From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Will Google Penalize AI Content? What Contractors Need to Know
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Your marketing strategy can keep working exactly the way it always has right up until your customers stop behaving the way they always have.
That is the problem contractors need to be paying attention to.
👉 Wondering whether your current marketing strategy is keeping up?
Book a call with Lemon Seed Marketing:
https://www.lemonseedmarketing.com/contact/
In Episode 239, Crystal Williams welcomes Jennifer Bagley of CI Web Group and Matt Benton of Real Time Marketing and Unify 360 for a conversation about AI, Google, websites, search behavior and what contractors should actually be doing right now.
The conversation starts with one of the biggest fears surrounding AI marketing: Will Google eventually punish companies for using AI generated content?
From there, the group tackles the much bigger issue.
Homeowners are researching differently.
Contractors need content that helps people learn and compare, not just pages targeting customers who are already ready to call. Businesses also need strong authority signals, better customer experiences and faster ways for homeowners to interact with them.
You’ll hear:
• Why AI generated content and useful AI assisted content are not the same thing
• How the homeowner journey is becoming Learn, Compare and Act
• Why traditional contractor websites may leave major questions unanswered
• How reviews, community involvement and brand authority fit into search
• Why speed to lead remains critical
• What AI hype contractors should approach carefully
• Where contractors can begin adapting without rebuilding everything overnight
Meet the Guests
Jennifer Bagley is CEO of CI Web Group, Catalyst for the Trades, cofounder of Just Start AI, author of Hands Up and founder of Hydra OS.
Matt Benton is CEO of Real Time Marketing and Unify 360.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch the full conversation on YouTube.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-the-yellow-chair/id1598195561
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1goGP66YLPIxzpX1TxFGvT
YouTube: https://youtu.be/c-v_dLr4N2U
From the Yellow Chair: https://www.lemonseedmarketing.com/contractor-marketing-podcast/
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Welcome And Why AI Matters
SPEAKER_02What's up living heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Crystal. And today, y'all, I just couldn't help it. Um, all the industry is all up and and buzzing about AI and Google and what's next with internet marketing, and I love it. I love the conversation. I like the different opinions. Not everyone does, but that's okay. Um, so you're gonna want to buckle in, listen to who I think are some of the experts uh in this space right now. Um love a different opinion, love research and really thought-provoking things. If you are a natural marketer and care about growing your business, I think you should be all up in this, listening and learning everywhere you can. So let's dip some lemonade. All right, so I couldn't help myself when there was all this little stuff going on. I was like, you know who I'm gonna call? Jennifer and Matt. And I'm gonna say, let's jump on a call uh for from the yellow chair. So welcome guys to the virtual lemonade stand. We are literally stretched across the country. We are from one coast to the other coast, and then somebody right in the middle, right?
SPEAKER_01We do.
SPEAKER_02We got a little Seattle, Florida, Texas. Yes, all over. So, Jennifer, most people know who you are, but just tell everybody kind of who you are and why you're an expert in this place here.
SPEAKER_01I'm Jennifer Bagley, I'm the CEO of CI Web Group, catalyst for the trades, co-founder of Just Start AI, recent author of Hands Up, my newly released book, which I'm very excited about. Uh, and the founder of Hydra OS.
SPEAKER_02Awesome, awesome. I call you everyone's favorite girl to be hated on, but it's okay. You're here for it. And if you can't see her face, she's making a beautiful face right now. But uh, Jennifer has really come out strong with stating her opinions early, um, which caused me to be so intrigued. I've sat on couches, on phone calls, on Zoom calls, learning everything that I can about her opinion of how things are going, her expert opinion of how things are going. And I have learned so, so much from her. And then I saw where Matt, you kind of jumped on the bandwagon, as I say, and said, Hey, I like what you're doing. You learned more, and now you guys are really doing some great things. We share some clients um that are doing great things together. So, Matt, tell everybody who you are. I know a lot of people know you too, but who you are and what you bring to the table here.
SPEAKER_00Well, first off, I want to say thank you for the invite. This is my first time here. So I'm very excited, and I was excited to invite uh Matt Benton. I am the CEO of Real Time Marketing and also Unify 360. And if there is a wagon, a bandwagon to jump on, um, I'm all in on Jen's, that's for sure. She's she's doing it right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I tend to agree. And then I've gotten to see you. So we've Matt and I have kind of like been in the same sphere of things, just never had a minute to really connect. And so when I had this common connection, he was like, I've been wanting to meet you. I was like, same thing, same. So I feel like our job at Living City Marketing is to always be up on who is learning and moving the quickest so that we can take that to our clients. And so really excited to have you both on the show today. And Matt, really glad to have you for the first time. It's actually been too long.
Watermarks Panic And Google Reality
SPEAKER_02So, hey, everybody that's listening, the direction that we wanted to take this show today is just the internet in general and AI and how you, as a simple contractor, I say this because, and Jennifer, Jennifer and I do a good job of reminding each other. I try to tell her to break it down, and sometimes she's like, girl, people can think deeper than that. So, what I want to encourage you to do when you listen to this episode is realize maybe what you know is not true, maybe what you know is true. But at the end of the day, this is just an open, open your mind and your thoughts to things that you probably never even knew existed. Um, and what you think of as AI is probably super surface level. Once I got my mind wrapped around the fact that I, as an everyday user, use very simple AI, it allowed me to like open my mind and really understand what Jennifer and Matt are both bringing to the industry here. So just my encouragement. Um, and that's what we're gonna talk through today. So I thought we could just start with um kind of a hot topic right now with now everybody's been scared that this everybody, if I've gone to an AI website, now my all my content's watermarked, everybody's gonna know it, and one day there's gonna be this magic kaboom, and now my website's gonna be useless, and I've wasted all of my money listening to all of these fools, right? So what's somebody give me a uh bring me back down to earth on what what what's really being said, and then what where's the truth somewhere in there?
