Sustaining a Marketing Career and a Company’s Marketing feat. Ryan Truax

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:31
Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast, I’m your host, Chris L. Davis. And today, today’s topic is one that’s important to me, because it’s something that I experienced and the guest today I experienced some of a part of my journey with him. And what I want to highlight is the journey of a marketing career as sustaining yourself as a marketer, as well as sustaining marketing, right, because it changes so often. And so frequently, whether your product market fit is different, or your audience changes, or whatever the case may be. If one thing marketing teaches us, it teaches us that whatever worked yesterday, in whatever you hope works tomorrow may not ever be the same. So you just always have to adjust. And our guest today is Ryan Truex, and he is a good friend of mine. He’s a SAS marketing leader that is focused on growing brands and driving demand. He is customer obsessed, and a people first leader, everyone, I want to highlight that, and probably the most notable for you all is. He’s currently the senior director of marketing at LeadPages. Ryan, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Ryan Truax 2:05
Chris, I’m doing better now that I’m here with you, my friend, good to see you’re engaged, you’re already hitting some talking points, I could go on for hours. So we’ll keep it succinct. For those that are watching. Yeah, and

Chris Davis 2:15
I just have to let let everybody know, Ryan is the real deal. And when I say real deal, I’m not saying it in the way of like making my guest look major. So my podcast looks good. I’ve literally been shoulder to shoulder I have shaking his hand we have shared the same space. And I have seen firsthand his evolution, his professionalism, his heart, his people first approach to not just marketing, but leadership and team building. Ryan, I didn’t tell you this, but sometimes, you know, I was at LeadPages on the marketing team, probably maybe employee number six or seven on the marketing team. And we grew it to like 13. So maybe I was halfway in there. But sometimes you will get somebody that joins the team. And it would just throw the dynamic off. Not because they’re a bad person right now, because they’re a bad person, it just the dynamic, you could just tell and then, you know, you kind of got to watch yourself around them. And it was just the total opposite man when you started, I remember this. And I was like, man, it’s almost like you were here, but just in another department just decided to transfer over. So anyways, it’s been a joy, working alongside of you. And then over the years, just seeing you continue on your path. But let me give you the floor. I want to I want to just talk about some of the humble beginnings. And we know spoiler alert, you’re in marketing, a senior director in marketing for growing a SASS company. But before that, what were some of the challenges before even getting to a place where you found marketing as a career?

Ryan Truax 4:00
Yeah, that’s a great question, one of which we can unpack in a myriad of ways, but what I would discuss is that the challenge is just simply getting the door proverbially nudged open for yourself to get that first offensive, right, everybody’s career starts similar, it’s often in a humbling way. But just getting that first start is something that most most struggle with, right, because you come to that first job with an empty resume, one of which is comprised of just some educational things, maybe a little bit of internship, but really, you’re lacking the longevity or any experience to suggest that you can do what you’re selling yourself on. And that’s that hump of getting over unless you have this accredited institution behind you and maybe a pathway into an organization. You’re stuck amongst many others that are trying to do the exact same thing as you so why do you stand out from the next? And for most it’s a question that continues to be ever present in their lives. For me, it was getting that door open and I’d like anybody you go through a cycle of interviews you try to you know, different companies different fist I go big corporate, like a small business do I try to get into tech? And thankfully for me, I did start with a corporation. It allowed me to understand kind of business at a fundamental level right corporate is known for a variety of things, right, typically a stable, slow moving process orientated red tape if you tried to do anything too fast or too quickly, but what it does remind you, the guardrails are going to be around you throughout your career, and how you manage yourself in between those guardrails is how you will define your success. So what I was able to do quickly was understand that there’s room within set the guardrails to move around. So again, as we all started, our careers were individual contributors, none of us started as directors of marketing or business owners like yourself often. So it reminded me that there’s room inside of a kind of a rigid construct, if you will, to chart out your own path. I myself, I started off kind of as a creative brand marketer, I was able to kind of get into multimedia before sexy before it was kind of everybody was doing it just because it was the vehicle of conversation. And from doing so I learned how to engage with with website visitors, viewers, people in speaking engagements in a different way than probably traditionally people have done so in the past. And I quickly latched on to communication as the vehicle in which one can expedite their own successes, and better relate to anybody. And as a marketer, those are two things we’re always trying to do is how do we increase relatability? And how do we communicate more effectively, now you do this through strategy, you do this through people management, and how you you know, kind of collaborate with others. But I found that on early in my career that if I did those things, well, that I was gonna have a foundation from which I could build upon. So even living inside corporate and spending roughly about eight years, my career there and having an exceptional ride, I took those two ingredients with me throughout my career. And as I got through the second half of my career into SAS, for the last 10 years, I’ve really leaned into those two things. So they’re seemingly basic, basic, but often elusive when you think about it. So a little quick, quick, quick, please. Like, you know, how do you get started? What does it look like when you first start, I got this opportunity to build a TD network instead of a large corporation, which was cool. And I’m million eyeballs on our network, extremely exciting. That’s the sexy part. What was I doing on a Friday at 530, I was pulling my boss’s trash to the curb side, because I left him at the airport to go over to LA. So you got to be willing to do the things that other people aren’t you often hear about actors and an athletes and such, what got you over the hump. It’s a willingness to do the things that others are not. And it might sound kind of cheesy and comical to suggest that you’re pulling out someone’s trash bin to the curb. But what it showed my boss and my leader was that there was a person who’s willing to go beyond the call of duty to ensure that his life was easier. And by doing so the business was impacted in a positive way. So although it’s something we can laugh at today, I look back at that moment, say even without those little, little tiny nuggets, throughout the course of my career, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. And I look fondly back on those moments and is a humbling thing. And something that widens my perspective as a way of saying, hey, don’t forget where you came from treat those, as you know, just like you’d want it to be treated when you started by doing so again, relatability effective communication through the roof.

Chris Davis 7:43
Yeah, I want to say echo the sentiments on the corporate world. When I was working as an engineer, I never knew what I would do with the skills I was picking up at that job. They were not always skills that I could see that the value could transfer, you know, or, or even imagine what else I could do with them. I just always thought like, Oh, I’ll always be an engineer. But I’ll say this, Ryan, showing up every day, and working with integrity, and working hard, you can never lose, even if you are there. I did not like this job for my last I was there for seven years. I didn’t like it for at least five. You get what I’m saying. So that was I really had to lock in. I remember mornings where I just kind of had to talk myself into it. But I showed up every time I was always looking to learn, I was always looking to engage with others, learn from them make make things easier, collectively, you know, across the board. And those that experience has served me so well, not just as a marketer, but as a leader, man, I and I just would have never known that. And I’m glad I didn’t cheat myself, you know,

Ryan Truax 9:06
you’re one of our percent, right because if you rob yourself of those experiences, you’re likely going to be too far down the path at a later date and what you need to harken back to those experiences. And as times change in in sort of the generations that kind of do the work, you have to have that relatability again, I think those that Tran traveled with the Times today we’re talking about sustainability and a career. How do you do so how do you do it effectively? It’s the ability to remain relatable throughout all the changes that a marketer experiences throughout their career. I mean, we see it every day, sometimes a decade takes place inside of a week. I mean, look at chat, GBT just the last few months here mean, easy, which time with the speed at which things occur? So our ability to remain relatable when speed is is all around us is critical, both from the people standpoint.

Chris Davis 9:49
Yeah. Ryan, let me take let me take a step back to the individual individual contributor days of your marketing career. Okay, and And we know you’re you’re well decorated and established now, there are people who are listening that want to get into marketing, and are in marketing already and just trying to figure out, how do I how do I grow? What, what should I be doing? Like, what, what does that path look like? Because Ryan, I can, I’ve talked to numerous marketers, SAS marketers, and I can’t pinpoint everybody’s anybody’s career that looks to say, right, it’s not like, hey, work here. And then two years would be this the three years. That’s not how it happens, man. So if you could kind of go back and think through that those individual contributor days, of course, you you couldn’t have foreseen this. But what were so what were some of the things that you will say, looking back that you would tell somebody or encourage them on how a potential path may unfold for them?

