Local Market Monopoly

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Clarence Fisher: Have you subscribed to the Local Market Monopoly newsletter yet? Each week you get one actionable digital marketing tip delivered straight to your inbox. Designed specifically for small businesses like you who want to increase their market share and grow their online presence. Each tip focuses on strategies for growing your online reputation, increasing your company's reach, and improving sales and referrals without wasting money on ineffective tactics. Sign up now at localmarketmonopoly.com and start receiving our best of the best strategies immediately.

Tim Fahndrich: It's a community-based website where local businesses can sign up for free and they'll be able to promote their local business, really connect with local people and get more customers using the system all while using a local media company that truly cares. And again, we like to say we're local and proud of it. Whoa,

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher uncovering the tools tactics and strategies the most successful small businesses use to dominate their local market and own the block.

Clarence Fisher: Hey, welcome back to Local Market Monopoly. It's Clarence Fisher, your host, and today, man, have a good buddy on with me that I've known for quite a while and really glad that you could take the time to come and speak with you today. His name is Tim Fahndrich. He's the co-founder, CEO of WhirLocal. They connect consumers with local service businesses using digital marketing. He's going to tell you more about that, but I want to tell you a little bit about him as I was looking up. He's been an entrepreneur man. After my heart entrepreneur since he was 10, starting out delivering papers high school, he kept that paper out. He spent his weekends mowing lawns doing lawn work. So much so that after college he joined his two brothers. They partnered in this landscaping company. He spent about 14 years there and also co-founded one of the first dot coms in the lawn and garden industry.
Why wouldn't you? You've spent all of that time after selling that website. He worked for a wholesale distribution company for about six years selling into the landscape and nursery industry. So he really went deep into that. And I got to hear about this because when I saw this, I've got to ask him about the muck boots, how deep he went into that. But he founded a company called Third River, which is where I come around and start meeting him short a little bit after that, after he founded Third River Marketing, and now he's got, WhirLocal., which is what we are here to talk to you today. And I am so excited to share with you today. Tim, are you there?

Tim Fahndrich: I am here. Can you hear me?

Clarence Fisher: I can hear you first though. The one thing is, before the call I was asking about your last name and I said, how do you pronounce it? And you told me, fine. And then you said, Rick, and I was like, I was just making a joke. I was like, okay, so small deer Rick James, and you said that's how you really explained to

Tim Fahndrich: People. That is exactly how I tell people how to pronounce it. So a small deer, Rick James at the end with a D in between. And you said that I didn't say it to you, and then you said that. I'm like, oh my goodness. That's how I tell people.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. That is so awesome. Okay, tell me about, I didn't know this about you, so we've known each other, just so my audience understands that. I think it's been about 10 years. Is it?

Tim Fahndrich: It's been about 10, 11 years, I think.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah, yeah,

Tim Fahndrich: Exactly. Well, it was one of the events that we met each other at.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a while and I've never, I didn't know about this Muck boot thing. What's up with that?

Tim Fahndrich: So have you ever heard of Muck boots?

Clarence Fisher: I have. Actually. My wife and I went to go pick strawberries for the first time. Okay. Last year or sometime during the pandemic thing, something you could do. And I started looking up these, what do you wear? Because you evidently you don't wear cohans in a strawberry field. And so that's where I started figuring it out. So how do you tie into that?

Tim Fahndrich: Well, so back in my six year career when I was selling for this distribution company, it was kind of quick, fascinating little story, but the owner of the company came to me and my first day just orientation, and he said, Jim, here, here's this. Here's a shoe that we just brought on this line of shoes and boots. And he just showed it to me and they seem pretty comfortable. Why don't you take home a pair and see what you think and see what you can do with it? So this was 2001, and here I am. I'm like, oh, okay. They look pretty cool. So I took 'em home. It turns out to be the most comfortable shoe ever for outdoor gardening and outdoor work. And I turned that over in the next six years. I turned that into the cornerstone of my sales process and sales revenue for that company. I became, I started introducing it to out here in the Pacific Northwest to landscape companies and to garden centers, and I would go to garden shows and stuff like that. And I became the known as the Muck guy, which some people think, oh man, it's really derogatory. But I was like, eh, people call me the muck guy. And I'm like, all right, I'm here. Let's sell.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. That is awesome. Well, I'm glad to know that bit of information. I feel like I know you a lot better now.

