How Jordana Guimarães Scaled Fashinnovation by Focusing on Building a Solid Community, Brand and then Positioning in the Market for Reputation

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale of Business podcast. My name is Hector Santhe Esteban, and I am your host. Our special guest is Mr. Ryan Paris, and he is the cold call, CEO. He is , the cold call golf godfather, and we are going to talk about that and maybe just sales and growing your business and scaling your business, as always.

[00:00:17] Hector: But Ryan, , thanks for hanging out with us today.

[00:00:19] Ryan: Absolutely great to be here.

[00:00:21] Hector: You help a lot of people, and I'm sure what I love about, , getting to talk with people like you is you, you see a large sample size and, you've been able to apply it to a lot of different industries. But, , I'm curious what, , what were the important stops along the way that sort of, you know, , got you to this point.

[00:00:38] Hector: And then I'd love for you to share a little bit about specifically what you do with your clients today.

[00:00:43] Ryan: Yeah. So, you know, when I first got into this. I was on Fiverr, and we can get more into that writing cold call scripts and doing training, and I thought that I had a couple different ideas about how to go about cold calling that I hadn't been taught, but was discovering through osmosis.

[00:01:02] Ryan: But I also needed to test those in more markets than just the few that I had experience in. So when I was doing consulting and things, people would say, Hey, we like your scripting, your messaging. We also like, your training, but we actually just never, ever want to do these calls. So like, could you do them for us?

[00:01:20] Ryan: And that kind of became this, first of all, it was a hurdle because it's like, oh my gosh, that's not what I signed up for. I wanted to be like the FA consultant who comes in, you pay me five, six figures and then I walk out and everyone's happy and not really do the gritty grindy work of cold calling. For other companies, but I thought in order to be the best, we couldn't just have experience in a couple industries.

[00:01:42] Ryan: Like we really had to learn. I think the way that humans connect through multiple industries and titles, , markets, all sorts of products. And I think that's kind of what brought us to where we are to like be the experts or, you know, it's easy to say self-proclaimed best, but why we would have kind of a.

[00:02:05] Ryan: I like to put our name in that hat because of all those things we learned from all the industries, which is really ends up being a bigger study on how, you know, humans connect in the B2B world from zero to one.

[00:02:16] Hector: Yeah. That's so much of what we do in our world is, you know, media and connecting through content.

[00:02:21] Hector: Mm-hmm. And what I think the, Cold callers, if you will, is like, they're able to create that connection. They're able to create that relate relatability, whether that's through need or desire or whatever, you know, that's really what they're looking to do is that connection is, is required first, , and then a relationship.

[00:02:36] Hector: 'cause oftentimes, you know, these contracts that people are selling, they're, you know, significant investments and, and that usually requires a, deep level of trust.

[00:02:43] Hector: , I'm curious when, people are getting into your space, and we will, we'll, sort of maybe. Dive deeper into the Fiverr thing or you know, kind of how you got started.

[00:02:50] Hector: But I'm curious about the mistakes either that people are making once they get into it and you see them, getting into, you know, business development in this sort of way, or some of the misconceptions that people have about old calling and about the space in general.

[00:03:06] Ryan: I would say that there's, , a lot of client education that goes into what we do, and setting expectation was more like the big lessons that we learned early on because our industry is very jaded.

[00:03:22] Ryan: , There's a lot of people that have a negative stigma, not just against cold calling as a channel, but adding to outsource sales development companies being sleazy, untrustworthy, no credibility, talk a big game, but can't deliver. There's just so much fear versus like, you buy a computer and, , a personal computer and you expect it to work and it generally works if you have issues.

[00:03:48] Ryan: you take it back. It's easy process, , compared to us like they're expecting, , something like chat GPT, but in the nineties or two thousands, like they just have these expectations that are far beyond potentially or just different. And so it's our job. What we've learned as part of our delivery is educating the client on how, , cold calling actually works in the 21st century and.

