Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / Why 7 Out of 12 Builders Lose Leads – And the AI Fix That Changes Everything (with James Matte)

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Why 7 Out of 12 Builders Lose Leads – And the AI Fix That Changes Everything (with James Matte) · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:05
Welcome to another insightful episode of the Contractor
0:08
Business Builder Podcast. Today we have the honor of
0:11
introducing James Matt, who's the CEO of Builder Chat.
0:14
So what if you could save 100 plus hours of admin time every
0:18
year without hiring a new employee just by changing how
0:22
you talk to your leads and your current clients?
0:25
Welcome here James. How you doing today?
0:27
Do an amazing Derek, thanks so much for for having me and and
0:31
for the amazing introduction. Really appreciate it.
0:34
Definitely excited to, to dive in here builder chat, Jeff,
0:37
definitely on the cutting edge of of some new technology and
0:40
making life easier for, for contractors across the board.
0:43
So can you give us a little bit of an intro of builder chats and
0:48
you know exactly what you do and the idea behind it?
0:51
Yeah, sure. I'd love to if it's cool with
0:53
you. Maybe I'll start with my, my
0:56
journey in the building space and OK, wonderful.
0:59
So yeah, I've been in home building for 21 years, also have
1:03
some commercial experience. I actually got started on the
1:07
tools in my late teens and worked my way up to project
1:11
management estimating, spent seven years selling new homes
1:16
and also have a lot of business development and sales experience
1:21
and other trade aspects in the industry as well.
1:24
So the way that builder chat came about pretty interesting
1:29
origin story right around when COVID hit, I was a sales and
1:33
marketing manager for a custom builder and things were growing
1:38
great. You know, we had, we had a solid
1:40
pipeline built and you know, right, right when we were kind
1:45
of starting to count some wins, COVID hit.
1:49
And if you're up in Canada, you know, what happened during COVID
1:53
a little bit different than than what some people experienced in
1:56
the US, But we got hit with some pretty strict lockdowns.
2:01
And you know, there was a ton of fear and uncertainty around that
2:06
time. And what happened for us was
2:09
like 100% of our pipeline pumped the brakes.
2:13
You know, they didn't want to carry the conversation on.
2:15
They didn't want to talk about getting forward.
2:17
Everybody was kind of like, you know, let's stop and see what
2:20
happens. On top of that, no new people
2:23
were reaching out as well. So I'm sure you can imagine
2:27
Derek a little bit scary, especially since, you know, at
2:32
that point I was primarily Competition Commission based for
2:36
my income. So, you know, not only worried
2:39
about performing for the company, but feeding my my
2:43
family as well. So, yeah, and, and, you know, in
2:47
our weekly meetings, of course, you know, one of the things we
2:51
take a look at was our website traffic.
2:53
And what was really interesting to us was not only was our
2:57
website traffic steady, it was actually better than it was
3:01
before the lockdowns. And, you know, not a huge
3:05
surprise there. People are, they're cooped up in
3:07
their house. They realize everything they
3:10
don't like about it, they're not going to work.
3:12
So they have time to to research, right.
3:16
But you know, they weren't engaging.
3:17
And we were like, how the heck can we engage these website
3:21
visitors and connect with them even though they're not ready to
3:25
like, kind of, you know, start a sales cycle or or really get a
3:28
conversation going? So, you know, at that time the
3:33
technology wasn't really where it is today.
3:36
So we were kind of exploring options on, on how we can engage
3:39
people 24 hours. We we noticed a lot of our
3:42
traffic was at night and what we settled on was a live chat
3:48
model. But to make it affordable for
3:50
the company, we decided to staff it with foreign workers out of
3:54
India, which is like very common for, you know, call centres and
3:57
things like that, you know, not anticipated before we kicked the
4:04
project off. But that kind of created a bunch
4:07
of additional problems for me that I, I didn't anticipate, you
4:11
know, language barriers, training hurdles, you know, gaps
4:16
in like understanding the terminology of the industry,
4:20
especially like regionally specific.
4:23
So, you know, sometimes I'd, I'd throw my hands up and get a
4:26
little frustrated and be like, you know, one day we'll be able
4:29
to do this with, with AI. So flash forward a few years and
4:34
that dream became a reality. So what we specialize in at
4:38
Builder Chat is building customer experience solutions
4:42
for builders and contractors that give them the ability to
4:46
engage prospects, potential buyers, potential clients 24/7
4:51
365 and also help facilitate customer service for existing
4:57
clients. Hmm, that's so cool.
5:00
Can you walk us through a little bit of what that might look like
5:06
from the from the clients point of view or the person calling in
5:10
what's what's, what would their experience be or what some of
5:13
the use cases? Yeah, for sure.
5:16
So we do have the ability to apply our technology to web chat
5:21
on your website, text, so SMS or voice applications on your phone
5:26
as well. So basically what we're doing
5:29
is, is we're kind of filling any gaps for your team, right?