SPEAKER_01Both can be true. Matt, you want to take first stab?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I I will. Nobody knows what Google's gonna do. I mean, that's what it comes down to. So there's some issues in the EU, nothing really substantiated in the US, different set of rules. Um, Google's made a lot of adjustments, and people, you know, they how do I say this the right way? I I don't want to say promote fear, but there's a lot of concern about the unknown with watermarks, with uh agents putting this little snippet of invisible code only only ages can see. It doesn't exist in the US. I if they ever will, I don't know, but we'll see what what time will show. Um, but right now it's not a top-level concern of mine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I know, Jen, you've been we've been having this conversation as well.
Agentic AI Versus Chatbots
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So the important part to understand here is number one, Google's own rules explicitly state that it does not care if the content was generated by AI in whatever format or by a human. In fact, the majority of the content that exists on page one today actually has some kind of AI that is has been part of the creation, the editing, the foundation, or whatnot. That's number one. Number two is there is very different, the term AI is thrown out very haphazardly. So AI in the general um general elementary version is Chat GPT, Claude, uh, whatever, grok, conversational AI, right? And that is a form of AI. It's the lowest, most simple version, elementary version of AI there is. Would I recommend anybody to go to Chat GPT or go to Claude and say, write me my AC repair page for my website? Absolutely not. Do not do that. That is very different than AI, meaning agentic with multi-model knowledge base, rag, cag vector. So in our world, we host our own AI and our own AI models, in addition to over 40 LLMs, large language models that are connected to an orchestrated layer of agentic agents that all have jobs. So imagine an org chart and you were going to build a content writing company. You would have at the top, you would have the orchestrator, then you would have your strategist, then you would have your research team, then you would have your writing team, then you'd have your competitor team, your SEO team, your AEO, GEO, EEAT, and so forth, your CRO team. Those would all be different people. In Hydra, those are all different agents. And those agents have the ability to access different models. They're trained on different skills. They have harness, they have guardrails, they have access to a knowledge base, they have access to search uh data, they have access to data for SEO, access to Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Reviews, competitors. So depending on the role of the agent, the directives, the soul file, which is a soul.md file, the harness and the guardrails and the knowledge base, those agents are able to produce better, more informative, and knowledgeable content based on real data, gaps, weaknesses, competitors, and so forth. Um, so like you could never compare a human's capability to an agent's capability or an agentic network of agents capability. Impossible. No human has the ability to be able to go out and check all those data points to be able to assess and write and edit and modify and update. And the the biggest thing when you're using agentic is it actually gets smarter over time because it understands the directive, it has access to that knowledge base and the performance of it. So it just gets better over time. That is not the same thing as did you use Cloud to write your content for your website and it includes a watermark, and now you're getting dinged for uh spammy, crappy content. They're just it's night and day difference.
SPEAKER_02So this could be true if I try to do this myself with simple, simple tools.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you wouldn't want to have Chat GPT go scrape content off the internet and then regurgitate it on your website. There's nothing unique or helpful about that. So yeah, that's probably not going to benefit you. And I've absolutely seen fully AI-built SPAs, single-page applications, get launched with a bunch of that type of content and absolutely destroy a business. That is accurate. It's just the misuse of the term AI from uneducated or inexperienced figures.
SPEAKER_00It's it's an understanding, you know, and and I think that that lack of understanding is surfacing with some of these marketing gurus gurus, God bless them, I love them, but they throw all AI into one bucket and say, oh, it's coming, you're gonna get banned. And you know, we try to uh you know discuss specifically what you're building and what you and what you have built is is different. And you know, how your agents continue to learn and the authoritative content, the topical authority. And you know, I read articles that the reason why they're pursuing this watermark is this malicious content and what and what's what the bad characters are gonna do with it down the road. But you know, stay in your lane, calm down, relax. We're writing good content, topical authority content, we're running content that the agents can learn more about in your business.
SPEAKER_02So I think it's overhyped.
EEAT And Proof Beyond Claims
SPEAKER_02No, well, in my simple way of explaining this to contractors, so you know, remember lemon seed's role is to sit as as the as the liaison between our contractors and all of their vendor partners. So like everything, your community involvement, your digital is just one piece of what we're managing, but we are managing your vendor. So I get the blessing it's a blessing to work with all these different vendors. But what I say all the time is really AI has become smart, smarter than we've ever thought about being. Um, and so used to, as contractors, let's go back 10 years ago when I first came over to McWilliams. We were still in phone books because there was a couple of ways that people could contact us, like four or five. Okay. They could call a phone number, they could maybe go to our website, which we were one of the first companies to even have a website 10 or 15 years ago. Okay. And there was a few other ways. Now there are literal hundreds, like thousands of ways that all this traffic is coming into your business. And so again, when we were little fancy pants and had websites, we were like, if I just say I am the best, and that I do this service, Google goes, you know what? Yes, you do, you're it, and whoever said it's our number one, yeah, whoever said it best out loud got ranked in the top pieces. So people were pushing, like, you need to say it more, you need to say it more often. Well, now go, I think AI says, Okay, you say you're number one, but here's how I'm gonna prove it. Yeah, your reviews prove it. Your other customers are talking about it. You're a member of the Better Business Bureau, you're a member of the chamber, you've won these awards. I see you in the community. Like the AI is able to actually like to me infer a lot more about how good you actually are, yeah, by other people than yourself.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I agree.
SPEAKER_02Hence that game where people were publishing like top 10 air conditioning companies in their area, and they were like three of them. Okay, that was a good trick why you could get it, right? But now I think that's why all of a sudden we have to broaden our horizons even more of like why this agentic way of building things is important. So I tell my clients all the time we need to say who we are and how good we are ourselves, and we need to encourage, we want to encourage and buy our way into other people saying it too. Okay, so like that's what we've got to do. We need to say it and we need other people to say it everywhere that we can, and we need to lean hard into that direction, and then honestly, we're just intentionally building the same message, repeating over and over again, everywhere we want to be seen and for what we want to be seen for. And so that has not changed, it's just now we need to do more of it in bigger and faster. So, people, this idea that the world has changed, it has not changed, it's expanded. So the thing, same things I was telling people to do in 2020 when we opened Lemon Seed is the same things I'm telling you, do it now, just do more of it and stop saying it about yourself and get other people to say it about you. That's what you need.