[00:04:12] Ryan: Undoing a lot of those things before we get into an agreement, because if we don't, then you can find out later how if you didn't talk about it early, they had assumptions, you had different assumptions, and then they clash and it's all about that, journey of cold calling, like forget the relationship.

[00:04:32] Ryan: It's more about where they are along that path of figuring out how it can work. There's so many different variables that are involved from, , the messaging to the target, to the STR training, but probably the biggest blind spot is the one that a lot of our clients are just people and not even our clients, just general market, , doesn't figure out which is the fact that their product or service might not be that relevant for cold calling.

[00:04:59] Ryan: might not resonate as much as they would like. And that has nothing to do with cold calling regardless of who it is, whether you're doing it with outsource company or inbound or in-house, , A good example, right is, , today in 2025, it is no longer, , the newest trend to be a website design company. I remember when we first got started, 2015, 2016, it was a little bit more on the cutting edge. Still. People were still transitioning from Yellow Pages and hard copy directories to building their own website, right?

[00:05:34] Ryan: And then showing up in SEO and things like that. I mean, who, everyone has a website. So imagine me going right now and saying, Hey,, we'd love your customers to find you. How about we get you in the yell, this thing called the Yellow Pages great idea. And you're like, dude, that was 30 years ago.

[00:05:50] Ryan: Where have you been? Right? But if I were to transition the same company as the same capabilities to say, listen, we'd love to have you show up for your customers that are trying to find you in, , GEO searches. This is the new term, right? Generative engine optimization. How are you able to show up in chat, GPT and Gemini and all these other, these machines, but same company, completely different message that resonates with where the audience is.

[00:06:17] Ryan: Does that make sense?

[00:06:18] Hector: Yeah, totally.

[00:06:19] Hector: is there businesses that it's not good for, right? Like if you can't make that adjustment or can't find that adjustment in messaging is there types of either industries or businesses that you say, you know, a different

[00:06:29] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:06:30] Ryan: We ended up making this pyramid called the product residence pyramid. I'm happy to send it to, for anyone that's watching, , we can send a link or whatever, but we kinda made this pyramid that was essentially products or services that, . You know, kind of in current state, and it can change. First we're commodities, right?

[00:06:47] Ryan: Maybe we throw that yellow pages down there, or like CD players, right? Or tape decks. Something that's completely outdated. But right above that is what we consider established businesses. So you think about like it MSP companies, those were really hot 10, 15 years ago. Cybersecurity, things like that, right?

[00:07:05] Ryan: , Commercial insurance, you know, any common business offering that's established industry. And then it could go up from there, right? Like a high value offering would be something kind of higher up that food chain. And maybe that's something a little bit more service-based, a little bit more nuanced.

[00:07:22] Ryan: Maybe it's that web design company, but they work specifically with companies who produce podcasts, and so they have a niche and it's like, oh wow, these guys really actually work with companies like mine. They stand out. And then you can go all the way up to the top, which we considered unique, rare, innovative products or services to the market.

[00:07:41] Ryan: A lot of companies are vying for that, that AI tool or whatever. That's gonna be the next big thing, , for their market. , We have a client of ours that is called The Great Game, and I love using them as an example because they're a digital escape room adventure app. Okay, hang with me here. A digital escape room adventure app for colleges.

[00:08:01] Ryan: Universities and high schools across the country. So imagine a student opens up their phone, they download the Great Game app, and it's like augmented reality in a style of Pokemon Go to learn the campus when they're first, , in orientation there. And it's going gangbusters for cold calling. Like we're getting an appointment every 50 calls or so.

[00:08:20] Ryan: So identifying like where you are, like we're setting that with every caller that we have. But the ones that are more difficult may require more sales skills, more creativity in the way we deliver the messaging. Because it's maybe a saturated marketplace, it's one that everyone has, so it's hard to like knock off their current systems since they're already in motion.

[00:08:42] Hector: I'd love to get into some of the specifics. 'cause you talked about messaging and you talked about, you know, offer those I think are, valuable. But you said something before about, you know, what cold calling in 2025 looks like.

[00:08:54] Yeah.

