Episode 109 - Talking Shop: Brad Robinson on the AI Habit That's Getting You Ghosted

Talking Shop

Sep 9

Episode #109 | Talking Shop | Brad Robinson on the AI Habit That's Getting You Ghosted

Brad Robinson is putting AI to work, but he’s not letting the robots take over just yet. He and Mark Williams talk about AI bots, automated CRMs, financial reporting, and the surprisingly powerful art of picking up the phone. Plus, they explore why authenticity, hospitality, and wellness may be the next big competitive advantage in custom home building.

About The Curious Builder

The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.

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Mark D. Williams 00:00
This episode is brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors. I've used Pella for 21 years as the exclusive window company on every one of my builds. When people ask me who I trust for Windows and Doors, it's Pella every time. Their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top-tier service make them a no-brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best. Whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella Corporate as well as locally here at Pella Northland. I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit Pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps today. For more information, you can also listen to episode one, where I interview the Pellet Northland founders, as well as episode 109, where we talk all about their latest innovation with the steady set window.

Brad Robinson 00:54
In the business that we're in, somebody tunes you out. Now you're on Lonely Island again. I need a detail from an architect. Architects like I'm not answering emails from that guy anymore, let alone referring you, or you know speaking kindly about you to their prospective clients. It just doesn't work, and people have somehow or another forgotten because of the advent of AI that emails still need to be abbreviated.

Mark D. Williams 01:23
Welcome to Curious Better Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. It is Thursday. Usually, it's the losers are winners. Today, we're going to take you inside the mind of the man, the myth, the legend, Brad Robinson, down in Atlanta, Georgia. What's up, buddy?

Brad Robinson 01:36
What's up, man? Long time no see. It

Mark D. Williams 01:38
is so. This one's going to be a little bit different. It's less about loser lessons. You called me about a week and a half ago, and we were just talking about how you and I are both using AI in our businesses. And you brought up a really important question and point of view. And you copied me on a text of what you sent your team. And so I, I thought we'll just do 20 minutes on kind of going back and forth how we're both using AI, some of the pitfalls that I'm seeing, how we're using it, and maybe some prediction. I have some thoughts on where I want to go in contrast, actually, to AI. And so, why don't we start with the honestly? Let's start with the text you sent me. Let's get let's frame up the reference to the audience as far as what you told your team because I think it's super helpful, and I don't think you're the only owner that has to remind their team. First of all, we want our team to use AI, and then when they use their AI, we don't want them to think like a mindless robot, like AI. It's a tool, not like the one-stop shop for everything. Is that about sum it up?

Brad Robinson 02:38
1,000% I, you know, I when I'm reading these emails flying across my inbox, they just are becoming less and less and less personal. And if there is a business that is more personal than custom home building, I'd implore you to bring that business to me and prove it, because like there's nothing more personal than these homes that we're building for people, and mind you, you know, for the folks that are building specs and doing projects without owners, right? Like, use it away, right? Like, you want to tax your vendors with it? Go ahead until they start resisting too, because that's a lot of how all of this started. Is I'm, you know, I'm having a conversation with one of my technology integrators who I respect a lot, and you know, you would imagine that builders who are not technically adept are sending their technology integrators these emails that are books, essentially, of what they want to, what do they want to see, but they're not, they don't know the technology behind it, so they're letting their AI do all the thinking for them, and thinking that oh, look at this. I'm going to send him an email with all of this stuff that he's going to think that I know. You know, I'm requesting or specifying, and then the you know the guy on the other end, the vendor on the other end reads it, and he's like, oh my gosh, you know, like not another one, because for him, he's fielding these these emails all day, and I'm like, yeah, it's it's becoming a problem, and it's it just so happened that I have a builder who was asking an architect about a specific height elevation of something, and it pertained to a municipality, and he said, "Okay, Chat GPT, thanks, but my brain is scrambled eggs now. I need you to talk. I need you to like talk like a human. And it had me thinking, and I'm like, "I'm not calling anybody out because I could have been easily the one to have done the made the same mistake, and it's just losing its authenticity really fast, and what I want to make sure of is is that our referring partners, it's our voice, it's our tone. They're listening in a different way. They're reading these emails from us about these projects, and when they see that we are just so cavalier to. To shed that off and to not, it it just see it feels like it's inauthentic. It's becoming cringe, and as much as I do not want to throttle my team from using it to help guide them through these conversations, I I think we're at a place of inflection where we have to stop and take pause, and say it's used for these things. It's used to hypercharge you. It is not meant to replace you. And for even the folks in my organization who are letting it do 99% of the writing for the most part, but and they read it and they're like, that sounds good. They're still not getting it right, and so it was an opportunity for our team to stop and take pause and say, "Listen, it's just disingenuous. That's all. It's.

