Supercharging Your Customers Experience with Customer Engagement & Loyalty Expert CEO of CompLinks Rob Gallo on Episode #0104

Intro [0:00]

EA Interviews Episode 104. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview. 

Mario Fachini [0:13]

Have you wanted to retain your customers? Do you want to attract more clients? You put all the work into your business, but how do you keep people there? I am excited because I have Rob Gallo, CEO of CompLinks. And he specializes in loyalty programs. And he’s going to be sharing with you how you can do and achieve all of these things in your business. I’m going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor. 

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Mario Fachini [0:54]

Here is ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rob Gallo. Rob, how are you feeling today? 

Rob Gallo [0:57]

Excellent. How are you Mario? 

Mario Fachini [1:00]

I’m great. I’m excited to have you on the show and share with Expert Authority World the importance of loyalty programs. How did you get into it? And why did you pick this field? 

Rob Gallo [1:11]

Well, it’s a long story. I’ll give you the short version. I think I have about two minutes. So I was originally in the casino industry back in ’97. And we launched an online casino that didn’t have a loyalty program. So we built our own from scratch with our tech guys. And we learned a lot as we were doing it, probably more from our mistakes than our successes. But we eventually rolled it into our five properties and allowed customers to earn from one and burn off at another. And we started to build personas about each individual client and how they responded to certain stimuli so we would know if someone was a blackjack player or a video player. We would only send them those types of promotions that they would earn points for that they can redeem at a later time. So fast forward, I sold the business in 2010. I retired and I began consulting in the casino industry. And between the land based casino and the online casino, the convergence of the two, they didn’t speak the same language. So I kind of married the two there and did a couple of consulting gigs. I still do. But then in, I think, 2016 or 15, my daughter graduated from Business School. And we were looking to acquire a company that was a company here in New York that had a coalition loyalty program where you can buy from one place and earn on a stored value card and then burn it off somewhere else. And I’m like, “Wow. This is really an interesting concept.” So we couldn’t come to terms with the owner. So we ended up building our own. And I contracted with the original guys that did stuff with us in in the casino business. And we built what’s called CompLinks. And the name is derived from “comp” in the casino world means complimentary. And “links” obviously it links to two components. So that’s how we got started. And then from there, we just started to expand beyond the casino space. And it’s been a great ride, for sure. 

Mario Fachini [3:17]

Well, I love that story. And I want to dive a little bit deeper because you said a few really interesting things, the casino world and online, and then the third part 97. They had internet back then? 

Rob Gallo [3:32]

Yeah. I had a 14 four baud rate modem. So you dial up and you hear all those noises, that people don’t even know what that is anymore. And we dial in through AOL. And it’s funny. Oh, you don’t want to hear something funny too. This phone right now has more computing power than the first computer that we launched in the casino on in 97. 

Mario Fachini [3:55]

Geez. I remember those modems, the 56K and you couldn’t get more than 288. And were you using prodigy to email your clients? 

Rob Gallo [4:03]

Yeah. Well, we had an AOL and I had EarthLink. I don’t know if you remember Earthlink. 

Mario Fachini [4:09]

You’re using the Netscape browser, perhaps. 

Rob Gallo [4:11]

Exactly. Exactly. But it was a great ride. And we were way ahead of the curve. So we licensed the software from another company called Cryptologic in Canada. And the thing is, is that they, like I said, didn’t have a loyalty program. But their platform was excellent. So they were way ahead of their time. It used to take someone two-and-a-half hours to download the lite version of the software, which just consisted of blackjack and maybe four slot games. Could you imagine waiting two-and-a-half hours to download something? 

Mario Fachini [4:45]

Now, I’m thinking what was that one or two megs? 

Rob Gallo [4:47]

Yeah. Oh, no. It was probably five or – five megs. I think it might be four or five megs. Ridiculous. 

Mario Fachini [4:53]

That’s crazy. What did you notice in the late ’90s where everything was going? Because it sounds like you not only were ahead of the curve and saw that but had some vision for where it could go in the future. 

Rob Gallo [5:07]

Well, I knew to stay away from sports betting in the sense that that was already deemed illegal. But the way the law was written in 61 that made online gaming “illegal” was they never really contemplated someone could play video poker or blackjack over a phone line. So they didn’t really include it in the Wire Act of 1961. So the long and short of it is, our legal advice was just do casino and poker and you’ll be fine. And we were. In fact, I paid my taxes for the duration of the business that we had down there. It came back in 2010. No problem. I know a lot of guys in the sports betting business that were kind of stuck in Antigua forever. But, yeah, thankfully we skated out of that one. 

Mario Fachini [5:59]

Well, I’m glad it went so well for you. And you were saying so 97 to 2010 and then you sold that company and started this one. 

