94% Client Retention and Zero Ad Spend: How Chad Bauer Runs a 60-Year-Old Agency

Most agencies lose clients in 18 to 24 months. Chad Bauer's clients stick around for decades.
Chad is the president and owner of SR&B Advertising, a Maryland agency founded in 1964 that he acquired from his father and transformed from a traditional ad shop into a modern growth and performance marketing firm. The numbers speak for themselves: 94% client retention, 20% year-over-year revenue growth, and not a single dollar ever spent on self-promotion. Every client has come through referrals.
In this episode, Chad and Aspen get into what it actually takes to inherit a business without coasting on it, and why the shift from owner-operator to actual leader is where most founders get stuck.
In this episode:

• Why inheriting a business can be harder than starting one from scratch
• Time blocking, calendar discipline, and the Claude "CEO daily brief" skill Chad built to prep for every day
• The switch from ChatGPT to Claude and where each AI tool actually earns its place
• The Monday.com onboarding mistake that cost him seven years of institutional knowledge (and how to avoid it)
• Taking over from his dad: what he kept, what he changed, and handling "that's not how your dad did it"
• The four-meeting playbook that built accountability into the team without micromanaging
• Why he says "we're not in marketing, we're in the relationship business"
• The secret to 94% retention: defining success before the contract is signed and communicating before clients have to ask
• Why picking up the phone is the most under-utilized tool in business
• Buying tech for where your business is now, not where it might be in five years
• The productivity advice Chad gives everyone but doesn't follow himself

Connect with Aspen:

• Take the free Business Dependency Audit and find out exactly where your business depends too much on you: ⁠Click Here⁠
• Grab the $17 Business Relief Toolkit, checklists that help you fix it: ⁠Click Here⁠
• Follow along on Instagram for behind-the-scenes: ⁠Instagram⁠
• Tools I actually use: ⁠ClickUp⁠
• Questions? DM me or email ⁠mentor@aspenpeggs.com⁠

Connect with Chad:

• SRB Advertising: ⁠⁠Click Here⁠⁠
• Chad on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠Click Here⁠

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