Tim Fahndrich: Well, it is interesting. We can come back to this, but during that period, Clarence, I would say to a customer, do you want the shoe or do you want the short boot? Or do you want the big boot? And it was a really easy sale based on their needs. And to this day, as a marketing company owner, I love having just three options. And just as you know for your listener base, think about how you could create either packages or ranges that gives you a really good starting point as you sell your services. So again, we can come back to that later, but I always tell my wife, it's like, I love selling muck boots. What can we do similar in our marketing agency?

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. I mean, those options are great because just one option all get is a yes or a no, right?

Tim Fahndrich: Correct.
That doesn't work. And so fast forward through that, and you start Third River, and that's because of where you're located.

Tim Fahndrich: It's not actually where we're located.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, it's not,

Tim Fahndrich: No. The quick story behind the name, and I think every business should have an origin story and just from, because when people ask your name and they're like, well, what's that mean? And so it's an opportunity to start talking about your business. But we were actually studying a book in a Sunday school class together with my wife and I, and it was based on a modern day parable called Living on the Third River. And we love the story. It talks about three farmers each live on a river, and the first farmer on the first River really felt like there was never enough water coming down the river. And so he damned it up thinking that, oh, I'm going to get more water. But it ended just kind of going stagnant, and it just really didn't. It was kind of this feeling of lack. And then the second farmer on the Second River always felt like there was enough water for his own needs, but he just kept increasing his own needs and just let the rest flow downstream.
And then the third farmer on the third river, by the way, all these rivers came from the same snowpack, the same reservoir, but the third farmer on the third River always felt like there was enough water for everybody and just more of an abundant mindset. And really, so the opportunity to, what he did was he built channels of blessing inland. He built channels every single year to his inland neighbors who didn't live on the river, so they too could have water. And that story inspired us to live more out of abundant mindset when it came to our business and be able to live on the third River.

Clarence Fisher: Wow, that is awesome.

Tim Fahndrich: Thank you. Yeah, I

Clarence Fisher: Love that.

Tim Fahndrich: Not my story, but we adopted it.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. I feel very inadequate that my company is named Tulsa Internet Marketing.

Tim Fahndrich: Hey, it's got an origin story somewhere.

Clarence Fisher: I was not part of it, but that is awesome though, man. I love that. Thanks for telling me that. Okay, so you've had that marketing company for a while, and that's where I got to know you through that. And then up Popped, Whirlocal. So how did you get started in the, well, first, let me, let's kind of explain WhirLocal is. How did you get started into that?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, so that also has an origin story. So it was, it's kind of interesting. Back in 2010, we were looking for a way just when reviews were becoming a little bit more forefront, we started seeing Amazon reviews and we started seeing different products and services being rated and reviewed online. And we kind of thought that we need a way for our local service businesses to easily get more reviews. And so we kind of brainstormed, and over a weekend, I went and hacked together, and I'm not a programmer, but I went and hacked together kind of our first version of what would become the very first ugly version of our local. But the idea was to basically give them a process that they could follow to ask for reviews. And today, fast forward to 2023 to date this podcast, but now it's so much more important as a revenue driving factor because people make decisions based on reviews.
But going back, we can talk more about that, but based on the origin story and the name, when Pam, my wife and I, Pam, are the co-founders, we kind of started to think about, well, what do we want to do? We want to help build Buzz for local businesses. And so Pam did a little research and she came up with this in the synonym, A synonym for Buzz is W H I R. Whir, and we're a local. And so she came up with the name and she's responsible for it. And I'm thanking her every day because I love it. And now we get to say WhirLocal and we love to promote the idea that we're local and proud of it.

