How AI Can Help or Hurt Your Lead Generation

In this episode of 3 Questions with BLC, we dive into the game-changing role of AI in the construction industry, specifically focusing on how it can impact your digital lead generation. AI tools are becoming increasingly important, but without the right approach, they can either enhance or hinder your ability to capture leads. By leveraging AI effectively, builders and remodelers can streamline their lead capture process and optimize their digital presence.

To make the most of AI, it’s essential to understand how it can be used on your website, in your lead management, and to re-engage cold prospects. As AI technology evolves, now is the perfect time to explore how it can help you stay ahead of the competition and grow your business.

If you’re ready to unlock the potential of AI to boost your lead generation, 3 Questions with BLC offers practical insights into integrating AI into your processes to increase conversions and improve your sales funnel.

Watch/Listen/Read to discover how to maximize AI’s benefits and avoid common pitfalls for sustainable business growth.

Builder Lead Converter ATTRACTS, CAPTURES & CONVERTS high-quality leads for home builders & remodelers so they can pick & choose their clients & jobs. Find out how at https://www.builderleadconverter.com

Transcripts:

Rick: Today on Conversations That Convert, we’re going to be talking about AI. Does it help or hurt builders capture more digital leads? Let’s get going.

Narrator: Welcome to Conversations That Convert. Every week we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation. Marketing and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies, and home builders. Conversations That Convert is brought to you by Builder Lead Converter, your perfect sales assistant.

And now, here’s Rick and Daiana.

Rick: Hey,

Narrator: everyone. Welcome. The Conversations That Convert. Hello, Daiana.

Daiana: Hello. Welcome. Everybody’s good to see you.

Rick: Good to see you as well. And we have a fun topic today. Daiana. What are we discussing

Daiana: today? That’s a new trend. A I for builders. Does it help or hurt to capture more digital leads?

And I’m also curious to find out how you can apply a I to this industry.

Rick: I just got back from a program with the association of professional builders, which they talked about utilizing AI for builders throughout their company. So we’re just focused on the front end and what we’re doing here with our builder partners, but it is amazing to look at all the different opportunities you can use AI for project management, for accounting for creating SOPs, the list goes on and on and on.

So it’s definitely where every. Builder is going and it was kind of interesting. They made a they made a comment that that AI will not replace builders or will not put a builder out of business. But a builder using AI will put builders not using AI out of business. And so I do agree with that.

It’s a little bit of a, you know, kind of shiny new toy right now. Obviously there’s a lot of Trepidation is like, well, should I be using it? Should I not be using it? We are using it. We just finished a beta test with our client, which I’m going to show you some some results from that. We’re rolling out to everybody.

So we’re going hot and heavy into AI. I do think it’s the future. And it really can lighten up the workload for a builder as it relates to bringing in new opportunities and also capture a lot of opportunities that you wouldn’t normally not have captured. So we’ll talk about those things. So this is all part of our series, our three questions with Builder Lead Converter.

We’re going to be spending quite a bit of time on AI here going forward. This is just series, this is just part number one. Starting really on the outside, looking in. So we’ll start on really the websites, your digital presence online, but then also looking at how you can use it to manage your database and take those captured leads and convert them into profitable contracts.

So what do you say, Daiana, should we get started?

Daiana: If you’re ready, I will ask you the first question.

Rick: Here we go.

Daiana: All right. So how do most builders use AI right now on their website? And do they use it?

Rick: Yeah. So the the simple question is, goes back to chat GPT. That was kind of the first foray into AI where chat GPT came out.

And of course you can go online and you can get a free version of chat GPT. You can put an app on your phone and you can use it for search. You can use it for content creation. And that’s really. where it starts is most builders may have used chat, chat dbt for content creation, specifically written content creation, which is great.

It certainly helps avoid writer’s block. And it can also you can help write specific to the type of communication. So as an example, if I want to write a blog post, I can use chat GPT to help me with that. If I want to write, say, for website content, maybe an email, maybe a Facebook post or Instagram post, so I can change the different formats of what is created with the chat GPT just by telling the, the AI, hey, here’s what this is for.

So that’s, that’s the real benefit to it. However, what we have found is that it’s still, it still is written by a I. So some of it might be quite good. Some of it not so good. And also you should know if you’re going to use this for website content creation, like for blogs or just web pages is that Google now has a I to detect a I.

So what’s interesting is, is that Google does not want you to have a website that is purely all the contents written by a I. They still want to have that human touch. So what’s important to know is that if you are writing for blogs, or you are writing for your website, is you still have to go back through and you have to put that human touch on the content that is created.