5:33
So as I mentioned, we noticed a lot of our traffic was happening
5:38
at night. Some of the studies my team has
5:40
reviewed say that number is as high as 60% today for new buyers
5:45
doing research, which totally makes sense, right?
5:48
They're working all day, they're getting home, they're having
5:50
supper. Maybe it's 891011 o'clock by the
5:53
time they they pivot to doing some research after the kids are
5:57
in bed. So our internal data does
6:00
reflect that at certain points in the year it does fluctuate,
6:04
but we've seen as high as 5253 percent of our chats happening
6:08
after hours. So you know, main question, who
6:12
cares? Why is this important?
6:14
Well, the reason it's important is early interactions with your
6:19
team kind of determine potential clients perception of your
6:24
customer service, even if it's on a subconscious level, you
6:28
know, and it, it kind of gives them an idea of what your
6:31
responsiveness is and, and things like that.
6:34
HubSpot, you're one of the largest CRM's out there.
6:37
They've run some numbers. And according to them, if you're
6:40
the first to reply to a potential client, potential
6:44
buyer, your chances of landing the deal could be as high as 78%
6:49
higher. So it's, it's a really huge
6:52
difference here. And I know as a new home sales
6:55
person, one of the biggest compliments or, or most common
6:58
compliments I got was, you know, thanks for getting back to me so
7:02
quickly. We, we reached out to 3-4 or
7:04
five builders over the past 2-3 days and you're the first one to
7:08
get back to us. And you know for me reply was
7:12
like top of my list. I always tried unless I'm in a
7:15
meeting like I'll get back to you instantly.
7:17
And you know, we won a lot of business.
7:20
In fact, if we got to the design phase with the client might
7:25
close rate was above 95% on that.
7:28
So it, it really makes a huge difference, especially in an
7:33
industry where, you know, builders and contractors are
7:35
notoriously hard to get ahold of.
7:38
So basically what we're doing, it's not a human, but we're
7:41
positioning, you know, a solution that's client facing
7:45
that allows no matter what time of day, no matter what question
7:49
a client has, they are able to ask general FAQ's, you know, get
7:54
help navigating your website, understand some things that your
7:58
team provides that might not be easily accessible on the
8:02
website. And you know, anybody who's into
8:06
analytics website data at all knows that if somebody doesn't
8:10
find what they're looking for within about 15 to 30 seconds,
8:14
chances are they're going to leave and they're going to go to
8:16
a competitor site. So.
8:20
Yeah, yeah, some, some surprising numbers there.
8:23
And it's there's a saying in the industry, you know, speed to
8:26
lead, how you know, how quick are you to respond to client
8:29
requests. And it doesn't always have to be
8:33
you picking up the phone and calling them or talking with
8:36
them personally. It's really about them feeling
8:38
that the companies responded if they get their some questions
8:41
asked, the, the, you know, setting that expectation of when
8:44
someone will reach out to them and things like this, they, they
8:47
feel heard and, and it gives a professional feel to the
8:49
business. Even, you know, if they're not
8:51
talking directly with the owner, which obviously as a, as a
8:54
larger business, you can't have, you know, people available 24/7
8:59
where, where I can easily do that and then provide a really
9:02
high level of, of service there. So you mentioned a few here, but
9:06
what are what are some common mistakes that you see home
9:08
builders contractors making when it comes to like managing their,
9:12
their sales and leads that that come in?
9:15
Well, you know, again, I've been in the industry for 21 years, so
9:20
I know this first hand because like, I, I was that guy, right?
9:24
A lot of people in the industry, why do they start their own
9:28
business? You know, chances are they're
9:30
really good at what they do, right?
9:33
And, and a lot of what I'm about to bring up, Derek, will
9:38
probably resonate with you and your clients.
9:40
And you know, this is exactly what you help with.
9:43
They're really good at what they do.
9:44
Maybe not a professional sales person, you know, maybe not
9:48
professional, professional customer experience manager,
9:52
things like this. Elements of business management
9:55
that might not be front of mind as an expert trades person when
10:00
you're starting your business. So common mistakes, you know,
10:05
again like speed, the lead recognizing that you have to
10:08
keep your pipeline flowing all the time and you have to have a
10:11
consistent system in place that that helps facilitate bringing
10:18
in new business all the time. So sorry one SEC.
10:22
Yeah. Excuse me.
10:35
Yeah. And, and then on top of like,
10:37
you know, speed to reply and speed to lead, there's, you
10:42
know, speed on estimating, getting clients.
10:44
They're proposals as quick as possible.
10:46
Something else that's very important.
10:50
You know, when I first started in home sales, one of my early
10:53
mentors, he asked me a question and he said, James, like, what
10:57
do you think your job is as a new home sales person?
11:00
And I thought it was a trick question.
11:03
So I was like, I don't know, paperwork, you know?
