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Ryan Finn
Well, you guys get to be the first podcast to hear the launch. So we've been spending the last year rebuilding a whole new platform to be AI focused because some people are still like, hey, I'm not ready for full AI. What we're doing is we're shifting into a outcome based business. So basically you're coming to us and you're saying, I want these strategies. We were calling it the Playbook. You have certain strategies from all the way through the customer journey. So you have lead conversion, estimate, rehash customer loyalty. And then what we have now is instead of going in and building campaigns, you have specific agents that are designed for each of these tasks. You're basically hiring individual employees to do a single thing.
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Joshua Crouch
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Ter Blissett
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Ter Blissett
Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery podcast. I am one of your hosts, Ter Blissett, sitting virtually next to my co host, Joshua Crouch. And on today's episode, we have our good buddy, Ryan Finn. And first off, welcome back to the show. It's been a while. It's probably been a couple years ago since you've been on the podcast.
Ryan Finn
Years at least. Yeah, yeah. Crazy. Super honored to be back. Thank you. Tersh and Josh. Appreciate you guys.
Ter Blissett
Yeah, dude, absolutely. Absolutely. So really quick, let's get the, let's get the party started. A lot of things have changed since the last time we talked with Chirp, but since we. Since we last connected. What's changed since then?
Ryan Finn
AI. Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
So in that regard, what hasn't changed? Ever heard easier to Go through.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, like, the onslaught of AI has taken full, you know, full root. And, and, and we're in this whole new world since the last time we talked, and it's changing dramatically daily. And it's pretty cool to see. It's also keeps all of our swords super sharp. We're constantly just going and fighting, and we're all in. We're all in war right now, for sure.
Ter Blissett
As soon as you're like, all right, I think I got this thing figured out.
Ryan Finn
Nope.
Ter Blissett
Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
Yep.
Ryan Finn
100. And it's. It's fun. It's fun. At the same time, it's like, okay, gosh, because I'll, you know, you go to the development team and you go, okay, guys, let's build this. And then they build it. And then it's like, well, do you.
Ter Blissett
Ever think, hey, maybe we should hold off on this because it's just going to change or you're just gonna. We just.
Ryan Finn
There are. There are definitely decisions we make daily that are like, okay, that one. We're just gonn to say, let's. We're too far behind on that one. And let's. Let's focus over here. It's a constant. Like, if we made decisions in. In software six, five or six years ago, it was like, you know, monthly that we'd be like. Or maybe every couple months be like, okay, now let's do this. It's gotten down to almost daily. We're like, hey, we're changing things again. Like, and. And so it's just making us move a lot faster. It's keeping us on our toes. It's fun, but it's. It's definitely like a whole. A brave new world.
Ter Blissett
It's exhausting. At some point, like, it. It's like, oh, yeah. Damn it, man. I just. I just made adjustments for that. I will tell you one cool thing that's recently came out. Definitely won't excite Josh as much as it excites me, but that's Claude. Being inside of Excel, I think they.
Joshua Crouch
Actually, if I read the notice right, they cooperated with OpenAI on that too. So my guess is OpenAI will have some functionality with some of those, like, with Slack and like, some of these other tools and stuff. That was. That was fascinating. I did see that. It was only a couple days ago when I logged in, I saw that.
Ryan Finn
Clock Bot is the next one that I was talking about.
Ter Blissett
Yeah, it's actually like coworker space. Like, it's. You can release it on a folder and say, Analyze all these receipts and put them into a. You know, do a job cost for me or a. A.
Ryan Finn
What do you call it?
Ter Blissett
The trip. Whatever. You know, whenever you go on a trip and you have to, like, turn in all your receipts and everything.
Ryan Finn
Yeah.
Ter Blissett
Release that on, like, you've already uploaded all the receipts into a Google Drive and then release it to that folder and then it'll do it all for you. It's like, golly, all these things that we used to do that would kind of like, monotonous work.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah.
Ter Blissett
And we talk about that, like extracting and parsing and all this other fancy stuff we used to use on Zapier and stuff like that. Like, oh, I'm smart.
Joshua Crouch
Church hired PAs to do for years that. You know, just one of those things that we can do it faster, easier, simpler, and get a better output. The one thing I've noticed though, like, so you can always tell when people are using this stuff because I. I've had a. I had a client yesterday. They sent me. They clearly were, like, asking some marketing questions. And it's like this really broad thing. And of course, a lot of the things we didn't even. We didn't even cover, like, we didn't even do that service for them, but they're sending it to us anyways. And I'm like, did you read this before you sent it over? Because half of this is irrelevant to everything that we do. And the other half, I'm like, we already have process systems for, like, we're already taking care of that stuff. So I'll take some of this up. And then I was talking to a marketing friend of mine who clearly got a ChatGPT email from a client. And because he was kind of annoyed that he got a ChatGPT email, he put it into ChatGPT to send an email back. And then he got another email back from ChatGPT.
Ryan Finn
And I'm like, I literally.
Joshua Crouch
I was talking about it yesterday on the phone. I'm like, at what point did we just not talk to humans at all anymore?
Ryan Finn
Yeah. And we just, like, deal with it. Deal with YouTube.
Joshua Crouch
I don't know if you guys saw this. And it was probably obscure because there's a lot of other, like, Newsline had coverage, but I read about this Doomsday clock. Did you guys ever hear about this?
Ryan Finn
Yeah, they moved it forward. Yeah, they moved it down.
Joshua Crouch
And I was like, first of all, I think I've heard of it. But I was like, I, like, read the whole thing.
