October 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Danielle Russell has spent over a decade helping builders and remodelers grow through more strategic marketing. She’s seen how new technologies, and changing homeowner behavior, are transforming what it takes to stand out online.
In this conversation, Danielle covers a range of topics that, taken together, form a blueprint for building a stronger marketing foundation. Broader themes include the seismic shifts happening in search, what contractors can do to make their content rise above the noise, and how to use, rather than misuse, AI as part of a broader marketing strategy. On a more granular level, she strategies for pricing transparency on your website, how to make every click count, and the ideal marketing budget.
In this episode, you will learn
- How to calculate a marketing budget that drives consistent growth
- Mistakes to avoid when using AI to generate website or blog content
- How to design your website to convert visitors in two or three clicks
- Ways to use video to build credibility and connection with prospects
- How to structure your pricing online to attract the right clients
Listen to the episode to learn more.
Resources:
Learn more about Builder Funnel here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
How's it
going everybody?
We are here today in Live.
I'm with Danielle.
She is the president of Builder Funnel.
Really excited to have you at our office.
Just joined us as a sponsor forour bootcamp, bootcamp downstairs.
So wanted to take a little bit of time to,to actually go a little bit more in depth.
About marketing and theimpact that it's having.
But just
wanted to,
(00:37):
uh, to to welcome you.
Thank you for, uh, for comingand spending some time with us.
Thanks for having me.
It's so fun to be in Dallas.
I normally, I work from home.
We're a fully remote agency, so it'sfun to like get out and be in someone
else's office and this is so cool.
You guys.
have a Great, awesome, great space.
Yeah, appreciate that.
So, why don't you just real quick, giveus a little background on Builder Funnel.
What do you guys do?
How do you help contact?
Okay.
(00:58):
Well,
we
help builders and remodelers growthrough strategic digital marketing.
That is our mantra.
Uh, but what that actually means iswe help, we come alongside builders
and remodelers and contractors.
We wanna take that marketing hat off.
We know they're wearing so many hats.
Uh, they're everything.
They're The, glue in their companies.
(01:19):
They're thinking
about a legacy.
They're the sales person, theoffice admin, the bookkeeper.
They're training everyone.
Uh, it's, it's wild for me to thinkabout having to actually like.
think through the strategy of marketingon top of all of that, how am I
gonna grow from two to 5 million?
So that's where we come, we comealongside you and just want to, we care
(01:40):
about the business as much as you do.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
We wanna help 'em grow.
So Yeah.
That's, that's
exciting because
mm-hmm.
you know, again, I, I, I thinkso many people don't truly
understand the value of marketing.
Mm-hmm.
You know, a lot of people uh, sortof equate sales and marketing in
the same bucket and it's like, man,there's so much that you have to
do to be really great at marketing.
And, You know, I, I was just, uh,downstairs kind of talking to the
group about like, you know, it's,it's, I think there's this like fallacy
(02:03):
that people think that they can justhire one marketing person mm-hmm.
to come onto their team Mm-hmm.
who's gonna be able to do everything thatneeds to be done to be great at marketing.
And it's like, that's just not the case.
Yeah.
Unicorns actually don'texist, so it's so hard.
Um, that's usually like whensomeone's struggling to decide, am
I gonna hire in-house or am I gonnafind an agency that can do it all?
(02:26):
But that's actually like what that means.
Yeah.
Right.
Like my team is a team of expertswith paid ads, website development,
A-I-O-S-E-O, content writing, uh,graphic design, like all of it.
Yeah.
Paid media.
It's, you can't find one person who cando all of those things for the price
of, what an agency can offer you forthe level of expertise that you get.
(02:49):
but you've gotta be greatat all those things.
Right.
You know, Yeah.
so it's, you know, I'm just,I'm such a big believer in like,
especially like early on, I mean,like so many people just neglect.
You know, marketing, I mean, I, I,I think a much larger percentage
than I even want to admit.
Mm-hmm.
People will sign up for job trade,don't even have a website yet.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I just, you know, in thisday and age, it's like, like
that is the face of your company.
(03:09):
Yeah.
Like, how can you not have a website?
Yeah.
You know, and so I think it's justawesome that, like you guys have, have
really helped so many businesses, like,you know, within our community alone,
like I've seen the impact that gettingset up and investing in marketing.
I mean, it just, it really, itcan change the trajectory of
their business, like immediately.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, It's, It's one of those thingsthat I always have to remind people
(03:31):
when they're like, wow, that's so,uh, it costs that much to show up
in an ad. And it's like this, it'san investment in your business.
It's not just like it whenyou're doing marketing, right?
It's not just a cost.
no, It is actually an investmentin the growth of your business.
And on average, what we'veseen, it takes about like three
to 5% of top line revenue.
(03:53):
Invested in marketing just tostay the same size that you are.
And it's like five to 8% to grow.
Yeah.
And usually when someone callsBuilder Funnel, they want to grow.
They're not
like, Hey,
I just wanna stay the same size.
I wanna spend however muchmoney with you to stay the same
size, You usually want to grow.
Yeah.
And you just have to change that mindsetand recognize that any, when you're
(04:17):
putting dollars into a. System that works.
Yeah.
It's so you can grow,
you know, I, uh, I, I think it'simportant too, to even, to even realize
like, and, all I will admit, youknow, in, in, in, in multiple of my
companies, I have, you know, we havetried to like, manage our own ads.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I remember my very firstcompany when, when I first got
started, I was like, all right, wegotta use, you know, Google ads.
(04:37):
And, and I went and Icreated a Google ad account.
You know, I set a monthlybudget of like 5,000 bucks.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I created a couple adsand then I just sort of let it run.
And, but like, I forgot about.
it.
Yeah.
And then like I logged in two monthslater, that's, forget it I was literally
like $10,000 in the hole and I didn'thave a single lead to show for it,
and I just, I couldn't believe it.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and like we, in, in in thesame, same vein, like, you know, here
(04:58):
at, at Job Tread, I mean, we've, we'vegot our Google ads dialed in, but
like we've, we've really struggledwith Facebook and Meta and like,
it was a couple, couple months ago.
Like we, we basically just saw, we werejust like hemorrhaging money Mm-hmm.
and all we were getting waslike these, like, you know, just
fake clicks or whatever it was.
And it like, it goes to showthat like, you have to find.
The people who are experts mm-hmm.
to be able to be really good at this.
(05:19):
'cause like not only could you spendmoney, but like we like just totally
lost, you know, tens of thousandsof dollars because we didn't, you
know, take our own advice and makesure that we had an agency helping us
who had that experience to do that.
So, you know, I, I pleasetake my word for it.
Like, do not lose your ass on adswhen you could find someone who
can actually make them productive.
(05:39):
And you know, I know that's whatyou guys are the experts at doing.
Mm-hmm.
It's when I think about industrieswhere you can get away with
just like, um, setting, andforgetting, it's like construction.
'cause we hear about the chuck in atruck, where it's like they just go
and they low ball the bid and thenthey like, they take that contract
and then do everything wrong.
(06:01):
and like never show up and likethey just get the bid and that's it.
And then there's agencies andwe get the, it's such a bad
reputation for doing the same thing.
Like, hey.
we can guarantee you're gonna be on thefirst page of Google and whenever someone
asks me like, what can you guarantee me?
