Bryan Shankman: Turning Website Visitors into Paying Customers

Kyle James (00:01.064) Hey, welcome to the AI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Kyle James. Today we're going to be diving in headfirst to how a AI powered lead capture software development company called Lead Truffle is using AI inside of their own business. And we'll share the exact steps that you can use in order to implement AI for yourself. Before I dive into that, listen closely. Are you looking to implement AI inside of your own company or just struggling to get your AI to stop hallucinating? Speak to GPT trainer. GPT trainer literally builds out and manages your AI agent for you, eliminating hallucinations for good. Go to gpt-trainer.com. I promise you it'll be the biggest time saving decision that you've made all year. Trying to set up AI on your own is like trying to build a house from scratch. Sure, you could do it, but the time and frustration that's going to take you to get it finished just isn't worth it. It's a thousand times faster and safer to hire professionals. Scheduled consultation today, once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Today I have with me Brian Shakeman, the CEO and co-founder of Leigh Truffle. Leigh Truffle helps local businesses turn website visitors into phone calls, into paying customers with 24-7 AI texting and voice. Hey Brian, welcome to the show. Bryan Shankman (01:20.151) Kyle, thanks so much for having me. Kyle James (01:22.46) They're super thrilled about this conversation today. So give us the breakdown, like how did Elite Truffle start and like what exactly do you do? Like give us the full layout for everyone listening in. Bryan Shankman (01:23.937) Yeah. Bryan Shankman (01:31.308) Yeah, 100%. So Lee Truffle was a pivot out of a different company. For those that aren't familiar, local business typically encapsulates a lot of different things, but we started in the home services space. So think roofers, pest control, anyone that's going to come to your house and conduct a service. HVAC plumbing all that. And so we started in that space and we built a plugin for a big CRM in the space called Jobber and learned a lot of challenges around platform risk and being tied to just one CRM. Didn't have any AI in that platform. It was more of a traditional SMS and email marketing automation tool, but learned a lot around website conversion, how important the phone is for local businesses. And that led us into pivoting to Lead Truffle, which we officially launched in like January. So about five or six months ago. We recently went through an accelerator called Tiny Seed. If you're familiar with Rob Walling and MycoConf, it's a whole ecosystem where they do a startup accelerator. And really the core of the product is, like you said, local businesses really have two core channels through which they get new customers. Number one is their website, which is getting traffic from Google and Facebook and all these disparate channels. And then the phone is super important. So we give local businesses AI tools specifically for texting and for the phone so they can convert more more of that traffic into paying customers. Kyle James (02:52.052) Wow. I mean, like I would imagine like with local businesses too, like that's the phone calls and then even the text messages, like I think the text message open rates, like something like 95%, you know what mean? And like, and then even still like when a phone call comes through to business, depending on what type of business they're doing, like it might, they may not be available or it might go to voicemail. And if they don't answer, they might call someone else. and I know that, so obviously you guys are using AI over at Lee truffle. Bryan Shankman (03:02.475) Yes, sir. Kyle James (03:19.356) think it's fantastic what you guys are doing, before we dive more into that, why did you decide to start using AI in the first place? And what kind of challenges were you trying to solve with AI? Bryan Shankman (03:30.921) Yeah, I don't mean this to be pithy or trite, but it's like, when did you start trying to use a computer? know, like, like what it's like saying, why'd you start using a spreadsheet? Like, yeah, you could definitely balance your books on paper. But like, why would you why would you ever do that? You know, like, do you value your time and sanity? So it's almost and I think I'm in a bubble. I'm a founder of an AI company and Kyle James (03:37.308) Yeah. Kyle James (03:46.95) Yeah, why would you? Kyle James (03:56.914) Dude, please bubble, all right? Bryan Shankman (03:57.758) Yeah, no, I've always been very tech centric, but it's like, how are you not using AI? I mean, it's just so obvious, like how helpful it is in so many ways, both personally. I have a young daughter, I have a dog, I'm living in a single family home here in Austin for the first time that comes up. A lot of questions and challenges come up and it's like. Kyle James (04:04.06) Yeah. Bryan Shankman (04:19.464) All of these life things used to like for my entire childhood and adolescence and twenties, was like, just go to Google for it. And now I just like chat GPT, like, do I need to pay ahead of time to check the stroller for the flight Friday? And then chat GPT like just knows the answer. And so it's like the answer to your question is like, I just started using AI because it was just so obviously helpful. Kyle James (04:25.256) Mm-hmm. Kyle James (04:32.966) Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Bryan Shankman (04:41.312) For me personally, and then business wise, I could talk about a million different use cases for AI, but it just makes things that used to take weeks, take days or even hours, especially the really routine rote repetitive data entry tasks, pulling in data from source a combining it with source B analyzing that data to answer questions you may have. It's just this amazingly powerful, flexible and helpful tool. So I started using it just because it was so obviously beneficial to me personally and professionally. Kyle James (05:10.715) Yeah. Yeah. And so like talking about the AI, mean, like, you know, cause there's so many, especially local businesses, right? Like they're just trying to get to that font, you know, that next dollar, that next sale, the next revenue for like, how, was a daily sales for the day? Right. Like they're not looking at AI. They're not probably diving in deep, like many of us are, but like, what, are some of the things that like one you're doing on the backend for the clients, right. Or for your people they're working with and also like Are your clients, right? The small businesses, are they dabbling at all? Are you teaching them about AI? Like what exactly is the difference between kind of the two options there? Bryan Shankman (05:44.936) Yeah. So I think in a lot of ways we're in this really interesting moment in time here in June of 2025, where AI I think is clearly here to stay, but it's still extremely nascent. And so a lot of business owners know that they should be leveraging AI, but you know, if you're a guy who's been running an HVAC company for 20 years, like you may have just come around to the idea that you need a website in the CRM and now there's this, you know, new scary thing called AI. So in a lot of ways, I do think what we're doing is not terribly revolutionary. Like we're doing some helpful things for these, these Kyle James (06:06.002) Mmm. Bryan Shankman (06:14.782) around the power of these tools. And so to answer your question, a lot of times the business owners we talk to, I say fall into two categories. One of them are like AI super users and they're very familiar with AI and we talk about which models we're using and they have all these prompts written for Chad GPT. And they're really excited to see us bringing an application layer to their business. And then I'd say the other bucket is like the people who know that AI is important, but haven't really, Kyle James (06:34.019) Mm-hmm. Bryan Shankman (06:43.733) crystallized how they can use it to impact their business. And then we come along and like, this makes sense. So you're saying if someone's on my website, I can have AI texts back and forth with them and see what they need help with and then book the job. So I'll say those are the two core buckets we see. Kyle James (06:57.226) Yeah. Was it, was it like when you first founded Lee Truffle, like was AI already in the core of that when you, when you founded it or was it like, along the way we decided to go ahead and implement it. Bryan Shankman (07:07.625) No, no. we, you know, frankly, we were doing the other company called Tool Desk all through 24 and then around December of 24 decided to pivot for a couple of reasons. And we sat down and said, like, what do we know from this market? What are the challenges? And truly one of the key priorities was to make it an AI first company because just the time we're in, right. It's so new. It's so revolutionary. There is so many new use cases. And so to not build an AI first company felt silly at the time. So like, how can we help? Kyle James (07:26.44) Mmm. Bryan Shankman (07:37.72) these local business owners leverage AI in a way that has a meaningful impact on their business. So yeah, 100 % from day one of Leech Raffle was like, how do we make this AI first? Kyle James (07:48.508) Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about, you mentioned like the phone calls coming in and like the text messaging back and forth. I think you even said it, like it's kind of texting back and forth with some of the website visitors. Like what exactly is happening between the business owner, right? Who's got a lead, a website visitor or they're texting, right? Like how does that convert over into like a qualified lead into like, Hey, this actually can turn into a customer that pays money to the business. Bryan Shankman (08:13.626) Yeah. So we're basically using AI across two core channels. Both are phone related, but one of them is text message, literally SMS on your phone. And the other is live phone calls. And in both cases, those are existing mediums that people have been using for decades at this point, or in the case of the phone, like over a hundred years. but thanks to open AI and Gemini, it's relatively easy and cheap to connect AI into those systems. And yeah, so the just very common mechanic is I'm on the website of Grotto Client. And there's a little widget that pops up and it says, do you want an answer to your question immediately? We'll text you right now. Give us your phone number. The potential customer provides their phone number to the business and then AI, the new technology we're here talking about is good at having a conversation. You used to be able to do conversational marketing. you remember like drift and intercom and a lot of these solutions had that, but it was very rigid. was very keyword based, right? If the reply contains this key