In step 6 of the 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success, John Jantsch makes the case for the part of marketing most founders quietly neglect: the customers they already have. The typical business pours close to 90 percent of its budget into winning new customers and only about 10 percent into keeping, reactivating, and growing the existing ones. Yet a returning customer who buys again and refers others is often worth three to ten times a one-time buyer. That gap is the opportunity this episode sets out to close.
John walks through what he calls the customer experience engine, built on four intentional components: onboarding, repeat engagement, a referral system, and reactivation. He explains why the back half of the Marketing Hourglass, the repeat and refer stages, holds the highest-ROI marketing available to most small businesses, with practical examples that range from seasonal maintenance plans that turn one-time projects into recurring revenue, to reactivation campaigns that bring dormant customers back quickly.
This episode is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who want more growth from customer retention rather than constantly buying it. If your marketing runs smoothly right up until the sale and then goes quiet, this one gives you a framework for keeping the relationship, and the revenue, going.
Host Bio
John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and the creator of the Marketing Hourglass and the Strategy First™ approach to small business strategy. He is the author of several books on marketing for small business, including Duct Tape Marketing and The Ultimate Marketing Engine, and he hosts the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, where he shares practical, real-world strategies for owners, marketers, and consultants. Through Duct Tape Marketing and its network of certified consultants, John helps small businesses install a complete Marketing Operating System.
Key Takeaways
Most founders spend around 90 percent of their budget acquiring new customers and only about 10 percent keeping and growing the ones they have. The math rarely favors that split.
A returning customer who buys again and refers others is often worth three to ten times a one-time buyer.
The highest-ROI marketing sits in the back half of the Marketing Hourglass, in the repeat and refer stages most businesses skip.
Treat onboarding as marketing. The first 90 days set the relationship, so build a structured sequence with a clear goal for each touch point.
Do not wait for customers to remember to come back. Use maintenance plans, seasonal triggers, anniversary touch points, and simple check-ins to drive repeat engagement.
Build a systematic referral approach that asks at moments of truth, when a customer is visibly happy with a result.
Reactivation is often the quickest win available. A single campaign to dormant past customers can bring a meaningful share back, sometimes 15 to 20 percent.
A strong customer experience produces reviews, case studies, and results-based stories that AI cannot fake, and those assets feed your new-customer marketing.
Start by auditing one number: the percentage of your budget going toward customers you already have.
Great Moments
[00:01] John introduces step six of the series and opens with the budget question every founder should ask.
[02:18] Why a returning, referring customer is worth three to ten times a one-time buyer, and why the back half of the Marketing Hourglass holds the most value.
[04:36] Onboarding as marketing: designing the first 90 days, plus repeat engagement through maintenance plans and seasonal triggers.
[07:02] Reactivation as the quickest win, and how a campaign to dormant customers can convert fast.
[08:21] The application effect: turning happy customers into reviews, case studies, and content that strengthens acquisition.
[10:43] John’s closing challenge, plus where to get the full ebook and a consultation.
Memorable Quotes
“A returning customer is probably worth three to ten times what a new one’s worth.”
“The back half of the hourglass has the highest ROI marketing available to most small businesses.”
“The marketing is orchestrated to a T until they say yes, and then it falls apart.”
“AI will reward you for clients that are willing to talk about your business.”
“What percentage of your marketing budget goes towards customers you already have?”
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New AI guidance for CFP professionals means you can expect disclosure, human oversight, and protection of your financial data.
The global body behind the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER designation just told planners how to use artificial intelligence without cutting corners on your money — and the rules give consumers a clearer set of expectations.
On June 24, the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), the nonprofit that owns the international CFP program and sets standards for more than 236,000 CFP professionals worldwide, released a Practice Guidance Note on the use of AI in financial planning.
The message to advisors is direct: AI can speed up the work, but the human planner stays on the hook for every recommendation.
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Why It Matters
AI is likely already in your advisor’s office, whether you’ve noticed or not. FPSB’s 2025 research, based on responses from more than 6,200 planners across 24 territories, found two in three firms are using AI or plan to within a year.