And I, I'm like, nothing.
Results may vary because it dependson your sales process, it depends
(06:22):
on, and that's just for like closingleads, but then bringing them in.
It depends on your website, it dependson the person who answers the phone.
There's so much that like goodmarketing is just the surface, Yeah.
and then it's all about the companyactually like closing the deal
and bringing that, bringing thatbusiness in after the paid click.
Yeah.
Right.
And like making sure someone even knowswhat the landing page says so that
(06:45):
when they answer the call, they'reconsistent and they can say whatever
was on the page and they Uh, recognizethat this is, they're not sure where
someone is in their buyer journey.
Mm-hmm.
But they're gonna meetthem in that moment.
once they have like clicked, landed call.
Yeah.
Now what, so
what, what would you say like when youthink about, 'cause I mean there, there
(07:05):
are so many different avenues that.
People can, can, can go down when,when they're looking at investing in
marketing, like, you know, how, howdo you guys kind of find the right
balance for a company to, you know,
from investing
in, in, in their website to, youknow, SEO you know, investing in a
blog and creating great content thereto, you know, investing in video.
You got social, you know, you got ads.
(07:27):
Like how do you sort of figure outthat right balance for, for a company?
'cause it seems like you gotta,you know, you gotta do all of
it, you know, one way or another.
But like, how do you, how doyou, how do you time that?
And and allocate your, your efforts there.
We've been doing this for 15 years, sowe have a lot of data points that we
can look at when we're uh, there arethe four pillars of inbound marketing.
(07:47):
One of them is measure, and wemeasure everything across all of our
clients, across the US and Canada.
So we have so much data that can tell usand inform us that we know what works.
Um, we know what amount of whatworks, and for the most part.
Number one website.
(08:08):
You Have to have a really good website.
It has to show up when people search.
It has to, every singlepage is a sales funnel.
You're trying to convert people.
You're trying to tell them everything thatthey need to know on every single page,
because what we have found, in looking atall of our clients' websites over, over
(08:28):
a decade now is people click two to threetimes at most once they land on a website.
A construction website.
So you have, they're probablygonna land on your blog.
That's like the keyword.
dense.
They're searching, they'relooking for something, your
blog answers their question.
That's where they land.
You
have two more clicks, basically.
(08:49):
So if you think about like whatare you gonna tell someone?
They've never remodeled before,they've never done any kind of
residential construction project.
You don't know where theyare in their journey.
Are they ready or are they researching?
And you have to convincethem You have two pages.
To convince someone you don't knowwhat those two pages are gonna be.
So a lot of it is just websiteand everything else is just
(09:12):
getting them to the website.
So it's social media link to the website.
it's videos, it's YouTubelink to the website.
Wherever someone is in their buyerjourney, you're just trying to get them
to your website where you control thenarrative and there's no more disruption.
because.
we live in such a distracting world.
(09:33):
And no matter where someone is, if it'snot your website, everybody is fighting
for their attention on those platforms.
Yeah.
No matter if they're on Google,Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Think about like how youinteract with those platforms.
Are you just sitting there watching likea 30 minute video and then you're like, I
just wanna learn more about this company.
I'm Gonna watch a hundredvideos about them.
(09:53):
No one does that.
Yeah,
they're going to like the nextrelated video or whatever.
Not even on YouTube anymore.
They're off like.
Washing their dishes.
So you are just trying toget them to your website.
Yeah.
That's really
how, how have you guys seen videosort of play a role in marketing?
I mean, it's, mm-hmm.
obviously YouTube has come,you know, king these days.
Mm-hmm.
Like how, how do you, how do you allincorporate video and you know, when
(10:16):
you're not actually there, you know, areyou having to rely on, on the contractors
to, to record their own video content?
and Like, do you kind of givethem guidance and coaching on
that or how does that all work?
Either way?
Uh, happy to coach, happy to sendout our media team, but Awesome.
W Video is so important, especiallylike in, this is gonna sound a
little crazy, but like during thisrise of ai, right now, any, anyone
(10:40):
can look like a big company, right?
You can use AI images, youcan even use like AI video.
You can do all of these thingsto make Chuck and a truck look
like Chuck in a corporate office.
And with like all of these projectsthat I've done, look at me, look at my
flashy website, look at, and it's all ai.
So video now is actually like separatingthe real brands from the fake brands.
(11:05):
Yeah.
The, the soon to be the up andcoming and if you have video and
you can actually like showcase whoyou are, what you do, what your
clients would say about you for real.
Uh, that's so important right now.
So,
so, so you all will actually send ateam out to like job site or maybe
a recently completed project mm-hmm.
(11:27):
and help kind of capture the.
Sort of the whole story and the experiencethat that customer went through.
It's part of onboardingfor all of our clients now.
We actually, because of how fasteverything is changing right now, we
had to do a lot to meet the moment.
Just like, just like instruction, right?
So with ai, with everything elsethat's happening right now, uh,
we had our, our clients wereasking, what are you gonna do?
(11:49):
How are you using ai?
How, uh, how are we gonnashow up in these searches?
And a big part of it right now is.
Your brand outside of yourwebsite also, and being able
to show up and be validated.
So a big part of validation isseeing, 'cause, seeing is believing.
(12:11):
Yep.
So having those videos on YouTube,on your website, on social media,
having clients saying great thingsabout you, it's so important.
So we do it for all of our clientsnow once they sign up with us.
That's awesome.
We send out our media team.
In the first 90 days and we shoot.
Yeah, we shoot a lot of content with them.
Nice.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I know
a lot of people also don't havelike professional photos, Mm-hmm.
(12:33):
high quality photos, and it's likethat, that, man, it makes such a big
difference to have that, you know,that high, high level photo there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Photography, being able toshowcase project spotlights,
that is, people want to see
It's
an aspirational.
like They want to see the homethat they're trying to build.
They don't necessarily know what that's.
(12:54):
gonna look Like, yet.
And they want you to show them, right?
The average person,
if they
even buy a remodel project, it'slike one in a lifetime, maybe two.
That's like the average person.
Yeah.
Uh, I'm not talking about the peoplewho own like five houses and want you
to remodel everything, but, uh, theydon't even know how to buy from you.
(13:15):
Hmm.
So you are showing them by creatingcontent, having these testimonials,
having project spotlights that walk.
Them through this is what it waslike to work with this company.
Sure.
So, yeah.
It's so important.
You know, I think one of, uh, anotherkind of great debate I always hear is
like, you know, the, the, the concept oflike, do we put pricing on our website?
(13:36):
Mm-hmm.
You know, how, how do, how,where do y'all land on that?
Because I know so many people are justso, you know, they're, they're, they're
very hesitant to do that because theythink that's gonna, it's gonna turn
off, you know, all their prospectsand they're not gonna want to go.
But like, you know, where,where do you all land on that?
You gotta do it.
This, uh, two reasons.
One, if you're not your competitoris, but now also in the age of ai,
(13:58):
and AI overview, of someone justgoogles what it costs to remodel
in North Dallas, it's just gonnashow up in an AI overview anyway.
Mm-hmm.
So all you are doing is trying to be thethe next link that they click after that.
Sure.
So it doesn't,
it doesn't matter anymore.
The biggest pushback we've alwaysgotten is, but my competitor's
(14:19):
gonna see it on my website.