[00:08:54] Hector: I'll just juxtapose it with, I think, you know, I. have a unique, , I don't know if it's advantage or whatever, but my first, , job at a high school was in, was in sales, and it was in 2009 where we were still making phone calls, you know? Yeah. Like social media wasn't a thing. We were still dialing the phone.

[00:09:10] Hector: Right. And so I, I have one idea of it. Some people think it looks like the Wolf of Wall Street, where people are, you know, in a call center, you know? Yeah. Boiler room sort of stuff. but what does, , modern day, you know, 20, 25 old calling actually look like?

[00:09:23] Ryan: Yeah, I mean I think the setting changed physically, right?

[00:09:26] Ryan: Like most of us are remote. You don't see those, those rooms as much anymore. There are still some after COVID that have been brought back, but I don't even think it's necessarily about that. I mean, the tech is, probably the one thing that's changed. You know, we have a lot of tools that are integrating other channels within the platform.

[00:09:43] Ryan: You know, take just simple example of Apollo. You can build a list within the platform, call and email. Altogether within, you know, five, 10 minutes you can opt, you know, find a target list, set it up and start calling and emailing right from there. And so I think technology's changed. , So you have all these different types of dialers.

[00:10:04] Ryan: It's not that dialers have been completely different in the last 10 or 15 years, but you have like manual all the way up to power. Or auto dial. Okay. So sequential dials, but automatically calling the next one once you're done with one, and then up to predictive dialers where they're calling five or six at one time.

[00:10:22] Ryan: And so whoever answers they, you know, they, , talk to that person, but then the other five are hung up on, you know, as well as agent assisted or, , you know, there's all sorts of other little nuances to that, but, you know, some of those things are like the technology and, and how we're going about it. Tech.

[00:10:39] Ryan: But, , I also think that conversation has changed a little bit. I don't think it's as fast. The messaging and the way we speak to people doesn't evolve as much as say, like email. Right. I mean, I remember when we first got started, 10 or 15 years ago, you would do like an email letter, you know, and have a letterhead and he'd say, you write this professional introduction, white paper.

[00:11:01] Ryan: Right? But, and then people started getting. The hang of that, and you know how it is with email, it just, the volume increased so much that everyone got inundated. So it went from a full paper to 250 words down to 150 to 75, and then now it's like a one-liner or a text, and then add in personalization or personalized relevance.

[00:11:22] Ryan: So when it comes to cold calling it, it's back to that, the conversation's changed a little bit. , Maybe not as aggressive, assertive, but not aggressive, , being okay with other types of dispositions other than the appointments. , Getting away from pay by appointment models with cold calling. So there's a lot of different things that have changed, but hopefully that helps.

[00:11:44] Ryan: Name a few in a couple examples.

[00:11:46] Hector: Yeah, I think it just, it should open up people's mind to, Layering what, possible with technology. Yeah. I think, , obviously ai and I'd love to get your opinion on that in a little bit, but, , that's changed the thing. But even before that, just the, scale and the volume at which you can do, I think a lot of people don't realize, , and maybe people will get freaked out by it, but how, you know, easily you can get people's contact, you know, info.

[00:12:09] Hector: Oh, yeah. And, and now with today's automation tools, you know, put it into some sort of sequence that just. It just goes. And so my brain is, is turning. when we get back from break, , I'd love to see if there's anything more on the, you know, system or the tool side that you think is relevant, but I'm really curious 'cause it seems like so much of the value that you bring is in the messaging, helping, you know, create , that really, that desire that, , sees, you know, one in 50 that, you know, gives them the need to, you know, want to book a call.

[00:12:35] Hector: And so we're gonna get into that, uh, , right off this quick break.

[00:12:40] Hector: Hey, y'all, today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast and content production company.

[00:12:44] Hector: Well, I actually like to think of ourselves as the, fractional media part of your company because are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, some sort of service that you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able to do it well.

[00:12:57] Hector: If that's the case, we can help. To.

