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A buyer looks at your business once, and only if you decide to sell. AI looks at it every single time a homeowner asks who to hire. That audit ran this morning, in your market, on your company and every competitor you have, and nobody sent you the results.
Mauricio Cardenal is the founder of Contractor Marketing Pros, a digital marketing agency that has generated more than 250,000 inbound leads and over $150 million in tracked revenue for home service businesses. In this solo episode he breaks down the strategy his team rebuilt this year after watching AI discovery go from a curiosity to the number three channel homeowners use to find contractors.
In this episode you'll learn:
• The share of consumers using AI to find local businesses jumped from 6% to 45% in a single year, according to BrightLocal's survey of over a thousand US adults
• Google's share of local business discovery slid from 83% to 71% in the same period, and AI now sits ahead of both Yelp and TripAdvisor as a discovery channel
• 64% of homeowners between 30 and 44 have already asked AI who to hire, which means nearly half your at-bats happen before your phone ever rings
• ChatGPT crossed a billion weekly users in August and holds about 46% of the assistant market, while Google's Gemini app reported 750 million monthly active users
• Anthropic now leads the AI industry on revenue at roughly $65 billion annualized versus OpenAI's $40 billion, with more than 80% of that coming from business clients, which tells you exactly where each tool's users are
• Why Gemini and ChatGPT return different contractor lists for the same question, and what each one actually pulls from
• The difference between getting named and getting sourced, and why the leads from one convert better than the other
• Yelp's partnership with ChatGPT has made your Yelp rating matter again after years of Google being the only review platform worth chasing
• Review freshness now beats review volume, so a busy company with recent reviews outranks the shop sitting on a thousand reviews and nothing new in months
• Why 30% to 40% of local leads still come from the map pack, and what is now appearing above it
• The exact process Mauricio's team uses, building 100 real customer prompts per market with Bild Driven Now, Semrush, and Ahrefs, then writing content against them over twelve months
• A fifteen minute test you can run tonight across three AI tools to see whether you were named, sourced, or missed entirely
This one is for the contractor who is still buying rankings and has no idea whether anyone is recommending him.
50% of yours are not happening before the phone rings.
0:04
You're not even getting recommended or getting found the best leads is getting recommended.
0:09
If it's confusing for the person, it's confusing for AI getting found and recommended are not two different jobs.
0:15
The new world is basically getting found getting recommended getting the contractors will win the next 5 years are answering questions and not chasing rankings.
0:26
This is AI and Marketing for Home Service pros.
0:31
The show for contractors who want to grow without wasting time or money.
0:35
If you're in roofing, HVAC, plumbing or any home service business, we break down how AI and modern marketing can help you book more jobs, close more leads and build a business that runs without babysitting every task.
0:54
What's up guys?
0:55
This is Mauricio Cal I'm the host of the AI marketing show for home service pros.
0:59
I'm super excited to talk to you guys about AI and how it audit your business and what it finds before reaching out to you because this is the future and it's really about understanding how this impacts your business today to really get the best results for you guys.
1:15
I'm excited to put this together for you guys and let's get started.
1:19
So I want to really start with this.
1:21
and really get a good understanding of what this means last year 6% of consumers were using AI to find local business recommendations.
1:30
Now this is jumped to 45%.
1:33
This is according to Bright local and Bright Local served over 1,000 US adults, which is a very big sample size and they found this in the beginning of the year.
1:42
This is from February of:
1:46
So this number has definitely jumped, but I want to show you the big jump that that went from last year to this year from 6% to 45%.
1:54
Another number to understand is that Google's share of local business discovery has dropped 82% and 71% and AI is not the number three discovery channel ahead of Yelp and TripAdvisor.
2:08
So when people are asking for recommendations.
2:11
Typically for a long time obviously people looked at Google reviews, they looked at Yelp, they looked at Tripadvisor and AI is becoming that number one factor and honestly it's gonna become the number one factor in the future it has become for myself.
2:25
If you ask anybody in the area ask them how many people are actually using AI to find companies to find contractors that number has really shifted and jumped and the big thing is this with Google and how that is impacting is this.
2:40
Overall, I think AI especially when you use ChatGPT when you use cloud when you use Google's AI Gemini it does provide a better user experience the person searching for the person finding answers than actual search and that's the reason why I really pic this two years ago when it first came out.
3:00
I thought that this is going to be the future because a lot of people were just starting to adapt obviously takes a while to to really start adapting the whole marketplace.