Rob Gallo [6:07]

Well, I had a hiatus in between where I had a pretty good exit. And I backed into consulting, sort of by happenstance, the former poker manager for Crypto called me one day and he says, “I’ve got this guy who invented a machine that scrambles ,shuffles, and deals real decks of cards, and then digitizes the results to play them online.” I said, “Wow. That’s pretty neat.” Because people were uncomfortable with an RNG. How did these – what’s the seeding? How does it really happen? So this guy invented a machine. His brother actually built it in his basement. It’s pretty cool. So I went out there and I consulted for them for maybe six months. But I tried to give them a new direction to go more B2B and sell the the platform. But it didn’t really pan out because most of the incumbents that were already in the poker industry didn’t want to say, “Okay. Well, here’s a better solution.” Because then it’s like, what did they do for the last ten years? You know what I mean? So it became a difficult scenario. They’re still in business. They’re still plugging forward. But then I’ve done some other consulting in the online space. Grand Belize Entertainment opened up a casino in Belize – I helped them – Lucky Dog Entertainment, working with Parx Casino. I’m still working with them now in the new platform that I built. So like I was saying, so beyond the casino aspect of it, when we turned into – when we launched CompLinks in 2016, the idea was specifically in the casino space. But then I was at lunch with a buddy of mine who I’ve known for 20 years. He’s on the board of a major Qsr, Quick Service Restaurant, and he says, “How come we’re not using this in our place?” And I said, “That’s a good idea. I don’t know why.” So he hooked me up with CMO and we had a conversation. I showed them what CompLinks was all about. The value it adds to their company. And they were blown away. Like, “This was great.” The problem is that they don’t have an existing loyalty program. Ours is kind of an add on. So we’re in the process now of – they’re putting out an RFP in Q4. And we’re in the process of working with other providers who provide the actual loyalty platform to integrate our platform so that the end user will have a seamless solution. So we are a B2B2C company. You know what I mean? If that makes sense. 

Mario Fachini [8:38]

So who are you really helping with it? And what are you doing for them? You mentioned a restaurant, but are you only working in restaurants? 

Rob Gallo [8:46]

No, no, no. So the way it works is, if you have your own loyalty program and you have at least 20,000 active members in order to make it financially viable. The way it works is – so let’s backtrack first. Let’s say what is loyalty? What is loyalty to the average person? When you think of loyalty, Mario – let me ask you this question – you think of Starbucks, you think of Apple, you think of BestBuy. They put visions in your mind of what it means to you. 

Mario Fachini [9:15]

Subway is one of them. They were one of the first ones that I remember.

Rob Gallo [9:20]

Okay. So when you think of Subway, you buy 10 subs, you get the 11th one free, or whatever it is. So you think of $5 footlongs or what are their marketing campaigns. Loyalty, in all honesty, is beyond points. It’s really the brand. And that’s what a lot of companies have a hard time understanding is that it’s building relationships with your customers through your brand. And this is just one other mechanism to do it. So what we do is we don’t build loyalty programs per se. We build relationships between clients and their end users. And we help them understand what’s going to motivate them each, the end user and the client, to get both the best out of that relationship. 

Mario Fachini [10:09]

How have you found it’s been improving the companies you’ve helped? 

Rob Gallo [10:14]

So the beauty is that we do it as a fully managed solution. And this goes back to my casino days. Because as a casino operator, I recognize you’re running around every day like your hair’s on fire. There’s just so many things to do and you don’t have time to bring in yet another great idea. So when we conceived the platform, we figured, let’s build it to where it’s turnkey. They don’t need to worry about it. They sign off on all the imagery and all the content and all the copy that we write for them, but we do it so they don’t have to. And then the relationship between the end user and ourselves stops at our platform. So for example, in the casino industry, if someone sends an inquiry to us saying, “Hey, I played blackjack. I didn’t get my bonus.” We direct them to them. But at the same time, if someone says, “Hey, I bought a ceiling fan from Home Depot and I didn’t get my points.” They would come to us. So what it’s done is it’s given our clients the ability to expand their brand beyond their core competencies per se. So if you look at what Southwest is doing with their rapid rewards marketplace. If you look at Shell is what they’re doing with their fuel rewards program. They’re compensating their customers for shopping at other places. But then they can only redeem those points back at Shell or back at Southwest for their miles or their gas. So it’s kind of a hybrid coalition. And unfortunately, it sounds complicated but it’s super simple. If you know what Ebates is – I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Ebates. Ebates is cashback to an end user for shopping at 1000 different retail stores like Walmart, Kmart, Home Depot, buying stuff from StubHub and a thousand other places. And then the customer gets the cash back. So we’ve taken that to the next step and allowed customers who have clients – excuse me – clients who have a million, 2 million, 10 million customers in their loyalty program to expand beyond what their core product or service is. 

Mario Fachini [12:30]

Well, it sounds like you’re helping a lot of companies with it. Who would you say is the biggest transformation you’ve been able to give someone? 

Rob Gallo [12:36]

The biggest transformation, I think, is still in the casino industry. And I think that the reason that it is, is because, again, we’re experts in that field. So we understand end user persona. And we know how to motivate them beyond just slots and spinning wheels. And again, it’s not even just the cash, really. It’s just the interaction that that the end user really appreciates. So it takes it to the next level of a more personalized interaction with their end user while they’re living their everyday lives. 