Ryan Truax 10:56
Yeah, well, spoiler alert, I do not have the magic pill, I do not have the silver bullet because there is no straight point or pathway between A and B, let me remind you all watch. Resiliency is of the utmost importance. I mean, so here’s the thing, you’re gonna have opportunities that are presented to you in your career path. If you work hard, you don’t have to be the most skilled person will you work hard, show up consistently, opportunities will present themselves to you, I can guarantee you this. When those opportunities again, what will define you, those opportunities can be ever present, or almost so small that you barely barely acknowledge their existence. But again, with self awareness and an attention to detail, you will acknowledge opportunities, whether it’s a network and experience, an event that you may or may not have chosen to go to some coursework, some advanced education that you thought isn’t relevant at this point in time, take those learnings, anytime there’s a value add to who you are, as a person, as a professional, take that opportunity, there will be an older version of yourself that will thank you for or will look back with regret because you didn’t do so. If I was one thing I did give myself any kind of pat in the back. I’m a pretty humble person. But it would be about looking at opportunities and always taking those in, did I succeed every time and opportunities presented me? Absolutely not. But what I did do is I did go through the exercise and the motions of trying to see it to its end, getting in the practice of seeing things to their end, because so often in this day and age was so much inundation of information and data, frankly, you get distracted, you get pulled away from getting to the finish line so often. And too too frequently, people like you. And I may see an individual get three loaded three quarters around the race, and give up in that last lap. Because they hit a point of frustration they had, I didn’t see enough value wasn’t getting me where I wanted to go, that last quarter of the race was probably the thing between you and the success and that opportunity, you got to get down to there and push through these adages have been around for hundreds of years. And how we apply them today is a little different, right? We’re more empathetic towards one another. And there’s a better care for one another. So it’s easier than it was formerly in my opinion. But again, your stick to itiveness must be ever present. And again, never take an opportunity and kick it to the curb. I mean, here you and I are years later, having had a great little professional relationship for a while. But the fact that we took an opportunity to to continue our relationship, learn from one another, we said in your podcasts, I’d love to look at you as a business owner, I’m a marketing leader, we didn’t see these pathways available to us. But again, opportunities presented themselves to each you and I. And here we sit today with a lot of common ground and a lot to share with others that hopefully will be a value to

Chris Davis 13:16
them. Yeah. And now add the answer to my own question. Relationships are everything. You know, don’t don’t burn any bridges. All my goodness, Ryan, I cannot tell you how well that has served me consistently over the years. Doesn’t matter if they did me wrong, whatever wrong looks like. Or if I made an error, I’ve always done prided myself. And being the one that has built my half of the bridge, I can’t build your half, I can’t do that. And perhaps you’re not ready to build your, your half of the bridge when when mine is there. But I keep it extended. And because you never know who you need, who you will need. And you just never know where people go in their careers. And it’s been one of the things that you know, when I was at LeadPages, I was in leadership position. And I remember going and talking to the support folks, I remember talking to the engineers, everybody that is not going to be on the YouTube page or the webinars and all of that. And time and time again, whether it’s Facebook or whether it’s sometimes our paths just crossed, they continually tell me how grateful they are. And a bonus is sometimes you’re working somewhere or you know somebody who’s looking for good help. And you can then help someone else. Get to the next step, which is really in line with what we’re talking about is how do I in marketing, how do I keep that career? What does that career path look like? Sometimes it is through a relationship. Sometimes it is just not going burning a bridge. You know,

Ryan Truax 15:02
Chris, you’re 100%. I mean, each of my points in my tenure during my SAS career, it’s because I’ve been recruited out of the role into another for another reason, because I knew somebody not because I was the marketer of the year here in my space, but it was more so I knew a person who saw fit, who saw qualities in me that would fit most or well amongst organization, the rent. And by doing so you said, retaining relationships, never burning bridges, always taking the high road again, easy to say radically difficult in practice, but once you do, so, the fruits of their labor will bear themselves later and you will find yourself far more advanced than those that have chosen to take a lesser path traveled perhaps?

Chris Davis 15:36
Yeah, yeah. So your What was your first marketing position? Yeah,

Ryan Truax 15:44
it SAS it would have been accident, funnily enough, with LeadPages, some of whom are in right, I started a LeadPages, I’m gonna finish at LeadPages I’m staying here actually was in the content creation space. So again, multimedia videography was was really kicking around the tech space and call it you know, 2000 10s, or whatever, through some kind of great networking was pulled into LeadPages, and was part of the multimedia crew that told a lot of the brand stories through the vehicle being video, we were highly effective our ability to relate to our customers, because again, here you and I sit, we can see each other, we can talk to each other, we can feel each other’s presence, it’s why video was so wildly impactful. So a lot of LeadPages success, their Hyper Growth moments was predicated on the back of, or predicated around video as as a medium that was an effective way for us to tell others about ourselves or product offerings, as well as the, you know, the value in education we brought to all of those customers. So that’s where I got to start, again, a lot of things around the content creation space, and the more that you own as a content creator, the distribution of your content, you now become a performance marker quickly. So creators if you’re listening, don’t just make the beautiful thing, don’t just write the beautiful piece, track it to its end result, understand the metrics as the metrics excuse me, and engagement around the content you’re creating. Because now you don’t even know you are now stepping into the realm of demand generation, you’re now a growth marketer. Now, what do you get an opportunity to do, you can take your pathway from a creative like myself, become a performance marketer, you want to run demand gen, you want to be growth, you want to do these different things, you can now because you can speak in an interview, to experience as you had we say, we had this campaign, I was the head of content, we looked at the content where it fit amongst the overarching campaign. And look at this, we distributed across our omni channel. And this is the successes I had now I better understand the impact on the end user. It doesn’t get any better than that, when you start to just kind of unpack that,

Chris Davis 17:26
man, I love it. And it let me highlight when you’re talking about multimedia, and measuring the impact of the content that you create. It was nowhere near as as developed as it is now. Right?

Ryan Truax 17:46
Shout out to Adam rule. And he’d get a kick out of this. But yeah, what we were working with back then say 10 years ago, as opposed to what is available today.

Chris Davis 17:52
Oh my gosh,

Ryan Truax 17:53
we had like stones and sticks that we were working in, quite honestly. And you were left to doing what you had didn’t have the education people can look weird. Like what your the video team? Or what are you guys doing here? Amongst the other video? Did they realize your best friend was that person who could take what you were doing and elevated in a way that others other channels weren’t able to do? So?

Chris Davis 18:12
Yeah. So we have your start? And then what what was your next? What was the next position after that?

Ryan Truax 18:19
Yes, I continued on the credit path. So here’s the one thing that we’ll continue to wrap this conversation around is right, you’re an individual contributor, you get acknowledged for doing something really well guess what the next opportunity is gonna be someone asking you to do more of the same, right? You’ve been identified as the same thing. But what you do is you look at that opportunity, and how can I expand upon it, because I was then recruited out of LeadPages got another opportunity to leave more of the creative charge and an enterprise software company, local to me here in Minnesota. And what I was able to do is, again, expand that role. They brought me on to be the storyteller of the company, if you will. And again, within that I looked at how can the stories move the bottom line, you know, move that needle really. And again, it was that ability to look at an omni channel strategy, how can we take a singular piece of content distributed across all the channels that were impactful? And then of course, measure that you know, lack of success, or hopefully a pile of success, then use that to then build at scale what you do next? And from doing so, you start to expand well beyond a creative and you start to speak to the higher level executives and they start to see refer to data points with confidence and the ability to articulate why or why something was successful or what did not. The way that you look at you, they look at you in those moments will now change next opportunities presented to you because they think you have us more than what you’ve been hired to do.

Chris Davis 19:26
Yeah, let me ask you this question in that transition, because it was really a bigger step into leadership. What were some of the mental hack on the mental demons that you had to work through? Because I know a lot of marketers struggle with impostor syndrome. Yeah. You get an opportunity that you’re excited about. But you’ve also haven’t done it in that capacity or that magnitude yet. And you want to show up you want to you really want to do a good Job what, what? How? What advice do you have for somebody that is going through that and just give us some insight with some of the thoughts that you overcame or how you overcame them?

Ryan Truax 20:12
Yeah, your spirit you’re spot on the imposter syndrome is a term that’s been more developed over the time. And we all find ourselves as there, no matter how confident like maybe you are, myself may come off as competent individuals, there are times in which we are insecure about what we’re doing. Because it’s Uncharted grounds, I will tell everybody who’s listening, real growth does not come to you without discomfort. It just simply does not want to grow, you want to achieve more monetary gains in your life, you want more responsibility, get uncomfortable, I threw myself into the proverbial fire time and time again, I got burned a few times, like go into that corner office that executives office, I’d make a pitch I’d have data to reinforce and they’d say, Ron, love where you’re at. But but this is not going to fit for currently. That’s all right. I didn’t walk out of that through my head, you know, hung to the floor. I said, You know what, that was a lesson learned an opportunity that I can now take to the next level. When I have it presented to me again, I know why didn’t get that across the finish line was the right time, wrong time, excuse me wrong message and not have the data positions I should. So I guess what I learned was an ability to communicate with confidence to the executives, because they’re often the ones that steer our careers and our opportunities again. So even if you lack the competence, and maybe the experience you’d like to have in those tough conversations, you have to deliver with confidence. Be curious, ask the right questions. And in those moments, if you present yourself as such, you’re going to again, have these things given to you that others will not. So I learned that despite any deficiencies I thought that I had, I would also look around the room and see that I was not the only person that felt that way. And I think all of us that have had this impostor syndrome moment in our lives, thought we were the only one that experienced it. Let me tell you this, each and every person that you are working alongside of has been in the chair has had the emotion that you have as well. Don’t forget that we’re all human, none of us are perfect. And all of us are ever growing. You acknowledge that on that, except that you can be more comfortable with it. And again, it’s something that’s easier to say, as a person, it’s getting that you know, more mature side of their career, if you will. But if you can take any kind of ownership that in your 20s, your early 30s, my friends, you’d be well advanced for where you go next.