That's like the number one, they're gonnabe like, well, they're just gonna see
that and like go a few dollars lower.
and They're gonna win that bid.
Um, even if that were the case,you are, you're your own company.
You have your own like uniqueselling points and there's, there's
a reason someone should choose you.
And it shouldn't just be price.
Everybody says this.
(14:40):
So like this is yourtime to actually live it.
And then also just like knowingthat if somebody lands on
your website and sees pricing.
And it blows their mind.
And you would prefer that.
That's on a sales call, I suppose.
But like,
if
they're not a good fit, don't youwant them to qualify themselves out?
That is, that's the point of thewebsite, is that you're not getting
(15:03):
those tire kickers calling you and nowyou're trying to nurture them and you're
checking in and you're presenting andlike working on a plan when they're like
thinking it's gonna be several zeroes.
lower than it is, youdon't even want that call.
so
like, so many people are like, well,there's no way that I could actually
put price on our website when I don'teven know the scope of work yet.
Mm-hmm.
So like how do you, howdo you respond to that?
(15:24):
A range.
Okay.
It's just a price range.
Uh, the way we, we approach it, youcan have multiple projects listed and
different types of projects and usuallywould say there's the, the base level of
this remodel, there's the mid-level, andthen there's like the luxury side of.
It.
And
all of those are different ranges andyou are just educating someone on, is
(15:48):
it finishes, are they moving walls?
Do they have to move electrical?
Do they have to move plumbing?
Most people don't know.
And they're, they, what they thinkis just like, no, I just want
my hall bathroom to look cute.
Right?
And you're just helping guidethem and educate them on what
type of project is this gonna be?
And here's a range just tohelp you think about what.
(16:10):
This is gonna look like Yeah.
because the average person cansee that range and be like, oh,
okay, I'm gonna keep doing someresearch and I'm gonna start saving.
And that's why the buyerjourney can be long.
Yeah.
But that's okay.
That's because they're, they're preparingand you're the one who is being the guide
and telling them, and they're buildingtrust with you and they believe what
(16:32):
you say and that's a really good thing.
Yeah.
When you're providing theminformation so that they can.
make informed decisions for themselves.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's such great advice.
I mean, again, I think it's like yougotta have that sort of, that that
long, you know, approach and, mm-hmm.
and realize that they arecontinuing to nurture, to
educate, you know, and by helping
the,
(16:52):
the buyer understand the, mm-hmm.
the process and the potential cost and,and all of that like that, you're right.
Like when they come to thatfirst call or, or even when they
get into the, to the proposaldiscussion, instead of it being this
like shock
and haw moment where their jaw hitsthe ground and they can't believe.
like They've already been sort ofwarmed up to this is gonna be expensive.
You know?
And so once they can finally havethat discussion, it's, it's a lot,
(17:14):
you know, easier for, for them,I think to sort of shoulder it.
and They're already prepared andthose, those are the buyers you want.
Mm-hmm.
Just like marketing as an investmentand growing your business, it's the
same thing for these homeowners, right?
Changing their
homes in a way that they can either,if it's for them, so that they can
stay there forever or so, that theycan it's gonna like improve their life.
(17:35):
That's incredible.
Uh, that's an ROI on their life.
But then there is also actuallylike adding value to their homes.
Yeah.
And it being able to sell it for more.
And all of this is so important and theaverage person who is just looking up
jobs that they need done on their house,they might not be thinking about that.
So the more, the more contractorsremodelers, home Builders can
(17:58):
speak to, like, this is importantbecause, uh, this is an investment
of yours and anything that you do.
To improve the quality of this houseis money back in your pocket one day.
So even when the homeowner is nowlooking at pricing on your website,
you're guiding them through this is aninvestment in you and it's so important.
(18:19):
Yeah.
The Average person isn't thinking that way
a hundred percent.
You,
you've mentioned AI a couple timeshere, so I'm, I'm curious, like, mm-hmm.
how have you seen over the last fewyears, you know, like, what, what
is, what is AI doing to marketing?
Like, is there, is there this like.
You know, you know, again, a lotof, a lot of times now people are
going to, to chat GBT or mm-hmm.
you know, they're asking Google somethingand now, you know, Google's got its own
(18:40):
little, you know, summaries up there.
Like how, how is that gonna affect,you know, marketing and, and,
and SEO and ads and all of that?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
We're going there, Eric.
There two really big ways that AI isdisrupting the marketing sphere right now.
Number one is how we interact.
(19:00):
With these tools.
So we've even had clients askus, how are you using AI now?
Or, uh, can't I just do that?
Can't I write my own blogs using ai?
And you can, but you gotta be careful.
Like You wanna do it the right way.
So make sure you know how you're usingAI and how to, uh, just like Like Google
(19:20):
doesn't like duplicate content, right?
There are things that we know mm-hmm.
about Google.
There are things that wejust don't know yet about ai.
So I would just cautionlike if you're gonna.
Fire all of your marketing team,and like fire your agency, fire a
whole department and try and justdo AI for all of your marketing.
Be
wary of that.
Yeah, That is probably gonna catch up.
Just like, uh, all of theduplicate content way back.
(19:44):
This was like 10 years ago when peoplejust copy and paste and put out all these
pages to, to rank for multiple keywordsmultiple times, um, it's gonna catch up.
So be wary of that.
So there's just likethe usage of tools Yeah.
Is number one.
Number two is
Results.
Uh, we started to noticeprobably in like November.
(20:05):
So part of how we run our business,we have a metrics dashboard for all
of our clients and for ourselves.
There are very specific things thatwe're tracking all of the time, and we
started to see website traffic going down.
Across the board, everyone,we were like, that's a little
weird.
A little Like in November of 24, wewere like, that's a little strange.
(20:27):
Yeah.
I wonder what's happening.
And.
Now it's so obvious.
Now we get to look back and Mondaymorning quarterback it and we can
see, oh, okay, everybody's justseeing their AI overview searches.
Mm-hmm.
And it's something like 60%of searches now are zero click
is what we're calling it.
In the marketing industry.
(20:47):
People are just getting theiranswers by either speaking to their
phones and getting a verbal responseback, voice search or AI overview.
And that is.
Uh,
That is going to be the future.
So what I always try and cautionsomeone when they, they say like,
oh, I'm leaving my agency becauseour website traffic is going down.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
(21:07):
That's not reason enough.
Yeah.
For you to come to us becauseyour website traffic is gonna
continue to go down, but you wannashow up in these AI searches now.
Yeah.
So there the rules have changedand now we are trying to figure out
how to show up in those searches.
There are three really big rankingfactors that we know right now.
(21:28):
And it's not because some like AIoverlord, like how Google publishes
their updates and says like, thisis what we're looking for now.
Yeah.
That's not happening.
It is just agencies everywhere whoare tracking data points for several
years and getting deeper and deeper.
And now we're seeing, like, oh, okay, thismatters, this matters and this matters.
(21:48):
Number one, schema markup.
This has to, it's a type of code that hasto be on every single page that if That
is a page that someone would be searchingfor something and you want the answers
on that page to show up in a search.
You now have to includeit in this code basically.
So schema markup, and thenvalidation is so important.
(22:11):
So if you've been seeing that everybodysays like Reddit is now answering
everybody's questions, that's wherethey're training all of these chatbots.