Mario Fachini [13:18]

How long does it take to implement a program such as this? Should someone expect three months, six months, 12 months? What’s realistic to see some viable results in your experience? 

Rob Gallo [13:28]

That is a great question, Mario. And here’s the real rub is, in the casino industry, particularly – and maybe this is subconsciously why we also wanted to think about other industries. It takes forever. The sales cycle for whatever reason – well, for a number of reasons is ridiculously long. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the online gaming industry and how it’s becoming more prevalent in the United States. So New Jersey, you could play online in New Jersey legitimately within the state borders, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, West Virginia is online. There’s probably, I think, six or seven or maybe eight states. But that took years to happen. In this industry with the loyalty platform, the issue really is number one change. Change for anyone is scary. So we’re just trying to position it in the sense that you’re better off now – or in the future than you are now with an innovation that your customers already want. And the proof of what they want is Hilton is doing it, Marriott is doing it, British Airways is doing it, Shell’ fuel rewards is doing it. Barclays Bank has an online coalition loyalty platform. And maybe we should have started with this really to have people understand what it is. And as I mentioned earlier, it means you can buy from many different places but only redeem at one. So that’s kind of a hybrid of a coalition. Because a true coalition, which was plenty by American Express, which they disbanded last year. They tried it and it failed for a couple of reasons. But anyway, that was where I could buy from many and I could burn off at many. And then the merchants would settle behind the scenes of, “If I transfer points for him and he transfer points to me, we would reconcile at the end of the month.” It became a nightmare. So what we did, again, as a hybrid is – I can’t take full credit for it because Marriott, Hilton, and all those other brands that I mentioned have been doing it for six, seven years. So we just perfected it, particularly with the casino space. 

Mario Fachini [15:47]

Well, kind of what you’re saying it’s unfortunate but it’s also kind of somewhat funny because we went from, you know, before using money, it was all barter system. And then we get currency. And we started using all these different things. And now I see a lot of companies trying to go back to the barter. And it’s kind of what you were saying with American Express’s, “Well, you give me your points. I’ll give you my points, this and that.” And when you overly complicated and track it, especially for large companies – I mean, one of the things I tell my audiences when I’m speaking is, when you’re going from five clients to 50, from 50 to 100, from 100 to 250 plus, you need systems to manage all this stuff. Because you’re not going to be able to scale it if you don’t have systems in place. And it sounds like the same thing. When one companies trying to manage the benefits to the other 50 companies and it’s not coming back from them, it kind of seems akin to the barter system where it’s like, “You give me a fish. I’ll give you a knapsack. And we’ll buy shoes with it somewhere else.” But no one’s really tracking it. Or it’s very difficult to track. 

Rob Gallo [16:58]

Yeah. Well, again, that was the precipice of us building the platform the way we did. In that we manage all the relationships with the flagship property. So let’s say we have Home Depot, we have Walmart, we have Target, we have BestBuy, we have a thousand, near to a thousand, about 950 other major brands, Target JC Penney, Macy’s, hotels. And we manage all those relationships and we negotiate all the deals with them. The client, our client, only has one relationship with us. We handle everything else in the backend. Now, they can see it in real time. They can pick and choose. So for example, we have a hotel chain that is a licensee of ours, licensed in our technology, and we have another hotel chain on the front end. They won’t see the competitors brand as a way to earn money. Because that would be a conflict of interest. So with a click of a button in the back end, the way we built the platform is we just turn it off so they can’t see it. So it’s a fully managed solution in that respect. 

Mario Fachini [18:08]

So it seems pretty brainless for the people that want to get involved with it since you manage all of it. 

Rob Gallo [18:14]

Yeah. Again, the problem really is change. So what I want people to understand really, whether they do business with us or anybody else out there is that, the innovation of loyalty has come a long way. All right. You think about, like I mentioned, you buy ten Subway sandwiches, you get the 11th one free. And there was a Seinfeld episode – I don’t know if you remembering seeing that – where Elaine has this card and she’s like, “Yeah. The subs really aren’t that great but I got to get one.” Soit’s that mentality. And then we went to the cards and I think I showed you these cards. I’ve got 19 of these little cards from Lowes and Rite Aid and whatever, Best Buy. These are great but they’re antiquated now. So everything is digital know. And this is what people expect. So the idea is to understand as an organization that your customers have lives outside your four walls. And they’re interacting with other companies anyway. If you have the ability to create an environment, which is what we call the rewards everywhere marketplace, that allows your customers at a hotel, a casino, QSR, Quick Service Restaurant, even nonprofits – we’re starting to work with a nonprofit down in Florida – we have an opportunity to let your users think about how your brand can help them in their everyday lives to earn extra that they can only reward – exchange for your rewards points. 