3:09
I've been using it for a long time myself, but overall people just take a longer time to adapt to what people are using today.
3:16
And this is becoming a big business strategy for a lot of people.
3:21
So it's really about understanding how to start appearing on AI search, AI recommendations, AI citations we talk about the differences between all these different things.
3:33
There are specific strategies for each that you have to do in order for you to get results for each another that I want to bring out is 64% of home homeowners between the ages of 30 and 44 are already asking AI who to hire and typically this is basically the older millennials younger, you know, GX.
3:57
Are people that are your consumers, right?
3:59
People that have a home that's anybody is the homeowner is asking for people for this, right?
4:05
So your target market, your demographics, your ICPs are asking AI who to hire.
4:11
So you have to understand how to shift and adapt to this new reality.
4:17
Almost half 50% of yours are not happening before the phone rings.
4:22
Think about that for a second.
4:24
So if almost half of buyers are already asking AI who to hire and you're not in those answers, how many opportunities are you actually losing to your business?
4:34
I want you guys to think about that how much business have you lost because you're not really appearing on these new tools and AI.
4:42
This is something that has happened right?
4:44
with the shift.
4:45
One of the things that I've seen shift overall is that a lot of people, a lot of people in the home services space are doing really really well they're getting bigger and bigger.
4:54
When I started just to give you a context when I started my business, I couldn't really find any billion dollar home service businesses.
5:01
Now in the roofing space space all these different spaces there's several there's dozens of billion dollar companies and there's gonna keep more and what that means is basically the market is consolidating because these companies have figured out all these strategies and they are at the forefront of using AI to really get in front of people, right?
5:22
So one thing you have to understand is the buyer looks once and if you're not.
5:28
A search right?
5:29
if you're not people at the answers they're not really gonna get found and this audit is really for you guys.
5:36
I put this together for you guys to understand and I want to talk about the concepts you can check this at the end to see what what you're gonna be getting and you can apply these concepts for your business to really get the best results for you guys.
5:49
A describes you when you in the room that's the thing you have to a big picture to understand when you're in the room, what is it scanning, what is it building.
5:57
What is it crawling right who to hire what to do how to find that one thing you have to like keep in mind is that AI is building entities for your company even if you think you don't have it you're building entities and if you're not having the entity in the right structure in the right format.
6:16
You're not even getting recommended or getting found and you don't even get to hear what people are saying about you because you're not even tracking this information.
6:24
So that's the thing you have to understand is also not only setting up the information, the content on your site but also setting up the citation and how to actually get found and actually what people are talking and saying about you online.
6:38
So what is it saying about you right now?
6:39
That's my next point.
6:41
Do you know what AI is saying about you?
6:43
I typed in chat GPT on cloud what it says about your company?
6:47
Do you know what your customers are finding about about your company on these different tools?
6:53
Are you actually tracking how you're getting recommended getting cited or if you even getting recommended or cited.
6:59
Have you thought about that?
7:01
Well, this is basically all the tools out there right so overall has the largest market share in terms of consumers.
7:09
Cloud has become the biggest company in the world in terms of AI.
7:13
I use cloud from all my business tools.
7:15
Anybody in the professional setting any business enterprise level typical businesses are just using more cloud so B2B cloud is a much bigger factor.
7:23
ChatGPT is still the biggest factor they just surpass one billion weekly users in August of this year.
7:30
Gemini is a second is over 115 million weekly users.
7:34
So these two are the biggest ones obviously there's also perplexity rock.
7:39
These are all players but they all work in a similar manner, but it's really important about really getting assisted and really getting found on these different tools, but it's not only about getting found it's about getting recommended getting cited and there's really two differences between that so you have to understand how that works.
7:56
So this is basically the share of the global AI marketplace so chip is about 46%.
8:02
Gina is about 27% and cloud about 10%.
8:05
This is just for users, but overall if you look at what this looks like cloud is is the biggest company because again they're owning the B2B space they are owning the enterprise level space most enterprise companies are using these tools so it depends on your demographics but for most homeowners right for most people that are.
8:25
Thinking about this I mean it's gonna be two big ones you have to worry about cloud is obviously a big important factor but if you focus on getting this right will also help with the other ones as well.
8:39
So they don't we the same things about you, right?
8:41
They work in separate manner, so they work in building entities for your business obviously with Gemini is that they have direct access to Google local data and that's a big difference so.
8:51
They are pulling information from local search from Google my business from the reviews that's a really proprietary information does not work that way.
