AI Didn’t Kill Google Search — Here’s Why GBP Still Wins

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Sam Preston — CEO of Service Scalers — to talk about the marketing asset that still quietly outperforms everything else in home services: your Google Business Profile (GBP).

 John and Sam break down why AI hasn’t disrupted GBP the way people expected, how Google reviews are now getting pulled directly into AI search results, and why “map pack visibility” remains the cheapest, highest-intent lead source in the game.

They get tactical on what actually drives rankings and calls in 2026. Sam lays out the three biggest needle-movers — proximity, category/keyword strength, and reviews — and John shows how Wilson Companies invests roughly $10K/month into GBP because it drives roughly $500K/month in sales. They go deep on why location is a marketing decision, how to scale multiple profiles without overlapping service areas, and why most owners waste time optimizing tiny details before locking in the fundamentals.

If your LSA performance is lagging, your organic lead volume feels capped, or you’re planning multi-location growth next year, this episode is the blueprint for turning GBP into a compounding growth engine.

What You’ll Learn

• The 3 ranking drivers that matter most: proximity, primary category, review cadence
• Why location is a marketing decision (and how it changes growth overnight)
• How to scale multi-trade businesses without confusing Google’s category system
• The real review strategy: frequency, volume, quality, and photos

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 Host:
 John Wilson

 Guest:
 Sam Preston 

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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Chapters

• 0:40 Guest Introduction and Discussion Kickoff
• 4:37 Deep Dive into Google Business Profiles
• 14:19 Optimizing Your GBP for Success
• 20:28 Avoiding Overlap in Locations
• 23:41 Importance of Keywords and Categories
• 26:31 Boosting Reviews and Their Impact

Transcript

OAO EP 268

John Wilson: [00:00:00] AI has not impacted the 

Sam Preston: GBP, and that's where I see like GBP and AI still like mixing is you're gonna have a review that's really good on your GBP and AI's gonna pull that and someone's gonna go like, oh wow, that's really cool. I want that 

John Wilson: type of experience. I think what's fun about GVP is I think we spend like 10 grand a month because it probably produces a half a million dollars a month of sales.

Like it's absolutely ridiculous. You get bad reviews 

Sam Preston: or no reviews. It doesn't matter how good your marketing team is at what they do, Google's not going to show you 

John Wilson: like this is the most important marketing asset you have. If you're like trying to figure out how to wrap your trucks better, like nobody gives a shit, like work on your GBP.

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. Today we're gonna be talking with Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Scalers, and we're talking all things Google business profile. How to scale it, what to do right, what to do wrong. It should be a pretty interesting conversation. Gbps have been a [00:01:00] huge part of our success, so I'm looking forward to learning from Sam.

Sam, welcome back to the show. What's up? I'm excited to talk Gs bro. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk fricking Gs you know what's been kind of funny about Google business profiles? I'm curious like what you've, what your take on this is. It seems like AI has not impacted. The GBP, I mean, maybe I'm just being dumb or I'm like behind the times or something, but like I don't, it does like, it's almost like the insulated, I don't know, problem.

Sam Preston: Yes. I mean, yes and no. So like it has on AI searches, it hasn't inside of Google, like from a tactical standpoint on the backend, we're still not doing a ton of like AI to just like automate, uh, the entire, like our systems and processes. Um, but we are starting to see people use different. Search tools [00:02:00] like perplexity or, uh, you know, comment or any, any of the, you know, chat GBT and we're starting to see more rankings, um, being pulled in, more information being pulled in because of people's gs.

John Wilson: And this might just be me, so I'm like, curious if you data on this. I think we, everyone went through this like mass period of like, let's do everything with ai, like chat, GPT, whatever. And, and then I think like, so it reached this like fever pitch. Like five months ago, I think, and then everyone was like, oh, all the information it's giving me is wrong and I have to check it against Google anyways.

And so then I think, but I'm sure like it'll climb back. But it feels like we're in a valley where like, yes, people are using it to like help brainstorm. Like that's how I use it. I'm like, okay, I need an idea. Here's what I'm thinking. Like give me something, but then I'm gonna take anything that you give me and I'm gonna go actually.

Like check it somewhere else. So like I still have not [00:03:00] looked for a service provider on there. 'cause every time I've looked like the answers are 

Sam Preston: like ridiculous. I have looked for a service provider. In fact, that's how I chose my doctor. I was looking for a primary care doctor and so I did like some like chat BT on like pull the best reviews and the doctor I chose was like in my network.

And then specifically there was a review where he had like text somebody at their house to check up on how they were doing. And so that's nice. I was like, oh, cool, I'm gonna go with that guy. 'cause yeah, other don't have that. Um, and that's where I see like GP and AI still, like mixing is you're gonna have yeah, a review that's really good on your GP and AI's gonna pull that and someone's gonna go like, oh wow, that's, that's really cool.

I want that type of experience. But yeah, like I'm still like, even in my searches, I'll search something on. Uh, you know, chat GBT and then I'll realize that's not, that's not the results I want. So I move back to Google and copy and paste the same query into that. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I think it is definitely, I [00:04:00] think the way people are using it are, is very mixed.

It is getting more adoption. Um, but I still think people are so used to Google that that's the type of results that they want and they're gonna keep going well, 

John Wilson: and Google ha like their AI answer feature. Like kind of gives the same information. But again, maybe that's me 'cause I'm biased to Google 'cause I pay 'em like a million dollars a year.