Planners report using it for client communications (41%), collecting client data (33%), and risk profiling (30%) — the exact tasks that shape the advice you pay for.
That makes AI a consumer issue, not just a back-office one. The same tools that draft your plan faster can also mishandle your data or produce a confident-sounding answer that’s wrong.
What Consumers Should Expect
The guidance gives you a few reasonable things to ask for and expect from a CFP professional:
A human still owns the advice. FPSB is explicit that AI should support, not replace, professional judgment. Your planner remains responsible for the recommendations. “AI made the call” is not an acceptable answer.
Transparency about how AI is used. The guidance stresses transparency and oversight. You can ask where AI shows up in your engagement (drafting communications, analyzing your data, modeling scenarios) and a planner operating to standard should be willing to tell you.
Your data stays protected. Planners flagged data privacy and cybersecurity as their top concern (47%), and the guidance calls out confidentiality, privacy, and cybersecurity as areas needing special care. That means your financial details shouldn’t be fed into consumer AI tools that could store or expose them.
Accuracy gets checked. The second-biggest planner concern was the accuracy and reliability of AI outputs (42%). The guidance tells planners to verify what AI produces rather than pass it along unchecked. Accuracy has been a problem across the board – from answers to student loan questions to general personal finance queries.
The Fine Print
This is global guidance that complements FPSB’s standards. It doesn’t override U.S. law or the CFP Board’s rules, which govern CFP professionals here. So the note sets expectations, not enforcement.
Still, it gives you a useful checklist for a direct conversation with your advisor.
How This Connects
Vetting how an advisor uses AI is part of the same homework you need to do along with vetting how they get paid.
As The College Investor has covered, a CFP can be fee-only or fee-based, and titles alone don’t tell you whether someone is acting in your interest — fee structures run from under 0.30% at robo-advisors to 1%+ at traditional firms, with flat financial plans often running from under $1,000 to $3,000.
Add one more question to the list: how do you use AI, and how do you protect my data when you do?
AI is becoming standard equipment in financial planning. The work you’re paying for — judgment, accountability, and protection of your information — is supposed to stay human. Now you have a reason to ask your advisor to confirm it.
Anthropic has alleged Alibaba found a cheaper way to close the already narrowing AI gap: Not by stealing servers or smuggling chips, but by using fake accounts and innocuous interactions with Claude to extract its capabilities and train competing systems at a fraction of the cost.
Leading IPO expert Jay Ritter told Fortune that Alibaba’s distillation could either strengthen Anthropic’s IPO story by positioning the company as strategic in the U.S-China rivalry or lead investors to question Anthropic’s future profitability if its frontier AI moat isn’t defensible.
“Both points of view have merit, but I think that second point about affecting profitability would be the dominant one,” he said. “Right now the growth rate of Anthropic’s revenue has been incredible, but how much they’ll be able to sustain that is a big question mark.”
Now Anthropic is turning to Washington for help, with Sarah Heck, Anthropic’s head of policy, urging Congress to penalize China’s behavior through “export controls on advanced American compute.”
For now, the federal government can’t meaningfully undo the potential damage to Anthropic’s competitive edge through export controls, which are designed to restrict hardware like chips and foreign access to tangible software like Mythos and Fable, but are powerless against the kind of distillation attack Anthropic is alleging.
“Querying it through an API is not exporting the model, and that’s what the latest controversy has been about,” Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary of commerce for export administration, told Fortune.
But the Trump administration denounced unauthorized distillation in an April memo that called the alleged efforts of Chinese companies to distill U.S. frontier models “unacceptable.” And with the momentum of Anthropic’s new allegations against Alibaba, reviving the idea of updating export controls to better protect U.S companies is on the table, Wolf added.
He mentioned the Remote Access Security Act introduced last year by Rep. Michael Lawler, R-New York, as an example. It’s sitting in committee now, but with more potential to move forward after Anthropic’s request for better export controls on advanced AI.
