Jazmin Ramirez: AI Marketing Strategies and Growth Insights for Contractors

What does it take to lead and grow in a fast-changing trades industry? In this episode of Catalyst for the Trades, Jennifer Bagley interviews Jazmin Ramirez, Senior Director of Growth at CI Web Group and one of the top 30 most influential women in HVACR.

Jazmin shares her journey from plumbing office manager to award-winning marketing leader, how she’s helping contractors scale faster with AI, and why asset ownership and speed matter more than ever.

Listeners will learn how AI-driven marketing, SEO, and transparent strategies are reshaping how HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses grow.

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Introduction & Guest Welcome
• 01:01 – Women in HVACR Conference Highlights
•  02:12 – Jazmin’s Journey in the Trades
• 05:11 – Growth at CI Web Group
• 08:19 – Passion & Making a Difference
• 10:49 – Navigating Rapid Technology Shifts
• 15:20 – Evolving SEO and Marketing for the AI Era
• 21:39 – AI-Driven Content, Blogging, and Local SEO
• 26:30 – Making High-Performance Marketing Affordable
• 28:29 – Real Results for Contractors
• 33:27 – Website Development & Asset Ownership
• 37:04 – AI in the Trades: Industry Readiness
• 38:46 – Final Thoughts: The Future of Trades Marketing

Guest Details

• Name: Jazmin Ramirez
• Title: Senior Director of Growth, CI Web Group

Jazmin has built her career in the trades, working across commercial plumbing, dispatch, marketing, and team leadership. She mentors contractors nationwide to grow faster with AI-driven strategies and proven marketing systems.

Relevant Links

• Women in HVACR
• Get Started with CI Web Group
• Catalyst for the Trades Podcast
• CI Web Group
• The Opus & Golds Group
  
  

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Transcript

Jennifer Bagley [00:00:02]:
Good afternoon, and welcome to Catalyst for the Trades Bagley, your podcast host, and today is so special. I am so excited. I get to be here with the lovely, the one and only, the award winner, entrepreneur of the year, Ms. Jazmin Ramirez.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:00:20]:
Hi.

Jennifer Bagley [00:00:22]:
I'm happy to have you. So this is a special treat because Jazmin has. She's an interesting guest because she's also the senior director of our entire growth division here at CI Web Group, which I don't get to get you out of the jungle very often. And I know you just flew in from. I know you just flew in from a big event. We're gonna start right there. You just flew in. We got an ice bath this morning to wake it up after probably three days with no sleep at all, I would assume.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:00:55]:
No sleep.

Jennifer Bagley [00:00:56]:
So where'd you come in from, and what award did you just win?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:01:01]:
So I just came in from the Woman in HVACR annual conference Bet on yourself in Vegas. And I won one of the top 30 women that are influential in H vacr, which was so exciting. Huh?

Jennifer Bagley [00:01:18]:
Are you gonna get teary? I'm getting teary.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:01:21]:
No, I think I cried enough.

Jennifer Bagley [00:01:23]:
Okay.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:01:24]:
And not only that, I also, which I don't even know if I told you this, I also stepped out of my comfort zone, and I helped launch the very first Woman HBCR empowered magazine that I created and designed and worked with them to build in my head. And I have a copy for you. Oh, my gosh.

Jennifer Bagley [00:01:46]:
Thank you so much. Sorry, Parker. Jazz just took over creative director. I'm just kidding.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:01:52]:
I sent him a text. Parker who?

Jennifer Bagley [00:01:55]:
Don't be mad. So, Jaz, for everybody that doesn't know your story, let's talk a little bit about your experience in the trades and kind of your journey. Where'd you start? How'd you get here? Give me the tea.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:02:12]:
So now I might get teary eyed. Okay. So I don't even know if you know this. I actually started out in plumbing. So I was an office manager for a local commercial plumbing company. I started out working with them. They bid bid jobs, do full re piping. They're still business.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:02:28]:
I see them all the time. But I was young. I was 21 years old. Started there, and whoa, that was a whirlwind. And then I quickly left, like a year in. I was like, oh, peace out. And I started doing health, and then I saw a job opening at an H Vac company, and I was like, you know, I actually really enjoyed working in the plumbing company. I like those type of people.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:02:52]:
They're very like, direct. Which I'm a very direct person. And I applied and I started working as a home service dispatcher. So I've worked on the home warranty side, built my way up, met my husband there, but built my way up, went through everything, and I became a dispatcher. I won awards for selling memberships across all of the nation. So me and one of my other dispatchers, we were 1 and 2 going back to back for these awards for selling memberships. And then I moved into operations, and that was a big shift. So I actually became the operations manager for my local H vac company.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:03:29]:
I built full part systems. I built a cage that had all of our parts, an inventory system, job costing. I did everything, the training, all of that. And then I decided to be an eavesdropper and listen on a marketing call. And that's where I met Lisa. And from Lisa came Jennifer. And I remember being in this call with you, and I'm just like, yeah, totally, we need this. I'm just talking to you like we are now.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:03:58]:
And you said one thing to me, and it stuck with me. You told my boss, you're either going to work for her, work against her, or work with her. And I was like, oh, I like this girl. So here I stopped you every day. I would text you, hey, when you gonna hire me? Hey, what's going on? Hey, when are you gonna hire me? And you told me no. And I was just like, why not? And then after a year, you finally let me jump on I. But after a year, you finally were like, you know, you can interview. Got hired on the spot.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:04:32]:
And then that was the longest month of my life. And then I ended up here.

