Episode Transcription 

This is the ultimate advisor podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of the ultimate advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson  00:50

Hello, Brittany Anderson here and welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast. I have got a really cool guest with me today, we’re going to have some great conversation on what it means to get your clients back to make sure that you’re serving your clients at the highest capacity, and really maximizing the opportunities you have in your business. So I have with me today, Dan Pfister. He has been a marketer for over two decades and has spent 1000s of hours testing and implementing a wide variety of sales growth strategies. In total, they’ve generated over 50,000 customers and have allowed which has allowed him to work with brands like Fidelity Investments, and Tony Robbins himself. In 2016, dan launched his first wind back campaign, and the ROI was an astounding 57x. I know how all you advisors like to listen to the ROI components. Nothing and Dan 20 years of marketing had created that much revenue in such a short period of time at such a low cost. Based on the success and predictability of Winback. Dan founded Winback labs and became an evangelist for this undervalued and under appreciated sales strategy. So all of that being said, said, Dan, I welcome you. Thanks so much for having me, Brittany, I really appreciate it. Oh, my gosh, it is absolutely my pleasure. And I am really excited to to share your story today. So I know we’ve had a chance to chat a few different times now. But I’d love for you to share your story and really talk about how you arrived where you are today. Sure. So

Dan Pfister  02:39

I used to work in marketing at a mutual fund company. And I decided to I was always looking for some kind of an opportunity like I do, I’m a very curious person, I do a lot of business reading. And so I saw this, I know this really basically. But I saw this thing called the internet was really starting to catch on, especially when it came to distributing information. And so the idea was that, like I was a big reader. And I read a ton of business books, and I talk to other people about them. And they, they, they just wouldn’t read these books, you know, and it’s just like I got I got kind of frustrated, I thought, well, what if we summarize business books. And there’s a couple of services that did that. But nobody did it online. And there’s these huge advantages to doing it online, right? Because all the cost of distribution basically is goes to zero or close to zero. And the cost of acquiring these clients was very high.

Dan Pfister  03:38

I know for one of our competitors, like $59. So what I did was I thought, hey, there’s an opportunity, what if we sold these on mass? So our cost went really, really low? And what if we distribute on the internet and blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I quit my job and got two partners. And we went and started this business and things were great and 98 I mean, we’re just just killing it. And then we just got crushed in 2001 with the.com Bust we had all these sounds pretty substantial companies went bust in that.

Dan Pfister  04:16

So so then we had to do a lot of pivoting and and a lot of creative thinking and, you know, we threw a lot of stuff against the wall. And you know, that’s why I’m such a tester because we keep trying to optimize our process and then you know, your business goes head south, so you got to re optimize and then we got crushed again in 2008 with the financial crisis. We had a lot of, you know, we’d like IBM and fidelity and all kinds of other mutual fund companies and they just, you know, we just got nailed there.

Dan Pfister  04:48

So it’s been a very interesting ride and that’s that’s the that’s the short not so short version of my backstory. You know, it’s so

Brittany Anderson  05:00

Interesting to me, I love hearing the stories to have that overcoming adversity. So you talk about, like the.com Bubble bust, and then you talk about the Oh, eight decline, oh, 809 decline. But one thing I think is really interesting about you. And this is just a tribute to your entrepreneurial nature is that you didn’t just throw in the towel. So I know this is pivoting a little bit, but talk a little bit about how, how do you look at adversity like that? Like, how did you just keep going and plugging away?

Dan Pfister  05:30

Well, to be a little too honest, first of all, I get really angry. It’s like, Oh, my God, I put everything into this thing. How can this happen? Yeah, so So it always starts with getting mad. And then I actually get very optimistic after the after the angers cleared, I just start, I just just get optimistic. I just I want to turn it around, you know, and, and like, you know, during this time, like, after we, you know, that the first time we got nailed, in 2001, we finally started to really get things moved. We’ve got this fantastic salesperson on like, he was the top salesperson for Coldwell Banker, international nine years row is like, Oh, fantastic. Two months after we get them, I get a call. There’s this when we buy that we had some competitors, and they wanted to know, what would it take for you to really fly like money wise? How much would you like behind you? Well, anyway, so we had a conversation, brought salesperson on, along with us. And at the end of it, he wanted to just get our salesperson and forget about us. And I was really offended, you know, oh, no, was like, says like, that also got me mad. And then I got really motivated to just make ourselves sing and, and win, you know. And so whatever adversity comes it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just a motivator for me. I don’t know why, but it but it really is. I don’t want to let life beat me down, I guess is the thing.

