Buildertrend + AI: Reshaping the future of client communication

Charley Burtwistle (00:09):

What is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of “The Building Code.” I’m Charley Burtwistle and here with me today a very special co-host, Sagar. How’s it going?

Sagar Desai (00:17):

Good. How are you, man? First time on a podcast. Excited.

Charley Burtwistle (00:20):

Super excited to have you here. For our listeners out there, maybe quick intro, who you are, where you came from, what you do?

Sagar Desai (00:28):

Awesome. Yeah. So, I’m based in California. I’ve been with Buildertrend for about a year. I’m a group product manager focused on network effects, so we’re really looking at connection, communication, collaboration. For the last couple of quarters, we’ve been focused on the client experience. And as a group product manager, I’m really responsible for developing the product strategy and then ensuring successful product launches and ultimately providing value for our customers.

Charley Burtwistle (00:53):

Awesome. So, when people wonder how Buildertrend is the way it is, they have people like you to thank and obviously talented teams around you. And here today, we’re talking about a new feature that was recently rolled out. Can you give us a quick sneak peek on what that is?

Sagar Desai (01:06):

Yeah, yeah. So, it’s called Client Updates. It’s a weekly roll up that we present to builders, AI powered, which helps them just deliver value added updates to their clients. It’s every project, every week. All they have to do is review and publish.

Charley Burtwistle (01:23):

That sounds awesome. I have had the benefit of hearing all about it, and it somehow just gets cooler and cooler the more and more we talk about it. So, to talk about it more and more, we brought in Adam Copenhaver, co-founder of CopeGrand Homes. For you regular listeners out there, you have heard from him before. He is a frequent guest on here. And if you haven’t heard from him before, you’ll find out why we have him on so often. He is awesome, and he is quickly utilizing the new features that you guys have recently rolled out. So, instead of listening to us talk about it, you can listen to Adam talk about it.

Sagar Desai (01:52):

Let’s do it.

Charley Burtwistle (01:53):

Sweet. Without further ado, let’s get him in here. Adam, welcome back to “The Building Code.” Been about six months. About time to have you back on again. You’re kind of an unofficial co-host at this point. Always a pleasure talking to you. How are you doing today?

Adam Copenhaver (02:08):

Charley, it’s always a pleasure being on with you guys. The conversations we have are always thought-provoking. It’s always a good opportunity for us to do some self-analysis on what we’re working on. And three, we just enjoy and cherish being able to share what we learned, our best practices, our processes with everybody else. So, yeah, I’m feeling great being here again today. Excited to talk about today’s topic as well.

Charley Burtwistle (02:35):

Absolutely. And I enjoy our routine check-ins on the podcast here as well too, because you guys are constantly iterating moving forward. I feel like you’re the definition of a growth mindset. So, it’s fun for me to check in to see what you guys have been cooking up over the past six months as well. But for people that maybe missed your previous episodes, we better start from the beginning. So, I’d love just a quick overview, who you are, where you came from, how you got to where you’re at today.

Adam Copenhaver (03:01):

Great. So, I am Adam Copenhaver. Thank you for the introduction more. More so, I’m a part of team of professionals here in Charleston, South Carolina, branded by the name of CopeGrand. So, we are a luxury custom home builder here in the low country. In our hurricane, salt driven, high wind, just brutal environment. Humid, too. And so, we build high performance homes for discerning clients and certainly have enjoyed the growth that we’ve seen here in Charleston, but more so the growth of our reputation.

(03:37):

And that growth of our reputation has been known for being excellent communicators with our clients, building great relationships, and very much looking after being a fiduciary, in fact, to their client or to the home building process. So, we enjoy doing that. We’re constantly looking to better our best, always. We were just in a team meeting this morning again talking about that very thing. We’re focused so much on our core values, and our mission, and our vision statement. And it truly is defining who we are. And so, it’s been great to see that.

(04:11):

Certainly, the involvement with Buildertrend and being alongside of you guys in the evolution of the software. And as you guys constantly respond to folks like myself who ask for certain things to be done in the software to facilitate what we need out of software as builders has been great to have, too. So, thank you so much. And for that reason, hey, I enjoy being back here to share that with the audience as well.