Clarence Fisher: No, this is incredible. And I did not think about that buzz. And then also you get to say, we're like, we're local, right?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah. It's a good play, right? It's like play. We're local, local, and we're all about promoting local businesses.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. Okay, so what is it?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, I mean, we get to ask that question all the time. And the easiest way to kind of describe it is that we know local businesses want to succeed, and we know that they want to build a profitable, sustainable business that the problem is that online marketing mean well, they need to have a good online presence and they need to have a good reviews. And more problem is most local businesses get overwhelmed when they think about all that. And so the other problem that local businesses and local service businesses are facing is that big box and big tech dominate our economy. And so we know a local business, building a local business, we're a local business. We know building one can be hard. And so by what we've essentially built now, it's evolved from a platform and a process to help get reviews. Now it's a community-based website where local businesses can sign up for free and they'll be able to promote their local business, really connect with local people and get more customers using the system all while using a local media company that truly cares. And again, we like to say WhirLocal and proud of it, but if you think about our industry, big tech dominates our industry as well. We think about all the big names out there, the Facebooks, the Googles, the Yelps, et cetera. They're all big tech. And we can tell from experience that very few of 'em actually care about the local service business. And so we're going out to change that to be a local media company that actually cares.

Clarence Fisher: That's awesome. And so it started as it started as helping businesses get reviews,

Tim Fahndrich: Started helping people get reviews, and now it's evolved into this really this community-based marketing approach. So it's a website, it's a local business directory, it's a digital magazine, and it's got a set of built-in tools that helps the local service business really get more customers. And reviews are a big part of that.

Clarence Fisher: Reviews are big. And when you demoed it, for me it was pretty eye-opening what businesses get even for free. But I'm at review point. I'm curious, what do you feel like is the absolute easiest way to get reviews?

Tim Fahndrich: Well, I mean, the most important thing is to be proactive and to ask, just be proactive and ask whatever that looks like. Now, I obviously biased to ways that I think it works better, but a lot of people that we talked to initially, in fact, I literally just had this conversation two days ago, local attorney, and we started looking at our online presence and our reviews, and I started talking about the importance of reviews because that is a revenue driver. It is how people make decisions in today's marketplace. And she was like, ah, I just hate asking for reviews. And we hear that sentiment a lot. Well, the challenge and the opportunity, the challenge is a lot of people, if they don't get asked, they'll go through other things that we've heard. Again, very rare recently. It's like people walk in, they love the service and say, Hey, will you write us a review?
And Oh yeah, we'll write your review. No problem. We'll take care of it when I get home or whatever. Well, by the time they've gotten home, they now have for done 15 million other things and they've forgotten about writing a review. And so the important thing is then is to be proactive and ask. And we have a three email sequence that goes out that basically just tags, tags the customer to go and send an email out, basically just asking for feedback and then giving them an opportunity to go to what we call a review funnel. Then from there, they can write a review, and then the local service business gets that feedback. It's a beautiful thing. Now, if they don't write a review right away, they get a reminder in a couple days. And then, you know, we've all seen it. We get those feedback reminders, but I just talked to another person in the J Atlanta area, and he is like, yeah, I've been asking these two people for reviews for a long time. Finally, I just used your system and I got two reviews from those people because of the reminders.

Clarence Fisher: That's awesome. And so that's through, we're local,

Tim Fahndrich: That's through WhirLocal. It's just a built-in process. We call it a review invite, and then it goes to what we call a review funnel, and it helps get generate reviews.