Brittany Anderson  07:10

I love that. And I think that is you use the word pivot. And I think that’s such a great word to explain what I think everybody’s had to do, especially in the last few years to I mean, if you want to talk recency here, we’ve had to pivot and we’ve had to make changes, and we’ve had to just kind of go with it. And you might get mad, but then you got to get glad again, and you got to push forward. So talking about pushing forward, I want to hear a little bit more about Winback. What inspired it, what’s your vision for the future? All the good stuff there?

Dan Pfister  07:42

Sure. So, so what inspired it was necessity. During our second pivot, what we decided to do was go for a large number of small clients instead of a small number of large clients. And so we created a strategy. And after two years, I’ve actually started to work. And so we ended up generating like, God, I think it’s north of 65,000 I just say 50,000 It’s an easy number to Yeah, be conservative. So anyway, things are going great. And I was basically the marketing person, I was the person in charge of, you know, making sure that people stayed on board and, and we just got, we just got nailed in 2016 Like, we were just bleeding revenue. And, and one of my partners had had been bugging me to do Winback and I said, Lisa, Look, somebody goes, we reach out to them three times, they’re gone. Like, that’s it, we’ve done everything we can, you know, and and, and she said no, you don’t have anything strategic, anything super structured. You know, you’re you’re just and so, anyway, in 2016 was like, okay, least I’ll create a program right? It’s time. It’s time. So, so I did. And when I do this, I really, really dig deep. And there was very little out there and Winback there was one woman Her name is Joe Griffin. She did a tremendous research project. Maybe I’ll refer to that later on around 1999 2001. And she had a really hard time finding out about when bacc programs because nobody would share them. You know, her book was delayed like over a year and a half, because people would talk to her, you know, and it wouldn’t talk to her. She actually hired a firm to go out and do it. But But the bottom line is that I gathered up as much Intel as I could I took I grew up my experience, and I created a as Lisa wanted, I created a fully structured, really well reasoned Winback process. And, you know, so we’re about to launch. It’s not that I didn’t even really care, because I saw so worried of getting like disappointed, because what are the chances somebody’s going to come back after you reach out three times? Right? You know, we got this tiny little pool of potential customers. And out of those that didn’t come back, like, you know, it was just anyway, I wasn’t very impressed. I wasn’t I wasn’t, wasn’t optimistic at all. Of course, you know, when, when your expectations are really low, and something great happens. It’s just like, Oh, my God, I became a believer, like,

Brittany Anderson  10:36

family bleep my own stuff. Yeah, exactly.

Dan Pfister  10:38

So anyway, it was, you know, it’s, it’s tough to get a customer, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s a, there’s a lot to it. And I’m really honored when somebody says, I’ll be your own, you know, I will actually write a check to do business with you. And I really found that all these relationships we’ve created with these customers, they still counted, just because they left gone today does not mean Gone. Gone forever, you just need to reach out in the right way. And, and at the right time. So what we did is we did the campaign, it was like the fastest, easiest money we’ve ever made, we can go into why sales cycles are short with that later, and why the win rate is so so high with with customers, you went back. But I mean, it was just like, this is this is really special, you know. So I put a lot of time and effort into optimizing the process, and really making it and really making it sing. And what I found was that it’s not only doing it right, but it’s doing it right at the right time. So people who weren’t ready when we did that first campaign. Well, we nurtured them in between, and they are ready for this at the second campaign, and some weren’t ready for the second, but they were ready on the third. And we kept reaching out in between campaigns while we are nurturing, to find out. What did we miss in that previous campaign? Like, what other value are you looking for? So we were actually watching the market shifted real time. And we’ve been doing this over the last like, six years, right. So when your market starts to move, you don’t know it’s starting to move unless you’ve got some kind of a look inside. And when we just talked to our current customers, they’re the ones that are happy, you know. So they can’t tell you how the markets shifting, because they’re not making that shift. So when you talk to your past customers, you’re getting a kind of like an early warning of where the market might be going. And customers, customer markets for like schools of fish, when one turns, you know, there’s a good chance that a whole bunch of them are heading in that same direction. So you’ve got this early warning, and you’re able to build processes and programs that are you know, that are meaningful for this where the ball is going. So okay, I probably said way more than I should have about that.