Charley Burtwistle (04:35):

Absolutely. So, definitely a pro in the podcast world because that was a fantastic segue into the topic of today, which is really centered around client communication. And love that you were just meeting on some of your core values and mission statement as a team. What are some of the maybe core tenets that you have overarching when it comes to client communication? We have Sagar on today to talk about some specifics and some new features that we’ve released in the not too distant past. But before we get into some of those specifics, what are the overarching themes when you think client communication that you think CopeGrand really prides themselves on?

Adam Copenhaver (05:12):

Well, I mean, number one, you got to be dedicated to your clients. You got to be dedicated to excellence in everything that you do. And so, we feel that if we’re not communicating about what we’re doing, when we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it, that our clients don’t have the opportunity to be a part of that vision, be a part of that mission, and be a part of that outcome. And so, if you don’t have those things in alignment, then I feel like you open yourself up to an opportunity for maybe a vast opportunity of missed expectations.

(05:49):

And if you’ve got missed expectations, it’s been our experience that some people can rummage through a project for a period of time with missed expectations. I do believe that we all are wishful thinkers for the most part and want things to work out. But eventually, missed expectations catch up to you. And that is what leads to chaos in projects, and unfortunately worse things after that.

(06:11):

So, we’re looking to always flush out the ankle grabbers, the Murphys, the we should have talked about that, should have done this. We always want to better our best at each project and make sure that we’re communicating in the past, what’s worked really well for us, and also communicate what we expect to be working really well for us in the future, too.

Charley Burtwistle (06:32):

Love that. Well, like I foreshadowed, we have Sagar on today, we recently launched some AI powered summaries as part of the client experience. So, before we start talking about that, Sagar, can you give us a high-level overview of what that is and why we should be excited about it?

Sagar Desai (06:46):

Yeah, absolutely. No, we’re really excited to present and release Client Updates. We presented at IBS and Adam was a great help there and in terms of shaping Client Updates. And Client Updates really is just automated weekly roll-ups. They’re one-week look back and a one-week look forward. They’re ready for every project you have every week. You just simply pick the day, and they’re pretty much ready for review and publish.

(07:13):

And inside that update, we cover things like the images, photos that have been uploaded to the project in the last week, what’s been completed, what’s in progress, what’s upcoming, and then importantly, action items that the clients need to take. And this is all powered with an AI summarization tool that looks through every single entity on that project across the one-week look back and the one-week look forward. And these weekly roll-ups, we know, talking to builders like Adam, they take a lot of time, they take up … Some builders are spending their Sundays getting these out.

(07:51):

Our average time for a client update, our builders are publishing them, it takes about eight minutes per project and they’re able to get these out in 20 to 30 minutes. So, they’re able to provide that reliable, high-quality update to their clients on a weekly basis. And it’s just been an exciting journey, and this is just one of those thoughtful, dedicated ways of presenting AI without that fluff that we see on the market a little bit, which is something that Buildertrend is really focused on. It needs to provide that value. And I’ll let Adam speak for himself there, but it looks like we picked that value with Client Updates.

Charley Burtwistle (08:28):

Absolutely. I was just getting ready to say, Adam, is this something that you’ve utilized? Because it’s pretty hot off the press.

Adam Copenhaver (08:34):

Yeah. And it is. Sagar, Iwas just reminiscing, we forever have had a weekly update with our clients. And we do weekly updates through the evolution of the project. It might end up that we’re meeting every two weeks. But we’re doing a weekly update to give our clients an update on what did we do last week, what are we doing this week, what are we doing next week? How’s our schedule coming along? Are there any selections that we need to discuss that are threatening the schedule? And are there any revisions to the project?

(09:04):

Well, as you were describing what our weekly client updates now feature in Buildertrend, I mean, holy smokes, you just rolled up all that information that I needed to go gather out of Buildertrend previously, and now Buildertrend is using AI to put all that information together for us. So, whether that information was delivered on a phone call, an email, in person, now it’s in the best place, which is in Buildertrend. Okay?

(09:32):

So, when we think about utilizing other software, using other communication devices, this has been one of my brags for a little while. I stumbled upon this I think last year for the first time, where somebody was asking me about a question of software and I said, “Yeah. Wow, we only use one anymore.” We’ve officially gotten rid of all of our other software, so to speak. Now, do we use Microsoft Office for emails? Sure. But I haven’t touched a spreadsheet in over a year.