Clarence Fisher: Awesome. And so do those reviews show up? Those reviews show up on their page? That's in WhirLocal?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah. So what we do is on our free accounts is that they can get reviews on WhirLocal much. You would get a review on other websites out there with a paid account. It's not intended to be a pitch, but with a paid account, you know, have some additional options be including, most importantly, Google, your Google Business profile is your most important listing on the web. We know that. And your Google reviews are the most important. And so what we try to do is drive options to not only generate reviews on Google and a couple other places, but also to be able to promote those reviews on your local profile in our neighborhood, just part of our ecos, our community-based website. And then also just on social media and different things. The other thing to note about reviews, though, I have people tell me that I only want to get Google reviews, and they're right in the sentiment that Google reviews are important.
However, based on our numbers, only about based on reviews coming through our system, about 75% of reviews are written on Google, and then the rest are written on a combination of Facebook, a couple other smaller sites, and then on or WhirLocal. So what we've always told people is that it's really important to have get to give your customers speaking to your small business listener, Clarence, give your customers the option, give 'em a choice of where they feel comfortable writing a review and or have an account to do. So. If you only ask for a Google review, if somebody doesn't have a Google account, if somebody doesn't want to post their full name on Google, there's a variety of reasons why they may not want to write a Google review. And you're probably missing out in our numbers 25% of reviews because you're not giving people options.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah, yeah, I agree. So what do you feel like, what's another point? So we've got the reviews there, and then what's another point that you feel like local businesses should look for that within the word local kind of system here?

Tim Fahndrich: I, over the years, you and I have both, we've been around for a long time, we've known each other for a long time, and we've come up with the systems and marketing tools that we know most every local business needs. And that is kind of falls into five different areas. I've already mentioned one of 'em, which is your reputation and reviews, but also just really foundational your online presence. So your presence, your reputation, content, social media. And then especially in more recent years, asking the question, well, what can we automate? Because almost every company that I talk to, and now they're looking for ways to do more with fewer people. And so just thinking about, well, what can I automate? So as an example, we automate the review asking process, so they're not having to sit there and babysit an ask. It's just super simple to get started.

Clarence Fisher: And this is okay, that's on the page. That's not the free version, right?

Tim Fahndrich: No, those are all on the free, I mean there there's aspect, correct. So we give a free business profile, let's start with presence, right?
So a free business profile to, and what that does is, you know, and I have talked over the years about local directories and just increasing your online presence by being present on various different websites. So by having a profile on WhirLocal, it gives you one more place that's called a citation that can improve your local SEO or search engine optimization. It can improve how you show up in the search engine. So typically when somebody does a brand search, for example, if somebody searches for Tulsa Internet Marketing, you're going to see your website, you're going to see your Google business profile, and then hopefully you have good positive, what we call it would call a property or other websites where you show up on that you control, that you have access to. And so WhirLocal gives you one more free profile somewhere that that's a positive property that you can go in and control. So that's kind of related to your online presence. Does that make sense?

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. And I think that's one of the big reasons why I'm so excited about it. But go ahead.

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, and that's completely free. Next thing, if you think about presence, you think about getting reviews again on the free profile. You can get WhirLocal reviews and then you can promote it on your profile, et cetera. But then you start thinking about content. And over the last for a while, content has been, there's the phrase, content is king, right? I think we've all heard that. The idea that being able to put some content out there in a way that can help you with getting found online, a lot of, so we give you publishing tools to publish content such as we have something we call a quick post, which is very similar to posting on on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. We have the ability to actually blog, actually post a blog post on the platform and other things like post special offers and projects or case studies.
So particularly good for home service businesses that want to show a project of a recent remodel or something like that. And so we give you all those content tools for free that you can promote and build content is king. And so you can build that around your profile and your brand. So that's the content piece of it. The other thing is just thinking about social. So then what do you share? We actually have, when it comes to our digital magazine piece, got over 300 articles that we've written in topic areas such as home and garden business and professional health and fitness, and then just personal and lifestyle. And so we've got all these different articles because we know businesses struggle with knowing what to share on social media. And so we've got some easy sharing tools. You can go in, you can share the article, and then it's just an easy way to find content. So I mean, our goal eventually is that you don't ever have to run out of content again through by sharing these magazine articles, also by sharing content from other local businesses and even sharing reviews. So if you love local businesses, one of the best things you can do free, it doesn't cost you anything. Share one of their reviews because that allows them with your audience that promotes another local business tag and or let 'em know, or this is a great way to then to build a relationship with another local business.

Clarence Fisher: I never thought about that. Share another business' reviews, man, I'm going to do that.

Tim Fahndrich: And we have an easy way to do it.