word, Kyle James (09:06.6) Sure, yeah. Kyle James (09:12.424) Mm-hmm. Bryan Shankman (09:13.328) word, then do this. If the reply contains that keyword, then do that. The beauty of AI is it can read what the person's saying and respond in a very thoughtful, thoughtful way. So yeah, the AI is just having a conversation and figuring out what that person needs, moving them through the funnel. And then every business is different. For some people it's cool. Come in and book your free trial at the gym or, we'll have a tech out to service your AC tomorrow. Kyle James (09:34.477) So, so it's almost like based on the type of business that like is using, right. Or has a website and it's like wants to use the AI. Like you can, you can almost tailor that to be like, okay, what do want it to be like? Well, cause once you get that cell phone number and it's texting, that's a, that's a lead and it's like, okay, what's the next step from there? Like, it going, are you trying to push them towards, Hey, let's book a time or Hey, let's, let's have you schedule a gym, you know, touring in the, the facility. Is that typically what you see like it's kind of doing with each business or is it very Bryan Shankman (10:05.213) Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely. So I know we have AI junkies here in your audience. So I think they'll resonate with this. We have like two core prompts. We have the system prompt and the user prompt. And so the system prompt is the same across our entire customer set. And it's basically giving the AI general instructions. Hey, you are effectively a sales rep or customer service rep for this local business. You're going to be getting inquiries from newer existing customers. The people may have questions. Your job is to answer all the questions that Kyle James (10:10.744) Yeah, a few of them, just a few. Bryan Shankman (10:35.867) that are asked in a thoughtful manner and move the lead through the sale cycle from initial inquiry to whatever that next step is. So that's the system prompt. That's the same across every single account. And then within Lead Truffle itself, there's the user prompt where the business owner can give more explicit instructions as to what it wants the AI to do, as well as there's contextual knowledge around the company, their pricing, their services, et cetera. And so each Lead Truffle agent is quite They're similar in the fact that they're moving a lead typically from like stage A to B, C, D, but then the literal questions asked and all the information that's provided to the lead is quite different. Kyle James (11:16.184) What types of, you know, for some bringing on a couple of different clients and imagine different, different industries for the local businesses. What types of results have you are really you and also maybe your clients have been seeing since implementing some of the application with, with lead truffle. Bryan Shankman (11:34.202) Yeah, we're about revenue, man. I mean, if we're able to charge someone a hundred bucks a month and they make 500 bucks a month, that's a good bit. doing more business, right? At end of the day. It's like, we need to have a winning offer and proposition. And so we have a guy called the auto llama names, Daniel, great guy up in Cincinnati. He has a mobile brake repair business and he sent us a screenshot from his bookkeeper and was able to attribute $10,000 in additional revenue book through Lee truffle. That's one example, Matt at Grotto climbing and yoga signed up. Kyle James (11:41.576) Sure. Kyle James (12:01.445) Nice. Bryan Shankman (12:04.128) and within three days he said he booked a thousand dollars in additional annual membership so really our biggest enemy is leads gone cold and if you've called the local business you've had this experience i've had this experience calling a pilati studio here in austin to get my wife a three pack and no disrespect to these businesses like i get it they're constraint man like rents through the roof they're probably running it themselves or one or two other people but like you call these businesses no one picks up like it just happens all the freaking time and i can't blame them Kyle James (12:12.859) Hmm. Kyle James (12:22.823) Yeah. Kyle James (12:31.687) Yeah. Bryan Shankman (12:33.914) It is what it is, but like it doesn't need to be that way and so I'd say the biggest thing we focus on is like hey you have people that are interested in your business that you may not be acting on fast enough and then they're calling the next result on Google and so to your question like just getting those folks and turning them into paying customers is the biggest value prop Kyle James (12:51.8) Yeah, that's huge too, because especially during busy, busy times of the day, or even like on the weekends when staff is a little more limited, like you and I both done it. Like we've calling down, can we get a quick list of like the possible business I want to work with going down the line, calling them and then the ones who don't answer, no voicemail, skip next, but the ones who do answer or ideally get some sort of response to my answer, right? That I'm searching for like, Those are the ones that go to the next step. But for some of these smaller businesses, if they don't have the manpower, right, to have them as staff and have someone answer the phones 24 seven, then they are like you're saying, right? Like they're missing out on revenue. And that's where like the AI comes into place is to help