Ryan Finn
It's like a credit rating, right? It's like a credit. It's like a credit score for the world. And it's saying, yeah, if it. You know, if we move it forward, if it gets to midnight, it basically means that the world's over. Right.
Joshua Crouch
It's like, well, yes, because of all the. The stuff between China, Russia.
Ryan Finn
Yeah.
Sponsor Announcer
Politics here.
Joshua Crouch
But it also talks about, like, some of the stu. Because there's no. Nobody's really getting together and talking about this. This technology that could, theoretically, at some point, Ren. Render us all use The.
Ryan Finn
The. All the comedians that are making the jokes are. Are spot on when they're just like. They're just like. Literally everybody is, like, looking at this, going, you know, these will be able to kill us, right? Yes. And then it's like, keep going, Keep going. Like, wait, like, what? At what point? Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
Probably after the robots take over, we'll decide that we want to do something about it.
Ter Blissett
You know, movie about that.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah, there's been a few.
Ryan Finn
It wasn't until I saw, like, they have some pretty cool robots at the e. The. The CES this year, right. And they're, like, really mobile. Right? Like, they are. I mean, we're not far off from like, a. But, like, you think about that, and you just go, that thing could walk up and just rip your arms off your body. Yeah. Like, oh, free, dude. Well, it's getting serious.
Ter Blissett
It is. It's crazy. They have one robot that. That is on wheels, and it's supposed to be like a military, but it. It has a gyroscope on it, so it balances itself. You can't knock the thing over. And it's on a single wheel. Or it might be two. It might be two wheels, but it just. I mean, it can literally jump up on objects and things like that. And you go to push it over, and it counterbalances itself, and I'm like, so.
Ryan Finn
I mean, that reminded me. I'm in Hollywood a few months ago with my family, and I met us. We're in. We're in the car, and we're at a red light, and going across the street was a Uber eats robot, right? And I go to my kids, I go to my kids, I go, hey, check it out. That robot's delivering food. And right when I say that, this homeless guy comes running up to it and dumps it over, runs off, yelling the F word. He's like, f that robot.
Joshua Crouch
That's hilarious.
Ter Blissett
I didn't even think about that.
Joshua Crouch
So your.
Ryan Finn
Your. Your invention you just talked about is. The. Is. Is because homeless guys are not knocking over the right. As I tell my kids, hey, check out that robot. This, this guy f. This robot flips it over.
Ter Blissett
That is funny. So speaking of like all this AI and we talk a ton about AI search and being relevant in AI search. Speed, Speed to lead. Is it still like, I know you've talked about it a ton. Like that's, that's what you talk about a lot. Is it still like the number one factor in conversion?
Ryan Finn
Yes. Speak to lead is still like our, is one of our, you know, top reasons that somebody's going to sign up for Chirp. And it's still super important because we're still talking about lead generation. Even if you generate a lead in your AI and you request information, we still need to contact you very, very quickly. There's still, we don't know where that's going. I don't know if it's going to just get to the point where it's just like, you don't even have any interaction. You don't talk at all. You just, just go and book, you know, whatever. Like, you know. But for now, speed delete is still key. And I think it's really, you know, it's getting to a point now where, where we're just looking at the landscape and going, what does your business need automation wise? We'll build that for you to do that thing. Like we're becoming kind of like the AI whisperer for the business, right? There'll be a point, and I don't think it's too far off, where tools are not the, you're not selling tools anymore because everybody will have access to the tools and they can just do them. But you're still going to need somebody with experience and, and you know, years of years of data to implement those things within your business. And that's, I think, where we're headed. And I think people that do have the doom, kind of the doomsday, oh, everybody's gonna go out of business. I don't, I don't buy into that, but I definitely buy into the. If you don't, like, keep up, you'll go out of business for sure. But I, I think ultimately humans will know how to. Humans aren't just going to be like, well, I guess we're gonna go hungry now. Like, no human is going to allow themselves to go hungry, right? And so, so that happens.
Joshua Crouch
There's going to be Armageddon, right?
Ryan Finn
Revolt, right? And it's like, yeah, it's like that's.
Joshua Crouch
The history of the world, right? That's how that stuff happens. Like you look again not to get pos. Like Iran, a lot of protests, a lot of stuff going on over there and it's because of how they've been treated for so many years. They're finally standing up to that, that type of stuff. But the AI stuff is going to be at some, like at some point there's going to be. And I, I feel like I've, you know, I've seen in, in some. Sometimes I've. Because I listen to calls and stuff like that and everyone client I'm working with more closely and listening their after hours calls. I don't know, I have no idea who they're using for their agent. But like I see a lot of hang ups after hours. They get like two, the agent gets like two questions in and then the person can tell and then all of a sudden you hear click.
Ryan Finn
Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
And I know like does the business owner even know? They say they're calling people back. I'm like, but it's after hours or weekends. Are you really, do you really know what's going on? Are you analyzing this to understand that like do you have a human in the loop? Do you have something that's catching the opportunity that just got missed that you paid for?
Ryan Finn
Yep.
Joshua Crouch
And you know, so there's, there's things like that that I think we're moving into. Like how do we use our people in different ways? Not shade to use people leverage their skills in different ways where they're maybe not the, maybe they're not always the first one on the phone anymore or maybe they're not doing some dispatching but they're still, there's still going to be gaps inside of businesses and businesses in particular.
Ryan Finn
I really, I agree with that a hundred percent. You, you hear it all the time. You know, I, I really am still the, the post that came out, I don't know, a year ago or something. It's like I, I've, that has been my mantra. It's like AI is not going to take your job, but somebody that's learning AI is. And so I, I'm keenly aware of that. And, and I, you and I have had this conversation, Josh, where it's like, well, there's going to be a point where AI is indistinguishable. Indistinguishable from a human being. Right. And, and I'm, I think personally I believe we're underestimating our, our ability as humans. Our ability as humans to, to sense things.
