Speed to Lead & Beyond: How Smith.ai Helps Contractors Convert More Calls & Clicks

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In this episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors, Janet and Caitlyn sit down with Maddy Martin, SVP of Growth at Smith.ai, to tackle one of the biggest challenges contractors face: missed opportunities from slow lead response. Maddy shares why speed-to-lead is critical, how Smith.ai helps contractors answer every call, chat, and text, and how better lead handling drives ROI. From practical tips to real-world success stories, this conversation is packed with strategies to help contractors stop wasting leads and start booking more jobs.

Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:01):
Welcome to digital marketing for contractors, a
podcast for home improvementcontractors to help you crush
your lead goals and take yourbusiness to the next level.
Join us each episode as we giveyou powerful insights and

(00:22):
practical tips on the bestdigital marketing strategies to
help you grow your homeimprovement business.
Let's get started.

Janet (00:30):
Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors, the
podcast where we help you worksmarter, market better, and
close more jobs.
My name is Janet Mobley.
And I'm Caitlin

Caitlyn (00:39):
Noble.
We work with home improvementcontractors all over the
country.
And one thing we know is yourmarketing can be amazing, but if
you don't respond to leadsquickly, you are leaving money
on the table.
Absolutely.
That

Janet (00:53):
is the God's honest truth.
And that is why today's episodeis a big one, and we're really
excited about it.
We are talking about speed tolead, and how to make sure that
no opportunity slips through thecracks.
Today, our guest is MaddieMartin.
She is the Senior VicePresident of Growth at Smith AI,
a company that helpscontractors capture, qualify,

(01:15):
and convert more leads throughlive receptionist chat, text,
and more.
Maddie, welcome to the show.
Thank you

Caitlyn (01:23):
so much for having me.
Hey, Maddie.
Maddie, Maddie, Maddie.
So, for listeners who haven'theard of Smith Smith AI yet.
Give us your one sentencepitch.
You can give several sentences.
What do you guys do?
And what's

Maddy (01:37):
your elevator speech?
How do you help?
We are a customer engagementplatform.
So we help you connect withleads to convert them and to
have great existingrelationships with your clients.

Janet (01:48):
Oh, that's amazing.
That was snappy.
That's better than my 30 secondspeech.
30 minutes.
It is.
So we at Fat Cat, we focus ongenerating leads for home
improvement contractors.
So we're running the SEOcampaigns, PPC campaigns,
sweepstakes contests, all kindsof stuff.

(02:08):
And so then Smith AI comes into make sure that those leads
actually turned into bookedappointments.
That's why we're excited abouttoday's conversation because
it's such a natural fit.
So I'll just tell you what wesee.
And I mean, it's been anongoing source of frustration

(02:29):
for us and I'll just be behonest about it.
Contractors come to us.
They ask us, how can I generateleads?
We have all these conversationsto answer that question.
How are we going to help themgenerate leads?
We set about launchingcampaigns.
We do that.
We generate leads.
And then those jokers don'tanswer the phone.
Oh, it's thousands of dollarsspent.

(02:51):
I mean, I'm not joking at all.
And we know it because we putcall tracking software on our
clients' websites and we caninto the recording.
I think that's how we found youguys.

Intro (03:04):
Yeah.

Janet (03:04):
Yeah.
Yep.

Caitlyn (03:06):
Exactly.
Cause they work together.

Janet (03:08):
I didn't know.
Caitlin does all the hard stuffhere at fat cat.
I just show up.
Not half drunk, but kinda.
I love it.

Maddy (03:18):
We

Janet (03:21):
found you, but yes, we have what converts.
We do call tracking.
We listen to the recordings andit is such a source of um
stress for these contractors whohonestly like they're shooting
themselves in the foot wherespending all this money with an
agency or they're doing it ontheir own they make the phone

(03:44):
ring and then they don't havethat staffed so um explain how
you come in how do you helpsolve this problem

Maddy (03:55):
yeah well even before you know i explain how we come in i
like to frame the picture aslike handing people ice cream
cones and they just sit with ituntil it melts all over their
hands.
And you're just staring at themsaying like, have you never
seen ice cream before?
Like you know that it melts,right?