So, so that is really important. Hopefully you’re not making that mistake, and if you are make sure that you go through and change some things up and to make sure it’s written correctly. Which, what I find, Daiana, is that sort of a must even, you know, using like chat GPT 4. 0, which is a paid version of it which I would recommend going to paid if you’re going to use it is that you’re going to get some stuff that’s written really good, but you might have to go through two or three iterations, even with the AI.

And then once you got got it there, then you still go back in and you make some updates as a human. Any thoughts on that?

Daiana: That sounds amazing that Google can can detect when it’s AI and when it’s a human. And that’s that’s impressive where we are right now.

Rick: Yeah. And with all the deep fakes and things out there, you know, with AI being so new in these days.

Now these videos coming out or even voices, you know, if you have a recorded message, you can put that into a voice generator and you can

Daiana: crazy

Rick: for language. And you can even have a video of yourself. Not, you know, speaking like say in English and then you can take and say, Hey, I want this video to come out of me speaking in Portuguese and it will actually look like you’re speaking Portuguese.

So there’s a lot of defects out there. So, yeah, well, there’s a I out there now to detect a I and, you know, what builders care about obviously is being found online by their prospective clients. And so just be aware that Google is using AI to detect content written by AI. And if they find that, you know, they’re gonna, you’re gonna, you’re gonna.

Fall fall in the search rankings for sure.

Daiana: Yeah, I attended a conference and the intro, the introductive video was from the CEO who was speaking in, in our language and he’s not speaking our language and it was shocking. Oh, when, because we didn’t realize it’s AI and say, Whoa, he learned Romanian, so how, how cool.

And after that, at the end of the sessions. But this say him saying, but this is me speaking my own language with AI.

Rick: Exactly. Yeah. It’s available and you can go online and you can, you can find a video with a editor with chat GPT and say something in English and then pick the other language and, and it’ll come out in another language.

It’s, it’s freaky how good it is.

Daiana: That’s crazy. That’s crazy.

Rick: It’s it is crazy. So what do you think? Next question.

Daiana: What are the most common pitfalls in this?

Rick: Yeah, I would say that the most common pitfalls are going to be an over reliance on AI. And like I mentioned before, is if you use your AI to create something, it’s not just a one and done.

You know, there’s a thing out there called writer’s block. Of course, if you’re trying to write content consistently, You can get to the point like, ugh, I just can’t get started. So I really think the best use of AI is to create something that you can edit so you have something with some context, and you can, you, you can tell ai, Hey, I wanna write it in this voice.

I wanna write it to, I mean, like we, we you know, work in Canada and we work in the US so like our, our AI editor we can change the English from say, United States. So it’s going to write a more of that Canadian voice. Obviously, spelling is different in certain aspects as well. Or I could go to the UK and speak English that way.

Or I could go to Australia, you know, and program it that way. So that’s really, really nice. You can also change the tone of voice, you know, put in your audience, who it’s written to. So there’s so many cool things you can that you can do with it. So there’s sometimes an an over reliance thinking like, Hey, whatever it spits out is going to be perfect.

So you have to use it properly and know its limitations. Okay. So I think that’s pitfall number one. Number two is when you set up, the AI is setting up incorrectly. You have to guide the AI and what information to use. And one of the things we found is, is that you do not want to give it. carte blanche for the Internet, because that’s what chat TPT does, is that you ask a question, it’s going to search the web, and it’s going to find an answer what it thinks is great on the web, and it will give you that answer.

Well, as we know, there’s many, many things on the web that are incorrect, or at least maybe not applicable to your company. So case in point this beta test we were doing, we were setting up the AI as a live chat and we get people asking, well, what’s your price per square foot? It’s a common question that a lead would ask.

So we had not set up the parameters properly or taught the bots on how to answer that. And so what the bot was doing is saying, well, I don’t know, I’ll go look online. And then the number it came back with was not anywhere close to what the bot The builder would actually charge, you know, for to build a homework for a price per square foot.

So now we had the bot getting all bad information. So I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that you’re gonna have to watch out for. So you really have to clamp down on the resources that the A. I has in order to answer questions. And of course, the best resource is gonna be your website and then also how you program it with the information.

How do you want that bought to answer the question? And the answer that question may not be no answer whatsoever. You know, that’s really probably the best answer is not to get into the pricing question, but instead changing from price per square foot say to total budget because a lot of builders say, well, our project start at this much of it’s a it’s a total budget, not a price per square foot because there’s way too many variants to go into determining a price per square foot.