Ter Blissett
Yeah.
Ryan Finn
So, so what I mean by that Is, is even if we can get AI to be completely sound perfect, right. You can't tell the difference. I think there's going to be an inner mechanism within us that's going to help us discern and help us understand. And it's going to, it's going to cause a feel, a negative feeling where we're, we're, if we're not talking to a real human and we, we know it, there's going to be a, there's going to be a feeling that just goes. I just don't, I don't trust the company.
Ter Blissett
A sense of animosity of some sort.
Ryan Finn
Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, I think even if, even if we get, you know, maybe it's wishful thinking, but I do think even if we get to a point where AI is completely indistinguishable, I think we'll start relying on some senses that we don't really fully rely on right now that we aren't aware of.
Ter Blissett
It's funny that you even mentioned that because I was talking to a homeowner yesterday who called into the office and he was like, yeah, it was, it was 7:49 in the morning and your office opens at 8. And I kept talking to the girl and we were talking about like after hours emergency charges and stuff like that, whatever it was. And I was like, man, like, do I need to hang up and call back in a few minutes? Like, I don't want to do this. And she, he was like, I know she wasn't AI because like I started getting pissed and like she started matching my, my tone. And like that's not what AI agents do. Like they, they say you can kill and stuff. And I was like, dude, I am telling you, before 8:00am yeah, my phone calls like, my phone line does not swap over to the office until 8am and he's like, no, I, I, like, he was like, I, I'm telling you, it was not an AI voice agent. Like, I promise it was right now. And so I picked up my phone and I called the direct line to the AI voice agent and we talked to her and he was like, oh crap, that's not cool, dude. Like, because we were joking about it back and forth, but it was, it kind of, it blew me away. And I told him, I was like, look, dude, every two weeks or so these things are updating and they're like, I don't have any personal control over every single word that it's saying at this moment, but they update and they are getting better and better. And better. He was like, yeah, but normally I can sense it. And Jen and I were talking last week on our recording on the podcast, and she was talking about something and brought up a really good point. And that's the, the Jen McKee with the Keyhard marketing, by the way, for anybody that's listening and doesn't know I'm talking about. Yeah, and she does social media marketing. And she was like, people can just tell that it's written by AI, like you as general. Like, we scroll through post and we can just tell that AI wrote it. Like, even if it says very similar things to what a human would say, there's just the cadence and, and the nuances that we can just pick it up and.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, and it's almost like it'll take some time, I think, but like, you know, you know, when somebody's blind, you go, how could you make it through this world? And they, they, their other senses become way more heightened and they be, you know, they, they, they can navigate. Like, they can hear things and know directionally where to go and like different things. And I think it's like we're becoming blind to what's real and, and, and like other senses will start to pick up and we'll start to navigate in a world differently than we have in the past.
Ter Blissett
So that is a really good. So that went way off topic.
Joshua Crouch
It's almost hard not to talk about this stuff when you talk about. Because there's not enough. There's not enough conversations about it because really what it is, it's. It's the hype train. Everything is a hype train right now. It is. And it's. And buzzword nauseam. Like, it's just. Did you see this new thing? You see this new thing? You said? It's like, dude, I got life and I got a business to run. Like, I can't look into every single thing that's great out there to put.
Ryan Finn
A bow on it. I'll say this. You need to embrace it. You need to keep up with it if you want to be relevant. My dad recently came to me. He's. He's built homes my whole life. He's a custom home builder. He's builds beautiful multimillion dollar homes. And he came to me and he's like, he's, he has a small equity stake in Chirp and he came to me and he's like, really tired of building homes. You know, what, what could I do? And I said, well, you know, I can't just hire you just because you're my dad. And so I said, I said, but I've heard that really good contractor, really good project managers in construction can also be really good project managers in software if they can bridge the gap. And so I said, sit down with chat GPT. Tell it who you are, that you're you. You know, you're a builder, you've been doing this for this long. And then say, I need you to teach me how to bridge the gap between contractor development and, or, you know, construction development and, and, and software. And he, for a month just absorbed and let it teach him everything. And he came to me and he said, you know, I, I really think I could help you guys in project management within software. And I'll tell you, he's revolutionized how we do things here. Like, he's streamlined a ton of stuff. But the point being, like, if somebody in their late 60s can absorb and, and, and reinvent themselves, have that much access to that much education so quickly, like, we're st. Like, we're, we're standing on like, the edge of like, the coolest thing ever. Like, you can, you can sit there and learn whatever you want to learn. What do you want to learn? Go learn it right now. I told my daughter, she's like, I want to own a salon When I'm 18, I want to open a salon. And I was like, hey, get into Chad GPT. Say that you're 12 years old and that you want to over the next four years understand what you need to do or over the next six years to own a salon. And she's taking notes and like, learning how to own a salon. And it's like, what better educate?
Ter Blissett
Like, like, do you think it does away with college?
Ryan Finn
I, I can't see how it doesn't. Like, I can sit there and learn. Like, I can. Like yesterday I was asking questions about history and like, politics and stuff. I'm like, teach me what is, what is autocracy on a deep level, like, teach. Because I heard somebody like, talking about auto and I understand what autocracy is, but I'm like, why would that guy want an autocracy? He sounds like a psychopath and it, and it, like, it breaks it down so that I have a full, like, understanding of like, how I would respond if somebody said that to me. Like, where. Why would I have ever gotten that information otherwise, right? If it wasn't just free sitting there ready to go, Right? Yeah. So, yeah, I think I don't see how it doesn't do away with some sort of.