It is true because what SEO does,search engine optimization is.
just What we say about ourselves and whata IO what AI optimization is looking for
(22:32):
is what everybody else says about you.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So you don't have as much control anymore.
Uh, it is all about how other peopleare mentioning you online, and that
includes Reddit, it includes socialmedia comments, it includes if you've
won awards, uh, if you're on the Better
Business Bureau,
local press, all of that.
(22:53):
What, like SEO was backlinks.
So
other websites linking to yourwebsite saying, no, this is a good
website, but now it's like peoplesaying things about your brand.
And that's, uh, that'sreally important to know.
I mean, it's, uh, you know, I, I I,we have started getting so many like
leads from like the chat, GBT and thedifferent AI that we're now like kind
of tracking those lead sources mm-hmm.
(23:14):
You know, we've just been wonderinglike, I mean, you know, this just like
overnight, you know, it felt like, youknow, a couple months ago just started
happening out of nowhere, you know?
And, and, and I think itdoes go to show that like.
They are seeing all the reviews comingin, all the conversations on social
and Reddit and all those places.
And you know, I've, I'vealso heard that like
there,
there's now like even like if you gohave Chad GBT generate something and
(23:34):
try to like pace it, they've got thingsembedded into that content where they,
you know, the other AI will know thatthat was AI generated versus like,
you know, an actual user saying that.
Is that, mm-hmm.
is that what you're seeing as well?
It's, Uh, we always joke, it's like,uh, the bots are just talking to the
bots and it's just like, uh, we'llget, like for example, we'll get this
like, it's such a clearly chat gtdemail from a client and we're like,
(23:58):
oh, okay, let me run this through chatgt so I can respond to this email.
Um, it
is.
I have
heard from our content writers firsthand,we have a, a full team of content
writers who actually like create ourcontent at Builder Funnel for our clients
and they can, they now have to runsomething through these like AI graders.
And even if they fully wroteit from scratch, it will
(24:21):
still like, often get flagged.
as like, this is 80% AI generated.
And they're like, no, Iliterally just wrote this.
So interesting.
yeah.
The graders aren't quite there yet.
Yeah.
And, uh.
they will, I'm sure, I'msure they'll catch up.
But the point of AI is not evenjust that, like it's going to,
it's gonna create a ton of content.
It's like you can brainstorm with it.
(24:43):
Yeah.
And what we have seen forthe leads coming in, you're.
You mentioned that you're gettingleads coming in through chat GPT.
It is such a high purchase intent.
It's almost like a paid search Googlead. If they're coming in through chat
GPT, our clients are closing those leads.
Nice.
They come in and it is like they knowthey have learned so much already.
(25:06):
They're such a qualified lead andthey're ready to go at that point.
So it's awesome.
That's a, yeah, it's a fun experience.
I
love
how you guys are like, justreally following this and studying
this and like, you know, reallyoptimizing the content for the ai.
Mm-hmm.
You know, again, if that's, that's what'sdriving the highest quality, mm-hmm.
you know, leads these days, then you gottabe ahead of that game and, you it sounds
(25:26):
like you guys are, you're, you're there.
Yeah.
You know, I think too, like, you know,there, there are, you know, there, there
are so many marketing agencies out thereand and when and when we look at 'em
and, and you know, I think we all get abunch of emails from 'em all the time.
You know, I think the thingthat really stands out.
You know about builder, Funnel and youall, is that like you're not trying
to be a marketing agency to everyone.
You know, if the last 15 yearsyou've, you've really dug in and
(25:48):
your roots are in, you know, the,the, the remodeling space Mm-hmm.
and, and design building.
Like, that's, you know,that's just so important.
because I do feel like a lot ofpeople end up hiring, you know,
some, some generalist, you know,random marketing agency that doesn't
truly understand construction and,and, and the construction buying
process, which is different than.
You know, the, the, the, lot of otherdifferent industries that, you know,
(26:11):
you, you may be very transactional, youmight have, you know, low ticket prices.
Like, you know, a buying a a remodelis, is not just a overnight whim.
It's, you know, we're, we're gonnahave to, you know, really understand,
we're gonna have to be educated,we're gonna have to budget for this.
Like, you know, and so having thatkind of, that long tail nurturing,
you know, impact that, that you alldo because you understand the space
(26:32):
really, you know, sets you up to, toreally help and add a lot of value.
to Contractors.
I was just having dinner with somepeople last night during this bootcamp
and they were complaining about theiragency and I, agencies are great.
I have such a, a soft spot foragencies, so I say this with love, but
local agencies, they're, it's just,you're kind of picking between do you
(26:55):
wanna teach someone about zip codes?
You might have to teach my team whatneighborhoods you work in, but you're
not gonna have to teach us Anythingelse about your sales process about.
How you want to talk to customersand like what matters if you're
just working with a local agencyand they know the area really well.
The biggest complaint I was hearingat dinner was they don't even know
(27:18):
they were posting before photos asafters, for example, in the gallery
because they don't know the space.
And to me that is such a, that justsounds exhausting every time you're
sending project photos, they don'tknow what the befores and afters are.
Um,
Maybe they're building a website andthey don't know the difference between
commercial and residential pictures,and you're a residential construction
(27:42):
company and they're using these stockphotos of like fancy high rises, right?
Like it's a totally, you, you're justpicking do you want to work with someone
who might know a neighborhood really well?
Sure.
Or everything else about what you do.
And we just need zip codes and we cando our own research at that point and
learn your neighborhoods and know what,
what
keywords you wanna rank forfor those neighborhoods.
(28:05):
It's, uh, yeah, it's choosingsomeone who is in it with you.
And we have helped generate over$200 million in growing customers in
the residential construction space.
That is our bread and butter.
We know how to do it likethe back of our hand.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Mm-hmm.
So, uh, lastly here, I mean, youknow, if somebody wants to learn
(28:27):
more, I mean, what, what is theprocess, you know, for them to, to,
come
get involved with?
with You all?
Mm-hmm.
Just go to builder funnel.com, check us
out.
Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I share all of this information for free.
I try to post daily.
Uh, I am trying to really likeput it out there because in the
age of ai, it's already out there.
(28:47):
Gated content, like doesn't exist anymore.
It is just, it's gonna show up in anAI overview anyway, so I'm just, I'm
trying to give away all of the playbooksfor free every day, all of the time.
That's awesome.
I know you said it yesterday too.
But it is so true that a rising tidelifts all ships and job tread is a rising
tide Builder funnel is a rising tide.
(29:08):
We are just trying to make thisindustry better and keep it
growing in the right direction.
And you can, yeah, everything thatwe say a construction company should
be doing, we do for ourselves too.
So you can find us on social,if you Google us, we'll come up.
If you ask chat GPT, it'll tellyou that Spencer and I are married.
We're not Spencer is the
(29:28):
the
CEO, and I'm the president.
That is, we are not married to each other.
We are both married to other people.
So chat, GPT.
not perfect, not always right?
Not always right.
Not perfect, but, uh, you'll, it'll, itis right about the name of our company
and it'll send you to our website.
And it just like I've been saying,we control the narrative there.
You can come learn anything about uson our website, so that's awesome.
(29:50):
Yeah.
Well, look,
I, I really appreciate everything thatyou all have done for our clients.
I, I have seen firsthand the impact.
It does make a tremendous, youknow, impact on their business.