11:07
And and he says no setting reasonable expectations, right?
11:11
So this is where all of this comes into play.
11:14
You don't have to be available 24/7.
11:17
You know, you don't have to like getting an estimate or proposal
11:22
to a client within 24 hours. There's 72 hours, very
11:25
reasonable, both very reasonable time frames.
11:28
But what is your prospect, your potential client expecting,
11:32
right? So setting those expectations is
11:34
very important. If you do the the site visit at
11:37
the client's home or on the job site or meeting and you tell
11:41
them I'm I'll have a proposal to you in 24 hours, but it takes
11:45
you 48, you're letting them down.
11:47
You didn't set a reasonable expectation.
11:50
If you tell them three days and you get it to them in two same,
11:54
same time frame right now, you have a happy client because
11:57
you've exceeded the expectations.
11:59
So #2 is, is setting expectations.
12:04
And then, you know, I, I'd say that the other very important
12:08
factor, and again, I know this from experiences not having like
12:13
formal sales training, it's very important.
12:15
Just like you need to develop and practice the skills as a
12:18
tradesperson, you also need to learn and develop skills as a
12:23
salesperson to keep that business momentum going.
12:26
So. Yeah, great points pointed out
12:30
there and really beneficial definitely that consistency for
12:36
your pipeline, whether that's in your marketing, your sales
12:38
process, whatever super important because as so many
12:42
builders is a catch 22 where you get super busy, you got all
12:45
these projects you're just managing and just trying to
12:47
stay, you know, on top of everything that's happening in
12:49
your business, you you neglect the sales marketing legion
12:52
inside your business and then, you know, all those projects
12:55
start to wind down and it's like, you know, oh shoot, we got
12:57
to pump, you know, pump up these this leaves and sales again, and
13:01
it just doesn't work overnight like that.
13:03
You, you really need to have that consistency, you know,
13:07
definitely in there to, to make the whole thing run and and be
13:10
able to be scheduling out projects and and maintain your,
13:13
your workflow. No, there's probably like the
13:18
larger builders out there. This makes a lot of sense.
13:20
Have you know somebody who can pick up the phone?
13:23
Do you know some of this back and forth with, with new clients
13:27
or people asking information and stuff like that?
13:29
Who are, you know, generating consistently?
13:31
What about like the smaller builders out there who maybe you
13:35
know, are doing, I don't know, in, you know, a few million
13:38
range or even less who think I don't really need someone, you
13:43
know, on the phones 24/7 or, or what have you.
13:46
What is does your builder chat work?
13:51
You know well for small builders as well as as as larger
13:53
builders. Yeah, totally.
13:56
So you know, one of our our big things and and I know a lot of
14:00
contractors, trades people out there might be intimidated by
14:04
new technology. So you know, we've really
14:07
removed that roadblock and one of our taglines is no new tech
14:11
tiller, right. So what we do is, you know,
14:15
hopefully you have some sort of system in place, maybe you have
14:19
a a CRM client relationship management program or a project
14:22
management estimating platform that you're using that
14:26
integrates that at some level. So what we do is we plug into
14:30
that and basically we're able to collect those contact details
14:36
and submit them for you and set a reasonable expectation, right?
14:39
Like what I would recommend for somebody that's smaller is, you
14:43
know, have a block in your day that you get back to people.
14:46
So maybe that's 4:00 to 5:00 PM, you know, whatever days we can
14:51
train your AI assistant to be like, yeah, you know, Paul's
14:54
going to get back to you at 4:00 PM this evening or 4:00 PM
14:58
tomorrow evening. Still again setting that
15:00
reasonable expectation. Do they need this?
15:03
Well, take a look at your competition, right?
15:07
There's a lot of really successful home services
15:10
franchise. You've already brought up the
15:12
large builders that have entire human teams dedicated to this.
15:16
The large franchise home services providers that are, you
15:20
know, national, international companies, they have teams
15:24
dedicated to this as well. And there's a reason that they
15:26
spend millions and millions of dollars on this because it's
15:29
super important. And that's two you're competing
15:32
against, right? So what we have here is like an
15:35
opportunity to level the playing field.
15:37
So maybe you can afford to have, you know, and an administrative
15:43
staff, a secretary, you know, somebody answering the phones
15:47
for you all day. Not only can we provide that to
15:51
you for like pennies an hour, but we can actually elevate your
15:57
service or perceived service to clients above that of your
16:02
competition, even some of these larger companies that likely
16:07
aren't providing 2424 hour coverage.
16:10
So we are a little bit ahead of the curve and I see a
16:14
significant opportunity for contractors, even small and
16:19
medium size to really tap into that to kind of level the
16:22
playing field. So you know that that's
16:25
something that really gets me excited.
16:28
And then again, from experience, if you are concerned about
16:32
sales, what's your other option? Right?
16:34
Like you're sitting there answering texts and phone calls.