Mark D. Williams 05:52
I think as as someone like yourself, I mean, you and I are both big culture guys, and we like. I'm not saying that there's not a huge advantage to some of it. I found that I do use it quite often, but I use it to basically brainstorm, and I use it to do research, and I use it to a lot of times. I'll honestly use it for spell check, which is about the you know. I mean, you know me, I'm typing as fast as I possibly can. It's more to get the concept, but I still want it to be my voice. And I guess you know, it's kind of a it's it's funny. I never thought about till literally you were just saying it. That old adage that we probably heard from our parents, which is, well, I mean, it's really a Christ-like thing. You know, do unto others as you want done unto you. And the point is, like, who can honestly say they like receiving an AI worded message? And the answer is nobody. And how many? I don't know about you. I I got to get off these spam filters. I get so many emails. Somehow, do you guys get? Do you get this too? I mean, I feel like you have a very sophisticated funnel. I no lie, get four to five emails-not a day, but probably let's call it eight to 10 a week through the Curious Builder, trying to be on a guest, which is fine. I love guest inquiries, but they're always formatted with AI. Somehow they're scrubbing me and saying, "Hey, you've got a highly rated show, so they're trying to get on the show, which is totally fine. Like I think that's a cool problem to have. So don't get me wrong, but they're always like AI showing me stats and like all this stuff, and it's always like big bull. It's the Dell. The the giveaway is like graphics that you would maybe do on your phone that no one knows how to do on their computer. It's like rocket ships and like emojis in an email, which is weird, and then like giant bold and weird font and underline. Oh man, it drives me bananas. And maybe like two years ago when you first hit Ada, I thought it was cool. Now it's like no one wrote that email, and it is such a turn off. I just delete the email. I don't even read it. So anyway,

Brad Robinson 07:39
and that's what we can't have, right? Like in the business that we're in, somebody tunes you out. Now you're on Lonely Island again. I need a detail from an architect. Architects like I'm not answering emails from that guy anymore, let alone referring you or you know speaking kindly about you to their prospective clients that they might want to introduce builders to. It just doesn't work. And so what it's also I'm finding doing is is it's people have somehow or another forgotten because of the advent of AI that emails still need to be abbreviated. Like keep it short and sweet. Like that's like you're not going to get very far with a 10 paragraph email. It's like so. I told my team I said if your email has to be that long, call them. We're gonna go back to the phone, right? We're going back to it, like tools. Not necessarily that worked because I'm not gonna take that perspective of like the age old adage: if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Or like I'm a builder and I've always done it this way. Like I'm gonna take that aside, put those things aside. But to say this, like I'm not reading that book, like I'm not reading it. They're not reading it now. It's just done this, and you've wasted all the time. Like so, I do it to start with. So I'm I'm trying to push people back to becoming more personable. That'll be a differentiating factor for us from a sales perspective, from an operational perspective, and then the biggest thing. And then I just want to end on this point before you interject, is technical data, math, computational math. AI is not great at it, so don't trust it. And what I told my team was, is I said, if you cannot do the math that gave you whatever the data is, right? Like, if you can't do it yourself, don't put it in there. Don't put it in the email because I would much rather you be be wrong in person than just to send to be confidently wrong in what AI gave you. Right? Like, there's a big difference. If I said that the square root of whatever was something, and the guy on the other end's like, "Well, I just did that equation on my calculator, and you're wrong. I never trust you again. It's just making a fool out of so many people, and so many people don't even have any idea. They just trust it blindly, and this is just one of those times where you got to draw a hard line in the sand and say." No more, and then again that that one that extra group that referring those referring partners. Like I tell my team, read write it, read it again, and then put on your email system a way a buffer to where it holds it in before in its outbox before it sends again, and read it again for anybody who could be a referring partner. Like, and so it's just like you know, it's like I ended it and said, you know, look, your emails should be as polished as our finish homes.