fill in those gaps. So that way they can capture the revenue without it going cold and going to another local business. Bryan Shankman (13:39.879) Yeah, exactly. And I think important moment right now is like there's this Luddite pushback on AI is it's going to replace human beings and take away jobs. And, you know, the car took away horse carriage drivers and like these things do happen. Uber took away a lot of taxi driver jobs. Now, probably all of those jobs are going to be gone in five, 10 years time when it's all autonomous vehicles. So there's no doubt like there is job disruption that's going to be happening with AI. But the point of Lee truffle is not to replace the human like. Kyle James (13:48.946) Mm-hmm. Kyle James (13:52.562) Sure. Bryan Shankman (14:08.229) If I own Brian's bakery, I like cooking one day, maybe I'll open a bakery. Like no doubt me, Brian picking up the phone to take that order is like the best thing possible. And like, if you're a local business owner, like if you can enable are able to pick up the phone, like that's going to give you the best possible typically conversion rate because you're the most charismatic, you're the most passionate, you know, the business better than anyone else. So the AI is not a replacement for that. And then second, if you can have a highly trained employee, pick up the phone also probably better Kyle James (14:11.336) Yeah, nice. Kyle James (14:26.748) Mm-hmm Bryan Shankman (14:38.165) than AI but now it's like it we're in slot three it's like okay leave a voicemail potentially never hear back don't pick up the phone some new person who's not comfortable on the phone picks up or AI picks up or AI immediately texts them back then to me that's where you start to really find value Kyle James (14:38.777) Right, right. Kyle James (14:48.616) Right. Kyle James (14:54.568) Yeah. Yeah. It's like capturing as much as you can without it falling off. You know what mean? And so looking into, you know, 2025, even 2026, what would you say like with lead truffle or obviously an AI, what are some of those kinds of upcoming AI initiatives that you have in place and what do you feel like the AI is playing the biggest role in your operations next? Bryan Shankman (15:16.164) Yeah, I generally speaking, in terms of the world, I think there's a lot coming with AI. I think there's a lot of physical world components that still need figuring out, like humanoid robots and the ability, like, it would be great to have a robot do my laundry. I hope that, yeah, I hope that's coming at some point. Yeah. Kyle James (15:29.736) Yeah, I'm all for that. Yes, please. I will buy that. I'll buy that Tesla robot or what's the other ones that the robotics that's fleeing my mind. But yeah, there's a few. Bryan Shankman (15:43.878) Yeah, there's a couple out there. I think all of those are going to be like really world changing and it's kind of scary, but. excited to see what happens. Yeah. And then just from a business standpoint for us, like my co-founder, Aaron is a great developer without AI. He was a great developer, but I've worked at many different software companies. And I would say the biggest difference now with AI from a product standpoint is how fast he's able to ship solid products. What used to be like a month or two, like he'll sometimes knock out complete features in a day. And I'm like, how'd you do that? He's like, I mean, I would never be able to do this, but I have cursor and it can auto complete for me. So for us, like every Kyle James (16:10.621) Hmm. Kyle James (16:15.4) Hmm. Kyle James (16:35.752) Mmm. Bryan Shankman (16:36.18) And Aaron's like, Oh, think I can clone this and ship it in Astra, which is a little outside of my knowledge, but I think it's a type of framework for websites. And now we just have like essentially a free website. That's like the exact clone of the web flow one using AI and costs us nothing. So in terms of the Kyle James (16:42.706) Mm-hmm. Bryan Shankman (16:51.493) product standpoint, the AI has just been like, we wouldn't have this complete of a product at this point without it. Kyle James (16:56.991) Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I appreciate you making the time today, Brian. It's definitely been impactful. know our listeners are probably listening in and loving the conversation here. For those who are maybe interested a little bit more to learn a little bit more about you, Brian, or even about Lee Truffle, where can they go and what should they do? Bryan Shankman (17:15.332) Yeah. Yeah. So I'd say first and foremost, you can go to our website, lead truffle.com. Check us out there. have a bunch of information demos. If you're a local business owner, you're just an AI enthusiast and want to learn more. That's probably the best place lead truffle.com. And then I'm most active on LinkedIn and Twitter at Brian Shankman, Brian with a Y on both of those sites. Kyle James (17:35.922) Amazing. Thank you so much, Brian. Man, it was a pleasure to have you on today. And remember those who listening in, if you're looking to implement AI and into your business today, man, don't try and do it yourself. The time and stress that the AI will cause just isn't worth it. Schedule a call with GPT trainer and let them build out and manage your AI for you. Again, that's gpt-trainer.com to schedule your consultation. Signing off for now. Have a wonderful rest of your day and looking forward to seeing you on the next episode of AI Chronicles.