And so Again, I, I,
You guys do great work.
Your team works really hard anddelivers results, and I think that
at the end of the day is all wecould ever ask for of a partner.
So just wanted to thank you for,for, for all of that and for coming
(30:11):
on spend this time with us today,sharing your knowledge and wisdom.
You truly are an open book.
Uh, you also given out books here.
too.
It's all the job Tri users.
So thank you Danielle, for, foreverything that you all have done.
I appreciate it very much.
Thanks,
Eric.
How's it
going everybody?
We are here today in Live.
I'm with Danielle.
She is the president of Builder Funnel.
Really excited to have you at our office.
Just joined us as a sponsor forour bootcamp, bootcamp downstairs.
So wanted to take a little bit of time to,to actually go a little bit more in depth.
About marketing and theimpact that it's having.
But just
wanted to,
(00:37):
uh, to to welcome you.
Thank you for, uh, for comingand spending some time with us.
Thanks for having me.
It's so fun to be in Dallas.
I normally, I work from home.
We're a fully remote agency, so it'sfun to like get out and be in someone
else's office and this is so cool.
You guys.
have a Great, awesome, great space.
Yeah, appreciate that.
So, why don't you just real quick, giveus a little background on Builder Funnel.
What do you guys do?
How do you help contact?
Okay.
(00:58):
Well,
we
help builders and remodelers growthrough strategic digital marketing.
That is our mantra.
Uh, but what that actually means iswe help, we come alongside builders
and remodelers and contractors.
We wanna take that marketing hat off.
We know they're wearing so many hats.
Uh, they're everything.
They're The, glue in their companies.
(01:19):
They're thinking
about a legacy.
They're the sales person, theoffice admin, the bookkeeper.
They're training everyone.
Uh, it's, it's wild for me to thinkabout having to actually like.
think through the strategy of marketingon top of all of that, how am I
gonna grow from two to 5 million?
So that's where we come, we comealongside you and just want to, we care
(01:40):
about the business as much as you do.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
We wanna help 'em grow.
So Yeah.
That's, that's
exciting because
mm-hmm.
you know, again, I, I, I thinkso many people don't truly
understand the value of marketing.
Mm-hmm.
You know, a lot of people uh, sortof equate sales and marketing in
the same bucket and it's like, man,there's so much that you have to
do to be really great at marketing.
And, You know, I, I was just, uh,downstairs kind of talking to the
group about like, you know, it's,it's, I think there's this like fallacy
(02:03):
that people think that they can justhire one marketing person mm-hmm.
to come onto their team Mm-hmm.
who's gonna be able to do everything thatneeds to be done to be great at marketing.
And it's like, that's just not the case.
Yeah.
Unicorns actually don'texist, so it's so hard.
Um, that's usually like whensomeone's struggling to decide, am
I gonna hire in-house or am I gonnafind an agency that can do it all?
(02:26):
But that's actually like what that means.
Yeah.
Right.
Like my team is a team of expertswith paid ads, website development,
A-I-O-S-E-O, content writing, uh,graphic design, like all of it.
Yeah.
Paid media.
It's, you can't find one person who cando all of those things for the price
of, what an agency can offer you forthe level of expertise that you get.
(02:49):
but you've gotta be greatat all those things.
Right.
You know, Yeah.
so it's, you know, I'm just,I'm such a big believer in like,
especially like early on, I mean,like so many people just neglect.
You know, marketing, I mean, I, I,I think a much larger percentage
than I even want to admit.
Mm-hmm.
People will sign up for job trade,don't even have a website yet.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I just, you know, in thisday and age, it's like, like
that is the face of your company.
(03:09):
Yeah.
Like, how can you not have a website?
Yeah.
You know, and so I think it's justawesome that, like you guys have, have
really helped so many businesses, like,you know, within our community alone,
like I've seen the impact that gettingset up and investing in marketing.
I mean, it just, it really, itcan change the trajectory of
their business, like immediately.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, It's, It's one of those thingsthat I always have to remind people
(03:31):
when they're like, wow, that's so,uh, it costs that much to show up
in an ad. And it's like this, it'san investment in your business.
It's not just like it whenyou're doing marketing, right?
It's not just a cost.
no, It is actually an investmentin the growth of your business.
And on average, what we'veseen, it takes about like three
to 5% of top line revenue.
(03:53):
Invested in marketing just tostay the same size that you are.
And it's like five to 8% to grow.
Yeah.
And usually when someone callsBuilder Funnel, they want to grow.
They're not
like, Hey,
I just wanna stay the same size.
I wanna spend however muchmoney with you to stay the same
size, You usually want to grow.
Yeah.
And you just have to change that mindsetand recognize that any, when you're
(04:17):
putting dollars into a. System that works.
Yeah.
It's so you can grow,
you know, I, uh, I, I think it'simportant too, to even, to even realize
like, and, all I will admit, youknow, in, in, in, in multiple of my
companies, I have, you know, we havetried to like, manage our own ads.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I remember my very firstcompany when, when I first got
started, I was like, all right, wegotta use, you know, Google ads.
(04:37):
And, and I went and Icreated a Google ad account.
You know, I set a monthlybudget of like 5,000 bucks.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I created a couple adsand then I just sort of let it run.
And, but like, I forgot about.
it.
Yeah.
And then like I logged in two monthslater, that's, forget it I was literally
like $10,000 in the hole and I didn'thave a single lead to show for it,
and I just, I couldn't believe it.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and like we, in, in in thesame, same vein, like, you know, here
(04:58):
at, at Job Tread, I mean, we've, we'vegot our Google ads dialed in, but
like we've, we've really struggledwith Facebook and Meta and like,
it was a couple, couple months ago.
Like we, we basically just saw, we werejust like hemorrhaging money Mm-hmm.
and all we were getting waslike these, like, you know, just
fake clicks or whatever it was.
And it like, it goes to showthat like, you have to find.
The people who are experts mm-hmm.
to be able to be really good at this.
(05:19):
'cause like not only could you spendmoney, but like we like just totally
lost, you know, tens of thousandsof dollars because we didn't, you
know, take our own advice and makesure that we had an agency helping us
who had that experience to do that.
So, you know, I, I pleasetake my word for it.
Like, do not lose your ass on adswhen you could find someone who
can actually make them productive.
(05:39):
And you know, I know that's whatyou guys are the experts at doing.
Mm-hmm.
It's when I think about industrieswhere you can get away with
just like, um, setting, andforgetting, it's like construction.
'cause we hear about the chuck in atruck, where it's like they just go
and they low ball the bid and thenthey like, they take that contract
and then do everything wrong.
(06:01):
and like never show up and likethey just get the bid and that's it.
And then there's agencies andwe get the, it's such a bad
reputation for doing the same thing.
Like, hey.
we can guarantee you're gonna be on thefirst page of Google and whenever someone
asks me like, what can you guarantee me?
And I, I'm like, nothing.
Results may vary because it dependson your sales process, it depends
(06:22):
on, and that's just for like closingleads, but then bringing them in.
It depends on your website, it dependson the person who answers the phone.
There's so much that like goodmarketing is just the surface, Yeah.
and then it's all about the companyactually like closing the deal
and bringing that, bringing thatbusiness in after the paid click.
Yeah.
Right.