Mark D. Williams 10:34
Yeah, I mean that's pretty impressive. We're happy to announce our latest sponsor, Real Wood Floors. What made them to be an ideal partner is the fact that they align so well with our high-end custom homes. They're located in 25 cities across the country. They're probably pretty close to you. And what really drew me to them is the fact that they're vertically integrated. So many times when you're dealing with wood floor, you know, procuring it from different companies, having it go through middlemen, you're either short material, it's the wrong material, and so we are looking forward to leveling up that and buying direct. The other thing that I really love is their floor-made perfect match. I can't tell you how many times I've had a beautiful wood floor, but the vents don't match, or I love the wood floor, but it doesn't match my treads and risers. Knowing that they can perfectly match that is something I'm really excited about. Go check them out at realwoodfloors.com and sign up for an RW Pro account. Tell them you heard about them from the Curious Builder. This episode of the Curious Builder is brought to you by Olivin Vine Socials. If you're a builder, a designer, or an architect looking to grow your brand without dancing on TikTok or spending your whole life on social media, listen up. Olivinvine Socials specializes in Pinterest marketing, blogging, and email strategy for luxury home brands. They help you turn your beautiful work into a strategic SEO-driven content that drives real traffic and connects you with your ideal clients without burning you out. Ready to grow smarter and not harder? Visit OlivinvineSocials.com and. tell them the Curious Builder set to you. Just so you know, I've been working with Alyssa over at Olivinvine for three years. She helped us launch the podcast. She's helped us grow our brand at Mark Williams Custom Homes. I could not do what I've done without her help. I think you have to have AI integration, and I'm not. I know you're not saying not to, and I think you know you and I both try to probably be ahead of the curve. So we're all there's a lot of people that aren't even using it, and they need to get on it. But for those that are using it, we need to sort of it's not, you know, it's not a one. Nothing is a silver bullet to solve everything. We all know that. Although our human nature is still insatiable in his desire to have the unicorn effect, which it is impossible. But I, I actually predict, especially for what I want to do specifically, and I think you're in this camp too. We are in a high-touch industry, and a lot of our clients are also business owners. How do we? I know last year you gave your entire team unreasonable hospitality, which was my favorite book. I sent you a copy just recently because I sent it to all the ambassadors, and I just gave my team signed copies and a little inscription on the front. And what I the main thing I'm excited to read it and slow down because last year I listened to it while running. This year when I read it, and the reason I'm bringing up hospitality is I think it's the opposite of AI, and for what the main theme I took out of it was that thoughtfulness is the number one thing in hospitality, not money, not efficiency. It's thoughtfulness, and I have been encouraged lately to get more handwritten notes than I recall getting before. And I think it's I think architects and designers, as a group, are very thoughtful people. Builders were very busy. No, I don't think our industry has ever been accused of being very a group of thoughtful individuals. I think we're considered very busy. Get it done. Which getting it done is a great attribute. It's like just do it, right? From Nike, it's awesome. But I've taken, and this is a huge shout out to. I hired an executive assistant about a month ago, and life has gotten so much better with Emma on my team. She manages my entire schedule. I don't have to do any of that stuff. It's been just amazing. But the point is, I've actually gotten back to what I used to do a decade ago. I do thank you Thursdays, so I write.

Mark D. Williams 14:15
I used to write two thank you letters every Thursday and then mail them out. It's simple stuff like thank you for your hard work. You know, and maybe a specific example. Right now, I'm writing like 20 thank yous a week. Like, I am becoming like Hallmark. I need to have like an account. I bought 47 copies of Unreasonable Hospitality. I only have 15 left. Like, I am crushing writing. Obviously, it brings me a lot of joy. And where I'm going with this is just an example for the audience of that is the opposite of AI, and I think for custom homes and things, we'll talk maybe a little bit later about boot camp and and Sonicamp and things like that. Intention in what we're doing is slowing down, but I actually think there's going to be a huge cause for people to seek super. Super authentic things and anything that's production based. The only way against all this rapid speed up of robots and all this stuff that people honestly are just not prepared for is going to be we're going to go back to like kind of almost like retro. Like you'll see a rise of like vinyl discs or like nostalgia making your own stuff, and it will never beat the majority because obviously that's not practical. But I think for the clientele that you and I operate in, and where eventually I'll let you have a chance to talk, I think it's going to go. That's why you and I are so focused on wellness homes, and me specifically is quiet. But I'll give you a chance to respond to those 87 things I just said.

Brad Robinson 15:38
No, I think you. I think you're hitting the nail on the head. I think that we're going to go through an analog era. It's that's what I mean. I've already, you know, they say that for every revolution of something, there's a counter revolution that occurs when these type of things happen. And it's funny because someone we both know and have in common, in Reese Barnes, brought up a great point. I think it was just the other day about how the industrial revolution gave people time back. You know, it's like people used to work from sun up to sundown. Then they started working 50 hours a week. I think he's right to a certain extent that people are going to go. People are not going to have to work a certain number of hours in order to be as productive as we once were because I can tell you personally I have five bots and I think five's a lot for me right I know there are people with 30 but I have five bots out there actively doing things for me that I used to have to do because I have those five bots do those things and I have it going to different people in my organization to actually execute on, I no longer have to do those things. I can tell you definitively that there is time savings there. So if my schedule used to be 80 hours in hyper scale and growth mode, I might be able to pull that back to 60 hours a week.