(04:15):
And you're just incredulous.
Like that's the feeling thatyou get when you see the beads
wasted.
Like we know that there's atimer on these things, right?
That they have an expirationdate.
And I love this metaphor.
It is a sticky mess.
If you're not licking it up offthe pavement, I mean, I don't
think you are.
So nobody wants a dirty lead,right?

(04:37):
So those, those leads are fargone.
They've called your competitorsand that competitor picked up
the phone and they won thebusiness because they picked up
the phone.
And what's most frustrating isthat you're better at it than
your competitors.
And you should have gotten thatbusiness and you know, you
could earn a five-star review,but you didn't even get the

(04:57):
opportunity because you missedthe window right and that's
what's most frustrating and theproblem is you can't point any
fingers other than to your ownbusiness because you have to
make the right decisions tosucceed right you have to
prioritize it because sometimesthese businesses are making
enough money where it's notpainful enough and they can

(05:19):
sweep it under the rug or theyjust get out the hose and they
get rid of the ice cream on thepavement and they say like it
never even happened right no youdidn't have that full feeling
of eating anything.
All right.
So I didn't have ice cream.
No big deal.
But when it happens over andover and over and you see the
dollars wasted, you know, ifyou're willing to look at the

(05:41):
dollars wasted, then you can getin touch with the problem.
If you're unwilling to look atit, then you're never going to
be in touch with the problem.
You're just going to look atthe business you do have and
have tunnel vision, have theblinders on.
And that's the problem is youneed to sit down and actually
look at the problem.
And then we can talk about howSmith AI can solve it by Anne
answering your calls byscheduling and taking on the

(06:04):
actions that happen on a call toforward that business.
It's not just glorifiedvoicemail.
You're not just having a liveperson answer and take a
message.
We're talking about screeningleads to make sure they're a
good fit.
We're talking about schedulingappointments.
We're talking about gettingthat information directly into
your CRM with no manual dataentry, like all of those things.

(06:24):
But you can't get to that pointunless you're willing to look
at the problem.

Janet (06:28):
I'm really glad that you made a distinction that it's not
just throwing a body at it wehave had customers who i don't i
honestly don't know like whattheir process is when they've
looked for some of these vendorsthat answer their phones um but
i've honestly like and andthey're hard-working contractors
they're hard-working growingcontractors they've maybe never

(06:50):
had somebody in-house who's beenable to be you know a call
center manager um so then thefirst step what we see is we see
them go from like the owneroperator who's doing all the
sales and all the calls wasgoing to his cell phone at a
certain point that pain becomesso great that they'll and
Caitlin maybe you know thisthey'll go hire some answering

(07:12):
service and that answeringservice may also be answering
phones for a dentist and when welisten to the recordings
through what converts we hearsomebody go well I don't
actually work for Bob's roofingI can't answer any of your
questions about gutters whenBecause I don't work for that
guy.
I'm the answering service.

(07:33):
We've literally heard them saythat.
So I'm so glad you brought upthe distinction that that's not
what you do.
Correct?
No.

Maddy (07:41):
How can you run a business in this day and age of
just doing some cookie cutterapproach, taking a message?
You're basically just throwingthe hot potato on the other side
of the fence.
You didn't add anything to thatconversation.
getting it over to them with alittle bit of hand holding.