(10:07):

And I’m looking to make sure that we simplify things. Because the more opportunities we use to commingle software and communication, it becomes less reliable. And certainly, for training, and onboarding for staff, and those sorts of things, it just becomes a bit messy. So, going back to it, I really like that we got to take the weekly updates, now use AI to help us save some time, but all that communication is still in Buildertrend.

(10:35):

So, these weekly updates, the important thing to, I think, Sagar, to point out, is it’s a log that stays in the project forever. Okay? So, if we ever want to go back and look for a key piece of information of when something was discussed, well, now it’s there. Whereas if I was having that weekly update conversation over the phone, maybe through an email, or in person, things could get lost in translation.

(11:05):

Certainly, I’ve got one of these things here sitting in front of me, which is a cell phone, and it’s constantly distracting me as well as our clients. So, as you’re sitting through these meetings, and you’re giving these updates, you have no idea what’s going on through everybody else’s mind. So, the opportunity to have the weekly client update through Buildertrend let our clients, always still present these to our clients, but let our clients have a log of that, where they also may go back and reference it as a resource is an incredibly powerful feature update.

(11:33):

And I lead in, authentically, too, by saying that Buildertrend has constantly listened to us builders, not just me, about these updates. And this is one that I think is a game changer, and I’m glad that you guys were listening. So, thank you so much. This has been nice to start using, and we’re continuing to use it, we’re continuing to implement it into our process and our systems. And I see the value in it for sure. So, thanks for doing that.

Charley Burtwistle (12:02):

Absolutely. I will direct all that thanks to Sagar. I just come on the podcast. I’m just a talking head with no real power to do anything. But it sounds like you two have a fantastic relationship, so we’ll keep that rolling. And you started things off, Adam, by saying the most important thing is setting the proper expectations. So, the piece that resonated the most to me while you two were talking was this consistent delivery date of this is exactly what you’re going to get and when you’re going to get it.

(12:30):

I’d have to imagine that’s something that you almost could even market and talk to the customers about, is you’re going to get a weekly update every single day on this day at this time and set those expectations from the start. So, it’s not, “Oh, I haven’t heard from Adam for five days. I wonder where my update is. Should I call him? Should I text him?” Or it’s like, “Oh, I know I’m going to get it tomorrow.” Is that something that you’ve seen, is a reduced cadence in these ad hoc questions when they know exactly when they’re going to get their update?

Adam Copenhaver (12:58):

Yeah, I think that’s a great point, Charley, that for clients, it’s really important that you provide and offer a routine that can be reliable. Reliability often comes with predictable results. I can say that previously, before weekly client update feature in Buildertrend, might our clients go on vacation for an extended period of time, might they be busy with, “Hey, I’ve got to go do this, or do that, or childcare,” or whatever else might be going on in their life, “And would it be easy to skip a week?” Yeah. “And would it be easy to skip two?” Yeah, absolutely.

(13:38):

I was listening to a podcast recently that talked about after you skip a daily or weekly routine more than once, it becomes a routine in the other direction. So, they were talking about in that podcast never miss two as a rule of thumb. It’s okay once in a while to miss one. Well, with the weekly client update and trend now, there’s actually the routine where you don’t need to worry about missing that. Because no matter what our client’s schedule is, we can still communicate that update, whether or not they’re there at that meeting or at that appointment or not.

(14:09):

So, in addition to that, setting expectations for our team, our project managers, our coordinators, now there’s not an excuse there either to why an update might not have been given. Because even if our client isn’t there on the other end right now on that phone call or at that site visit, they’re still responsible for making sure that the information that is important to be included with that client update is there, accurate, fulfilled and communicated.

Charley Burtwistle (14:37):

Yeah, I love that. And I always think it’s interesting for our customers here, a little bit behind the scenes, how the sausage gets made. So, as you’re developing a new feature like this, what does that process look like? How do you identify the pain point that you’re trying to solve? How do you work with builders like Adam to understand their current processes, what they’d like for it to function? How do you take this concept to bring it to fruition, using this as a specific example?