Ter Blissett
Does it not make us dumber because we don't need to retain the knowledge anymore because we know that we can interested about that and say what's the information? What's the truth behind it? And then are you lying that it's not bias?
Ryan Finn
I'd argue that because that was the same argument when calculators came out.
Ter Blissett
True.
Ryan Finn
Like I agree and I feel like.
Ter Blissett
AI is happening slower in math since then.
Ryan Finn
Right. And, and so I don't. It's like we figured out a calculator for human thought. Like it's, it's the, it's a calculator for words and it's like does it just move us forward, you know?
Ter Blissett
No, I, I, yeah, I'm with you.
Joshua Crouch
It's interesting. I've shared this on the show Rhino, whoever share this with you? So my daughter's 15, almost 15 and a half. She was just 14, eighth grade last year and she used her birthday and Christmas money to buy a ChatGPT subscription. I wasn't going to buy it for her.
Ryan Finn
Oh.
Joshua Crouch
And she did it for her homework and stuff.
Ryan Finn
So.
Joshua Crouch
And I asked her and obviously there's, there's some, you know, help with some of that stuff to, to, to back lack of a better term, cheat. But she also like when it came to time when she was getting ready for tests and stuff, she did say it was helpful as a tutor to answer like, to ask her questions. So she under like comprehended. So a lot of the thing like I use. So like I'm in the process of putting together some thoughts for a potential book and stuff and I literally have had it ask me hundreds of questions. Things that I, I'm like, oh, I would have never even thought to ask myself that.
Ter Blissett
That's a hack right now.
Sponsor Announcer
It is.
Ryan Finn
It's like have it ask you to like yes, we talk about all these.
Joshua Crouch
Tradesmen, these trades people. It's like trades people, but they have 20 years of experience. It's all in here.
Ryan Finn
How do we get that out?
Joshua Crouch
Like we always talk about downloading your brain.
Ryan Finn
Right.
Joshua Crouch
As leaders.
Ryan Finn
Yep.
Joshua Crouch
Now you can, you can ask prompting questions to get the information out, turn it into a process, a system, a training course.
Ryan Finn
Yep.
Joshua Crouch
Whatever the creative brain, whatever you think your team needs. And now you can download all of that experience in a way that's useful for everybody else, which I mean, so there's a lot of really cool stuff you can do. If you start thinking about it in the positive way versus it's going to ruin my life.
Ryan Finn
The ways we're using it for sales is Amazing, right? Because just like you said, it's a tool if you don't use it. Correct. If I go in, if I go in and just say, write me a sales letter for, you know, write me an email for this, this person, right? It's gonna bad input, bad output, right? And you're, and then the person's gonna go, that was an AI script. But if you take a letter that, an email that you wrote and then go, can you just read this and touch it up for me and tell me where I could make a point different. And then you actually synthesize, bring in the information, go, okay, I like what it said here, but that doesn't. And you're actually using it, engaging with it, then it becomes really valuable and we're able to like the emails my team are sending back to people are so much crisper, so much better because they're taking the time to like, to engage. If they just said, you know, just write me an email response, then yeah, that's not going to work. But they're engaging with it and I think that's the key.
Ter Blissett
I wrote, I wrote out a prompt. It's been a while ago, but it's still like I've been updating it along the way. Been over a year ago now, maybe two years. Close to it, but it was for technicians filling out invoices and their invoice summary. And instead of it, it would ask it, it asked the technician questions and then takes basically what they're saying but puts it in a very homeowner friendly kind of way, you know, output. And I've also, it's very consistent so like six different technicians can use it and it feels very, very consistent. Like the same technician we had, we.
Ryan Finn
Had our marketing guy. Basically, he's over the last three months been creating the chirp tone and it's, it's you know, a, a, a ten page document of like how we respond to things, what words we don't use, what words we do all this stuff, right. And that's been installed on all of our people's chat GPTs. So now when they ask it questions, it knows to respond with the church own. Yeah, it's really cool. I mean it's like, that is really awesome. Like you said, downloading, download. That's downloading my information and then making sales guys just do what we want them to do. It's crazy.
Joshua Crouch
So Ryan, you mentioned bad input, bad output. So let's, let's, let's switch gears and start talking about software lead and stuff like that. Because it's actually a great jumping off point to transition. Because one thing I, I noticed and I can't remember who I talked to about this last church. Maybe it was. Oh, maybe it was the conversation we had with Bill on Friday. But no, it was some. Someone else I had a conversation like. Because one thing I notice with, because we always, when we talk to clients, we ask about their tech stack and stuff like that, is that clients generally.
Ryan Finn
Have too many things.
Joshua Crouch
They have Marketing Pro, they have Chirp, they might have podium, they might. Yep.
Ryan Finn
And I'm.
Joshua Crouch
And my, the thing that comes in my mind is like why, like, yeah.
Ryan Finn
Why do you have.
Joshua Crouch
You're spending so much money.
Ryan Finn
Yep.
Joshua Crouch
On tools that do. I mean, granted, now there are, I know there's nuances, especially like Marketing Pro with you guys, you know, because there's one's really good email. You guys are obviously really good at the text messaging side. But how can we, like as far as, you know, if you're going to give advice to contracts, because you're in the tech world and you see these tech stacks as well. I'm sure you guys have the same thing that you guys talk to. You guys are usually having people switch from this platform to that one, that sort of thing. What kind of advice would you give them as far as what they can do and how they, how they can make sure they maximize the input that they're putting into the software so they get the maximum output and actually see if it is something that's going to solve the problem versus like getting 30% in and be like, yeah, it's not it. I'm going to go to the next one. And they just constantly jump from thing to thing to thing and then all these contracts they can't get out of and everything else. What would your advice be?
