Nick Pintozzi (Astro Ads)

Nick Pintozzi is the owner of Astro Ads, which leverages AI to help windows and decks contractors make more money.

Had to shamelessly plug the windows and decks there (duh!).

So this Pintozzi guy, well, he grew up in Burnsville.

After high school, he tried nursing, but that didn’t materialize.

“In my first semester, I learned that this [nursing] was really interesting, but I had no interest in actually learning any of this,” he says, which I guess means nursing wasn’t for him.

Devoid of direction, Pintozzi entered the Air Force.

My mind instantly imagines Tom Cruise and that badass movie, Top Gun, but unlike Mr. Cruise, Pintozzi wasn’t jetting through airspace at supersonic speeds.

Instead, he was analyzing things; like really important, top-secret government information, probably.

“I learned pretty quickly that working in a building without windows, no lunch breaks, no holidays off, and doing that for the next 20 years was not the best idea either,” he shares, his jovial and congenial laugh on full display.

I also would loathe being inside a building that sounds more like incarceration than employment, but Pintozzi’s time in the Air Force was not wasted.  

“Moving across the country and not knowing a single person, that teaches you something about yourself,” he says.

After exiting the armed forces, Pintozzi started an eco-friendly eyewear company, the idea being to partner with a non-profit and donate reading glasses to vision-deprived individuals in developing nations.

“It was real cool,” Pintozzi recalls of that experience.

“That was my first stab at business.”

To the moon we go, most entrepreneurs believe when first starting a business, but quickly Pintozzi realized that one doesn’t simply open an LLC and get catapulted toward success.

“People don’t just line up to buy your stuff,” he reveals.

That’s because upon founding a business, most people have no idea who you are and what you do, which makes marketing that business crucial.

To generate revenue, Pintozzi explored e-commerce opportunities, which led him to tinker with Facebook ads.

“I had to learn how to run ads,” he says, in a way that suggests the survival of his business was dependent on the viability of these social media advertisements.

“That opened my eyes to the digital marketing side of things.”

Outfitting the less fortunate with eyewear may not have been Pintozzi’s vehicle to entrepreneurial stardom, but it was a necessary step, a lesson that had to be learned in order for the Burnsville native to start Astro Ads.

For context, Astro Ads helps home service businesses turn leads into booked jobs, ensuring that when potential clients reach out, these home service companies are setting appointments and solving problems on the front end, and not letting inquiries go to voicemail or die in the abyss of unanswered calls and neglected emails. 

“Where AI has been really helpful is for companies who spend a lot of money on marketing, and so now when people reach out the company has a way to engage and conversate with these people, without it taking any manpower or time,” Pintozzi explains.

“They don’t have to be waiting by their phone.”

At Astro Ads, Pintozzi can program AI to function as a high-quality receptionist.

“The AI can be empathetic,” he tells me, and instantly I think of the sultry, enticing voice of Joaquin Phoenix’s girlfriend in Her.

“It can answer questions and help a homeowner get what they need a lot quicker.”

In essence, the AI can provide instantaneous information to homeowners, at all hours, only instead of potential clients going to Google for answers, they are getting them directly from a company affiliated source.

AI has its place, for sure, but for the business owner hoping that a Pintozzi-programmed AI tool will remedy all that ails their business, disappointment will certainly ensue.

“I think people want AI to be able to do everything, where they can set it and forget it,” Pintozzi says.

I’m lazy.

Other people are lazy.

That being said, we cannot build a profitable company simply by clicking a few buttons.

Business takes panache, guile, perseverance, and commitment.

All things that AI can’t readily offer.

But AI can be integrated with your business to ensure that when Mr. Smith’s windows start leaking at 8 P.M. on a Tuesday, Mr. Smith can confidently call your business and have his problem at least be acknowledged.

“People want to be helped, and they want to be cared for,” Pintozzi says.

What the great citizens of this fine country don’t want is to call and be greeted by a stilted, awkward robot.

“How can we use AI to elevate the experience of the service that we are offering?” Pintozzi asks, and again, he’s offering a tool, not the cure to whatever plagues the small business owner.

“If we have this conversation in six months, I’m sure it will be totally different because of how fast things change,” he adds.

For home service companies looking to invest in a long-term data and marketing partner, Pintozzi appears well positioned to help.

“I want to use this technology to offer insights that allow the business owner to be proactive with the decisions they make,” he explains.

“It’s not just about getting new customers where they need to go, but what happens after, and how we can use data to make recommendations for the team, and what works best for the company.”

An AI service provider, sure, but Pintozzi is also acting as a consultant for the companies he partners with to take the data that is acquired by artificial intelligence, and leverage it into future profits.

In the past, Pintozzi admits that he has had dissatisfied customers, but the Astro Ads founder didn’t simply accept the discontentment and move on.

“Everyone says business isn’t personal, but I don’t know how you don’t take that personally,” Pintozzi says of a dissatisfied client, but after conducting more in-depth analysis, Pintozzi discovered that most of the time, when his clients were not happy with how Astro Ads performed, it was because they expected AI to wave its magic wand and make profits appear out of thin air.

“Everyone focuses on getting more leads and having their phone ring more,” he says.

“For some companies that don’t have lead volume, that may be true, but what we do different is, we put an emphasis on better handling the leads that do come in.”

Lead acquisition is hard, and often expensive, which is all the more reason that when customers come looking for help, assisting them immediately is paramount.

“We are not a lead provider. We are not someone that just sets them up with a CRM,” Pintozzi says.

“We actually make recommendations. We are also consultants that handle their lead and marketing processes, and then help them get those leads where they need to go.”

Adds Pintozzi:

“We’re not just another service provider.” QS

**

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