Chris Davis 22:12
Yeah, yeah, no, I want to add to the timing piece. There was a moment in my career when I was at Lockheed Martin as a corporate worker. And I was trying so hard to get out of there. My first attempt was maybe just transfer me back to Minnesota. I’ll stay at Lockheed Martin, but because I’m around family to be more tolerable, right. And I tried to get transferred to Minnesota that didn’t work. So I tried to get transferred in other places. I was just trying to get out, man. And I remember this is funny. I remember, I think I think I told this to Tracy, but I can’t remember where I found the pages. I found the job opportunity posted. And I apply for it. I was like, Oh, I would I would love to do that. Because at the time, I was just learning internet marketing following Pat Flynn, Brendon Bouchard, and a lot of them were using LeadPages. So I knew clay and I was like, hey, that company that builds landing pages is hiring. That’d be pretty cool. Right? Didn’t even know that. It was called a tech startup. I’m just thinking all companies are fairly size anyways. So I put in my my resume,

Chris Davis 23:20
my application and my resume. And I call and it was like at least four months and nobody would get back to me. Long story short, I did not get hired. I did not get hired. Nobody, nobody even they didn’t have the systems in place at the time to even let me know, hey, where you know, we’re considering other people. Right? It was super early. So when I got hired and asked him about it, I think Tracy I did have a call with Tracy and she just kind of laughed about it. Because she was like, Chris, we were so small and so scrappy at that time. We were just doing stuff and we’re just grabbing what we can grab and you know, but it speaks to the timing piece. There was a point that I applied in the in the answer was no, that was the answer. But I didn’t let that know drive me away permanently. I didn’t sit in it and just like Well, one day LeadPages will come back around. I went on with my life. And before you knew it, I found myself right back with Attempt number two. And of course yes, and the rest is history. So there is some stick to itiveness some fortitude, mental fortitude, emotional fortitude, that you have to display this amendment Ryan. Marketing is one of the toughest careers Oh cuz everything is always changing the user consumption trends and everything at like that tracking it continues to be a challenge. And everything you do is on display for people to experience and or judge

Ryan Truax 24:53
there’s nowhere to hide in marketing nowhere to hide. And that’s for better and for worse, right. You haven’t successes. You’re being celebrated. You’re not You’re gonna have those questions on a regular basis. Really? This is a life of a mark that I mean, for those of Saskatoon, right? It’s it’s widely known the shortest tenure of any part of the SAS Tree of Life is the head of marketing like it is because you try rebrand you tried reorders, you try new MMP message and positioning, and you’ll find out that none of the lands are it has a short shelf life, they’re gonna try the next person on for size. So you’d have to be available and willing to do the things others are not. And again, keep those those networks those relationships alive. And well, of course,

Chris Davis 25:31
yeah, absolutely. So. So I’m seeing the big picture, you had some some corporate experience that that gave you some tangible skills really helped polish, your approach show up as a professional, and you get an opportunity in the startup space, transferring those skills and using them. And then that leads to a leadership position. And was it after that you you walked into the position at LeadPages,

Ryan Truax 25:59
I spent about full force years and that net position there and really kind of sharpen my tools as anybody should in their their first leadership with a larger team, you got p&l responsibility, things that are new to you processes, you have to get familiar with the whole intertwining yourself with HR and ops and getting familiar with those things. But yeah, it was kind of that that opportunity for me to look at a lot that I learned. I mean, sometimes you learn as much from the detractors as you do that those that kind of are additives to your life. And sometimes you have your own personal experiences that you fold up into who you are, and how you treat others. And I think that during my time there, I was able to, again, pluck enough learnings from the tree of life. That was my marketing career at an enterprise software company, and then apply those to where I’m at today. So yeah, a little bit of that, I guess.

Chris Davis 26:43
Yeah. So what was that another relationship that opened the door? Did you initiate that? What What was that engagement back to lead pages? Because I, I would only imagine, Ryan, when you left, you probably weren’t intending, hey, I’ll be back in a few years, guys. Hold on. So what was that? What was that like? was asked? Did you just see an opportunity? Like I said, in the past, there’s Oh, there’s a opening and the patient? Was it doing a network of relationships?

Ryan Truax 27:13
Great question wasn’t even necessarily looking for the opportunity, that’s when the best ones come to you. Right? When you’re not even looking for your partner. Sometimes it’s career sometimes the lottery ticket out of the gutter, whatever it might be. I was not looking at the time. But again, through a strong network and strong relationships, like you and I have invested in for decades, we’re going to put a number to this decades, I was just friends that, hey, there’s an organization that’s hiring, you may or may not be familiar, they’d forgot that I’d started my career here, but they identify like, hey, Head of Marketing is available over there, you be a pretty darn good fit, you should at least just take a call with them, you know, I just do me a solid, this other person’s at the other end, get into contact with a with a quality leader, you know, probably they weren’t there selling me I guess at that point. But through that got engaged with the the CEO, this current currently elite pages, and from the first word, we hit it off. And it was once again when to use your choice of the two easiest choices professionally I’ve ever had in my life was joining the pitch at the first time in 2015. And joining last year in 2022. For different reasons, this time, but the leadership at LeadPages the CEO I could not get along with more you identified my people first mentality when it comes to leadership that is ever present yet to daily pages. It is exceptional, I’ve been through organizations that are in those hyper growth stages. And let’s not kid ourselves, people first mentality is don’t always win, because there’s so much else to achieve that sometimes the human care can get lost in the shuffle, right? You’re trying to, you know, just double everything quarter after a quarter and, and you get caught up caught up and and that can be a very exciting time. But as an organization matures and the dust settles, you have the opportunity to put the focus back on the people themselves. And like Richard Branson famously said, Take care of your people and your people will take care of your customers. So simple. It’s so short, but when you give your team and the individuals on it, the care and the intention is personal PRs, who’s me as people, and then professional secondarily, they’re going to take care of our customers because of the investment I’ve made into them. And they’re going to make the investment into our customers. So when you distill it down, and like what sorts of just that simple, no, we’re talking about countless hours spent in settings like this one on one time, I wish we could relate to one another. We can pick out what are the things you want to do at a tactical level to truly move the needle on our business. How do you feel cared for as an individual or others around you supporting and empowering you in a way that you can sustain and carry forward to that next challenge hurdle you have to overcome or that next success we celebrate together? Yeah, I could go on and on.

Chris Davis 29:33
There’s a theme here and some words came to mind as you were talking and I want to say this out loud this the first time I said it, but I believe it’s true. And we both lived it and experienced it firsthand. Integrity is magnetic to opportunity could not agree more. And I was listening to you, Ryan. And you were saying that somebody saw the position and said hey, you’d be great for that.

Ryan Truax 30:02
Use your work. Sure. But it was an opportunity that made sense given the like minded mentality when it came. Probably looking at a brand that was stable, but could also use a little bit of the shaking of the snowglobe, if you will, and looking at myself as, as a strong brand marketer early in my career, that perhaps it would be a good fit. And here we sit today, I guess the fit is good, because I feel darn good about it myself.

Chris Davis 30:22
Yeah, yeah. Right. So I think that the benefit, we talked about the toughness of marketing, but the benefit is that since what you’re doing is always on display. Done, right? Done with integrity. It’s a walking resume, just ever growing.

Ryan Truax 30:43
It really, really is. And that’s the beauty of it. I think people look at marketing, and like, it’s an ever changing landscape is this challenge, it’s like, you’re always having to grasp something you barely know anything about the excitement as a marketer, right? It’s a dynamic environment in which we live. Yes, things are changing all the time. That’s the beauty of it, I don’t want to go to a job. That’s the same each and every day. I mean, that’s just not who I am. I think a lot of people enjoy that. For me, the ever changing kind of marketing landscape, again, is something that just just excites me, because there’s a reason to learn, there’s a reason to grow, there’s a real reason to nurture relationships beyond what you know them to be today. And, again, that’s just I get literally excited and goosebump myself a little bit thinking that’s what tomorrow is about. And again, that’s all the inspiration I need to pass along to my team and to others in the company. Yeah,

Chris Davis 31:27
and I want to spend the last few minutes here talking about still marketing, but shift from your career to what’s mandated of your career now, so you’ve sustained yourself as a marketer, professional marketer, and leader. And now you walk into a position with Lee pages, that, and I’m going to proclaim this from the outside. So everybody knows I’m not taking this from Ryan’s mouth. But just knowing when I was there, there was a type of marketing that was extremely effective, extremely effective, the audience was at a certain level of maturity, marketing technology, was at a certain level of adoption, all of those things have changed. Right? All of those things in some of the core, like some of the cornerstones of why LeadPages was so great, has really kind of been has become more of a commodity like landing pages just aren’t as unique as they were back then. Nobody knew how to do it. Now. It’s like, everybody’s claiming we’ve got the fastest pages and this this now, it’s not hard to find. So inherently, there are challenges that, oh, the marketing of old is not going to work in this new day, if we’re going to sustain this company and continue to scale it. So talk to us a little bit about when you come into some because I know it had to be a bit overwhelming to to touch a well oiled machine for her say, right, you don’t want to ruffle any feathers. But hey, we’ve got to change the way that we approach this thing. Talk to us about that, that shift in marketing, because the marketing of yesterday may not be as effective as the same audience just a new time for today.

