Blue Collar AI

There are hundreds of AI tools fighting for your attention and your money. Most of them don't matter. In this episode, I break down the only three I actually use in my electrical contracting business — ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity — what I pay for, what I use for free, and the one I stopped trusting. I also share why I went from free to Max on Claude, how I use Perplexity for on-the-job tro...

I used to spend almost $8,000 a month on customer service reps and an outsourced call center to answer my phone. Now I spend about $40 a month on an automated AI intake system, and my quote conversion rate has actually gone up. In this episode I break down exactly how I replaced my call center, why the old model of paying humans to take messages doesn't make sense for most trade businesses any...

After more than a year on CompanyCam, I moved all my job photos and files to a simple Dropbox setup with one automation on top — and saved money in the process. In this episode I explain what CompanyCam does well, the three things that drove me to leave (connectivity, cost per user, and long-term data lock-in), and the basic system I use now to keep job photos organized without paying for features...

Welcome back to Blue Collar AI — the show about using AI, systems, and simple automations to make real trade and blue-collar businesses run smoother. In Episode 3, I talked about why I built my own automated review system instead of relying on the built-in feature inside my CRM. Today, I want to talk about one of the most useful automations I've built so far, a Discord estimate bot that helps me q...

Welcome back to  Blue Collar AI  — the show about using AI, systems, and simple automations to make real trade and blue‑collar businesses run smoother. In Episode 1, we looked at how talking instead of typing changed the way I deal with emails, quotes, and job notes. In Episode 2, we went through how I actually use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini in my electrical business. To...

Welcome back to Blue Collar AI — the show about using AI, systems, and simple automations to make real trade and blue-collar businesses run smoother. In Episode 1, we looked at voice-to-text and how talking instead of typing has changed the way I deal with emails, quotes and job notes. Today I want to zoom out a bit and talk about the AI tools themselves — the actual assistants I use day-to-day. I...

Welcome to Blue Collar AI — the show about using AI, systems, and simple automations to make real trade and blue-collar businesses run smoother. My name’s Dan. I’m an electrician and business owner with over 20 years on the tools. I started as an apprentice, worked my way up to running a full team. I’ve spent years trying to make quoting, job management, communication, and day-to-day operations le...