The third one I say is as far as common pitfalls would be underutilization. And what I mean by this is, is that A. I. Is really best used to set a point. that’s probably the best use of it. But you have to capture the lead first. So yeah, you can capture leads using using AI in like a live chat scenario.

But really it’s after the lead is captured, it’s using the set appointments and you can do that in a conversational way. So just like when I was training salespeople, you have to train them, you know, To use the Socratic method. So you ask certain questions which leads you to needs and then you can identify those needs and use those needs to get the lead to take the next step, which, of course, is to get on the phone and talk to you.

And then I would say the One of the things that I miss actually in question number one is how do most people use AI on their websites is through an online concierge. So that is a job that probably really came, probably became very, very popular back in, say, 2005 to 2010. And this is when most of the country got high speed internet.

So you could actually sit on a website and you could start engaging people. Somebody on the website. So what a builder would do is they would hire someone to be their online concierge and that person would take all incoming calls and live chats and you know web forms that were filled out and then they would get back to the lead right away.

Well, now the really cool thing about AI is that every builder, regardless of their size, you can have your own online concierge. Which is it’s like it’s like adding another person to your team, and you could do it for, you know, pennies a day. So that’s that’s really what’s well, I think the most amazing part.

But I thought what we could do, Daiana is maybe look at some examples of what that look like. What do you think

Daiana: that would be great? It’s very, very practical to see.

Rick: So let me share my screen. We’ll open this up. I’m gonna make this a little bit larger. So this right you see right down here is a traditional memo.

chat widget. And for those of you listening, we’re looking at, you know, bottom right hand corner of a website. If I open this up, it’s gonna say, Hey, if you have a question, we’ll get right back to you. And someone can put their name, mobile phone number, email and message in here. And then they hit send. And then the idea here is you take a live chat and you convert it to a text or email follow up or even a phone call follow up.

So this works and it’s fine. And, you know we’re, this is what we’ve been using for years and it’s a great way to Let somebody ask a quick question and get back to them. So what we have replaced this with now is this. Hi there, have a question. We can answer it right now. So what we, we move to is instead of sending us a message and we’ll get back to you.

Which a lot of leads think like sure you’ll get back to me the lead while they’re on the website can essentially speak to your online concierge Which of course is your is your AI and so the difference is now when I open this up I don’t have to fill out a form. I don’t have to provide my contact information I can just go right down here and ask a question.

So what we do is we personalize the bot we say Hey, i’m sam. How can I help you? Okay, and then there’s a a time there and we just start typing And so what happens is, is you’re going to engage a lot more people because we, you’ve reduced the barrier to entry. So think of this as a, like a, an open house.

And you’ve built a model home where you have a showroom if you’re a remodeler, and you have walk in traffic. So people walk into your home and they ask you a question. Now I haven’t gotten their name, I haven’t, I don’t know, their phone number or their email address, but I’m able to engage them. So now this is what it allows you to do is you can engage people and get into conversations.

Okay, so that’s the primary difference. Now let’s look at what some of those conversations are. And this is just random conversations. I will make my screen larger here. And so this is a conversation from yesterday So what we see is sal and then we see ai chat lead. So this means we got the person’s first name

So if we go back to the top of the chat we see okay Here’s how the conversation began. Hi, my name is sal. Okay, great. Hello sal How can I assist you today with triple crown homes? Hope you’re doing well. I am doing well. Thanks for asking. How about you? I’m in the solar industry looking for a partnership Okay.

So again, this is all the bot that sounds interesting Sal, could you provide your phone number so our team can get in touch to discuss this partnership opportunity further? Sure Here’s my phone number. Thank you for providing your contact information I’ll pass along to our team and someone reach out to you Is there anything else I can assist you with regarding our communities or homes?

Thank you. You’re welcome. If you need anything in the future, feel free to contact me too. Thank you, Sal. Take care. Chat ended. Okay. So, a vendor. Whoopie doo, right? Okay. But, what I wanted to show you that for is because you can train the chat to talk to vendors. You know, and we could also program a spot to say, you know what, we’re not interested in solar.

So like if we, if we came back our, our client could say, Rick, we want to program that we already have a solar partner. So if another solar partner comes along, we tell them this, or they, we could just say we have a, Blanket rule. If somebody is a vendor, this is the response we’re going to give them. So you can really personalize that.