(08:02):
And it's like when you go to anice restaurant and you can tell
that someone's put the food onthe plate with tweezers, you're
like, well, it doesn't taste anydifferent.
Tastes like a potato.
Why did it take you so long tomake it?
We don't always want theMichelin star menu.
Sometimes you just have to eat.
So why does it take so muchfiddling when you didn't really
make an improvement?
The point I'm trying to make isthat the cost of these services

(08:24):
warrants doing work on thatcall.
And if you're not getting workdone, then you should evaluate
how much you're really gettingfor your money.
And Smith AI is not cheap,right?
Like we are never going to bethe cheapest solution, but that
is because we are based on ROI.
We're based on building valuefor your business, making sure
that that call that's scheduledon your calendar, that new

(08:47):
potential lead is wellqualified, a good use of your
time, which is your mostprecious resource.
And that we're not going tokick the can down the road and
waste your time, not now, Butanother time, it's like you're
just pushing that decision offto the business owner at the end
of the day.
We want to be making decisionsso that we leave you with the

(09:09):
bigger order decisions, right?
Those higher order decisionsthat only you can make, right?
And you need to empower thatvendor, that contractor that
you've said, okay, answer mycalls.
You have the answers to thoseFAQ to have a scheduling link,
you know, whether it's Calendlyor Acuity or whatever system
you're using, you You need themto have access to either your

(09:32):
schedule or a person who's goingto be available to book at any
given moment, right?
If you're a big enough businessto have a scheduling team.
And then they're only gettingthose well-qualified leads if
you're sending them to thescheduling team, right?
You could do payments on thephone.
You could do all this stuff.
You can make sure that they'regoing to be around at the right
time tomorrow for the onsiteestimate, whatever it is.

(09:54):
But you need to make sure thatit's a well-qualified buyer
because you don't want to kickthat can down the road.

Caitlyn (10:01):
We've mentioned at the top of this about speed to lead
and how important that is.
I know if you're a contractorand you're listening to this and
you're new to the industry,you're going to get burned
really fast if you don't havethat down.
A lot of people don'tunderstand that window.
Is there a stat you guysusually play off of that's

(10:21):
important for how quickly youshould respond before a lead
goes cold?

Maddy (10:27):
Yes.
You need to answer every singlephone call, and then it's on
you to screen that call if it'sworth your business, right?
Like that, that it is as closeto 100% as it can possibly be.
And it is possible now withsolutions like Smith AI, right?
Like, no reason for you to say,like, I don't have access to
that, right?
So what you want is to knowthat 70% of new leads are going

(10:53):
to make their decision to hirebased on a response to the first
caller email, meaning they aregoing to hire the first business
that picks up the phone orresponds to that web form fill
with a callback, right?
So it needs to be instantaneousto get that business because
just think about it.
Like anytime you've had workdone at your house, you've taken

(11:15):
time off from your day.
Let's say that you areextending your lunch break or
you ate a really quick lunch sothat you can go through, you
know, your referrals and Googlereviews and whatever ads you've
seen.
And you're like, okay, theseare the five businesses that
that I'm going to call.
Right.
So you carve out that time andyou're just going to go down the
list until you get someone.

(11:36):
Cause you've already gottenthose referrals.
You've already evaluated it anda surface level.
That's right.
So, so if you don't pick up thephone as the business, you are
guaranteed to be too late whenyou finally get around to it,
you know, tomorrow or the nextday or never.
Right.
And most leads never getfollowed up with.
So it is actually to your greatadvantage to uplevel your

(11:58):
business in this way becausemany of your competitors are not
doing a good job.
So if you just do a better jobthan they're doing by answering
every call, then you can do twodifferent things.
One, you can say, look, we're alittle bit different than
so-and-so.
Because we can answer all thesecalls, we really want to take
these high-value jobs.

(12:19):
We're only going to take thesehigh-value jobs from now on
because we've figured out ourcall answering.
We get so much call volume thatwe can be choosy now because we
actually can make decisions onwhat business we want to take.
And then those small ones,guess what?
Give them to that other friendthat you've got who's an
acquaintance at another companyor, you know, some distant

(12:39):
relative or someone who yourespect who just happens to work
at somewhat a competitivebusiness, but they want to stay,
you know, a small residentialand you're going into big
commercial or biggerresidential, right?
Like they don't have thecapacity.
Give them those little jobs,right?
And they're going to give youthe bigger jobs that they can't
handle, right?
And you start to have arelationship where there's more
no waste right and even if youdon't make that referral it's