Brittany Anderson  13:05

So, you know, this is the reason that I wanted to interview you and have this conversation is I just think this strategy and your focus is so genius. Because if you think about marketing in general, and if you’ve been following our podcast for a while now, you know that we’ve brought on and had many, many conversations on marketing on the front end, you know, client acquisition, how do you attract your clients, but there’s not enough conversation around? How do you keep them coming back for more. And I think about you know, our industry, we are so darn lucky. So fortunate, because we are in one of the few industries that naturally has recurring revenue, that naturally has longer term clients. But I do know that we have some listeners who are in say, like the insurance field, or, you know, we have actually some like P and C, people who listen to, there’s a little bit of crossover that happens here. So, you know, as you’re listening to Dan share, and as you’re, you know, absorbing what he’s talking about here with the Winback strategy and the multiple approaches and paying attention, and testing and measuring. And, you know, we all kind of geek out over some of the numbers with that, especially when you notice yourself winning, right, like you’re you’re winning in your company, and that’s exciting. And you see, you know, the dollars come in instead of just continue to go. So, you know, if you’re listening to this from the perspective of the recurring revenue model, these are some great things that you can employ to make sure that you’re meeting the needs of your clients, to make sure that you are continually giving them a reason to keep doing business with you. And if you’re listening to this for more of a transactional nature, like the insurance business, you know, you’re looking for ways to continue to serve them because sometimes, Dan, I think you can attest to this, like people just have to be reminded of you know, what they actually need or why they should come back to you and do business. So I love this topic, and I love what you have to say about it. So one thing that I didn’t notice Secondly, it was on your it was on your website, it’s the wind back calculator. And I have to go here for a minute, because so many of our advisors are so focused on that whole ROI. And we’ll get into conversation, onboarding a new advisor on one of our coaching platforms are like, what’s the ROI on this? What can I expect? So talk a little bit about the calculator? How do you use it? Where do you find it? What’s it for? What part? Is it playing this?

Dan Pfister  15:21

Sure, it’s, first of all, it’s that went back labs.com/calculator. And the idea is that, let’s have a really quick way of figuring out is when back for me or not, two minutes, you know, you can you can pop your numbers into the calculator, just like, oh, okay, you know, it doesn’t make sense for me, or it does. So it’s kind of like step one. And it’s also really useful, because you may have different customer cohorts, right, you might have one customer cohort, where you’ve lost a whole bunch of people, you pop the numbers into the calculator, and you’ll know, hey, I should really go after these people or No, I shouldn’t, you know, so, you know, you might have like, a very high cost of acquisition, high revenue generating group of clients, you might have a middle tier and a lower tier. So you popping the numbers in will give you a good idea of the kind of revenue you could generate, and the kind of ROI it could generate. And what’s kind of, so it’s like, well, is this for real? Like, how accurate is it? And so what we did was we did a study was nine months where we tried to do in 2019, with Joe Griffin did in like 1998, right, we tried to update all the numbers for Winback and get new numbers, numbers that were really relevant. So I got to see, over 100, successful win back campaigns on some level. And what we found was that the biggest indicator of future revenue is a mixture of what they did before, how recently they worked with you, their satisfaction, you know, all those all those things. And what we did is we put that into an algorithm, along with the percentage of people that come back in different ways, not in different ways. But under different circumstances, what we found was really two core circumstances, you’ve never done wind back before. And what we found was that with our study is a 26% of the people come back, okay, with a well done wind back campaign. And then we thought, okay, you know, call BS on your own numbers, right. So we tried to find corroboration, because we really want this to be something serious, you know, and, and, and so the study said that marketing metrics, they’ve been acquired by Ipsos loyalty, they are in the same ballpark, they say it’s 20 to 40%, the probability of winning back a past customer, there was a study in Harvard Business Review that showed like 27, or 29%. So. So it’s real, you know, a significant number of people will come back. But they’re not going to, but most of them aren’t going to come back unless you approach them with the right approach. And we can talk about give you some ideas on that. But, but basically, what I’m trying to say, is this calculators for real, it’s gonna give you something that you can maybe not hang your hat on. But it’ll give you a good No, go no go indicator, whether or not you should do when back.

Brittany Anderson  18:35

You know, I think you bring up a really good point here that I think we should absolutely press on while we’re here in this moment. So you talked about how, you know, there are definitely strategies. So if you lose a client, you lose a customer, you know, what are the ways you can get them back. And I want to preface this for the audience by saying, there is a massive error that we can make when a client leaves us. So let’s just take, for example, that you have somebody who’s been, you know, a long term client, and for whatever reason, they’ve decided to take their business to another advisor. That can be a pretty painful thing. But one of the biggest errors that we make is just by considering it like, well, it’s a loss, like, oh, I guess they’ll just carry on their relationship elsewhere. You know, they’ve been with us forever. I’m sure there’ll be with them forever. And I think that’s a common misconception that that we can absolutely circumvent. So Dan, why don’t you talk about some strategies on how you can approach that type of situation with your, your Winback strategy?