[00:13:06] Hector: So, Ryan, I'll let you choose. , I've read my first, , lit, RPG. I'm right in the middle of, actually, I'm, I'm, I'm in my middle of my second one. And so it's like, choose your own adventure back, , when we were young. Uhhuh and I, and I'll let you dictate , where this goes. 'cause I'm, I'm curious if you think that there's more to talk about in the systems and the methodology of what you guys do or if you think that so much of the secret sauce is really in the messaging and how you position what it is that you guys are selling.

[00:13:31] Ryan: I would say that latter part there for sure. , I would go in that direction because I think it's a lot easier to talk about tech and systems and automations that can help us and also blaming it on our quality of our campaign on the list. And I need a better, may need better data. I need.

[00:13:55] Ryan: Better titles. , I need those types of parts that are truly important, but I don't think salespeople realize the lack of education they have and how cold calling works, to produce the type of quality that's taken us years for us to see, and then we continue to improve upon. I think people assume that because they have the gift of gab.

[00:14:20] Ryan: Not only can they set appointments, but that they can scale it or teach other people their style. They assume it's just gonna work if they do. Exactly. As they, as they do.

[00:14:30] Hector: And when you're looking at a, a company's messaging and you're, you know, if you're gonna take over, are there certain things that you're looking to see, you know, obviously product market fit is gonna be a huge thing, but once it's there, are there, is there a checklist or is there sort of some, a diagnostic that you sort of look at and, what might be some of those elements that business owners can look to dial in?

[00:14:52] Ryan: So we look at cold calling from what we consider the four elements of cold call success model. So we train our account strategists on it and they're the, anything that you can consider a variable within cold calling specifically fall under these four variables, which are one, like I've mentioned before, product relevance, probably the biggest mover out of the four.

[00:15:16] Ryan: , Because what we've seen is more product relevance, the easier it is for people who aren't as skilled at cold calling to have success with it, which means it's very product forward. , Another one is, , target market accuracy. How, well, not only the industries are targeted, but how good the data is.

[00:15:35] Ryan: So to those folks who are data heavy, it's important. Number three is messaging strength. How well that product relevance is then wordsmithed in a way that resonates with the audience that you're talking to, and that's a factor. And then lastly is SDR fit, how well they're trained, how well that dialect accent can hurt or help a marketplace.

[00:15:59] Ryan: , The personality type, are they more direct, kind of that Mid-Atlantic northeast direct approach or more of a southern draw, or softer style, more passive. , All those things matter. So. Those are the kind of the four things to think about when you're kind of developing a, campaign.

[00:16:15] Hector: Yeah. I would imagine that a lot of our a lot of our listeners are pretty, they, you know, established in and sort of what they sell.

[00:16:23] Hector: , But what I'm hearing is that how they're packaging and, and how they're presenting it. Could actually make a huge difference, , especially if they're in some of these industries that, you know, are lower on that, pyramid. I would imagine that, you know, you, you're not gonna tell every business owner to get out of business and, you know, change industries, but that there is some value in the, packaging and how you're presenting, , to create this connection, this desire.

[00:16:48] Ryan: Yeah. So what we do is we kind of help identify where they are, starting on that pyramid. Then we just know what we have to do from there. Do we have to really, really package the, , the messaging, first of all, can we bring them up in the scale? What are things about your service that help? And sometimes it takes some layers to get through.

[00:17:06] Ryan: For instance, like, it doesn't mean you have to have the next iPhone or chat GPT or whatever, right? Like you could simply have some customers that we didn't know about that would be worth saying in the first line or two. Like if you've worked with bigger companies or recognizable in your industry, then that can raise the value of what you're doing because it's all about cold calling's, about building trust in the product.

[00:17:31] Ryan: You know, people that's calling and the process. So if you can build trust in the product through accolade, you don't have to have the next iPhone. You don't have to change who you are.

[00:17:42] Hector: Yeah. And some people aren't, aren't highlighting the, things that are already there that are really gonna get someone to, to get you to the next point.