Ter Blissett
Assume they're not on service titan.
Ryan Finn
Yeah. So my advice is this. We are headed into a world where the tool itself is no longer the exciting part of the process here. A hammer is a hammer. Whatever brand it is. There's very little differences in a hammer. Right. And 10 years ago, five years ago with software, we could show completely big differences between our tools. Right. We could go, we could very clearly see why this tool was better than this tool or this tool did this or that. We're getting to a point where everything is becoming a hammer. Right. Just a tool that does a job. And so when you are being approached by these companies, especially now that people can spin up very, very basic tools very quickly, um, we're going to get to A point where it's very hard to distinguish between the tool itself. And so I would say that the key is going to be who, who's behind the tool, because it's much more important to me who holds the hammer than the hammer itself. And so when you go to a company that goes, oh, I can do that too, the same thing that they can do, you go, well, how many nails have you driven into wood? Right. Have you driven millions?
Ter Blissett
Like whenever you nail women sideways.
Ryan Finn
Exactly.
Joshua Crouch
For clarity's sake, Ryan's telling you you should ask this question on a sales call. How many nails have you driven the hammer? Just see what they want.
Ryan Finn
Someone off.
Joshua Crouch
Disagree with someone.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, yeah. If I'm going to partner with a software company or a company that's attempting to sell me a tool, I would be less concerned about the tool and more about the company themselves and saying, who are they? What have they done? How long have they been doing this? What kind of experience do they bring to the table? Because ultimately, it's not going to be about the tool. It's going to be how it's deployed. And if you have somebody with experience, then we can, we can look at that and go, okay, cool, I'm going to show you how to hold the hammer. I'm going to show you how to hold the nail so you don't hit your finger. And I'm going to show you exactly how to drive the nail and how fast. You know all this stuff, right? I'm using hammer as a simple, simple analogy. But, but the, the, the goal for me going forward with Chirp is that people go, well, those guys have those tools, but Chirp, they've been doing this for 15 years. They have hundreds of millions of text messages of data. They have hundreds of millions of dollars sold through the system. And they know things that will allow me to apply the tool better in my business. And so when you're talking with somebody, talk to them about that, not about the tool specifically, because anybody at this point can go, check this out. Look at this AI voice, agent. Sounds real, doesn't it? Or look at this text message. It goes out when I want it to. Right? Anybody can.
Joshua Crouch
That's what people are using as comparison right now. They're like, well, let me listen to the audio. Let me listen to what the voice sounds like, right?
Ryan Finn
And it's like, who cares? It's outcomes. Everybody going forward will be selling an outcome who can get you. Like, there's going to be a point where you come to Chirp or to a business like Mine. And you go and you sign up and all you have to do is push a button and you have book jobs because they'll do the whole thing start to finish, right? And it's like, it's like we're getting there. But the idea is like right now we're having AI analyze hundreds of millions of text messages and the data that, that's feeding back to us, like I'm calling it the scroll or some like mystical thing because it's like it's, it's data that is in. It's like literally saying this word is not a word you want to say. Because we've found that when you say that word people say no. Right? And it's like finding all these insights that if you have a tool without that data, we don't, you know, you can't, you can't know. So.
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Ter Blissett
Or is there an important difference between follow up between seconds and minutes?
Ryan Finn
So this is huge. There's two parts to this. Okay. There's, there's when, when you say it and what you say, what you say when you say it. Those are the two I want to drill into this because I use this analogy. I used to do windshield repair at, at gas stations. You, you've heard my story.
Ter Blissett
I have, yes.
Joshua Crouch
I think we did talk about that.
Ryan Finn
Last time you were on. Yeah, yeah, I do recall.
Joshua Crouch
As soon as you said, I'm like, oh yeah, we talked.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, I started it Doing door to door. And then I saw a girl doing it at a gas station, and I was like, wait. She's like way smarter than me because all the cars are coming to her right while I'm going out knocking on doors. So I get this. I. I go to this gas station, I say the guy, hey, you know, I want to, I want to do windshield repair here. What I'm going to do is I'm going to wash your customers windshields as a courtesy, and if they have a chip in the windshield, I'll pitch them. So you, you basically get me out there free washing people's windshields. I'll welcome them. It's like a little bonus you get for having me, you know, here. He was super cool with. He's like, yeah, let's do it. So I get there and I'm washing windshields. And what I would do is I, the person would get out of the car and I'd say, hey, welcome to Mike's Chevron. Would you like me to wash your windshield today? Nine out of ten, maybe even more, would say no. Like just instinctively, just because it's like, no, thanks. Nothing like, no, I don't, you know, whatever. Right?
Joshua Crouch
Same thing when you walk through the mall and someone's like, hey, can I help you?
Ryan Finn
Exactly right? Can I do this? And you know, like, okay, you know, no, no. Okay. So then I'm like, shoot, how is that girl, like, doing it? Because if she's. I'm only, I'm only able to wash 1 out of 10 cars that come in. So if I see a hundred cars, I'm only going to have 10 opportunities, right, to pitch. And then all I did was switch slightly the words that I said. And it, it completely flipped. My opportunity, it went from 1 out of 10 saying yes to 9 out of 10 saying yes. And all it was was a couple of words. This is what I would say. Welcome to Mike Chevron. As a court, as a courtesy, today we're washing everybody's windshields. And then I would just start washing the windshield.
Joshua Crouch
Okay, you just assumed.