SPEAKER_01That's what Google's EEAT signals are.
SPEAKER_00So it hasn't changed much, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's no, not at all. And so that AI overview that everyone's worried about. So, like right now, you know, another thing that I think again, this is what I hear from contractors is there's the SEO life. So, like, I just got a website, paid twenty thousand dollars for it, and it's on WordPress and it's got this SEO stuff, and like, what am I gonna be getting? And I literally right now I'm like, uh, I don't know. Because literally 50% of the time they actually have an AI strategy. Granted, it's not nearly as fast and robust as others a lot of times, but it's there. And the other times I'm like, this is a website that you would have launched five years ago. Like five years ago, you'd have been killing it. And now I'm like, what are we doing? Like, have you I just want people to listen? And so, contract that's literally my call right now is you do not have to understand it. Uh, it would behoove you to understand it, but what you need to understand right now is where the marketing is going and how you can get on somebody's train that's headed that direction.
Tech Roadmaps And New Search Habits
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think this has to start with, and this actually makes it really, really easy, right? If you take the top five technology providers, Apple, Amazon, uh, Microsoft, Google, Meta, just take the top technology providers and look at their roadmap. Their roadmap is taking technology that already lives in your home, your car, your wallet, your handbag, your house, your office, blah, blah, the whole list. And it is upgrading that technology to include AI assistance as a part of your natural process, right? So if all of the technology that we already own turns whatever their legacy platform is, i.e. voice or search, into an AI assistant, and those devices are already connected to your life, your email, your calendar, your text, your Google Drive document, your life, like your whole everything, right? It knows everything about you, your social network, everything. Then your ability as a consumer who already owns a device to be able to utilize an AI assistant, to be able to simply say, Well, I'm freaking playing ping pong or I'm on the, you know, ninth T on the golf course, two beers in, whatever the deal is. I can just simply ask my AI assistant instead of my voice assistant, hey, can you check my husband's calendar? I just remembered. We need somebody to come out and take care of the pool. It's having problems or my hot tub's freaking green. I need somebody that can come out, it already knows your address, it already knows your husband's schedule, it already has access to your text, it already has access to your email and your calendar and everything else. So if you when you line things up to be able to predict the future, you follow the leaders in technology first. Then you say, what is the leaders in technology adoption rate? Or what does it require a consumer to purchase in order to gain access to the technology? It doesn't require them to purchase anything. They just go to sleep, the device updates, boom, they have new technology. So you're first is tech, second is consumer adoption. What is the what's the gateway to consumer adoption? That's why this is moving so fast because no one has to buy anything new, right? Then consumer adoption is driven by orchestration at the corporation level. So are major companies forcing their teams to utilize AI? Of course they are, because it makes them faster, it makes them sharper, it makes them get work done. So now you have pressure coming from employers, you have the availability coming from the technology we already own. So the consumers' behavior changes. Marketers, this should have changed. We should have all been paying attention to this four years ago, five years ago, because those two things were easy to see. That didn't take a rocket scientist. So our ability to market is because of the change the way we go to business, change the way we market, comes from tech, consumer adoption, which changes consumer behavior, therefore requires marketing to ultimately change. So is it the same? Not exactly. Because of those two pieces, right? The consumer has access to more information, right? They're asking different questions, they're utilizing different technology, and that's going to continue to rise as each of the traditional things that are slow and time consuming, i.e., clicking around landing pages, clicking through a bunch of links, clicking through a website, those things are going to evolve. So do you wait until pressure applies and your traffic is absolutely dropped and you're no longer getting business? Or do you get in front of it because it's easy to see the future and where people are headed? And sometimes it just requires watching how you're interacting. Right. I've had plenty of companies that are like, we use AI for everything. Well, did your marketing strategy change? No. Well, if you have a question, what do you do? Well, we go to AI. Are you going to Google? I'm not. Or if I do go to Google, I use the AI over. Did your marketing strategy change? Are you asking different questions now? So not to be so crass and and deliberate, but this wasn't hard to predict. Like, this is why Matt and I freaking had our head in the sand so hard and was like, this is coming, come hell or high water, whether we want want it or not, we gotta build.
SPEAKER_00I I often think, you know, why I assume, and I don't wanna uh make too big of an assumption, but there seems to be a lot of agencies that are still resistant to what we think is is not only here, has been here. Search behavioral patterns have changed. We're never going back. And I often wonder why the fear, and I think the fear is there's a lot of uncertainty, but Google has weathered many a storm. This one, you know, they bended their knee, they're all in, and they've absolutely changed. When I saw that, and I've watched Jen what she was building, that was kind of my aha moment. Like, we ain't we're not going back, and we're not going back. Um so but my advice to the agencies that maybe are a little behind the times or slow to respond, you don't have to be, right? There's still time to change, there's still time to look at the future, what's working, what's not working. I mean, the way people search, you know, what's it's it's search, click, call, and what is it now? It's ask, trust, look. It's fundamentally has changed, and that's how you have to look at the scope of everything as it relates to your clients and ranking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Or getting calls, booking calls, and speedily hard.