(13:04):
still a member of your communityso you might think well why
would i answer every call youknow a number of these calls are
not relevant to my businessright another thing that we hear
well it's a waste of my timewell it's not your time if
you're outsourcing it and secondof all every single call that
they handle is valuable becauseit's data that you can give back
to your agency around how youknow what leads are coming in

(13:27):
what channels are most valuableusing tools like WhatConverts.
And then there's still membersof your community.
So even if the receptionistsays, you know, you're not
actually a good fit for theclientele that we serve, I'm so
sorry, but here's a list ofbusinesses, or here's a resource
that might be helpful to you,or here's a list of questions
that you should be askingcontractors that we can send you

(13:50):
a text or email with thosequestions as a follow-up, then
you might still get a five-starreview just because of the
service that you gave to thatcaller, even if they don't and
become a customer.
So you really have to thinkabout that as your interaction
with the community and yourbrand as the face of your
business and not just like, oh,they're a waste of my time.

Janet (14:11):
Wow, you hit on a lot of really good topics there.
I mean, I love the visual imageof somebody in a day job.
They've got a salad at theirdesk.
They've got 45 minutes to findsomebody to fix a problem at
their house or make an upgradethat they're willing to spend a
lot of money on.
So if I'm this likehypothetical person sitting at

(14:31):
my desk with my salad and I'vegot 45 minutes before I'm
walking into an afternoon fullof meetings.
And then when I leave and I gohome, if I've got kids, I'm busy
at home.
And then the weekend I'm busy.
So if you are not answering mycall in that 45 minute window,
when I call, you can call meback all day long, but I've

(14:53):
moved on to something else.
Yeah.
The window is closed.
I'm now in three meetings.
Then I'm going to do a soccerpractice, then I've got to get
dinner on the table.
Don't even bother to call meback.
Some other things that yousaid, you know, this whole thing
of like, it's a waste of timeif we've got inbound calls that
are asking for repairs and wedon't do small repairs.

(15:14):
We've actually had customerswho've used data like that
through their own internalresources.
Maybe they're not using a callcenter, where if they see a huge
volume of calls for a type ofjob that that they don't
currently offer, they've usedthat as like a...
a lab, a sandbox of like, maybeyou should do repairs.

(15:38):
Maybe you should hire a repairteam.
Is that when you're partneringwith your customers, how do you
bring some of that data back tothem to show them like trends
and questions that they'regetting from inbound calls that
maybe they're blind to becausethey had a preconceived notion

(16:01):
of the type of calls they wantedto get?
Are you having those kind andwhat do they sell?

Maddy (16:06):
Absolutely are.
I mean, part of the reason forthe money back guarantee at
Smith AI is because we know thatthere are a lot of businesses
that come in, they initiallyestimate their caller types and
their call volume as one set ofinformation, right?
And what is reality is a littlebit different.
There's actually a fewdifferent caller types.

(16:26):
There's a few differentqualification steps that maybe
that business took for granted.
It's so second nature.
They didn't have really wellall documented processes.
So during onboarding, it's sortof, you know, by the seat of
their pants, or they tried todocument it, but it was just an
hour or a week before theonboarding call.

(16:47):
And they didn't have a lotdocumented before then.
So they're still doing it sortof in the moment, right?
And it's like, you know, if youask a short order cook, they're
only gonna be able to come upwith so many things for the
ingredients that are right infront of them, right?
So once you start to have thosecalls come through, we can say,
well, these are really thecalls that are coming through
that we don't have very clearinstructions for.

(17:09):
We didn't anticipate them.
AI and the live agents, youknow, with feedback that we see
from,

Janet (17:25):
we had, we had a weird glitch.
Oh, okay.
So we're probably going to haveto edit that out.
So if we go back, you saidcook, you were You were like,
okay, when you do theonboarding, they have like a
preconceived notion of what kindof calls they're going to get.
And then you see the realityand you start to square that up.

(17:45):
I don't know how you want topick that up, but it just went
all.
You could even start.
Yeah.
That was just a great.

Caitlyn (17:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're scripting that, youknow, that you bring that like,
Hey, you guys didn't offer thisto us, but now, you know, okay.