Mario Fachini [19:52]

It sounds like once people shift from the competitive nature and mindset to the creative, you realize instead of looking at it as, “Oh, they’re competition. I don’t want them but shop when they already are,”You now open the whole world to be your allies in creating synergies with all these companies they’re going to anyway. 

Rob Gallo [20:13]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, I completely understand on the competitive level that if your Shell as a fuel rewards, you’re not going to reward someone for buying gas at Amoco. That makes perfect sense. I get that. And we built the system to not allow that to happen so you can click a button and not show any of those competitors as an earning mechanism. And then we’re also adding some other things in there of what people are doing online. So taking surveys, marketing surveys, people do this all the time. So now that’s one other thing. Buying gift cards. We’re working with a group here in New York that’s also going to implement our gift card program. What’s the other thing? Oh, travel. So we affiliate ourselves with a travel site that you can book travel right on our site. Again, and our clients benefit from this and that their customers are looking at their brand, booking travel, getting competitive rates from companies like KayakBooking.com, Hotels. com. There’s a couple other thing I can think of. And then earn rewards exclusively back in your platform. And the last one is games. People are playing games. So we’re working on a deal with a big game play for fun type of manufacturer that will allow your customers to earn points that they can, again, only exclusively redeem with you. 

Mario Fachini [21:39]

I like that you’re turning the whole world into a beneficiary no matter what you’re doing, it sounds like. 

Rob Gallo [21:46]

Yeah. It’s a true win-win-win. Because the customer is winning because they’re thinking, “Okay. Well, now I’m getting rewarded for doing things that I’m doing already. I’m creating more of a brand affinity to this company. This flagship brand.” So here’s a statistic, 57{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} of people in a rewards program stop using it because they say it takes too long to earn a reward. So this is true in the casino industry. In the casino industry – And I’ll use these numbers because I know them intimately – the average casino customer spends ten days a year on a casino floor. He loses on average $88 dollars, this is average now. This obviously skews numbers on both sides. So that’s $880 per year. The average reward program is going to get between 3{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} and 5{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} of comp program. Three and 5{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} of the theoretical casino win. So that’s about $40 a year. So for the VIP that are through the roof, they’re in a different caliber. But for the average customer, they’re like, “Yeah. What’s the benefit to me?” So now when they’re home and they’re not in the casino, if they could be accruing points to think, “Wow. I’m planning a trip in six months from now to go out to my favorite casino in Las Vegas, let’s say, or Atlantic City, wherever it is, or Biloxi.” And it would be great to earn points for booking travel or shopping at Home Depot or whatever else I buy. So the average customer spends $120 a month on online purchases. My wife probably triples that. She’s way more than triple but that’s beside the point. But like I said, the average customer is spending $120 a month. The average reward or cashback that we get from our affiliates is about $2.40 on the low end. And it can go up as high as $6. But it just depends on the merchant. So that’s a an additional $40 per – I’m sorry. That’s $28 a year in additional cashback. It’s not a monster. Don’t get me wrong. But the average casino customer is generating $40 from doing what they do in the casino for the entire year. We’re doing that while they’re not even in the casino. So that’s just the upside there. 

Mario Fachini [24:23]

Yeah. And what I want Expert Authority World to realize is that’s roughly a 70 to 80{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} boost. It’s not complete doubling it, but it’s pretty close to it. If you’re only at 35, 40 to begin with and you’re adding another 28 it’s almost doubling it. That’s huge for a business. 

Rob Gallo [24:42]

And in actuality, Mario, I’m probably low balling those numbers. And in fact, I know I am. Because the average is $3.33, it’s $40 a year. But I always err on the side of caution because on the lowest end, we get a 5{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} adoption rate and a $2.40 per month per user redemption value. Again, I don’t want people to come in with this misconceived notion that every single person is going to get these stellar numbers. But nonetheless – oh my god. I forgot this too. The other thing is which is really critical is that data. So when you go shop at Home Depot and you buy a ceiling fan, we’ll get the model number, we’ll get how much you paid, what the brand was. You go to Walmart and you buy clothes, you buy shoes, you buy dog food, we get the SKU – down to the SKU level. So from a marketer standpoint, when – again, I’m going to relate it to the casino industry but it happens in every industry – the digital marketers that are doing the CRM and the behind the scenes with these companies – these flagship companies, they know when the customer comes in, how many burgers they buy, a French fries, a large shake and everything. But imagine knowing that they have a small dog, they travel three times a year. This is valuable data. I mean, it could get a little kind of spooky but if they leverage it properly, they’re going to create personalized interactions with you. That means something to Mario as opposed to your next door neighbor who might not do those things. So it’s that level of granularity that we also provide. Now, not every merchant gives us that data, but when they do we supply it to our clients. 