Contractors Stuck On Old Marketing
SPEAKER_02You know, listen, every every um year, I don't even know there's always these big shifts in marketing. Um, and it's always something, right? So I just I get disappointed more that people aren't more, they don't care more, care more. Um, because like right now, literally, I'm watching contractors. I mean, I look at them every single day. I'm like, okay, you're spending $300,000 a year in marketing, but all of it is so antiquated, and they're like, man, this has been the hottest summer we've had in a long time, but the least amount of calls. And my buddy down the street, he's killing it. And I'm like, I bet if I go look, he's just doing things differently. Um, and listen, sometimes you have to, sometimes you just have to change because because somebody said so. Like I know, like yours, but this has worked so long. Literally, the other day I thought this contractor was gonna be in tears. He was like, Crystal, for years I've spent four percent in marketing. Killed it, could not keep up all summer long. Every summer I was growing and adding. And he said, for the past two summers, something has happened. And I'm like, Yeah. Tell me what you did digitally differently. He's like, nothing, but like a badge of honor. Nothing. Nothing. I kept everything the same. And I'm like, so herein lies the problem. And they're like, they're like, but and listen, I want contractors to know, I don't want them to be embarrassed about this. This is one of those things that like it just happens. But they will literally, two years ago, they invested $20,000 in a new website, and they were promised this would last them four years, five years before they had to make any major updates, blah, blah, blah. They rebraided, they did all this stuff. You did everything right for five years, for three years ago, two years ago. What's happened is right now you must start asking and implementing AI strategies, even if it's slowly but surely start implementing them. Do you have to go run your whole business off of AI? No. Should you be looking at ways to make your team more efficient? Absolutely. But everyone should. Um, and so you don't have to, this is another thing I hear. You don't have to buy into the hype uh because the hype's gonna overtake you anyway, right? You ain't gotta buy into it, it's already running you over. Yeah, unfortunately, there's not this option of like, I'm gonna put pricing on my website. This is my favorite. I never will put pricing, Crystal. I'll never put pricing on my website. I think it sets me up for failure. I'm like, okay, the only reason it sets you up for failure is if you don't believe that you're worth what you're charging. If you believe that you're worth what you're charging and the experience is good, then let's talk about the experience and let's make sure that as soon as they interact with our brand from the seeing it drive on the seeing it driving down the highway to seeing it at a community event to my direct mail to my website is high quality stuff, then I would assume that my the pricing is higher quality pricing. But if everything is janky and then I'm like, by the way, this unit is $22,000, the it doesn't match.
SPEAKER_03Doesn't match.
SPEAKER_02So you again dig your heels in on that, but you will not win the battle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, more savvy too. They understand pricing.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I I use this example to my team all the time. When you get ready to buy a new car, okay, and it's like you're a car car, okay. Listen, most of the time we want to buy a new car. These people do not want to buy a new heating and air conditioning or new plumbing piping system, okay? A new roof, new pest control. Nobody cares, nobody wants it. Okay. This is a forced buy. So if I'm looking for a car and I'm like, you know what? I think I want a whatever Cadillac lyric. I'm gonna start looking at a Cadillac lyric because I'm trying to get my is it a is it a $45,000 vehicle or $150,000? Where am I at? I do not need exactly down to the dime what it is, but you know what I need at least a range to get myself. If I'm looking to buy a new house, I don't go. I want the most people can't afford to say, I want this house and just point to one and pick it. I've got to understand where is this a $300,000 house, a four million dollar house? Where am I at? And so it's the same thing for these average consumers, they're really just looking to be like, where am I at? Like for two years, my heating and air conditioning company has told me it's on its last leg. I've made it work through two summers, but now what am I looking at? And can I get finance? Yeah, but everybody, all these contractors are like, I refuse to do it. I'm like, you refuse to answer questions that the public is asking? Well, then don't be an option.
SPEAKER_01I hope you have a lot of friends. So you know, it just perplexes.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna happen regardless.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there's and if you won't, I will. Yeah, but also your competitor will.
SPEAKER_01Don't worry. Yeah, they're not gonna pick you anyway. I think,
Rebuilding Websites For Learn Compare Act
SPEAKER_01I think so. The traditional website, go to your website and look at it right now. Everybody that's watching this, right? And I want you to look at a couple things. Number one, I want you to look at your content strategy. You're probably gonna click on a link that says our services, and it's gonna break down if you're an air conditioning company, AC, repair, service, installation, replacement, maintenance, tuna, financing. Okay, and then it's gonna have heat pump and it's gonna do the same thing. And it's gonna have duck lists and it's gonna do the same thing. Go to the next major tab. You probably just have our cities, and it's just a big list of cities. Then you might have a maintenance page, you might have a financing page, you might have an about us page, and you might have a contact us page. Amen. That's what everybody else has. Okay, now that's bottom of the funnel queries. That is somebody who has already done all the homework and they're at the very end and they're trying to choose. Move up the funnel because people have the ability to do more research. People come in three different stages. One, they're trying to learn. Two, they're trying to compare. And then three, they're trying to act. And taking action now is different. Acting might be using a custom calculator to get a heat load calculation on your website. Acting might be using an uh electrical load calculator to be able to determine what kind of uh what do you call the thing that keeps your power on mat in the generator? Yeah, it might be an electrical load calculator. It might be somebody pitched me a $20,000 ductwork change out and they're like, how much does it cost to really change out my ductwork? What's the impact on static pressure? What's the impact on uh the warranty from the manufacturer? So even acting is no longer just contact us. They want to get more information and they have the ability to get more information faster. So when you hear the term SEO versus AEO, GEO, right, that's what this changes. It changes your content strategy to learning center content that gives people the ability to learn, compare. Should I get a water heater or tankless water heater? Should I get a duckless system or what's the difference in a duckless and a heat pump? Oh, it's the same thing, whatever all those things are. And then at needs to evolve to give a consumer the same kind of experience I would get if I was buying a Tesla online. I don't have to walk into a dealership. I can simply go to a calculator. And you know what? When you give people the ability to do their own homework and add on all their gadgets and add-ons and go through it on their own without a salesperson breathing in their face, sitting at their table, guess what? They spend more. Every single customer that has put these custom components on their site that allow consumers to do their own homework their own way and build their own system, their own price, their own solution. The average ticket is more. They're actually making more money. One, they're found, which if you don't have the information available that a consumer wants, you just won't be an option. So you don't have a, you don't need to worry about what you're going to pitch or not pitch because you're just not an option. And then two, when you get into the meat of things, consumers buy more, right? They just want access to information, give it to them. Your website should effectively change. Second thing I want you to look at is when you go to your website, does it sound like an all about me story? This is my company, my brand, my drugs, my promotions, my service. That's what y'all told us to do by my years ago.