The bill would crack down on foreign entities like China accessing U.S. tech on a “purposeful, knowing, reckless, or negligent basis” through a cloud computing service if “the use of the item could pose a serious risk” to national security.
Lawler told Fortune in a statement that Anthropic’s capabilities must not fall into the hands of China and “other bad actors.”
“Dangerously, that’s exactly what’s happening right now with Alibaba. The sad part is that we knew this was going to happen,” he added. “I’ve been working on my Remote Access Security Act for years to close one of the loopholes in our export control laws that allows our adversaries to access sensitive technology through the cloud.”
If passed, this bill would apply export controls and fill the void of a Biden-era framework preventing China from accessing AI cloud compute and model weights, rescinded by Trump a few days before it was supposed to go into effect.
Meanwhile, if Alibaba’s AI lab has indeed copied Anthropic, it could actually prove Claude’s value as the original and not concern investors that much about profit, according to Harrison Rolfes, a senior research analyst for private companies at PitchBook, who used an analogy of investors looking at used cars versus new ones.
“They probably want the brand new car that has all the bells and whistles and tech involved, even though it’s a little bit more expensive,” Rolfes told Fortune. “If an enterprise is worried about cost, then yes, they can go get a cheaper model, like a Chinese model, but it’s not at a point yet where these enterprises trust using those models, especially U.S. companies.”
That could bolster Anthropic’s appeal to investors ahead of a highly anticipated IPO later this year that could value the company at $1 trillion.
But by calling on the government for help, Anthropic also faces a balancing act to make sure there’s enough regulation to protect the company’s edge over China but prevent overregulation that might hamper its business, according to Rolfes.
“Right now they want to play it safe by just saying ‘hey, we are on your side, and we want to IPO’ and the moment they can IPO, they don’t have to worry as much with what the government says, they can just let the public decide,” he said.
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Self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) can give people more control over their retirement savings, allowing them to choose what they’re invested in and potentially saving them tax while they’re at it.
Investing in property is one option open to SMSFs but buying a property through a super fund is quite different to purchasing as a private investor. While there are a few more rules to follow, it can be a viable way to boost your retirement savings.
Change to SMSF investing rules
On 23 June 2026, the federal government announced it would no longer allow self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) to borrow money to fund investments in residential property.
From the date the legislation becomes official, SMSFs will have 45 days to finalise contracts already in place. (At this stage, the deadline is expected to be in mid- to late-August.)
Sale contracts and limited recourse borrowing arrangements finalised during this period will not be affected by the new rules.
After the 45 day period, SMSFs can no longer purchase residential property via a loan, but will still be permitted to buy a residential property outright, without finance.
SMSFs with existing limited recourse borrowing arrangements in place will be permitted to refinance loans under existing refinancing rules.
The new SMSF rules apply to residential property purchases only and will not affect SMSFs buying commercial or industrial properties.
This article will be updated after full details of the changes are known.
Step 1: Revisit your SMSF deed and investment strategy
Assuming you’ve already set up your SMSF, your first point of reference should be the fund’s investment strategy. An SMSF can only use borrowed money to purchase a property if this strategy is clearly outlined in both the trust deed and investment strategy statement.
According to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), an SMSF investment strategy must outline trustees’ key objectives and the framework for making investment decisions to achieve those objectives. The deed and investment strategy must also provide a thorough explanation of how the fund manages issues of diversification, risk and return, liquidity, and member circumstances.
Step 2: Obtain SMSF loan preapproval
By pre-empting what lenders might look for in a borrower, you can give your fund the best chance of home loan approval. Seeking preapproval for an SMSF loan can also provide peace of mind while you shop around for a suitable investment.
An SMSF loan enables the fund to purchase eligible, income-producing property. But SMSF loans are different from regular loans and are generally more restrictive.
They usually require higher deposits, will lend you a lower percentage of the property’s value, and prohibit redraw of extra funds paid into the loan. SMSFs are permitted to refinance loans to keep their borrowing arrangements competitive but, again, this will be subject to eligibility requirements.