Ryan Truax 33:20
Yeah, I love the question. Because I did inherit something that was was well oiled and shout out to my predecessor for building a really stable foundation from which to work from, it made my ability to be an iterative leader, even that much easier, right? It’s not about turning the dial up to 11. It’s that half decibel adjustment to life into your strategy, right? Like, it’s not these big turns of the dial that we all think, Oh, my goodness, he just did everything flipped it on its head. No, there’s just a different angle in which we look at things. For us. It’s it’s a little bit of what is our position the market, we spend a lot of time looking at our competitors, right? And sometimes we forget to look inward and who we are, what is our core DNA? Why do we matter to the customers? What problems are we solving today that maybe we worked in the past, or a new problems for end users, we look at those and we deep dive into those. And then we insert and wrap our value around it as any good product marketer would do, of course. But again, this iterative nature, I can’t say enough about it, because it’s so critical, because the more that you stay stagnant, the competition starts to pick up its pace and starts to run laps, run laps and run laps. Also, you’re looking at some real retention problems and suppressed Economic Times who doesn’t want to retain a customer? Of course. So it’s, it’s so why don’t we want to go here, there’s just so many layers to it on which to unpack but again, I back to its origin. If I had heard it a great thing here at LeadPages looking to do is change you know a little bit about who are represented as marketing, because to your point, there are a lot of landing page solutions or a lot of all in one solution. So how do you fit in an ecosystem that’s noisy as a separate band? Well, I think it gets for us back to we’re gonna become the lead generation platform. We’re not just a place where you build your landing pages or websites. We’re also where you measure a success. We look at your campaigns as a cumulative whole. Look at the conversion points. Are they working? If not, let’s start doing some split testing because of course you’re leaping As we are testers, we always will be, that’s the one thing, it’ll be a mainstay. So look at those opportunities to better understand who you are and what you’re doing. So we ourselves are best on practitioner, right? We talk about work and these these testable moments and you’ll fail fast and you’ll learn quick. We’re doing those every every day, I’d be reticent to say if I didn’t live on data these days, because again, there’s so much available to us what we do with it is really how we differentiate from one another, right? We can all go into our CRM or, for me tableau for instance, and look at all the data, all the data that is saying that most would, but how we act upon that data is really what can make a difference. Because there’s so many stories be told inside of a data marketing system as you and I would know very well. But where you act, and where you don’t, more importantly, will be the way that you can kind of impact the business. And I think, for me, there’s just a little bit of a train of some, some old tendencies will apply and some new ways of thinking. And encouraging people, like I said earlier to get a little uncomfortable to think a bit differently about themselves, their role in the customer lifecycle, and the brand as a whole as a marketer, right? We’re trying to build trust, let’s not kid ourselves, are we selling things? Absolutely, but really was our primary job is to build trust. And to do that time and time and time again, if we’re able to do so acquisition and retention will take care of themselves. If we start to forget about the customer, the trust that we built with them, you can start to see what’s going to happen, your charts are gonna go unfavorable, you’re have some tougher conversations and QBRs annual reviews. Here in LeadPages, we embrace again, this iterative mindset that allows us to have speed to market, again, alignment with the messaging position that we’ve really sink our teeth into. And then again, measure and rinse wash, repeat, I guess, if you will,

Chris Davis 36:33
yeah. Something you said stuck out, man. So So, listeners, if you’re new to the podcast, I’m a participant of my own podcast. Okay, so this means I’m listening and learning, I may be asking the questions, but I’m listening and in learning, just as you all are, and you said something that made me think of identity. Okay. And when I was at LeadPages, we always had a conversion first identity, always, that was always it, we lead with the landing page, right? So what I hear you saying is, you know, when I, when I looked at this new market, as I inherited this role, I had to go back to who we are as a company, right? Like, we like conversion company. All right, so that changes the messaging. Now, it let’s not cheap in the brand, and just say landing page, that’s now just a portion, we used to lead with it. It used to be the flame that we guide us through the dark tunnel. And now it’s just like another it’s another flashlight. Right? Now we’ve got other tools. And let’s let the market know of this identity. But it doesn’t work out. You taught me this right here, right? It doesn’t work. If you yourself as the head marketer don’t understand what that identity is, and know how to draft messaging around it, so that you can be received and perceived as such in the marketplace.

Ryan Truax 38:06
Kudos to that. That’s that’s how you say it marketers. You’re spot on. Because here’s the thing, you can’t forget what is a lot often we’re what let’s be honest, marketers, we’re just, we’re distracted by shiny objects every day, whether it’s a new content strategy, a new piece of tech, or whatever it might be. And through the decades that LeadPages have been in existence, we’d be lying to ourselves to say we haven’t chased a few of those objects ourselves. But when you really look back to what fueled the growth, what did people latch on to? It was a conversion first mindset, right? Because we’re all in the building and you traffic, we need leads, we need to points a conversion. And from that we can drive revenue, we’re getting back to our DNA, probably more so than we have in the past. Right? We’re really getting back to that. Because when you look at the whitespace available in a category like ours, which is often defined as Website Builder landing page builder, there are a lot that have went in different directions, leaving a wonderful hunk of whitespace that I’m very excited about. And that’s the conversion space. The last was a third or a fourth or a fifth value prop number one over here, LeadPages, because it’s a way in which we can impact how your business performs. The builder is to the side of that that’s just the vehicle in which we get you to the point of conversion. So flipping it on his head, yeah, we give you landing pages, but we’re here to drive your business forward through conversion. And we have the expertise in 10s of 1000s of hours to suggest that we can help guide you there.

Chris Davis 39:20
Absolutely. And that’s what I’m excited about. I think that when companies don’t rest on their laurels when they don’t get stay comfortable and just get get fat off the revenue. Just keep eating. When you’re intentional with saying hey, what fat can I shave off? How can you remain lean and healthy? What does the market need? If if a company is focused like that? That’s a company you really don’t have to worry about. Right? Because they’re always they may not always be in the new Who’s right? But Ron, I have to say this. It’s it’s very similar to entertainers who have these timeless catalogs? Like for what me for one? If you’re a fan of this group, I’m about to say sorry, everybody, it is what it is. But I grew up listening to Bone Thugs and harmony.

Ryan Truax 40:18
Yes, yes.

Chris Davis 40:21
Like, everybody knows that song and that tune. When is the last time anybody outside of Cleveland has heard or listened to Bone Thugs and harmony, right? The thing is the thing just the other month, I saw, I think it was three of them, because you know, they’re all not together, but they’re going on tour. And I’m like, people are still people still want to listen to people still want to see and experience this group. And that’s what I’m talking about. You may not they’re not necessarily in the news. They’re not top 10. But they’re still relevant. And who knows what will come of it, Ryan, and who knows, maybe in some years, they resurface, and everybody comes back to this bug. It’s like, Hey, Chris, remember them. But you just never know. And if you if you just stop. And if you don’t keep progressing, and keep moving the cyclical nature of life, you take yourself out of that potential, you know, when you just have to stay in it, keep going. And like I said, you may not always be in the limelight. But you’re going to have a collection of people raving fans that are always cheering. And that’s what I find myself with LeadPages is it doesn’t matter if it’s the top 10 tool, the top five tool, the top 100 tool. As long as I know that LeadPages is focused on conversions, they’re always a tool in my box, or on my mind to make sure hey, wait a minute, let me stop here first, if something new drops from LeadPages, I’m that much more prone to adopt it? Because I trust the company and its long standing nature.

Ryan Truax 42:06
We said everything. A famous former CEO of mine famously said you every interaction either builds or erodes trust, and we think about that, that’s exactly what life is I’m talking you’ll zero click Content all the way through your most robust marketing campaign. We’re not building upon trust at each and every touchpoint the competitors will eat your lunch they just simply Well, in this age, we do not have a time to be deficient in any area be cognizant of the impact of what you were doing with your brand in market. You can make it work in your favor, or you can sign your own certificate.

Chris Davis 42:40
Yeah, yeah, right man, this has been great. So listeners we got to cheat we got to warm up before this one because I knew it would just be juicy and and Ryan and I hadn’t caught up in a while. So we got to get a lot of the small talk out the way man which gives you all just the mean potatoes. But thank you, man for coming on to the podcast. If people want to connect with you, or you know Lee pages in any capacity, where should they go? And as you’re doing that, leave them with just one sage word of advice, whether it’s a quote that you live by something that you just heard today, but where can they stay in contact with you? And what what should they keep on top of the mind for me the floors?

Ryan Truax 43:23
Well, marketers got to sell first and foremost leadpages.com Do not forget about us because we offer a 14 day free trial trial emphasize if you did once upon a time, come back to us. We’re doing some pretty progressive things. You can find me at Ryan J Truax. I’m on socials Ryan triacs.com, if you prefer to LinkedIn similarly available and all those and happy to be a voice to those that are again looking at their career in a way that they maybe feel empowered by challenged by whatever that might be. I like Chris are always in the business of trying to meet new people and doing whatever we can to help them like we’ve been helped for about suggesting things sage advice, well what do I start but I would say a saying that I have tailored a lot of my sports jackets I still wear to this day is the next big the next your next move is the biggest move you’ll make or something of the sorts I guess. But just think to yourself that all the things that you’ve done today will lead to your next big moment your next big opportunity. So take that step take that that leap of faith if you will. Be confident yourself in your ability to take that growth that you are to achieve the growth that you want. You can do it you’re more capable of things than you think that you are and give yourself some credit some grace

Chris Davis 44:26
man appreciate that Ryan again always good to have you on the podcast great to connect with you stay connected with you. And I’m rooting for nothing but the best for both Lee pages man and you as a professional in your careers just a fan man and just know that if you don’t hear anybody cheering some somewhere wherever I’m at I am Thank you ma’am.

Ryan Truax 44:55
Thank you Chris. No, it’s It’s the connecting Have you seen what you’re doing? I mean, if there’s anybody needs inspiration, you yourself As a small business owner has, you’ve carved a path for others to follow, right and then to you I’m indebted for because you’ve, you’ve challenged me to think differently. And I think others that are an active listener of you have appreciated that from you. You’re honest, you’re authentic. So this this experience here, we can do the same time of the week, my friend.

Chris Davis 45:16
Absolutely. All right, Ryan, I’m gonna let you go. For the moment, I know we will be connected. And if I’m ever up there, I’ll make sure our paths crossed. But thank you again for coming on the podcast man greatly appreciate it.

Ryan Truax 45:30
Likewise, Chris, thank you.