Maddy (17:59):
Yeah.

Unknown (18:00):
Yeah.

Maddy (18:00):
So that's one of the main reasons why we offer the money
back guarantee period, becausewe have this learning process
where you're up and running veryquickly.
I mean, a day or two with SmithAI, but we have the money back
guarantee in place because weknow there's a learning process
that happens.
So there are certain callertypes.
There's a certain level of callvolume that we expect when we

(18:22):
go through onboarding with you.
And we evaluate your primaryreasons why callers reach your
business, right?
And we have answers and, andprocesses that we put in place
for exactly those caller types.
But reality is a little bitdifferent oftentimes because
what you've documented for youronboarding process with SmithAI
is sometimes just before theonboarding has happened.

(18:45):
So my encouragement to you as aside note is to document things
right now if you're listeningto this before you have to
offload that work, right?
So document and then delegate,that's way easier than trying to
do both at the same time.
But what happens is we start toget calls and then whether it's

(19:06):
AI answering or our liveagents, we have a QA process.
So we pick up on those callsthat are out of the ordinary or
that we don't have clearinstructions for, and we
immediately flag that to ourclients and say, you know, can
you help us better respond tothis type of caller?
What's the answer to thisquestion we keep getting?
Because we need to do a goodjob of that in order to retain

(19:29):
your business long term.
We have an incredible, youknow, rate of retention at Smith
AI.
And a lot of that has to dowith how we

Janet (19:39):
are monitoring.
I mean, for our listeners, ifour listeners are staffing this
in their office, in theirlocation, it's their business
hours.
It's Monday through Friday,maybe an occasional Saturday.
You just hit on like, it'smidnight.
Oh, it's

Maddy (19:51):
24 seven.

Janet (19:52):
Okay.

Maddy (19:54):
As soon as you get it, like your answering service in
place, your customer engagementplatform in place, then you
should be updating your hours onGoogle, Yelp, everywhere.
It's your 24 hour business.
Absolutely.
Because you can respond 24seven.
I mean, if you're actually in abusiness that should be 24

(20:14):
seven, like an emergencylocksmith and you're not, you
probably shouldn't say 24 seven,but

Janet (20:19):
I don't think

Maddy (20:19):
anyone

Janet (20:19):
expects.
Like an emergency plumber andsomebody's ceilings about to
cave in, but you're in the bed.
You maybe don't say you're 24seven.

Maddy (20:26):
Right.
I mean, like, you know, betweenhome contractors, lawyers, that
we've worked with financialadvisors, you know, they know
that their clients don't expectthem to actually be operational
24-7, but it means that you canget that phone call when
everyone else is closed, thatthere's someone who's going to
answer because in almost nobusiness, you know, is someone

(20:47):
expecting an immediate solutionright then.
They just want to lock in asolution for a later time,
right?
Like when I call a roofer, Iwould get them out for an
estimate.
I don't think they're going tofix my roof that day, right?
Correct.
arrived from Mars.
So, you know, that expectationwith the right clientele is
already going to be baked in.
But the 24-7 hours on yourGoogle profile makes complete

(21:12):
sense because then you'veskipped the line.
Maybe you're even third rankedin those businesses, that list
that they're seeing, but youjust became number one because
you're open,

Caitlyn (21:20):
right?
Right.
That's amazing.
What about other integrationslike CRM-wise, other automated
follow-ups?
I mean, does SmithAI integrate?
Yeah, how do you play withthose tools how do you play

Maddy (21:31):
we play so well with those tools we're like we're
like the most popular kid in thesandbox or playground or
wherever you know like with whatconverts i mean that's a huge
sign yeah well what converse isjust the tip of the iceberg i
think but i think why you likewhat converts is because it
represents not just a crm youknow what i mean like the so we

(21:53):
integrate directly natively witha lot of crms and other tools
obviously we can use schedulingplatforms because we've been
doing that for a decade now.
But what's really cool is thatwe also have integrations with
Zapier and Make and N8n andthings like that so that
whatever your solution is, aslong as you can connect up with

(22:14):
one of those tools, then we canhook into it either inbound or
outbound.