See also: SMSF borrowing rules: things you need to know
There are many SMSF loan products available in the market, each with their own points of difference on cost, credit policy, and structural requirements. SMSF loans generally allow up to 70% leverage – although some may lend to funds buying property with a loan-to-value ratio (LVR) of 80% or less – and come with 30-year terms, with up to five years of interest only repayments.
Some lenders will apply standard variable or fixed interest rates comparable with rates available for consumer residential mortgages, while others may apply commercial or business loan rates. Some lenders will assess your SMSF’s ability to meet repayments and service loans based on member contributions and rental income, while other lenders will also look at a fund owner’s income stream and liabilities.
Below is a table featuring SMSF loans with some of the most competitive interest rates on the market:
Lender
Home Loan
Interest Rate
Comparison Rate*
Monthly Repayment
Repayment type
Rate Type
Offset
Redraw
Ongoing Fees
Upfront Fees
Max LVR
Lump Sum Repayment
Extra Repayments
Split Loan Option
Tags
Features
Link
Compare
Promoted Product
Disclosure
6.94% p.a.
6.96% p.a.
$3,306
Principal & Interest
Variable
$0
$230
70%
Disclosure
6.94% p.a.
7.04% p.a.
$3,306
Principal & Interest
Variable
$0
$0
70%
Disclosure
7.14% p.a.
7.19% p.a.
$3,374
Principal & Interest
Variable
$0
$220
70%
Disclosure
Important Information and Comparison Rate Warning
Important Information and Comparison Rate Warning
To protect SMSF retirement savings, the government has decreed SMSF loans must be under ‘limited recourse borrowing arrangements’ (LRBA). This means the lender cannot come after assets other than those used as security if a fund defaults on the loan.
Step 3: Find a property for your SMSF to invest in
Once the loan application is under control, you can now choose a property with some degree of confidence. However, buying an investment property for an SMSF isn’t the same as choosing an investment property for yourself.
For starters, the chosen property must comply with the ‘sole purpose’ test. This is the all-important test that ensures each investment undertaken by an SMSF is for the sole purpose of providing retirement benefits to members.
See also: SIS Act: SMSF rules & regulations explained
Under an SMSF loan, the property must also be an established one, not vacant land that the fund intends to build on later. An SMSF cannot develop or refurbish an existing property or purchase vacant land for future development. However, it can purchase through an off-the-plan agreement and settle on the property once it’s completed.
There are also key differences in rules surrounding the purchase of residential or commercial property. If an SMSF purchases a residential property, its trustee/s can’t occupy that property until after retirement and only upon transfer of title from the SMSF into their own name/s.
The SMSF must also acquire the property from an ‘arm’s length’ vendor, not a related party, to comply with the ‘in-house asset rule’. This rule dictates that no more than 5% of your SMSF’s assets must directly benefit you or other trustees before your retirement.
Commercial property that’s bought for business purposes can be purchased from a member or related entity and the businesses of SMSF members can occupy the property as a tenant. This can make the SMSF structure a smart choice for many business owners, as long as the rent is market value and is always paid in full and on time.
Step 4: Set up a security trust
Until the SMSF pays off its loan, the property’s legal title needs to be held in what’s called a bare trust. You’ll need to establish this security trust once the fund has loan preapproval.
The trustee of the bare trust needs to be a different trustee entity than the SMSF trustee. They can be an individual (friend or relative) or a corporate trustee, which can be a safer option. Having a corporate trustee may mean establishing a proprietary limited company with you as director.
The trust deed for the bare trust should be carefully reviewed by your SMSF advisor to ensure it doesn’t create any tax or stamp duty issues.
Step 5: Reach settlement on your SMSF’s property investment
Once the loan is formally approved, the legal structure is in place, and funds are available to pay the deposit, the contract of sale can be executed. Lawyers will prepare the loan documents and send them to the SMSF’s appointed lawyer or conveyancer, at which point they are signed and returned.
Contracts are then exchanged between the seller and the property (bare trust) trustee as a purchaser. The contract is entered into with the property trustee holding legal title and the SMSF holding beneficial title.