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Okay. We jacked that up. It shouldn't be. It should be what's going on in your home? Tell me about your problems. What questions do you have? What is your budget? What, right? This is it should be about the consumer now, not about yourself. And Brand has kind of jacked that up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Hydra does that the best. And I wish people could really, you know, hear what you're saying, but if if it's probably a very small percent, I know you're killing it and we're having so much fun, but people have seen Hydra in action, right? And you and you've seen the sites, right? Um, and and it just does that that author authoritative content so well. Like four or five years ago, like Crystal said, we were supposed to do it that way. But you know, I'm I put a keyword in Google, I land on a website, and I learn that you're number one best top local HVAC dealer or or company in my area. And then I start reading, and and you're again your number one top rated, and that that's but now with AI, you get so much more information. And I'll kind of kind of give an example. Like AI knows you, right? And you may use chat, you may use Claude, but it starts to know you. Like some people know I'm building a house. No, wait a minute. Some people know my wife is building a house, I'm paying for it. And what's funny is that when I'm going into AI and teaching my wife AI, AI knows my wife so well and her taste so well that it's it's recommending things that she hasn't asked to purchase and dropping links. That's where AI is going. I mean, it's just amazing. So we're spending more money because my my wife, I didn't think to ask this, but AI is saying, hey, did you you know that that ever crystal sconce uh above your Venetian plaster, you know, blah blah. And yeah, you're right. I need one of those. So and and people drop in, right? It's like I'm like you, Jen. It must cost the most, I'll take it. Um, you know, people, you know, this all started with with me when one of my clients said, you know, we have customers dropping our quotes inside chat. And I was like, wow, people are wanting to learn. AI is giving them the information, not number one best anymore. And people are learning and they're adopting and they're becoming more savvy, and they're not just going to Google anymore, they're they're searching all over the place. And then at some point, I really want to talk about how important speed to lead is. It's kind of like the lasso that brings it all in.
SPEAKER_01But anyhow, it's also whiplash if they don't figure that out before they go into this kind of a project, which we've seen.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, Crystal, you're the host. No, yeah, no, let's go through speed to lead.
Speed To Lead And 24-7 Booking
SPEAKER_02I think that's the other thing, Matt, that like sits right with them is you know, uh, so a lot of contractors are getting on board. They're like, okay, I'm I'm trying, right? I'm trying to get where I need to go to show up where I need to show up. But now speed delete is our other issue. So, you know, I I remember, so my grandfather started our business back in 1974. And I mean, back in the day when he would go in and sit down and he answered the phone, but he was gonna have a slice of pie, cup of coffee. He was life was just a slower pace then, right? And where every handshake mattered and people wanted face to face. Not that people still don't want that, but right now our lives have changed to where people are expecting, they no longer wait. I mean, think about my kids would have, and I have a 19-year-old, he would have zero idea what an answering machine really was. That's fair. You know what I mean? He would have no idea like even how to how to wrap his head around that. What do you mean I can't call anybody at any time and they answer? I literally told my kids one time, what you know, used to, it was a joke like, do not call your mom when she goes to the store where they have to page her over the intercom. And our kids were like, What? Because I was like, you know, because in their minds, I can talk to you anytime I want to. And so the consumer, we are we are not taught patience anymore or to wait. So, and also we don't want to talk to you. Not everybody wants to talk to live people now. Right now, I think we're still, and y'all too might disagree with me, but from my own experience with our pest control company, we launched an AI agent. She is not well loved at the moment. Um, she needs a lot of work, but I live in East Texas, and so East Texas is a slow adopter. We're gonna be a slow adopter to that, right? We knew it, we eased it in there, and we're easing it on back a little bit more, but we had to start figuring out because you know what, it makes our team more efficient, all those things. So, right now, strategically, you have to be thinking like, how do I serve today's customer? Do I still have some older clients that like for me to answer the phone? Absolutely. You know what we do? Answer the phone. But do I have people that want to book on a form? They want to book from a link, they want to book online, uh like schedule it right then and there. They want to send me a Facebook message, they reply to my ad. And I you cannot be responsive a day later. Y'all, you can't be responsive 15 minutes later.
SPEAKER_00No, you can't.
SPEAKER_02It's too far. So, Matt, what were you where were you going with speed to lead?
SPEAKER_00Well, all that's being measured and compiled as as a score against you or for you, right? That trust factor. And you and you said it. I mean, you know, people they want their information, and it that's let me just go back. Yeah, I've seen well, my own experience. I hated AI. And when I got AI on the phone, I was like, ah, now I prefer AI because I know we're gonna get somewhere quick, you know. The the as AI is evolving, and even in text, I know it's AI and I know I can get to the getting. I'm I'm an efficient type of guy. I don't have time to dilly-dally, right? Um, so with that being said, speed delete for me and for my clients is everything because the customer wants the information and they want a book. How many people, you know, and and you've been in a situation, you you said your AC is on this last leg or whatever. I've been through that a thousand times. My wife calls, and we're trying to get on the calendar, and we don't know, but it's a guessing game. Someone will get back to you and they'll kind of give you this window. That's an inefficient way to do it, right? With technology and agents, like, you know, we're gonna be able to dial down to tell you exactly what that day is, confirm it, get a book, and get down the road, and have it all done in five, six, seven minutes. Right. I mean, we have our uh speed delete with Unify inside LSA. I think there may be one or two other companies that do that. I don't know, and also Yelp. I mean, they come in and we're we're beta testing our voice, and I get it. People hate voice. And I told my team, like, before we we and we're doing a voice with our clients, I said, before we lost the launch this voice, it better kick ass just like the our message messaging does. It works really, really, really well. Um, it knows the customer, it knows all the things, but the voice we have to get down. I think we're very, very close. But the sooner that you can engage with somebody um and get them the information that they need, get them booked, that's where you have to be. And that's what that's where it's at today. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's where we were excited about Unify, it fit perfect, right? Is we could just integrate Unify directly into Hydra and know that regardless of channel, any lead that comes in, well, one, you're not you're not uh limiting the number of channels. So you're allowing consumers to book via the conversion tool that they prefer, which is really important, consumer choice. If the only choice you give them is call or fill out the stupid web form, you like you're eliminating people that are like both I already know what that equals. That equals I don't get a call from back from you, and I have to take the next two hours to see if you respond, right? So you're opening up the number of conversion sources. Do you want to text? Do you want to book online? Do you want to chat? Do you want to send a Facebook message? Do you want to go through Yelp? Whatever all the different channels are, you're unifying all that data into a single aggregated system, and then you're getting rapid responses in a matter of seconds. And I think that's one of the hard things from a people person standpoint that you should solve for first is all lead sources flow to a single source and can be managed effectively and efficiently utilizing AI for everything text. Voice. I I'm obviously a little all in on AI, you would say, but I still haven't put voice in front of we still pick up the phone. So it's the one thing I haven't I haven't switched over. Crystal, you posted something the other day and I was like, I'm I'm still there. I still want Kathy Marshall being like, see a web group, how can I help you and see our country and everything? And I love that. I love the feeling of that. It sounds like core bread. Yes, I love the feeling of that.