Jennifer Bagley [00:04:40]:
Oh, my. Yeah, it was a little awkward because they were your. You guys wound up becoming our client, and I wanted to make sure the owners knew that I at least let you pursue your passion for a year before we pulled the trigger. And I didn't want to get canned, quite frankly. So we had to have those conversations first, which they weren't very happy about you wanting to leave. I will say that.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:05:04]:
Yeah, that was exactly. Because I started here in web, and now look at me.

Jennifer Bagley [00:05:11]:
I know, I know. So tell me about your journey with CI Web Group. How have you transitioned since you started? I know you've worn a lot of hats, and now you have a big hat.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:05:23]:
So I started as a regional web manager. So what that meant is I managed all of our west coast. I had two other counterparts, and we debate. We divided everything up, and I kept watching them and decided I can do it better. So I could and I did. I managed 120 accounts all by myself, Web projects, account management. And then you guys gave me one of the largest branches that we had, which was Ferguson. And I took that and I really became like that was my baby.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:05:59]:
And then from there I became the web director. So I started managing everybody and managing that pipeline and I had the most amazing team that I had a very hard time transitioning out of that department, but I had the most amazing team. I got to work with Liz hand in hand and be a mentor for her. I got to work with so many people and then one day you're like, hey, you're really good at talking and selling. How about you take the account managers? So I have both for a hot minute. And then at some point in time, we decided that I was going to move out of web and we were going to move up Liz and try not to get teary eyed. That was like I mentored her for so long and I got to watch her blossom and take over this beautiful baby that we created and moved into account management and. And over there I got to work with some of the most amazing people.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:06:53]:
I still do. I work with them and I get to see their growth. But then I got to really get into the passion of what I have, which is making a change in our contractors businesses. Don't cry. Making a change in our contractors businesses and being able to be a part of their story and their journey. So a lot of people don't know is I actually my family is in H vac. My husband is a contractor, he's been for 14 years. So being able to have like that impact in these people that I get to say I know when they struggle, I know that they're putting everything in I can.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:07:26]:
I know the hardships that they're going through with weather what season. I feel it in my family. And being able to be a part of that is the absolute joy that is my why. And then getting to instill that in my team. And then last year you pushed me to become the senior director of growth. So now I manage all of our customer base and employees, our sales team, our account management, and then our customer support. You guys know Ms. Kathy, that is our customer support.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:07:54]:
I get to manage all of them. And coming with leadership and coming with that. I don't know where I heard this, I just heard it recently is you wear bigger hats and those bigger hats have a lot more that you have to take on. And being a part of a leadership team that we Take everything on. But as you know, I am a warrior when it comes to my team. Being able to still have that. I need to protect my team. I need to protect my company, and I need to protect my clients.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:08:19]:
And being able to do that and work with you and work with our leadership team, it's a big joy. But everyone knows the real world that I want.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:29]:
Hey, you want to kill me?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:08:35]:
Everyone. You've noticed since day one, dad was.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:38]:
Like, jen might just get hit by a bus.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:08:41]:
Not what I want. I want you to retire and just play with your little baby.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:47]:
Oh, my God. I knew this was going to be a challenge for me to have you on.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:08:52]:
I just have to look away from you, and then I don't cry.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:56]:
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's. It's been awesome watching you grow and seeing you progress through this journey and all the people you impact from our team to our clients and their team and everyone else. I've seen you on meetings and you're like, look, you can't get your technicians to give them to me. I'll get them to do it. We need reviews. Listen, you come in like the boss, even if it's our client and the. The owner's having a hard time with their text, you're like, let me explain how important this is.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:09:30]:
I do. I do. I tell them, let's get your CSRs. I'll walk them through. I've done this. I've been here. Let's do it together. I show up at their businesses.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:09:39]:
You know, the only thing that I ever take in return is some Chipotle. So you know who I'm talking about. But I show up at their businesses and I work with them because I've been there. I know what it. What it takes. I know what's needed. And if I can help them push that next level, I know what our team can do for them.