Chris Davis 45:31
Thank you for tuning into this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to, and it can be found in Apple podcast, Google podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value in goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly. And you can access them all at allsystemsgopodcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly, my friends

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:31
Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast, I’m your host, Chris L. Davis. And today, today’s topic is one that’s important to me, because it’s something that I experienced and the guest today I experienced some of a part of my journey with him. And what I want to highlight is the journey of a marketing career as sustaining yourself as a marketer, as well as sustaining marketing, right, because it changes so often. And so frequently, whether your product market fit is different, or your audience changes, or whatever the case may be. If one thing marketing teaches us, it teaches us that whatever worked yesterday, in whatever you hope works tomorrow may not ever be the same. So you just always have to adjust. And our guest today is Ryan Truex, and he is a good friend of mine. He’s a SAS marketing leader that is focused on growing brands and driving demand. He is customer obsessed, and a people first leader, everyone, I want to highlight that, and probably the most notable for you all is. He’s currently the senior director of marketing at LeadPages. Ryan, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Ryan Truax 2:05
Chris, I’m doing better now that I’m here with you, my friend, good to see you’re engaged, you’re already hitting some talking points, I could go on for hours. So we’ll keep it succinct. For those that are watching. Yeah, and

Chris Davis 2:15
I just have to let let everybody know, Ryan is the real deal. And when I say real deal, I’m not saying it in the way of like making my guest look major. So my podcast looks good. I’ve literally been shoulder to shoulder I have shaking his hand we have shared the same space. And I have seen firsthand his evolution, his professionalism, his heart, his people first approach to not just marketing, but leadership and team building. Ryan, I didn’t tell you this, but sometimes, you know, I was at LeadPages on the marketing team, probably maybe employee number six or seven on the marketing team. And we grew it to like 13. So maybe I was halfway in there. But sometimes you will get somebody that joins the team. And it would just throw the dynamic off. Not because they’re a bad person right now, because they’re a bad person, it just the dynamic, you could just tell and then, you know, you kind of got to watch yourself around them. And it was just the total opposite man when you started, I remember this. And I was like, man, it’s almost like you were here, but just in another department just decided to transfer over. So anyways, it’s been a joy, working alongside of you. And then over the years, just seeing you continue on your path. But let me give you the floor. I want to I want to just talk about some of the humble beginnings. And we know spoiler alert, you’re in marketing, a senior director in marketing for growing a SASS company. But before that, what were some of the challenges before even getting to a place where you found marketing as a career?

Ryan Truax 4:00
Yeah, that’s a great question, one of which we can unpack in a myriad of ways, but what I would discuss is that the challenge is just simply getting the door proverbially nudged open for yourself to get that first offensive, right, everybody’s career starts similar, it’s often in a humbling way. But just getting that first start is something that most most struggle with, right, because you come to that first job with an empty resume, one of which is comprised of just some educational things, maybe a little bit of internship, but really, you’re lacking the longevity or any experience to suggest that you can do what you’re selling yourself on. And that’s that hump of getting over unless you have this accredited institution behind you and maybe a pathway into an organization. You’re stuck amongst many others that are trying to do the exact same thing as you so why do you stand out from the next? And for most it’s a question that continues to be ever present in their lives. For me, it was getting that door open and I’d like anybody you go through a cycle of interviews you try to you know, different companies different fist I go big corporate, like a small business do I try to get into tech? And thankfully for me, I did start with a corporation. It allowed me to understand kind of business at a fundamental level right corporate is known for a variety of things, right, typically a stable, slow moving process orientated red tape if you tried to do anything too fast or too quickly, but what it does remind you, the guardrails are going to be around you throughout your career, and how you manage yourself in between those guardrails is how you will define your success. So what I was able to do quickly was understand that there’s room within set the guardrails to move around. So again, as we all started, our careers were individual contributors, none of us started as directors of marketing or business owners like yourself often. So it reminded me that there’s room inside of a kind of a rigid construct, if you will, to chart out your own path. I myself, I started off kind of as a creative brand marketer, I was able to kind of get into multimedia before sexy before it was kind of everybody was doing it just because it was the vehicle of conversation. And from doing so I learned how to engage with with website visitors, viewers, people in speaking engagements in a different way than probably traditionally people have done so in the past. And I quickly latched on to communication as the vehicle in which one can expedite their own successes, and better relate to anybody. And as a marketer, those are two things we’re always trying to do is how do we increase relatability? And how do we communicate more effectively, now you do this through strategy, you do this through people management, and how you you know, kind of collaborate with others. But I found that on early in my career that if I did those things, well, that I was gonna have a foundation from which I could build upon. So even living inside corporate and spending roughly about eight years, my career there and having an exceptional ride, I took those two ingredients with me throughout my career. And as I got through the second half of my career into SAS, for the last 10 years, I’ve really leaned into those two things. So they’re seemingly basic, basic, but often elusive when you think about it. So a little quick, quick, quick, please. Like, you know, how do you get started? What does it look like when you first start, I got this opportunity to build a TD network instead of a large corporation, which was cool. And I’m million eyeballs on our network, extremely exciting. That’s the sexy part. What was I doing on a Friday at 530, I was pulling my boss’s trash to the curb side, because I left him at the airport to go over to LA. So you got to be willing to do the things that other people aren’t you often hear about actors and an athletes and such, what got you over the hump. It’s a willingness to do the things that others are not. And it might sound kind of cheesy and comical to suggest that you’re pulling out someone’s trash bin to the curb. But what it showed my boss and my leader was that there was a person who’s willing to go beyond the call of duty to ensure that his life was easier. And by doing so the business was impacted in a positive way. So although it’s something we can laugh at today, I look back at that moment, say even without those little, little tiny nuggets, throughout the course of my career, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. And I look fondly back on those moments and is a humbling thing. And something that widens my perspective as a way of saying, hey, don’t forget where you came from treat those, as you know, just like you’d want it to be treated when you started by doing so again, relatability effective communication through the roof.

Chris Davis 7:43
Yeah, I want to say echo the sentiments on the corporate world. When I was working as an engineer, I never knew what I would do with the skills I was picking up at that job. They were not always skills that I could see that the value could transfer, you know, or, or even imagine what else I could do with them. I just always thought like, Oh, I’ll always be an engineer. But I’ll say this, Ryan, showing up every day, and working with integrity, and working hard, you can never lose, even if you are there. I did not like this job for my last I was there for seven years. I didn’t like it for at least five. You get what I’m saying. So that was I really had to lock in. I remember mornings where I just kind of had to talk myself into it. But I showed up every time I was always looking to learn, I was always looking to engage with others, learn from them make make things easier, collectively, you know, across the board. And those that experience has served me so well, not just as a marketer, but as a leader, man, I and I just would have never known that. And I’m glad I didn’t cheat myself, you know,

Ryan Truax 9:06
you’re one of our percent, right because if you rob yourself of those experiences, you’re likely going to be too far down the path at a later date and what you need to harken back to those experiences. And as times change in in sort of the generations that kind of do the work, you have to have that relatability again, I think those that Tran traveled with the Times today we’re talking about sustainability and a career. How do you do so how do you do it effectively? It’s the ability to remain relatable throughout all the changes that a marketer experiences throughout their career. I mean, we see it every day, sometimes a decade takes place inside of a week. I mean, look at chat, GBT just the last few months here mean, easy, which time with the speed at which things occur? So our ability to remain relatable when speed is is all around us is critical, both from the people standpoint.

Chris Davis 9:49
Yeah. Ryan, let me take let me take a step back to the individual individual contributor days of your marketing career. Okay, and And we know you’re you’re well decorated and established now, there are people who are listening that want to get into marketing, and are in marketing already and just trying to figure out, how do I how do I grow? What, what should I be doing? Like, what, what does that path look like? Because Ryan, I can, I’ve talked to numerous marketers, SAS marketers, and I can’t pinpoint everybody’s anybody’s career that looks to say, right, it’s not like, hey, work here. And then two years would be this the three years. That’s not how it happens, man. So if you could kind of go back and think through that those individual contributor days, of course, you you couldn’t have foreseen this. But what were so what were some of the things that you will say, looking back that you would tell somebody or encourage them on how a potential path may unfold for them?

