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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. Welcome to episode 104, your local Go to vision. So today we're going to dive into a really powerful way to become your city's local go to person for what you do. By the end of the episode, you're going to have a super clear vision for your upcoming year or for the next 12 months, wherever you are in the year that you're listening to this. I'm releasing this episode as the first episode of 2025, but I'm gonna give you clear exercise to help you bring your annual vision of becoming the local Go to to life. I'm so excited to bring this episode to you today. It is something that I have really been thinking about how to bring you even closer to being that local go to person in your industry. I always talk about being the local go to person and we talk a lot about the strategy to get there, like the actions that you're going to take on a daily basis, like the marketing that you're going to do. We talk a lot about the mindset and really being that person and thinking and showing up like that local go to person every day. And maybe what all limiting beliefs may get in your way on the way there. I mean, like, hello. That's what this entire podcast is basically about. Welcome. But I have never taught it quite like, I'm going to teach it today and I'm going to give you an assignment today and it's going to involve ChatGPT. And even if you've never used ChatGPT before, I'm going to make it really easy for you. I'm going to tell you exactly where to go and exactly what to type it. So like I said, if you are listening to this episode when it comes out, it is the first week of 2025, a brand new year. I know you have a really big goal this year. Maybe you're just starting out in your business and you want to get your very first clients. Or maybe you've been in business a while and you want to hit a certain revenue goal. Maybe it's your first six figures. Like whatever it is, I notice something that feels big and challenging to you and maybe even scary, but also exciting. I love when goals feel like that. Usually when I'm talking to my clients who just join the LocalPreneur Academy. Or if I'm talking to someone on a consult and I ask them about their goal, they tell me where they currently are and where they want to be in the next 12 months. And then they tell me everything that is currently in the way of them getting there. Like all the obstacles. Like there are. Maybe there are other people in their city who do what they do. Maybe they're other people who their pricing is lower than theirs. Maybe they don't really know how to set themselves apart or talk about what they do to get people excited and reaching out to them. Maybe they're doing like a million and one things to market themselves locally, but they're really not doing any of it consistently. Some of it works sometimes, but they really don't know what is working and what doesn't. They don't know how to grow on social media. They kind of feel like they're shooting from the hip, throwing spaghetti at the wall. They don't know how to get people to engage with them. They don't know what to track, what to look at. They don't know really how to talk about what they offer. They don't want to be salesy, they're low on time, they're stressed, they're frantic, overwhelmed, confused. That's the typical business owner, right? That's who comes to me. It's pretty normal. These are pretty normal obstacles that I hear. And there's just a lot to figure out and learn when someone wants to go from point A to point Z. And so usually from there, we're really good at identifying, like, the problems, the current problems in our business and the things we need to solve for. So we're like, here's where I am, here's where I want to go. So we start like putting together our action plan. Like, okay, in order to overcome this, here's what I need to do. I need to figure this out. I need to start posting more on social media. I need to go learn this, I need to do this. I need to set up an email list, blah, blah, blah, right? We're really good at kind of doing all of that this time of year, in the beginning of the year, and making really big plans. So we all kind of know our current problems or obstacles in our business, and then we make a plan to overcome them or to grow. That's not really what this episode is about. I'm just kind of telling you what I see as typical for this time of year. And I mean, I do. I do the same thing too. I think this Is a very normal thing to do. And I help my clients do this. So we see all our problems, we start making a plan, we see where we want to go, we start making to do list and then we get to work. Very normal. What I think is missing is this visualization piece. As business owners who have really big goals and who want to become really well known locally, who want to be that local go to person, I find that a lot of people just aren't spending enough time really being there and they're being like in the future. They spend a lot of time being bogged down in where they currently are right now, in all the problems, in all the problem solving or even thinking about the past and making all the results that they've gotten before dictate what's possible for the future. Which just as a side note, what has happened in the past has nothing to do with what's possible today or this year or in your future. You could have made zero dollars in your business so so far. You could have zero social media followers, you could have zero clients. You could be there could be someone already way more established than you. And you can still create the results you want. You can still become very well known locally. You can still become the local go to person. I see it happen all the time, but a mistake I see is people stay so focused on the past or they stay so focused on the here and now and all the current problems and where they are and everything they have to figure out and learn and solve for and all their current results. And it takes them out of who they're becoming and where they're going as that local go to person. And the way I teach, the first really foundational way I teach as becoming that local go to person is you have to be that person now even before you are that person. You have to show up and think and feel and act like that person, like that local go to person every single day before you are that person. And that's how you actually become that person. You have to show up and be the future version of you today and make decisions as that person. You have to show up in your business as if you already are that local go to person. You have to think like them, you have to feel like