16:37
I like to call them a, you know, kind of a spinoff of the tire
16:41
kicker concept. I called them foundation kickers
16:44
in our industry. But you know, how many calls a
16:47
day are you answering? Just like frequently asked
16:49
questions or questions from people that aren't even serious
16:52
and you're stopping your work. If you're not on the tools,
16:55
you're, you know, stopping your estimating or managing your team
16:59
to field these calls. So we also provide an
17:02
opportunity to pre qualify and and filter out those foundation
17:06
kickers. And by the time somebody looks
17:08
forward to connecting with you, you already know there's some
17:11
interest there and and you get the entire chat transcript as
17:15
well. So you're kind of already in
17:17
your clients head. If you do have some sales acumen
17:20
really positions you to build some strong report right out of
17:23
the gate and you don't have to annoy your client by asking them
17:27
all of the same questions, right, So.
17:30
Yeah, huge time savings, money savings for one thing.
17:36
But then the other thing is just as we've mentioned before, your
17:40
likelihood of of landing sales and and speaking with the right
17:43
client. So spending more of your time
17:45
having conversations with the right people instead of, you
17:48
know, spending your time trying to weed out or sort out the
17:51
people that aren't a good fit or could easily be answered by, you
17:55
know, FAQ or something like that.
17:57
So definitely useful. And I think like this is only
18:01
going to get more standard, I think across the industry.
18:05
So you really have a chance now to be able ahead of the curve
18:09
and like that glue, the longer that you utilize the, I find the
18:14
better you get at it, but the better it will get at whatever
18:17
tasks you're giving it. So the sooner you can get
18:20
started with something like this, just the better off you'll
18:22
be in, in the, in the farther ahead you'll get in the future.
18:26
Now we were talking a little while back and you said that you
18:30
did a bit of a, you know, secret shopper recently where you, you
18:34
called a bunch of builders and to, to just kind of do some
18:37
market research, if you will. Can you tell us a little bit
18:39
about what you did and what the results were?
18:43
Yeah, I love that you brought that up.
18:46
You know, we had a lot of fun performing this this secret shop
18:50
project and, you know, not trying to throw anybody under
18:54
the bus. So I won't say which builders it
18:56
was or which city it was. I will say it was one of the
19:02
capital cities in Canada. And I will say that we secret
19:07
shopped 12 builders. Out of those 12 builders, only
19:12
two had after hours coverage. So you know what, what's that
19:17
like 16 or 18% and out of those 12 builders, only 5 ever got
19:26
back to us with an after hours inquiry.
19:29
So you know, like that really floored me.
19:31
I brought up earlier how, you know, I have new home sales
19:34
experience on one of my primary objectives was like that, that
19:38
speed to reply, you know what I mean?
19:39
And, and how powerful that was for me and, and all the builders
19:45
we're talking about, they're the biggest builders in the city
19:48
that we surveyed. So, you know, again, if you're
19:52
looking at this from like a small medium builder
19:54
perspective, gigantic opportunity here guys like you
19:59
know, I touched on earlier how up to 60% of home buyers are
20:03
shopping after hours and none of your big competition.
20:09
Has, has this support in place for this?
20:12
And not only that, even though they have teams, they're missing
20:15
these leads. And like I, I'm a professional
20:18
home sales person. I knew the questions to ask to
20:21
appear like I was coming in as a, as a solid lead.
20:25
And I'm not sure how it got missed in the shuffle or what
20:28
happened. But the main point is there's a
20:31
gigantic opportunity here. And you know there there's a
20:36
crazy stat here I'm just going to review.
20:38
We put a report together here on the evolution of online bio
20:44
behavior. And I kind of want to bring up
20:47
one of these stats just to kind of show you, you know, how how
20:53
important streamlining the buyer journey is and how big of a
20:57
difference this can actually make.
21:03
And I can't find it of course. Where is it here?
21:14
Anyway, sorry I I can't find the note right now, but basically if
21:19
you look at online shopping trends, 1st place is Amazon and
21:27
chances are most of the people listening probably have an
21:29
Amazon Prime membership. I know I do.
21:32
And how streamlined is Amazon? Right?
21:35
I can hop on there. I can order something in two
21:38
clicks and have it to my doorstep the next day.
21:42
The next leader is Walmart. Amazon accounts for like 46% and
21:49
I, I could be a little bit off here, but 46% of e-commerce,
21:55
Walmart is like at 5%. So that gives you some
22:00
perspective on how big of a difference a streamlined buying
22:04
journey can make online buyer journey can make for a business
22:08
like nobody else is even in the same league, right?
22:12
Like Amazon's really figured this out and this is where it
22:16
kind of impacts every other business as well because
22:19
subconscious or not, everybody is used to these buying
22:22
experiences now, right? Like since COVID, we had a huge
22:27
amount of what I like to call convenience innovation, you
22:30
know, order your groceries, all this sort of stuff.