SPEAKER_00Some people want to call, and some people like us uh who are the super efficient people just want to send a text or just show up chat. Just let's just get to the getting, like, especially in the home services.
SPEAKER_01Like, I you know, I don't need to know your whole I would never call and I would never fill out a form on somebody's website, ever.
SPEAKER_00And that the data it's happening. I can show you the unify. I mean, our messaging is on fire, and even when you're sleeping or you're you're you're spillover or you're doing something else or you're you're having lunch, uh Unify is booking your booking your leads.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this makes it really easy, right? Once you have a system like that put in, install Unify, you know you're 24-7 for booking, then immediately go to your Google Business listing, take off the Monday through Friday nine to five, change it to 24-7 because they don't need you out 24-7. They just want to know they can interact and do business with you 24-7. So at 501, I don't want your Google business profile to be the one with the big giant red link that says closed.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01You're not going to win the business. What's the point of marketing if you're just eliminating the majority of time when people actually are off work and have time to worry about all these honey-to-do list items at your house?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and as far as the contractor goes, you know, Jen, I sent you a screenshot the other day. Did you see the agentic version of Unify? I can't wait to watch it. So if you're a business owner, you can just go and ask it whatever. How many, how many jobs did I close? And LSA, what's my average, you know, uh review rating over last month? Um, what's my review uh velocity? You can ask it all everything within that data set within Unify. You could just ask a question to get whatever you want. So we're super excited to launch that, and that's going to be fun to see.
SPEAKER_01BYOAI, baby.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, BY O AI.
SPEAKER_02Well, and listen, I will say there is kind of two schools of thoughts that I see in contractors, those that are bought in. So, you know, we got the Beccas from advanced, you know, we've got those, and then we've got the ones that are that are tiptoeing in it. And I'll be honest, like I think you have to go at a pace that you as a contractor are comfortable, but I need you to push yourself until the pain is greater. Yes, I need you to push yourself because right now you can't afford to sit back because you are gonna look up and you're gonna be like, oh crap, if I would have been making some decent changes along the way, I wouldn't be so far behind. So I'm not into scare tactics, I'm into logic of thinking through how marketing is changing. And listen, to be fair, I love Matt and I love Jennifer. Not the only people on the block, but I've seen their work firsthand because again, I share clients with them. And so anytime I can say I can show you clients that are successful with these two people, then I feel like it's worth talking about. Um, are other people successful on their own? Probably, and more than more than likely. Um, and again, Jennifer and Matt both give away so much free content um that you could be learning to do things yourself here.
What AI Hype Gets Wrong
SPEAKER_02So, Jennifer and Matt, last question. Just kind of in an overall like I know we've kind of mentioned a lot of it, but what is one thing that you think, and again, this might lean back to what we already said, is really overhyped about AI. Meaning like people have led people a little too in the wrong direction um on AI, maybe thinking they I I'll lean into voice here. I think people have acted like voice can 100% replace everything. And like Jennifer said earlier, I'm not fully bought in on AI voice yet. Okay, so I think it's overhyped um for a lot of ways. Do I think we should be leaning in? Yes, but should we have jumped off into the deep end? I say no right now, and I'm sure there's somebody that can prove me wrong. Don't hate on me too much, but that would be my overhyped. What about you two? Whichever one wants to go first.
SPEAKER_00I'll let let me go first because I love hearing Jan Briff and She will riff, like no one the best at it. I I'm on I'm on podcast, and sometimes I'll take notes when she's going. I mean, really well. Um, what I think is overhyped are the one-off chat GPT clawed gurus that are coming up with the latest promise, snazzy dazzy thing that you want to add to your website, and none of it works. It's it's a quick sell, it's a quick thing, and by the time you figure it out and get a launch, get it on the site, it's already changed. You know, so I think that's something that I think is overhyped. Um, and listen, I love the entrepreneurship, I love the desire, I love people going out there trying to find solutions, racking their brain, trying to solve problems, but there's there's a way to do it. Um, and so I'm always leery of that because I've seen it and Jen, Jen has seen it, and then I divert back to Hydra. Hydra, knowledge, knowledge center, it's learning, it's database, it's cohort. It's different. Sometimes people get us confused with we're just slinging clawed code. That's not what we're doing, right? It's not. It's like you have to get on the phone with us, you have to do your business a favor. We're out here with our pom-poms and our cheerleading, and I'm clanging bells trying to get your attention. If you if you have questions about the future, what the future looks like, I think we know it. Probably the best. And I say that humbly. Um, Jen has taught me so, so much, and she's challenged me and she's made my products better. But you have to see, and I say this, and I'm probably so over and flattering to Jen now, probably just drives her nuts, but you have to see what her and her team built. You have to take a glance. If you don't, you're doing yourself a disservice. So now, Jen, uh, having said that, um, that's that's what I think. People who just you know get out there and say, I have this latest greatest thing with Claude, and you have to have it on your website.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love you guys. I don't want to go too nerdy trying to think of not needing a translator version. I just go for it, girl. Okay.