Caitlyn (22:18):
That's amazing.
I mean, I feel like we couldtalk forever.
I do want to hear some quickreal results.
Case study example of acontractor who saw a big jump in
book jobs after working withyou guys?

Maddy (22:33):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, there's so many.
There's a hardscaping companythat I can think of.
They were a husband-wife teamwho were growing their business
and had a baby at the same time.
So no matter how much energythey wanted to expend, they
could not do that and keep thischild alive, right?

(22:55):
So let alone them feedthemselves, but they had to feed
this baby, right?
And they came to us like youknow like a lot of businesses
sort of passed the point whenthey should have started raising
their hand and waving thingsaround but we helped them and it
was just an immediate change Ithink the stat that they shared
with us is just one bookedappointment actually paid for

(23:17):
the entire month of Smith AI soI mean many fold ROI increase
there like you get your moneyback immediately it's more I
think there's that immediateshock of like wow I was missing
a lot of business.
And while I was not serving myclients who were calling to
check in or want an update orlooking for the quote that we

(23:38):
promised them, well, you'rebehind on all sorts of things
and all that gets settled whenyou just have your front lines
handled.
It just gives you room tobreathe.
But that's really also thatintangible quality of life
impact that happens for, Ithink, not just families that
are really in a make or breaksituation where they've got a
brand new baby, but alsofamilies plenty of other

(24:01):
situations where you're juststressed.
You just want to be home fordinner.
You know, you don't want towork after dinner.
You don't want to worry aboutyour, your guys burning out
because you know, they've justbeen on too many jobs back to
back and no one can get a break.
Like the ROI is clear, but alsoit's that quality of life that
we really care about giving ourclients.

Janet (24:21):
So the example you just gave was a husband and wife
team.
I imagine that's still arelatively small business,
healthy business, but stillsmall.
What does an ideal customerlook like for you guys in terms
of size, their maturity, thesoftware they have in place, the
systems that they have inplace?
That's a really good question.

Maddy (24:41):
It is a little bit bigger than that.
We are not going to turn anyoneaway because they're small and
just getting going because wewere all there at some point,
right?
But ideally, you're a littlebit bigger.
You've got sometimes multiplelocations that you're starting
to to manage and you need to bemuch clearer with your logistics

(25:04):
and your processes because thatperson who was just running one
location and could overhear aconversation or be right on top
of someone to train them can nolonger be in two places at once
so that's where things reallystart to break if they're going
to is when you start to expandand you realize oh we've been

(25:26):
really relying on institutionalknowledge rather than doc So
slightly larger, you know, thanthat husband-wife couple.
I would say we're looking at afew hundred calls to a few
thousand calls a month, and thatcould be per location.

Janet (25:46):
So on the scenario you gave where, let's say you're
expanding into a new locationand you've got some call center
staff who were able to do it,it's institutional, it's tribal
knowledge, they overhearsomething and then they train
and now they can't anymore.
That brings me to anotherquestion.
What happens if our listenersare listening and they have call
center staff, but they're kindof pushing the limits of staff

(26:11):
that they have now, is thisreplacing their staff or
augmenting their staff?

Maddy (26:16):
It is their choice, but we would almost never recommend
ripping and replacing,especially in the beginning.
We want to have an easyintroduction to Smith AI.
So if you already have peoplein place then we can be overflow
and after hours because we knowthat daytime can get
overwhelmed.
After hours is way tooexpensive to have like that

(26:39):
staff on rotation.
You're almost never doing that.
So it is far better to have thesame team on overflow and after
hours.
Sometimes what we see is likemultiple different vendors.
There's some offshore afterhours solution.
And then there's staff rotatingduring the day that you're the
backup, but you're like thedirector of marketing or

(27:00):
something like why are you thebackup well because no one else
can answer I mean you knowthings like that are put in
place all the time so overflowand after hours can be unified
and handled under Smith AI or ifyou don't have a solution or
you just have piecemealsolutions like it's part of
someone's job and it's part ofsomeone else's job and they
really should be focused onother things then that's where