22:33
This is the level of accessibility and customer
22:36
service people are getting used to.
22:38
And the building industry and contracting industry typically
22:43
lags other industries already. And like, they really haven't
22:46
clicked into this. Like I'm just now starting to
22:48
see leaders from like the top, top builders in the US.
22:53
I haven't heard anybody in Canada talking about this yet.
22:57
And a lot of them are starting to recognize it.
22:59
But I, I don't even know if I've seen another person talk about
23:02
the why. So like, when you really
23:04
understand what's happening with buyer psychology, online buying
23:08
journeys, accessibility and, and all of these things, you know,
23:13
the opportunity that we have to tap into becomes pretty clear.
23:17
So. Yeah, definitely as as you
23:20
mentioned, the, you know, the game has changed and people are
23:23
used to getting all the information they need online or
23:27
even, you know, through AI chat bots and stuff Nowadays that
23:31
it's they're in a different psychological space.
23:34
And, and they expect like as you mentioned earlier, with the
23:37
expectations, you know, a lot of frustration or miscommunication,
23:43
pretty much everything it boils down to expectations and, and
23:47
expectations have really never been higher for for consumers
23:50
nowadays, you know, everything is very instant at their
23:53
fingertips. They want to talk with with
23:56
someone when they want to talk with someone, they want to know
23:58
something, you know, right now, not not in a day or two.
24:01
So yeah, just emphasizing the importance of really getting
24:05
back to them quick. So as far as like that, that
24:08
client experience, what are some tips that you've, you know, seen
24:12
worked really well? We've we've talked about, you
24:15
know, setting proper expectations, but what other how
24:18
can like builders, contractors really excel at that that client
24:22
experience? Well, you know, I think it
24:25
really comes down to having your whole team on the same page as
24:29
well. That's really huge.
24:31
And like every, every team member is a representative of
24:35
your business and they should understand all of the processes
24:39
that you have in place and have the ability to set those
24:43
expectations with clients and also honor those expectations.
24:47
Right. So I, I think it kind of comes
24:50
down to like a, a company culture thing.
24:52
And you know, it's, it's funny, Derek, like when we first
24:56
started build your chat, you know, I kind of explained the
24:59
back story there and we knew we had something powerful and
25:02
produce amazing results for me and, and brought us so many high
25:06
quality leads over the time with the builder that I was managing
25:12
the sales and marketing for. So we recognize the power of
25:15
that. But like during our secret shop
25:17
and, and other projects that that my team is engaged in, you
25:22
know, our, our mission is, it is kind of a dual pronged mission
25:26
right now. And, you know, just just like
25:29
putting it out there, like I brought up earlier how
25:32
contractors and builders are notoriously unresponsive and,
25:37
and a lot of people, even if they're super happy with their
25:40
project, they're not happy with their customer service.
25:43
So, you know, people will pay for that.
25:47
Like the, the small builders out there that are listening to
25:49
this, I'm sure there's a lot of business that you've won because
25:53
they get to deal with the, the owner direct and they want that
25:56
white glove service. So like, you know, how can we
26:00
actually live up to that and, and make sure they're happy?
26:04
How can we bring you more referrals by, by providing an
26:08
amazing experience. So you know, I'm not sure if I
26:12
if I totally answered your question or if I drifted a bit.
26:14
There, I think that the big take away there is when you, when you
26:21
go to produce a, you know, a new home or project and you're
26:26
presenting that to the clients, you know, as a finished project,
26:29
you want everything to look Immaculate, right?
26:32
You don't want any paint splotches, you don't want any
26:35
flooring cracks or, or whatever rate it's, it's got to look
26:38
pristine and, and that's the quality you want to give on a
26:42
project. But there's the other side of it
26:44
that you want that same level of quality and detail and care
26:48
given to the experience the client has with the project
26:52
being informed, you know, setting expectations,
26:55
communication levels, all this these different things.
26:59
So I think bringing that same amount of attention and care
27:03
that you do to, you know, producing a high quality project
27:06
needs to go into the client experience because at the end of
27:09
the day, I really stellar client experience can kind of make up
27:14
for a few hiccups in the project or the quality thing that was a
27:17
little bit off and you gotta go back and fix it.
27:19
If you have that report, you've been upfront, you've had good
27:22
communication. They've always felt like they're
27:24
in the loop and and you're on the same team working together
27:27
on this project that, you know, to produce what they want.
27:30
They're going to refer you. Your marketing budget is going
27:32
to go farther. You're going, you're going to
27:34
spend whatever you going to spend on ads or agencies or or
27:38
whatever it may be. Why not, you know, utilize some
27:42
of these these processes or technologies to truly capitalize
27:46
on on those investments that you're going to be making
27:47
anyways to to bring in new clients.
27:50
So. Is it cool if I touch on
27:53
marketing just for a brief? 2nd 100%, yeah.