Clarence Fisher: Exactly, exactly. I mean, I'm thinking, Ooh, I should be doing that for every one of my clients, for sure,

Tim Fahndrich: Right? I mean, cause we've probably seen the posts that are like free things or free waves. You can help a local business. One of 'em is writing a review. Of course you can do a referral. There's different ways to do that, but think about business to our fellow businesses. Well, why not? If you love another local business, why not share a great review? Hey, I love these guys. Look at this positive review they got. And if you're looking for a fill in the blank, a fencing contractor, this is a great place to start. Boom. Social immediately. And you've done that and it's totally free. And the idea is to give you tools to never run out of content again.

Clarence Fisher: Oh man, that is so cool. I think what's also cool about this, having known you for so long and known that you have successfully run a successful kind of, I say traditional agency, but what's traditional with the internet? I guess traditional would be 10 years ago, right? Yeah. I mean the agency, it's retainer based, and you're doing all these things you've had, you've got Facebook, you've got AdWords, you've got all these things. So I say that to say, I know you have this huge amount of not only knowledge, but experience into what works and then comes along. Whirlocal and our entire dream is to get that into a super simple compact offering. Compact where a business owner can, doesn't have to think so much. And I think that's what this is, and to think that I could sign up for a free account and have another citation. What you're saying, I don't think most business owners understand how big that is. And then all of these other things, I don't know. I get super excited about it. What am I not seeing here that well, what am I missing?

Tim Fahndrich: Sure. Good or bad?

Clarence Fisher: Both.

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah. Well, I mean the reality, a couple things, right? So because we're not big tech, the big tech companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars or billions. We're not that company. And so when people ask us about reach, we're not those big tech companies yet. However, people have told us in the same breath that you guys have built versions of these unnamed big tech companies that we all know, but you've built versions of these, but really on a hyper local basis. And that's such a satisfying thing because we had a business owner tell Pam was walking somebody through a success call where we get on and actually just walk somebody through how to use the platform and make sure they understand it, et cetera. And Local Bus is a local restaurant owner. She's doing a great job. And she was like, oh my word. I mean, she was so excited. It was like, oh my word, why aren't more businesses using this? So the good and the bad, we we're humbly and awe of what we've been able to build. It's not perfect, it's not big tech. So we don't have the budget of Big Tech, but we're so excited to be able to help local businesses succeed with these kind of online or with these online pillars.

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Did you say that you were hooking into any directories through this

Tim Fahndrich: In terms of

Clarence Fisher: Are we able to, I talk about Yext a lot, so is there an equivalent here or

Tim Fahndrich: We have made an initial introduction, so it's a ways off, but we've made an initial introduction with one of the big aggregators, and basically by aggregating meaning that the goal would be to be able to take the data that you put into, we're local, and be able to syndicate that data across multiple locations. That will be our local businesses. So very, very, very early. It's just conceptual at this point, but that's the goal.

Clarence Fisher: Did you hear that Brightlocal came out with an aggregator just recently?

Tim Fahndrich: I didn't.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. And so they may be someone to talk to because they're going up against Yext, right?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah. So yeah,

Clarence Fisher: They may be open, more open than most to partnerships right now.

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, Yext is obviously one of the big names in the industry, even though they are behind the scenes in some cases because they do partnerships, there's a lot of opportunity to improve online presence

Clarence Fisher: In most cases, moving way behind the scenes and with their partnerships here

Tim Fahndrich: Lately. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, very true. Very

