AI in the Future of Home Improvement Industry

Man, this, this world is moving at a fast pace. It is something new every day. I have been given more AI stuff in the last 30 days. All of my time with AI before that.

Yes.

And, and when we first met, like I told you, I went. That's exactly what I wanted to build seven years ago. Just technology wasn't there. Like I wanted to do it. It just didn't exist yet.

Yeah, man.

Where do you think it's headed?

AI or what?

Technology, just technology and what we do in this industry. Do you think it's going to get heavy? AI, do you think it's going to get to a point to where we don't have to go to homeowners houses anymore? Do they prefer us not to go to their house? Would they rather Amazon it? That type of vibe to it? Do you think it's headed that direction?

I don't think it's headed in that direction that you said at the end. But, but here's where I. Okay, here's where I think it's headed.

Because I think a lot of people are thinking that, right? Like a lot of people are thinking.

That and they've tried.

It is going to become an Amazon type purchase. I can go online, I can get my measurements, I can pick out my colors, I can do all this stuff all on my own and just a crew shows up at my house and does my work.

Yes. Okay, perfect. So here's where I think it's headed. AI, there's, there's. Let me. Okay. AI is like really powerful. And, and for. There's two things that are happening for, for. Let's talk about the home improvement industry specifically now. So people that are selling, you know, windows and shingles and siding indoors and, and you know, interior right. In kitchens and baths and then gutters and so, so let' that how AI is going to impact this industry. So AI is probably the biggest, you know, technology disruption that has happened as a human species so far, as I said, and I think I agree with you and it's really important. There's another thing that's happening that's less obvious and it involves the home improvement industry. What's happening is that the home improvement industry is for the first time in a long time, actually maybe ever. I think in a long time. It could have happened before. For the first time in like two decades, the home improvement is going to be at the forefront of technology adoption.

Really.

Typically, typically what happens is or has happened so far the last. It's the laggards, right? It's like the late Adopters and you see like CRM technology started getting implemented like you know, 50 years after the fact, you know that the CRM started. Tell me about Salesforce. Started in a hard sale early on. Yeah, like, like 1998. Salesfor it. Right. And then we started getting CRMs adopted like in 2010, 2012, 2013. And now we're seeing like mass adoptions of CRMs. That's going to be different this time around. And the reason why is that for the longest time, and this has to do with the supply of technology, the reason why home improvement contractors have been at the later stages of technology adoption, I don't think it's because of them. I think actually this industry is like full of entrepreneurs who are very risk tolerant. Full of entrepreneurs. Right. And super entrepreneur. And it's highly sophisticated businesses that when it comes to like sales and marketing, highly sophisticated. I've seen home improvement companies that have better kind of sales and marketing operations and technology and processes than tech companies that I know. Right. Much better. Like highly sophisticated.

Sound good science.

And it's not because there was a lack of willingness to adopt, a lack of demand of technology. It was actually a lack of supply. For the last two decades, because we've had almost two decades, we've had low interest rates for a while. That has meant that you as a technology company, the only technology companies that got funded, really B2B technologies, were tech companies that sold to other tech companies. Because when interest rates are low, essentially there's no price for the future. And technology companies are very future looking where most of the cash flow is going to be generated in the future. So what happened was VCs, venture capitals would fund technology companies that would sell to other tech companies. Because if your market size is just tech companies, even though it's actually a tiny fraction of GDP, technology is less than 12% of GDP or something like that. Even if it's a tiny fraction of gdp, you assume that technology is going to take over everything. So if your customers are tech companies in the future, they're going to take over the, the entire planet or whatever. And it doesn't matter if it takes 100 years into the future, we're going to give you a billion dollar valuation, a $10 billion valuation. And these valuations got crazy. First time in a while interest rates went up and dramatically so. And so all the tech valuations went down. That's why like Silicon Valley, you know, they're massive layoffs across all kind of tech companies.

A little bit.

It's really a bad time for for tech companies right now because just literally, because interest rates are high. It's literally interest rates so high, investors no longer can justify these ridiculous valuations. And so their LPs can start getting nervous, they start pulling their money. And so then the tech companies that are not profitable, they need to lay off people because they need more funding and they can't raise more funding. It's just a really bad time for technology. It's probably as bad as the dot com bust that happened in 2001. And so what that's doing, companies like mine are getting funded to go because VCs still have the most amount of money in their bank ever. So they have a ton of what they're calling dry powder because they raised a bunch of funds during 2021, during the bubble, but they don't know where to put it because they can't fund the traditional tech companies that sell to other tech companies. So what they're doing is they're funding companies like Rilla. And Rilla's one of the first of many that are coming. And you've seen some of them where we're not going after technology companies. We're not going after the traditional people that work in Silicon Valley, in New York. We're going after, you know, home improvement contractors. We're going after those kinds of. And VCs are funding us now. Before it was really hard to get funding. Just talk to some of the veterans that have been selling tech in the industry for a while. It's hard to get funding. Right? It was hard to get funded. Now it's not because just like the private equity companies that are kind of like looking at this industry like hawks, the. The VCs realize that there's a gold mine now in people's homes because of COVID People move outside of cities into homes and spending a lot of time at home working from home appliances are breaking. They're noticing their window that's missing the room.

Any sense to anyone right now with the rates to go buy a new home, they're going to do something to the home they have.