Sagar Desai (15:02):

Yeah, great question. Actually, it’s hard for me not to take notes. Because usually when I’m talking to Adam, I’m interviewing him as a customer. But it starts with talking to builders. And I think Adam’s one of the first ones that’ll point out that sometimes our customers will tell us that they want X, Y and Z, but it’s really up to us to decide and to determine what those underlying motivations are.

(15:23):

So, I’ll give you an example. Our team also, plus I don’t get the credit, there’s a very talented team behind me and alongside me that really deserves the credit for Client Updates. But we were working on the Client Portal, and we refreshed that. But as we were working on it, we decided to go talk to homeowners themselves and see what their motivations are. Obviously, there are plenty of homeowners in America, lots of people who’ve either built a new home or renovated a home. And it became pretty clear that how nice the Client Portal looks, there’s some diminishing returns. As soon as you … If we don’t get to the underlying behavior of the builder updating the client, any sort of portal work is just going to be painting over cracks.

(16:08):

So, at that point, it was very clear that what we needed to do is set our builders up to update the clients regularly and reliably. And I can get into, when we look into that, we start looking at the data and the market and how the trends are going, and it was very clear that there was an equation to setting up our builders for success. Number one, referrals are becoming more important, more and more important. In fact, Service Direct had a survey, and it asked homeowners what tools they use to find their builder, and it was referrals from friends. It beat out Google searches, by the way, which for anyone in tech, that’s an eye-opener.

(16:49):

And increasingly, for builders, their competitive advantage is really in the service that they provide. And so, these referrals are immensely important to build a successful business as a builder. Otherwise, you’re just pumping a lot of money into marketing costs. So, then the question is, how do you get those referrals? And is it the build quality? Is it the delivery? Turns out, the research is showing that it’s the customer satisfaction, it’s the communication.

(17:16):

The Boca Group did an NPS survey. Our builders are probably familiar with the NPS survey. The question asks you how likely you are to refer a service or a product to your friends and family. And if the builder got a five out of five stars on it, they got an 80 NPS score. And I’ll put that in perspective. But if you got a two out of five in communication, you got a negative 40, which means you had more detractors than you had promoters. The average for builders is 33. So, the communication element turned out to be incredibly important.

(17:55):

So, then we looked at how can we enable our builders to provide reliable updates? And the one week, builders asked us, why is it that one week? It’s because it’s the best for clients to consume that data information. As Adam just pointed out, they’re living their lives. So, if you were to tell me to pay something or check something off a month from now, I’m probably going to do it the week before, admittedly. So, that one-week cadence is really good. Keeps the client in check, on top of their stuff, which keeps the project moving forward.

(18:25):

So, a lot goes into it. This is customer surveys, customer interviews, understanding where the market’s going, and finding that right thread to pull to enable our customers, the builders, to have that success. So, Client Updates is that one step forward to helping the builders provide that reliable customer service in an easy way, so that it’s actually scalable for our builders. So, imagine spending a day versus 20 or 30 minutes on doing one critical component of that customer service element.

Charley Burtwistle (18:59):

Right.

Adam Copenhaver (19:00):

I’ve got to pick up there. Sorry, Charley. As I hear you talk about that, Sagar, the value of Buildertrend as a software to builders, and I’ve been a Buildertrend user, we have almost a decade or so, is that you continue to find ways to add value to us. And now your focus is to add value to the client experience, so that you can add value to us. I don’t know of another software that’s doing that, right? A business that’s focused on their clients and their clients’ clients is a pretty special thing.

(19:41):

As I was taking notes, I wrote this down, and it kind of hit me as an epiphany. Buildertrend, building better builders. I mean, you guys, the evolution of the software has certainly allowed us, CopeGrand and many others, to become better builders for their clients. Just a kudos. I know this is just a small snippet that we’re talking about today in communication and client updates, but that was my epiphany. And that’s why I continue to support and give feedback. And I enjoy doing these things with you guys. But for sure, you guys, be proud of that. Charley, you too. Building better builders is what Buildertrend is all about, and I appreciate that.

Sagar Desai (20:27):

I don’t think I’ve received a better compliment than that so far.

