Transcript of The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl

Ai is nothing without the data. Consumers, when they're doing a search, they want to be confident that they're getting the right answers.

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text, note, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299, and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin. Com/podcast to get your copy. Now, let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, check it out. My buddy Benji came into town, and he is probably one of the smartest data analytics person on the planet.

Where did you get into data?

How did you learn about data?

I don't know if we have enough time for this podcast for me to give you the full story on that. But really, I was so interested and enamored by performance metrics and hitting the right audience. I was mainly interested in marketing in college. I started Started building through a sales center, started building that at Ohio University, and learned a lot about that, and then started my career in data and direct mail and loved it ever since. It's almost 30 years now.

Thirty years. Tell us about that. I met you through Valtack. I got to speak at a couple of their events, the franchises, the little blue mailers that come in the mail. Awesome. Works great for us. Tell me a little bit about what led you to there, what you love about there, what you're working on today.

Well, one of my mentors, if not the mentor, Mike Davis, who's now CEO of Neighborbarly. He was CEO of Valtpack at the time. I met him in New York when I was visiting there with some agencies, and he was visiting the local market and asked me to join Valtpack. That That was eight and a half years ago.

Yeah, eight and a half. It's been a minute.

Yeah.

What are you most excited about? Listen, we're living through these days of AI, machine learning, data lakes. What is just exciting for you?

Well, as a data person, that's the most exciting time because people are now really paying attention to their data lake. They're putting more investment. The CEO is now running point on a lot of AI. They want to know it because it's giving them the and giving them the pathway to even more growth and accountability of their overall business. It can't be a more exciting time for a data nerd, data geek like myself, especially when you can look at that and then tell a business and help a business perform better using the data that they have with our data.

Give me an example of how you might use data. We just went through a whole demo of the awesome stuff you're working on, but just for the audience.

Yeah, we just launched a new product called My Local Insights in our business. And what our job is to bring in a customer file. So maybe A1 Garage, your customer database, which you have name and address, all this basic information about them, and we can layer and enrich that information. Link it. Maybe you only have an email, and we'll tie that to phone numbers and postal addresses, and then help tell the story of who your customers are and how they compared local population. Because that's really, if I told you your average customer is $100,000 income, that may not matter because everybody in that community might be $100,000. You want to know what is different and then how you can grow from that.

When you get really good with the data, what would you expect? I mean, if you were very, very good, you had the automations, you had everything fired in all cylinders, you were really a data-first company. You morphed into this. What do you think that does for a business?

Well, you're not guessing anymore. You've got the levers, you've got the information in front of you. So if you said, Hey, I want to pour gasoline in this area because I know this is performing, I can push that button and grow it even further. So it gives you more confidence because that spray and pray. So years and years ago, when direct mail, and even from a digital, you would do display advertising to everybody in the area, you don't have to do that anymore. You can be more precise and more targeted than ever before.

What do you think converts the best? So you've got this data, you've got moving data, you've got permit data, you've got all this data. You hit them with a text message, a phone call, an email, Do you hit them with a mailer, do you hit them with a handwritten mailer, or all of it?

Well, yes. First of all, you want to test and control. Each business, each industry, each offer is going to perform differently. So You do proper test controls, you do a lift analysis, you compare the results. Of course, being from with foul pack and clip, we talk about a lot of direct mail, but a decent portion of our business today is digital. It's all powered by data, though. If you see, let's talk of new movers as an example. You have a customer base that is always on a move. Roughly in any database, customer database, there's roughly 8 to 12% plus or minus of your customers are in a new mover journey within the past one year. That's an extraordinary amount of churn and change management. Sending out a email notification to them, sending out a push notification, maybe it's a text, and then ultimately, maybe it's direct mail that all pulls together for the performance analysis.

Yeah, obviously, they're moving into a new home for my type industry. Look, what we look at is, this is what's interesting to me is HVAC, hot water heaters, garage drawers, they tend to fail at the same time. The whole neighborhood, when they were installed, the builder installed them. Within a year, they all start going out. What are your thoughts on using the data to really be able... Because look, one neighborhood might be hot for a year, and then it moves.

It's a very personal moment right now for me on that one, because last week, I live in Columbus, Ohio. We had frigid temperatures. We had a bunch of snow. My well pump went out. Then the next day, my water softener stops and it gets overworked. Then in the middle of the night, my geothermal shut down. So you can't get more cataclysmic than that. And you are spot on. As you get to those certain ages of a home, they need more love, they need more maintenance. Absolutely. So if you do a job, and that job is, let's say you do a new garage doors and it's $1,000, it's $2,000. You look around, if you're the installer, you look around, you're like, These neighbors all look the same to me. Why am I not targeting them? You want that installer to put a sign in the yard. You want them to canvas the neighborhood. We've been piloting out a program called Neighborhoods Next that does a lot of that, sends that billboard in the mailbox, closest 25, closest 50, closest 100, to model out data. You can't get any more precise than that, and you are 100% right.

