In this solo weekly update (day 3), Ryan Shank of PhoneWagon announces that version 1 of their new platform is slated for release within the week, expressing excitement about delivering it to users for feedback. He then shifts to a deep dive on funnels, using everyday examples like hiring and dating to illustrate how leads move through stages. The core focus is the phone‑call sales funnel: incoming leads become phone calls, a portion of those are scheduled for appointments, a subset of appointments actually show up, and finally a fraction close into paying customers. Ryan provides rough benchmark percentages (e.g., ~60% of calls schedule, ~50% of scheduled appointments show, yielding ~30% of total leads reaching the appointment stage) and explains how improving conversion rates at any stage—such as increasing appointment‑set rates or show‑up rates—can dramatically boost revenue without additional marketing spend. He emphasizes the importance of building value in the call, differentiating from cheaper competitors, and converting “tire‑kickers” into customers. The update ends with a brief personal note about discovering a Blue Bottle Coffee shop near the office and a friendly sign‑off.
Chapters
What up guys, it's Ryan from PhoneWagon. Wanna wish you guys a happy Wednesday, and today is going to be day 3 of our weekly updates, okay? So, um, just wanna give you an update on what's going on. So we should have, uh, version 1 of the new platform out this week. I just talked to, uh, my lead developer and he gave me a timeline and we're super, super excited about that. So I can't wait to get that into your guys' hands, get your feedback, and I think it's a huge improvement over what's going on now. Um, the second thing I wanna talk to you guys about, are funnels. Okay, I've been thinking a lot about funnels recently, and obviously every— most things in life are some sort of funnel, right? Even whether hiring, okay, you have to put your job application out there or the job requirements out there. You get a bunch of candidates that are going to come in. You start talking to the candidates. A certain amount of people will make it into an interview, then final interview. Then you'll have— you'll send out offer letters, and then of the offer letters, you'll convert, say, one person if you're hiring just for one role, or a couple people if you're hiring for a couple roles. So that whole thing is a funnel. Even to dating, right? You're going to talk to a lot of people and you're going to see which ones are good fits. Then you're going to take one out to dinner or something and then you're going to convert maybe one, maybe two, depending on what you believe in or whatever. And that's a funnel as well. So the other thing that I've been thinking about recently as it relates to phone calls, because this is PhoneWagon— by the way, just found a blue Blue Bottle Coffee about 3 blocks from the office, and it's also day 3 of Blue Bottle Coffee, so I'm really excited about that. Anyway, so yeah, so phone call, the phone call funnel and why that is so important, and I've been thinking about it a lot recently is because a lot of times you're going to get phone leads that are going to come in, right, and they're going to be people asking you questions. Yeah, you might think that they're tire kickers, but look, they're in your service, most of the time they're in your service area, they're looking for a service that you provide, they're the decision maker, they're calling you up and they're on the phone and they're asking asking Ryan questions. That's a pretty good lead. It's kind of up to you to sort of build the value, sell yourself, sell your services, tell them why it makes sense. Even if you aren't the cheapest solution out there, tell them why you're not the cheapest solution, why they probably want to pay up, right? There could be a bunch of other guys doing the same thing, but look, they're not licensed, they're not bonded, they're not insured. If you're in a building, the building might not even let them come in because there's too much risk if they don't have the proper insurance and things like that. So there are ways to convert those tier kickers into paying customers. It just depends on the conversation that you have and the value that you build in that conversation. But back to funnels, you know, and that's going to help you actually improve certain metrics inside of your funnel because you're going to have your leads at the very top of the funnel. Then I'm talking about phone calls right now. Leads at the very top, just phone calls at the very top. Then you're going to have people that you're going to want to schedule to an appointment. That's going to be a certain percentage. Maybe it's 60% of the total phone calls get scheduled into an appointment. Of the ones that get scheduled into an appointment, Not all of them are going to show up. Some of them are going to reschedule. You're going to go back and forth. So of the 60 that get scheduled, call it 50% are actually going to show up for the appointment. It's probably going to be a little bit higher, but let's just say 50%. So now we're already at a net of 30% of the total leads in the funnel. And then of the, of the net 30, so of the 50% of the 60% that, that actually show up for the appointment, depending on, you know, the service that you provide, sometimes it might be a longer sales cycle if you're building a brand new house, right? They might have— there might be financing contingencies or they might be subject to other things that are going to drag it on a little bit. But If it's a plumbing, you know, an emergency plumbing fix, they might say yes, absolutely. They'll pull the trigger right then and what we call a one-call close. So that's a funnel. I want you to start just thinking about your own funnel and really start to pay attention to what your metrics are. And the second part is once you know your current funnel, it's going to be to optimize the different places in that funnel. Because look, if you can make improvements at the number of consultations set, the number of demos that are set, If you can make an improvement there, then you can make another improvement of 50% that show, you can make to take that to 70%, okay? And if you take your close rate from, you know, 50% or whatever I said, bring that to 70%, all of these gains are huge for your business and that's without spending any additional money on marketing, okay? That's just improving your funnel and the different places of your funnel. So I want you to think about that. I like funnels, I like Blue Bottle Coffee. I will see you guys tomorrow. Have an awesome Wednesday.