Clarence Fisher: True. Yeah, that is awesome. Okay, so sorry, my dear listener. I started talking shop for a second. So tell me this, when just as a business owner, let me pull back to this could be, I mean, you could focus in on the agency or you've had other business as well, but when you very first got started, what was one of the biggest mistakes that you made getting started in business?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, I mean, I feel like we've made, my wife and I talk about that we've made every mistake in the book, and I think that's probably 100% true. I think when we very first started, and so this is before you and I met, we really had no idea what we were doing. No clear direction at all. And we didn't get connected to anybody to help us with that process. So it was a long three years of thinking, Hey, we're going to make money on the internet. I quit my job as the M guy. They were a great company to work for, but I was like, was getting the entrepreneurial itch. You and I are entrepreneurs. And I was like, I really want to be at home so forth. And I figured I can make money on the internet and without a plan and without a connection to a mastermind group or anything along those lines.
And so that was probably my biggest early mistake is to not have a plan and not get connected with people that can help me get there. It came later when you and I met that I started connecting with people in our industry that can help us get more to where we are going. Can't part of mastermind now. And it's amazing. So if you have a peer group in your industry, either on a big national level or if you just have a c e peer group, something like C 12 or whatever that's in your local area, what a great opportunity to get connected with other local businesses.

Clarence Fisher: That's awesome. Are there any other kind of big mistakes that you see others well, yeah, others make?

Tim Fahndrich: Well, I mean, I'll tell you another, one of our big mistakes, I think one in our industry especially, we went after project revenue versus recurring revenue. And so project revenue, oh, let's build a project, let's do this x build a big website or something for our customer, but then we didn't have a recurring package, a recurring service package that we could build stability with and also be able to serve the customer better. Because a lot of times you run into this all the time, somebody will buy a website and then get handed the keys, and then a year later they have no idea what's going on with the website. They've lost their login, they have no idea how to make any changes. And so now they're kind of stuck and the guys disappeared because he worked in the basement somewhere. I mean, Clarence, have you ever ran into that?

Clarence Fisher: Man? Absolutely. I was about to say it in the website now has malware and

Tim Fahndrich: Exactly, now it's massively hacked. So one of the things we learned is what we really need to be doing is offering an ongoing service package for our customers so we can better serve them, even though it's not necessarily intuitive, oh, I'm now going to be paying a monthly fee of some sort, but it's truly in the better interest for our customer to have that as an ongoing basis versus risking your entire online presence to somebody that you bought a website off of Fiber.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. And I think we made that change about the same time with the same mentor of, or it may not been the same, but No, absolutely. I did not get it at first because project revenue is so tempting. Here's this big lump in cases, but you are so right about when you've done this for a long time, you do start to realize it is in the best interest of your client and your customer.

Tim Fahndrich: And lemme turn me turn the tables just so to not speak of agencies anymore, but to speak directly to your listener, maybe they're the local service business, and just give the examples if that's okay. So one example, we actually just had some treat service done at our place and they came in, I don't know, we spent several thousand dollars to have some trees taken down, some brush removed and so forth, but we had a good conversation later. That's a one time hit. They're in and out one day, several thousand dollars. Boom. Awesome. Problem with that is then it's not, unless you set up some sort of a maintenance package, then we might not need them or think of them, think we need them for years until we have another tree to take down. So instead, we had a conversation with the tree, the tree company.
I was like, and he had actually already think about thought about it because he's my nephew and he's smart, and we've been talking about this for a long time, but it was like, what if we had an annual health, a tree health package where we came once a year and for X number of dollars, we'll go through your property and make sure everything's healthy so that you don't have to have any surprises in three years and boom, done. Recurring revenue right there. One example, another would be pest control, company pest control. They have, oh, Maya, we've got bedbugs, or Oh man, we got CARPENT ran and they're everywhere in the house. But instead of just doing that on a project basis, then turn that into a quarterly pest control service. So you've got recurring revenue every single quarter or every single month. And of course, landscape maintenance that's near and dear to my heart. We had two divisions on the landscape in our landscape, business landscaping installs, which is that bump, man. It's that. It's, oh man, it's a 50 or a hundred thousand dollars project to do a residential install, but unless you're turning that into a recurring maintenance project, you're missing the boat. And so those are just three examples, how to create recurring for local service businesses.

Clarence Fisher: I love that, man. Great examples mean we could do that all. I mean, I tell my tax guy that I've told him that for years, people are only hearing from you once a year and it's too late. In order for that, for people to benefit, we need to be sitting down with you every quarter. And so why are we not creating a membership with that? We serve a bunch of vets, and one of the things I'm trying to convince them to do is to do a yearly health plan for the pet, right? I don't know. You are so correct with that. Thank you.