The SMSF pays the deposit, balance, legal costs, and stamp duty. There’s no need for the deposit to be paid through the property trustee.
The purchase is complete and your SMSF is now eligible for a whole host of potential tax benefits (we’ll outline these in more depth below).
Step 6: Oversee your SMSF’s management of the investment property
Once the dust has settled, the SMSF will manage the asset and pay all associated bills, including council rates, water rates, land tax, property management fees, and insurance premiums. Trustees will have full control over all leasing, renovating, and selling decisions. The SMSF makes loan repayments and receives rental payments from tenants.
The maximum tax payable on the property’s rental income is 15% as it’s a super fund asset, and the SMSF can claim most maintenance expenses as tax deductions. Negative gearing can also reduce the SMSF’s tax burden, as loan interest and associated property costs can be offset against other taxable income generated by the SMSF.
The bottom line: investing in real estate with your SMSF may allow you to convert property earnings to unrealised, and eventually tax-free, capital gains if all the rules are met.
Step 7: Gain legal title once SMSF loan has been repaid
The SMSF can pay the loan off in full at any time, provided the particular lender and loan product allows it. Once the loan has been repaid, legal title can be transferred to the SMSF or the property trustee can continue to act as a registered proprietor.
The SMSF can direct the property trustee to sell the property to a third party at any time, but there are significant tax advantages to waiting until your SMSF is in the ‘pension phase’ to sell.
See also: Guide to SMSF accumulation phase and SMSF pension phase
What do lenders look for when lending to an SMSF?
Using your super to invest in property involves meeting strict borrowing requirements. Generally, lenders will look for the following to assess SMSF loan eligibility:
Deposit For SMSF borrowing, lenders typically require a deposit of at least 30% of the property’s value, but this will depend on individual lenders
Rental income Expected rental income from the property is factored into the SMSF’s ability to make loan repayments.
Contribution patterns Lenders assess the frequency and consistency of fund members’ contributions as an indicator of the SMSF’s capacity to meet ongoing repayments.
Investment strategy Direct property investment and borrowing must align with the SMSF’s trust deed and be part of its documented investment strategy for the fund to qualify as a suitable borrower.
SMSF structure compliance The SMSF’s structure must comply with regulations set by authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
What properties are ineligible for SMSF borrowing?
Property for redevelopment and resale
Property purchased for the purpose of redevelopment breaches the sole purpose test. This might be interpreted as the fund engaging in a property development business or a one-off profit-making undertaking, rather than solely providing for members’ retirements.
Your friend’s old house
An SMSF is generally not allowed to acquire assets from a member or an associate of a member. The word ‘associate’ is very wide and includes many related parties.
A holiday home you intend to use or lend to a friend
Owning a holiday home you intend to use for private purposes, even just for one weekend every year, breaches the sole purpose test and in-house asset rule. This is because you’ll get a current benefit from the asset. It’s also not permitted to lease an SMSF asset to a fund member or associate of the fund for personal use.
Overseas property
While your SMSF can technically invest in all types of property, including property located overseas, getting funding to do so is virtually impossible. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an Australian lender to finance an overseas investment or an overseas lender with the skills to navigate the complexities of Australian SMSFs.
Take note: The penalty for non-compliance could see your SMSF paying a tax rate of 45% on all income realised and on the value of its assets in the year prior to the non-compliance occurring.
What are the tax benefits of property investing via an SMSF?
An SMSF can realise some potentially attractive tax benefits when investing in property.
Firstly, the maximum tax payable by an SMSF on rental income is 15% – considerably lower than the personal income tax rates for average income earners. On top of that, like regular investors, an SMSF can claim expenses such as interest, council rates, insurance, and maintenance as tax deductions. That may mean the SMSF’s effective tax rate is much lower. Further, if the fund continues to hold the property when it’s in pension phase, any income earned from it will be completely tax-free.