Ryan Finn
I assumed. So there's two parts. So I assumed it and I gave Courtesy. FOMO where you say every. We're washing everybody's windshields. Okay, those, that switch in that sentence, those few words took me from ten out of a hundred cars to pitch to ninety out of a hundred cars, which is massive, right? That's a complete flip. And that first Saturday, I figured that out that morning, and then I made fifteen hundred dollars in windshield repair that first day. Okay, point Being that you could be saying a word in a text message that's making everybody say no. Like literally one little phrase or one little word that could be making everybody say no thanks, no thanks, no thanks. And if you, if you figure that out and flip it.
Joshua Crouch
So, like anything you guys have learned through you, because you mentioned, I mean, obviously I know you don't look through all hundreds of thousands of text messages, but like, I'm sure you guys have some accumulation and some things that can.
Ryan Finn
Analyze AI is I did not have this information until actually this, this week. We've had AI reading and it's taken a long time. It's reading our hundreds of millions of text messages and it's coming back with a ton of little, little things. And it's going. This text message worked because it showed slight empathy in their situation. Like, we know you're busy. We understand that things are, you know, and it showed some empathy as to. I understand that you're busy, but I, you know, it is. And those little things can flip the whole script. And so I wouldn't say, I wouldn't give you personally right now. Like, I wouldn't just say, hey, change this to this. But I would say start using AI to help you craft better messages. And then of course, we're. We're going to be releasing a bunch of this stuff as, as ebooks and things where you can say, like, this is how you can learn how to write the copy. But what you were saying earlier, tersh, speed and what you're saying, those are the two super important things. So, yes, we have to contact them within a minute. If it's further than a minute, we. The chance of converting gets cut in half.
Joshua Crouch
We talk about, you know, speed, delete. Is there something too fast?
Ryan Finn
Yeah, no, like, there's not too.
Joshua Crouch
I submitted a form and it's like literally with. I literally didn't even set my phone down and I got a text message.
Ryan Finn
There's not too fast. Some people argue that we're not seeing that it's not too. And here's the problem. I'll give you an exact analogy. I got my DEXA scan two weeks ago. Okay. And there's mine on Friday.
Ter Blissett
Like somebody came out and scanned your back porch Dexa.
Joshua Crouch
What did you think he said? You know what he's talking about?
Ryan Finn
My Dex. I got my Dexa deck scan.
Joshua Crouch
All your deck. I see what you're saying.
Ryan Finn
So for. For. For anybody that wants to know, Dexa is a body scan to see where your body fat is. It's very Disappointing. Don't do it. The. There's two near my office and they're the exact same distance and they have the exact same reviews. They're both two minutes away and they both have like 4.95 whatever, right? The high enough to. And. And there's one on top of the other when you search Dexa scan, right? So I call the first guy. He doesn't answer, I hang up and I just immediately call the second one, right. It takes five seconds to go to the next one and click call. Call goes out, the person answers, she books me and I hang up. And right when that's like what, like a two minute phone call, right? By the time I hung up, right when I hung up, a text message came through. Hey, sorry I missed your call. You know, do you want to book your Dexa?
Ter Blissett
Had they had that come instantly, I had already booked.
Ryan Finn
It's too late, right? Two minutes. You lost the job, right? Had it come instantly. And I. And I know this is true because I did this. My son threw a baseball through our window and I called a company to get to come out and fix it. And right when I hung up, I got the text message. Hey, I'm on another call. I'll call you right back. And that was enough for me to go, oh, cool, I'll wait for him.
Joshua Crouch
To call me back.
Ryan Finn
That was enough. And it like stopped me, right? It like cut me. It's like. It's like we have to like put in these like, like little like, like.
Joshua Crouch
Blockers, you know, like in psychology and Church probably speak to this better than I can, but, like, we just want to know that someone's going to take.
Ryan Finn
Care of the thing on our to do list. Yes.
Joshua Crouch
And as long as that thing's going to come in, we just.
Ryan Finn
Cool. Now I'm going to move on to the next thing.
Joshua Crouch
If you don't call back, I'll come back to it.
Ryan Finn
Yep. I haven't solved the problem yet, so I gotta keep going. But now that that has come in, it's like, oh, boom. So. So for me, you can't be too fast. What do you say? We know what you mean.
Joshua Crouch
I just put a comment. Sorry, Ryan.
Ryan Finn
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Joshua Crouch
I saw Greg Stonehorn's comment. We know which one of you three doesn't work out all the time. Well done, Church. Is what he meant to say.
Ryan Finn
Hey, hey, hey. I go do the stuff to show that I'm doing it. But I could be better. For sure, Josh is the one that can. Yeah, Tersh and I are probably more alike in that realm than Josh is. But yeah, so, so to answer your question, Church to me, too fat. We can't be in this world. It's too, we're too fast. Like, you can move too quickly. I can't get to the next guy too fast.
Joshua Crouch
You're recommending that initial, especially if it's like a missed call, text back or a form or you know, something that like somebody's inquiring, just immediately send it.
Ryan Finn
As soon as it instant. Right. And, and, and we find that like people will say, oh, we have that in our system. This is really important because we've, we, we've had a competitor, we've had somebody switch from a competitor over to ours and they go, why did our booking rate go up like double? And we found that even though that other, the competitor had quote, unquote speed to lead, it was taking because of their back end, over a minute for the text message to deliver. And that was causing, you know, a drop off in their booking. So, so even if somebody says, oh, we do have speed to lead, it's like, are, are your, is your infrastructure there to get the text message delivered lightning fast? So.
Joshua Crouch
Sure. No, that's a, that's a good point. So can we talk, Ryan, can you.