Dan Pfister  19:34

Sure. Actually, this is a little bit outside my strategy. So let’s just start with that because, yes, okay, because the minute somebody leaves, what you need to do is you need to set them up so that you can win them back in the future. Okay, so you’ve got to exit graciously. You’ve got to tell them. I respect you by saying you’ve got to, yeah, I suggest you to

Brittany Anderson  19:59

you It’s okay you tell,

Dan Pfister  20:03

I suggestion is that you let them know that you understand that you dropped the ball somewhere. And this is who you want to go with. And I’m going to do everything to support you in doing that, I’m going to make the transition as fast as simple and as easy as possible, I’m going to talk to your if you get my permission, or you do whatever is appropriate to make this as as good as possible, right? So so first of all, so that’s step one, step two, is you’re going to nurture them as they leave, you’re always gonna say, you know, thinking of you, this is great. And so let’s just assume that they were chasing a shiny object, somebody’s got something. And so when you leave, like that, you’re leaving the door open. So you can ask them, I mean, you could even go and ask, and when you leave, say, Is it okay? If I check back with you in three months just to see how things are going, right. So you’ve been good to them, you’ve been courteous, you’ve been helpful, that gives you the right to ask for this other for a meeting in three months. So you check in in three months, and you might find that things are still pretty good. You ask again, may check back in six months? Well, by six months, they’re no not no longer knew, they knew that shiny object was really that shiny. And you’ve got a real shot at getting that business back. Because what you’ve done is you’ve showed them that you really care, they can’t show that but the new rep can’t show that kind of caring, you’ve proved yourself and you know, but in the meantime, you’ve got to create a strategy for them. And that’s the Winback strategy. But the point is, is that as soon as somebody leaves this event, if if your people get anything out of this, leave gracefully, and help them and find a way of nurturing them.

Brittany Anderson  21:53

So yeah, you know, you make me think about a situation that we recently faced within, within our wealth planning business, actually. So for some of you that have listened for a long time, you know, that we have recently broken away and become fully independent. And part of that we were talking to different people who we could potentially partner with to help with that break away. And it was amazing to me, how many people they were heavy in the chase, they were heavy in the communication. You know, we built what we thought were like relationships with some of these people, because it was long, long term conversations. And the minute we made our ultimate decision to not go with them, it was radio silence, it was like nothing again, and I thought, oh, my gosh, there’s so much opportunity across all industries. Because who’s to say that, just like you said, Dan, in you know, three months, three years, that we’re not going to be looking for another partner or you know, a different opportunity or our business to totally evolve and change. And when that door swings very violently close to like, basically cut communication. That’s a massive loss. So I think about what you’re talking about here from two perspectives. One, if somebody were to leave, you know, you have a customer or client that leaves you, but to also in relationships, you’re trying to foster that nurture and that constant communication, and that differentiates people that’s, that makes people stand out. So I just thought that was an important point to push on your percent. Yeah. All right. I want to shift gears a little bit here. Because I think that, you know, the successful advisor, the people who typically tune into this podcast are looking for ways to grow their business, they’re looking to hear stories of overcoming adversity of, of, you know, how you can reach that next level of success. So, one question I have for you is thinking back because you’ve obviously hit some trials and tribulations along the way, thinking back, what’s one of the most difficult lessons that you’ve learned in your business and your entrepreneurial journey across the board?

Dan Pfister  24:02

There, there’s a lot of things I guess I could go with, but I think, doing the important, not the urgent, because when you’re running a business, there’s all kinds of fires to put out. There’s always new things that come up, you know, and, and it’s so easy to get distracted and to lose focus. So setting aside a certain amount of time in the day to do that important activity to do what’s going to build your business over the long term to make that a commitment to yourself is is critical. Or you know what, what, what it could take two years to do. You know, you could do maybe in four or five months. I don’t know if you’re do you do the Colby? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I’m a five to nine, four. I’ve got a lot of great ideas, but I don’t follow through and find the people that do The follow through for me, yeah, I get it. So for me to be focused on getting things done, I need to actually book time with myself to do those things.