Secondly, an SMSF doesn’t pay any capital gains tax on an investment property that’s sold when fund members are in the ‘pension phase’. This could potentially see the fund paying hundreds of thousands of dollars less in tax than an individual investor would. Even if the property is sold before the fund reaches pension phase, SMSFs are entitled to a capital gains tax discount of one-third – so an effective capped tax rate of 10% – as long as it has owned an asset for at least 12 months.
See also: How does capital gains tax for SMSFs work?
What are the drawbacks of investing in property through an SMSF?
As with most things, there are also a couple of downsides to consider before you leap into buying a property through a SMSF.
In addition to the costs and hoops you have to jump through to set up and maintain an SMSF, one of the key drawbacks of purchasing property through an SMSF is the added layers of complexity. There are strict rules surrounding what type of property can be purchased and how it can be used.
The process of getting an SMSF home loan is also much more involved and costly than taking out a general investor home loan. Your SMSF will need to meet much more stringent lending criteria, have a larger deposit, and you may be required to provide personal guarantees.
Buying a property through an SMSF also means it isn’t directly owned by you so that can make selling it a little more complicated as well.
A professional can help you navigate the rules and regulations that come with SMSFs. Some SMSF lenders even require applicants to have sought independent legal and/or financial advice to ensure they understand the potential risks and rewards that can come with an SMSF property purchase.
Image by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels.
Original article published in March 2022.
First published in November 2024
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Whether you’re looking to refinance or purchase investment property with your SMSF our partners can help you find the right SMSF home loan.
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he is nominating Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, as the next director of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that his new pick for the immigration enforcement agency is a former U.S. Marine and a “PATRIOT with real operational experience.” He called Schroyer a “proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.”
Schroyer hails from the same home state as the new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman. Earlier this month, Mullin brought Schroyer onstage at a National Sheriffs’ Association event, calling him a “good friend of mine” and noting DHS had recently hired him.
On Saturday, Mullin quickly praised Schroyer in a statement highlighting the former trooper’s 29-year career and his work with federal and state partners on a U.S. immigration enforcement program.
“President Trump made a great pick, and I’m confident Lance’s strong leadership and firsthand experience will empower the men and women of ICE to deport criminal illegal aliens, secure the homeland, and protect the American people,” Mullin said.
If confirmed, Schroyer will lead ICE at a time when the public mood has soured on Trump’s immigration crackdown, which sent surges of federal immigration officers into American cities to round up immigrants. Those raids sent tensions soaring and prompted clashes between protesters and law enforcement, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Trump returned to the White House on a promise of mass deportations, and ICE has been a central executor of that vision. The agency is undergoing massive growth from a one-time injection of $75 billion last year, which has allowed for the hiring of 12,000 officers and increased detention capacity.
Mullin, who started in his role in March, has promised to keep his department out of the headlines and has indicated a softer tone on immigration, although he is expected to align with the president’s priorities on mass deportations.
Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official, said prior confirmed ICE directors have often been attorneys, though some state and local law enforcement officials have also been nominated. She said his background in Oklahoma suggests Mullin likely had influence over the pick.
“I think probably given the attention on ICE, he wants to feel like he has somebody he can trust in there,” she said in an interview.
John Torres, another senior ICE official, said Schroyer faces an uphill climb toward Senate confirmation but his experience being at the state and local level instead of the federal level might help.
“He won’t have any of that baggage, where they’re going to turn around and say, oh, well, he worked for this administration or that,” Torres said.
Schroyer’s nomination comes after former ICE director Todd Lyons resigned at the end of May. David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, has been serving as the acting head of the agency. Venturella is expected to stay on as the acting director until Schroyer is Senate confirmed, according to a DHS official speaking on condition of anonymity.
ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, a result of polarizing politics around the agency and immigration policy.
Has the rise of passive investing broken the stock market? Is the level of passive ownership too high? No. There is no strong reason to believe that higher indexing degrades market efficiency. What matters are the non-passive investors: Are there enough of them, do they have the right incentives, are they able to express their views via trading? What does not matter are the passive investors: They are like the audience in a play; they just watch the activity on stage. There is no level of passive ownership, other than 100%, that obviously causes the market to be dysfunctional.