Ter Blissett
Talk a little bit about the AI that you have built in to Chirp?
Joshua Crouch
Yeah, I was going to go into like, especially because this is, I don't think you guys have like fully released. You might have shown some like, releases to like Tommy and some other people. But like, what's, what is different? Like what, what's. What's been added? Because obviously people have known you for a while and I'm sure most people in the trades now, at least the ones on Facebook groups that they know of Chirp. But what, what is, what is different? What's been enhanced? What things have you guys been working on?
Ryan Finn
Well, well, you guys get to be the first podcast to hear the, the, the launch. So, so we've been spending the last year rebuilding a whole new, a whole new platform, top to bottom, to be, to be AI focused. But we don't want people to be, we don't want people to think that they don't have the options because some people are still like, hey, I'm not ready for a full AI. And so we have all of the functionality to do it manually like we always have, but also to add AI wherever you want. And now what we're doing is we're shifting into a outcome based business. So basically you're coming to us and you're saying, I want these strategies. We were calling it the playbook. And within the playbook you have certain strategies from all the way through the customer journey. So you have lead conversion, estimate, rehash customer loyalty. Those are kind of your three top level strategies. And then within those are all of our battle tested and proven campaigns and everything we've built in each of those areas, everything we've done with Tommy for, you know, conversion, everything we did with gettle to massively increase their estimate conversion, customer loyalty, how to maintain your database and keep customers coming back to you over and over, all these things. And then what we have now is instead of going in and building campaigns and then connecting those to your service titan and having those trigger at certain points you have specific agents that are designed for each of these tasks. And so you, you're basically hiring individual employees to do a single thing. So for example, you'll have your Angie lead conversion agent. Your angelad conversion agent is only trained and specifically set up to convert Angie leads a speed to lead follow up AI where needed. If we're gonna, if we're gonna go into AI and then the ability to use AI to follow up at the right time. So instead of saying follow up on day one, follow up on day three, follow up on day five, it's going to say based on historical evidence, I'm just going to follow up based on what is right. So it'll read the previous text messages and respond with an, with a, with a text message that's appropriate for that conversation instead of a static follow up AI. Right.
Ter Blissett
So it's not that like you get that repetitive message.
Ryan Finn
Right, right.
Ter Blissett
It knows that you already sent messages out.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, because so, so like let's say, let's say somebody says I need to talk to my wife. Right. The next follow up could be your static message. Hey, it's Ryan with whatever, you know, you know, whatever. Or it could go, hey Tersh, did you get a chance to talk to your wife? Right. It like read the message, read the context and is responding appropriately to that follow up. So, so now we're blending all, everything we've learned with, with doing this and saying AI follow up and now what you can do. And this is again a B testing like we did with at the gas station. Right. We've got one, one text versus another text. Right. We can now go, okay, I have a manual set up here. I have a drip, a normal drip campaign and I have an AI drip campaign. Let's do an AB test And see which one does better. And then we can go, all right, this one did better. Let's test that against another AI trained thing. And we can always be improving our, our follow up. And so we're taking it from static drip campaigns to a fully dynamic trained system that will follow up with the appropriate message and the appropriate channel, whether that's text, email, ringless voicemail, or an actual outbound.
Ter Blissett
Have you seen age demographic being important on this?
Ryan Finn
Yeah, we're, we're, we're getting age demographic, we're getting, we're getting regional.
Ter Blissett
Oh, okay.
Ryan Finn
So we're trying to figure out like, we're trying to pull stuff from like the south, right? And go, okay, these messages work better in the South. These, these are cal. Yeah, these work better in California. Right. And we're trying to get Southern people.
Joshua Crouch
Definitely use a different lingo than the rest of the world.
Ryan Finn
And a different cadence too. Like a different, a different speed. Right. You know, like it's, it's crazy how much. So we're trying to, we're trying. Not that we have this dialed totally, but we are having AI try to pull that information and go, hey, like, like this company in, in Georgia uses this and they kill it, you know.
Ter Blissett
And so just send me a message with all those.
Ryan Finn
So to answer your question, the difference is now going from kind of like analog to digital, right. Where it's like going from static drip campaigns to fully dynamic. And then the idea is we're just telling it like when this happens in Service Titan or when this happens in whatever, deploy this agent and then you're done. The agent starts the thing. Right. Yeah.
Ter Blissett
Though how long does it take to train it? And does each contractor have to train their own agent?
Ryan Finn
No. So it's, it's coming pre built with all, you know, all this stuff. And then of course you can, you can make your adjustments, but it's out of the box.
Ter Blissett
Scares a lot of contractors, is like, man, I already got so much on my plate. I don't want to be training agents.
Ryan Finn
Right? Yeah, yeah. And that, and that's where, and this is where this whole outcome based thing is coming. Right? Where you're not getting. We're not saying, here's your chirp software, good luck. We're no longer a software company. We're a full service where you actually get a strategist that is assigned to your account who's going, who is incentivized to make sure it's working properly for you. So you can sign up, you can say, hey, like I want I want my lead conversion. I want to start with lead conversion. I want to make sure that's dialed in. That strategist is now going to go in, help you go through all of it, get it all set up, and then he's incentivized to make sure that's working. And once it gets to a certain point and go, cool, you're making great money here. I recommend we now move into estimate, rehash, let's build everything there. Now I recommend that we move into customer loyalty. And he's taking you through and kind of quarterbacking all of your AI.
Ter Blissett
One thing that the contractors should stop.
Ryan Finn
Doing immediately, they should stop saying words like follow up in their follow up. They should stop saying words like just bubbling this up or just reminding you anything that people say that on text messages.
