Podcast Summary: Grow Your Local Business — MVP: The Lifetime Return

Host: Leslie Presnall
Date: September 9, 2025
Episode: 74

Episode Overview

In this episode, Leslie Presnall, local marketing expert and life coach, dives deep into the concept of "lifetime return" on investments in your business—not just financially, but in terms of time, energy, and skill development. Drawing from her experience coaching local entrepreneurs, Leslie highlights the mindsets and strategies local business owners need to realize the true, long-term value of their choices and efforts.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The True Meaning of Lifetime Return

• Leslie introduces the "lifetime return" concept: looking beyond immediate results to consider how efforts and investments accumulate over time.
• Many business owners, especially locals, expect instant results from marketing activities and are too quick to abandon strategies that don’t pay off immediately.
  • [01:00] “It can be hard to see all the future payoffs or the lifetime return on everything that we are doing now and all the work that we're putting in now.”
• The aversion to potential "loss" of time or money causes hesitation to act, try new things, or stick with strategies past initial discomfort.

The Dangers of "Jumping Ship"

• The most common mistake Leslie observes: business owners try something once or twice (e.g., reels, hashtags, collaborations, pop-ups), don’t see immediate payoff, and quit to try something new.
• Without sticking to one strategy long enough, they can't see the compounding benefits or develop mastery.
  • [07:55] “It’s just kind of all over the place, like trying a few things once or twice, then sticking to something maybe for like a week or a month and then saying things don’t work. This is the most common thing I see.”
• Leslie’s Localpreneur Academy requires clients to stick to a custom local marketing plan for at least six months to combat this cycle.

Embracing Discomfort and Trusting the Process

• Leslie encourages listeners to accept discomfort and view business and marketing as a continuous scientific process: form a theory, test it, evaluate results, tweak, and repeat.
  • [11:03] “Running and growing a business and marketing is a scientific process ... here's my idea, here's my theory ... I'm going to see if it worked or not, and then I'm going to adapt and go again, then you repeat that over and over.”
• The real improvement comes through incremental progress—referencing James Clear’s “1% better every day equals 37x better by the end of the year.”
  • [13:05] “Imagine sticking to something long enough in your marketing to be 37 times better by the end of the year. That's a 37 times return on your investment of your time.”

Case Examples: Events, Failures, and Payoffs

• Leslie shares client stories to illustrate the value of sticking with actions even when the initial result is discouraging.
  • [16:20] Story of a children’s clothing consigner who hosted a pop-up event:
    • Six hours of prep for a $67 profit and only two attendees, leading to discouragement.
    • Leslie reframed the experience as an essential first rep: “The purpose of this first event is to get your feet wet and to learn a ton so you can be better for your next event ... what you learn from this event and implement for the next one is what's going to make this event worth it, not the profit of $67.”
• Every attempt, even ones that seem to “fail,” build skills, relationships, and long-term returns—if the business owner keeps going.

Shifting from Instant Gratification to Long-Term Mindset

• Leslie challenges listeners to zoom out and look at payoffs over one, three, or five years.
• Questions to reframe decision-making:
  • “What's the cost of me staying the same?”
  • “What's the cost of me not sticking to my marketing plan?”

Money Investments: Return on Skills and Knowledge

• Investments in business (spaces, equipment, education, coaching) should be viewed by their lifetime return, not as wasted expenses.
• When considering opportunities (e.g., coaching, training), Leslie encourages listeners to ask:
  • [27:51] “What do you believe is the lifetime return on this investment?”
  • For the Localpreneur Academy ($2,000), students are prompted to imagine how much they could earn in their lifetime by developing one new skill set (e.g., local social media growth, email marketing, selling, time management).

The Cost of Inaction

• An often-overlooked question: What is it costing me not to act, not to invest, not to stick with my plan, not to try, not to fail?
  • [35:20] “What's the cost of me not going out and meeting more people? What's the cost of me not going out and failing? I love that question.”

Memorable Client Success Story

• Leslie closes with a client who started her business with an eight-week-old baby, grew it on the side for years, and recently achieved a $17,000 month—unimaginable when she started.
  • [38:45] “She told me that if I would have told her years ago that she would have that kind of revenue in a single month, that she would have never believed it. And that's what I mean. When you show up today ... you cannot imagine the payoff and return years down the road.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On failing and learning:
  [20:32] “I just don't believe in bad investments in ourselves with our brains, time, money, or energy when we're growing our business because we either win or we learn.” — Leslie Presnall

• On scientific process:
  [11:44] “Running and growing a business and marketing is a scientific process. That's when my clients create their local marketing plans. I teach them to think like a scientist and to evaluate.”

• On long-term orientation:
  [31:00] “What's the lifetime value? How much money can I make investing in just one skill set, that's so powerful.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:00] — Introduction to Lifetime Return concept & problem of expecting instant results
• [07:55] — Mistakes of jumping between marketing activities
• [11:03 – 13:05] — Scientific process & value of incremental improvement (James Clear’s concept)
• [16:20 – 20:32] — Case study: Event “failure” and reframing investment in time
• [27:51] — Questioning the lifetime return on investments (programs, coaching)
• [31:00] — Strategic framing for joining a program or learning a skill
• [35:20] — The cost of inaction and missed opportunities
• [38:45] — Client success story: Unimaginable payoff over time

Takeaways

• Stick With It: True business growth and skill mastery come from committing to strategies consistently over months or years, not seeking overnight results.
• Evaluate and Adapt: Treat marketing as an experiment—test, review, tweak, and repeat.
• Reframe “Failure”: Every attempted post, event, or collaboration, whether “successful” or not, builds toward future, compounding returns.
• Invest in Skills: See any investment in learning as a long-term wealth generator, not a sunk cost.
• Consider the Cost of Not Acting: Fear of failure or wasted effort often ignores the real, hidden cost of inaction or inconsistency.
• Visualize Future You: Making investments in your business today has payoffs beyond what you can imagine; measure decisions by their lifetime impact.

Leslie’s message is clear and energizing: Trust yourself, trust the process, and focus on the long game for true, exponential growth in your local business.