Simon Devlin
speaker
125 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Simon Devlin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yeah, 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, it's not the technical knowledge. 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 talked about cigars with the customers, first of all.
I actually talked about them and I got to know them. And then eventually we would get round to cigars. Like there was a different level of engagement. And by that time we'd kind of made friends, if you like. And, you know, that whole thing, people want to do business with people they know and like. So then I decided, oh, great, that's all I need to do.
I need to teach my guys how to build rapport, right? And so I started to create this idea of an engagement funnel. So rather than a sales funnel, like how to truly engage with customers and clients when they came in. And I taught them this. But the sales, I got a bump, but I didn't get to where I definitely thought we should be. So I was a bit sneaky.
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 what was actually happening. And the interesting part was is it just sounded really clunky. Like it sounded put on, like the way they were interacting was just, you know, natural. Yeah, it wasn't natural. That's not what they naturally did.
And therefore they weren't getting the benefit out of it. And I was like, okay, so I actually need to hire a different type of person. I actually need to hire someone who most naturally does that. Someone that was more similar to me. And that's where I started developing this idea of who that person was.
And eventually it evolved over a number of years where I realized that that person is actually someone we call that has the service gene. So someone that has not only the desire but the innate need to want to look after people. And that was quite a point where I turbocharged my business because then I had a system for finding the right people.
And then when I found them, I taught them how to fly with their most natural, what they do best. And so my business really started to expand fast because people were having incredible experience. They were, 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, um,
inside the and you could smoke inside back then that you they'd smoke cigars inside the little shop and also in the london court alleyway as well and they'd bring a bottle of wine and and it became this huge thing until you know some fridays it would be 30 or 40 people kind of hanging out there because they were coming for that community and that engagement as well um and so so that was the where i really worked out that whole experience and engagement circle but
What I was kind of missing was how do I consistently get them to come back again and again? And it wasn't until 2010 when I discovered Dan Kennedy and Magnetic Marketing that the next piece of the puzzle really fell into place. And that was the return path. Yeah. That was having a system to get people to come back again and again.
That whole number one reason why people stop doing business with you is they forget about you and you constantly sticking up your hand and saying, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
Right. And I hadn't actually done that. The experience and engagement, that's the rocket fuel that can turbocharge the return path. Um, but that was the, that was the next step. So then I started thinking about how can I add different pieces to the puzzle? And, um, uh, and then that eventually evolved into, uh, into a membership.
It actually started with private cigar keeps putting private cigar keeps in the next evolution of our store. Is that like a locker? Yeah. They put their own stuff in there? Yeah. Okay. And I'm like, oh, this is like a little real estate play here, right? Like a tiny little box. You can charge them an annual fee. So how did that work? How much would you charge people for that?
So look, I think originally when we originally opened, so that Subiaco store we opened in 2006, sorry, no, 2003. Okay. And I think we were maybe charging, uh, like five, $600 a year for the, for the keep. It was a, it was a small amount and it was us dipping our toes into what would people pay? You know, like I think often as business people and marketers, we always undervalue it. Right.
And, uh, we're testing, you know, how much people would actually pay, uh, for it as well. Um, Then I guess the next evolution was, so that was in 2003. In 2006, the smoking laws were changing. We built a joint venture with a private club in Western Australia, which was the oldest private club at the time, and we built a cigar lounge as a joint venture with them called Churchill's.
They had a membership business. They were a private club. The smoking laws were changing, and we weren't going to be able to have it there anymore. We'd opened another store in Subiaco. So that was in 2003 that I was talking about before. And we worked out we needed another location and there was an opportunity across the road.
And I thought, okay, maybe we build a private club at the back of the retail store. And we make it really, really discreet. And I, as often us marketers do, I sold it before I made it and sold these memberships. So I sold these founding memberships, which were based around the keeps. We had originally 60 odd keeps in there. And
You had one of these keeps, you had access to a private lounge behind the retail store, which has swipe cards and like nondescript doors, you know, it was kind of get smarty and it's how you get through to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And that became our private club. And so 2010 I had this private club, but we had one level, you know, and I hadn't really worked out.
No, I mean our, our initial membership was like $550 a year. Right. We hadn't really worked out that whole thing. And, uh, And then learning for the first time about ascension and, you know, ascension equals retention and, you know, and the different ladders and, you know, that sort of thing. And then going, oh, okay. So I need to stop making this about the keep, about the product.
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, right? Your locker.
So you'd sell them the cigars and then they would place it in the locker. The store, when you come hang out with those. Absolutely. And when you come out and they could put a bottle of whiskey in there or they could put, you know, some would have their locker absolutely full of cigars.
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