From fragmented tools to unified, AI-powered growth: How Blackfeather Digital hit $1M in year one with Vendasta
A Vendasta partner since 2024.
The Challenge: When CEO and co-founder Brett Prieskorn left a large media conglomerate, he kept seeing the same pattern across hundreds of SMBs. Businesses were stitching together fragmented marketing services from multiple vendors, but no one owned the full revenue picture.
Brett wanted to build an agency that delivered the entire revenue engine under one roof. The challenge was scaling this high-touch model without building a large internal team, while still giving clients a modern, AI-powered experience that felt personal and transparent. That’s when he turned to Vendasta.
Fueling rapid growth and stronger sales results with Vendasta’s AI
$1M
First-year revenue
By standardizing every client with a unified, AI-powered revenue enablement program built with Vendasta.
100%
Client retention rate
3x
Increase in close rate for an SMB client
Background
Blackfeather Digital is not a traditional marketing agency. Brett describes it as a boutique revenue enablement agency that handles everything from brand development to sales enablement and ongoing revenue operations.
The goal is to function as an outsourced revenue department for a limited number of clients, rather than a high-volume marketing shop.
Most of the businesses that come to Blackfeather share similar pains:
- They use analog processes like paper files and manual notes, which makes it hard to track performance or act on data
- They pay for several disconnected tools, many of which are underused or forgotten
- They rely on a “piecemeal” agency that runs one channel, like search ads, without any connection to the website, SEO, reviews, or the sales process
- Leads get generated, but follow-up is slow, inconsistent, or never logged in a CRM
Brett had seen this firsthand when he managed sales at a media company. Small businesses were sold individual marketing products, while the foundational work they should be doing themselves was ignored. That misalignment convinced him there was room for an agency that would only sell programs that actually supported the full revenue journey.
To make that model possible, Blackfeather Digital needed a platform that could centralize all tools into a single system, surface the right data, and embed AI into everyday work.
Vendasta became that foundation.
Objectives
From the start, Blackfeather Digital set clear objectives for its first year in the market:
- Build a scalable revenue engine: Launch an agency model that combines strategy, execution, and accountability under one comprehensive program.
- Create full-funnel visibility for clients: Replace fragmented services with a unified system where performance and progress can be viewed in one place.
- Increase conversions and revenue impact: Help SMBs capture more inquiries, respond faster, and close more deals through better lead management.
- Scale efficiently with AI: Standardize delivery and automate repeatable work so a small team can serve more clients without adding headcount.
- Deliver consistent, high-touch service: Pair automation with personalized support to create dependable client experiences that strengthen long-term relationships. To bring these goals to life, Blackfeather Digital structured its operations around a unified approach powered by Vendasta.
Execution
1. Creating a unified, AI-powered foundation for every client
Instead of selling individual point solutions, Blackfeather Digital built a mandatory core stack using Vendasta’s platform. Every client is onboarded into the same foundational system, which is then customized to fit the business.
With Vendasta, the agency activates:
- Business App for client visibility, executive reporting, and performance dashboards
- Conversations AI with AI Receptionists for 24/7 chat and voice handling
- Social Marketing for social scheduling, social listening, and AI-assisted content
- Reputation Management for review collection, monitoring, and response
- Advertising Intelligence for paid media and cross-channel performance
Brett is confident in his unified approach: “All of our customers use all of those solutions. There is no piecing together. You get everything you need from us.”
This stack gives Blackfeather Digital a unified system of record and engagement. It also creates stickiness; clients are less likely to churn when all their core marketing and communication systems live in a single portal.
2. Improving lead response and follow-up with AI Receptionists
Brett talks openly about a problem many agencies ignore. They can generate leads, but they do not control what happens after the form fill or phone call:
“We are tremendously successful at generating leads. The shortfall is that no matter how many leads you get, they are only as good as the sales follow-up behind them. If you are not there when the lead comes in, you miss the opportunity.”
Blackfeather Digital uses Vendasta’s AI Receptionist to close this gap:
- Calls ring to the client’s team first
- If the call is not answered within a set number of rings, it automatically routes to the AI Receptionist
- The AI Receptionist answers questions, captures names and contact details, books appointments, and logs everything inside Vendasta’s CRM
Initially, clients are nervous about letting AI touch their sales process. They worry about a bad call or robotic experience. Brett positions the AI Receptionist as a backup SDR that prevents missed opportunities, rather than a replacement for their people.
3. Turning operational chaos into higher close rates and long-term retention
Many of Blackfeather Digital’s clients come from highly manual environments. For example, one construction business had 17 filing cabinets of customer records, spent heavily on search ads, and still struggled with underperforming sales reps, lacking visibility into pipeline performance.
To fix this, Blackfeather Digital rebuilt the company’s operations on Vendasta’s platform by:
- Implementing Vendasta CRM and sales workflows as the source of truth
- Using Advertising Intelligence and reporting to track cross-channel performance
- Coaching the sales team with insights from Business App and CRM, focusing on close rates and follow-up speed
The impact was immediate:
- Reps originally closed about 15% of their appointments
- After coaching and better visibility, close rates reached 50%
“When you are talking about jobs that average $50,000, going from a 15% close rate to 50% means millions of dollars that were previously left on the table. They are not going anywhere now,” Brett explains.