9:02
It pulls information from Bing, but it does crawl Google information so it does give information.
9:08
So if you have a really strong Google presence it's also gonna help you with chat.
9:13
One thing you have to consider is that.
9:15
Overall with Gemini different tools in ChatGPT is that ChatGPT is they are partners with Bing so they're using that as their main primary source channel, but they're calling all these other different AI tools and then Gemini is they are pulling data a lot from Google but they are also using Yelp and TripAdvisor as well they also call the internet as well.
9:38
So it's really building about a strategy about building this together.
9:43
Sure that you are connecting in the right manner to start getting recommended on these different platforms.
9:48
Let's take a quick break if we were talking about today sounds like your business.
9:52
I wanna tell you about something for a limited time I'm opening up my calendar for free home service marketing diagnostic calls.
9:59
This is me on the call, not somebody on my team.
10:01
We look at four things where you are with AI right now what your marketing is actually doing versus what you think it's doing where your leads are coming from where they are leaking out and this.
10:11
The one and nobody checks whether you show up when somebody asks CBT or Google's AI or another AI search for a contractor in your area because that's where a lot of your customers are searching right now and most home service companies are invisible there then I tell you what's broken and what to do about it plain English leave with a diagnostic and a plan whether or not you ever work with us clients have paid over 10,000 dollars for this kind of assessment right now it's free it's on my calendar.
10:38
So slots are limited click the link in the show notes or go to contractor marketing pros.net/ Mauricio calendar.
10:46
Alright, back to it.
10:47
One thing with this is that overall even today about 30 to 40% of leads that we generate for our clients for for any local business comes from the pack but what's happening today is that a lot of times when people are searching for local businesses for local contractors, they are getting cd on the AI answer above the map pack.
11:06
So above the pack and AI reviews are actually seeing a lot of traffic from local search results.
11:13
So you have to consider what that means and get that result in place to actually get the best results for your business so.
11:20
It's not becoming more and more important obviously the map pack is still number one right in terms of actual leads for our clients if you look at the hierarchy but answers are starting to really be on top of the map pack so you have to make sure that you are peering in the in the answers to get your company side and recommended so here's the things that.
11:41
You have to consider when actually building a AI sandbox that can get your company found.
11:48
First is authority and trust, right?
11:50
How to build authority what are the trust signals that these AI tools are looking for to get the best results are you answering questions.
11:58
that people are asking about AI again this is something that we have a really detailed process about how we get results for our clients in terms of AIO and GO, but one of the most common questions that people are asking about your business about your products, about your services in your area.
12:15
You have to actually list them out and then you have to write content that answer those people's questions.
12:21
Are you being named and sourced by other other sources, right?
12:26
That's also important do your facts agree, do your facts agree across entities right?
12:31
are they saying the same name, address and phone number across all these different platforms are or is it different how do you know, right?
12:38
Well that's something that you have to if you have different information on different websites then what's gonna happen is that your.
12:45
Your AI is gonna get confused so you that's obviously something you have to fix.
12:49
What is the written record of the specific work?
12:51
Do you have reviews for the specific jobs that you are going after you have actual testimonials, video testimonials, all these different things that are the written record for the specific work that you're working.
13:03
Recent and answered reviews, what are the most recent and answered reviews that you have.
13:09
This is also extremely important as well.
13:11
Google getting recent reviews has become one of the most important factors getting ranking and also very important factor for AI so authority and trust.
13:19
Does the internet treat you like a real known business?
13:22
That's a simple question, but you wouldn't believe how many people when they try to book a call with us they are don't have really much of a presence and that's a big problem, right?
13:32
Because that's a big problem so because.
13:34
Even today right building a brand is the most important factor and getting recommended and decided with AI, right?
13:41
So there's two types of things first is local near me search.
13:45
These are all things about correlated with your reviews trust authority with your domain authority is all things that are really.
13:52
Taking into consideration with all the different AI tools and the other one is also the content you creating is the content you're creating relevant to the person with the person that is asking.
14:02
Those are two things, so obviously creating authority and trust and also answering the questions which will talk about in a second.
14:09
Is your website answering the question your market is actually asking AI?
14:12
Do you know what are the most common questions that people are asking AI in your market.
14:18
What are they asking about, for example, HAC replacement.
14:22
What are they asking about metal roofing in Florida?
14:25
What are they asking about how to replace a water heater in Phoenix?
14:29
What are the questions that you're asking, do you know?
14:32
It's not about, you know, roofing company in Florida, roofing company near me or AC company near me, Phoenix company AC repair.