[00:17:50] Hector: Because I think that, like, one thing that I learned is it's sort of, okay, get the appointment. If you can get the appointment, then you can, you know, you can sell there. Like it's about getting them to the next place. And so if you can, if this sort of thing gets you 5, 10, 15 more seconds of time, , why wouldn't you highlight that?

[00:18:04] Hector: If it's something that, that you've already done these things. Already have attributed to,

[00:18:08] Ryan: and that's right. I think we say that there's three main objectives to a cold call. One is to, yes, sell the next step, but first, so sell the next step of no meeting. But first you have to spark interest in the product or service you're offering so that they actually show up to the thing.

[00:18:24] Ryan: it's one thing to get someone forced into a meeting, which is a lot of reasons why we get these pay by performance people who have used pay by performance companies come to us because. The companies that they were using, they were getting paid and feeding their family only if they got a meeting, you know, on a calendar.

[00:18:41] Ryan: So you better believe they got meetings on a calendar, whether or not those prospects knew why they were there, , were forced to that call or felt guilty because they knew that the only way they were gonna get that person that called was gonna get paid is if they showed up right. They still came to the meeting, but it was not of quality.

[00:18:59] Ryan: They didn't know what the product was. There was no like anticipation and thought between those two times, which is which is an important moment. so the value of what you're saying is important and it's the more that you can lean into that and have a conversation that's back and forth and asking questions, opening up doors, parts of your mind that you didn't think about, and it creates questions and curiosity and overall interests.

[00:19:22] Ryan: that can be what gets people to actually show up later. The third thing, right? We said sparking interest, selling next step, but then also what we consider diffusing the salesperson's stigma. So that's more or less like, , not making it feel like a sales call. We don't mind that it is a sales call.

[00:19:39] Ryan: We just don't want it to feel like you're being pushed into something.

[00:19:43] Hector: Yeah. I, I call it the timeshare effect, right? Mm-hmm. It's like every, you know. want it to feel like, that you should, sales process shouldn't, shouldn't feel like, , they're being forced to it. Couple more questions. one thing I do just want to get your opinion on is, you know, AI and the state of where, where we're at here, you know, someone who has sort of a top a high level perspective of, you know, your industry.

[00:20:04] Hector: What are some things that are coming down the pipe or, or that people should know about with regards to either what's possible or what's happening or, you know, I'll let you kind of. Take it wherever you want there.

[00:20:14] Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna say and say there's no risk at all. I think there is risk to our industry.

[00:20:19] Ryan: There's like a slight thread of the ability for, AI chatbots or AI agents to be able to have full on conversations and set up meetings. And I think it's already happening in some industries. I would say more B2C, you know, simplified. Limited conversations, maybe just about like scheduling and things, but actual, conversations of value that are , either nuanced or they're, , require a level of, , emotional intelligence to deliver on a call.

[00:20:53] Ryan: Those are gonna be harder and down the pike quite a bit. We haven't really seen any competition from AI agents. Actually, one person said, we're gonna try AI agents maybe like a few weeks ago or something. We lost one, our first one, so it was happening, but it's pretty rare that we've really come across that.

[00:21:13] Ryan: So I think it's just gonna be a slower build to that. The other side of the issue though, isn't so much that right now and. Before I get into the second part, sticking on AI agents. I think that the other part of it that's, that make, it's making it a little difficult for AI is some of the laws around it, like the AI has to say, at least in B2C telemarketing law, it has to say that it's ai.

[00:21:37] Ryan: Would you like to go forward? Essentially, it has to be like opt in, right? So that doesn't, it doesn't make give you an advantage if you're a robot, you know? Yeah. Unless people are like, yeah, I'd like to hear what they, you know, they're just like, curious about product. , So that's a hard part for them to get through, and I, we haven't really faced anything yet.

[00:21:56] Hector: Yeah. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.

[00:21:59] Ryan: Yeah. The other part of it though, is more of like, I don't know if you've heard about the iOS 26 update where the mobile phones are screening a little bit more intelligently than they have in the past. So you can have a setting on like your iPhone that is basically like screening the call and talking to you, right?