And like making sure someone even knowswhat the landing page says so that
(06:45):
when they answer the call, they'reconsistent and they can say whatever
was on the page and they Uh, recognizethat this is, they're not sure where
someone is in their buyer journey.
Mm-hmm.
But they're gonna meetthem in that moment.
once they have like clicked, landed call.
Yeah.
Now what, so
what, what would you say like when youthink about, 'cause I mean there, there
(07:05):
are so many different avenues that.
People can, can, can go down when,when they're looking at investing in
marketing, like, you know, how, howdo you guys kind of find the right
balance for a company to, you know,
from investing
in, in, in their website to, youknow, SEO you know, investing in a
blog and creating great content thereto, you know, investing in video.
You got social, you know, you got ads.
(07:27):
Like how do you sort of figure outthat right balance for, for a company?
'cause it seems like you gotta,you know, you gotta do all of
it, you know, one way or another.
But like, how do you, how doyou, how do you time that?
And and allocate your, your efforts there.
We've been doing this for 15 years, sowe have a lot of data points that we
can look at when we're uh, there arethe four pillars of inbound marketing.
(07:47):
One of them is measure, and wemeasure everything across all of our
clients, across the US and Canada.
So we have so much data that can tell usand inform us that we know what works.
Um, we know what amount of whatworks, and for the most part.
Number one website.
(08:08):
You Have to have a really good website.
It has to show up when people search.
It has to, every singlepage is a sales funnel.
You're trying to convert people.
You're trying to tell them everything thatthey need to know on every single page,
because what we have found, in looking atall of our clients' websites over, over
(08:28):
a decade now is people click two to threetimes at most once they land on a website.
A construction website.
So you have, they're probablygonna land on your blog.
That's like the keyword.
dense.
They're searching, they'relooking for something, your
blog answers their question.
That's where they land.
You
have two more clicks, basically.
(08:49):
So if you think about like whatare you gonna tell someone?
They've never remodeled before,they've never done any kind of
residential construction project.
You don't know where theyare in their journey.
Are they ready or are they researching?
And you have to convincethem You have two pages.
To convince someone you don't knowwhat those two pages are gonna be.
So a lot of it is just websiteand everything else is just
(09:12):
getting them to the website.
So it's social media link to the website.
it's videos, it's YouTubelink to the website.
Wherever someone is in their buyerjourney, you're just trying to get them
to your website where you control thenarrative and there's no more disruption.
because.
we live in such a distracting world.
(09:33):
And no matter where someone is, if it'snot your website, everybody is fighting
for their attention on those platforms.
Yeah.
No matter if they're on Google,Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Think about like how youinteract with those platforms.
Are you just sitting there watching likea 30 minute video and then you're like, I
just wanna learn more about this company.
I'm Gonna watch a hundredvideos about them.
(09:53):
No one does that.
Yeah,
they're going to like the nextrelated video or whatever.
Not even on YouTube anymore.
They're off like.
Washing their dishes.
So you are just trying toget them to your website.
Yeah.
That's really
how, how have you guys seen videosort of play a role in marketing?
I mean, it's, mm-hmm.
obviously YouTube has come,you know, king these days.
Mm-hmm.
Like how, how do you, how do you allincorporate video and you know, when
(10:16):
you're not actually there, you know, areyou having to rely on, on the contractors
to, to record their own video content?
and Like, do you kind of givethem guidance and coaching on
that or how does that all work?
Either way?
Uh, happy to coach, happy to sendout our media team, but Awesome.
W Video is so important, especiallylike in, this is gonna sound a
little crazy, but like during thisrise of ai, right now, any, anyone
(10:40):
can look like a big company, right?
You can use AI images, youcan even use like AI video.
You can do all of these thingsto make Chuck and a truck look
like Chuck in a corporate office.
And with like all of these projectsthat I've done, look at me, look at my
flashy website, look at, and it's all ai.
So video now is actually like separatingthe real brands from the fake brands.
(11:05):
Yeah.
The, the soon to be the up andcoming and if you have video and
you can actually like showcase whoyou are, what you do, what your
clients would say about you for real.
Uh, that's so important right now.
So,
so, so you all will actually send ateam out to like job site or maybe
a recently completed project mm-hmm.
(11:27):
and help kind of capture the.
Sort of the whole story and the experiencethat that customer went through.
It's part of onboardingfor all of our clients now.
We actually, because of how fasteverything is changing right now, we
had to do a lot to meet the moment.
Just like, just like instruction, right?
So with ai, with everything elsethat's happening right now, uh,
we had our, our clients wereasking, what are you gonna do?
(11:49):
How are you using ai?
How, uh, how are we gonnashow up in these searches?
And a big part of it right now is.
Your brand outside of yourwebsite also, and being able
to show up and be validated.
So a big part of validation isseeing, 'cause, seeing is believing.
(12:11):
Yep.
So having those videos on YouTube,on your website, on social media,
having clients saying great thingsabout you, it's so important.
So we do it for all of our clientsnow once they sign up with us.
That's awesome.
We send out our media team.
In the first 90 days and we shoot.
Yeah, we shoot a lot of content with them.
Nice.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I know
a lot of people also don't havelike professional photos, Mm-hmm.
(12:33):
high quality photos, and it's likethat, that, man, it makes such a big
difference to have that, you know,that high, high level photo there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Photography, being able toshowcase project spotlights,
that is, people want to see
It's
an aspirational.
like They want to see the homethat they're trying to build.
They don't necessarily know what that's.
(12:54):
gonna look Like, yet.
And they want you to show them, right?
The average person,
if they
even buy a remodel project, it'slike one in a lifetime, maybe two.
That's like the average person.
Yeah.
Uh, I'm not talking about the peoplewho own like five houses and want you
to remodel everything, but, uh, theydon't even know how to buy from you.
(13:15):
Hmm.
So you are showing them by creatingcontent, having these testimonials,
having project spotlights that walk.
Them through this is what it waslike to work with this company.
Sure.
So, yeah.
It's so important.
You know, I think one of, uh, anotherkind of great debate I always hear is
like, you know, the, the, the concept oflike, do we put pricing on our website?
(13:36):
Mm-hmm.
You know, how, how do, how,where do y'all land on that?
Because I know so many people are justso, you know, they're, they're, they're
very hesitant to do that because theythink that's gonna, it's gonna turn
off, you know, all their prospectsand they're not gonna want to go.
But like, you know, where,where do you all land on that?
You gotta do it.
This, uh, two reasons.
One, if you're not your competitoris, but now also in the age of ai,
(13:58):
and AI overview, of someone justgoogles what it costs to remodel
in North Dallas, it's just gonnashow up in an AI overview anyway.
Mm-hmm.
So all you are doing is trying to be thethe next link that they click after that.
Sure.
So it doesn't,
it doesn't matter anymore.
The biggest pushback we've alwaysgotten is, but my competitor's
(14:19):
gonna see it on my website.
That's like the number one, they're gonnabe like, well, they're just gonna see
that and like go a few dollars lower.
and They're gonna win that bid.
Um, even if that were the case,you are, you're your own company.
You have your own like uniqueselling points and there's, there's
a reason someone should choose you.
And it shouldn't just be price.
Everybody says this.
(14:40):
So like this is yourtime to actually live it.
And then also just like knowingthat if somebody lands on
your website and sees pricing.
And it blows their mind.
And you would prefer that.
That's on a sales call, I suppose.