them. You have to do the things that they would be doing. It's an identity that you take on. Like, I am this local go to person. I have an entire episode on this. It's literally episode one. It's how I kicked off the podcast. It's the foundation of everything it's you showing up as that local go to person or as that person who has the results that you want before you actually have those results. That's the secret. So I use the example of running a marathon. I'm actually getting ready to run my second marathon here in a couple weeks. This was my postpartum comeback plan, which was a much better idea in my head pre baby. But here we are 10 months postpartum and I have 26 miles to run in a couple weeks. But I always use the example of running a marathon when we are talking about becoming the local go to person. Because what I found whenever I signed up for my first marathon is when you sign up to become a marathoner, when you sign up to run your first marathon, you actually become a marathoner right then. Like that day, that instant, the moment you sign up to run the race, you become a marathoner. Not when you cross the finish line months and months later. It happens the moment you sign up. Like you change in that moment, your self concept changes, your identity changes, the thoughts you have about yourself changes. Like you are, you are now a marathoner. It's. You have the identity of being a marathoner and it's what gets you up every single day, putting on your running shoes and going for these obnoxiously long runs because you have the thought, I am a marathoner. It's just who I am. This is what we do. It's like a switched, A switch is flipped and this is just who you are now. So it's actually no surprise when you cross the finish line and they give you a medal because you've been this person and thinking like them and showing up like them for months and months now. And it's the same way in your business. It's no surprise when you hit revenue goals, or when you start booking up clients, or when local media starts featuring you, or when some someone says, oh my gosh, like you are my person or you're my favorite, or when you start getting all these amazing, amazing reviews, when people start referring you, when people start seeing you out in public and recognizing you and telling you how amazing you are at what you do. It's no surprise when these things happen. Now that doesn't mean we don't celebrate and appreciate how amazing they are. But it's because these things start happening because of how you started showing up in your business every day and because you started making these things happen because it's just who you became. These things may not be happening yet, but you're gonna work and show up as if this is your future. And that's how that becomes your reality. But it starts with you and how you show up in your business every day. A lot of people sit around and wait for these things to just start happening. And that's why they never start happening. So you have to show up and be the local go to person and take on this identity. And that's how these results actually happen. You go out and create them. So that's kind of the quick version of how I teach really embodying and being this local go to person. But I want to add on to this today and give you an extra layer to make it even juicier and easier to visualize so you can really feel it and really feel what it would be like if you were the local go to person. I feel, I feel like that's what a lot of people are missing is that feeling piece. They really struggle to, like, see it and visualize it and feel it in their body, what it would feel like. And so I really want you to be able to see yourself having this reality of being this local go to person and what your day to day life would be like, so you can really feel it in your body and what like, emotions would be coming up for you, like, and for you to think about, just what would I be doing every day in my business? How would you be feeling? What would you be working on, how would you be spending your time? And just the vibe of everything going on in your business. And I know visualization might feel kind of like wishful thinking, but there's actually research that shows that seeing yourself achieving goals helps you take the actions needed to get there. We actually see this a lot in like, sports. But one of the things that I do is when I'm talking to people on consults, after I get them to really figure out, like, where, here's where I am, here's where I want to go, here's gonna. And then I help them kind of lay out their plan of here's the things we're gonna do to get you there. One of the things I actually have them do on the call is we take a minute to visualize. Like, I have them sit there and really feel what it's gonna feel like, what's gonna be the impact on their life when they have this result that they want? And I think that's so important because so often I find we just don't feel. We don't spend enough time feeling what it's going to feel like. We get so bogged down in our day to day feeling all the really negative, like crappy emotions of not being there yet. So slowing down and visualizing and really feeling what we think it's going to feel like when we get there of where we want to go. Whether it's like the end of this year or when we're the local go to person, whatever you're working towards, those emotions and the visualizations, that's what's going to drive us to keep going. Because yeah, guess what? There's going to be really terrible hard emotions along the way. We're going to have a lot of failures. That's totally fine, we're here for it. We're going to feel, feel a lot of doubt, a lot of confusion, a lot of overwhelm, dread, fear, imposter syndrome, anxiety, comparison, embarrassment. Like we're gonna feel some negative emotions as we grow. Like that is just part of the deal. If we're not feeling the negative emotions, we're probably trying to avoid them and keeping ourselves small and safe. So negative emotions are not a problem. But we can still anchor them to where we're going by visualizing who we're becoming. Our future self, who has the results we want, or who is that local go to person can tell us. Like, yeah, this confusion that you're feeling today is just part of it. Like work through it, solve for it. Like our future person who is that local go to, he or she has the best advice for us. When you see where you're going, it doesn't make all the negative emotions that we feel kind of in the daily grind of it such a problem. They become just kind of part of the process. The negative emotions or the failures don't tend to stop you as much when you truly can visualize where you're going. You