Mario Fachini [26:37]

And what I want to say about that, because so many people – it’s not really spooky if you know what they’re doing. And there’s a lot of people that think all they’re taking all the data. Companies has been doing this for as long as I can remember. It’s just everyone – I actually hate the new cookie thing on all the websites now because there’s some from years ago when, apparently, I haven’t been there in a year and they still make me accept it. It’s like, “I don’t care. I know you’ve been doing it for the last 20 years.” When I when I go buy my new Cadillac and Tera boat – and what’s the other thing? – Sea-Doo wave runner, I love it when I’m looking today and then they go, “Hey, here’s something else that you may have not known about.” It saves me the time I’m looking at it. I don’t care that there’s tracking me down. But many people don’t realize, it’s not – okay. I’ll say this. There’s people that do do it unethically. I don’t like that any more than anyone else. But for the companies like my clients who I help with it, we’re honestly trying to help the consumer to help their prospect to help the client. And when done properly, it gives you incentives. And like with your customers, if they’re already spending the money there anyway, Delta says, “Hey, do you want a free flight?” “Yeah. Hit me up with the ad. Of course I do. You must have known I’m planning a trip for two months from now.” So just like any part of business, if you have the right people doing it, it’s a great thing. And if you have the wrong people doing it, there’s always going to be bad, bad apple in the bunch. But I appreciate you for sharing that because some people think it’s magic. And it’s like, it’s not the 1600s King Arthur. You’re giving everyone your data, whether you can sell online or not, they’re still tracking you in the store. 

Rob Gallo [28:25]

Yeah. So I just got retargeted the other day too. I looked at something for a client that I’m going to send a special gift. “Thank you for becoming a client, etc.” So I saw it and then I got sidetracked with something else and I was typing away and all of a sudden, boom, it popped up again. I’m like, “Oh, that’s kind of weird.” But it knew what I was doing. So what we’re doing really is taking that almost retargeting offline. Because in an ideal world – you know, there’s a great book that I read by Michael Gerber called The E Myth. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, fantastic book. He goes on and tells a story about a guy who becomes a manager of a hotel out on the west coast. And he’s so descriptive in how he describes it, but it was just a phenomenal experience. And they made note that he was from New York. He liked a specific cognac and a type of cigar that he smoked. So after he went out to dinner, when he came back, he had the New York Times on his nightstand, he had a glass of his favorite cognac there, and a cigar tilted with a handwritten note saying welcome to our – I forget the name of the hotel offhand. But that was the kind of warm relationship that he had. He’s a customer for life. So what we’re trying to do is to have companies who have – they don’t have to have massive amounts of clients, but they have to have enough clients that they want to engage with those clients in such a way -their customers – that makes them a customer for life. And when you talk about a company like a Starbucks, or a company like Apple, so an Apple is a trillion dollar company or nearly. And you can get someone on the phone that will stay on the phone with you for an hour and help you with any problem. So that’s customer service and a brand beyond anything that I’ve ever encountered. And then you call a small Mom and Pop or a decent sized company and you can’t get anybody on the phone forever. I think I was watching one of your podcasts the other day and somebody mentioned about phones – that he got somebody on the phone. I forget exactly who it was, but he got somebody on the phone and he’s like, “This is great. Could you imagine?” And I did that exact same thing. And I love being able to communicate one-on-one with somebody. So our ideology is to allow clients to have a one-on-one relationship with their customers meaningful. So they know it’s Mario on the other end of the line. 

Mario Fachini [31:03]

Let’s dive deeper with the customer service because this is a very important point. And I was talking with it with Todd. And I do remember that. He’s fantastic. And all of us share the same mindset as far as having high level customer service. Because so many companies, I feel like they just got so good at kicking things out like the assembly line. They adapted this transactional attitude. And I remember when I was listening to the CEO of Ritz Carlton, same thing you’re talking about, they dive really deep to make sure. Because it takes so much to acquire a client. But how do you keep them? And once you do, it’s like you can do the smallest things that make the biggest difference. And I agree with you, most companies just go “Well, we got them. You know, you’re here, you should stay with us forever.” And it’s like, “Do you know how many companies are out there trying to get your clients every single day 24 hours?” 

Rob Gallo [32:00]

Yeah. Well, you’re spot on. And I did see that interview with Todd. He had all the baseballs in the background. 

Mario Fachini [32:06]

Yeah. Todd Palmer. 

Rob Gallo [32:08]

