these amazing right out of the UK. Yeah, great speaker knows his stuff, as well as anybody. And I mean, if you want to, like build like a following basically, right, you know, like a herd or community that is to buy info products from you, like, all there’s no one better to help you do that than always. So, yeah,
John Corcoran 26:49
that’s great. Shaun, wrapping things up? Where can people go to learn more about you and connect with you.
Shaun Buck 26:55
So probably the best place to go, just go to Newsletterpro.com. We’ve got tons of free stuff on there. I mean, we’ve got 10 years worth of content literally up there, you can get a one of the books sent to you depend on the type of business you are either physically sent to you or digitally sent to you, and no charge, even if we physically send it to you. And, and yeah, or you can contact us call us, whatever it is, but that would that would probably be the best place to jump in and say hi, and you’ll get a copy of our newsletter given to the universe.
John Corcoran 27:28
Excellent, Shaun. Well, it’s been a pleasure working with you and your team. Your team did such a great job. And we appreciate you coming on today. Thanks so much.
Jeremy Weisz 27:36
Thanks, Shaun.
Shaun Buck 27:37
Thanks.
