How AI for Contractors in Edmonton Can be Used to Automate Their Business: Real Systems That Work
Hey guys, welcome back to Inspired Method, and today I’ve got with me Ryan Harbison, and we’re going to be talking a little bit about AI and what contractors should be using to get into the 21st century and using AI for their company and how to make it run better, help them with a lot of different tasks.
So Ryan, you’re a little bit of an anomaly when it comes to my contractor clients.
Strange duck is what that translates to here.
Yeah, strange duck nerd. But you have really taken AI to the next level, and you have started learning a lot of things that may be above the skill set or the level of what a lot of our contractor friends will do, but at least we can get some ideas of what they should be learning, what they should be using AI for to help them run their business better.
Sure. Absolutely. I’d love to help. What specific questions did you have? What can I help with?
Well, the first question I have is getting started with AI. I know it was probably now 6, 8 months ago you were really frustrated with your CRM, your proposal software, and making these things kind of talk, make them talk together so that you’re going to one place, getting it done, and you go from the call, the estimate, proposal, and all of that.
So it all has a nice flow to it. So you could hire an estimator and make their job a lot easier. So that was the beginning premise of it. And then from there you discovered chat GPT, and then you discovered Claude, and then you got into really trying to figure out how to code stuff.
How to run the world.
How to run the world. So let’s start there. What have you been working on? What have you built and what is that solving for you?
Why Contractors Start Looking at AI
Sure. So in my circumstance, I’ve done a recent analysis. We have about 20 point solutions, tech solutions, so CompanyCam and Proposify and spreadsheets and Google Drive and all these little individual things, and the questions always been why don’t these things talk to each other?
We used Zapier trying to make these things get together, and that was a decent solution, but I mean let’s be honest, a bit of a pain in the ass, if to be honest about going in there, and then something breaks, and the whole workflow just falls apart, and nothing really really wants to talk to each other.
So you’re always just fighting trying to make this stuff happen, and you think to yourself, there’s got to be a better way to do this.
What started me down this was I’m just going to build my own. This is ridiculous. I’m spending thousands of dollars a month on this software, and none of it is satisfying. It’s so frustrating.
So that’s what got me down this path to start with. The things I’ve learned from going down this path. First of all, don’t let AI stop you from running your business.
Well, I drank the Kool Aid, and it’s very, very all consuming in my world anyways. I call it nerd stuff. I spend more time nerding than anything.
But I’ve learned that it’s nowhere near as intimidating as you might think. The first thing that really kind of set me off on it was just ask. Just ask the AI, what’s my problem? I have this software and this software, and I want to find a way to make them talk a little bit better. What can I do? I don’t know anything about coding. Talk to me like I’m an idiot.
Simple, right? AI is going to meet you where you’re at. It’s going to show you some of these solutions. So that would be my first thought on there. Get into it. Learn what it’s good for and what it’s not good for.
It is really good at data analysis. It is not so good at decision making. It will tell you these are the leads you got last year from this lead source. If you give it the right inputs, it’ll take a look at that.
But AI is sociopathic. It will tell you anything with zero regard for the consequences of it. It’ll try to be nice to you. It’ll try to give you the right information, but you need to be sharp and watch what is this thing actually telling you.
It doesn’t always come up with the right answer. It will give you facts. You need to interpret those. So that would be my first caution in there.
Start with what you know, give it what you’re dealing with, and tell it where you’re at. Look for the resources and the answers.
Another thing I like to do is I will take and I’ll put something in, and then I will take and get a completely different model. I’ll build out a workflow in Claude, and I’ll take and export it into Gemini and say, analyze this and tell me if this is any good.
The things that that catches, you’d be amazed. And then you take and you put that back into Claude, and it’s like, oh, wow. You’re really smart. Good catch on that. Yeah, not me. Gemini was smart, right?
And I’ve tried doing it the other way. Okay, well, Gemini is the better model. And you do the same thing, and Claude catches its mistakes.
Don’t be afraid to have two check each other. They’re completely different. You think, oh, AI is AI. No, they’re not. The models are completely different.
One tip I received from Trevor, I was using Claude to do a little bit of imagery, and you had said, no, chat GPT and Gemini are way better. And you were absolutely right. Total game changer in that one there.
You can get one AI to reference another AI for the right thing. So using the right tool for the right job is also really important in that context.