Brittany Anderson  25:12

That That in itself is great advice that booking time to actually get things done. So I’m a 6573 in the COBie, so I’m a little bit longer in the follow through. But still, I’m the same way, like, if I have to put it on my calendar, if I have a project to go head down on, I have something to finish. Because if I just leave it as broad open for the week, that will, these are the few things I need to get done, chances aren’t gonna get done. Because I’m gonna find something else that’s more interesting or more exciting, or more energizing, or whatever. So it’s not that you sit there and twiddle your thumbs, it’s just that you find different things that, that feed into more of how you naturally operate as a human being. And that’s really what the Colby is. So I think that’s, that’s great advice. So when you think about your interactions, because you’ve helped, obviously, a lot of different business owners, you’ve helped people from kind of all walks of life. So talk about, you know, what do you see as being the number one cause of people not reaching their goals? Or where people are getting stuck?

Dan Pfister  26:17

You know, I think, I think it really starts with clarity. People want better, faster, cheaper, but they haven’t decide, you know, they haven’t really defined what that looks like, you know, we want to cut costs, we want to earn more money, we want to retire earlier, you know, what is earlier being what does that look like? And then And then even if they do that, they don’t keep those goals in the forefront. They don’t make it so that they see them every day so that they become like kinda like their, their their DNA. And yeah, so I think, you know, that’s a, I’ll give you a short answer for it for a change.

Brittany Anderson  26:56

Yeah, it but that’s a concise answer. And I think you’re so right, because what’s the, there’s a saying out there, and it’s something about how, you know, if you don’t tell the universe, what you want, the universe isn’t going to know what to give you. Yeah. So you know, when you think about your purpose, and you know, what you’re trying to achieve and what you’re trying to accomplish. You know, I love your example, to have the early retirement or, you know, we think about advisors that are listening to this, you know, a lot of them are trying to create their version of a lifestyle practice, right, you know, not necessarily, we don’t get a ton of the people that are like, Oh, I’m good with a few 100,000 in revenue, and I just, I’ll call it good, I can just be me and one other person. That’s not typically who we end up attracting, we end up attracting the people who have, you know, 510 1520 employees, typically people who definitely have a focus on growth, who are hungry for those next levels. But yet, they don’t want to completely sacrifice and just pour every ounce of their waking moment into their business. Like, that’s not something that that they want to do. So I think what you’re talking about is having clarity on what you want. That also allows you to say no, to a heck of a lot of other things. Right. Like that’s, that’s, again, easier said than done sometimes. But that clarity helps. Absolutely. So I think about all that you’ve done, I think about, you know, you creating wind back labs, and your pivots that you’ve made, and all of these things that have happened in your life, how do you develop the courage to start something new?

Dan Pfister  28:25

Well, for me, it, it starts with, it really starts with excitement, like, I do a ton of reading, I love to read, I’m very curious, I love to, you know, get all kinds of expert opinions from all kinds of, you know, diverse areas. And so, from time to time, an idea becomes just ingrained in my head, and then I really do dive, and I really research it. And that, in and of itself is very rewarding, but some of these ideas, it’s just like, I gotta do this, you know, and it’s got nothing to do with courage. It’s just like, I gotta do this, you know? And, and, I mean, it’s it, it even spans to, to, you know, life, like, I started, you know, reading about life in different countries, like in Turkey and Thailand and all these. I had to go. So I sold everything when I was 28. My wife and I, we traveled until the money ended and we saw all these things that we like, and you know, people said, oh, you know, You’re so irresponsible, you know, you you left your career, you left the world. And I said, Well, I had a horrible, stressful job as a commodity trader, you know, it’s killing my health. And so, so it’s like, no, I’m doing a reset. You know, and, and it, it wasn’t courageous at all just like these things are not for me. They’re just like, I have to do it. Yeah, you know, and, and, and while I was traveling, I ran into a guy play hockey with this was in this like, really out of the way place. And he had a horrible job also that he quit and him and his wife were traveling. And he was a lawyer for for natives around the Arctic Circle in Canada, you know, is hugely stressful, I 28 His hair was all gray. And I ran into him a couple years later in Toronto, right where I live. And now he was a law professor at one of the universities and his, he did hit, he did his reset, and he, and it worked out great. You know, I did my reset, and it worked out great. So, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been rewarded for taking chances. So there really isn’t much courage for me, you know, it’s pretty easy.