14:43
Your website and is built around those keywords, right?
14:46
You write in a manner you write content in a manner that gets ranked based on those keywords and keywords are obviously still important because Google search is still important, but the other factor is this.
14:57
Is your is when people are asking about AC replacement in Phoenix, what are the questions they're asking about?
15:03
One of the big one I say is that people are doing this is this pricing is a big factor that's one of the most common questions that people ask.
15:10
Do you have content on pricing?
15:13
Right?
15:13
What is that content?
15:14
What are the most common questions.
15:15
So this is something that there's different tools that we use.
15:18
One of them is driven now is a tool that we use.
15:21
Obviously you can also use SM rush and they both have tools that allow you to look at what are the most common prompts that people are asking in your area.
15:33
And you can build that out using these tools, but for us what we do typically is we build 100 prompts that we we look at for our clients in a specific area then over you know over 12 month period we write that that answer those people's questions and that's how you get recommended right name or sourced there's a difference brand recognition is name.
15:56
This is different different process than actual source like I said before right?
16:01
there's two kind of ways to look at it, right?
16:03
If you have a really strong brand you're gonna be named, right?
16:06
AI knows you exist, so you're gonna be named and you're gonna be recommended right that's kind of the the people what people want typically the best leads is getting recommended right getting recommended for a specific you know service that you provide that's based on your brand.
16:23
The other one is sourced when you actually write content answers people's questions you actually get sourced and the answer and that's what also builds authority as well.
16:34
You can get leads from that but there's differences, right?
16:37
You actually rather be named you rather be sourced you rather be recognized recommended those are the things that you should look for and typically the leads from those sources are much higher higher quality than actually the ones that come from sourced.
16:51
Do your facts agree with each other.
16:53
What are the facts about your business?
16:56
What year was opened, right?
16:57
What is your license, your registration?
17:00
What is your service area?
17:02
What services you guys provide?
17:04
What are the things that is your name, address and phone number correct.
17:08
These are all important factors again like if you are, you know, have a website and you are in Seattle and then but you you have content on your side that talks about my that makes no sense, right?
17:20
So that's the thing that you have to consider.
17:22
Is the facts, do they agree with each other, are they talking, do they make sense?
17:28
A common thing to think about is it confusing for the person.
17:31
If it's confusing for the person it's confusing for AI.
17:35
So that's how you can think about this is that you are writing for and in a way that makes it super easy for them to understand the AI to understand what your business is about who serves what the ICP is and if it's answering your client's questions.
17:53
Is there any written or record of you doing this specific work for example, if you are a if somebody is looking for metal roofing in Orlando and they need a question answered, do you, do you have any written record of you doing that specific work does say metal roofing Orlando are you actually have proof and testimonials and videos of actual roof installations in Orlando, right?
18:17
Those are things that you have to look at.
18:22
Another examples right standing metal, right?
18:24
Have you done proof of actually building and installing standing metals.
18:30
This is typically the most expensive roof.
18:32
Are you talking about the different pricing involved with standing metal why it cost more why it last longer.
18:39
Why why is roofing preferred over shingles?
18:42
What are you answering those questions metal roofing in high wind zone.
18:45
Why do people what should get metal roofs in a high wind zone in a storm zone right?
18:51
What is the cost over 30 years is metal roofing actually cheaper in the long run that make sense when you say things like that.
18:59
Again, those are all things that you can do, but we think about this just an example for metal roofing, but if you are, you know, other other verticals, is there a page describing the work with detail?
19:11
What should they know about it?
19:12
What is the pricing?
19:14
Involved in that, right?
19:15
For example, if you wanna replace a water heater in in Tampa, Florida, what is involved, what is the cost?
19:21
What are the different manufacturers things that you talk about in the content, right?
19:26
Is there written work.
19:28
of records of people of you installing these things online, right?
19:34
That's how reviews are work and that's really the power reviews today if you actually describe the service in the area then that is going to be picked up by AI and that's how you get recommended cited by the specific services.
19:48
Are you reviews recent and unanswered.
19:51
Not just rumors, so one of the things that really come across this changed since last year is that a lot of recent reviews especially getting a lot of reviews the last.
20:02
You know on a basis is gonna be more effective than a company that has a thousand reviews that has a review in months.
20:09
A busy like somebody who has reviews recent reviews is one of the biggest factors I've seen and really getting excited recommended on that and the way it works basically is the sentiment for reviews right really way a big factor and the freshness has become a really dominant factor in getting recommended getting sd with this.