Jennifer Bagley [00:09:59]:
Yeah.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:09:59]:
And it's just you, You've always said it best. You have to show up, suit up, and participate. And I instill that with my clients.

Jennifer Bagley [00:10:06]:
Yeah, 100%. All right, we gotta switch gears so my eyes stop watering. Damn. This is why I waited to have you on for a long time. Okay, so, I mean, everybody that's listening, you have to know what it's like to have, like, here, watch your babies grow up.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:10:27]:
I know when I started, there's only like 10 of us. That's why, like, I get so teary eyed when it comes to Liz, because that's not like just watching her blossom. And now she's gonna Be a mom. And I can't. Okay, we gotta switch topics. I'll cry. New topic.

Jennifer Bagley [00:10:43]:
We're done. That's over. Welcome to Jazmin. This is her story. That is over.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:10:47]:
Moving on.

Jennifer Bagley [00:10:49]:
Okay, so. So I'm curious. This last two years with CI Web Group and with technology evolution, the implementation or the evolution of AI and so forth, from your vantage point. I know my. From my vantage point, but from your vantage point, how deeply did we have to change and what were the impacts on the organization? Because you, you obviously have lived through it. This last two years has not been an easy. It's been. Well, I'm not going to give my opinion from you.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:11:39]:
It's. I have gray hairs for the first time ever. It's been hard. A lot of sleepless nights. Not only that, like, we built this entire company and this team and then you have to shift because everything's changing. And I think people get lost in like, oh, there's no change. No, everything's changing. I can see it, I feel it.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:11:57]:
I can see it with my clients. And it's not just that. Like, we see a change in just like the economy, we see a change in the way that home services are now being portrayed. Like before, I was just talking about this @women hvcr with a group of people. Like before, like, it was looked down upon to be an H vac and to be an electrical plumber. Now that's like, my son wants to do this. Like, it's something that people are looking forward to. There's an evolution that's happening.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:12:23]:
But in our business, with that, with technology, we had to shift and we had to make some really hard decisions and main decision. I've cried over these decisions. I've had a lot of sleepless nights. It was a lot of reimagining, rethinking, testing that out.

Jennifer Bagley [00:12:38]:
No.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:12:39]:
Okay, we got to do it this way. There was so much that we went through. But if anyone knows you or they know our team, they know that everything that we did was for our clients. We. We didn't sleep. Sometimes we were up super late at night. I mean, just as last week. And we were up like 11pm on Saturday and Sunday from 7am because that's how much we care and we have to shift and we have to continually evolve.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:13:02]:
But it was hard. I have never had gray hair until this last two years. And that's just from. We see the struggles that everyone's facing, we hear it, and we're trying to make a shift and a change to combat those which we have, we have, we have.

Jennifer Bagley [00:13:21]:
We have. It was not easy getting here. Rocky ass road.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:13:31]:
It was like when you're going up and down and to the side and maybe get thrown off the cliff a.

Jennifer Bagley [00:13:35]:
Little bit, walk around the corner, giant 2x4 to the back of the head. I just woke up. Listen, that was weird this morning. God. So for those that don't know how much we've had to evolve, right. I mean, I look at our business in the just the last five months, four months, and I feel like a startup that just started yesterday, right? We have a whole new team of OGs. Not new, but the ones that made it through this transition and are here now and are moving forward with a new business. But like from your vantage point and to help everybody understand a marketing company, like, I don't.

Jennifer Bagley [00:14:19]:
I think everyone thought I was crazy because a year and a half ago I'm like, they're all going to be out of business. I don't know. I'm sure everybody, if we have entrepreneurs listening, like you've gotta, you, you know what it feels like when you're like there's some major thing coming or that happened that could potentially wipe out an industry, let alone your, your own business and all your children, all your babies, all your team, your family right in that business. And do. To me, I think that being able to predict the future scared the shit out of me. And I was like, this is like, we're gonna do this. We're right now. We are not gonna wait until we get our asses handed to us.