Brittany Anderson  30:47

You know, there, I know, you say it’s not so much courage, but it’s 100% courage. And I think you’re just humble. Honestly, I think that’s an that’s contributed to your success, too, is that you’re able to take that humble approach. And, you know, it takes a special unique person to be able to just sell everything and go travel and experience different cultures and, you know, really get to the core of what it is you want, and then going after that. So, you know, that’s, that’s what gets me excited, and having these types of conversations is seeing people that have done that pivot, and have made so many changes and changes for the positive and you just keep trying to positively impact people’s lives. Now, that’s, that’s a ton of courage. So I’m calling you out on that one. So, you know, I always love to hear this particular or the answer to this question. So talk about a moment of impact from your life, how that influenced you. And this can go either positively or negatively.

Dan Pfister  31:48

You know, I prepared for this, this question. And, and it’s just, I feel like I’ve covered I feel like I’ve covered everything I could have talked to it but a moment of impact. This is going to lead to the next question, but I think that it’s maybe it’s important, I

Dan Pfister  32:15

I have been a horrible Insomniac, I’ve been a horrible Insomniac, all through my teenage years, until I discovered meditation. And you know, I remember my brother said, like in high school, because I didn’t have bags under my eyes. I had luggage under my eyes, like I was just not sleeping. And so my mom told me about this type of meditation and why don’t I try it, I was no way. Fortunately, there was an article in Scientific American that talked about it, they had all these studies done about US Army colonels, who had their who did this type of meditation, they went from like three hours down to like 20 minutes, or half an hour to fall asleep, you know, within three minutes. So that, doing that, like the first time I did that meditation, like when they first you know, gave me gave me them, the monitoring was like, I had so much energy. It was crazy. Like, I, I used to work at a grocery store. This is this happened in high school, and I actually literally ran from there, to the bar that everybody went to after work. I just and it was like, it was it was it was so impactful. It’s just like, I never knew that my mind could do so much for my body and so much for my attitude. You know, because when you’re sleep deprived, it affects your Outlook, you know, you it’s very difficult to stay positive and, and that sort of thing. So, so that was that was a massive moment of impact for me. Learning to meditate,

Brittany Anderson  34:00

you know, and I think about the high achieving brain, right, and how hard it is to shut down at times, like I think about it, if we’ve got, you know, multiple big projects running, or I have an fast approaching deadline. Now, as we’re recording this, I’m writing a book right now. And my deadline is like, what feels like in four minutes. That’s, that’s what I’m thinking about. But the ability to shut that off. And I think meditation is a massive contributor for that, again, that high achieving brain just to slow it down and get you into a state that lets you to get that or allows you to get that rest that lets you kind of calm down a little bit and helps you to be maybe more proactive than reactive. So I love that piece of advice there. So I want to I want to go we’ll keep going with this. I actually really liked this meditation topic too. So you that’s something that has been a moment of impact for you. That’s something that has been you know, a contributor. So when you look at all All the people that you have helped, be it in your previous businesses in what you’re doing now with when back, what is a common thread that you found in some of the most successful individuals.

Dan Pfister  35:15

They’re afraid to fail, you know, they’re afraid to try something and fail and not have it be a part of their make it a part of their, who they are. It’s not a failure. It’s, this is an experiment, my, my being is bigger than my failure. And it was so many people, and these are the, you know, this is, this is why I do so much reading of, you know, successful people. It’s, it’s not, you know, to degree is, what made their success, how did they do what they did, like, What insight that they have, but it’s, but it’s also the mindset, they had that, you know, I’m bigger than my problems. And I just see that in so many people, you know, that that I admire, and it doesn’t have to be financially, or sports or anything like that. It can be, you know, in any area. Like, when I was traveling, there were there were people who had tremendous dignity in doing the most menial of things. And they took such pride in it. I mean, I remember, I was waiting for there is this one place on this really remote beach in Thailand, right out in the middle of nowhere. And I ordered this coconut something or other because somebody said, Oh, this is a fantastic thing to get. And it took like, what, half an hour and I’m wondering what’s going on? Well, this person, I said, you know, this tastes amazing, like, what did you do? And she showed me, it took her half hour to make this one thing that they charged like 18 cents for, you know, like, the stuff she did. So this person this, this young woman made this amazing desert out of coconut and Enterbrain. You notice just like she just took all this pride in it. And and people loved it. You I mean, there was literally one hut on this beach, that you had to walk like half a mile to get to. And people came there because of this. Wow. No. So I mean, it’s just like, it doesn’t matter who you are. Is that is that making an impact? If you’re afraid to fail? Like I mean, how many times does she tried different types of different recipes? You know, so yeah.