Using AI for Contractor Renderings and Client Visuals
Yeah. Let’s bring it home to something that you discovered because you were at a conference recently, and you were able to use chat GPT to do a mockup of a skylight or sun tunnel in a client’s home. So walk them through that.
Yeah. So, I was taking and designing a skylight array for a homeowner in Sherwood Park. And they had asked me, well, do you have any rendering software?
And no, I don’t have any. I’m a roofer. I have no clue about any of that. And it’s not the first time I’ve been asked that. It should have been a better signal to me. I just kind of let it go. No, I don’t have any. Okay, we’ll get our architectural guys to do that and whatever.
I was at this conference, and this gentleman brought up that they were using chat GPT to do renderings for them, change the color of the roofs and stuff. And I thought, what? Why didn’t I think of that?
Right? So stupid, you think. And so I was in this conference hall, and I took out my phone, and I took a picture, and I said, I want you to envision a skylight in here that’s going to have three panes look like this and blah blah.
And within 2 minutes, I had that room with a skylight in there. It was like, wow. Didn’t even think about that.
So now I’ve got it. When I go to your house and I’m looking at your hallway, and you say, hey, I’d like a sun tunnel in here. I can literally say my thing, okay, take a picture, add a 14 inch sun tunnel in here, and show me how much more light this thing is likely to bring in, and your house boom shows up automatically.
That tool cost me zero dollars. It was literally just thinking about it. It brings me to the concept which drives me is the intersection of what if and why not. What if I could do this? Why not try? I mean why not give it a go?
Plug it in. See what you get.
Yeah. And the other thing that I find that you’re using AI for is really cleaning up your email inbox, right?
Yeah.
Because as a business owner, you get inundated with emails. Some of them are important, some of them are not.
Yep.
And you’ve created a workflow that really works for you. Maybe walk people through that.
Sure. So I use Apple, which allows you to run scripts through your email. So you can get a rule. Every email out there has rules, but a lot of those rules are really, really simple.
When I get this email, move to that inbox. Or when I get this and it matches these parameters, delete it. Every email system out there has them, but they’re very, very simple.
Why not take and create something that’s a little bit more robust? I use Apple, so I can run it off of Apple’s scripts that’s just built right in there.
Disclosure, I have no clue how to program any of that. I explain to chat what my workflow is. It writes the scripts for me, and we prove it and run it. So don’t be intimidated by that part.
But take and put up the rule. So for example, Proposify. I get an invoice for Proposify, and let’s say it’s $300 a month I pay for this software. Is it signal or is it noise?
My workflow, I get an email. It shows $300. It’s the receipt. I have to push it into my accounting software. It has to get vetted there, and then it gets published, and that’s it. That’s the end of that workflow.
If it’s $300 every month, do I really need to be involved in that? No, I don’t. That is pure noise. Especially when it’s completely automatable.
What happens when that invoice comes in, and it’s $385? All of a sudden, it’s not noise. It’s signal. Something’s wrong.
So I take and I feed those parameters in. I’m going to get an email from this sender, and the body of that email is going to have this amount in here. I want you to verify that and see. And if it is, run this workflow. I don’t even look at it.
If it’s wrong, flag it red and put it in my signal folder. Now I know, hey, there’s something up with that. Oh, why did they bump my rates up? I didn’t know they were doing that, right?
It’s a simple workflow, but here’s the thing. That workflow does not use AI at all. I used AI to build that workflow, but that’s a script.
AI is very, very unpredictable, especially with prompts. You’ve got a prompt that’s worked really, really good. They update their system, it reads it differently. Now you get a different result. You need to watch what they’re doing with their systems.
I would suggest use AI as little as is possible. Build yourself scripts. Build yourself prompts that are actually going to work to your parameters and never change.
What happens if you don’t have an Apple, you’re on PC? Well, sorry for your luck. Just kidding. You can actually take and set up on Claude Code. I’m sure all the other models have it as well. And you can have it set up in there.
So once a day it’ll run through, and it’ll look for those matches and run that workflow for you. So it’s definitely possible no matter what your tech stack is.
It’s just that one simple thing that you look at, and you say this is so predictable. This is so repeatable. Why do I have to do this on a regular basis? No, I’m not going to get out. Now you can focus on what actually matters.