Tim Fahndrich: Glad that could help.

Clarence Fisher: And if you're listening, this is behind the scenes. We really do get passionate about this stuff and helping the people that we help.

Tim Fahndrich: Well, it just creates that stability that we all thrive versus the project. In fact, I literally just got off a webinar right before this call, and it was an agency peer group because I mentioned we're part of a mastermind, and the speaker was talking about how they had closed a hundred thousand dollars a year marketing customer, and that's great, as long as it's not a hundred thousand dollars upfront and no recurring, and in their case, tons of recurring. So they're doing it right. But I'm like, well, you don't want to just, oh, I'm going to build this great big website and then be done with it. You want recurring to build stability in your local business.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely, absolutely. And it helps with all of these marketing expenses as well,

Tim Fahndrich: Right?

Clarence Fisher: So

Tim Fahndrich: Well think about it, the local utilities, I mean your cell phone, I mean, all those are fairly small budget items. You're going to pay for your power, your light in your business, I mean your lights, your electric, your internet, so forth. And in local service businesses, especially, you think about the trades, for example. I mean, they've got their equipment payments, their trucks, I mean, all that kind of stuff. It's all kind of like a utility payment. And marketing doesn't have to be this great big expense up front. And again, to better serve. You don't do that. Get something where you've got somebody to partner with on an ongoing basis, so they can really better serve you.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. So let me ask you this to pull back to where local, yeah. Is it okay if we give listings to my listeners here?

Tim Fahndrich: Absolutely. Yeah,

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. Where do they go to sign up for that?

Tim Fahndrich: So what you'd want to do, it's again, Whirlocal.io,

Clarence Fisher: And then we'll put that link in the show notes as well.

Tim Fahndrich: Okay, awesome. So whirlocal.io/get started. And Clarence, you and I talked, I don't have a Clarence code, so I apologize about that. But that's where you can go in, you can get started and basically create your profile, find your neighborhood, and then it makes it really, we've got a system that if you have a Google business profile with that's not an actual service, like a service business with no address, if you actually actually have an address, it makes it super easy to find your business and then kind of pull in details from Google. If you can't find it, then you can literally just add your business manually and then we'll verify it from there.

Clarence Fisher: Awesome. So they go there and it just walks them through the setup. The head of marketing can do this and absolutely. In about how long do you think it takes?

Tim Fahndrich: Oh, minutes.

Clarence Fisher: I knew that. I just wanted you to say that.

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's couple minutes to actually create the profile and then obviously you get access to it to be able to go in. And the cool thing is you can go in, make it your own in terms of your logos, your social media links, your hours, a description, that kind of thing. And then it gets added into our local business directory. And again, we take a neighborhood approach. So we've got neighborhoods where we're just starting a national expansion program, but we've got neighborhoods that are already kind of pre-established and or we can create based on where your listeners are.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. So in closing here, we've talked about how a business can stand it out is you talked about reviews earlier. Is that your favorite way of building local business or do you have another, what's your favorite way to market?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, I think it's probably a mix between reviews and also just probably content to a degree. Content can encompass social media and so forth. I mean, truth be told, social media, so many people think, well, so many small businesses feel like they don't have the time for social media, so then they don't do anything. Or they feel like they have to hire a social media manager for $2,500 a month to do really custom social media that can work. And certainly that's an option. But the most important thing is to make sure you're having a pulse, right? Because when somebody does a brand search clearance, you think about somebody searching for Joe's Plumbing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they do it because they've been referred to 'em or they saw their truck go by or whatever. They're going to do a brand search. Everybody goes to Google, they're going to do their brand search.
And then if they don't like what they see, Google actually calls that the Google the Zero moment of truth. They don't like what they see in reviews or in their online presence. They're going to check out their website. They're probably also going to check out their social media. And if they haven't posted on social media for a year and a half, or they have a low review score or just haven't gotten any recent reviews, here's a plumbing business, should be doing a lot of business. They haven't gotten reviews in six months. That's a problem because pe, it'll cause people to pause just long enough to consider it. Are these guys are in business or not? Are they legit or should I lo look elsewhere? And so kind of that combination, making sure that we're staying alive and showing a good pulse in those areas. Those are my favorite ways to build a good solid foundation for local service businesses.