Adam Copenhaver (20:35):

Yeah. Take it, Sagar. Because you and the rest of your team and everybody at Buildertrend should. Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle (20:40):

Well, what I think is really cool, and I had someone on last week, they were from myCOI, and they framed everything they do into two categories, either a get to or a have to. And I think that’s really where Buildertrend comes in, and specifically with this feature, is trying to offload a lot of the have tos to let our builders focus on the get tos.

(21:04):

I can’t imagine, Adam, that you got into home building because you really liked writing detailed weekly updates and sending those out to people, or you really, really enjoyed the budgeting process and all these different things. And even Buildertrend internally, that’s where we partner with other professional service partners and things like that. We have a fantastic partnership network. Those aren’t things that we’re super good at or want to be super good at. Right?

(21:27):

So, understanding, I think that’s, again, like you said, we’re talking about a very small piece of it today in the grand scheme of things, but a good frame of reference for all of our builders out there to have is like, what do you genuinely enjoy doing? What are you passionate about doing? And how can I spend more time doing that? If I genuinely love building, how do I spend more time doing that and less time doing all these other things? And then find solutions that can offload those things for you. And Sagar, for you and the product team, that’s, I’d say, exactly what you’re aimed at doing right here, is let someone else take care of that for you, those have tos.

Sagar Desai (21:59):

Yeah. I mean, this is something that Buildertrend is uniquely positioned to leverage. Your data is here. Every time you make a schedule item or a change in a schedule item, a change order, an invoice, we have all that data, so it makes sense for us to enable the builders to get back to doing things that we can’t do, which is that face-to-face communication with that client, making sure that that home is built to their standard. Just things that are more interpersonal, the important stuff, probably the reasons Adam went into the business to begin with. So, yeah, the more we can enable you to do that, the more successful we consider ourselves.

Adam Copenhaver (22:37):

Yeah. And thinking about that, too, guys, is a realization that expectations out of today’s builders has changed. The legacy expectation of Bob the Builder was that he was on the job site every day. You got your client updates because he was on the job site with his thermos and lunch pail at lunchtime and those sorts of things, where the homes and the projects that we’re running today are a lot more complex than that, require a lot more communication. Certainly, the amount of investments that folks are making in their homes today do require that as well.

(23:18):

One of the last podcasts that we had done together was about being accountable in cost plus. My recommendation to builders was that’s the most important thing is you’ve got to be accountable to your client. You’ve got to be their fiduciary. You’ve got to take care of their money. And you’ve got to be able to demonstrate that you are. And we were celebrating on that last podcast that the new update for the new job costing budget was to respond specifically to that, is being able to provide transparency, to provide the authority to builders, to actually keep track of that money and make sure that it was going to the places that it needed to go.

(23:59):

And as well give regular communication and updates on how well you’re tracking. Because there’s no shortage of stories out there that, particularly in the cost plus world that clients have gotten to the end of the project and just realized that hundreds of thousands of dollars was out of order, and they didn’t find it out until the end.

(24:17):

I think that not only is it the client’s responsibility to be tracking that, too, with their builder and asking questions. But if the builder is using a software that enables that and provides transparency, I think that’s a lot of value to clients that they can now recognize and should be willing to make decisions to go with builders that do adopt the software, that does help their business in providing better communication to them.

Charley Burtwistle (24:43):

Yeah. It’s just an overarching theme that you continue to hit on, Adam, is just, if you do right by the client, you’ll do right by yourself. The product that you are providing is the experience, not necessarily the home. And there’s so many different avenues that go into that. And Sagar, as you’re talking about client expectations and referrals and things like that.

(25:03):

Not knocking anything on the homes you build out, Adam, but a lot of people can build great homes. Not a lot of people can make that an enjoyable process for six months, a year, two years, over the course of talking every single day, talking every single week, and being in a spot where they feel comfortable referring their friends to spend two years with you. And that’s what sets you apart. And there’s so many little details that go into it. So, just hearing you talk about the specific finite things that you’re actually doing to improve that experience is pretty awesome to hear.

Adam Copenhaver (25:34):

Yeah. And I would argue, too, well, number one, I’m really glad that we’re focusing more so that Buildertrend has now said, “Hey, there’s an opportunity here, through our research.” The research that you guys have took on and done on your own to find out that the client experience is actually extremely valuable to us builders. So, I’m even more excited about what’s to come, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that today, what’s to come moving forward.