Now if you look at this one, it says guest visitor, and then there’s just a name here. So this means this is somebody that just walked into our show room and asked the question. Okay, looking for a house for sale in Reddick, Florida, behind Reddick Elementary School. Okay, so we know now the bot knows the locations that this builder builds it.

Hey, we don’t have Listing specifically in reddick or behind the elementary school. I can help you find homes nearby communities Could you please share your phone number chat ended? Okay. All right. So we just call the essentially we just qualified a lead Why would we want to talk to that lead if it’s outside of our service area?

Now you see here we can go down here. Do we have this tr richardson? Okay, so in this case You The bot was able to actually get a for all the contact information. So I want to build a custom home, open floor plan, two bedroom, two car garage. Can it be done? We can definitely explore your custom options for you to provide you the best assistance.

Could I have your phone number? That way our home advisor can discuss all the details directly with you. Is it a mobile number? Yes. Okay, so now we know we can text that number. Thank you for sharing your contact information. May I have your name to personalize the conversation? Sir, our home advisor addresses you correctly.

1. R. Thank you. Could you provide your full name? T. R. Richardson. Thank you, T. R. Richardson. Which of our communities are you considering for your new home? N. C. Now you see here, chat closed, so he logged off. He left the website. But now what I have is that I can notify the salesperson that, hey, This person wants to build a custom home, two bedroom, two guard garage.

We have a phone number. We know it’s a mobile number so they can call and text and we have a name. So now what we’ve done is we’ve engaged and we’ve got contact information. So that’s an example of say. And we can move that down to, you know, we can look at other options and you can see, I’m not sure with Eunice, we got her name and contact information.

Here we found out a name. We found out what community that they want to be in. And the type of floor plan that they’re looking for. Okay. So again, what you’ll see here is a chat closer user inactivity. What’s really cool about this is that if the lead, if and when the lead comes back, is that we have tagged her her IP address with her name.

And so the AI can pick up the conversation where it left off. No matter how old it is. So no human can do that. You know, we’re not going to remember every conversation like, oh yeah, Eunice West, you were interested in what plan again? Well, the A. I. Knows it right away and can have a much, much better conversation and quickly move that person into an appointment.

So that is just a little bit of an example, you know, of what we are seeing as far as the chat and what we have found is that you typically are going to get a higher quality lead coming from the chat because again, you have more information that’s a filling out a form or just downloading a typical lead magnet and also the chat has from a conversational standpoint, the chat is able to convert a higher percentage of those leads.

And what we found was that almost 60%. So if you compared like just a typical chat to text widget versus the AI, we found in our beta test. Year over year comparison, same time period, is that about 60 percent of the leads that were captured by the chat were booked to an appointment. 60 percent more, I should say.

And what’s really interesting, Daiana, is that when we looked at, okay, what was the show rate for those appointments? It was 75 percent more. So in other words, 75 percent of those leads that said they wanted, they booked an appointment actually showed up to the call within the bill. They could talk to the lead, go through the qualification process.

And if it was a good lead, they’ll move them forward into their sales process. So obviously, the more information you can extract from the lead prior to the call. The higher the show rate and that’s what AI allows you to do. What do you think, Diane, any questions on that?

Daiana: Yeah, I think if, if we are aware and know how to use AI, that can be very beneficial for, for the website and for us to initiate and, and just the, the, the first steps will be, will be done by AI, and then you have probably a qualified lead and you see, you, You just move with the rest of the sales process.

Rick: That’s right. And that’s what we that’s what we’re moving to next is that you have the front end. So the digital world, your website, you have the AI working on your website. There’s different ways besides just a chat widget. We’re actually looking at incorporating AI right into some of our lead magnets or lead capture tools so that as the lead goes through the process, you’re Of like say scoping out their project, we can incorporate AI into that and actually answer questions as they go, encourage, you know, give them prompts to encourage moving forward in the in the lead capture process.

So there’s a, the sky’s the limit is what it comes down to. So what do you say, Daiana? Should we go to the third question?

Daiana: Yes, if you’re ready. And that’s the tricky question. Should builders add it?

Rick: That is the million dollar question. If you’re a builder right now, should you add it? Okay. Well, like anything else, it depends.

If you want to try to do this yourself, a DIY, If you do not know what you’re doing, A. I. Can really misrepresent you and cause problems. So I would say from a D. I. Y. standpoint. No, I would not do that. Now. I think the technology will continue to get better and better. It’ll be easier to use. I’m sure in the future there will be some sort of a D.