Brittany Anderson  37:34

In the topic of fear is such a heavy one. I mean, that’s one that could have a whole episode dedicated. Actually, I’ve actually done episodes on fear before. So you know, What’s one way and this is a little Railgun? You know, but what’s one way that you overcome fear for yourself?

Dan Pfister  37:51

I think of the very worst things that could happen. And I just blow that all out. And by the time I go to the worst of the worst, it’s like, yeah, I can do this. Okay, it’s not so bad. It really is it because, you know, living in the West, we we don’t well, I shouldn’t say we don’t I do. I have not had serious trauma in my life. My, my grandmother. I was offered a chapter in a book on gratitude. Earlier, but six or eight months ago, and the person that I wrote my chapter of gratitude for was my grandmother, because she had I’ve got the life I’ve got today because of what she did. And she’s, she’s from the Ukraine. And this was, she was burned out of her. Her parents farmhouse was burnt out. And she had to flee for her life. And her only her and her sister. Anyway. So long story short, here’s this 19 year old girl couldn’t speak anything but Ukrainian peasant. They didn’t allow the Ukrainian girls or boys are those at that time to be educated, like the people who are in charge of the creative that time. And so she literally worked her way across Europe, gotten a steamer across Canada, to Canada. She was promised to a man so let’s you know maybe No, like you had to be. So she’s promised to met but she stopped work her way from Newfoundland, all the way to central Canada. She got so she heard her she had take care of her sister and she’s in this canning factory, and a jar exploded. She lost an eye. So all of a sudden she’s not marriageable. So now, she’s anyway so she goes through all of this stuff, you know, and it’s like Like, nothing I’ve ever done, touch wow, you know, so. So people. So when I, when I, when I hear this stuff, it’s like, oh my god, you know, and she’s happy, you know, she’s all happy. And so. So there’s that I’m very fortunate to have her because she kind of sets a little, you know, your life doesn’t suck?

Brittany Anderson  40:25

I would say, and I can absolutely see why you wrote a chapter of a book on your grandma, and in the state of gratitude, because that is so compelling. And I bet there’s so many more layers to that story two that you haven’t even shared here. So, you know, that it’s so amazing to I think that when you think about fear, and you think about, you know, pursuing what you want, like we are in the great land of possibility, right, like, anything is possible, and it’s what you choose, and it’s what you decide, and it’s what you go after. And, you know, I think that that is such a contributor to some of the most successful people is your dead on is that they’re just not afraid of failure? You’re either what is it? You’re, they’re winning, or you’re learning. You know, I can think of so many aspects from my own life where Yeah, I was petrified, like, I think about different moments of speaking on stages, or, you know, interviewing people or being interviewed or, you know, having some sort of introduction or a pitch or whatever it is, and being absolutely terrified. But when you really get perspective, that man, I have this opportunity in the first place, like I am in a pretty darn good spot, if I even get this opportunity. So looking fear in the face and deciding that you’re not going to let it control you. I just I love that. So Dan, before I asked my final question today, how can people get a hold of you. And I want to say this, because this actually popped in my head as you were talking that I didn’t, I didn’t think about before. So with wind back with the whole concept, and you know, the structure that you offer and how you support people, if you’re listening as an advisor, let’s say you went and did the calculator, or whatever it is. And you’re like, Oh, well, yeah, that might be cool for my business. I want you to also think if you have business owner clients that you serve, you want to look at a differentiating factor as a financial advisor listening to this. So you’re thinking, okay, how can I differentiate myself so that I don’t have to lose my clients, right? Because that’s kind of the topic of this conversation. But a way to do that is to also put great tools and resources in front of people you serve. So if you have business owners that are a part of your clientele, or that’s a niche focus for you, being able to introduce something like when back to them, because it may be a tool that they could use in their business, not just that you use for yourself. So we’re kind of expanding our thoughts here. So I just want to preface that before I say, Dan, how can people get a hold of you?