Jennifer Bagley [00:15:05]:
We're gonna do this right now. We are gonna rethink everything. But from your vantage point, what all had to change. What all. Because there's a lot that had to change. People, mindsets and so forth had to change.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:15:20]:
We had to change the entire content management system that we were using for our websites. We had to change the way that our strategy was for SEO. We had to change how do you get enough content into these websites that are going to be published. But then Google changed, just recently, Google changed the way that they wanted content and how they wanted that content to be written. So we had to re pivot and adjust again. But not only that, we had to change local. We had to make sure that we were getting our clients reviews responded. Like we had to build so many platforms and there were people that didn't believe and that was hard because you're trying to hold this change and the shift and push and educate people on it and then you have team members that are like, no, I'M sort of like, that's not going to happen.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:16:07]:
That's not going to happen. And then you see this 30% shift from Google to AI and. And they're like, oh, it's a fluke there. Every part of our business had to change the way that we educate and talk to our customers because things are shifting so fast. And that's when you and Stephanie got just start going. If we didn't have this platform that was educating people every single day.

Jennifer Bagley [00:16:30]:
I.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:16:31]:
Don'T even know how we would get through this. It's kind of like when we're talking about AI and it comes into AI search, traditional search, the way that we utilize our actual AI SEO. So this is a network system that's going to do that heavy lift for us, go through everything and do it faster. That is what just started. It's doing all the heavy lift for our communication. We had to change the entire platform. We communicate to our clients in. That's been a headache in itself this last two and a half weeks.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:16:59]:
But every shift we're making is to better our team and to better our customers. But literally everything, Anything you can think of, we changed it.

Jennifer Bagley [00:17:09]:
It's not even the same company.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:17:11]:
No, we are a completely different company. So if you used us a year ago, better call us again because we're different.

Jennifer Bagley [00:17:19]:
Come back. Yes. So one of those major changes was, well, just let's just roll through each one of them. So let's talk about SEO. For example, from your vantage point, what's the difference in how we used to provide SEO, technical SEO services, how we do it now, and the difference to the customer, like transparency and, and speed and so forth. What do you notice?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:17:44]:
One, I can actually show a customer what we did, which is a game changer. A lot of people spend money and they want to know, well, what, what did you do? I don't understand. I just got off the project launch call going through it. I can actually show you exact everything we did. I can show you the why, I can show you all of the things that need to be worked on. And not only that, I can show you how much time it would have taken if it was just a human manually doing it and the cost it would have cost you. And then I see it all evolve and then I hear it from our customers on. I can feel this in my business.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:18:15]:
My phone calls are going up.

Jennifer Bagley [00:18:17]:
I'm.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:18:18]:
Whoa, did you see me search there? Hey, I got a lead from chat. Did you see that? So being able to see that and be like that was Us here. Here's your record of everything we did. I think that that's really good on our side. From an account management side, I have my technical experience and knowledge, but being able to see all the things that we can actually hit, all the technical elements to just the miscellaneous stuff that it's not like, it's not super, super important. But hey, we can do it because it's still going to give you more. I think that that is the biggest shift is being able to showcase what our team actually does.

Jennifer Bagley [00:18:54]:
Yeah, that's huge. I feel like a lot of times in the industry, contractors are used to spending money on SEO. And I'll ask them. I'm like, so tell me, what's your account management meeting look like with your other agency? And it's always the same, and we were exactly the same. So I'm not putting anybody down at all because we are identical. Right? You get on with your account manager, they pull up some agency analytics or some reporting dashboard. Maybe if you're lucky, you go straight into your Google Analytics and you're just looking at the result of whatever may or may not have been done. The result of.

Jennifer Bagley [00:19:31]:
And even as an agency owner or you guys as account managers, we were in the exact same position. We were in a position where we would go, hey, what's going on with this SEO account? And first thing we do is pull up analytics and we go look at the result of what's been done. And all of us are over here, like, I got to run this business. You got to report to all the clients, and we want to know what got done, what moves, what triggers did you pull? What did you change? Where was it? Why did you change it? Right? And none of us, including us as an agency owner or someone running the entire growth division, we didn't have visibility to it. So now being able to, at a glance, be able to see for every single account, every single task that needs to get done, why it needs to get done. And it's not, not even just that, but it used to be this. Like, I'm not going to use names, so I'm going to refer to him as Bob had an sop. And Bob had to go deliver certain things like a checklist on this SOP to make sure those things were done.