(27:23):
we would say like let's come inand replace that because those
people are not going to be youknow missing those jobs they
have more important things to dobut we're not looking to
displace anybody

Janet (27:34):
and i wanted to sort of underline a point that you made
earlier that we we might nothave spent enough time talking
about smith ai you are talkingabout inbound phone calls
follow-up phone calls that areoutbound from a web form
submission you're also doingyou're manning um the chat agent
on people's websites is thereany channel that i missed so

(27:56):
inbound phone calls web texttext

Maddy (27:59):
i mean and Any channel where you get a lead submission
that you could send that to us,basically through an API
connection, like a webhook, thatwould be available to you,
right?
So there are some otherchannels where you would be able
to get a lead submission.
It might not be on yourwebsite, but you get a
notification about it.

(28:19):
We could also call back thatlead.

Janet (28:22):
So would that maybe be for like a third-party
aggregator lead that got pushedinto your CRM, Smith AI can hop
in?
on a call and make an outboundfollow-up phone call to that
prospect instantly.
And then weed out the crapbecause we hear a lot of those
third-party aggregator leadquality, they're chasing a bunch
of nonsense.

(28:42):
And so you can filter that outfor them.

Maddy (28:45):
That's sometimes the most important thing is that we are
screening that lead and onlytransferring or scheduling the
one that's really viable.
And we can have differentrules.
I mean, maybe during the day wetransfer those calls.
if we don't successfullytransfer it, then we schedule
that callback.
Maybe it's not, you know, afull consultation we're

(29:06):
scheduling.
We're just scheduling that 15minute call with your team to
make sure that driving out toyour home or booking a bigger
meeting makes sense.
Right.
And that you're not relying onus for the full screening.
Maybe there's a few otherquestions that you want to ask,
and we're not going to take thataway from you.
So it's really to whateverspecs you define for us.

Caitlyn (29:28):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I'm, 99% sure your pricing ison your website.
Yeah.
And so if anybody's listening,I mean, and you guys do have
several different options.
So, I mean, you, I mean, it's,it's not the cheapest, but it's
also, it's, it's not an, notaffordable.
Like, I mean, and for anybodywho's thinking, I can't afford

(29:48):
this.
Like I would argue you, youcan't afford not to.
You're

Maddy (29:54):
affording in a different way, right?
For it already, but thatpayment is wasted on loss.
It

Janet (30:00):
really is.
at the beginning, you put thatice cream cone, you put that ice

(30:33):
cream on the cone and then youstand in the sun and you let it
melt.
And then

Caitlyn (30:38):
we're on the other end just so frustrated.
I mean, we've had conversationswith clients who are, and we're
like, why are we running callads?
Like why?

Janet (30:47):
Yeah.
Click to call ads that weconfigure on Google.
We're configuring them and youguys don't answer the phone.
Right.
Oh, and you're certainly

Caitlyn (30:55):
not going to follow up with them.
It

Maddy (30:58):
creates a lot of tension, right?
I mean, it's so much tension tobe on either side of that
conversation because you're bothfrustrated that there's this
middle gap that exists thathasn't been solved, but it's
available.
Well, it's like a requirementif you're running an ad campaign
or spending anything onmarketing that you have the

(31:18):
handshake of, okay, the leadcame in.
Well, who's going to handle it,right?
Like that needs to be anagreement, you know, between
client and agent.
from the get-go that we'regoing to generate these leads.
Often you have capacityconversations like, how many
leads can you handle?
How many more jobs do you needbooked?