Why DIY AI Apps Can Fail
SPEAKER_01So you can build your own. Application with AI. That's overhyped. That is, yes. That is okay. So you actually have to have developer experience, systems architecture, database engineering, schema engineering. Uh if when you build, so AI will lie to you. AI will manufacture and create seed data that looks real. When you go to Cloud and you decide you want to Cloud code an application that's going to manage your entire business operations, your infrastructure, your PL, your budgets, whatever. I want you to be very careful. What Cloud does, what any AI system does is it builds the UIUX framework and it seeds it with data and it utilizes, it utilizes wet coding standards, which is write everything twice, okay, versus dry coding standards. Okay. If you don't know how to code, if you're not a developer, which most marketing agencies are not developers, they're hack jobbing WordPress websites together with 50 plugins and a theme. That's not a developer, right? Same thing with you. If you can build a pretty dashboard inside of Cloud, that's great. But it should have started with database first, schema, state machine, freaking uh RBAC rules. Like if these things are not part of your context and you're not aware of how do I build a database, um, an object-oriented database, if that's not part of your MO. Just because you spit out a pretty dashboard to run your business or build a website or build an application, you should never take it to market. Never under any circumstances, do you have a product that you built with AI that you should be taking to market? That is gross negligence. That should never happen. You should not be building your own website in there and taking an SPA, single page, heavy JavaScript application to market with no experience. Not a good idea. I've seen a lot of really good people build things, launch them, and destroy companies overnight. So there should be some concern and fear of just utilizing conversational AI to build applications, to build products, to build websites, to build content. Yes, all those things are real. That is you, I don't even know where to say. Will it get there? The answer is it will. It will eventually get there. It is not there yet. You cannot just go there and build an application and then every single one that I've brought on, I've been I'm like, okay, we do code reviews. So if you've built something and you want us to look at something, you can share your GitHub repository. If you don't have one, stop building. Like stop if you don't know what a code repository is. You're not building anything, don't do it anymore. Just stop it, right? But we'll do a code review 100% of the time, with the exception of Unify 360, OnePath, um, what uh what else? Avoca. Um I I haven't done one on that yet. Like there are there are actual development companies building with native AI built in. Like that is very different than popping up an AI generated application or site. Those are not real, those are prototypes, and that's great. I want you to play and build a prototype, it makes it easier, but link it to GitHub, get a code review, and don't take something to market. And surely, don't launch your new AI generated website unless you want your phones to turn off the next day.
SPEAKER_00And it may cost more than $200 a month in tokens if you don't the right way.
SPEAKER_01On a side note, yeah, I'm out about a million dollars in million dollars if you're gonna do it right. In 45 days, I spent a million dollars in AI tokens. Right, and that's us having our own AI.
SPEAKER_02So and listen again, I say this because I want I want contractors to listen to me.
How To Start Learning And Adopting
SPEAKER_02I am not owned by CI Web Group, Lemon Seed is operates fully independently. None of us benefit honestly from the other one's connections, if you will. What this is, is I I feel like we all have an obligation to our business, to our teams, to at least understand what direction and learn. And honestly, one of my favorite things to do is look outside of our industry at what other industries are doing and start thinking, man, how can I bring that in? How do I bring that in? So for me, when it comes to marketing, I'm always trying to be a year ahead of what's going to happen because I want my contractors to be a year ahead of thinking and planning, financially, planning mentally, like mentally getting ourselves around it. Guys, some of y'all have still not figured out how important it is to have a brand. So if you're listening, like I love y'all, but you cannot rely on your own understanding of everything. I encourage you to learn and do and be, I'm not saying you have to adopt this methodology here that we've talked about today. You don't have to. I'm afraid for you, but hey, if you've done your research and the conclusion that you came to is you want to keep doing things your way, keep doing things your way. It's your business. But I just feel an obligation to bring all these different thoughts to the picture because fear mongering, fine. If if every time somebody brings up something new and different, you're gonna call it fear mongering, then welcome to the scary house, okay? Because that's what I'm gonna do all the time. But fear mongering is being like everything's going to change. It is, but it always has been that's that's not new. Um, I encourage you though, go learn for yourself, apply for yourself, and start using applications. And you got to go deeper than the chat GPT app on your phone, you got to go deeper than at rewriting emails and social media captions. Okay, this is like a lot deeper, and I'll be honest, like, I don't even love it. When Jennifer starts talking, her crazy talk is what I call it about agents and all the MP, all the all the acronyms, alchemic suit. You know what I do? I'm like, yes, girl. And then I go see is what she's saying. Can I find that somewhere else? And then sure enough, again, I find it other places, and I will say this. And Jennifer knows I've probably been saying this for a while. Everybody thought Noah was crazy until it started raining. So now things that we we because I've been like, yes, girl, I'm gonna I'm gonna jump on her with things that I've been saying since 2020, things that Jennifer's been saying uh hard and heavy for the past what two years now, all of a sudden people are like, Oh yeah, you know what it like it's a like it's a revelation. And I'm like, hasn't hasn't some of these people been saying this for a hot minute? Um, and so I just encourage you, like you don't have to jump ship on everything you've always known. What you have to do is start modifying and start looking at how can you now how can you now modify it to fit this AI model of life? Again, here's as you don't you don't have to do anything because you're an adult. But again, my encouragement here is to think outside the box. So, Jennifer, if people want to get in contact with you, what are a couple of ways they can get in contact with you?com and then just start AI just start AI.io, yes, yes, is another free community. Just start AI.io, get in there and start learning. If you love to learn, that's where you need to be. Okay. And then Matt, what about you? What service do you offer, Matt? Give us a little bit about what am I looking for that you can solve?
