Show Me the Work: What Every Contractor Needs to Know About AI Marketing
Show Me the Work: What Every Contractor Needs to Know About AI Marketing
By Joe Crisara
When I talk to contractors about marketing, I always start with one question:
“Show me the work.”
Because nine times out of ten, what I see isn’t marketing — it’s motion.
Everyone’s posting, boosting, or “running SEO.” Reports look impressive. The numbers go up. But when I ask how many actual calls came in, how many qualified leads were booked, or how much revenue was created, things get quiet fast.
That’s why my recent conversation with Jennifer Bagley, CEO of CI Web Group, hit home. Jennifer isn’t just a marketing expert — she’s a builder of systems. And she’s using AI to bring accountability, speed, and transparency back to an industry that desperately needs it.
The Pain Point: Everyone’s Talking, Few Are Showing
Marketing used to be simple. You ran an ad, tracked your calls, and counted results.
Today, we’re swimming in metrics — views, impressions, reach, engagement — but nobody’s connecting the dots between activity and outcome.
Jennifer put it perfectly: “Reports are opinions. Shipped tasks are facts.”
If your marketing company can’t show you what got done — what content was published, what strategies were tested, what leads were generated — then you’re not buying results, you’re buying motion.
The AI Advantage: Agents, Not Guesswork
Most contractors hear “AI” and think ChatGPT. But Jennifer broke it down into something much bigger: agentic systems — AI networks that can perform hundreds of micro-tasks at once.
Instead of a human writing one blog post a week, an agentic framework can research competitors, analyze search trends, build a content plan, and produce hundreds of optimized pieces — all in the time it used to take for one.
That’s not the future. That’s happening right now.
The key difference? It’s traceable.
You can see the work. You can measure the results. You can hold your marketing partner accountable.
The Contractor’s Blind Spot
Jennifer and I both see it all the time: a business owner proudly says,
“My guy’s got us covered.”
But when you dig deeper, “the guy” can’t show you the data, can’t show you the posts, and can’t show you the conversions.
We’ve all been there — investing money in marketing we want to believe is working, while the leads tell another story.
The truth? If you can’t see the work, you don’t own the results.
Final Thoughts
AI isn’t replacing marketers — it’s exposing them.
The ones who do the work will thrive. The ones who talk about it will fade.
So next time someone tells you your marketing is “doing great,” just smile and say:
“That’s awesome. Show me the work.”
▶️ Listen to the full conversation: Service MVP Podcast – Joe & Jennifer Bagley
▶️ Watch on YouTube: Full Episode with Jennifer Bagley
Ready to turn insights like these into action?
Join the Service MVP Club and learn how to lead with clarity, not confusion.