Exactly, exactly. So you have all these market forces that. And that's why private equity is really keen on looking at this industry. And it started happening in the last, you know, three years during COVID Right. And then the same reason the VCs are looking at it. So what's happening is that literally because of all these market forces, there was always demand for technology and home improvement. Now the supply is going. It's literally like all of the money of VC is coming up. It's coming after Home Improvement and it's coming after Home Improvement with AI because that's the hot technology now. So AI is coming after Home Improvement first. Rilla is almost solely focused on home improvement. We're going after home Improvement. There's a company called Avocado. I, I keep giving them free promo because their product's so cool. They're trying to replace the call center. Their customers are in home Improvement. They're not going after tech companies, they're going after. You're after phone improvement companies. So what's going to happen to the industry is that it literally going to face the full force of AI first, which is crazy.

That is wild to hear because we're great. We've always been so far behind the curve, right? It flip and you're going, okay, they've been behind the curve. This is where our, our focus needs to go is towards that home service blue collar type industry. Because tech to tech doesn't work anymore. That to me sounds like opportunity. It sounds like opportunity.

Massive, massive, massive. Because now technology is going to. The reason why technology was not adopted in home improvement workflows, anybody who's made a transition into salesforce knows that it's painful because the CRMs that were built originally were not built for the home improvement workflows, right? And then that's why the CRMs, the newer CRMs came out literally CRM but matched to your workflows, right? You have the job nimbuses, you have the accu links, you have all the other CRMs for the roofing industry, you have service titan for the H vac industry, right? Like you have all these, you know, purpose built kind of tools for these particular workflows. Now the AI, like Rilla is an AI, it's purpose built, you know, kind of for this industry, right? And so that's going to start happening from the very earliest stages, you know, not, not, not. And, and you're gonna what for what that means for the home improvement contractor is that because these technologies are coming and they're here actually, and your competitors start using them and you're not. Wow, that's tough, man, because you better get on board.

Yeah, I hate to say it because I have a lot of pushback on. Just come on, can we just chill for a little while? Learn anything new again? I've always been that guy that's been trying to stay at least in the know on the cutting edge and then whenever I see it, actually gain some momentum getting in on it, hey, this is Sebastian, I've kept you for a long time. It's Friday before Memorial Day. I don't want to keep you any longer.

Well, this is the middle of our day, baby.

Yeah, I know. Crushing attitude you've got. It's amazing. How does somebody find you?

Go to realvoice.com, that's r I l l a voice dot com, and click the book a demo link and you will talk to one of our beautiful salespeople who have been trained using AI. Can you tell us how we did?

So we're going to put a link down in the description below. We actually have a link that helps you guys like Mike save a few bucks with Real A voice.

Yes.

And so we're going to put that in the Show Notes Copilot program.

Yep.

Top Rep Copilot. It'll help you guys out. If you do a demo, it's going to blow your mind. The first time I ever talked to these guys, I was like, okay, what does this do again?

How does that work again?

It is actually mind blowing. And the analytics that comes back from it are shocking. They were like, oh, well, I knew that guy was selling more, but now I know why he's selling more, which is insightful because you can take why he's selling more and share it with everybody else.

Yes.

Sebastian, I love you, brother. I don't want you. I love you too much of a break. But take a breather. Just maybe Monday. Maybe Monday. Like I would chill out for just a second.

Coming to work, man.

We're going to work. Go hard.

We got demos to do. If you want to book a demo on Monday, man, we're working there on my website right now. Demo's open.

I got 25 years ago. I'm on board right now. I'm like, I'm going to go hang out and have a beer on Monday. Hey, it's good to have you on again, brother. This is fun. Have a great weekend. I can't wait to see you again. We got top Rep Rush coming up in August. Real as a title sponsor. Thank you very much for that, by the way. And let's do some amazing things. Let's keep it going. Let's keep raising the bar in this world.

Let's keep it cranky, man. Thank you so much.

All right, brother, we'll talk to you later.

Bye.

Whoa. What an episode. That's just powerful stuff. This technology is coming. This ability to do a ride along with everybody that is in your sales team is an amazing piece of insight for me. I could not imagine what we would have done if I had that tool as a salesman, like, oh my God, we would have, like, we would just stopped all the competition. It wouldn't even have been a challenge because we were already pretty dang awesome. So to add that kind of ability to it, just amazing. Make sure you get into the description of the show down below. Use the link to go to Real A Voice. Set up a demo, talk with the team over at Real A Voice. They're intense because they're intense about your success. And guys, have a great Memorial Day weekend. I know you're going to watch this after that, but that's what's going on this weekend for us. If you have questions about getting more out of your company, getting control of it so you can grow it, so you can find that personal financial freedom that you were chasing, that well oiled machine that you want for your contracting business that has tools like RealVoice, but so much more, go to our website, contractorcoachpro.com, click on the Take Assessment link. Take that assessment. It's going to take you 15, 20 minutes. It's a real assessment of your business, but what it does, it gives us insight into your business and tells us where the strengths and weaknesses are. We're going to send you a link right back as soon as you hit the submit button. Pick a time on our calendar that works for you and we're going to do a free coaching call, not a sales pitch. We're going to actually coach you about those two or three things that we see so that you can level up your business. If you like coaching and you want to work with us, great. That's awesome. Awesome. If not, we at least served you well that day to become better at what you do. We're here to love, serve and care for you guys. Thanks for hanging out on this episode of Contractor Radio.