Mark D. Williams 16:59
What are some of your What are some of your bots doing that are reclaiming your time? I mean, let's focus maybe a little bit on what are the good things that AI is doing. So, what are these five bots doing for you?

Brad Robinson 17:08
So, for instance, I have obviously I have an investment side of my business. I also have I manage at this point. I'm not in the field on the tools or any in any capacity like that these days, but I still am very connected to how we're networking and how we're growing our business and how we're connected to the design community and the referral partners. And there is a way to have my bot go scrape every single event that is relevant to our business, and I have that bot send an email to our director of growth and marketing, and that person sends it to to maybe my design studio manager. Hey, there is a AIA function that's happening that it's a cran event that is really impactful for for our organization to be at. And so now all of a sudden, that information is just coming to me rather than me having to go find it, but it's scouring between multiple markets where we need to be at in order to be connected to the folks we want to be around, sharing ideas and sharing projects and getting to the to the future state to where we want to be. So that's just one example, and that bot is incredibly good at creating, updating my data set. So it's not only capturing those events; it's understanding who might be there. It's also looking at my large contact list, and it's updating those things as it goes. So I'm building a master database of information that's really impactful for me. And then it's giving me the ability to auto autonomously, in a very, I guess, the easiest way to pay, in a personal way. It's teeing me up with who I should be talking to, when I should be talking to them, on a timeline, right? So, like

Mark D. Williams 18:58
that's like a CRM machine, which you just described. So, is this an automated CRM?

Brad Robinson 19:02
It is, and so, but I have it doing multiple functions. So, I was able to, for me, create something that was better and more robust than where my where my Atlanta sales pipeline is, or my Charleston sales pipeline is, and then where my new construction pipeline is versus my remodeling pipeline, because I have all these different client touches within those funnels as well, but in my what I call my universe funnel, that's where projects exist that I have no idea where they are, but I need it to sniff it out. That's what my bot's doing. It's sniffing out places for me to become engaged. And look, you can know the industry backwards and forwards, but you don't know. I mean, maybe your market's small, but I probably have 50 events a month happening between these two markets. I can't be at 50 places at once, but I have 21 employees, and they can, and we can work in a swarm mentality rather than just move. And so that's just the path I'm taking, and that's just one example again. So the others are doing financial tasks, so they're they're connected to all the tool sets that we're using. Every morning I wake up, I know my finances, I know my current AP, I know my current AR, I know what's on my balance sheet, I know exactly how much free cash I have on hand, and I know exactly what my pacing looks like. And so you do it.

Mark D. Williams 20:23
You're doing it daily, not like weekly or biweekly.

Brad Robinson 20:26
Yeah, and then when we true up with our wip, our wip data gets incorporated into that, and then I could get it. I get a different report because you can't. You know, my wip is updated mostly every day. I mean, we're running about 450 transactions. You know. give or take a week. So there's a little bit of a lag to get those transactions logged and entered. But I'm I'm like every other cost plus builder, I've got to get my billings out right, like as fast as as I can. And so it's like I'm monitoring those billings on a monthly basis, just like most of you guys are, so it's like okay, whether I'm billing 1,000,006 or two one this month, I'm tracking on all that, and it's giving me a little bit of an insight for thinking like okay, you're you're going to project to to bill this much this month, and it can do those, and that's what's great about the tools that are being able to be connected and bolted onto these things, but these bots are just running these tasks ongoing. And when I find that one gets annoying, I stop it and I reframe it. Yeah, because look, see, I mean,

Mark D. Williams 21:32
so what? Out of curiosity, is that through Claude or what? What? What bot platform are you using?