Ryan Truax 10:56
Yeah, well, spoiler alert, I do not have the magic pill, I do not have the silver bullet because there is no straight point or pathway between A and B, let me remind you all watch. Resiliency is of the utmost importance. I mean, so here’s the thing, you’re gonna have opportunities that are presented to you in your career path. If you work hard, you don’t have to be the most skilled person will you work hard, show up consistently, opportunities will present themselves to you, I can guarantee you this. When those opportunities again, what will define you, those opportunities can be ever present, or almost so small that you barely barely acknowledge their existence. But again, with self awareness and an attention to detail, you will acknowledge opportunities, whether it’s a network and experience, an event that you may or may not have chosen to go to some coursework, some advanced education that you thought isn’t relevant at this point in time, take those learnings, anytime there’s a value add to who you are, as a person, as a professional, take that opportunity, there will be an older version of yourself that will thank you for or will look back with regret because you didn’t do so. If I was one thing I did give myself any kind of pat in the back. I’m a pretty humble person. But it would be about looking at opportunities and always taking those in, did I succeed every time and opportunities presented me? Absolutely not. But what I did do is I did go through the exercise and the motions of trying to see it to its end, getting in the practice of seeing things to their end, because so often in this day and age was so much inundation of information and data, frankly, you get distracted, you get pulled away from getting to the finish line so often. And too too frequently, people like you. And I may see an individual get three loaded three quarters around the race, and give up in that last lap. Because they hit a point of frustration they had, I didn’t see enough value wasn’t getting me where I wanted to go, that last quarter of the race was probably the thing between you and the success and that opportunity, you got to get down to there and push through these adages have been around for hundreds of years. And how we apply them today is a little different, right? We’re more empathetic towards one another. And there’s a better care for one another. So it’s easier than it was formerly in my opinion. But again, your stick to itiveness must be ever present. And again, never take an opportunity and kick it to the curb. I mean, here you and I are years later, having had a great little professional relationship for a while. But the fact that we took an opportunity to to continue our relationship, learn from one another, we said in your podcasts, I’d love to look at you as a business owner, I’m a marketing leader, we didn’t see these pathways available to us. But again, opportunities presented themselves to each you and I. And here we sit today with a lot of common ground and a lot to share with others that hopefully will be a value to

Chris Davis 13:16
them. Yeah. And now add the answer to my own question. Relationships are everything. You know, don’t don’t burn any bridges. All my goodness, Ryan, I cannot tell you how well that has served me consistently over the years. Doesn’t matter if they did me wrong, whatever wrong looks like. Or if I made an error, I’ve always done prided myself. And being the one that has built my half of the bridge, I can’t build your half, I can’t do that. And perhaps you’re not ready to build your, your half of the bridge when when mine is there. But I keep it extended. And because you never know who you need, who you will need. And you just never know where people go in their careers. And it’s been one of the things that you know, when I was at LeadPages, I was in leadership position. And I remember going and talking to the support folks, I remember talking to the engineers, everybody that is not going to be on the YouTube page or the webinars and all of that. And time and time again, whether it’s Facebook or whether it’s sometimes our paths just crossed, they continually tell me how grateful they are. And a bonus is sometimes you’re working somewhere or you know somebody who’s looking for good help. And you can then help someone else. Get to the next step, which is really in line with what we’re talking about is how do I in marketing, how do I keep that career? What does that career path look like? Sometimes it is through a relationship. Sometimes it is just not going burning a bridge. You know,

Ryan Truax 15:02
Chris, you’re 100%. I mean, each of my points in my tenure during my SAS career, it’s because I’ve been recruited out of the role into another for another reason, because I knew somebody not because I was the marketer of the year here in my space, but it was more so I knew a person who saw fit, who saw qualities in me that would fit most or well amongst organization, the rent. And by doing so you said, retaining relationships, never burning bridges, always taking the high road again, easy to say radically difficult in practice, but once you do, so, the fruits of their labor will bear themselves later and you will find yourself far more advanced than those that have chosen to take a lesser path traveled perhaps?

Chris Davis 15:36
Yeah, yeah. So your What was your first marketing position? Yeah,

Ryan Truax 15:44
it SAS it would have been accident, funnily enough, with LeadPages, some of whom are in right, I started a LeadPages, I’m gonna finish at LeadPages I’m staying here actually was in the content creation space. So again, multimedia videography was was really kicking around the tech space and call it you know, 2000 10s, or whatever, through some kind of great networking was pulled into LeadPages, and was part of the multimedia crew that told a lot of the brand stories through the vehicle being video, we were highly effective our ability to relate to our customers, because again, here you and I sit, we can see each other, we can talk to each other, we can feel each other’s presence, it’s why video was so wildly impactful. So a lot of LeadPages success, their Hyper Growth moments was predicated on the back of, or predicated around video as as a medium that was an effective way for us to tell others about ourselves or product offerings, as well as the, you know, the value in education we brought to all of those customers. So that’s where I got to start, again, a lot of things around the content creation space, and the more that you own as a content creator, the distribution of your content, you now become a performance marker quickly. So creators if you’re listening, don’t just make the beautiful thing, don’t just write the beautiful piece, track it to its end result, understand the metrics as the metrics excuse me, and engagement around the content you’re creating. Because now you don’t even know you are now stepping into the realm of demand generation, you’re now a growth marketer. Now, what do you get an opportunity to do, you can take your pathway from a creative like myself, become a performance marketer, you want to run demand gen, you want to be growth, you want to do these different things, you can now because you can speak in an interview, to experience as you had we say, we had this campaign, I was the head of content, we looked at the content where it fit amongst the overarching campaign. And look at this, we distributed across our omni channel. And this is the successes I had now I better understand the impact on the end user. It doesn’t get any better than that, when you start to just kind of unpack that,

Chris Davis 17:26
man, I love it. And it let me highlight when you’re talking about multimedia, and measuring the impact of the content that you create. It was nowhere near as as developed as it is now. Right?

Ryan Truax 17:46
Shout out to Adam rule. And he’d get a kick out of this. But yeah, what we were working with back then say 10 years ago, as opposed to what is available today.

Chris Davis 17:52
Oh my gosh,

Ryan Truax 17:53
we had like stones and sticks that we were working in, quite honestly. And you were left to doing what you had didn’t have the education people can look weird. Like what your the video team? Or what are you guys doing here? Amongst the other video? Did they realize your best friend was that person who could take what you were doing and elevated in a way that others other channels weren’t able to do? So?

Chris Davis 18:12
Yeah. So we have your start? And then what what was your next? What was the next position after that?

Ryan Truax 18:19
Yes, I continued on the credit path. So here’s the one thing that we’ll continue to wrap this conversation around is right, you’re an individual contributor, you get acknowledged for doing something really well guess what the next opportunity is gonna be someone asking you to do more of the same, right? You’ve been identified as the same thing. But what you do is you look at that opportunity, and how can I expand upon it, because I was then recruited out of LeadPages got another opportunity to leave more of the creative charge and an enterprise software company, local to me here in Minnesota. And what I was able to do is, again, expand that role. They brought me on to be the storyteller of the company, if you will. And again, within that I looked at how can the stories move the bottom line, you know, move that needle really. And again, it was that ability to look at an omni channel strategy, how can we take a singular piece of content distributed across all the channels that were impactful? And then of course, measure that you know, lack of success, or hopefully a pile of success, then use that to then build at scale what you do next? And from doing so, you start to expand well beyond a creative and you start to speak to the higher level executives and they start to see refer to data points with confidence and the ability to articulate why or why something was successful or what did not. The way that you look at you, they look at you in those moments will now change next opportunities presented to you because they think you have us more than what you’ve been hired to do.

Chris Davis 19:26
Yeah, let me ask you this question in that transition, because it was really a bigger step into leadership. What were some of the mental hack on the mental demons that you had to work through? Because I know a lot of marketers struggle with impostor syndrome. Yeah. You get an opportunity that you’re excited about. But you’ve also haven’t done it in that capacity or that magnitude yet. And you want to show up you want to you really want to do a good Job what, what? How? What advice do you have for somebody that is going through that and just give us some insight with some of the thoughts that you overcame or how you overcame them?

Ryan Truax 20:12
Yeah, your spirit you’re spot on the imposter syndrome is a term that’s been more developed over the time. And we all find ourselves as there, no matter how confident like maybe you are, myself may come off as competent individuals, there are times in which we are insecure about what we’re doing. Because it’s Uncharted grounds, I will tell everybody who’s listening, real growth does not come to you without discomfort. It just simply does not want to grow, you want to achieve more monetary gains in your life, you want more responsibility, get uncomfortable, I threw myself into the proverbial fire time and time again, I got burned a few times, like go into that corner office that executives office, I’d make a pitch I’d have data to reinforce and they’d say, Ron, love where you’re at. But but this is not going to fit for currently. That’s all right. I didn’t walk out of that through my head, you know, hung to the floor. I said, You know what, that was a lesson learned an opportunity that I can now take to the next level. When I have it presented to me again, I know why didn’t get that across the finish line was the right time, wrong time, excuse me wrong message and not have the data positions I should. So I guess what I learned was an ability to communicate with confidence to the executives, because they’re often the ones that steer our careers and our opportunities again. So even if you lack the competence, and maybe the experience you’d like to have in those tough conversations, you have to deliver with confidence. Be curious, ask the right questions. And in those moments, if you present yourself as such, you’re going to again, have these things given to you that others will not. So I learned that despite any deficiencies I thought that I had, I would also look around the room and see that I was not the only person that felt that way. And I think all of us that have had this impostor syndrome moment in our lives, thought we were the only one that experienced it. Let me tell you this, each and every person that you are working alongside of has been in the chair has had the emotion that you have as well. Don’t forget that we’re all human, none of us are perfect. And all of us are ever growing. You acknowledge that on that, except that you can be more comfortable with it. And again, it’s something that’s easier to say, as a person, it’s getting that you know, more mature side of their career, if you will. But if you can take any kind of ownership that in your 20s, your early 30s, my friends, you’d be well advanced for where you go next.

