Between the Builds: The Advantage of Being Close to the Problem

Built With Purpose

In this Between the Builds episode of Built With Purpose, Chris Fay reflects on his recent conversation with Landon Messal, Founder & CEO of SiteMarker, and digs into one big theme: the people closest to the problem are usually the best equipped to solve it. Chris expands on what this means for leaders who aren’t always in the field or on every customer call—and how to build systems that surface insights from across a growing organization.

Chris also explores how AI is transforming knowledge capture and enablement. By recording internal meetings, customer conversations, and team discussions, leaders can use tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to quickly analyze information, build strategies, create training materials, and transfer critical knowledge across teams. He shares how his own company reduced a six-month enablement project to just a few weeks—all by leaning fully into AI.

This episode is a practical guide for leaders who want to scale their teams, speed up innovation, and ensure that institutional knowledge becomes an asset rather than a bottleneck.

Key Takeaways:

• Being close to the problem is a competitive advantage. Landon built SiteMarker by experiencing the pain firsthand—proof that great solutions often emerge from lived frustration, not theoretical strategy.

• Leaders can’t be everywhere. As teams grow, leaders must intentionally design systems for surfacing insights from employees and customers who experience challenges in real time.

• Record everything. Customer calls, internal meetings, support conversations, strategy sessions—every recording becomes raw data for improvement.

• AI enables analysis at unprecedented scale. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can digest hours of conversations, extract patterns, and convert them into strategy, documentation, and training.

• Enablement can happen dramatically faster. Chris’s team used AI to build a full go-to-market strategy, video content, learning paths, and quizzes in under two weeks—work that used to take six months.

• Knowledge transfer is a massive challenge in experienced-based industries. Construction, AEC, manufacturing, and engineering depend on decades of tacit human knowledge. AI can help capture and pass that knowledge forward.

• The best prompt is honesty and curiosity. If you don’t know how to use AI, ask it. If you don’t know what to do with transcripts, ask it. Curiosity is the new superpower.