But like,
if
they're not a good fit, don't youwant them to qualify themselves out?
That is, that's the point of thewebsite, is that you're not getting
(15:03):
those tire kickers calling you and nowyou're trying to nurture them and you're
checking in and you're presenting andlike working on a plan when they're like
thinking it's gonna be several zeroes.
lower than it is, youdon't even want that call.
so
like, so many people are like, well,there's no way that I could actually
put price on our website when I don'teven know the scope of work yet.
Mm-hmm.
So like how do you, howdo you respond to that?
(15:24):
A range.
Okay.
It's just a price range.
Uh, the way we, we approach it, youcan have multiple projects listed and
different types of projects and usuallywould say there's the, the base level of
this remodel, there's the mid-level, andthen there's like the luxury side of.
It.
And
all of those are different ranges andyou are just educating someone on, is
(15:48):
it finishes, are they moving walls?
Do they have to move electrical?
Do they have to move plumbing?
Most people don't know.
And they're, they, what they thinkis just like, no, I just want
my hall bathroom to look cute.
Right?
And you're just helping guidethem and educate them on what
type of project is this gonna be?
And here's a range just tohelp you think about what.
(16:10):
This is gonna look like Yeah.
because the average person cansee that range and be like, oh,
okay, I'm gonna keep doing someresearch and I'm gonna start saving.
And that's why the buyerjourney can be long.
Yeah.
But that's okay.
That's because they're, they're preparingand you're the one who is being the guide
and telling them, and they're buildingtrust with you and they believe what
(16:32):
you say and that's a really good thing.
Yeah.
When you're providing theminformation so that they can.
make informed decisions for themselves.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's such great advice.
I mean, again, I think it's like yougotta have that sort of, that that
long, you know, approach and, mm-hmm.
and realize that they arecontinuing to nurture, to
educate, you know, and by helping
the,
(16:52):
the buyer understand the, mm-hmm.
the process and the potential cost and,and all of that like that, you're right.
Like when they come to thatfirst call or, or even when they
get into the, to the proposaldiscussion, instead of it being this
like shock
and haw moment where their jaw hitsthe ground and they can't believe.
like They've already been sort ofwarmed up to this is gonna be expensive.
You know?
And so once they can finally havethat discussion, it's, it's a lot,
(17:14):
you know, easier for, for them,I think to sort of shoulder it.
and They're already prepared andthose, those are the buyers you want.
Mm-hmm.
Just like marketing as an investmentand growing your business, it's the
same thing for these homeowners, right?
Changing their
homes in a way that they can either,if it's for them, so that they can
stay there forever or so, that theycan it's gonna like improve their life.
(17:35):
That's incredible.
Uh, that's an ROI on their life.
But then there is also actuallylike adding value to their homes.
Yeah.
And it being able to sell it for more.
And all of this is so important and theaverage person who is just looking up
jobs that they need done on their house,they might not be thinking about that.
So the more, the more contractorsremodelers, home Builders can
(17:58):
speak to, like, this is importantbecause, uh, this is an investment
of yours and anything that you do.
To improve the quality of this houseis money back in your pocket one day.
So even when the homeowner is nowlooking at pricing on your website,
you're guiding them through this is aninvestment in you and it's so important.
(18:19):
Yeah.
The Average person isn't thinking that way
a hundred percent.
You,
you've mentioned AI a couple timeshere, so I'm, I'm curious, like, mm-hmm.
how have you seen over the last fewyears, you know, like, what, what
is, what is AI doing to marketing?
Like, is there, is there this like.
You know, you know, again, a lotof, a lot of times now people are
going to, to chat GBT or mm-hmm.
you know, they're asking Google somethingand now, you know, Google's got its own
(18:40):
little, you know, summaries up there.
Like how, how is that gonna affect,you know, marketing and, and,
and SEO and ads and all of that?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
We're going there, Eric.
There two really big ways that AI isdisrupting the marketing sphere right now.
Number one is how we interact.
(19:00):
With these tools.
So we've even had clients askus, how are you using AI now?
Or, uh, can't I just do that?
Can't I write my own blogs using ai?
And you can, but you gotta be careful.
Like You wanna do it the right way.
So make sure you know how you're usingAI and how to, uh, just like Like Google
(19:20):
doesn't like duplicate content, right?
There are things that we know mm-hmm.
about Google.
There are things that wejust don't know yet about ai.
So I would just cautionlike if you're gonna.
Fire all of your marketing team,and like fire your agency, fire a
whole department and try and justdo AI for all of your marketing.
Be
wary of that.
Yeah, That is probably gonna catch up.
Just like, uh, all of theduplicate content way back.
(19:44):
This was like 10 years ago when peoplejust copy and paste and put out all these
pages to, to rank for multiple keywordsmultiple times, um, it's gonna catch up.
So be wary of that.
So there's just likethe usage of tools Yeah.
Is number one.
Number two is
Results.
Uh, we started to noticeprobably in like November.
(20:05):
So part of how we run our business,we have a metrics dashboard for all
of our clients and for ourselves.
There are very specific things thatwe're tracking all of the time, and we
started to see website traffic going down.
Across the board, everyone,we were like, that's a little
weird.
A little Like in November of 24, wewere like, that's a little strange.
(20:27):
Yeah.
I wonder what's happening.
And.
Now it's so obvious.
Now we get to look back and Mondaymorning quarterback it and we can
see, oh, okay, everybody's justseeing their AI overview searches.
Mm-hmm.
And it's something like 60%of searches now are zero click
is what we're calling it.
In the marketing industry.
(20:47):
People are just getting theiranswers by either speaking to their
phones and getting a verbal responseback, voice search or AI overview.
And that is.
Uh,
That is going to be the future.
So what I always try and cautionsomeone when they, they say like,
oh, I'm leaving my agency becauseour website traffic is going down.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
(21:07):
That's not reason enough.
Yeah.
For you to come to us becauseyour website traffic is gonna
continue to go down, but you wannashow up in these AI searches now.
Yeah.
So there the rules have changedand now we are trying to figure out
how to show up in those searches.
There are three really big rankingfactors that we know right now.
(21:28):
And it's not because some like AIoverlord, like how Google publishes
their updates and says like, thisis what we're looking for now.
Yeah.
That's not happening.
It is just agencies everywhere whoare tracking data points for several
years and getting deeper and deeper.
And now we're seeing, like, oh, okay, thismatters, this matters and this matters.
(21:48):
Number one, schema markup.
This has to, it's a type of code that hasto be on every single page that if That
is a page that someone would be searchingfor something and you want the answers
on that page to show up in a search.
You now have to includeit in this code basically.
So schema markup, and thenvalidation is so important.
(22:11):
So if you've been seeing that everybodysays like Reddit is now answering
everybody's questions, that's wherethey're training all of these chatbots.
It is true because what SEO does,search engine optimization is.
just What we say about ourselves and whata IO what AI optimization is looking for
(22:32):
is what everybody else says about you.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So you don't have as much control anymore.
Uh, it is all about how other peopleare mentioning you online, and that
includes Reddit, it includes socialmedia comments, it includes if you've
won awards, uh, if you're on the Better
Business Bureau,
local press, all of that.
(22:53):
What, like SEO was backlinks.
So
other websites linking to yourwebsite saying, no, this is a good
website, but now it's like peoplesaying things about your brand.