Dan Pfister  42:54

They can, I think that your they can find me, I’m at Dan at Winback labs.com, I answer all my email. And you’ll get actually, you know, the very best place to go is on LinkedIn, Dan M Pfister on LinkedIn, and I’ve got, I’ve got about 15 articles. And I’ve also got a podcast called The Winback Marketing podcast. And the thing is, is that the whole purpose behind the podcast is so that people can hear the stories about how Winback has helped them, and how it’s been like, the win rate is like five times better than what you get with new prospects and how the sales cycle is so much shorter, because you’ve already got the trust and all of these things, because, like, I’m a real evangelist for this all, I’ll talk to anybody for half an hour or even an hour for free, just so that they can get an idea of where they could go for their business because so many people can do this on their own, you know, just to dip their foot in the in the pool, because, you know, we’re we, as business owners, you know, we’ve put just our blood sweat and tears into growing our customer bases, you know, I mean, it’s just take so much and, and when somebody leaves, it’s not that difficult to get a lot of them back, you know, and even if you don’t get them back, right, you’re gonna eat when you nurture them and help them out, you’re gonna get this positive word of mouth. So you might not get them back. But they will talk about you, you know, so I’m very passionate about this because this is it’s all about relationships, right? Your whole life is about relationships, business is about relationships, you’ve got relationships with these these customers and even if they’re not doing business any any more, keep that relationship going and and support them even with the other with the other people.

Brittany Anderson  44:45

I love that and there’s so much gold in what you teach and you know, the resources you put out there. So, you know, you definitely want to connect with Dan on LinkedIn. Look at what he puts out. And he is a super highly respond Some guy know when we were first introduced, he was Johnny on it. So that’s always wonderful because you don’t you don’t like the lingering messages. So Dan, my final question I like to ask all of our guests is, what haven’t I asked you that I should have?

Dan Pfister  45:16

Well, you have asked me what kind of revenue potential Winback has. 

Brittany Anderson  45:22

Oh, let’s go there. I like this as a closer.

Dan Pfister  45:25

So when back like that, like, you know, I mentioned before that about 26% of your clients will come back, sure you’re gonna, there’s a bunch of people, you’re not going to want back, but let’s just say, let’s just put that 26%. And well, so you’ve got this group of past customers. So you’ve got all these sales opportunities, right? Out of those sales opportunities, with the proper campaign 26% of them, there’s a good probability 26% of them will come back. And when they come back, they’re worth about 120% of what they worth, they were worth, as existing clients, so their lifetime value more than doubles. So when you take opportunity, 26%, bigger deal size, my God, you’ve got a really super winning formula. And then when you add on to that, that the sales cycles are shorter, because they already know you they know your product, you know that you’ve already got the relationship, there’s an existing level of trust, it’s like, just a no brainer to try. So when I did the study, we found that for small to medium sized businesses, the average wind back campaign generates $485,000. Wow, serious money. And cost. This is what these Chief Revenue officers, chief marketing officers founders, you know, reported in that it took the the average cost was under $5,000. To do that, Winback. That’s a 97x ROI for small to medium sized business. Wow. And so it’s just like, find out about this stuff, go read, you know, Joe Griffin’s book, look at my stuff. Throw so much at this on your own. But this is, this is a big deal. This really is a big deal. They’re serious money there. And when you do a win back campaign, you’re going to find out why that bucket is leaky, right, you’re gonna find out stuff that you didn’t know before. So now you found out where you’re leaking, right? And then you found a way to plug that leak, right, because you’ve won them back, you know, what, what value you need to add to win them back, or what you need to do to win them back, you just take that apply that to your at risk customers. And if you don’t know who your at risk customers are, you just give that value to your to your entire database of clients, and your retention rate will go up. I mean, and significantly, like their most extreme example is one group, their retention rate went from 8785 to 97%. Well, massive, massive and you know, when you can keep that much of your client base, you know, you can grow really easily because you know, you’re not pedaling hard, because you’re not losing 10% a year. So anyway, there you go. That’s what I wanted to leave people with, because it’s, this is why I’m so passionate about this.

Brittany Anderson  48:21

Yeah, it makes it real. And I think that’s where, you know, again, especially in our industry, in particular, you start talking numbers, people start paying attention. And, you know, we’re fortunate at Sweet financial, I mean, our retention strategy, or our retention numbers are insane. They’re like 99%, and they have been year over year over year. But I know that’s not the case for all advisors. And a lot of times it’s because they’re lacking the system to make that happen. So I highly encourage anybody listening that if your your curiosity is piqued after hearing what he just said to definitely reach out to Dan. So, Dan, thank you so much for sharing your insight sharing your depth of knowledge and your passion for what you do with our audience today.

Dan Pfister  49:04

Thanks for having me, Brittany, greatly appreciate it. 

Brittany Anderson  49:07

Awesome. Well, that wraps up this episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast. We will catch you right back here for the next episode.

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