Chris Davis 22:12
Yeah, yeah, no, I want to add to the timing piece. There was a moment in my career when I was at Lockheed Martin as a corporate worker. And I was trying so hard to get out of there. My first attempt was maybe just transfer me back to Minnesota. I’ll stay at Lockheed Martin, but because I’m around family to be more tolerable, right. And I tried to get transferred to Minnesota that didn’t work. So I tried to get transferred in other places. I was just trying to get out, man. And I remember this is funny. I remember, I think I think I told this to Tracy, but I can’t remember where I found the pages. I found the job opportunity posted. And I apply for it. I was like, Oh, I would I would love to do that. Because at the time, I was just learning internet marketing following Pat Flynn, Brendon Bouchard, and a lot of them were using LeadPages. So I knew clay and I was like, hey, that company that builds landing pages is hiring. That’d be pretty cool. Right? Didn’t even know that. It was called a tech startup. I’m just thinking all companies are fairly size anyways. So I put in my my resume,

Chris Davis 23:20
my application and my resume. And I call and it was like at least four months and nobody would get back to me. Long story short, I did not get hired. I did not get hired. Nobody, nobody even they didn’t have the systems in place at the time to even let me know, hey, where you know, we’re considering other people. Right? It was super early. So when I got hired and asked him about it, I think Tracy I did have a call with Tracy and she just kind of laughed about it. Because she was like, Chris, we were so small and so scrappy at that time. We were just doing stuff and we’re just grabbing what we can grab and you know, but it speaks to the timing piece. There was a point that I applied in the in the answer was no, that was the answer. But I didn’t let that know drive me away permanently. I didn’t sit in it and just like Well, one day LeadPages will come back around. I went on with my life. And before you knew it, I found myself right back with Attempt number two. And of course yes, and the rest is history. So there is some stick to itiveness some fortitude, mental fortitude, emotional fortitude, that you have to display this amendment Ryan. Marketing is one of the toughest careers Oh cuz everything is always changing the user consumption trends and everything at like that tracking it continues to be a challenge. And everything you do is on display for people to experience and or judge

Ryan Truax 24:53
there’s nowhere to hide in marketing nowhere to hide. And that’s for better and for worse, right. You haven’t successes. You’re being celebrated. You’re not You’re gonna have those questions on a regular basis. Really? This is a life of a mark that I mean, for those of Saskatoon, right? It’s it’s widely known the shortest tenure of any part of the SAS Tree of Life is the head of marketing like it is because you try rebrand you tried reorders, you try new MMP message and positioning, and you’ll find out that none of the lands are it has a short shelf life, they’re gonna try the next person on for size. So you’d have to be available and willing to do the things others are not. And again, keep those those networks those relationships alive. And well, of course,

Chris Davis 25:31
yeah, absolutely. So. So I’m seeing the big picture, you had some some corporate experience that that gave you some tangible skills really helped polish, your approach show up as a professional, and you get an opportunity in the startup space, transferring those skills and using them. And then that leads to a leadership position. And was it after that you you walked into the position at LeadPages,

Ryan Truax 25:59
I spent about full force years and that net position there and really kind of sharpen my tools as anybody should in their their first leadership with a larger team, you got p&l responsibility, things that are new to you processes, you have to get familiar with the whole intertwining yourself with HR and ops and getting familiar with those things. But yeah, it was kind of that that opportunity for me to look at a lot that I learned. I mean, sometimes you learn as much from the detractors as you do that those that kind of are additives to your life. And sometimes you have your own personal experiences that you fold up into who you are, and how you treat others. And I think that during my time there, I was able to, again, pluck enough learnings from the tree of life. That was my marketing career at an enterprise software company, and then apply those to where I’m at today. So yeah, a little bit of that, I guess.

Chris Davis 26:43
Yeah. So what was that another relationship that opened the door? Did you initiate that? What What was that engagement back to lead pages? Because I, I would only imagine, Ryan, when you left, you probably weren’t intending, hey, I’ll be back in a few years, guys. Hold on. So what was that? What was that like? was asked? Did you just see an opportunity? Like I said, in the past, there’s Oh, there’s a opening and the patient? Was it doing a network of relationships?

Ryan Truax 27:13
Great question wasn’t even necessarily looking for the opportunity, that’s when the best ones come to you. Right? When you’re not even looking for your partner. Sometimes it’s career sometimes the lottery ticket out of the gutter, whatever it might be. I was not looking at the time. But again, through a strong network and strong relationships, like you and I have invested in for decades, we’re going to put a number to this decades, I was just friends that, hey, there’s an organization that’s hiring, you may or may not be familiar, they’d forgot that I’d started my career here, but they identify like, hey, Head of Marketing is available over there, you be a pretty darn good fit, you should at least just take a call with them, you know, I just do me a solid, this other person’s at the other end, get into contact with a with a quality leader, you know, probably they weren’t there selling me I guess at that point. But through that got engaged with the the CEO, this current currently elite pages, and from the first word, we hit it off. And it was once again when to use your choice of the two easiest choices professionally I’ve ever had in my life was joining the pitch at the first time in 2015. And joining last year in 2022. For different reasons, this time, but the leadership at LeadPages the CEO I could not get along with more you identified my people first mentality when it comes to leadership that is ever present yet to daily pages. It is exceptional, I’ve been through organizations that are in those hyper growth stages. And let’s not kid ourselves, people first mentality is don’t always win, because there’s so much else to achieve that sometimes the human care can get lost in the shuffle, right? You’re trying to, you know, just double everything quarter after a quarter and, and you get caught up caught up and and that can be a very exciting time. But as an organization matures and the dust settles, you have the opportunity to put the focus back on the people themselves. And like Richard Branson famously said, Take care of your people and your people will take care of your customers. So simple. It’s so short, but when you give your team and the individuals on it, the care and the intention is personal PRs, who’s me as people, and then professional secondarily, they’re going to take care of our customers because of the investment I’ve made into them. And they’re going to make the investment into our customers. So when you distill it down, and like what sorts of just that simple, no, we’re talking about countless hours spent in settings like this one on one time, I wish we could relate to one another. We can pick out what are the things you want to do at a tactical level to truly move the needle on our business. How do you feel cared for as an individual or others around you supporting and empowering you in a way that you can sustain and carry forward to that next challenge hurdle you have to overcome or that next success we celebrate together? Yeah, I could go on and on.

Chris Davis 29:33
There’s a theme here and some words came to mind as you were talking and I want to say this out loud this the first time I said it, but I believe it’s true. And we both lived it and experienced it firsthand. Integrity is magnetic to opportunity could not agree more. And I was listening to you, Ryan. And you were saying that somebody saw the position and said hey, you’d be great for that.

Ryan Truax 30:02
Use your work. Sure. But it was an opportunity that made sense given the like minded mentality when it came. Probably looking at a brand that was stable, but could also use a little bit of the shaking of the snowglobe, if you will, and looking at myself as, as a strong brand marketer early in my career, that perhaps it would be a good fit. And here we sit today, I guess the fit is good, because I feel darn good about it myself.

Chris Davis 30:22
Yeah, yeah. Right. So I think that the benefit, we talked about the toughness of marketing, but the benefit is that since what you’re doing is always on display. Done, right? Done with integrity. It’s a walking resume, just ever growing.

Ryan Truax 30:43
It really, really is. And that’s the beauty of it. I think people look at marketing, and like, it’s an ever changing landscape is this challenge, it’s like, you’re always having to grasp something you barely know anything about the excitement as a marketer, right? It’s a dynamic environment in which we live. Yes, things are changing all the time. That’s the beauty of it, I don’t want to go to a job. That’s the same each and every day. I mean, that’s just not who I am. I think a lot of people enjoy that. For me, the ever changing kind of marketing landscape, again, is something that just just excites me, because there’s a reason to learn, there’s a reason to grow, there’s a real reason to nurture relationships beyond what you know them to be today. And, again, that’s just I get literally excited and goosebump myself a little bit thinking that’s what tomorrow is about. And again, that’s all the inspiration I need to pass along to my team and to others in the company. Yeah,

Chris Davis 31:27
and I want to spend the last few minutes here talking about still marketing, but shift from your career to what’s mandated of your career now, so you’ve sustained yourself as a marketer, professional marketer, and leader. And now you walk into a position with Lee pages, that, and I’m going to proclaim this from the outside. So everybody knows I’m not taking this from Ryan’s mouth. But just knowing when I was there, there was a type of marketing that was extremely effective, extremely effective, the audience was at a certain level of maturity, marketing technology, was at a certain level of adoption, all of those things have changed. Right? All of those things in some of the core, like some of the cornerstones of why LeadPages was so great, has really kind of been has become more of a commodity like landing pages just aren’t as unique as they were back then. Nobody knew how to do it. Now. It’s like, everybody’s claiming we’ve got the fastest pages and this this now, it’s not hard to find. So inherently, there are challenges that, oh, the marketing of old is not going to work in this new day, if we’re going to sustain this company and continue to scale it. So talk to us a little bit about when you come into some because I know it had to be a bit overwhelming to to touch a well oiled machine for her say, right, you don’t want to ruffle any feathers. But hey, we’ve got to change the way that we approach this thing. Talk to us about that, that shift in marketing, because the marketing of yesterday may not be as effective as the same audience just a new time for today.