Caitlyn (31:39):
But we

Maddy (31:40):
don't talk about what the mechanism is that brings the
job in, which is that funnel,the sales funnel that
determines, well, how many jobsare you going to bring in if we
get you 100 more calls a monthor 1,000 more calls a month or
whoever knows how many calls?
Well, how many can you convert?
And how are you convertingthat?
And how do you make sure thatthat conversion rate holds true

(32:01):
every single day because itneeds to be consistent

Janet (32:05):
yeah that is fantastic i feel like you're such an amazing
resource for our listeners umso for for people who are
listening that are like thissounds great i'd like to learn
more you're going to go tosmith.ai and then walk us
through maddie what what doesthat look like they fill out a
form they schedule a demo likewhat are what's going to happen

Maddy (32:28):
so you can sign up instantly online.
If you choose the AIreceptionist path, then you'll
go through an online signup andyou can actually start playing
around with your account or youcan set up an onboarding call
where we can play around withyour account for you.
Just kidding.
We know a little bit more thanjust to play around.

(32:48):
And then if you are looking fordedicated live agents, keeping
in mind that AI receptionistdoes have human agent backup.
If you just want live agentsand that's or your comfort zone,
then you will have aconsultation call with our team.
We'll talk through your usecase, your needs, and build a
plan that's right for you.

(33:09):
But in either case, you can goahead and get that first step
started to either get set up orschedule that call.

Janet (33:17):
And the money back guarantee is for all of your
services or the AI agents or thelive agents?

Maddy (33:23):
All services for 30 days.
Yep.
And we'll have you up andrunning much, much faster like
it takes between hours for theAI receptionist, sometimes even
minutes if your solution issimple, and you can do that
yourself.
Or with the human agents, it'sa few days.
So you really get to have thefull experience of that 30-day

(33:44):
money-back guarantee.

Janet (33:45):
I feel like this is such a no-brainer.
I mean, if you are spendingmoney to generate leads and you
don't have the infrastructure inplace to answer those inbound
leads immediately, qualify themand turn them into appointments,
go to smith.ai.
Get started right now.

(34:05):
Yeah.
Get it configured.
And with this money backguarantee, it does really feel
like a no brainer.
I guarantee you, you're goingto learn something.

Maddy (34:13):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that is whatwe're here for.
And that is a lot of why we arenot the cheapest solution
because you might say, well, ifI'm setting it up myself, I'm
doing the legwork.
Like we are always here for youto support your legwork or to
take on some of that legworkourselves.
We have a solutions team.
We have the integrationsexpertise.

(34:35):
We have the availability ofcustomer support teams that some
of these other answeringservices, they just have not
made as much investment in thatservice level as we have over
the last decade.
So we really understand thatthis is an area of our expertise
and not necessarily yours.
So you can lean hard on us foryour needs in that respect.

Caitlyn (34:59):
Amazing.
Cool.
Thank you.
I know we We found you guysbecause it's a pain point for
our clients.
We wanted to share it with ourlisteners.
I'm sure it's a pain point forthem as well.
So Smith, like the last name,what is the reason behind Smith?
And then I'll let you go.

Maddy (35:18):
No, the reason is one, it's like universally
recognizable as for everyone,right?
Smith is sort of like thatmoniker that we give John Smith,
like almost a fake name, butit's universally recognized.
It could be a It's non-specificto any background, right?

(35:38):
And then it's also thecraftsmen that we believe that
we serve in serving, you know,home services, any solution, any
service in the marketplace thatrepresents a craftsman, right?
Like Blacksmith, like, etcetera.
So it's representing the craftof business that we serve.

Caitlyn (35:57):
Amazing.
Smith.ai.
Go there today.
Sign up.
Get started.
You can connect with Maddie onLinkedIn.
We'll have all the informationin our show notes as well.
But Maddie, thank you so much.
What an awesome tool.

Maddy (36:10):
Thank you for having me.

Caitlyn (36:12):
Take us

Janet (36:12):
out.
All right.
So this has been a fabulousconversation.
We're always happy to haveguests and bring resources and
ideas and tips to our listeners.
If you give us 20 or 30minutes, we're going to give you
some actionable advice.
Be sure to follow us whereveryou listen to podcasts.
Leave us a review.
And until next time, we'llcatch you on Digital Marketing
for Contractors.

(36:32):
Thanks a lot

Intro (36:35):
for listening.