HEAD OF RETENTION FOR OUTDOOR BRANDS
Profit isn’t made on the first conversion. It’s built in the months and years that follow.
Idle Hands Workshop is the retention practice of Mike Swanson. I work with leadership teams at outdoor, heritage, and hard goods brands, most of them on Klaviyo and Shopify, to rebuild retention from the data layer up:
audit what’s happening across the team and the stack
define the lifecycle stages customers actually follow
build the program that EARNS REPEAT PURCHASES WITHOUT LEANING ON ANOTHER PROMO
BRANDS I’VE WORKED WITH
THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR RETENTION INVESTMENT
Acquisition costs keep climbing. Most brands respond by spending more on ads, running another sale, chasing the next new customer. The promo calendar keeps stretching. Over time that math stops working.
The fix is rarely just an audit and a round of rebuilt flows. It’s how the whole program operates: the data underneath, segmentation, deliverability, the lifecycle stages, what gets measured, and who owns it.
For brands that also sell through dealers and retail, the direct customer file is the only place the relationship is visible, and it’s usually the least cared-for part of the business.
AI is part of how I work, not what I sell. Analysis runs off the live account rather than exported snapshots, and it’s faster than it used to be. The judgment is mine, earned over fifteen years. And now that Klaviyo and Shopify can generate flows and content on their own, part of the job is deciding what in your program should be automated and what shouldn’t.
HOW I WORK
FRACTIONAL HEAD OF RETENTION
For brands rebuildING RETENTION from the ground up.
A hands-on engagement where I embed with your team, own the retention STRATEGY, and we rebuild the program while I’m there: data SIGNALS cleaned, segments rebuilt, flows relaunched, baseline set before we touch anything. You’re left with a program that’s already running, the playbooks TO BACK IT UP, and a handoff to your team, your agency, or a hire I help scope. Four to six months.
TEAM & TECH Roadmap Workshop
FOR BRANDS WHO NEED A PLAN THEIR TEAM CAN EXECUTE.
I interview your stakeholders, audit the data, and find where the program is losing customers you already paid for. The output is a prioritized roadmap your internal team or agency can run, with no ambiguity about where to start or what comes next. TWO TO THREE MONTHS.
Strategic ADVISORY Sessions
For brands with an in-house owner who needs a senior second opinion.
Direct access for pressure-testing strategy, auditing agency performance, or untangling data and platform problems. Guidance, not execution. Ninety minutes a week, one-month minimum.
about MIKE SWANSON
I'VE SPENT FIFTEEN YEARS IN CRM, LIFECYCLE STRATEGY, BRAND, AND MARKET RESEARCH, BUILDING THE RETENTION FOUNDATIONS THAT REAL GROWTH DEPENDS ON.
AFTER TWELVE YEARS WORKING AND PLAYING IN THE GRAND TETONS, I NOW LIVE IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT WITH MY FAMILY. I'VE LEARNED THAT THE WILD PLACES I LOVE DON'T REWARD SHORTCUTS. NEITHER DOES CUSTOMER RETENTION. I BUILD EVERY ENGAGEMENT TO LAST LONG AFTER I LEAVE.
KLAVIYO GOLD PARTNER
KLAVIYO IS THE PLATFORM I BUILD ON. AS A KLAVIYO GOLD PARTNER AND LONGTIME POWER USER, I HELP BRANDS USE ITS FULL CAPABILITY TO CUSTOMER DATA INTO A SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH THAT EVERY RETENTION STRATEGY RUNS ON.
KLAVIYO PROVIDES THE INFRASTRUCTURE. IDLE HANDS WORKSHOP PROVIDES THE STRATEGIC LOGIC AND ARCHITECTURE THAT MAKE IT YOUR MOST PROFITABLE ASSET.