don't quit, you don't ghost your business for long periods of time because you clearly see where you're going. It makes you more resilient. Okay, so I want to make this really tangible for you and I want to give you a really easy way to be able to visualize being the local go to person. I don't want you to just have to like sit in an empty room and like close your eyes and try to visualize. You can do that totally if that works for you. I kind of have trouble doing that. So there's a really cool thing you can do using ChatGPT that I discovered. So I'm going to tell you kind of how I did this so you'll know the information you need. And then I'm going to kind of just walk you through it and tell you how you can make this your own so you can go and do it for yourself. So at the end of December, as I was Mapping out my 2025, I had my revenue goal and I had the number of clients that I wanted to work with this year inside the localpreneur Academy. And I was mapping out like when I was going to do live launches throughout the year, like when I was going to do webinars or challenges. And I, I typically have around, like Right now around 300 or so people sign up for my webinars. And this year I want to focus on growing and even streamlining them a little bit. As I do more, it kind of, as I do more, they kind of start to feel a little chaotic here and there sometimes, so. And then there are just some other bigger projects that I want to work on inside of the LocalPreneur Academy this year. Like some resources and trainings that I want to add in for my students. And then there are some just personal goals, like I'm running the Louisiana Marathon here in a couple of weeks and then I want to run another, a really big marathon later in the year and I want to travel more this year. We just had a baby last year, so it makes sense that we didn't go anywhere really last year. But I personally love to travel. I have been over to 30 countries and I have been to 49 states and a year without travel was a little hard. So I could just tell that I am itching to go somewhere. So this year I want to knock off my 50th state, which is Michigan. And Michael and I are celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. So I think we're going to go to St. Lucia later this year and we have a couple other trips planned. So what I was doing is I was really kind of mapping out my entire year and just getting some important dates laid out on the calendar. And I walk my clients through this. We kind of plan like our, our life and our business and events and promos and everything in a 12 month span. Have them create what I call a year at a glance, just so we can see what's coming up throughout the year. And as a little side note, I was not feeling super inspired looking at everything. I think too, because this past year I've. I was so head, head down in the day to day. Just, you know, I had five hours of day I could work with, you know, having a newborn and I think just kind of Losing track of not saying as in the visualization and in the emotions and in the celebration of where I'm going and what it's going to feel like when I get there and really what I want to feel every day in my business. I just, I could tell that I wasn't as excited about my year and not feeling super inspired as one normally does at the beginning of the year. So now I'm not becoming like the local go to person, but I do want to be the go to person for local business owners. I want to be very well known in the marketing and coaching industry. Like, I want to be an industry leader. I want every business owner who even mentioned social media to another local business owner to say, oh my gosh, like, you have to follow Leslie, you have to join our program. Like, that is where I want to be. So I went to chat chat GPT, as you will after this. And I told ChatGPT that I wanted to do some visualizing for my upcoming year as a business owner and as a mom. And you can leave that part out. But I asked ChatGPT if it could write me a story of what my year would look like based on my current goals and my priorities. Like my business priorities, my priorities for my clients, my priorities for my health, my priorities as a mom, my priorities to travel and be with my family. So here's the prompt that I put in and I'm going to put it in the show notes too. But here's what I put in. I said I'd like to do some visualizing of my upcoming 2025 year as a business owner and mom. Again, you could leave the and mom part out. Can you write a story of what my year would look like based on the following goals and priorities? And then I just listed out in a bullet point list probably 15 to 20 things. You could do less, you could do more. But what I did is I really just started listing out all of my goals, all the things I wanted to do this year, all the things I wanted to feel this year. Like really just anything I could kind of think of of how I wanted my year to go, anything I already had on my calendar. I told Chat GPT because I wanted to make sure it could put it into my story of the year. So, for example, I put a bullet point in And I told ChatGPT that I was running the Louisiana Marathon in January. I also added a bullet point. I told it how many business owners I wanted to work with inside the localpreneur academy this year. So, you know you could put in your goal of how many clients you want to work with or how many, how much revenue you want to have. And then you know, you could have a bullet point. If you have any health or wellness goals, add those in. It doesn't have to be just business related. This can be your entire vision for the year. Because I mean your, your life is you also becoming the local go to. Right? So I also told it my goal of how many people I wanted to register for my webinars and workshops and challenges. That's just a goal I have, is to bump up normal. Like I said, normally I have around 300 people. I would like to see that get above 500 this year. And then I added a bullet point and I talked about my audience and how, how I wanted my audience to feel about me and the value I was providing and just like the overall vibe of my audience. And so I put in a bullet point and I, I told it how I have an audience who loves my content and who was excited about it and who couldn't wait to get my emails and see my social media posts and who couldn't wait to join the LocalPreneur Academy. And they're just waiting on my next podcast. And I think this is really important. Like tell it your thoughts about your audience and your future clients and how excited they are to hear from you. And then I added a bullet point and I talked about my current clients and just my community inside the