Clarence Fisher: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. So what do you think that our listeners ought to do here in the next 30 days say, to make sure that they position themselves well in their market?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah, I mean, biasly speaking, but you going to sign up or Whirlocal, it's free. But then really start focusing on how do you start getting more reviews? How do you start proactively putting some content out there and keeping a pulse? And then how do you start connecting to with other local businesses and building relationships in a way that builds the no and trust factor? Relationships are still key. I don't care what anybody says, and I'm a digital guy, but unless you have the ability to really create relationships, that's going to trump pure digital all day long. And so look for ways to build relationships in your community.

Clarence Fisher: Awesome. Are you still part of one of those groups,

Tim Fahndrich: Like Mastermind group?

Clarence Fisher: Or the networking groups?

Tim Fahndrich: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we've been a member, our local networking group since we started our business. So we've been in business now for 15 years and almost 16 years. So we've been part of the same group. It's an awesome way to build relationships. We're also very involved in our local chamber of commerce. We're champions for chambers, and we really think it's an awesome opportunity to build relationships. Absolutely. And then we're also mastermind members for our industry.

Clarence Fisher: Right. Okay. So to find out more about, you want to send everybody to Whirlocal or how do they connect with you?

Tim Fahndrich: I'm happy to, I mean, somebody wants to connect with me on LinkedIn or they can go to, I'm not real active to be honest on LinkedIn. I'm more active on Facebook, so somebody can look me up on Facebook and connect there.

Clarence Fisher: Okay, great. Tim, let me tell you, I have, and I end every podcast with this now it's the interview deck. I have a deck of cards. You can't see it right now, but I have a deck of cards and I ask my guest, that will be you to pick a number between one and 52. Nobody's picked 51. Okay. I guess I could just pull one from the back at that point. And this deck of cards has just questions like random questions, and then I will ask you the question on that card, and that's how we'll close out.

Tim Fahndrich: Awesome.

Clarence Fisher: All righty. So give me a number. One, two. 52.

Tim Fahndrich: How about 31?

Clarence Fisher: 31. All right.

Tim Fahndrich: Now make it work. Make you work for it.

Clarence Fisher: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. As I'm counting, I'm thinking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, done.

Tim Fahndrich: It's going to work. Make you work for it

Clarence Fisher: Here. Hey, I'm used to that. I'm used to that. I started at 10. No, you started way younger than me. I didn't start working until about 14. Okay, so here we go. What's the main thing on your bucket list?

Tim Fahndrich: Probably right now. Going to Hawaii.

Clarence Fisher: Going to Hawaii?

Tim Fahndrich: Yeah. My wife, I, I've been to all 49 states,

Clarence Fisher: Stop

Tim Fahndrich: Just about every province in Canada and pretty much every state in Mexico, but I've never been to Hawaii, so my wife and I are thinking a Hawaii trip is in order.

Clarence Fisher: You've been at 49 states? I

Tim Fahndrich: Have.

Clarence Fisher: Well, what's happening for, okay, you're that traveled

Tim Fahndrich: A lot when I was a kid. Traveled as an adult, traveled with our family, been very blessed to travel around.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. Okay, so Hawaii is, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for showing up today. Tim, I appreciate my brother. I love you. Thank you,

Tim Fahndrich: Man. Thank you. I appreciate being part of your community and yeah, I just appreciate you.

Clarence Fisher: All right, we'll send everybody up

Tim Fahndrich: Too. Bye Clarence. Good. Been a good ride.

Clarence Fisher: We'll send everybody to sign up.

Tim Fahndrich: All right, sounds good. Thank you.

Closing: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show and visit localmarketmonopoly.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.