← Grow Your Local Business
Grow Your Local Business
Why Growing Your Business Locally First Will Get You Fully Booked Faster
00:27:59
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- [00:00]
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Hey, really quick, have you been thinking about joining the LocalPreneur Academy? But you want to know exactly what we would do inside to grow your business and how it would work? Click the link in the Show Notes to book your consult. Call with me and we'll talk one on one just about your business. We'll talk about what's working and the exact things we'll implement to help you stand out locally, reach more people in your city and bring in more clients. Pick the date and time that works for you and I'll see you there.
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You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnell shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in.
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Hello. Today we're going to talk about why growing your business locally first first will get you fully booked faster. So if you've ever found yourself wondering whether you should focus on getting clients locally or if you should try to market yourself online to everyone everywhere, then this episode is just going to clear it all up once and for all. So I'm going to share my philosophy with you today, broken down into four very specific reasons about why it really is easier to make the money you want to be making and to sell the amount you want to be selling or booking up in your business with actual local people. Even if you have the type of business who can work with people all over. I have so many people coming to me in so many different industries like social media managers, virtual assistants, OBMs, bookkeepers, coaches, nutritionist, anyone that has an online business who can work with anyone anywhere. But really in this day and age, I just have so many clients in general who work face to face in a traditional way with their clients, but also have that virtual component to their business as well. Like I have physical therapists who offer virtual options, or even acupuncturists, and of course, you know, personal trainers, personal stylists, like just so many traditional, very hands on business models just now also have those virtual options. And I see this all the time. So these businesses who can technically work with people all over the world or all over the country, but they haven't filled their books yet or they haven't gotten those first few clients, or they haven't really gotten that steady stream of clients in revenue yet, a lot of times when they're in that situation, they're kind of at this crossroads, they're in this confusion point. Like where do I Go from here. What do I focus on? Do I talk to people locally? Is that where my messaging needs to go? Is that who I target? Like, what do I say on my website? What do I put? Do I still do, like all these local things? Do I network? Do I tap into local? Do I just try to get clients from anywhere and everywhere and hope for the best? Like, what do I do? How do I just get clients as soon as possible? And so this is an overwhelming state to be in any. But then when you think about, okay, well, I'm just going to start marketing to everyone, everywhere. This layers on because the world is a big place. Like, there's a lot of options out there and there may also be a lot of people doing what you do all over the world or all across the country. So then it comes to, okay, well, how am I going to stand out? Do I just start posting on social media? Like, into the void, what do I do? So if you're in this position, if you are able to work with people all over and you feel like you are just kind of putting stuff out there and shouting into the void, it is because you are skipping the easiest and most powerful step of all, and that is growing locally. First, it's the best place to start. So I'm going to share my story because this is exactly what I did. And then I'm going to get into my philosophy. Like I said, I broke it down into four really core reasons about why growing locally is the shortcut. But I also want to say that starting locally is not limiting. It is the fastest path to clients. It's the fastest path to referrals and to becoming the go to expert in your industry. So for those of you who don't know or haven't heard my story before, I started the first iteration of my business in 2010 on my college apartment floor. I had just come back from a summer internship in New York City working for a fashion and beauty magazine. And I still had a year left in college at lsu and I was in journalism. This was just coming out of the 2008 recession when all the magazines and newspapers were consolidating, shutting down, restructuring all the things. It was a great time, I say that with complete sarcasm, to be getting a degree in print journalism with a dream of working for a fashion magazine magazine. But I was seeing a few bloggers in this time. This was the very early days of blogging and social media. And I was like, hey, I can do that. Like, I can write. I'm very. I was very into all the, the editorial things and I was like, this is what I want to do for sure. Like, this is it. All the stars were aligning. So I started my blog in March of 2010 and just a spoiler to fast forward. I had that blog for 14 years. I officially retired from blogging in 2024 and closed down that part of and all the events and everything just last year. But I, it did have a pretty slow start at first. And the reason why is for the first couple of years, I just did what I saw everyone else doing. I was your typical flat fashion blogger. I was buying, you know, the popular scarf and taking pictures and posting it and sharing my affiliate link and I was buying the trendy makeup and doing a tutorial. I was just pumping out content as fast as I could go, trying to keep up with all these other big bloggers that had millions in their audience. And you know, again, this was 2010 and to, you know, 2013, 2014, it was nothing