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The Night I Stopped Starting ‘In the Hole’ Back when I ran pickup-and-delivery routes in the dry-cleaning business, I sold customers door to door: nights, weekends, whatever it took. Every time a customer canceled, I’d head out that evening already behind.
October 2025
Read time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds
Here’s what worried me at first: I’m already spending money to get these customers. Now I’ve gotta invest more just to keep them happy?
But here’s what actually happened.
Those small tweaks — better follow-through, clearer communication, showing up before the problem did — they didn’t just cost a little extra. They generated oversized profits . People stayed longer. They spent more per visit. They referred friends without being asked. They sent in bigger, higher-margin orders. The extra dollars we invested? Nominal. The flood of higher-margin revenue? Not even proportional to the effort. We were building trust, and that trust was compounding faster than any new-customer campaign ever could. That’s when I stopped thinking like a hunter and started thinking like a farmer. And everything changed. THE 4 LEVERS YOU ALREADY OWN Most business advice sounds like this: “You need more leads.”
“Most business advice sounds like this: ‘You need more leads.’ Maybe. But probably not.”
One night, after yet another cancellation, a thought stopped me cold: “If nobody had ever left, I would have long ago achieved all of my goals.” Now, I knew keeping every customer forever wasn’t realistic. But that line kept ringing in my ears because it pointed to something I’d been ignoring. I’d been so focused on hunting for new customers that I hadn’t stopped to think about all the ones who’d already said yes and then quietly walked away. Or the ones who stayed but never bought anything beyond the basics. Or the ones who loved us but never told a soul. So, I started asking different questions, not “How do I get more doors to knock on?” but “How do I make the people who already trust me stay longer, spend more, and bring their friends?”
Maybe. But probably not.
If you’ve been in business for more than a year, you’ve already paid real money — $50, $100, sometimes $500 per lead — to get people’s
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customer. At $100 per lead, that’s $400 to acquire each new customer from fresh traffic.
But with reengagement, you’ve already paid the $100 for the lead. You’re just adding $120 in nurture costs (your share of that $12,000 annual investment).
Total cost per converted customer: $220.
You’ve nearly cut your acquisition cost in half from $400 to $220 by warming up people who already know your name. That’s $180 in savings per customer , or $18,000 in total acquisition savings for those 100 conversions. And if your first-year net profit per customer is $1,000, you’ve just generated $100,000 in net profit from a $12,000 reengagement investment. That’s an 8x return on the nurture spend alone before you even count what happens when they stay longer, spend more, or refer a friend.
attention. You have old inquiries, past customers, and individuals who said “maybe later” still in your database. That’s not dead weight. That’s inventory you’ve already purchased.
The leads were already paid for. Reengagement is the cheap unlock.
So, before you chase another stranger, ask yourself: Am I getting all I can out of what I’ve already got?
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You have four levers available right now:
1.
More buyers
2. 3. 4.
Higher average sale
Stay longer Bring a friend
Everything else is just implementation details.
THE REAL MATH (NOT THE MARKETING MATH) Over the course of a year, you convert just 10% of those old leads into paying customers. That’s 100 people .
Now here’s where the math gets interesting.
Let’s say your normal lead-to-customer conversion rate is 25%, meaning you need four leads to get one
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WHY SMALL IMPROVEMENTS COMPOUND INTO OVERSIZED PROFITS Here’s where it gets interesting. These four levers don’t work in isolation; they multiply each other. Let’s say you run a law practice. You’ve got 500 active clients, and you bring in 100 new ones each year from fresh lead sources. You also get five referrals per month (60 per year). Your average
client pays you $5,000 annually and stays for four years on average.
Now, watch what happens when you make small improvements across all four levers:
Current state: • 100 new clients (from fresh leads) + 60 (from referrals) = 160 new clients/year • Average client value: $5,000/year • Average tenure: Four years • 500 active clients × $5,000 = $2,500,000/year After small tweaks: • You wake up old leads and convert 100 who’ve been sitting there +100 new clients. • You improve referral moments and double from five referrals per month to 10/month +60 new clients.
“Before you chase another stranger, ask yourself: Am I getting all I can out of what I’ve already got?”
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Have a Laugh!
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WHAT COMES NEXT Now you know what’s possible. You’ve seen the math. You understand the levers. However, here’s where most businesses stall: They know what to do, but they lack the knowledge on how to execute it effectively in their specific situation. They try to follow someone else’s playbook and wonder why the wheels wobble. That’s because the four levers are just the recipe. The real work, the part that actually moves those numbers, is the finesse. It’s understanding why clients really stay, why they really refer, and why they really spend more.
• You add services clients actually need $5,500 average (+10%). • You improve touchpoints so clients stay five years instead of four (+33% longer tenure). New state (Year 1): • 100 new customers (from old leads) × $5,500 = $550,000 • 60 extra referral customers × $5,500 = $330,000 • 500 existing customers × $500 increase (from $5,000 to $5,500) = $250,000 • Total increase: $1,130,000
It’s not about tactics. It’s about trust.
In next month’s newsletter, I’ll show you exactly where that finesse lives, the specific moments in your business where small changes create outsized results. The retention hinges that keep clients from drifting. The referral moments that turn happy customers into your best salespeople. The offer architecture that makes spending more feel like the obvious choice. For now, just sit with this question: If I got everything I could from everyone who already knows my name, what would my business look like a year from now?
That’s not a hypothetical. That’s your next move.
–Shaun
That’s a $1.13 million increase in year one alone. And here’s the kicker: Those improvements compound year after year. With clients staying five years instead of four, your active client base grows even more because you’re losing fewer people out the back door while adding more through the front. This is why small improvements create oversized profits. A small bump in marketing spend that doubles your referrals, keeping clients 25% longer. They don’t add up; they multiply .
Want to start unlocking the hidden profit in your existing customers? Curious how small tweaks across the four levers can multiply your revenue? Call 208-297-2700 or visit NewsletterPro.com/schedule to book a call with a Pro today!
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