1. Y. version. But the challenge is, is that in order to really get it to work correctly, you have to have a back end that’s tied to it. So as an example, you’re going to schedule appointments, you’ve got to have a calendar system tied to it. You’ve got to have parameters around those calendars. You’ve got to have, how is that lead being assigned?

If you have more than one salesperson, I mean, there’s lots and lots of questions. What happens after the lead comes in and books an appointment? You know, there’s, there’s just kind of an endless possibilities there. So I would say DIY, no. But if you are working with a professional I would say yes Now obviously It’s also based on how many visitors are you getting to your website?

If you’ve only got you know 100 or 150 visitors your website, per month You’re going to have limited engagement because there’s just not that many people on your website however, if you have you know high quality visitors and by that I mean people that actually live in your local market That are visiting your website It only takes one.

And like I said, we’re not, you’re not paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for this. This is really a few bucks a day. You can use this for, and some of it is based on how often the chat is being used. So I would, yeah, by default saying if you, if you, if you have a professional. That knows how to program it, that they understand the industry and more importantly, they understand the sales process, definitely use it.

It, you only have to get one a month, you know, to really see the fruit of it. And that captures an appointment and, or books and appointment for you captures a lead, excuse me, or books and appointment it’s worth it all day long. But where I really see the value, Daiana, is going to be after the appointment is, excuse me, the lead is captured.

So more into the booking process, the qualifying process, and also the re engagement process for those leads that are cold. And, and this is not only going to be, you know, we’re starting with written. This is going to move into phone. We’re already, not right now. So you can pick up a lead, can pick up a phone and call you as a builder and the I can answer the call for you can actually have a conversation just like I showed you with the written conversation.

Now, at the same time, we can also do like what you’re at. That conference is that you can record a follow up call. And the A. I can take that and can actually insert the person’s name and you can call the your leads back and having the A. I do that and have a and have a conversation with them. What will happen in that case?

So more often than not, is that? We would actually create a phone bot. In other words, just like Sam was the AI bot as the online concierge, you would have Sam, your phone bot assistant, and that she would call back and she would do the the talking for you, of course, with the goal being to To get that lead to, you know, find out what’s the status is and try to get them booked into appointment if they still want to build or remodel their home.

So that’s where we’re going. And it’s again, we’ll get there eventually, but baby steps right now, the live chat really is, is the is the way to go up a son professionally. Any final questions you had Daiana?

Daiana: Well, I think that somehow if we want or not, this is the future. So I think it’s good to, to learn how to use it in.

In our favorite and don’t ignore it. And it’s it’s coming if we want or not. But I think it’s a it’s a it’s a tool. And if you learn to use it as a tool, then you’ll have more benefits than when you ignore it.

Rick: That’s exactly right. Very good point. It is nothing but more a tool in the toolbox, just like sending a text message or an email or leaving a voicemail or Instagram messaging.

It’s a tool. So another tool in the toolbox. But what’s a really, really neat part about this is I think it’s the machine learning that goes back to it is that the bot will get smarter and smarter and smarter so you can continue to train it in a room. Remember, it’s not like I’ve coached a lot of salespeople, and of course, it’s talked about what is the mother of all learning is repetition.

I have to continue to remind that salesperson. Then eventually they get it. The really cool thing is with AI is I can tell it once and it has it like forever. And then naturally it will then learn how to better say that pitch. So as an example, how to better a deal with that question of what’s your price per square foot, or where do you build, or do you build this type of project.

It’ll better do that. It’ll learn how to better capture contact information for the, for the leads. So that’s what’s really cool about it is, is just a consistency that you typically don’t get in a human. And it’s, it’s, it’s available 24 seven, seven days a week. So if somebody wants to be on your website at, you know, one o’clock in the morning, cause they can’t sleep because they’re dreaming about their new home, they can be talking to your online concierge.

And book an appointment with you and you’ll wake up and go, Hey, I got a new appointment. And here’s all the information on this lead and you didn’t do anything. Your bot did it all for you. So that’s a really exciting part.

Daiana: Yes. That’s a huge benefit.

Rick: So if you would like to schedule a strategy call and find out how we can help you attract, capture, and convert high quality leads, So you can pick and choose your clients and jobs go ahead and click on that link right below Be happy to talk to you about this and show you how we’re continuing to implement ai for lead capture and and conversion So from our brothers and sisters in christ may the grace of the lord Jesus christ the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with you all always We’ll see you next time on conversations that convert.

Bye everyone