even like it was today with influencers, with the competition. This was before the word influencer existed and it still felt hard. But I did this for years. It, it was a very competitive phase of just how fast can I keep up with what everyone else is doing? So I knew something had to change because I wasn' getting a ton of traction. I was growing an audience. I didn't really know who they were. And honestly, it was just a lot of other bloggers, a lot of other people in my industry, which is what a lot of people come to me saying when they're out there. Just marketing is. Yeah, it's just a lot of other people in my industry following me. So what gave I shifted my messaging and my audience. Everything went to focus on local. I literally became the local go to girl. That's what I started calling, calling myself. So instead of keeping up with the latest fashion trends, makeup, lifestyle stuff, the generic that everyone else was doing, I niche down to local to my city. And I do consider being local focused as part of your niche. This is what I teach inside the localpreneur Academy when we're talking about your messaging and your content creation. So I started blogging about local people, places, things to do. I started hosting local events and really everything started to blow up from there. Like everything. The reason why is because all of a sudden I knew who my people were. They had real faces. I was able to create real community. I was able to create raving fans based on the really unique things I was doing, the unique content I was creating. Everything I was creating was For a very specific group of people. I wasn't just blending in with every other person in the entire world doing what I was doing. I was now the local person doing this. This also repeated whenever I started taking on social media clients. So in 2016, I started taking on other local businesses, other local business owners as clients because they were like, slow down. How are you doing this? How are you getting people excited about? What are you. About what you're doing? How are you grow a social media following with local people? How are you getting people to put on real pants and leave the house? How you know, just the technical stuff. How do you post on social media? What are you saying? How do you send emails and create a website and run ads like all the things? So I started taking on clients and in order to get fully booked as a social media manager, I didn't just start posting into the void and telling the whole world and hope random people from all over started hiring me. There were a million and one social social media managers in the world. Why would someone in Minnesota hire a random girl from Louisiana when someone from Minnesota could hire someone from Minnesota? I was able to fill my practice and get fully booked all here locally. And that came from networking, referrals, pitching myself locally and making that connection and establishing myself as another local business owner using the local engagement and the social media strategies and the online marketing strategies that I now teach inside the localpreneur Academy. And I live in Baton Rouge. So all of this works because people in Baton Rouge were like, oh, someone in Baton Rouge to help me perfect. Other business owners were always asking other business owners about who could help them and they would always say me until I had a crazy wait list. And then I launched the LocalPreneur Academy. And do you know who my very first clients were? All local people. Because that local trust already existed, the relationships already existed. That's what made getting clients easier. And here's what I've also learned. Scaling beyond local is a totally different set of skills. That's now what I've had to go on and learn in the past four to five years. But I was able to make money and protect my business revenue while I then went and learned the skills to scale beyond local and to become known as this person beyond my local community. So now you guys see me having scaled beyond local. Now majority of my audience is not local. But that's not how I started. I had to go learn the skill sets of getting people all over the world to like know and trust me. And I had to figure out how to reach them through my ad, through my podcast, through my website, through my content, through my funnels, and through my making my messaging resonate and stand out among every other marketer and coach out there in the world that brought you here to me today. But I was making money well before that and during that with my local clientele. That was my very first dollars all the way to getting fully booked. And at that point, I was ready to scale because my revenue was protected. I had money in the bank. I knew how to just go out and meet people local while I was learning the skill set to reach people all over the world and to talk to them. Okay, so that was my story. So now I want to break down the core four reasons about why focusing on local and growing locally first is truly the hidden shortcut to get fully booked. Number one, it gives you clarity in your messaging and in your audience. When you focus locally, you know exactly who your people are. You're not guessing at this like, they're not faceless. You actually probably know so many people locally who are perfect for what you offer, and it's easier to get to know them and to think about them. You, you know them so well. You know everything about their daily life. You know what restaurants they enjoy going to, you know what their lifestyle is like, what they're doing on the weekends, what they do for fun, what they care about. There's so much more insight to your local people and you can connect with them on that. You have things in common. You can complain about the traffic and the weather and all the things this makes your messaging with you having insight and things in common, it makes your messag so much clearer because you're also clear on who you're talking to and exactly what their problem is and what you're helping them with. When you're just starting out or you're