[00:22:19] Ryan: Or me who's calling, and it leaves kind of like a subject line on the text, you know, on the screen for the iPhone user and they see if they wanna pick up the phone so they're reading and not listening to what, who you are having those first few seconds sometimes. , Now we've only seen that like we did a study of all of our mobile numbers and other numbers, and we've seen that in August, I think it was all of the leads that we had set out of all the leads that we had set, for that month for all of our clients.

[00:22:51] Ryan: I think it was like, , 25% were mobile numbers. 75% were company or direct numbers. And then of those 25%, half of them or so were, , iPhone. So let's just say 12, 13% or around there were actually iPhones that people set leads from. So it's a little bit on the lower side of actually how many are mobile numbers in business from the ones that we called.

[00:23:18] Ryan: . It's a different part of the conversation you probably weren't expecting, but it's still an AI feature on phones that could potentially have an issue, especially predictive dialers. Those are gonna be dead in the water for calling iPhones.

[00:23:32] Hector: Yeah. I think that there's gonna be a lot of, , a lot of change and, , , the regulation and, and some of these things.

[00:23:37] Hector: Yeah. , just today or yesterday chat, GPT said that they weren't going to give, , legal or health advice.

[00:23:44] Ryan: I saw that. Yeah.

[00:23:46] Hector: What I didn't realize is that they, and it's probably true, is that , the lobbyists, you know, were, were big on there making sure that, those companies, you know, didn't get, , gassed out.

[00:23:56] Hector: has been fantastic and, , I want to be mindful and gracious of your time. Ryan, I have two questions left. The first is you have a lot of different ways that people can get involved with you. You've got a book, you've got a ton of information, education out there, and then, , some ways that people can, .

[00:24:10] Hector: Go and work with you directly. Where's the best place for people to go if they want to get more involved or go deeper in your world.

[00:24:16] Ryan: There's three places and hopefully we can provide them here for y'all, but the H to h method.com, the H, the number two h method.com. That's our philosophy, strategy, values, frameworks on how we go about cold calling of the 21st century, and our entire team at superhuman.

[00:24:36] Ryan: Follows that method and has good success with setting up meetings. I'll kind of share some places you can hear our team, but that's a place you can get the book. You can, there's a course on cold calling. All our team members have to take that we offer to the public. There's some cold call education on our five frameworks.

[00:24:51] Ryan: So think of it as the strategic templates that we use and you can input product service knowledge in there. We have an AI script tool called, um,, suede. So it was built with the power of. Ai, but combined with our methodology. So when you're writing scripts, it considers the methodology within it, , and creates a, , a scripting kind of platform for you instead of having to just use Google Docs or something.

[00:25:15] Ryan: , Also superhuman prospecting.com. That's our premium outsourced SDR service. We do list building, calling and emailing with all USA based team members. , You know, do compliant dials. We're doing just manual dials right now, but we're gonna be doing compliant auto dials next year. , also we do quick cold calls, so this is kind of a bite-sized cold calling service.

[00:25:35] Ryan: If you're a small business or an AE even. And you wanna try out an alternative to say freelancers, , that's a great option as well. It's the same call team. Streamline service.

[00:25:44] Hector: Yeah. We'll, put all those in the show notes for you guys. , Last question for you, Ryan. In your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:25:51] Ryan: I would say first of all, believing and knowing, and also believing that you have a product that's gonna impact people positively and having a manifesto behind that product. because I think early on, and as you grow, you'll have deep roots in when things get tough, , as to why you're doing this.

[00:26:10] Ryan: And I think it has to do with why you're, why the product itself. The next would be, I would say, good process and ensuring that there's efficiencies that are effective that don't take up a lot of your time or a lot of your team members' time. And that's key. You don't wanna just shove off tasks to someone when you wanna really create a replica of yourself and someone who's thinking the same way you are.

[00:26:34] Ryan: Which leads to the third one, which is people on the bus. So. The Jim Collins adage around putting the right people on the bus to operate those processes, and that takes time as well.