(26:02):

But I will say that addressing the stressors, every builder needs to, unfortunately, you get into a relationship with your clients, you sign a construction agreement, and it means a lot more than just a construction agreement. It means a lot more than just building a house for them. I wish it was as easy as it used to be. But in fact, it’s not. There are all these other stressors now that come into play that we as builders need to manage.

(26:28):

Number one, I would argue the biggest stressor is always money. It’s always money. Now, we’re talking about tariffs, we’re talking about inflation, we’re talking about all these different things, and we’re talking about stressed budgets. And so, if you don’t have a software and if you’re not using that software to provide certainty on that money, and at every point throughout the project as you’re giving financial updates, you’re setting yourself up to be very stressed because you’re going to stress your client out.

(26:52):

Number two, the biggest stressor beyond that is lack of communication or lack of accurate and regular communication. Sagar and Charley, because Sagar, you went on the last one, these last two podcasts that I did with you guys specifically addressed the two primary stressors that cause clients and builders to have relationships that are otherwise in chaos or otherwise fail.

(27:18):

And so, the value of this discussion for those that are listening is real. And the value of your subscription to Buildertrend, who is focused on this, is an investment. It’s not cost. A lot of folks might say, “Hey, how much does this cost? Or how much does that cost?” I might argue, well, what’s the investment worth and transfer it that way. But I might ask you now, Sagar, because I am interested, and maybe I’m getting too far ahead, but what do we get to look forward to in the rest of Client Updates? And what might be coming? Can you share anything that might be coming down the road? Because I know that we continue to give feedback.

Sagar Desai (27:57):

Yeah. No, as any good product team, there’s a roadmap there that we are evaluating. We call these things backlog. We’re monitoring how our customers are using Client Updates, where we see some opportunity. And like I said, with AI in particular at Buildertrend, we’re very cognizant of the fact that there’s a lot of fluff out in the market right now. It’s a very frothy market, as Silicon Valley would put it. Lots of AI promises, but not a lot of AI delivery.

(28:31):

And in some cases, it turns clients and customers off, and they actually … Recent studies have showed that some AI marketing actually makes your business less trustworthy to customers. So, for us, it’s just making sure that whatever we put forward, we’re committed to making sure that it’s a thoughtful and useful application. And with Client Updates, where we can measure the impact. And in particular with Client Updates, we’re looking to see how we can further optimize the tool itself.

(29:03):

The areas that we’re considering, although as any product manager, I can’t promise anything, especially not on a podcast to a bunch of customers. But areas that we’re looking at are how can this AI client update adopt your tone of voice? We’ve put it at first iteration where it spits out everything based on the data. But as you’re making changes to Client Updates, we can read those changes.

(29:29):

It’s a simple anecdote that I always use is if you start with, “Hey, all,” and you keep typing that into the AI summary that we provide, then we can learn that behavior and that pattern and apply it. So, it might compress that time from eight minutes to five minutes. And although we’re not ready or committed to it, but perhaps to a place where they can be almost fully automated. That’s often what we hear from builders. But I want to say it’s very refreshing to hear and speak with Adam because clearly, he gets it. He’s checking all the boxes that we see.

(30:02):

The destination is important. But as you put it, Charley, the journey is perhaps even more important. I think back like millennial generations coming, they’re coming into home buying and home building, and they are used to having great customer service when they go get a cup of Joe. For sure, they’re going to want that when there’s a half a million, million-dollar build. So, Adam hit it on the head that it’s not Bob the Builder of yesterday.

(30:31):

These are expectations that these customers and customers in the future will have. I spend a lot of money on coffee that I can make at home, but it’s because of that barista, and that relationship, and being seen. And building a home is a very emotional thing for a customer, for clients, and for homeowners. So, yeah, Adam, you hit it on the head. And we’re looking at other areas, likewise, to save that builder time, so that they can focus on the things that we can’t do.

Adam Copenhaver (31:05):

I would say that the AI … Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, Sagar. I would say that one important thing to talk about or discuss with the AI is the current rollout of the client weekly updates that is powered by AI is actually not, in the way that we’re using it, AI is not communicating at all with our clients. It’s still CopeGrand. It’s still authentically us. It’s still authentically our project manager, project coordinators.