Ryan Truax 33:20
Yeah, I love the question. Because I did inherit something that was was well oiled and shout out to my predecessor for building a really stable foundation from which to work from, it made my ability to be an iterative leader, even that much easier, right? It’s not about turning the dial up to 11. It’s that half decibel adjustment to life into your strategy, right? Like, it’s not these big turns of the dial that we all think, Oh, my goodness, he just did everything flipped it on its head. No, there’s just a different angle in which we look at things. For us. It’s it’s a little bit of what is our position the market, we spend a lot of time looking at our competitors, right? And sometimes we forget to look inward and who we are, what is our core DNA? Why do we matter to the customers? What problems are we solving today that maybe we worked in the past, or a new problems for end users, we look at those and we deep dive into those. And then we insert and wrap our value around it as any good product marketer would do, of course. But again, this iterative nature, I can’t say enough about it, because it’s so critical, because the more that you stay stagnant, the competition starts to pick up its pace and starts to run laps, run laps and run laps. Also, you’re looking at some real retention problems and suppressed Economic Times who doesn’t want to retain a customer? Of course. So it’s, it’s so why don’t we want to go here, there’s just so many layers to it on which to unpack but again, I back to its origin. If I had heard it a great thing here at LeadPages looking to do is change you know a little bit about who are represented as marketing, because to your point, there are a lot of landing page solutions or a lot of all in one solution. So how do you fit in an ecosystem that’s noisy as a separate band? Well, I think it gets for us back to we’re gonna become the lead generation platform. We’re not just a place where you build your landing pages or websites. We’re also where you measure a success. We look at your campaigns as a cumulative whole. Look at the conversion points. Are they working? If not, let’s start doing some split testing because of course you’re leaping As we are testers, we always will be, that’s the one thing, it’ll be a mainstay. So look at those opportunities to better understand who you are and what you’re doing. So we ourselves are best on practitioner, right? We talk about work and these these testable moments and you’ll fail fast and you’ll learn quick. We’re doing those every every day, I’d be reticent to say if I didn’t live on data these days, because again, there’s so much available to us what we do with it is really how we differentiate from one another, right? We can all go into our CRM or, for me tableau for instance, and look at all the data, all the data that is saying that most would, but how we act upon that data is really what can make a difference. Because there’s so many stories be told inside of a data marketing system as you and I would know very well. But where you act, and where you don’t, more importantly, will be the way that you can kind of impact the business. And I think, for me, there’s just a little bit of a train of some, some old tendencies will apply and some new ways of thinking. And encouraging people, like I said earlier to get a little uncomfortable to think a bit differently about themselves, their role in the customer lifecycle, and the brand as a whole as a marketer, right? We’re trying to build trust, let’s not kid ourselves, are we selling things? Absolutely, but really was our primary job is to build trust. And to do that time and time and time again, if we’re able to do so acquisition and retention will take care of themselves. If we start to forget about the customer, the trust that we built with them, you can start to see what’s going to happen, your charts are gonna go unfavorable, you’re have some tougher conversations and QBRs annual reviews. Here in LeadPages, we embrace again, this iterative mindset that allows us to have speed to market, again, alignment with the messaging position that we’ve really sink our teeth into. And then again, measure and rinse wash, repeat, I guess, if you will,

Chris Davis 36:33
yeah. Something you said stuck out, man. So So, listeners, if you’re new to the podcast, I’m a participant of my own podcast. Okay, so this means I’m listening and learning, I may be asking the questions, but I’m listening and in learning, just as you all are, and you said something that made me think of identity. Okay. And when I was at LeadPages, we always had a conversion first identity, always, that was always it, we lead with the landing page, right? So what I hear you saying is, you know, when I, when I looked at this new market, as I inherited this role, I had to go back to who we are as a company, right? Like, we like conversion company. All right, so that changes the messaging. Now, it let’s not cheap in the brand, and just say landing page, that’s now just a portion, we used to lead with it. It used to be the flame that we guide us through the dark tunnel. And now it’s just like another it’s another flashlight. Right? Now we’ve got other tools. And let’s let the market know of this identity. But it doesn’t work out. You taught me this right here, right? It doesn’t work. If you yourself as the head marketer don’t understand what that identity is, and know how to draft messaging around it, so that you can be received and perceived as such in the marketplace.

Ryan Truax 38:06
Kudos to that. That’s that’s how you say it marketers. You’re spot on. Because here’s the thing, you can’t forget what is a lot often we’re what let’s be honest, marketers, we’re just, we’re distracted by shiny objects every day, whether it’s a new content strategy, a new piece of tech, or whatever it might be. And through the decades that LeadPages have been in existence, we’d be lying to ourselves to say we haven’t chased a few of those objects ourselves. But when you really look back to what fueled the growth, what did people latch on to? It was a conversion first mindset, right? Because we’re all in the building and you traffic, we need leads, we need to points a conversion. And from that we can drive revenue, we’re getting back to our DNA, probably more so than we have in the past. Right? We’re really getting back to that. Because when you look at the whitespace available in a category like ours, which is often defined as Website Builder landing page builder, there are a lot that have went in different directions, leaving a wonderful hunk of whitespace that I’m very excited about. And that’s the conversion space. The last was a third or a fourth or a fifth value prop number one over here, LeadPages, because it’s a way in which we can impact how your business performs. The builder is to the side of that that’s just the vehicle in which we get you to the point of conversion. So flipping it on his head, yeah, we give you landing pages, but we’re here to drive your business forward through conversion. And we have the expertise in 10s of 1000s of hours to suggest that we can help guide you there.

Chris Davis 39:20
Absolutely. And that’s what I’m excited about. I think that when companies don’t rest on their laurels when they don’t get stay comfortable and just get get fat off the revenue. Just keep eating. When you’re intentional with saying hey, what fat can I shave off? How can you remain lean and healthy? What does the market need? If if a company is focused like that? That’s a company you really don’t have to worry about. Right? Because they’re always they may not always be in the new Who’s right? But Ron, I have to say this. It’s it’s very similar to entertainers who have these timeless catalogs? Like for what me for one? If you’re a fan of this group, I’m about to say sorry, everybody, it is what it is. But I grew up listening to Bone Thugs and harmony.

Ryan Truax 40:18
Yes, yes.

Chris Davis 40:21
Like, everybody knows that song and that tune. When is the last time anybody outside of Cleveland has heard or listened to Bone Thugs and harmony, right? The thing is the thing just the other month, I saw, I think it was three of them, because you know, they’re all not together, but they’re going on tour. And I’m like, people are still people still want to listen to people still want to see and experience this group. And that’s what I’m talking about. You may not they’re not necessarily in the news. They’re not top 10. But they’re still relevant. And who knows what will come of it, Ryan, and who knows, maybe in some years, they resurface, and everybody comes back to this bug. It’s like, Hey, Chris, remember them. But you just never know. And if you if you just stop. And if you don’t keep progressing, and keep moving the cyclical nature of life, you take yourself out of that potential, you know, when you just have to stay in it, keep going. And like I said, you may not always be in the limelight. But you’re going to have a collection of people raving fans that are always cheering. And that’s what I find myself with LeadPages is it doesn’t matter if it’s the top 10 tool, the top five tool, the top 100 tool. As long as I know that LeadPages is focused on conversions, they’re always a tool in my box, or on my mind to make sure hey, wait a minute, let me stop here first, if something new drops from LeadPages, I’m that much more prone to adopt it? Because I trust the company and its long standing nature.

Ryan Truax 42:06
We said everything. A famous former CEO of mine famously said you every interaction either builds or erodes trust, and we think about that, that’s exactly what life is I’m talking you’ll zero click Content all the way through your most robust marketing campaign. We’re not building upon trust at each and every touchpoint the competitors will eat your lunch they just simply Well, in this age, we do not have a time to be deficient in any area be cognizant of the impact of what you were doing with your brand in market. You can make it work in your favor, or you can sign your own certificate.

Chris Davis 42:40
Yeah, yeah, right man, this has been great. So listeners we got to cheat we got to warm up before this one because I knew it would just be juicy and and Ryan and I hadn’t caught up in a while. So we got to get a lot of the small talk out the way man which gives you all just the mean potatoes. But thank you, man for coming on to the podcast. If people want to connect with you, or you know Lee pages in any capacity, where should they go? And as you’re doing that, leave them with just one sage word of advice, whether it’s a quote that you live by something that you just heard today, but where can they stay in contact with you? And what what should they keep on top of the mind for me the floors?

Ryan Truax 43:23
Well, marketers got to sell first and foremost leadpages.com Do not forget about us because we offer a 14 day free trial trial emphasize if you did once upon a time, come back to us. We’re doing some pretty progressive things. You can find me at Ryan J Truax. I’m on socials Ryan triacs.com, if you prefer to LinkedIn similarly available and all those and happy to be a voice to those that are again looking at their career in a way that they maybe feel empowered by challenged by whatever that might be. I like Chris are always in the business of trying to meet new people and doing whatever we can to help them like we’ve been helped for about suggesting things sage advice, well what do I start but I would say a saying that I have tailored a lot of my sports jackets I still wear to this day is the next big the next your next move is the biggest move you’ll make or something of the sorts I guess. But just think to yourself that all the things that you’ve done today will lead to your next big moment your next big opportunity. So take that step take that that leap of faith if you will. Be confident yourself in your ability to take that growth that you are to achieve the growth that you want. You can do it you’re more capable of things than you think that you are and give yourself some credit some grace

Chris Davis 44:26
man appreciate that Ryan again always good to have you on the podcast great to connect with you stay connected with you. And I’m rooting for nothing but the best for both Lee pages man and you as a professional in your careers just a fan man and just know that if you don’t hear anybody cheering some somewhere wherever I’m at I am Thank you ma’am.

Ryan Truax 44:55
Thank you Chris. No, it’s It’s the connecting Have you seen what you’re doing? I mean, if there’s anybody needs inspiration, you yourself As a small business owner has, you’ve carved a path for others to follow, right and then to you I’m indebted for because you’ve, you’ve challenged me to think differently. And I think others that are an active listener of you have appreciated that from you. You’re honest, you’re authentic. So this this experience here, we can do the same time of the week, my friend.

Chris Davis 45:16
Absolutely. All right, Ryan, I’m gonna let you go. For the moment, I know we will be connected. And if I’m ever up there, I’ll make sure our paths crossed. But thank you again for coming on the podcast man greatly appreciate it.

Ryan Truax 45:30
Likewise, Chris, thank you.

Chris Davis 45:31
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