Key Takeaways

  • Alex, the founder of Haven Lifestyles, runs a $10 million revenue, $2.5 million profit business across 40 real estate advertising magazines in the US and Canada.
  • Haven Lifestyles targets high-value homeowners by sending unsolicited “lookbook” magazines to specific postal routes, prompting real estate agents to pay for listings inside.
  • Alex has shifted his human sales team away from cold selling; AI, specifically a tool named Lindy, now manages much of the sales process, allowing reps to focus on customer experience.
  • Despite working with over 10,000 agents annually, Alex believes the fastest way to double profit isn't finding more new customers, but improving retention and increasing how often existing agents advertise.
  • Shaan Puri shared a straightforward framework—Customer Relationship Tiers—to help founders audit and strengthen their engagement with crucial clients.

The Shaan Puri's Customer Relationship Tiers

Shaan Puri introduced a practical system for founders to evaluate and improve their customer relationships, moving them beyond mere transactions.

  • Tier 1: Close Relationships: Somebody who's they would do me a favor. I have them on a texting relationship. They know me, I know them. They would do me a favor for if with you know, quickly.
  • Tier 2: Friendly Acquaintances: I got their email. We've traded some emails. We like each other. We're friendly acquaintances.
  • Tier 3: Transactional Relationships: We're transactional. Like when they need me, they call me. When I need them, I call them. We haven't really talked much because that transaction is infrequent.
  • Tier 4: Worse than Transactional: And then there's tier tier four which is like worse than that.

When This Works (and When It Doesn't)

This framework shines brightest when a company, like Alex's Haven Lifestyles, has a sizable existing customer base—especially a segment of high-value clients—and the founder suspects they're leaving money on the table due to passive relationships. It's a tool to uncover why your best customers aren't buying more often and how to proactively re-engage them, shifting them from occasional transactions to deeper, more frequent partnerships. As Shaan Puri advised Alex, the goal is to understand what top spenders love, what they hate, and what keeps them from repeat purchases.

However, this approach offers less direct value for brand-new businesses that haven't yet built a customer base. It's also less applicable to products or services with inherently one-off transactions where repeat business isn't the primary growth driver. The framework assumes that direct interaction with customers is both possible and valuable, meaning it might not fit highly automated, low-touch business models without adaptation. It's built for forging connections, not just closing sales.

What to Do With This

Take your top 10-20 clients by annual contract value (ACV) and score each one against Shaan Puri's tiers this week. For every client you classify as Tier 3 (transactional) or Tier 4 (worse), schedule a 15-minute 'check-in' call. This isn't a sales call. Your single goal is to understand what they love about your product, what pains them, and identify one small favor you could do to move them up to a Tier 2 (friendly acquaintance) relationship. For Alex at Haven Lifestyles, this means understanding why his 10,000+ agents don't advertise more often, and then building the systems that make them want to. Do that, and doubling profits becomes a much clearer path.