Yes. Okay. I didn’t catch his name but I was probably multitasking as I do. But you mentioned the Ritz Carlton, two things about the Ritz Carlton. One, is we’re an affiliate of there. So they’re on our platform, where if you booked through them, you can earn points with us. It goes back to the flagship property. The other thing is my personal experience with Ritz Carlton, we went to the Ritz downtown Battery Park, New York City. And we’re like vacations. I live way on Long Island. I’m in Florida as well, the company is in both places. But I’m like a tourist when I go to New York City anyway. So we go to the Battery Park. And the guy comes out, he doesn’t know us from a hole in the wall but he knew we had a reservation. And I had two little kids at the time. My kids were young. And my son brings his skateboard and they have this beautiful little platform outside on Battery Park and it says no skating on it. He’s like, “Yeah. That’s just for everybody else. You can go skating.” And I was like, “Okay. Great. Good. Tyler, go nuts.” So he’s being safe. He’s wearing his helmet, of course. Because we didn’t want to have these guys do anything. But the level of detail that they went to, to accommodate us just as regular people, I was blown away. And it’s not like that in that I didn’t expect it. But it was like my experience with Apple. Again, it’s above and beyond. It’s the appreciation of you as an individual, taking your time, spending your hard earned dollars with us, as a company. Make me special and I’ll stay forever. Again, I don’t want to keep going back to the casino industry, but Gary Loveman was the CEO of Caesars in the 90s. And he is the one that was instrumental in the persona. So they created, I think, it was about 140 or 150 players segmentation. So it’s not enough that we know you’re slots player, Mario. But we know that you play on Wednesdays between [4:00] and [5:00]. All right. And you like the 25 cent machines that have three line wheels, not the five line wheels or 20 line wheels, too confusing. So we build up these personas. Now, the normal people, the normal course of action is to say, “Let’s get him to go play roulette.” He’s not going to do it. He’s not a roulette player. So let’s give him more of what he wants as opposed to thinking about let’s get him to do something he doesn’t normally do. Again, that was kind of the notion of what we said, well, people are already doing all these things online. Let’s reward them for it. But let’s give you, our client, the benefit of being that flagship brand in property. 

Mario Fachini [35:00]

These are some great Expert Authority insights, because so many businesses won’t even take the five minutes here we’re discussing to go, “What are my clients and customers actually buying? What do they buy over and over again?” They’re just looking for the ten new ones. And it’s like, how often do you go back and look at the people you already have? What can you do to give them a first class experience? Versus going I’m going to bring ten new people on and just treat them like a rock star at the beginning and then have it just taper off and then we never hear from them again. 

Rob Gallo [35:32]

Exactly. That’s called – 

Mario Fachini [35:34]

Yeah. One of my favorite things is I’m thinking of not only a client of mine I’ve had for over ten years now, which I’m very thankful and excited about. But he’s also in the restaurant industry. And he was the first one I thought of when we were talking about the loyalty programs. And that’s exactly it. It’s like you treat someone nice once. From my standpoint, he’s been a client for ten years. From his standpoint, it’s to the point where when someone approaches him for marketing or any of the stuff we’ve done for him, he calls me going, “Hey. Here’s what someone’s trying to do. You don’t need to worry about it.” But you know what piqued my interest what can we do. He’s not going with them he’s consulting me first to see if it is even anything that makes sense. And there’s many times we give him the cutting edge ideas before anyone else does. And then you have this relationship that is basically ironclad that I’m not worried and he’s not worried. And we both have the peace of mind. “Hey. We just both do what we do best.” And it sounds a lot like that’s what you’re providing with all of your clients in a very, very in depth level. 

Rob Gallo [36:40]

A hundred percent spot on, Mario. So in essence, people do business with people they like. People do business with companies they like. But companies – again, Apple is just the brand. But that representative on the phone who I spoke to for an hour because I had a problem with my wife’s laptop was – I don’t know her name offhand. It was a year ago. But let’s say it was Mary. I write it down while I’m on the phone with her so I can correspond with her because she’s saying, “Yes, Mr. Gallo. Right. Yeah. This is it.” And I’m thinking, she’s addressing me by my first name. First of all, she speaks perfect English. She wasn’t from India. And no disrespect to somebody that’s offshoring their stuff. But it gave me that feeling that I was talking to like your buddy for ten years that you know, who’s going to give you that type of advice. And she was telling me, you need to click this button, move this, delete this, let me take over your screen or whatever. And I’m just like, it’s blowing me away. And that’s the level of service that we want to have companies understand they need to be showing their end user clients. Otherwise, they’re going to move on. And like I said, 57{d1d47f886dfada3fbec120c845cf21cbf2de07a46032aee93c7c36510b4a5e81} of loyalty members leave because they say that it takes too long to earn rewards or they’re not earning the rewards that are not relevant to them. That’s back to the example of saying you’re a slots player. You don’t really care about blackjack. So why are you sending me promotions? Now, I’ll give kudos to Foxwoods. So Foxwoods knows I’m a poker player and my wife play slots. So when we come back from a trip, we’ll get two pieces of mail. One will be directed to me that’ll tell me it’ll have the – it’s poker on the front and I flip it over in the back and I’ll see all the poker calendar for the next month. And she’ll see slots tournaments, slots games. So they’re not trying to push something foreign to me that they know what I want to hear. And that goes back to your point before, Mario, when you said about the churn. People are thinking, “I’ll just get another ten new customers.” But it’s six times more cost effective to retain the same customer than it is to go and a new one. So why wouldn’t you want to capitalize on something like that? 

Mario Fachini [39:09]

Yeah. It sounds like Foxwood is using some real out of the box strategies there. Are they even allowed to do that? You can send physical mail nowadays?

Rob Gallo [39:20]

Yeah. Yeah. 

Mario Fachini [39:22]

That’s still allowed? 