Jennifer Bagley [00:20:35]:
Is that what you need to perform? No, because that would be if Bob was only competing with Bob. But everything is changing every day. And that watching the fact that the AI is spying on your competitors for every page, every search in every single city, and the AI is telling You. Yeah, Bob did that, but Bob should have done this and it even look at it next month. Well, I know I said you were supposed to do this, but the SERPs have changed. Google search has changed, AI search has changed, your competitors have changed. So now we need to do something different. That's been a major wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

Jennifer Bagley [00:21:15]:
Okay, so next platform, that's Cortex AI SEO. So our next platform is Cortex Pulse. So Cortex, by the way, for anybody that doesn't know is the what?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:21:26]:
It's the brain.

Jennifer Bagley [00:21:27]:
It's the brain that's technical SEO. So Pulse is the heartbeat. Yes. So tell me about Pulse and how that looks different from anything we've ever done in the past.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:21:39]:
So I always like to explain to people, content is king. It always has been, it probably always will be when it comes to getting any sort of impressions. So with blogging we always would. Every week, every Friday, you get this blog that someone was writing based off of key term in your area. Now Pulse, Pulse has an agentic platform in the back end. So it has somewhere between 12 to 18 depending on the article it's writing, actual agents going through and searching. It goes through so many different things. It depends on the article and what it's going to do, but it does research, it scrapes the Internet and then it goes to your local search, your expertise search and your competitive search.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:22:19]:
So it's looking at different articles for this topic in these different areas and it's taking out, we can do this better, I can do better than that. This is what we have to do. And then it outlines it and then it writes it. And this isn't just weekly, it's every single day, Monday through Friday, there's an article that goes out. It checks traditional search, AI search, technical SEO search. It goes through different passes. It is an amazing tool. And not only that, I don't know if you saw because I saw today in the back end, it has AI performance tracking.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:22:52]:
So now I was just on this client call. I can show them where this article is showing up in what agentic network and platform it's showing up for. So amazing. Game changer. But then I can see the impressions. And this is what I was going through on this project launch call, trying to just show them everything. I can see where we started and you make it like 1, 2, 4 impressions. And then the next week 20, 30, and then the next week 4 to 5000.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:23:17]:
And then I think I just brought up one of our clients are at 23,000 impressions and 165 clicks.

Jennifer Bagley [00:23:23]:
I need to know which one that is.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:23:25]:
Not right now, but I'm like, I was looking at it. Don't worry, I have it for our SQUID games tomorrow. I was going through this and that's not something that I was able to show before I knew that. I can show you. I'm writing blogs. Here's your blog. That's what we did. But I couldn't show you the impact that your blog was having.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:23:46]:
The story, what, what it's bringing. That's why it's the heart. Because content is the heart of your database. It's bringing everything to it. It's putting it out. We have link building in the back of that again, link building change too. So you have to have outreach links. You want to have high domain authority links.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:24:06]:
So having that in there, just showcasing them and really being able to hit the story and the why and then being able to circle it back to what everyone wants your calls. And that's something I do do. My meetings are not reporting. I go through all the calls. I wanted you to know what was quotable, what you didn't close, what maybe. Hey, no, that I agree. That wasn't good. And what phone calls did you not answer? You're ever on call with me.

Jennifer Bagley [00:24:33]:
You know that's also an accountability coach.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:24:39]:
I should add that to my title.

Jennifer Bagley [00:24:42]:
And accountability. Yes, but we're all responsible. Oh my goodness, no. I love the level of detail. That's okay. So we've got Cortex AI SEO, Cortex Pulse with daily blogging and link building. Let's move to Cortex Local.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:25:04]:
Yes, local. This one. And I always say, like reviews are. You need reviews. You need to make sure everything's optimized. You need to make sure it's where it needs to be. And the struggle. I've always heard I like.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:25:16]:
I've made this simple for people too. I've created templates, I've done everything is I can't respond to my reviews or we only do that once a month or there's no one in the office to do that. I can't get images and videos. Like that's a lot of work. So we have a platform that does it for you. So we made it super easy. We will go in there, we respond to all your reviews. We make sure everything's optimized.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:25:36]:
You send. All we need is just photos. Just send us photos and videos and we got you. Our team will do everything that they need to do. And before local was really focused on, I think it was like 70 plus directories. They didn't always matter. Some of them didn't make sense. We've now been able to hone in on what actually matters and the service and detail of what traditional search is looking for as well as agentic networks are looking for.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:26:02]:
And we've launched it, it's there. Just need to sign up.