That customer who called and said, hey, I’ve got another price on here, and you guys are really really close. I’d like to go with you. Can we talk about that?
Well, that’s buried in 13, 14 emails you got today. That might be a conservative day. I probably get 40, 50 emails a day.
I don’t. It’s a full time job managing that. Just build the script. Man, years and years ago, before AI ever came out, I think it was an executive from Apple. I couldn’t remember. Don’t quote me on it, but the guy had said, if I have a task that takes me more than 5 minutes a day, I am writing a script to do that for me.
That was kind of the thing. Where do I want to take and spend the time? I mean, just click and delete an email. All right, that takes nothing. It takes you very little time to build the rule that does that for you. And now your email isn’t a 20 minute, 30 minute session. It’s solid.
Yeah. It’s almost like having your own personal assistant cleaning your email box for you.
Absolutely. There’s all sorts of softwares that’ll do that. Centra or Fixer. They cost a lot of money to run, right? And they have their own rules that are in there, and you’re kind of hamstrung to their thing.
AI will write you a beautiful Python script or Apple script or whatever script you want to use. You can run it on your own computer. You’re not paying for any of the APIs. It literally will just run that for you, right?
I would suggest if you’re new to AI, that would be my first thing. Ask the question, what if and why not? And then plug it in. Here’s the situation. Here’s what I got to deal with. How can you help? See what it comes up with.
Automating Tasks That Do Not Move the Needle
Yeah. No, that’s great. And, I really love seeing you embrace the utilization of the different AI platforms that are out there simply because it is the future, and there’s going to be a lot of people, yeah, I’m a roofer, I’m a plumber, I’m an electrician, you’re not going to be replacing me.
It’s like, no, not going to replace you yet. But what can it do to help make things more efficient so that you’re not wasting so much time on stuff that doesn’t really move the needle for you?
What really moves the needle for you is ensuring that your team is well equipped to do the job. They have everything that they need as far as equipment, materials, knowledge, understanding, and how to use AI tools themselves.
Number two, you have to ensure what’s going on with your cash flow. You need to understand credits and debits. You need to know how much or do you have enough money in the bank account to pay all the bills this next month? Yes or no?
If not, then you got to sell some more stuff, right? So then helping with your sales. So you got to be really good at your leads and closing those sales.
So you can develop yourself a lot easier and build up on what you’re doing as opposed to having to answer emails or do a bunch of redundant tasks that are just time sucks and don’t really help you at all.
The other thing is when it comes to marketing advertising, you can learn a lot just from asking these different models, and I say ask all of them.
So there’s Perplexity, which is great at facts and data. You’ve got chatGPT, which is great at some things, some iterations, some ideation stuff. So figuring out where should I be starting to look.
You’ve got Gemini, which is great for imagery and some video stuff. And it’s also good anything in the Google universe. It’s really good at understanding what to do in the Google universe.
And then you’ve got Claude, which is really an amazing tool in a lot of different ways, especially for coding, making scripts, and all of that.
So don’t be afraid of these tools. Embrace them. Learn how to use them because if they can save you even half an hour a day, that’s a big deal.
That adds up. I’m going to give you another use case on that.
Yeah.
What if it’s not about saving minutes in your day? What if it’s about doing the stuff that you know you should be doing, but you just don’t?
Yeah, great point.
Business owners, especially small people like me, I can’t afford to have a full time manager out there. I have workflows. Well, what good is a workflow that isn’t managed?
Why can’t I have a quote unquote manager that looks at this and says, these are the tasks that have to get done, and they have to be done in this benchmark time, and if not, that’s a flag. Why wouldn’t you have something like that?
Managing systems. Painful lesson for me last year realizing how many calls went unanswered. I didn’t even know.
So, I was able to take a look at my gross sales and take a look at how many jobs I sold, and I was able to come up with a number of what my average ticket was.
Taking and feeding our call records into here for an analysis, I came back to realize how many calls we were actually missing in there. Nobody was looking. Nobody was watching. I’m on the roof. I don’t have time to answer that call.
By the time I figured that one out, it probably cost me $300 to $400,000 last year in missed opportunities. People call our advertising lines, they don’t get an answer, and boom.
Isn’t that something that you’d want to know? Like it was a eye opener for me. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to close that gap and build the systems for there too, right?
