Home improvement leaders are under growing pressure to use artificial intelligence across every part of their companies. New tools, platforms, agents, and automation systems promise faster work, lower costs, stronger follow up, more leads, and fewer tasks for employees. This can make leaders feel that they must act at once or risk being left behind. During a PowerChat hosted by Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, Luca Tofan, Team Lead at Clever Digital Marketing, shared a more focused view.
Drawing from his work in home improvement digital marketing, Tofan explained that companies should not ask how much AI they can add. They should first ask where AI can solve a real problem. His message was clear. AI should help a team improve how it works without replacing the people, systems, and customer care that are already producing strong results.
The conversation gave home improvement companies a practical way to think about the next stage of technology. Instead of chasing every new tool, leaders can study where time is being lost, where customers need better support, and where teams need help. They can then use AI with a clear goal and measure whether it creates real value. Power100 brought this issue forward because focused leadership matters during times of fast change.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Through conversations with leaders such as Luca Tofan of Clever Digital Marketing, Power100 helps contractors learn how smart marketing, strong systems, and clear choices can support growth without putting trust, people, or the customer experience at risk.
During the PowerChat, Greg Cummings spoke with Luca Tofan, Team Lead at Clever Digital Marketing, about the fast rise of artificial intelligence across the home improvement industry. Their talk moved beyond the excitement around new tools and focused on a deeper leadership issue. Many companies know AI can help them work faster, but they do not always know where it should be used or what problem it should solve.
Luca Tofan, Team Lead at Clever Digital Marketing
Luca shared a clear way forward. Leaders should not place AI into every process just because the technology is available. They should first study how the company works, find the areas that need help, and protect the systems that already serve employees and homeowners well. His view gives home improvement leaders a practical path for using AI marketing for contractors without losing focus, trust, or the human care behind the business.
New AI tools are entering the market at a fast pace. They can help with marketing, sales, customer calls, content, project planning, lead follow up, appointment setting, and reporting. Each new tool promises to save time, lower costs, and help a company grow faster.
This creates strong pressure on business owners. Leaders may feel that every part of the company must now use AI. They may also fear that waiting too long will place them behind their competitors.
Luca explained that this pressure can lead companies to act before they understand what they are trying to improve. Instead of studying the process first, they start searching for a tool. The goal becomes adding AI, even when the company has not found a clear problem.
“We’re experiencing an AI boom. Everybody’s looking for different ways to implement AI at every level, every stage of their company, every process.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
Moving too fast can create more work. Employees may need to learn several new systems at the same time. Information may stop moving well between departments. Teams may also spend time fixing poor results from tools that were meant to save time.
A company can look more advanced from the outside while becoming less clear and less focused inside. Luca’s message is an important reminder for leaders working in home improvement digital marketing. Progress does not come from adding the most tools. It comes from making better choices about where those tools belong.
The best use of AI starts with a clear business need. A company may be missing calls after normal work hours. Its team may be slow to contact new leads. Appointment reminders may not be reaching homeowners. Reports may take too long to prepare. The marketing team may also need help creating and testing new ideas.
Each problem should be studied on its own.
Leaders should ask what is happening, why it is happening, and what result they want to improve. Once they understand the problem, they can decide whether AI is the right answer.
“What’s really a problem that needs fixing, and what’s something that doesn’t need to be fixed, but maybe we’re just overdoing it with AI?” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
In some cases, the right answer may not be a new tool. The company may need clearer team ownership, better training, stronger project planning, or better use of the systems it already pays for.
This step protects leaders from buying technology first and searching for a purpose later. It also makes the result easier to measure. A company using contractor funnel optimization can study one weak part of the customer journey, make a change, and then compare the results.
The same rule applies to lead to appointment conversion. Leaders can review response time, contact rates, appointment setting, and confirmation steps before choosing the right form of support. This turns AI into a clear business decision instead of a costly experiment with no clear goal.
Explore more leadership insights for home improvement companies through Power100.
Luca’s main point was simple. AI should help people do better work. It should not remove a full workflow without a clear reason.
“The focus of AI for us is to work smarter, not harder.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
A good workflow often contains more than a list of tasks. It may include years of team knowledge, customer feedback, quality checks, strong communication, and good judgment. Employees may know how to spot problems that do not appear in a report. They may also understand how to respond when a homeowner needs more care or a different answer.
Replacing the whole process can remove those strengths.
“What is it exactly that AI can do here to help us optimize how we work rather than replacing the entire workflow altogether?” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
A stronger approach is to place AI inside the process as a support tool. It may help sort information, reduce repeated work, prepare reports, support content ideas, or help a team respond faster. The people remain involved where experience, care, and judgment still matter.
This is the value of AI marketing for home improvement companies when it is used with focus. The tool serves the team. The team does not become trapped by the tool.