(31:35):

And I make a point to say that because it’s still our responsibility to make sure that the communication, the information that’s going out to our clients is reliable, is accurate, is reviewed. And so, the time, however that AI is saving is it’s making sure that we don’t need to go to the, I titled Buildertrend our online filing cabinet. That’s what I call it. Buildertrend is our online filing cabinet for everything project related.

(32:07):

And in those files, we used to have a huge file room in a company that I worked with in the past. We’d have to go over to this file and then go over to this file, and we pull that information, pull this other information. For weekly client updates under the old way that we used to do it, I’d have to physically go over there digitally and do that within Buildertrend, right? Whether it was financial, whether it was project photos, whether it was a schedule, whether it was selections. AI recognizes where that information is on a weekly basis and pulls it for me and offers an update that is oftentimes almost near perfect of what we need to do.

(32:44):

However, there might be some adjustments to it or additional data that it might not have because we didn’t put it in the Buildertrend filing cabinet yet, which is another thing. Using this tool, for the builders out there, there might be some clients listening to this, too, but for the builders out there, for our project managers, the weekly client update is an amazing tool. Because all the information that you wished otherwise was in Buildertrend, in order for the weekly client update to work even better, now, all that information has to be in Buildertrend. So, it gets us into that routine that was already best practice, and it forces you to do even more of the better things that give you the best results.

Charley Burtwistle (33:29):

Well, it’s a fantastic carrot as well, too, to incentivize that.

Adam Copenhaver (33:29):

Yeah, for sure.

Charley Burtwistle (33:33):

That workflow, right? It’s like, okay, do I really need to update a daily log today? Do I really need to input my pictures in here? It’s like, well, I know I’m going to want them seven days from now. If I don’t do it now, I’m going to be scrambling for them then. So, I think when we can do stuff in product that makes things easier down the road, not just in the right now instance, that’s always a win all around.

(33:58):

Adam, I just looked at the time. We’re severely over, as I could have guessed. But thank you so much. Maybe before you sign off, I’d love actually to hear your … You asked Sagar what’s next. I’d love to hear your perspective. What are you looking for? What can you see coming down the road? What do you think is possible from an AI powered standpoint over here at BuilderTrend?

Adam Copenhaver (34:21):

I think that AI has an opportunity to evaluate us as builders. Where are we inefficient? Where can we be more efficient? What habits are they seeing in successful builders? What habits are they seeing in unsuccessful builders? I think that AI is going to be able to, through just spidering through all the different schedules, and budgets, and these sorts of things, really give us builders an opportunity to see things that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to see because we’ve never had the opportunity to evaluate that big of a data set.

(35:02):

And I think there’s a macro-opportunity and a micro-opportunity for that. We’re our biggest competitor at CopeGrand. We just focus on ourselves, and we say, what can we do better? And we realize where stressors are. On this podcast before, too, I probably have reached over there because I do it pretty often physically, where if something feels like it’s a little bit stressful or has more friction to it, or there was a communication or this happened, we’re always trying to reach over there, myself included, and say, “Okay, we’ve got to pick that thing up, identify what it is, and do something about it, and absolutely do something about it.”

(35:40):

The things that cause so much chaos in our business are usually those things that we don’t do, those things about it, or do something about it, and so there’s no action to it. So, the more dangerous things, I think, are the things that we can’t see, the stressors that we’re not physically feeling. Maybe the paper cuts that we’re getting. You don’t always feel that paper cut, but you feel it later and you don’t have any idea where it came from. There’s probably a thousand of those. And we’ve heard death of a thousand paper cuts.

(36:10):

So, I think that AI, I would be interested in AI looking at how we operate as a business, and how we communicate, and how often, and then which of our users is potentially using the software to its greatest ability. Because it is an investment, and it is an investment that helps make our business better. So, as much as I could say that I’m old-fashioned, and I don’t want AI to have any influence on my life, at the same time, I do believe that we all need to embrace the opportunity for evolution, innovation with information, and the ability for some feedback.

