Reasonable Tech Dad

Host of "The Reasonable Contractor" Podcast | I build AI systems that help construction contractors run faster | Dad of 3 | I speak construction and code 🔨

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Every contractor's job is different. That's exactly why a lot of guys write off AI before they even try it.

Here's the truth: it's not as simple as opening ChatGPT and typing a question. Real AI in construction takes building the right harnesses and data around your specific business, your quoting workflow, and your job types. Generic AI chat can't do that out of the box. Specific, trained AI can.

That's the difference between "I tried AI once and it didn't work" and a system that actually saves you hours every week.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Before any of this I was a restaurant guy. A good bartender with people skills can go get cash any night of the week, and that is the trap. Money is never a problem until it is.

In my early twenties I decided to do something for real. Two years at Anoka Tech for an electrician degree, working the restaurant and paying cash as I went. Then three years in industrial automation, which is where systems got into my head. Seeing the big picture and how every piece fits together.

That is still what I see when I look at a contractor's business.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Jordan Morell of MGC Remodeling noticed the AI in his email kept opening with "best regards." He is not in Europe. It is "thank you."

Give it a few weeks and it learns you. He signs off with "I'll keep you posted" because that is how he talks. The first drafts came back "we will inform you when the time is right." Nobody who knows him would believe that was him. Now it keeps his words.

Same here. I sign everything "appreciate you," and mine picked it up.

If your customer emails still sound like a robot wrote them, DM me and I'll do a free 15-minute assessment. One bottleneck, the exact tool to fix it, no charge.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@PickRepAI @soul_zah Well said!

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@soul_zah My man! 😄🙏

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Joe Smith-Cunnien never built Capital Masonry Restoration on quick-hitter one-offs. He built it on relationships.

That's when word of mouth kicks in. One client comes from another, something happens on a project, and there's a chain reaction.

The chain reaction of treating people well. As long as you're doing good work and communicating well.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@soul_zah I really appreciate it

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@soul_zah Thanks for the share! 🙏

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Happy customers and happy employees pull against each other sometimes. Joe Smith-Cunnien of Capital Masonry Restoration aims for both anyway.

He thinks of it like a football team. Defense, offense and special teams all have to come together. Customers happy, employees doing good, and the business is happy.

It's obviously a lot harder than that, he says. But that's the aim.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Capital Masonry Restoration started twelve years ago with two or three guys.

Joe Smith-Cunnien says they've added about a guy a year since. Linear growth. They never tried to blow up overnight.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Joe Smith-Cunnien of Capital Masonry Restoration runs the business on two pipelines in one CRM.

The first carries a lead from intake through the bid. Once a contract is signed, the job moves to the other side, and that side belongs to his brother Dave. The proposal, the construction agreement, permits, plans and drawings all get uploaded and organized there.

Next on his list: something for estimating and project intake that plugs into the CRM.

If your leads and your job files live in two different heads, DM me and I'll do a free 15-minute assessment. One bottleneck, the exact tool to fix it, no charge.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

A lot of the buildings Joe Smith-Cunnien works on went up in the 1920s, and all that steel is just sitting there corroding.

Masonry restoration is niche skills and niche work. The good guys tend to stay where they are, so there isn't much lateral movement in the industry.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Gabe Wagner on the first few years of Aqua Blast: the anxiety is so high. Literal blood, sweat and tears, and emphasis on the tears.

Nobody posts that part. The wrapped truck and the matching shirts came years later.

[Pliny the Liberator 🐉󠅫󠄼󠄿󠅆󠄵󠄐󠅀󠄼󠄹󠄾󠅉󠅭 @elder_plinius]

my spidey senses are telling me the labs are, as we speak, using unguardrailed versions of their unreleased models to systematically reverse-engineer ALL of the internet’s software, apps, and games, then feeding the reconstructed source code straight into their training pipelines while simultaneously building guardrails to ladder-pull the rest of us

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Joe Smith-Cunnien of Capital Masonry Restoration says one of the hardest parts of the job right now is managing expectations.

Two big projects this year hit large change orders nobody saw coming. That pushed out the whole fall schedule. The customer who heard six to eight weeks now hears two or three more, with freezing temperatures on the way.

That's a hard phone call to make. Joe's answer is to keep the communication open the whole way through.

If keeping every customer posted when the schedule slips is eating your evenings, DM me and I'll do a free 15-minute assessment. One bottleneck, the exact tool, no charge.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

When Pete Cicconi tried to break into the electrical trade, every door got slammed in his face. No formal education. No experience. Nobody would give him the chance.

Now he owns Twin Cities Electric, and he doesn't mind giving people a shot. Everybody has to start somewhere. He was that guy.

His advice for anyone still on the outside: persevere, don't give up, keep on keeping on.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@asoberspartan Never been smarter than I was at 23...all you had to do was ask, I knew the answer 😏

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Josh Stensgaard of Sky Armor gets great results out of AI because he's extremely specific with it. Line by line by line.

But he doesn't stop there. He has a coach. His coach's coach has a coach.

His take: nobody is too good to have a coach, or to keep being a student. He knows a guy who crushes it in sales, and at 62 he's still going to every seminar.

That's why he crushes. The tools get better every month. The guys who keep learning get better with them.

If you want someone in your corner on the AI side, DM me and I'll do a free 15-minute assessment. One bottleneck, the exact tool, no charge.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Joe Smith-Cunnien of Capital Masonry Restoration hears the same complaint about other contractors over and over. Nobody gets back to me. You're the only person who even answered the phone.

I hear it on bids too. Five guys called, and I was the only one who showed up and got them a number.

Joe's answer: that's not us. Calling back and showing up wins the job before anybody reads the bid.

If calls are slipping through while you're up on the scaffold, DM me and I'll do a free 15-minute assessment. One bottleneck, the exact tool to fix it, no charge.

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

@asoberspartan Love this! 🫡

[Reasonable Tech Dad @reasonablTchDad]

Gustavo Baltazar found out you can make a living in the trades and actually have fun doing it.

You're around people all day. You make them happy. You take the idea they've had in their head for years and turn it into a real room.

That's what pulled him in. He saw the opportunity and jumped on it.