20:27
So what is your strategy for getting reviews on Google.
20:30
What is your strategy for getting reviews on Yelp?
20:33
Yelp has partnered with ChatGPT has become a big source of recommendations and AI so is ChatGPT pulling information from Yelp?
20:43
Yes it is.
20:44
It's pulling information from Yelp.
20:45
If you have a high Yelp rating, you are more likely get recommended on ChatGPT.
20:50
Those all important factors.
20:52
But one of the things that has changed just to talk about Yelp is that for a long time Google has been king in terms of reviews is become the number one.
21:02
Importance in terms of if you were to focus on reviews that have a local business I'm just focus on getting reviews on Google, but Yelp has become very important years ago Google tried to buy Yelp and they were not successful in doing that and now with the chat GPT partnership is become a huge factor and actually getting recommended and excited with these tools, right?
21:25
So what what is core be honest are you here's your checklist does the internet treat you like a known.
21:30
Business.
21:30
If you ask chat GPT about your business, what does it say?
21:34
Is your site answering the questions that people are asking what are the most common questions your customers your ICP customers are asking are you building content around that?
21:41
are you getting sourced but not named right your answers are coming up on AI overviews, but they are not getting recommended.
21:50
Why is that reason?
21:52
Do your facts agree with everything online are they consistent throughout another factor as well.
21:59
Do you have any written record of your specific work?
22:02
If you're selling water heaters in Phoenix, do you have a record and proof of you installing water heaters in Phoenix.
22:09
Are your reviews recent and answered.
22:12
Are you answering every review?
22:14
Are you looking at how many what's your strategy for getting reviews on a consistent basis?
22:19
That's SOP have to create in your business.
22:22
Is something that cannot be dedicated has to be part of your your process that's the thing the thing that you have to consider is that lead generation is really not a factor.
22:32
People are always demanding more leads, but really the phone is still ringing that's a problem that's a lot of people haven't really seen the shift yet because.
22:40
If you look at industry standards, Google is still the big majority of driving business, especially for emergency type of businesses obviously Facebook is set to become the largest media company in the world in terms of surpass Google, but for the majority of home service businesses.
22:58
Google still king, but what's happening is that it's getting less and less right and what I mean by that is overall people are just spending more money on these platforms on Google but they haven't really shifted the budget to AI which is a big thing that I recommend start doing because that's where where things are headed for a hundred% getting found and recommended are not two different jobs again old world is one scoreboard rent the pack, make sure the phone rings get on LSA.
23:27
Get a Google ads that's something that even today still works but obviously has really shifted to the new world is basically getting found getting recommended getting it's different signals, different work and different results.
23:40
It is different and you have to make sure you have to do this and we kind of shifted our strategy since last year.
23:46
When this really started really picking up and we really kind of perfected our strategy this year and I I can't wait to share some of the things that we're doing for our clients.
23:56
One job you can rank for the other you have to answer for.
23:59
So what is the findability mechanical, you could build you could buy your way toward it recommendability that's a word, right?
24:07
Recommendability.
24:08
Are you being recommended?
24:10
Are you being known?
24:12
Are you answering people's questions right neither is for sale.
24:16
But sometimes a lot of times you can actually build a big these these big players because you're answering the person's questions you did the research this is something that you know like you can bypass because the things that take time is building authority and trust with Google that's gonna take time it's gonna be like a long time before we do that, but there's other things you can do to actually start ramping up and start getting the results you need the contractors who went for the next five years are answering questions and not chasing rankings right rankings.
24:46
Did not stop mattering they became half the job and that's the thing most people are just chasing rankings, chasing keyword rankings, but it's really about recommended getting recommended getting excited on AI today.
24:57
This week ask three the same question ask a record and review right down which business came back and in what order whether you were named source or neither where each answer came from, right?
25:09
Google Chat PT tells you where the source comes from.
25:12
This is your report card.
25:14
What are people asking about your business, what are they recording about your business and then you have to review it and make sure that this is something that you are taking into consideration.
25:23
So bring me what those tools upset about you, right?
25:26
Bring me what cloud says about you, but Rock, about, about Gemini and let me know what the results are and book a call and contracting.net/calendar with myself or someone on my team and we'll really talk about the results and we have to get the best results for you guys for your business.
25:45
Thank you very much.
25:46
Have a good day.
25:47
Thanks for listening to AI and marketing for home service pros.
25:52
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25:55
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26:03
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