SPEAKER_00You know, and and I can tell we're wrapping this up, and my brain's going crazy because there's so much more I want to talk about and do this again, right? Um, well, you know, real-time marketing, uh, I think we're best known for LSA. Um, we uh pioneered that space early on when we said, hey, you can actually optimize this. And uh and my president of my company, Cortland Saxby, she just absolutely crushed it and killed it. Yes, if we and and we proved our theory, took it to Google, they looked at our notes, looked at our insane data, and they said we want to partner with you. So Google actually partners with us when they launch a new vertical or new change or something in LSA, they test it through real-time marketing. Um, that's awesome. That's a lot of trust. Um, you know, and we do uh GBP as well. Um and but we partnered with uh Hydra, so we uh offer and work with Hydra website design and and all the fun things we've talked about today.
SPEAKER_01They're they are the we're not gonna downplay that. They are the first licensed digital marketing agency to provide full Hydra OS web, SEO, blogging, everything. They're completely certified in the entire platform.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you. And it's great, it's been wonderful. And and you know, we uh Jen and I looked at each other, we had two halves, and it has made a whole, and we're like, what are we doing? And then with Unify 360 was a big passion play, and I I was, you know, I showed her and and then it was a perfect fit. So everything was a perfect fit, and so we just went went all in. So Unify 360 is uh obviously reviews, omni channel, inbox, every lead everywhere coming in, and handled by AI to a booking point. Um, and then we have the social media and the automated social media, and those are that's a closed loop system. All everything that Unify does is a ranking signal used by AI to determine trust and authority with your brand. And uh, so those are the things that that we offer. If you want to get a hold of me, um, the best way is to I'm gonna be daring and put my email out there. Just reach out to Matt at realtimarketing.com, and I'm happy to point you in the right direction. But I will say this the best thing a contractor, a business owner can do is to get Jen and I on a phone call and let us show you what we built because it will absolutely change how you understand legacy marketing and where we're going in the future and what your 2027 looks like and what it can mean for you.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna throw out one more thing, Crystal. That's fine.
Community Authority And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_01That's fine. Matt and I both work with lemon seed. And I will tell you this is wildly important. The lemon seeds strategist is the missing component to everything that we do. We, quite frankly, between Matt and I, both of us want to curl up in our nurtery and let us continue to code and build and uh develop applications that can help contractors move forward. Lemon Seed has done the most phenomenal job at putting real strategists, real people that are working with contractors and holding their hand through the process and help guiding them and helping helping them bring everything that we need to get the best results, as well as make very, very um strategic decisions that are necessary for us to be able to execute. I'm not gonna say Matt and I are the best at putting the hand holding in place. Like more and more of our, more and more of our business is becoming more, and I threw out that BYO AI because as Matt and I move into 2027, like we're leaning towards having our contractors have their own AI communicating with us inside Slack to our AI, and it's AI to AI doing business. And that's not going to be an easy pill to swallow if you want to know like what's next, what's coming, that's where we're going, is really helping our contractors that have been building be able to have that AI to AI. We're reinventing digital marketing. And for contractors who want human engagement, a human plan, and that strategic coaching and those decisions, where it's two brains getting together and having a conversation. Like Lemon Seed has been a really amazing partner at filling that gap and letting us focus on building the technology while you guys focus on um holding. I I always said babysitting, and I I caught, I pulled myself.
SPEAKER_02Thank y'all so much. Y'all are so kind. I think the the goal here is lemon seeds. All our heart has always been like, let us help you build a full marketing plan. And so that's why I'm so thirsty from people telling me what else can we do on our side to feed that monster. Because, hey, you want it? We should do more community support. Done. We will dream up all the community support. We need more press releases, we need more, we need to apply and win more awards. We need to create a podcast, we need to be doing more social media marketing. Like we can do it.
SPEAKER_01Backlink, backlink, backlink, backlink, backlink. What she's talking about is what she's talking about is building authority, which builds links that help you gain your EEAT credibility. Signals matter, right? The more signals you have coming in traditional SEO, they called it link building, which people just bought shitty links, excuse me, bought crappy links from wherever. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, they were shitty.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the but what Crystal's talking about is building true brand equity and that digitally transfers to page authority, domain authority, brand authority, which helps you get better results across everything else. The combination of the two is where the magic happens.
SPEAKER_00And it's breathtaking how many people don't do that. Uh, Crystal, and I couldn't agree. I agree with you 100% 1,000% that uh uh building your local community is the best thing you can one of the top one, two, three things you can do. And so many of my clients have learned, oh, yeah, I did this and this and this and this, but they didn't do anything with it. And I'm like, what? Your best links are now gonna be, especially as far as AI is concerned. Yeah, real links, real authority is is how much you love and care deeply for the people that are in your community and what you do for them. But like Jen said, that has to be a link. Um, and that authority will be so much greater locally than anything we've ever done high domain nationally.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that she has she's not calling it link building yet.
SPEAKER_00We'll all get together and yes, it's still here, Jen. It's still here.
SPEAKER_02And I say this because I'm like, listen, because everybody needs to play their position. Right, everybody needs to play their position. And so, again, this is my encouragement to all you contractors that are listening. If even if you're just tempted to be like, what could I do? Jen and Matt are would easily talk to you guys. Lemon Seed can talk to you guys. So, of course, thank y'all for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. This could be like a seven-part series, okay? Like you cannot get enough, but go follow both of them on socials. Go follow them. They're always putting out lives and talks and all kinds of good stuff. So you're gonna want to keep yourself invested in hearing what's coming. I think this team is the most forward thinking team out there. Again, it's a wild, it's a wild space to be in right now, but I'm here for it and I hope you are too. So, guys, thanks for listening. Have a great time. Thanks for sipping lemonade with us. Perfect. Stop recording.