(36:51):

I might be one of those guys that doesn’t want feedback because I might be afraid of it. So, hopefully I become desensitized to getting poor feedback or the feedback I don’t want but really need from AI. Maybe that’s something to come to. Maybe I’ll say less AI later on. But for right now, I’m excited about the opportunities that are out there, and I’m excited that Buildertrend is, has their arms open to utilization of it as well. Certainly, I think it’s a frontier that we should all, in all ways, explore and see how it could be best utilized and most valuable for each of us.

Charley Burtwistle (37:28):

Love it.

Adam Copenhaver (37:29):

Sorry, Charley. We’re over time because sometimes that gets over …  Just I get winded talking about this stuff. Sorry.

Charley Burtwistle (37:38):

No, it’s great. It flies by, for sure. I definitely have some interviews where I’m begging that time to take up faster. But anytime …

Adam Copenhaver (37:46):

Next time you ask me questions, you just say, “Hey, Adam, in 10 seconds, describe what you think about AI.”

Charley Burtwistle (37:52):

Yeah, maybe we could take …

Adam Copenhaver (37:53):

I’ll see if I can do it. It might be an interesting …

Sagar Desai (37:55):

Well, this is my first podcast, and it flew by. It was fun.

Charley Burtwistle (37:58):

That was awesome. Thank you as always, Adam, for the time and your insight. We always greatly appreciate it. And until next time.

Adam Copenhaver (38:06):

Yeah, my pleasure. And thank you so much.

Sagar Desai (38:07):

Good seeing you, Adam.

Charley Burtwistle (38:08):

Well, we just heard from Adam Copenhaver, co-founder of CopeGrand Homes. Sagar, first podcast appearance. What’d you think?

Sagar Desai (38:15):

A lot of fun. I’m going to be launching more stuff like this, just so I can make it back on the podcast.

Charley Burtwistle (38:21):

There you go. Perfect. That’s your motive behind what you do, just so you can get on the podcast.

Sagar Desai (38:26):

And Adam is perfect. This was all good. This is all good stuff. I hope the viewers tune into this one, because it’s an important one to listen to.

Charley Burtwistle (38:34):

Absolutely. And it’s cool for me because I kind of get both perspectives here. I’m used to talking to our customers about how they’re utilizing the product that we build. But rarely do we get someone from the product team to come on and talk about how it was built. So, it’s cool to see it end-to-end. And it has to be satisfying for you as well hearing from a customer that is actually using the thing that you built the way it was intended to be used.

Sagar Desai (38:54):

Absolutely. That’s what we live for. That’s why we show up every day to work, is to hear and see our customers using and finding value in the things we build. That’s why we exist at Buildertrend here.

Charley Burtwistle (39:05):

And what I love about this job, this job being hosting the podcast, is there’s so many similarities between what we’re doing here at Buildertrend and what our customers are doing for their clients. So, I even said unintentionally in that interview to Adam is like, when builders focus on their clients and take care of the clients, it takes care of themselves. That’s the same ethos that we live by, right?

Sagar Desai (39:05):

Absolutely.

Charley Burtwistle (39:27):

Because we are building stuff for our customers, and we know if we make things better for them, it’ll be better for us. And that’s the same thing that they’re doing there.

Sagar Desai (39:33):

Their success is our success.

Charley Burtwistle (39:34):

Right. So, always cool to see the similarities there. And I’ll hold you to your promise that you’re going to roll out more cool shit and be back on the podcast again.

Sagar Desai (39:43):

Yeah. I’ll fly in anytime, man.

Charley Burtwistle (39:45):

Well, you are here for a three-and-a-half-day workshop building out the strategy. When Adam asked, what’s next? It’s like, oh, talk to me in two days. I can give you the full roadmap.

Sagar Desai (39:53):

I’m in the middle of it right now.

Charley Burtwistle (39:55):

Yeah, that’s great. Well, Sagar, thank you so much for coming on and helping out today. I loved it. Oh, I know for a fact our listeners will love it too. As always, if you could like, review, and subscribe, we’d greatly appreciate it. Show some love for Sagar in the comments. And we’ll be back next week. I’m Charlie Burtwistle

Sagar Desai (40:13):

And Sagar Desai.

Charley Burtwistle (40:15):

Bye.