Jennifer Bagley [00:26:05]:
That's it. It's easy, easy peasy. So we've had lots of chatter in the industry for prior years about people chewing us out and talking smack about us being expensive. What's happened to our marketing investments now that we're fully AI enabled and capable of operating at 100 to 1 the pace.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:26:30]:
I don't like using the word cheap because that makes us sound cheap, but we're very affordable and we're affordable because we have these platforms in place that take away all that heavy lifting. And I think the one thing that people always kind of, that I've noticed, they struggle like, oh, well, you need people, you need this. No, you need efficient people. And with the platforms in place, we don't need the Joe and Bob's that are sitting there maybe doing four hours worth of work. No, I need efficient people that care and are in it to win it. And that's what we're able to do. So our pricing, just check it out. There's some people there.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:27:09]:
I was like, this should turn into a sales call. Check out our pricing. It's really easy. It's@getstart.ciwebgroup.com.

Jennifer Bagley [00:27:17]:
So this isn't a sales call. This is, this isn't a sales call. But I think everybody gets used to hearing me blab and I don't go into that much of those details. But these are. I like hearing the. I like hearing from your perspective. From your perspective because you're closer to the clients than I am. Like, so let's move into that.

Jennifer Bagley [00:27:39]:
Like those customers that have decided to move over from our old school processes to our. It's like a new CO and an old co. We've got a new business that has new tools that are available and we have our old kind of WordPress websites and weekly blogging and traditional SEO and we're operating these two businesses at the same time until we can talk to a thousand people and convince them that it's a good idea to move. Moving on up. Yeah. So for those that are, that are trusting us to leverage AI as a part of how we go about it, what are you noticing? What's the feedback? What do you hear when you're on the phone with clients? As far as the impact on their business and in what time frame? What's the difference in speed?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:28:29]:
So I, this, I was just talking about this. I had a client that they told me within a matter of a week to two weeks, they started to feel it in their business. Their phone started ringing, they started to get more calls, they were getting picked up for things. They're like, I've been trying so hard to get that to rank and get a phone call. And then now they're showing up, they're seeing themselves in AI search. I had someone say, hey, I just got a lead from chat. Did this come from my website? And we go through all that. Like, they're finding themselves in so many different places now.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:29:00]:
And not only that, they're coming in on the AI overview 1, 2, and 3 positions, the local map pack, and they're feeling it. I think they did that and they came up in chat, Claude. And not only that, Microsoft, they're ranking there too. And Microsoft places are being, whatever that whole thing. Like, and I keep hearing, like, they're so excited for what's coming. So something that used to take so long, they're now feeling it in a matter of weeks. And these are in, like, some competitive areas. I think I just read an email from a client that was just like, I don't know what I would have done without you guys.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:29:34]:
You guys saved my business. And that, that's my why. That's why we do this. And I know a lot of people don't get to see that side of you, but that's literally why you do everything, why you push us to be who we are. Because the ultimate goal for all of us is our clients making sure that we're making that change. Like, if you don't know Jennifer, and I know a lot of people think you're rough around the edges, but this girl will do whatever it takes to make sure our clients are taken care of. She gets on escalation calls with me if it's something like, hey, what's going on? And she will. We will swing.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:30:07]:
We were just swinging and dealing with someone the other day, and we were like, we're gonna go down together. Someone said something about what we did, but with them, and it's because they show up and they, they come to us and they're like, I, I trust you guys. I, I want to listen to you how, like, I just, how do I go through this? And you are constantly making sure that no matter what we do, we can still be that small, small touch company with our customers. That's what they come to us for. That's. They love us. And that's why we're changing up our entire communication method again.

Jennifer Bagley [00:30:41]:
Yeah. So, all right, so speed, right? We're. I know we're getting the orange, but the. The philosophy in our business is, is speed matters. Like, right, Speed. So one of those areas has been how quickly can we deliver on everything that we're doing. We have not figured out how to make websites fast.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:31:05]:
No, putting that out there.

Jennifer Bagley [00:31:07]:
Put it out there. You are not going to get a website quickly from us because we are trying to take your stupid lemonade stand and turn it into a Home Depot. And we want you to get results. Not a fast, pretty website with no brain. So if anybody wants to talk shit about how long it takes us to build a website, just know we're very open and honest about the fact that we're trying to build a machine that produces results. Not a pretty new magazine. We also have Maximilian sitting behind the scenes with his team of nerds trying to figure out how to develop a website with AI.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:31:41]:
So maybe it will come out next.