Rob Gallo [39:22]

Some guy shows up at my house and a little box in the front and puts a little couple pieces of paper in there. And yeah, can you imagine? 

Mario Fachini [39:28]

I’ve heard about that. There’s something on the Discovery Channel talking about the history of how people used to communicate. That’s weird. 

Rob Gallo [39:37]

Yeah. It comes up – but honestly though, it actually is a good method of communication for a number of reasons. Number one is you’re the only one there. When you’re on a web page and you’re on 16 different sites, someone’s mind is not focused. The other thing is they’re talking to a customer. It’s not a potential customer. They know I was just there because I’m in their database. So that’s the other critical component. It’s not just throw it out and see what sticks. It’s focused and targeted to me. 

Mario Fachini [40:10]

Again, great insights. I appreciate you for sharing those. Let me ask you about the consulting and speaking. Obviously you know what you’re doing. You’re phenomenal at it. How has that changed your business? 

Rob Gallo [40:22]

Well, it’s another great question, Mario. I’m glad you asked. So the way – again, as I as I told you before, how I sort of backed into consulting. I never really planned, “Hey, I’m going to be a consultant.” It was just my desire to expand my knowledge. Now, I’m not an egomaniac that thinks he knows everything. But I know enough to say that if I know, I’ll let you know. If I don’t, I’ll find who does know. And I’ll be able to discern whether they’re full of BS or they’re telling the truth. And that’s from probably before my poker playing skills, I can kind of read people and tell if the guy is bluffing or not. So what I do is more of a consultative type of scenario with CompLinks. And how I tie them both in is, if I’m doing a consulting gig just particularly for casino – so now sports betting is the new big thing. Even though I wasn’t directly involved in sports betting – and I’m using these little air quotes for those that are listening on the podcast – I know enough to make a very, very good impression on the success of a particular sports book in the United States. Let’s say for example, of how they should be thinking about it from an aesthetic standpoint, what should it look like? What should my games be? What’s your main offering be? Should I be doing stuff online? What should my seating look like? Again, we did a lot of psychological research on why gamblers do what they do back in the day when we had five casino properties. So to leverage that sort of knowledge – and again, as I mentioned, if I don’t know it my former team that I still work with does – it puts me in a position of being able to help land based casinos make the right decisions of what they should do. And it also helps me with the casino software providers to understand how the casino operators are thinking, what’s their real MO. Because they believe and they speak two totally separate languages. And to marry the two is like a translator. 

Mario Fachini [42:45]

Let me ask you, where is somewhere you’ve always wanted to go that you’ve never gone yet? 

Rob Gallo [42:54]

You probably can’t see the map in the back of me but I have one of those little boards that shows a little pin from everywhere that I’ve ever been. And there’s tons of them. I’ve been to Norway, London, Italy, Moscow, just all over the world. I haven’t been to Australia and it’s been on my list – my bucket list to do. In fact, as a quick aside, I just got back from my 31st wedding anniversary. We went to Jamaica. 

Mario Fachini [43:19]

Congratulations. 

Rob Gallo [43:20]

Thank you very much. We were supposed to go for our 30th last year but my daughter got married. So it kind of put a little wrench in the works and we put it off to this year. And we’re back to the same island that we went for our honeymoon. And we stayed at the over the water bungalows, I highly recommend it. Because it’s funny, it was on my bucket list for Fiji or Bali, one of the over the water bungalows. But we saved 40 hours worth of flying, 20 each way, by just going to Jamaica for three hours. But quick funny story is, the day before we’re supposed to leave, we have a flight at [7:15] in the morning. So I get a message from the airlines [7:15] the day previous, It says, you can check in online. So I look at my phone and I start to check in. And it asked me for my passport number. I go over to my side of the bed, I look in the cabinet, it’s not there, I’m like, “Holy crap. Where is it?” It’s in my safe in my house in Florida. I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” So I call my neighbor, give her the code to the garage, I turn the alarm off remotely, she goes in the house, I give her the alarm to the safe, she opens up the safe, sends me the passports the same day, UPS – no – FedEx – FedEx the same day, $403. So prior to that, I booked the flight for me to go down there, pick them up at like [2:45], pick them up by [5:15], then get back on the plane and come back. It’s a good thing I didn’t do that because that flight had gotten canceled on the way back. It stopped in Baltimore. So the guy showed up at the house with the passports at 11:45 p.m., he left them between the two front doors. I woke up the next day and went on the trip. 

Mario Fachini [45:01]

Wow. That’s an overcoming mentality. Have you ever read the book The Go-Getter? 

Rob Gallo [45:09]

No, I haven’t. But I will put it on my list as of now. 

Mario Fachini [45:12]

I’m not going to say anything more, but you definitely exemplified it right there. You’re definitely a blue vaser. 

Rob Gallo [45:19]

Okay. I love it. Let me know who wrote it. Do you know? 

Mario Fachini [45:24]

I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes. I’ll have a link to it. 

Rob Gallo [45:28]

Okay, cool. 