Now, what I've been told by people far more advanced than me is you need to send that more than once. You might have to send it seven to 10 times. You might want to hit them on a monthly, just reoccurring to own that, to just be fresh in their minds. Is there a magic number that you like to do that, like a sequence? If you know that neighborhood's hot, and can you go back to the builder so you want to hit the whole area that that was the same builder?

Let's talk about like, neighbor's next. If you do an install and then you target the closest hundred around that and you get another one and you target again. You keep fishing where the fish are biting, right? And you keep going. We have reach and frequency calculators that help guide us in that. You remember the old ad, you remember the old ad, as years ago with newspaper industry was, you got to hit the audience 10 to 12 times in order for them to actually convert. That's not That's not just 12 direct mail pieces.

Yeah, you want to retarget them. You can do OTT, you could do Comcast, you could do...

Absolutely. They need to hear, they need to feel that you're the brand, you're the dominant provider in that market.

That's much better than spraying and praying. I mean, that's what realtors talk about. Let me own this neighborhood, not let me own this county or this city. I want to be the most knowledgeable person about this area. If you could own that audience, you're winning.

Everybody's competitive, You're competitive, I'm competitive. I want to win, you want to win. You want to win. So I want to own this neighborhood. I want to send direct mail pieces. I want to send messages to this. And I want every single one of those customers, those prospects to be my client. And I want to make sure that I continue to farm that area and own it.

Hey, hope you're enjoying the episode. Since you listen to my podcast, you're part of my inner circle, and I want to share a personal update with you. I've been building out a house on Lake Penderelle with a pool, pizza kitchen, cigar bar, bowling alley, game rooms, basically everything for meaningful memories with family and friends. But here's the thing. This wouldn't have been possible when I was in my 20s, not because of money, because if I took a day off back then, everything fell apart. Now, I can spend days away and my teams of eight players grow the business without me there. So here's my question for you. Is your team giving you more freedom or just more problems to solve? Be honest. If you're still the one holding everything together, you don't have a business, you have a job. And the only way to change that, get around people who've already achieved what you want. That's what Freedom 2026 is all about. It's happening at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, October 26, 28. Don't miss your exclusive presale discount. Go to freedomevent. Com and grab your ticket at the best possible price by February 15.

Only a few more days left. Now, back to the episode.

You know my favorite? I thought about this quote. It was like 10 years ago. This guy had it up behind his desk, and it says, He who could pay more per lead will always win.

I saw that in his signature. I saw that in his signature this week from another advertiser.

That means you got your booking rate or your contact center is dialed. That means your conversion rate face-to-face when you knock on the door is dialed. That means that you're offering everything to the client and you're letting them choose. They might say, Oh, well, I want that and that as well. I might as well. If your conversion cycle is right, you can pay more. I know there's a lot of people listening right now that are like, Oh, great. Something else to buy. I can't even afford to advertise as it is. What do you tell somebody that's lost in their marketing world?

Well, short of having that Henry Ford quote, the person that stops advertising, stops time or whatever, however that quote goes, we just completed our 2026 small business study, and small business owners stated that they will normally advertise when their business is good. What does that mean when their business is not good? They're going to continue to go through a spiral?

The death spiral is what it's called.

A hundred %.

You stop marketing. I just talked to a guy that said, Listen, he was sitting in He took a seat yesterday. A massive water filtration company. He goes, 2008, '09, '10, we poured money in a market when nobody else was. We took market share, didn't make a lot of money those three years, came out and just murdered it. When you're not making money. Why is it the first thing people cut is marketing versus all the people that aren't performing?

Because those marketers or those C-level individuals are not looking at the data. They look at marketing as a cost versus marketing as an investment. Yes.

Well, give us a few more words of wisdom here. What else are you excited about in the next few years? I know that Elon just did a deal, a private deal with his company. I don't know if you saw that today.

I did. I think people are afraid of the unknown. They're of some of the future things that could be possible. Look at what AI has done to our industry and what AI will do to even more industries over the next couple of years. I think people are just simply afraid of the future.