Jennifer Bagley [00:31:44]:
Month, next year, but for now, it is what it is. Set it up. Like, prioritize. What do you want fast that works or fast that doesn't work? Or do you want something well done that is going to work? Okay, but speed with everything else. So communications, we're done with snail mail or we're moving our patients to Slack. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:32:07]:
Yeah, so we move everything to Slack.

Jennifer Bagley [00:32:09]:
So you.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:32:10]:
You get with our onboarding team and guess what, you're in Slack while you're on the phone with them and you have all of us communicating with you. I see it all the time. It gets set up. I'm just, hey, how are you? Welcome. And then you have all of our team in there. Hey, we need this. Hey, we need that. Hey, do we need this? And our onboarding process, from start to finish, we collect everything within, I would say, usually like 24 to 48 hours.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:32:33]:
And then we have all of it set up in seven days, which is phenomenal. That's like, I was just on a project launch call. I have everything we need. And guess what? I'm gonna have a meeting next week to show him his entire platform because our team is literally already doing what they need to do. I just got notifications of it all that.

Jennifer Bagley [00:32:52]:
So. Put that in perspective, y'. All. It used to take us months after a client would sign up for us to deliver all the work, get what we need, and everything else. When you are AI enabled now. As long as we have access, we can deliver the first month of work within seven days of getting us the information we need, the access we need to be able to deliver. The only holdup can be a client or a client's old marketing company that refuses to give them access or refuses to. Right.

Jennifer Bagley [00:33:27]:
So that's our only struggle. So we have two struggles right now, which is one, we can't help those companies who don't own their assets and we can't help those companies who have an agency that is holding them hostage. I can tell you on the sales side of it, I think it's probably sitting at 25 to 40% of the companies that come to us don't even know they don't own their assets. What are you seeing from your end? Because I mean you have more visibility than I do, but of they supposedly own it, but their agency is refusing to give them access or make changes or send them files or whatever. What are you noticing?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:34:15]:
It's like at 65 to 70%, to be honest, I have very few that it's easy peasy. Like everything else. Like I, I help onboard. That's something I do with my team right now because we're training, going through this process. So I'm helping. There's a hold up almost on every single account due to all like, I'm literally fighting with an old company right now because they refuse to make it easy for them. And I know for like us it's white glove service. We want white glove coming in and white glove going out.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:34:43]:
But not everyone's like that. So that is the biggest hold up that I have. I have everything else I need besides one or two different things.

Jennifer Bagley [00:34:51]:
Yeah. So you guys think about it like this. If you were renting an apartment, are you gonna remodel it or paint all the walls or put up Right. So don't rent your freaking website, number one. This is why it gets seen as rough around the edges, I'm sure. And like ask that question to whoever you're working with. You know, if it. Is it going to be as easy for me to leave as it is to sign up? And do I get to take everything with me? Do I own it or do I not own it? And figure that out first because that's.

Jennifer Bagley [00:35:29]:
I just got off the phone with the Lemon Seed Group and it was a client that was with us. We built everything. They left because they went to an event and some distributor said, work with this other company. I'm not going to mention names and that other company basically demolished everything we did, rebuilt them an entire website. It's sitting on a platform that they don't own. They don't own the content. So they literally just demolished everything we had done for five years.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:35:54]:
It happens a lot because I will say majority of our customers, they do come back. I track all of our returning customers and having to rebuild and restart. And I always tell them now where we were, it's not where we're going to be right now. We have to fix everything that happened, even with new customers. Like I had someone ask me, well, what's the timeline that you think? I'm honest with him. We didn't build this website. I need to bring it in. I need to see what I'm working with to give you any sort of what this is.

Jennifer Bagley [00:36:24]:
Yeah. And I'm not fixing somebody else's website. You either get a new one with us, which we have a waiting list so that, that can happen fast. But whatever we work with, we will make it better. We'll get better performance on whatever your website is. But we're not going to go fix someone else's website. That is. That is a spaghetti can of very.

Jennifer Bagley [00:36:45]:
That is a garbage piece of poisonous snakes. They bite. It hurts some. You can die. I don't wanna, I don't want to do that. That is not an efficient use of our time trying to unravel someone else's spaghetti code. So. All right, I know we have just a few minutes.

Jennifer Bagley [00:37:04]:
What? I know that companies are really. I love this industry so much and I love the fact that like I think that the industry players, manufacturers, distributors, vendors need to give contractors more credit than they do. Because a lot of times you and I are talking about these things. We just got off this call. I won't go too far into that. But the, the thought is that this is over this industry's head. You can't talk about agentic networks. You can't really talk about AI.