All these little things that you know you should be doing. Hey, my crew is supposed to do their FLHA every day. Are they? Well, I don’t know. I’m busy working.
Why not have a bot that goes in and looks on a daily basis? This is an automated system. They do their safety paperwork. It goes into this thing. Look, if it’s not done by 9:00, I get a text, hey, this crew hasn’t done their paperwork. Are they on site?
It’s a simple little thing. And people are going to do what’s inspected, not what’s expected. If they know that every day they’re going to get a ping on their phone, hey, your paperwork isn’t done, they’re a lot more likely to do it, right?
So, it’s all these little things that you know you should be doing, and they’re low consequence if you don’t until it’s a big problem, right?
That’s another really good edge case for it. Maybe your system isn’t over automated. You don’t have CRM and all these other things, but there is guaranteed to be something that you know you should be doing, you just aren’t because it’s just easier not to.
That’s a great case to start looking at how can this thing close that gap.
Yeah, it’s always the role of an entrepreneur or business owner to replace themselves.
Yeah.
So even if you’re replacing some of the roles that you’re doing right now using AI tools, it’s a net benefit for you overall.
Yeah, absolutely.
Cool.
AI Voice Agents and Missed Calls
The other things that we could talk about are AI chatbot agents and these types of things, but those are still works in progress in a lot of ways. They do, you’ve got some that are working okay for you right now. You’re testing out a new system. Maybe talk to them a little bit about that and what our expectations are.
Well, back to the concept of how many calls we were losing, right? How many calls were not getting answered. First one was identifying that it wasn’t even a problem to begin with. It was a total blind spot.
And when I saw that problem, it was like getting punched in the stomach, especially when I saw the impact of it. So, how do you solve that problem?
For us, we’ve gone to a VoIP call system. So, all of our calls that come into our company go into advertising numbers, and they’re recorded. Those numbers automatically get put into our CRM right off the hop, whether they result in a sale or not.
Now, we can track our lead sources. We know that this number is coming in here, and it’s giving us this information. This one’s coming in here. We can actually follow that through in there.
The other side of it is what happens when somebody can’t get to the call. Nobody’s perfect, right? Somebody’s on coffee break, or they’re already on the phone with you, and the phone rings again. What are you going to do?
Well, very few people in our experience are leaving voicemails. So, what we’ve switched up to is an AI based voice answering system, and it is remarkably good. Sounds natural.
I mean, you can tell that it’s not a person, but it’s a lot better than a voicemail that nobody answers. As soon as you start talking with that, you are a lot more likely to carry that conversation through.
So now it gives us a chance to capture that lead and run through it. What happens if you call, you get that voice agent, and you hang up? Where’s the immediate follow up?
We can build a system in there that’s going to shoot you a text message. Hey, it’s so and so with Alberta Skylights. We just missed your call. Is something I can help you with?
Keep that person trying to come through. As soon as they’ve got somebody booked, you’re off their table, man. If you didn’t answer your phone, you’re in trouble, right?
So those are some things that could definitely help with your intake flow. I like the movie Moneyball. Brad Pitt and anyways, the idea on there being I am never going to be able to spend like these big companies out there.
I’m never going to be able to spend and compete with him in there, but I can do some things that are really really clever and are going to help me get better. What can I do with what I actually have?
These systems are a great way to leverage low dollar investments and get good return on them, right?
If you take a look at an average ticket of, let’s just say $10,000, and you have a close ratio of 33%, every call you miss, that’s three grand. You miss that call, they didn’t make it into your sales funnel, that’s three grand out the door.
How much does it cost you to have that system versus how much does it cost you to not have that system?
Right. It’s just looking at it in a different perspective.
Yeah. No, that’s great. And there’s a lot of different ways that you can use AI. We just barely scratched the surface here today, folks. There’s so much so much out there that you can learn.
And we’re doing a deep dive here at Inspired Method. We’re going to be having Ryan come in and do some training with some of our contractor friends.
So, if you want to be part of that, just send an email into info@inspiredmethod.com and say, hey, I want to be involved in the contractor AI summit. Apart from that, thank you so much for joining us. We are again Inspired Method Coaching and Marketing out of Edmonton, Alberta. And we’ll be happy to talk with you and see what we can do to help grow your service business.
Thanks so much. We’ll see you on the next video.
Take care everybody.