Thoughtful contractor workflow optimization can also help leaders keep the best parts of a process while reducing delays and wasted effort. The goal is not to erase the way people work. The goal is to help them perform important work with greater speed and care.
Some home improvement companies already have strong systems. Their teams contact leads quickly, communicate clearly, keep homeowners informed, and understand who owns each part of the job.
Adding AI to these systems without a clear goal can create confusion.
“Don’t try to fix something with AI if it’s not broken.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
Leaders should look closely at where delays, mistakes, added costs, and lost opportunities are happening. Those areas may need a new tool or a better process. But a system that is stable, trusted, and producing good results may not need to be rebuilt.
Luca also warned that companies can go too far. A business may remove employees too soon because it expects AI to complete the whole job. Later, the leaders may learn that the tool cannot understand every situation, protect quality, or handle the full customer experience.
The company may then have to bring people back, repair broken steps, and rebuild trust inside the team.
A clear home improvement sales funnel analysis can help prevent this. It shows leaders where customers are being lost and where the system is working well. The company can then invest with care instead of changing everything at once.
This is also a key part of contractor growth marketing. Strong growth does not come from constant change. It comes from knowing what to improve, what to protect, and when to leave a proven system in place.
See how Power100 brings practical leadership lessons to contractors facing fast industry change.
The PowerChat also moved from the use of AI into the larger issue of customer trust. A homeowner may first see a contractor through an online ad, a social post, a truck, a yard sign, or a referral. After making contact, that homeowner will often search for the company before moving forward.
The lead is only the start.
The homeowner may receive calls, texts, emails, and ads from several contractors. Many homeowners also invite more than one company into the home before choosing who will complete the project.
“They’re going to make a decision. But the question is, why should they choose you? And that’s what brand is. Brand is the answer to that question.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
Technology can help a company reach the homeowner faster. It can support reminders, follow up, and communication. But it cannot replace the real proof that helps the homeowner feel safe.
Reviews, testimonials, customer stories, local visibility, years in business, employee behavior, and clear communication all help build contractor brand authority. They show the homeowner that the company is real, trusted, and prepared to stand behind its work.
Strong Google reviews for contractors can have a major effect on this decision. Two companies may spend the same amount on an ad and receive the same kind of lead. Yet the company with stronger reviews and clearer proof may be far more likely to win the job.
AI can support the journey, but trust still decides which contractor the homeowner welcomes back.
A company should not judge AI only by the number of tasks it completes. It should study whether the tool improves the customer journey, helps employees, supports faster follow up, and gives leaders better information.
Clever Digital Marketing team.
Luca explained that brand plays a major role in this full journey.
“What I mean when I say brand is the feeling that gets generated in the eyes of the consumer when they see or hear about you.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
A contractor may generate many leads and still struggle to close them. After submitting a form, the homeowner may find an old website, weak reviews, empty social pages, or a company message that changes from one platform to the next.
Those gaps can weaken trust before the sales visit even begins.
A strong home improvement brand strategy connects every part of the customer experience. The website, ads, reviews, sales team, trucks, uniforms, emails, and service should all tell the same story. That consistency helps the company feel stable and professional.
Luca also identified visibility, social proof, consistency, and reputation as key trust signals. When homeowners see a company often, it becomes familiar. When they find real stories from real customers, that familiarity becomes belief.
The same lesson supports customer acquisition for remodeling companies. Better growth is not only about adding more leads. It is about giving each lead a stronger reason to trust the company and move forward.
The smartest use of AI creates more room for that work. It gives teams time to improve communication, gather real testimonials, train employees, update reviews, and create useful content. In that way, efficiency does not replace the brand. It helps the brand grow stronger.
Luca Tofan’s message about using AI with care is supported by the wider progress of the team around him. Clever Digital Marketing has continued to grow while staying focused on clear systems, strong client service, and results that can be measured. This balance has helped the company earn attention beyond the home improvement industry and build its place as a trusted performance marketing agency for home improvement companies.
In 2025, Clever Digital Marketing was named to The Globe and Mail list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies. The company reported that it ranked first in the Marketing and Advertising category and 42nd among all companies in Canada. It was also one of 15 York Region businesses and one of six Vaughan companies recognized for strong growth over several years. This national recognition shows that the company is not only helping clients grow. It is also building a strong and lasting business of its own.
That growth has also earned local praise. Quality Business Awards Canada named Clever Digital Marketing the top rated advertising agency in Vaughan for 2025. The company received a quality score above 95 percent, a level the award group says is reached by fewer than one percent of Canadian businesses. The award points to strong service, customer satisfaction, reputation, and a steady focus on quality.