Mario Fachini [45:29]

It’s great book. I read it, let’s say, a few years ago. It’s been that long. 

Rob Gallo [45:36]

Okay. Full transparency, I don’t read. I listen to audiobooks in the car. When I read, I read three pages, I fall asleep. 

Mario Fachini [45:45]

I’m sure it’s on audio book, too, nowadays. 

Rob Gallo [45:47]

Good. 

Mario Fachini [45:49]

Thank God, we don’t have dial up to download stuff like that. All right. We’re going to go to the Imperfect Action Round After we thank our sponsor. 

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Mario Fachini [46:14]

And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Rob, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

Rob Gallo [46:19]

Shoot? 

Mario Fachini [46:20]

First question, what is the fastest path to the cash? 

Rob Gallo [46:24]

The fastest path to the cash – unfortunately, it’s old school – and it’s know the customer. All right. It’s all that really matters. Your customers will detect smoking mirrors but they’ll also detect true appreciation of them as a customer and you’ll keep them for life. 

Mario Fachini [46:48]

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it? 

Rob Gallo [46:56]

Okay. That’s a good question. I think sometimes they have a myopic view of their existing loyalty program. In that, I can only reward my customers for doing what they do within our company. Flying on our airline or renting our hotel or eating at our restaurant. And they need to think outside the box. They need to think of the customer as a holistic person rather than someone that just comes in, get something, and leaves. So to answer your question, what was the second part of the question? 

Mario Fachini [47:32]

What is the biggest problem that your prospects are making and the fastest way they can fix it? 

Rob Gallo [47:38]

Right. So the fastest way they can fix it, really, is to innovate. And innovate in such a way, whether it’s us or somebody else -there’s plenty of other people that do what we do. We’re kind of experts at it. But they need to be thinking beyond their four walls. So that’s what they need to do. 

Mario Fachini [47:58]

Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value? 

Rob Gallo [48:05]

Oh, that’s a beautiful question. Again, what is a lifetime? To me a lifetime is forever. Now, in an ideal world that means you’re going to have a customer forever. You mentioned, let’s say Cadillac, earlier. If you’re a Cadillac lover, you’ll be a Cadillac lover for life. I’m a Lexus guy and here’s why. I bought a Lexus back in 2000. I still have it. My wife hates that I drive this car. It’s got 240,000 miles on it. And it’s the most comfortable car I’ve ever driven. This car was out of warranty. I was on my way into New York City, the transmission went kaput. They picked me up, put me in a brand new one, fixed it, sent it to me for nothing. I was blown away. So I’m a lifer with Lexus. I think they make a great product. They stand behind it. So the lifetime customers value is whatever you can engage with that customer for his expectancy to literally live. It doesn’t have to be just with – you know, if you’re a customer of Shell, you’re forever. So that’s really the key. 

Mario Fachini [49:16]

Great answer. Great answer. And I like Lexus also. Actually when I was modeling, they were one of the companies I was working with the auto show. When the car came out and it would park itself, I remember being one of the first ones. They also had the massage in the backseat, very nice. 

Rob Gallo [49:35]

Very nice. Super Mario getting a massage in the backseat. 

Mario Fachini [49:38]

All right. Number – well, I forget what the number is but it’s about books. What is a book you could recommend to Expert Authority World? 

Rob Gallo [49:49]

Expert Authority World, the best book that I’ve ever read, “listened to” is called Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath. This book, I’ve listened to it – I’m going to guess – 25 times. It is the greatest collection of stories that you’ll understand and can correlate to any business and even in your personal life, how you communicate. People think in pictures and stories. I don’t want to give it away. But it’s a phenomenal book. The list is long but he mentions other books in that book, but that’s the one. And the other one, again, I think The E Myth. I’m assuming a lot of guys, a lot of people – I don’t say guys -women as well on EA Interviews are looking for the entrepreneurial spirit in themselves. The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. Again, phenomenal book. It really has you understand what an entrepreneurial seizure, he calls it. You got to read it to find out. It’s worth it. 

Mario Fachini [50:57]

Great recommendation. Where can people learn more about you? 

Rob Gallo [51:02]

To learn more about me, you can go to CompLinks.co/Expert Authority. This way they can either get some more information. In fact, I put up a thing that’s behind the scenes. It’s a financial impact calculator that doesn’t normally show up on our site. But until we explain it to somebody what it means, they can see what the value of not doing something is. And this is one of them. 

Mario Fachini [51:31]

Well, that sounds very fascinating. Thank you for making it available to the audience. 

Rob Gallo [51:36]

Absolutely. My pleasure. 

Mario Fachini [51:37]

Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed this. I look forward to connecting further with you. And you have been phenomenal. Thank you for sharing. 

Rob Gallo [51:45]

I appreciate it, Mario. Thanks very much for having me. 

Mario Fachini [51:48]

All right. Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here. Have a great day. God bless. And I’ll see you tomorrow. 

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www.EAInterviews.com [52:10]

Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.