trying to fill your books with clients you're messaging the things you're saying, this is typically the hardest part. So talking to your local people who you actually know makes this part a bit easier than trying to talk to all these faceless people all over the world. The second reason, when you focus on a market and sell locally, it creates instant trust and recognition. So this is what I was talking about in my own story. When people in Baton Rouge would see me marketing my services and say, oh, wow, she's in Baton Rouge. Perfect. Like, their ears would perk up. And this is the kind of reaction that builds that instant, like, no trust factor versus if they were just looking or browsing at a sea of social media managers when they were ready to hire. Like, imagine if they were choosing from a hundred social media managers and they all seemed fairly similar as far as price offer skill sets and you saw one that was from your city, you'd be like, that one. She's the one. Local gives you that built in credibility and connection. They are going to be instantly connected to you. They automatically have something in common with you. When you try to market to people all over the world, especially just starting out, it's way more difficult to stand out. You kind of blend in. You feel like you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. It doesn't feel as niched or special. There's no special bond with anyone yet. There are fewer reasons for people to see you and be like you. You're my person. But when someone is searching for someone who do, who does what you do, and they see that you are in their city and provide the exact thing that they're looking for, it's going to be an instant match. The third reason why growing your business locally first will get you fully booked faster is referrals are much easier when you're growing your business locally. So think about it. Everyone talks to everyone locally. Friends talk to friends, moms talk to moms, co workers talk to co workers. You have small talk with everyone you meet, like at coffee shops, at appointments, Just everywhere you go, things get brought up and you and your business want to be the thing that gets brought up. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire locally. Someone can just mention something related to your niche or industry or a problem that someone has. And someone says, oh, I know someone. I follow them on Instagram. Or there's this person here in town, like, we want that to be you. And then that goes back to that instant connection and that bond piece that we talked about previously. Versus imagine this scenario. I'm talking to someone who lives in my city. They're in Baton Rouge with me and they're struggling with a specific problem. Let's say she's also a new mom and she's wanting a pelvic floor therapist. I could say, oh, you know what, I follow this lady and I think she's based in California. Like you should follow her. She has some really good content. I really like her reels. And she'd be like, okay, yeah, like, send me your info, I'll check her out. She would start following and then, you know, maybe she'd get lost in her feed, she'd forget what her name was and she'd never be able to find her again or, you know, maybe she even opted in for some of her free resources. She'd think about it for a while, but she's just kind of unsure. It'd be a longer warm up. But if I'm like, oh my gosh, there's this doctor right here in town. She's amazing. She does this and she does this and she, you can work with her in her clinic or virtually. Let me send you her contact. It's much more actionable for her to take that step right now. Like she's right here. It's more approachable. The trust is there because she also knows I know her and respect her. She's not some random person that I follow on social media. She may look her up and see that all these other moms that she also knows here locally also follow her. So again, there's just this local credibility and trust factor there with that referral piece. And that happens so much easier and quicker locally. That doesn't mean it can't happen when you go to scale beyond local. But again, to get fully booked, to get your first clients, to get that fully, to get that steady stream of clients coming, it happens so much easier and so much faster locally. And typically there are fewer options in your city, meaning there are fewer people, people in your industry or niche for people to refer people to. Or maybe you're even the only one versus when you start marketing to people all over, you become one in a sea of many people. So that competition is a lar is a lot harder. You have to work a lot harder for those referrals. Okay, My fourth reason why growing your business locally first will get you fully booked faster is because marketing locally is very tangible. So here's what I mean by that. When you focus on growing your audience, meeting people and selling locally, that is truly something that you can take action on today. Like right now, at the end of the day, you can ask yourself, did I meet someone new in my city? Did I make a connection with a local person today? It's very tangible. It's very black and white. I always say that local marketing is just a math problem to where sometimes when we market all over the world, we get really caught up in online marketing strategies and analytics that do work, but typically can take longer to get set up and to see traction on. You know, there's like funnels and landing pages and ads and really doing the work to expand your reach and grow your audience and become that go to person all over the world. That does take time and we can tend to stay in some of the gray area. As to. Did the work I do today actually bring me closer to working with someone? Like, I can spend all day working on an email funnel, but after eight hours of strategizing and setting up the technology and brainstorming and planning emails and writing, did it bring someone closer to working with me today? Like, I'm not really sure. Did I hit. You know, especially if you didn't even hit publish on