In this conversational vlog, Ryan Shank discusses a sales call with a Techstars mentor named Todd, focusing on how their call‑tracking solution differs from Google’s offering by providing call recording, quality scoring, and detailed company‑level data. Ryan explains the strategic use of a daily behind‑the‑scenes vlog to build brand authenticity, which he says helps move prospects through the middle and bottom of the funnel even if it doesn’t drive top‑of‑funnel discovery. He outlines the need to evolve their sales pitch toward a data‑driven, social‑proof approach, addressing issues like poor lead‑list quality, high cost‑per‑call, and inaccurate tracking that hampers inbound lead generation despite spending thousands on Google Ads and Facebook. Ryan also critiques their website’s reliance on a free‑trial CTA, noting that agencies need stronger persuasion before committing. Overall, the vlog captures operational challenges, marketing tactics, and plans to improve sales effectiveness and tracking accuracy.
Chapters
No, you're supposed to say it's not my last day on the wagon. You're just like, you're just gonna be on a different wagon for a little bit. My name is DJ Ryroy. Huh? Who was that? That was Todd. He's a Techstars mentor. He owns a company called— I'm gonna send you a follow-up email with some more information. He has like 100 agents. He said one of his big clients right now is like— biggest national flooring company that most of their leads are phone calls. He was just like saying, he was trying to figure out the difference between like, he's like, what do you guys do that like Google, the Google call thing, call tracking doesn't do? 'Cause he only is doing like Google stuff for them. Give him that good, good sales pitch. I was like, you know, we do, we can record the calls. He wants, they want, and he wants because they want someone to like basically listen to their calls and mark the calls as good or bad. You add them, you're gonna wanna then select the company on the left side. So anytime you have this selected over here, all the data in the account is gonna roll up under that company like that right there. Okay, cool. Yeah, thanks, I really appreciate you jumping on the call. I know I just kinda like reached out, but obviously I'm in the, I guess super deep now in the like marketing, kind of working with a lot of like PPC agencies and marketers, so I figured it'd be really good to connect with you. I mean, I always like believed it from a, consumption standpoint, because I was like, I consume content and I feel like attached to these brands. Like, there's brands— I don't know if you're familiar with Groove, the like help desk software— but they have an amazing— yeah, they have an amazing blog. I feel like I've been following them for a while, and it's like, from— but then on the content creation side, it's like cool to see creating content and people like actually— because then the thing is, I feel like they like feel connected to you through the content, you know? They feel like, oh, I like have been following this person, or like transparent, like they feel like they know you. It's kind of cool until it gets creepy. Yeah, that— so we actually started, um, about 4 40 days ago now, we do like a daily vlog, kind of like a GaryVee but less like hustle, more of like behind the scenes, 'cause we're going through Techstars and stuff, so people I think are now like, oh, we follow, you know, they are literally like behind the scenes following along the story, so they're feeling, and it's not really helping us necessarily top of funnel, but it's definitely helping like middle to bottom of the funnel, like they don't discover us through it, but then they'll discover us through something else, and then they'll see it, and then they'll be like, oh, you guys are like real people, plus you're going after it every single day, and then it's, I think, helping convert, and then also retain, 'cause I feel like people will, more likely to stick with you if there's like a bump in the road because you're like a person and not just this random vendor that they bought online, you know. Okay, awesome. Um, yeah, well, thanks again for jumping on a call. I'll probably ping you for something. Um, all right, thanks a lot. Take care. All right, bye. Where did it go? It went really well. It was actually good. Where did this guy just sign up from? Yeah, actually it's funny, that's how we got into call tracking is because we almost, at our last company, we almost fired the last agent we worked with because their cost per call was too high. To be as detailed and long as this page, I do want it to be as short and concise. Boom, keys converted. Not playing games, Kane. I'm not playing neither am I. Oh yeah, that's right, I was gonna talk to you guys about it, I got distracted, customers. The Wagoneers, the Wagoneers. Today's your last day on the wagon, huh? No, you're supposed to say it's not my last day on the wagon, you're just like, you're just gonna be on a different wagon for a little bit. But like, I'm just wondering if that's the case again, or it's obviously like lead list, or like the lead list was like, doesn't have the correct contact. Like, you know, it's like, do we, should we like scrape the numbers better, cross-reference to get additional numbers to do it, you know? And I think that's where we'll probably evolve our pitch and like our presentation into more like data-driven stuff, social proof, like stop guessing your way through it. Cool. Just like zooming out, I mean, high level, I think we're doing like a pretty good job right now. Again, I want to step on to gas in terms of like increase the sales stuff, but then I also want to increase the marketing stuff. Tracking keeps getting fucked up and I feel like we're not getting a lot of leads, but I'm putting a fire under their ass this week. So that's like what's happening with that because it's like I feel like we should be getting so much more inbound stuff. We're spending like thousands of dollars a month on like on AdWords, which is all, neither Ryan mentioned that, but on Facebook stuff. And it's like I feel like we should be getting like literally anything. Today we got 2 leads from it, which was like finally. Like, again, I think our website, we need to fix a lot of this stuff because right now it's pretty much only free trial call to actions, whereas like, I think a free trial, especially for agencies, is like a big ask, especially if they're shopping it. It's like if they come to us, they're probably shopping us.