Joshua Crouch
Bubbling this up.
Ryan Finn
Well, that's like an email. That's an email follow up, you know, moving the. Bubbling this up to the top of your. Just. Just like what? The point I'm making is stop treating follow up like it's a secondary thing. The fortune is in the follow up. And if you treat it like a secondary thing and all of your energies on marketing and you go, well, I followed up two or three, it's like, that's a whole other department that should be heavily focused on. And so you should be treating follow up with as much intensity and as much passion as you would on your marketing because it's every bit as important. So stop being lame with your follow up. What would you say? Start doing? Start. What I would start doing is I would start learning what copy actually, how sales copy actually works. Like, don't, don't assume, you know, your words that you typed out in the message are going to work. You need to test against your words because just like in the gas station, if I, if I had never changed that, I would have lost 90% of my opportunity. But because I flipped one, one way of saying it, I flipped my whole business. And so you could be killing your business based on one stupid sentence that you have that's turning people off.
Ter Blissett
That's like, I'm getting anxiety just thinking about that, analyzing all the things that I say, the things that come out of my mouth.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, you need it. You need a new filter in there that analyzes them for copy.
Ter Blissett
That's wild. Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Ryan Finn
But take, but what I'm saying is, is take it seriously. The words like your business hinges on the words you say at the end of the day.
Ter Blissett
That's true. That is, that is very True. So what's next with Chirp?
Ryan Finn
Well, we just went over it. I'm launching that whole new thing, actually. Beta starts February 1st. It is, it's. I think. Go ahead, Josh, what do you say?
Joshua Crouch
I was gonna say next week.
Ryan Finn
Yeah, yeah, next week. It's. It is what I think is going to be the, the. I mean, of course I'm biased, but I think it's the. The coolest lead conversion, you know, customer loyalty estimate rehash tool in the system, in the game. And then it is pairing it with our experience and with the hundreds of millions of text messages that we sent and pairing somebody, an expert with your company, I think that's going to make all the difference. So if you're, if you're going, oh, how do I, you know, you can kind of take this whole thing off your plate of going, how do I make sure AI is like, I'm using AI. It's like, have an expert as part of your business telling you do this stuff and then you can kind of just take it off your plate and go, cool, I know I have AI work.
Ter Blissett
You don't have to worry about it. It doesn't have to be in the back of your mind anymore.
Ryan Finn
Right? 100% cool.
Ter Blissett
Ryan, we appreciate you hanging out with us. It's always a joy to sit down and have chats with you. Will you be at AHR by chance next week?
Ryan Finn
I will not be there next. What's the dates of that?
Ter Blissett
It's like the second.
Ryan Finn
I think somebody from my team will be. But I won't be there.
Ter Blissett
Okay, I'll be there presenting on stage. But we appreciate hanging out with us and chatting. If you're watching this and you found value in this episode, please share it with the contractor who you think might. Might find value in it as well. And if you did find value, please leave us a five star review. Like, I haven't asked for that for a long time. It's been years since I've asked for that. But I don't even know if it matters. But it's cool to have them up there. So. Yeah, yeah, leave us, leave us a review. But we appreciate you hanging out with us. Until we talk again next time, be safe. We'll see you later.
Ryan Finn
Thanks, guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Podcast Narrator
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.
Podcast: Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Hosts: Tersh Blissett & Josh Crouch (Skilled Trades Syndicate)
Guest: Ryan Finn (Chirp)
Release Date: February 18, 2026
This episode dives deep into the evolving role of AI and automation in home service businesses, with a focus on improving lead conversion. The conversation spans the challenges and opportunities AI brings, the importance of speed to lead, practical examples of using AI tools, and a behind-the-scenes look at Chirp’s new AI-powered platform. The episode is full of actionable advice for contractors and service business owners wanting to stay ahead in an AI-driven age.
On AI Evolution:
“We’re in a whole new world since the last time we talked…it’s changing dramatically daily.”
— Ryan Finn, 02:24
On the Pace of Tech:
“If we made decisions in software five or six years ago, it was monthly. It’s gotten down to almost daily we’re changing things.”
— Ryan Finn, 03:17
On Human Intuition:
“I think personally we’re underestimating our ability as humans to sense things, even when AI is indistinguishable.”
— Ryan Finn, 13:44
On Lead Follow-up:
“If it’s further than a minute, the chance of converting gets cut in half.”
— Ryan Finn, 36:15
On Sales Messaging:
“You could be killing your business based on one stupid sentence that you have that’s turning people off.”
— Ryan Finn, 48:55
On Adopting AI:
“AI is not going to take your job, but someone learning AI is.”
— Ryan Finn, 13:03
On Technology as Tool:
“It’s much more important to me who holds the hammer than the hammer itself.”
— Ryan Finn, 27:03
On AI Learning for All:
“If somebody in their late 60s can absorb and reinvent themselves with that much access to education…What do you want to learn? Go learn it right now.”
— Ryan Finn, 17:55
"AI is not going to take your job, but somebody that's learning AI is."
— Ryan Finn, 13:03
"If it’s further than a minute, the chance of converting gets cut in half."
— Ryan Finn, 36:15
"You could be killing your business based on one stupid sentence that you have that's turning people off."
— Ryan Finn, 48:55
This episode is a must-listen for home service business owners grappling with the challenges of AI, automation, and modern marketing. The hosts and guest deliver a frank, humorous, and practical discussion about where the industry is headed, the tools that actually matter, and how small improvements can lead to big results.
For more info on Chirp’s new platform and deep dive resources, check out their Playbook launches and upcoming eBooks—details are expected to roll out soon.