27:55
So, you know, I think that's a really important point to bring
28:00
up. And again, speaking from
28:01
experience, I think a lot of business owners look at
28:04
marketing as an expense, but you know, basically your marketing
28:08
is bringing attention to your business.
28:11
We offer solutions to help engage that attention right
28:14
away. Again, if you have a good sales
28:16
process on on the back end and service process, you'll be able
28:20
to leverage that to close more deals.
28:22
And, you know, I think there's a really powerful reframe that
28:26
that people need to look at this and marketing isn't an expense,
28:31
it's an investment into your business.
28:33
And same with like developing SOP's and, you know, tapping
28:37
into the experience of people that might be able to bring
28:41
elements to your business that, that you might not be proficient
28:45
in. You know, these are investments
28:47
in your business. And like, even let, let's say
28:50
you spend 1000 a $1000 and, and your ticket is only $2000 and
28:56
you know, or 2000 profit off the project, a small project, like
29:02
you're doubling your money on your marketing.
29:04
Where else can you invest money and double your money?
29:08
Now, you know, if you're running things properly, you're, you're
29:12
probably making much more of a, of a return than that.
29:16
You know, it might be a 50X or 100X.
29:19
So, you know, I, I'd really like to encourage people to kind of,
29:23
you know, look at marketing and a different frame and understand
29:26
that like that's the the front driver of your business and it's
29:29
an investment and, and really look at that from an ROI
29:33
perspective, not just an expense that's kind of coming out of
29:37
your account. So.
29:38
Yeah, Yeah, definitely. I, I find as like a percentage
29:42
of revenue like a margin to to spend on marketing.
29:45
Typically you want to be anywhere from 1 to 3% if you
29:48
want to be aggressive and you're growing maybe even more than
29:51
that. But you should be allocating,
29:54
you know, a part of your your revenue that you're generating
29:58
to a marketing budget and in factoring that into estimating
30:02
or whatever is overhead or however you want to, you know,
30:05
make up for it as as far as, but but yeah, that's definitely an
30:09
investment. And it'll give you multiple, you
30:12
know, done correctly, it'll give you many multiples of return,
30:15
you know, for sure now, like can you?
30:21
So I mean, with AI there, you know, it's, it's huge nowadays.
30:26
It's, and I know from what I understand, your solution is not
30:30
just like a chat bot off the shelf.
30:32
That's one, one for everybody. Can you explain a little bit
30:35
about like the the client journey, if you will, of like a
30:38
builder who goes forward, you know, and and kind of
30:41
implementing your solution and what that looks like for on the
30:45
on the builder side? Yeah, for sure.
30:47
Thanks for asking that. So again, you know, being, being
30:50
from the industry and, and being a tradesperson and contracting
30:55
company owner myself, I understand how busy you are
31:00
already, right? So the last thing you need is
31:03
another tool that takes you 2 weeks to learn, you know,
31:07
another tool that takes you 16 hours to set up yourself.
31:10
So basically what we offer is a totally done for you service.
31:15
My team sets everything up. We customize it specifically to
31:19
your business. So, you know, not only is it
31:23
tailored to contracting and home building, it's, it's also
31:28
developed by somebody who understands your industry,
31:31
understands the client buying journey and, and totally done
31:35
for, for you from the setup perspective.
31:38
Again, we integrate with your existing tech stack, regardless
31:42
of how complex that is. Like I know a lot of companies
31:45
don't use CRM, right? That's fine.
31:48
We, what we can do in that case is we can kick notifications to
31:53
you in your e-mail. So you know, at the end of the
31:55
day, you're replying to leads between 4:00 and 5:00, five and
31:59
6:00. You go check your e-mail, all
32:01
your leads are in there ready for you to reply to, right?
32:04
So, you know, we're, we're really making this easy for
32:07
people to adopt. You don't need to understand AI.
32:12
All you need to understand is your own business and we take
32:15
care of the rest. It might sound too easy, too
32:18
good to be true, but that is how how easy we've made it basically
32:23
a couple conversations, couple emails back and forth and we
32:27
take care of the rest. So.
32:28
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah.
32:30
You don't need, you know, you don't need to learn a whole
32:32
bunch of new tech or or you know, know everything to to
32:35
utilize these systems and make them work for you.
32:38
Definitely. So with AI like changing so fast
32:42
and it's really, you know, every, every software now is
32:45
like with AI, right. So what do you see sort of the
32:49
future 1-2 years out with the AI that you're utilizing and
32:56
providing for builders or, or just AI in general?
32:58
Like where? Where do you see things going
33:00
and and what should contractors be aware of?
33:04
Sure. So, you know, I think the best
33:08
way to get kind of perspective on the future is to look at the
33:12
past, right? And we kind of see the same
33:16
adoption cycle with every new technology, right?