And that's, uh, that'sreally important to know.
I mean, it's, uh, you know, I, I I,we have started getting so many like
leads from like the chat, GBT and thedifferent AI that we're now like kind
of tracking those lead sources mm-hmm.
(23:14):
You know, we've just been wonderinglike, I mean, you know, this just like
overnight, you know, it felt like, youknow, a couple months ago just started
happening out of nowhere, you know?
And, and, and I think itdoes go to show that like.
They are seeing all the reviews comingin, all the conversations on social
and Reddit and all those places.
And you know, I've, I'vealso heard that like
there,
there's now like even like if you gohave Chad GBT generate something and
(23:34):
try to like pace it, they've got thingsembedded into that content where they,
you know, the other AI will know thatthat was AI generated versus like,
you know, an actual user saying that.
Is that, mm-hmm.
is that what you're seeing as well?
It's, Uh, we always joke, it's like,uh, the bots are just talking to the
bots and it's just like, uh, we'llget, like for example, we'll get this
like, it's such a clearly chat gtdemail from a client and we're like,
(23:58):
oh, okay, let me run this through chatgt so I can respond to this email.
Um, it
is.
I have
heard from our content writers firsthand,we have a, a full team of content
writers who actually like create ourcontent at Builder Funnel for our clients
and they can, they now have to runsomething through these like AI graders.
And even if they fully wroteit from scratch, it will
(24:21):
still like, often get flagged.
as like, this is 80% AI generated.
And they're like, no, Iliterally just wrote this.
So interesting.
yeah.
The graders aren't quite there yet.
Yeah.
And, uh.
they will, I'm sure, I'msure they'll catch up.
But the point of AI is not evenjust that, like it's going to,
it's gonna create a ton of content.
It's like you can brainstorm with it.
(24:43):
Yeah.
And what we have seen forthe leads coming in, you're.
You mentioned that you're gettingleads coming in through chat GPT.
It is such a high purchase intent.
It's almost like a paid search Googlead. If they're coming in through chat
GPT, our clients are closing those leads.
Nice.
They come in and it is like they knowthey have learned so much already.
(25:06):
They're such a qualified lead andthey're ready to go at that point.
So it's awesome.
That's a, yeah, it's a fun experience.
I
love
how you guys are like, justreally following this and studying
this and like, you know, reallyoptimizing the content for the ai.
Mm-hmm.
You know, again, if that's, that's what'sdriving the highest quality, mm-hmm.
you know, leads these days, then you gottabe ahead of that game and, you it sounds
(25:26):
like you guys are, you're, you're there.
Yeah.
You know, I think too, like, you know,there, there are, you know, there, there
are so many marketing agencies out thereand and when and when we look at 'em
and, and you know, I think we all get abunch of emails from 'em all the time.
You know, I think the thingthat really stands out.
You know about builder, Funnel and youall, is that like you're not trying
to be a marketing agency to everyone.
You know, if the last 15 yearsyou've, you've really dug in and
(25:48):
your roots are in, you know, the,the, the remodeling space Mm-hmm.
and, and design building.
Like, that's, you know,that's just so important.
because I do feel like a lot ofpeople end up hiring, you know,
some, some generalist, you know,random marketing agency that doesn't
truly understand construction and,and, and the construction buying
process, which is different than.
You know, the, the, the, lot of otherdifferent industries that, you know,
(26:11):
you, you may be very transactional, youmight have, you know, low ticket prices.
Like, you know, a buying a a remodelis, is not just a overnight whim.
It's, you know, we're, we're gonnahave to, you know, really understand,
we're gonna have to be educated,we're gonna have to budget for this.
Like, you know, and so having thatkind of, that long tail nurturing,
you know, impact that, that you alldo because you understand the space
(26:32):
really, you know, sets you up to, toreally help and add a lot of value.
to Contractors.
I was just having dinner with somepeople last night during this bootcamp
and they were complaining about theiragency and I, agencies are great.
I have such a, a soft spot foragencies, so I say this with love, but
local agencies, they're, it's just,you're kind of picking between do you
(26:55):
wanna teach someone about zip codes?
You might have to teach my team whatneighborhoods you work in, but you're
not gonna have to teach us Anythingelse about your sales process about.
How you want to talk to customersand like what matters if you're
just working with a local agencyand they know the area really well.
The biggest complaint I was hearingat dinner was they don't even know
(27:18):
they were posting before photos asafters, for example, in the gallery
because they don't know the space.
And to me that is such a, that justsounds exhausting every time you're
sending project photos, they don'tknow what the befores and afters are.
Um,
Maybe they're building a website andthey don't know the difference between
commercial and residential pictures,and you're a residential construction
(27:42):
company and they're using these stockphotos of like fancy high rises, right?
Like it's a totally, you, you're justpicking do you want to work with someone
who might know a neighborhood really well?
Sure.
Or everything else about what you do.
And we just need zip codes and we cando our own research at that point and
learn your neighborhoods and know what,
what
keywords you wanna rank forfor those neighborhoods.
(28:05):
It's, uh, yeah, it's choosingsomeone who is in it with you.
And we have helped generate over$200 million in growing customers in
the residential construction space.
That is our bread and butter.
We know how to do it likethe back of our hand.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Mm-hmm.
So, uh, lastly here, I mean, youknow, if somebody wants to learn
(28:27):
more, I mean, what, what is theprocess, you know, for them to, to,
come
get involved with?
with You all?
Mm-hmm.
Just go to builder funnel.com, check us
out.
Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I share all of this information for free.
I try to post daily.
Uh, I am trying to really likeput it out there because in the
age of ai, it's already out there.
(28:47):
Gated content, like doesn't exist anymore.
It is just, it's gonna show up in anAI overview anyway, so I'm just, I'm
trying to give away all of the playbooksfor free every day, all of the time.
That's awesome.
I know you said it yesterday too.
But it is so true that a rising tidelifts all ships and job tread is a rising
tide Builder funnel is a rising tide.
(29:08):
We are just trying to make thisindustry better and keep it
growing in the right direction.
And you can, yeah, everything thatwe say a construction company should
be doing, we do for ourselves too.
So you can find us on social,if you Google us, we'll come up.
If you ask chat GPT, it'll tellyou that Spencer and I are married.
We're not Spencer is the
(29:28):
the
CEO, and I'm the president.
That is, we are not married to each other.
We are both married to other people.
So chat, GPT.
not perfect, not always right?
Not always right.
Not perfect, but, uh, you'll, it'll, itis right about the name of our company
and it'll send you to our website.
And it just like I've been saying,we control the narrative there.
You can come learn anything about uson our website, so that's awesome.
(29:50):
Yeah.
Well, look,
I, I really appreciate everything thatyou all have done for our clients.
I, I have seen firsthand the impact.
It does make a tremendous, youknow, impact on their business.
And so Again, I, I,
You guys do great work.
Your team works really hard anddelivers results, and I think that
at the end of the day is all wecould ever ask for of a partner.
So just wanted to thank you for,for, for all of that and for coming
(30:11):
on spend this time with us today,sharing your knowledge and wisdom.
You truly are an open book.
Uh, you also given out books here.
too.
It's all the job Tri users.
So thank you Danielle, for, foreverything that you all have done.
I appreciate it very much.
Thanks,
Eric.
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