Vendasta’s platform made it easy for Blackfeather Digital to pinpoint the real bottleneck and measure the impact of improved lead handling and sales enablement over time.
4. Centralizing client visibility in one unified portal
Before working with Blackfeather, many clients either:
- Did not look at any data because it lived in too many disconnected tools
- Only heard how things were going at the end of the month in a marketing meeting
Blackfeather Digital gives every client access to Vendasta’s Business App and its Executive Report so they can check their performance at any time.
5. Scaling internal operations with AI before rolling it out to clients
Brett is vocal about an important principle: use AI internally before selling it to clients. He explains:
“AI solves easy problems best. Your own business has easy problems. If you cannot solve them for yourself and see the bottlenecks, it is almost impossible to overcome someone else’s problems. When you do it yourself every day, you are talking from practical experience.”
Internally, Blackfeather Digital uses Vendasta’s AI tools to:
- Run an AI receptionist for their own business, routing calls and capturing leads 24/7
- Summarize meeting notes and surface items that should become blog posts or website content
- Have AI research current social media trends, then draft emails to clients with specific ideas for videos or posts they can record
This creates a feedback loop. AI reveals where processes are unclear or under-documented. Brett’s team then turns those into SOPs and automations, which increase capacity without hiring a large staff.
Results & impact
| Before Vendasta | After Vendasta |
|---|---|
| New agency with no recurring base | Reached $1M in first-year revenue with Vendasta as the core platform |
| Industry norm of agencies churning clients roughly every 3 years | 100% client retention in the first year, driven by holistic programs and clear outcomes |
| Missed calls, delayed follow-up, limited visibility into who called or why | AI Receptionists capture every missed call, answer questions, book meetings, and log everything |
| Clients closing ~15% of appointments on high-value projects | Close rates approaching 50%, translating into millions in additional revenue |
| Manual posting across channels, weeks to plan monthly calendars | Social content for a month planned in days using Social Marketing and AI |
| Fragmented tools and sporadic reports across multiple platforms | Single Business App login with reporting available on phone or desktop anytime |
These shifts represent a fundamental upgrade in how Blackfeather Digital supports clients across the whole revenue journey. Vendasta’s evolving AI capabilities have allowed Brett and his team to move quickly, stay ahead of changing needs, and deliver outcomes that weren’t possible with disconnected tools.
Brett explains, “When we started with Vendasta, it already had the core capabilities to manage the organic channels for our customers. As they’ve expanded the platform and rolled out more AI features, when new issues or opportunities come up, we’re ahead of the game because we’re able to roll them out right away rather than wait for a new tool to handle it for us.”
This combination of a unified AI workforce platform, a standardized tech stack, and a boutique, high-touch delivery model has given Blackfeather Digital a strong foundation for long-term growth.
What’s next
Blackfeather Digital’s vision is to become an invitation-only agency that scales primarily through referrals and inbound demand.
Looking ahead, Brett and his team plan to:
- Deepen their use of AI Employees across more parts of the customer journey, including pre-qualification and discovery on the website
- Continue refining AI Receptionist configurations to feel even more human, while capturing more detailed data for sales and marketing insight
- Build more AI-driven workflows that transform meeting notes and call logs into blogs, sales assets, and evergreen content
- Lean further into referrals by giving happy clients a simple, incentive-based way to introduce new businesses to Blackfeather
“I would love for us to be invitation-only. I want people to land on our site, talk to an AI bot that qualifies them, and then get forwarded to us if they are the right fit. As AI gets better, the opportunity for small, focused teams like ours only grows.”
“Vendasta’s platform has been instrumental for us. It’s allowed us to centralize everything in one place and give customers visibility into what we’re doing, while also enabling them to oversee their own work. Being able to roll out AI to both our customers and our team has given us more time back and made the entire process seamless, from new leads coming in to engaging with customers throughout their journey.”
Brett Prieskorn
CEO & Co-founder, Blackfeather Digital
Best-selling products
Conversations AI
Help businesses engage, nurture, and convert customers with intelligent, automated messaging across channels.
Reputation Management
AI-powered tools to manage and boost client reviews.
Social Marketing
Manage thousands of client accounts, streamline workflows, and unlock revenue opportunities with rebranding.
Local SEO
Boost local search rankings with easy listing management.
Conclusion
Blackfeather Digital shows what is possible when an agency decides to own the full customer journey with an AI-powered platform instead of stitching together tools.
By standardizing on Vendasta’s AI customer acquisition and engagement platform, Brett and his team built a $1M agency in their first year, turned missed calls into booked appointments, helped clients move from analog chaos to data-driven decisions, and scaled their own operations with AI Employees and clear SOPs rather than a large staff.
For agencies, the takeaway is clear: The combination of a unified AI workforce platform, a standardized tech stack, and a real human strategy can create both premium outcomes for clients and predictable growth for the agency.
If you want to build your own blueprint for an AI-driven, high-retention agency, Vendasta gives you the platform to do it.
Ready to build your own AI-powered growth engine? Let’s talk about how Vendasta can support your first million and beyond.
Start making more money with Vendasta
Ready to explore the Vendasta platform?
Talk to one of our experts or try our software for free to discover exactly how we can help your business sell more at scale.
Get a demo
Talk to a real person
Get free access
Register for a free account