Well, let's take a deep dive here. When we went through the industrial revolution, it took care of 20 farmers. One machine could handle 20 farmers. Well, the farmers just had to learn new stuff. It was easy. When the girls had to put in for the phone calls, they learned how to do something else. There's nowhere else to turn when it takes over. I mean, we're probably going to be on universal income. Some people are more optimistic. They say, Well, you don't understand. Humans adapt. Adapt to what? It's a better surgeon. It's a better driver. It's a better at building houses. It's better at filming. It's better at fixing garage doors, potentially, once the AI is in the humanoid. Where Where does it go? And by the way, Tesla believes that there'll be 10X more human noise than humans here within the next 10 years.

I think that might be very accurate. I have a several hundred foot driveway. And when we first built the house, I did not have snowplow or anything like that. Did it manual. That was back-breaking work. Think of the cotton gin, all that stuff. Back-breaking work. Then I got a snowplow. Still a lot of work. You got to maneuver that thing. Two years ago, I bought a side-by-side with snowplow on it.

Yeah, super quick.

I'm evolving, right? So the next phase, I've got to get some humanoid bots, apparently, to plow my driveway for me. Now, you have to worry about it. But as I think about the future and as I think about data continuing to infuse it, because AI is nothing without the data. And we have to make sure that number one, data is accurate, it's normalized, and we can count on Consumers, when they're doing a search, when they're looking at Copilot, when they're looking at ChatGPT or whatever the AI environment is, they want to be confident that they're getting the right answers.

Right. I do think we're going into utopia within the next five years when SGI and all these things come out. They will come out. It's a matter of time. It will be good, but where do you find your meaning? I like to golf. I like to do water sports and have fun, but when the machine could go faster, it takes a kid, 12 grades to learn school before you even specialize it goes to college. It's a matter of a blink of an eye for a machine to learn all that stuff.

That's why you're always going to need home service. You're always going to need home improvement.

For now, yeah. That's why- The trades are pretty protected.

You need an electrician, you need a plumber.

Trades are protected. That's why... What's his name? The CEO of NVIDIA. Nvidia. Yeah, he was talking about the plumber is the safest. That's why everyone's getting into it. But how many plumbers can you have and for how long before the AI is in the robot?

Well, as long as there's a toilet, there's going to be a plumber.

But not every single person could become a plumber.

Until the humanoids become plumbers themselves.

Yeah, no, it's pretty easy. Load it all in. It sounds simple to me. It does sound simple because if they could wash the laundry, it's like, But that's a trick. All I would do is wear a suit for a month and I do all the work. And the AI system just slows into the robot.

Yeah, it's going to learn from that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not complicated to me. So what happens, though? Are you optimistic? Do you feel good? Are you worried? Are you costly optimistic? What do you think?

I wouldn't be human if I wasn't worried. Am I optimistic? I'm very optimistic about the future because hopefully that gives more people opportunity for leisure, for recreation, to do things things that are more valuable to them as a person. More family time, work-life balance, maybe that's a little bit better. That's where I'm optimistic. It's going to give us more time. Time is something that we can't get more of.

Well, with AI, understanding the genotype and the geno code, I think we might be able to get an extra 100 years out of us. That's right. They say, If you can make it 10 more, you're probably going to live an extra 100. But Yeah, I'm a little worried just because I think most people, they get a lot of satisfaction through accomplishment, through doing good work. I feel like that's an important piece in humanity. We've always had that. You'd have to go hunters and gatherers, right? Now it's just going to be like, Hey, you want a house? This thing builds the outside of the house. This little robot goes around and builds. It's a better house that we build today. It's just interesting. But I'm obsessed with data. I'm nowhere near at your level. If someone is just lost and they just don't even know what we're talking about, it's just over their head. They don't understand their ideal client. They don't understand what their avatar looks like. Is there a book they could read or something that just give them basic fundamentals?

Besides yours? Yeah. I mean, you've got a great podcast. You highlight a lot of this stuff because as a business, you need to understand who your customers are, those basic avatars, those personas. Can they read? There's plenty of books out there that they can read about it, but I prefer to I get my hands dirty. I go ahead and I engage with a business that you feel comfortable and confident with that can help you. They create an introductory model for you. You test that out, and then you go from there.

If somebody wants to reach out, learn more about what you do, how do they do that?

You go to valpack. Com. There's lead gen forums there. You can put in my name and request me. I'm happy to jump on a call and talk with it.

You might get in trouble here.

I love it. I welcome it.

Benji is, I'm telling you guys, this guy's a freaking genius. I mean, there's no other data scientist out there that builds teams. What I like about somebody that really knows what they're doing, they know how to do the work, but they know how to build a team and get the result. And the stuff that you just showed me, it's freaking nuts. I'm excited. Thank you for coming in today.

Thank you. I appreciate it, Tommy.

Take care. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game-changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage or Service. If you want to learn the secret to help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin. Com/podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.