33:20
So what I'm about to describe, it happened with the Internet,
33:24
it happened with personal computers, it happened with cell
33:27
phones. And now we're seeing the same
33:30
thing with AI. You know, there's early
33:32
adopters, there's people in the middle that might dabble and
33:37
then there's people better just like, hey, we don't need this.
33:40
Who cares about this? Or, or maybe even to the very
33:43
extreme, they're afraid of it or they don't like it.
33:46
I, I've spoken to people in that camp as well.
33:49
So the same thing that we saw with the Internet, You know, who
33:53
wants a website? Oh, who wants a personal
33:55
computer? Who would want to sell phone?
33:57
That's only for rich people, right?
34:00
It's, it's a part of everyday life.
34:02
Like imagine running your contracting company without the
34:05
Internet, without a computer, without a cell phone, right?
34:09
Like you would be left in the dust.
34:11
You would not be able to do business.
34:13
Your competition would be walking all over you.
34:16
You know, it's not going to happen tomorrow, but we are
34:18
starting to see this emerging. And you know, I've been
34:23
augmenting my workflows and, and using AI to increase my
34:28
productivity for for years already, even before launching
34:31
builder chat and a lot of other companies are as well.
34:35
So, you know, just like the analogy that I brought up, like
34:38
imagine competing with a company where one person in their
34:42
marketing department can do as much as three people in yours.
34:46
Imagine competing against a contracting company where they
34:49
have AI optimizing their roots. You know, maybe it's a plumbing
34:53
contractor company where their guys have you go to 1015 jobs a
34:57
day and they're using AI to optimize for heavy traffic and
35:01
everything like this and they're getting 20% more jobs done than
35:05
you and in turn providing more reliable and better service.
35:09
You know, being able to respond to new clients inquiries 24/7
35:14
and also serve existing clients 24/7 as well, right?
35:20
This is what you're going to be competing against.
35:23
So you know it, it's not going to change overnight, but we are
35:28
seeing a fairly decent adoption rate.
35:30
It's a little bit different than what we saw with cell phones and
35:34
computers because people are already fairly digital native.
35:37
They already have the delivery mechanisms in their hands every
35:41
day. So it is going to have a huge
35:44
impact on every industry. What's really cool in the small
35:48
and medium space is like we're not, we're not taking jobs,
35:52
we're just making these businesses better, right?
35:55
Like we're taking a company that can't afford to pay a full time
35:59
reception and we're giving them 24/7, 365 reception with no days
36:05
off for pennies, right? So, yeah, it's, it's really
36:10
exciting. There's, there's a huge
36:11
opportunity for, for small and medium businesses, but that's
36:15
how I predict things to evolve. And there will be a significant
36:21
competitive advantage for, for any company that taps into the
36:26
power of AI. You know, I'd love to put that
36:28
question on to you, Derek. Do you use any eye in your
36:32
business currently and how has it impacted you?
36:35
Yeah, I usually, I extensively definitely, you know, every day
36:39
for a lot of the, the things we do initially a lot for
36:44
marketing. I, I'm an OK writer, but I don't
36:47
enjoy writing. So that's been like the, that
36:50
was like the initial first thing was like finally, you know, I
36:54
don't need to hire a copywriter or, or spend hours trying to,
36:57
you know, write out different, you know, marketing materials or
37:01
things for my business. So that's been fantastic.
37:04
And, and now it's, it's improved to the point where it's really
37:08
fulfilling and enabling a lot of rules just to be better.
37:13
It's it helps you be more efficient.
37:16
The Sky's the limit. We could probably go on for days
37:18
about utilizing AI, but I mean, you can create custom custom GPS
37:24
and stuff like that for for one off kind of things.
37:27
And definitely where I have like a repetitive sort of task that I
37:30
need to do where I can just put in some information.
37:33
It'll it'll you know, kind of list and organize everything and
37:36
then I can just run with that back and forth.
37:39
Strategy stuff is is there agents are coming around now and
37:43
those are going to get more prevalent.
37:44
I think the the agents, the AI agents is going to be a big game
37:49
changer and it's still pretty new.
37:52
I've used it a little bit just to test it out.
37:55
It's pretty incredible. I haven't come up with something
37:58
specific that I need it for on a regular basis, but there will
38:02
be, it's just getting better and better every day.
38:04
And there will be a point where you can more or less just talk
38:07
to it. It'll be your personal assistant
38:09
and kind of do whatever you need it to do.
38:11
So pretty exciting stuff and it can get overwhelming and
38:15
definitely not like tech, you know, savvy if you will, or you
38:18
just like you got 1,000,001 things to do.
38:21
Learning you know, how to use AI is probably not higher on your
38:24
list, but that's all the more reason to talk to someone like
38:26
James here and connect with with the builder chat.
38:29
You don't need to know all this stuff or utilize even all of it.
38:34
You can get your team to look at it.