Independent client feedback adds another layer of proof. Clever Digital Marketing holds a verified Clutch profile with a five star rating based on three client reviews. Clients have praised the team for clear communication, strong results, trust, customer care, and hands on support. Reviews also point to gains in ad return, conversions, digital sales, and website traffic. These results show why the company is seen as more than a service provider. It is viewed as a contractor marketing partner that takes part in the full growth journey.
The company’s voice has also reached more home improvement leaders through featured industry conversations. In an earlier PowerChat, Daniel Rahmon shared why real jobsite photos, honest stories, and clear proof help contractors earn homeowner trust. That message works closely with Luca’s view in this conversation. Both leaders place real people, real work, and careful choices at the center of modern marketing.
For Luca, these signs of progress add weight to his advice. His call to work smarter is not about chasing speed at any cost. It reflects a company that is growing while still earning trust from clients, local business groups, national media, and the home improvement leaders it serves. Clever Digital Marketing is showing that strong growth can come from using technology with purpose, keeping people close to the work, and protecting the quality that helped build the company in the first place.
AI will keep changing how home improvement companies market, sell, serve customers, and manage daily work. Contractors cannot ignore that shift. At the same time, they do not need to rush into every new tool that enters the market. The better path is to move with care, ask better questions, and make sure each change has a clear reason behind it.
Luca Tofan’s message gives leaders a steady way to think about what comes next. Work smarter, not harder. The companies that stand out will not be the ones that automate the most tasks. They will be the ones that use AI with purpose, protect the systems that already work, and keep people involved where trust, judgment, and experience still matter most.
Through the PowerChat hosted by Greg Cummings, Luca and Clever Digital Marketing offered home improvement leaders a more grounded path forward. Test with care. Solve real problems. Improve one part of the business at a time. Keep the human experience strong. Use the time and efficiency gained through AI to build a company that employees believe in and homeowners can trust. That is how smart technology can support better growth without taking away what made the company strong in the first place.
No. Power100 states that its rankings are based on its own ranking system and are not pay to play. Leaders are measured across growth, community impact, and company culture. The process also reviews public data, business results, customer feedback, employee feedback, and industry signals before a final ranking is made. This helps the Power100 home improvement CEO rankings focus on real performance instead of the size of a company’s marketing budget.
No. AI is only one part of the process. The five layer home improvement leadership ranking begins with public and business data, followed by AI scoring. Industry veterans then review the findings. Customer, partner, and employee feedback is also checked before the final rankings are set. This mix helps prevent a computer system from making the full decision without real human review.
No. Luca is not against AI. He believes companies should use it where it can solve a clear problem and improve the way people work. His concern is that some leaders are adding AI to every process before they know what needs to change. His approach to AI marketing for contractors is to study the need first, test the tool with care, and keep the parts of the workflow that already produce good results.
“The focus of AI for us is to work smarter, not harder.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
No. Moving first does not always mean moving well. A company can lose time and money when it adds several tools that do not connect, do not solve a real need, or create more work for employees. Strong AI workflow optimization for home improvement companies starts with one clear problem, one planned change, and one result that can be measured. Focused action can be safer and more useful than fast action with no clear plan.
Not without careful testing. A tool may handle repeated tasks, organize data, prepare reports, or support customer follow up. It may not understand every homeowner, protect service quality, or use the judgment that an experienced employee brings to the job. Luca warns that companies may remove people too soon and later have to rebuild the team. AI should support people where it adds value, not remove them before the company knows the full effect.
No. AI can support writing, editing, planning, and creative work, but homeowners still look for proof from real people. Reviews, job photos, customer stories, local awards, and clear company information help show that a contractor can be trusted. A strong home improvement brand strategy should use technology to support real proof rather than create a false picture of the company.
A submitted form does not mean the homeowner has chosen the company. The homeowner may search the contractor’s name, read reviews, visit the website, check social media, and compare several businesses before making a choice. Weak proof or an unclear brand can hurt contractor lead conversion, even when the advertising campaign brings in the right people. Luca explains that the company must give the homeowner a clear reason to trust it after the lead arrives.
“They’re going to make a decision. But the question is, why should they choose you? And that’s what brand is. Brand is the answer to that question.” Luca Tofan, Team Lead, Clever Digital Marketing
No. Clever Digital Marketing presents itself as a performance marketing partner for mid sized and large home improvement and home service companies. Its work connects paid advertising, data, sales planning, marketing strategy, and scalable growth. The company says its mission is to help large home improvement businesses grow top line revenue and reach scalable profit through planned advertising and growth support. This positions Clever Digital Marketing as a home improvement marketing agency focused on the wider business result, not only the number of leads delivered.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Led by Greg Cummings, Power100 gives strong CEOs and industry experts a trusted place to share their ideas, earn recognition, and help move the industry forward. Through PowerChats, leadership features, rankings, events, and business resources, the platform connects contractors with practical lessons that can improve their companies, support their teams, and create better experiences for homeowners.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