Jennifer Bagley [00:37:40]:
This is too confusing. How can you dumb it down and simplify it so. And turn it into something old school or something else so they can process it. I'm noticing inside the community we have contractors that are now building AI agents fixing their service Titan account. Like, don't get it twisted, this industry is ripe and it's just had a lack of expertise to help them. But it doesn't mean they can't. That's my view is I get a little offended when they're like, no, you can't tell them that because that's too much for this Industry, like, I will just say, this is my podcast, but it's not true. Do not underestimate.

Jennifer Bagley [00:38:25]:
Do not underestimate the trades. Do not underestimate home services. Give them access to legit information and give them the tools and the training and the time and the energy to. For them to be able to advance. And they will. They will. But that's my soapbox. What is, what is.

Jennifer Bagley [00:38:43]:
What would you end with? What's yours?

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:38:46]:
I will say the trades, I feel was one of the fastest to pivot and welcome AI. Like, I remember last year we were going through. We're like, oh, this is interesting. We're going through. And then all of a sudden, all of these companies came out and they started using AI. I've seen clients like, hey, did you see this? Like, I did this, that. And the third, like, they are pivoting so hard and they're in it. And like, we, we do.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:39:11]:
We have just start AI IO and there's companies in there like, they're contractors just going, hey, I did this. I built this. Hey, this is how you have to do it. Or, hey, I want to do this. What are your thoughts? They're talking with each other. This doesn't go over their head. They're down, they're interested, they are ready to make that shift. And it's so exciting because coming from.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:39:34]:
We were just at another conference for another segment of home service and to see the difference when it comes to this group over here to that one, I remember I sat there, I was like, yikes, this is going to be a heavy lift. So to underestimate our contractors in this sector of our business, you're going to fool yourself because these guys are ready, they're diving in, and they are going to change the way that H Vac Plumbing and electrical really run.

Jennifer Bagley [00:40:06]:
Heck yeah. Heck yeah. That. That, that is. To all of the event organizers that are choosing your speakers and topics memo. Give them information. Give them access to quality information. Give them access to new information.

Jennifer Bagley [00:40:28]:
Do not think that this is over their head. It is not. They are learning and this will make their business. The more they learn how to leverage AI, the more effective, the more efficient their business can run. The bigger gap between their top line and their bottom line, the more they can grow without having to add or need resources, the faster they can get results, the faster they can respond to customers. The. I mean, geez, this is. This isn't all about AI marketing, right? This is about leverage AI to take care of all of the administrative tasks within your organization so that Your people can focus on the things that can't be done by AI.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:41:09]:
Exactly. Effective and efficient.

Jennifer Bagley [00:41:13]:
That's it. That's it. Jazmin, you know I love you.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:41:18]:
I love you.

Jennifer Bagley [00:41:20]:
So much. And I'm so, so proud of you for everything that you do, everything you are, everything you've become and everything you're becoming.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:41:28]:
Thank you. I know it's been a whirlwind, but I'm excited and I'm excited to see this next 10 year segment.

Jennifer Bagley [00:41:38]:
Yeah. So, Krista, I'm taking three more minutes. This next section. This next segment includes MCP model control protocol. This includes us building AI avatars that replace websites. This next section includes content distribution at mass. This is. Yeah.

Jennifer Bagley [00:42:01]:
This next round is going to be fun. We haven't even scraped the surface on what we're currently building for the next round. So I know you're ready for it.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:42:10]:
I'm ready. It's going to be pivotal.

Jennifer Bagley [00:42:12]:
Go. And I know you're getting your team there as well. They're ready to go. I feel sorry for your entire team that we give a monster migraine to on a regular basis.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:42:21]:
It's okay. We love them, they love us. We're golden.

Jennifer Bagley [00:42:25]:
We're dragging them with us. All right with that, everybody, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today. We appreciate you very much. If you haven't subscribed, Definitely go to YouTube. Subscribe to the channel on YouTube or Apple or Spotify or wherever you watch your podcast. And if you didn't know, Jazmin has another podcast, she is also a crime reporter.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:42:50]:
Thanks for throwing that in there, crime reporter.

Jennifer Bagley [00:42:56]:
Welcome inside CI Web Group. Thanks you guys for attending. We appreciate you. Deuces, we're out.

Jazmin Ramirez  [00:43:02]:
Bye, everybody.