it, it's. It stays in the gray area. Versus you could just go to a networking event today. You could introduce yourself to someone today. You could host an event today. You could ask for a referral today. When you try to reach people all over, it's a lot of questioning, like, who are my people? Where are my people? Where do I find clients? And again, it can kind of feel like you're posting into the void when you're starting out, but when you market locally, it's actionable. You know where they are. You know what events your people are at. You know what neighborhoods they live in. You know what other businesses they follow on social media. So meeting them and getting in front of them and being more visible to them becomes a matter of you showing up, not just kind of shooting in the dark and hoping for the best. It's actually very tangible. So it's like you want more clients, you just go to a networking event tonight, you ask one person what they do, you tell them what you do. Like, boom. That is local marketing. And I say this all the time. Every single person in your city either has the potential to either be your next client or refer you to one. So it's just very actionable, very tangible. Okay, before we move on, just to recap quickly, those are the four reasons why marketing and growing your business locally will get you fully booked faster. So number one, you have clarity in your messaging and in your audience. Number two, it gives you that instant trust and recognition. Number three, local referrals are easier. And number four, it's tangible, it's actionable. So now I want to hit on what you may be thinking right now, and that is. But won't I be losing money? Won't I be excluding people all over the world and leaving money on the table? Like, am I going to be losing business if I only talk to local people? And I just want to give you this reframe. You're not excluding anyone. You're focusing on local people. Just like when you niche down to something, people outside of your niche can still connect with your message and with your marketing and they can still reach out and buy from you. But the point here isn't to, like, put up a virtual sign and say, keep out. It's not like putting all this stuff up on your website and social media saying, I only work with people in my city, unless you want to do that. But instead it's really to help you focus on who your people are, where they are, what you can say to them, and the actions you can take today so you can grow faster. It keeps you out of the overwhelm, trying to speak to everyone or trying to do all the unnecessary things when you could just be meeting people and getting clients. I can't even count at this point how many students I have inside the localpreneur academy who have businesses like this where technically they can work with people all over. But they focus on getting fully booked locally because of all these reasons. They see how much easier it is to get the revenue and to get booked up locally. And they still get found by people beyond their region. And they do end up having people from other places booking or buying from them. And it's this beautiful thing. So just because you market locally, people all over can still find you through social media, through your website, and even through word of mouth. You're not going to exclude them just because you have your city listed. They're still going to be connected to what you're saying and what you're offering. But they're also just an amazing bonus to all the amazing local people who are booking and buying consistently. So what's gonna happen is by focusing 100% locally and putting all of your energy into local marketing, you're going to start becoming known for something. You're going to start getting more clients in sales. You're going to get fully booked locally and get that revenue coming in. You're going to get really good excelling, talking about your offer, helping as many people as possible, getting them results, getting so many testimonials, getting your business running like a oiled machine, you're going to figure out exactly what to do to bring in clients consistently, and your business will feel predictable. This is the beautiful thing about growing locally. Then you're in a perfect position to be intentional with scaling beyond locally. This is exactly what my client, Chan Le did when she booked up her acupuncture practice. She had a huge wait list a couple months long and she had already raised her prices a few times. She, you know, she's won the best of award in her town. She goes on the local news station and she has people reaching out to her now all the time to connect and collaborate and to refer and to learn from. She has followed all the steps in the LocalPreneur Academy to get fully booked and now she's scaling. Now we're working on her digital offers like the guides and the courses to bring in more revenue without having to scale with more physical space or with hiring. She gets to keep more of her revenue in that way, which in my opinion is the best way to scale. It's stress free knowing that your profit is protected because you are fully booked locally. And then you can start the next part of your journey to scale beyond local. Okay, so let's wrap up. I just want to remind you again that that local is not a limitation, it's leverage. It's your fastest path to getting fully booked, to becoming known, to actually meeting and connecting with people who need what you offer. You can always scale later. But if you're not fully booked yet, if you don't have consistent clients or sales yet, they are right there in your city. So just start where you are. Start local. And if you're ready to build a fully booked business by growing locally, you've got to come join us inside the LocalPreneur Academy where we do this work together step by step. So click the link in the show notes to learn more and I will see you inside. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the Local localpreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information at lesliepressnel. Com and I'll see you inside.