academy and how it's so supportive and thriving and everyone is just always helping each other and everyone is getting results and wins day after day. So maybe you have a bullet point there, sharing all the amazing results that you're getting, your clients or customers this year, how they're referring you, whatever that looks like in your business. And then I talked about how I see myself. And so for you, how you see yourself in your city as that local go to person. So I talked about how I see myself as an expert and an industry leader. I had a bullet point also about how I show up every day in my business. This is important as we're becoming that go to person because you're going to have to show up more consistently, even when it's hard, when you're doing bigger things, even if you don't have the result yet, even when your brain is telling you it doesn't matter or that no one's going to notice. So I have a bullet point talking about how I show up every day, what it feels like in my business every day, how everything I Do is highly executed and organized and planned out. And these are just some important things for me right now where I'm at. But think about what's important for you. Maybe it's just getting. Getting more consistent. Maybe it's posting on social media and being more visible. Maybe it's showing your face more and letting people get to know you. Think about what does showing up in your business in 2025 look like for you? What does it look like to work in your business every single day in 2025? What do you want your daily routines to look like? How do you start your day? How do you end your day? Just what are you doing every day? Tell ChatGPT that, like, if you have a perfect day showing up in your business, what does it look like? What does it feel like? How do you feel like? I like to think about if I was watching a montage of a movie. Tell ChatGPT what that looks like. And then I also plugged in, told ChatGPT that I was the trips I was taking at what, in what months? I and I already mentioned this, but I told Chappie chatgpt how I wanted to start every day. Stretching has become very important in my life, especially now that I'm running so much and my body is just not the same after having a baby. So I talked about waking up every morning and stretching and journaling and drinking coffee. So think about, you know, your daily routines. You may also have certain times of the year that you already know. You're going to be doing certain local events or big pushes or launches or sales. For those of you that are in the localpreneur academy, this is going to be what you're pulling from that year to a glance we created. Like, put all of that in there. Tell Chat GPT everything you can think about for your year. So put whatever you can think of as it relates to your year in your personal life and in your business. Any milestones that you want to hit, like, if you have any social media goals that you want to hit, maybe it's a certain number of followers, maybe it's a certain number of subscribers, maybe it's a certain number of YouTube views or podcast downloads. Any milestones like that there's any important dates, like, we're celebrating our fifth anniversary, my baby's gonna have her first birthday. Like, anything like that. Things going on. Tell it how you want to feel, how you want your days to look, who you want to be. Maybe talk about too, the people in your city and how they start to recognize you. How people start to follow you, how people start to refer you, share, how they start to share about you on social media, how you get featured in local media, like all the things that are signs that you are becoming the local go to person beyond just clients or revenue. And then once you get all your bullet points typed out, as much as you can think of, what happens is ChatGPT is going to write you the most amazing story about your year. And just be sure that you have some tissues close by or that you're alone, because I was crying before I even finished the first paragraph. ChatGPT wrote me the most beautiful story about who I'm becoming this year, what I'm accomplishing, and how 2025 is just my year. And because I told ChatGPT like when certain things were happening in my business, I broke it down like month by month. The story was in chronological order. And this really made my year feel really doable. Like I have a more manageable timeline. It made my goal feel like it's here today and it's happening now versus 12 months from now. And what that made happen is it made me be able to feel it today. And there were also some things that ChatGPT just got wrong or got incorrect and I just typed back in telling it to fix certain parts and it rewrote it and there were certain parts that I asked it to expand on and say more about. And then once I got my story, how I wanted it, and after I stopped crying, I printed it and it's on my desk. I have read it every single day since I've done this. And what I have found is I feel like I'm already living this story. It's brought my goal to life before it ever happens. And I know it's going to make the journey more enjoyable because I'm not waiting for the destination or to get the result or to become the person right. I can see how this entire year is getting me there. I can see how every single day and every single week and every single month is getting me there. And I'm so appreciative of that and who I get to become this year. And I can see it all so clearly through reading the story and really visualizing it. And I just know I'm going to read it every single day because it's going to anchor me back to who I'm becoming. So when you print yours, it's going to anchor you back into who you're becoming as that local go to person and it's going to just help you really visualize it so clearly. Okay, so if you want that little prompt, it's in the show notes. Feel free to play around with it too. I just came up with that one, so maybe you wanna tweak it, see what else you can come up with. That's the beauty of chat GPT. And if you do this, I would love to hear about it and hear the parts of the your story that you're most excited about or how you're using the prompt or how you're even gonna use your story throughout the year. Send me a message on Instagram, my Instagram, just my name at Leslie Presno. I'll link that up in the show notes. I would love to hear how you're using this. Okay, my friends, have a wonderful week and a wonderful start to the new year. As you're off to become the local go to and I will talk to you next week. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to build become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesliepressnell.com and I'll see you inside.