Brad Robinson 21:37
Oh yeah, I'm a Claude guy through and through, and co work is great, but you know, from an investment perspective, right? My my bot is scraping every family office, every potential list, every single event, looking for places where we might bring value to those investors who are seeking that type of risk profile. You know, I don't look at it as I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing. It's like these people are probably looking for me too. So, oh yeah,

Mark D. Williams 22:05
you're playing connector with yourself. I mean, who it's kind of like that the line of who better to tell you about other people than you? It's kind of like the inverse of like I always joke that the the the person that I buy the most from is the person in the mirror, and so that I mean that guy sells me stuff all the time. I shouldn't buy, so that's why I call. That's why I call you to talk me off the ledge. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. I love talking AI. We'll keep this one short and sweet. There's a lot more here, obviously, but hopefully this episode was helpful. Actually, tell me a little bit about you know we mentioned about going to analog. Maybe what's your reaction? You know, because I know you just had and we just posted it today. You know, you've got the front cover of the Atlanta magazine, which is super cool to see it up here at our Barnes and Noble deal. If anyone's interested, you know, you can head to Brad's website. We'll have that in the show notes as well as any Barnes and Noble to see the Atlanta luxury. But you know, you have your kind of your wellness home that was sort of highlighted there. And where I was going with this in relationship to AI is I actually think some of this is I don't know how much of this is my bias affecting I mean I guess my bias obviously affects my personality and and what I'm choosing to do but like we made the decision not to do any cell phones for kids till they're 16. That's just a personal decision after what I've seen and read and then and my kids are still pretty young, 10, six, and eight, and the reason I'm bringing it up is Misahu, in particular, as you know, had no TVs on the upper two levels, and we have a TV in the basement, and that's it. And if someone wants to modify it when they buy it, they can do whatever they wish. But the whole point was to bring quiet and mindfulness in this busy world. And for me, when I go home, I need to recharge. Like I am on all day, and I love being on. Like don't get me wrong. Like turn on the lights, you know, put a quarter in me, and you know I can talk till the king comes home. But when I do get home, like I need that quiet to recharge, and I don't like a lot of distractions at home. And so I think since you and I are in the home space, I think wellness. You know, we talk obviously about the. I'm not going to call it low hanging fruit because it's, but it's obvious. Like obviously, cold plunge sauna, red light therapy, all that stuff. And and I'm I'm huge fans of it. That's not even the point. But I think wellness is so specific to certain people, and I think we need to be really educated on how to help our clients achieve their version of wellness, and I think it starts with asking questions like, "What is wellness to you? And I don't think anyone has to be an expert to answer that question. Like, what brings you peace? What recharges you? I think as our industry evolves in this space, I think how we ask questions matters a lot. I don't know. What's your thoughts on that?

Brad Robinson 24:42
I look. I love your take on it. I think I absolutely respect it. There's a. I could have a longer 20 minute conversation on this, but your wellness is not my wellness. And so transparently for me, I come home most every single day, and I have. I love it. It's one of my. Favorite features of my house. I have invisible Sonant stealth speakers in my house, and I turn the tunes on every day. I bebop around my house. That's me. That is how I how I wind down. So I'm not going to suggest that quietness and stillness are something that I also long for. I do in a different way, and it's funny because now that I have all these massive, everybody's attacking me with all of this data all day long and screens, I found that I do like opening a book in the bed at night instead of watching TV at this point. Because I'm just ready for a different medium, and they say that where there is friction, there is more learning, and I've found that slowing down to digest information through reading, as compared to read an audible book or watching shorts or whatever it is, I'm retaining more, and it feels like it means more to me. So I'm learning that too. But you know, look, to each their own, my wellness homes and how I perceive it, and how I am interpreting it, and how I build is based on some of me. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say that it isn't. You know, look, I could say Project Vitala has, I think it's 14 sets of stealth speakers in it because I love it. I think like it's a luxury home; it should have it.

Mark D. Williams 26:20
Well, no, and that's not even the point. The point I like what you said. I think that's the whole point. Everyone's version of wellness is different, and what you're seeking is totally different. And yours, if I had to enter in, is probably lighten the mood, get happy, get kind of like a pep in your step. That music does that for you. My wife does not like music on, so that's a part of it. But part of it, as you know, I'm so ADHD. Like I just need quiet settings, man. I mean, I just that's why I love nature so much and why I activity. The reason why I love athletics so much is like I can, you know, if you're playing basket, you're not focused on hockey. I mean, it's pretty simple. If you're playing, if you're chasing a tennis ball, you're not thinking about soccer. Like I need that focus, and I found the same thing as you that reading a book. I I really have enjoyed reading more than I did in say my 30s. Just partly age of kids and things like that. The idea that you could even read a book in your 30s is preposterous because you got kids you know climbing over you all the time. So that didn't really work for me anyway. But yeah. Anyway, I think we've deviated from AI into wellness, but that's what happens when you get Brad and I together, well, we'll have some

Brad Robinson 27:22
a lot more relevant conversation to have by the time we get to Moab.

Mark D. Williams 27:28
Sounds good, buddy. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, man, take it easy. Thanks for tuning in to Curious Builder Podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor: share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends, like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.