38:36
Talk to an expert, hire a company to to help you with
38:39
this. At the end of the day, it's
38:41
going to make you more effective, make your people more
38:43
effective, and it's really only going to get more and more
38:46
relevant over time. So much better to get a jump
38:49
start on this. The you know, right now it's,
38:52
it's, it's a pivotal moment essentially, and it's really it.
38:57
I feel like it's finally got to the point now where it's good
38:59
enough that it's it the the accuracy and the ability of it
39:07
is really up to the high enough level that you can use it for
39:10
almost any kind of task, you know, that is geared for and
39:14
digitally that that you want it for.
39:16
So definitely excited for the future.
39:20
I know there's obviously some fear and risks and, and all this
39:23
stuff about it, but I feel like it's just going to e-mail a lot
39:27
more people to do a lot more special stuff, especially as
39:30
entrepreneurs and business owners.
39:32
Like this just frees up you could start your business to to
39:35
be to for freedom essentially. You know, like, obviously you
39:37
want to make a whole lot of money, but typically that's so
39:40
that you can, you know, enjoy more free time or more time
39:44
geared towards the things that you specifically enjoy instead
39:48
of, you know, fielding calls or, or doing different, you know,
39:53
whatever it may be. So, so definitely, yeah, huge,
39:57
huge advantage to, to talking with someone and, and getting
40:01
this instilled in your business. So, so James, for people who
40:04
want to learn more about builder chat or connect with you and
40:06
your team, we'll, we'll put a, a link in the description here.
40:09
So check out the description and go click through the link to
40:12
visit the website. Beyond that, what's the best way
40:15
for someone to to get connected and learn more?
40:17
For sure. So if you're on LinkedIn, feel
40:20
free to to find me on LinkedIn. James, Matt, pretty easy to
40:24
find. We have our Canadian website
40:28
builderchat.ca and our U.S. website builder chat dot US.
40:34
We are on Instagram and Facebook as well.
40:37
Or you can shoot me an e-mail direct.james@builderchat.ca and
40:43
happy to answer any questions and maybe flip a little bit of a
40:47
CTA back to you. Derek, if there's anybody
40:50
watching this and, and you might be interested in like how you
40:53
could build some cool custom stuff yourself, maybe, maybe
40:57
Derek would be willing to get together with me again.
41:00
I know just messing around. One of the experiments I did is
41:04
I built a custom agent. And what I did was I dropped our
41:09
provincial building code in it and then gave it some
41:11
instructions on how to properly reference the building code.
41:15
So you can do some really cool stuff and it's a lot of fun.
41:19
So, you know, I really appreciate you having me, Derek.
41:23
And again, right, like I could probably talk about this for 12
41:26
hours straight. So thanks for the opportunity.
41:29
It was a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks for mentioning
41:33
that. So if you're listening and you
41:34
would like to do like a workshop or get more information of, you
41:38
know, technically how to put this stuff together, drop a
41:42
comment and just say yes. Or, you know, I'd like to learn
41:45
more about AI and, and we can put together some sort of
41:48
training event or something like that and, and connect with the
41:51
audience further there would, would, you know, be excited to
41:55
do that. And yeah, the more you learn,
41:58
the easier it gets and then the better and more efficient you
42:00
can run your business. It's it is a really wonderful
42:03
thing when you just have that process and it runs, you know,
42:09
have all about those systems and processes and it really does
42:12
simplify your life so much and just improve your business.
42:15
So any last final words of wisdom or insight that you'd
42:18
like to share with the audience, James?
42:20
Yeah, you know, I, I just want to echo it.
42:23
You mentioned, you know, a few sentences ago and you know, like
42:29
it's such an amazing opportunity for everybody right now.
42:32
And you know, like my team has put hundreds of thousands of
42:35
dollars and thousands of hours into development and you can tap
42:39
into that for like 100 and something dollars a month,
42:42
right? So it's really amazing where
42:46
we're at. And you know, similar to how you
42:48
can tap into Derek's experience on, on standard operating
42:53
procedures and optimize many aspects of your business, you
42:57
know, where we're kind of offering that that same ability
43:01
with the technology approach, except it's you don't have to do
43:04
anything. You know, yeah.
43:07
Yeah, it's, it's really amazing bang for your buck and you know
43:11
where we were fun to work with and, and have a meeting and
43:14
customer service as well. So if you want to play around,
43:17
we we are offering free trials and running a pilot project for
43:24
small and medium sized contractors also.
43:26
So feel free to get in touch if you want to have a quick 15
43:29
minute chat about that and we'll see if you're a good fit.
43:33
Perfect, huge value there. Definitely reach out to James
43:35
and the team at Builder chat. Thanks so much for coming on
43:37
here, James. It's been a been an honor to to
43:40
get your insights on on this big subject.
43:43
You're welcome. Thanks for having me Derek.
43:45
Always a pleasure. Look forward to to connecting
43:47
and and doing something like this again.