So like, yeah. I'm like, all right, I have to use you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, so today we're talking Gs uh, I think gb. Yeah. So I feeling a little insulated. I think gps are funny. So we, we saw this study, I dunno, a couple weeks ago, and it was like a hundred, I wanna say 187 might be like. Slightly off, but 187 different things that matter for your GBP ranking.

Like, 

Sam Preston: yeah. 

John Wilson: Are the hours you're open on there? Are you putting photos? Are you [00:05:00] geo tagging photos? Um, and then like, are you a plumber? You know, which I think was, it was, it was interesting, like, and then they ranked it in in sort of importance. So today I thought we'd be like sort of breaking down like what's a GBP?

How to improve it. And then like what are the, what are the needle movers? Like what matters the most? If you're trying to scale your business, let's do it, so, so we can spend a minute or two on like, what's a GBP? Like what is it? What's a Google business profile? One of the tools I've personally seen make a huge difference for service business owners.

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Sam Preston: Yeah, so Google Business Profile is effectively the first organic search that shows up, uh, when somebody is searching for your service in that area. So, uh, it usually looks like the map, like you, you go to Google? Yeah. You search for plumbers near me. You're first gonna get LSA, then you're gonna get Google ads if there are any paid ad advertisements on that search.

And then right after that you're gonna get this little uh, box over here. There's like three listings. Yeah. And then to the right is the map, that is the GBP, the map pack. The Google My Business. Mm-hmm. Uh, and the goal behind any kind of marketing initiative is to show up in the really the top three and then to drive phone calls.

We really don't even want to drive people to your website. [00:07:00] From that. We want people to call you directly from, uh, your Google business profile. Which I feel like people are trained to do. Yeah. It, the, the people that do Google Business Profile best are the ones that treat it like it's its own website versus like, it's a campaign to drive to your website.

I 

John Wilson: think that's a perfect way to think about it. Um, you know, like my pro tip for people, something that helped us a lot is, uh, phone number, tracking everything. I don't even know how many phone numbers we have. It's probably like a million or something ridiculous, but. So every single LSA account had a separate phone number.

Every single GM, GBP, like Google Business Profile is a separate phone number. Angie's List has a separate phone number, the website, because what we wanna be able to do is separate, Hey, exactly how many leads a month do I get from this Google Business profile? Yeah, is it valuable or not? Um, so that's been a huge win.

So like my little pro tip for people. [00:08:00] Separate the phone numbers. 

Sam Preston: Yeah, if you wanna be careful with that a little bit because of, uh, NAP consistency. So that seems for like, name, address, phone number, uh, you want those to be consistent across the board, uh, and any public facing profile. Um, but it can be different.

And for the purposes of tracking, it's really helpful, uh, for the purposes of ranking. You want those to be consistent and you'll just have to choose your poison, uh, when it comes to those things. Um, so I generally tend to want to lean towards the tracking, um, because ultimately in my business, if I can prove to you that I'm sending you phone calls and making you money, yeah, you'll keep paying me money, right?

Um, and so that's the way I lean. Um, but you know, that's obviously something you need to. Make your own decision on. 

John Wilson: I think I lean towards tracking too. I think I love, so if we get 500 leads a week, the ability to know what percentage is organic, existing customer and organic for us means like website, [00:09:00] like non-paid pages.

So website, Google Business profile, our legacy numbers, recurring customers versus paid like LSA, Angie Thumbtack, whatever. Yeah, the ability to like no is hyper valuable for us. 'cause then we know, hey, plumbing buys 20% of its leads. HVAC buys five and electric buys 40. Okay. What can we do with that information?

Yes 

Sam Preston: and no. So inside of your Google Business profile, you're going to be able to see how many people, how many phone calls Google Business Profile sent you, and how many people clicked from your, uh, your, your phone calls to your website. Yeah. Um, now what the phone number really is going to help you do is inside of your CRM tie revenue to that.

That, that, um, that source. Yeah. And so that's where you get to really get into it. But lead volume, you can probably get at a high level without that. [00:10:00] Uh, it's when you want to go, okay, hey, great. We drove a thousand phone calls. Mm-hmm. Uh, from Google Business profile, how much money did that make me? That's when, uh, the 

John Wilson: other one is, it can be better.

Yeah. We're doing that on a weekly basis, so like paid and organic, we're tracking. Leads revenue cancel rates. Kind of interesting. Like, hey, does, what's my cancel rate for Google Business profiles versus Angie's list versus modernized versus thumb. You know, what, how many of those leads actually sit? How many do we book?

Uh, and then like ultimately, what's the ROI for it? Which is kind of interesting, but the ability to separate that is sweet. I think what's fun about Gs. Is what we have found. I think the sentence of like it's your own website hits home. For me, what we have found is like the more we invest in SEO, like SEO is like the gift that keeps giving.

Uh, and I feels similar with [00:11:00] GBP. We're like the more you invest in it is the gift that keeps giving. So like, let's, it's. I, I said this number years ago on a podcast and like people texted me the next day being like, dude, literally how do you even do that? And I was like, yeah, I think we spend like 10 grand a month on Google business profile investment.

And that can be like softwares to drive reviews or like photos or. The phone number. Softwares are, I don't even know where all it goes to be honest, but it's like rents for the, uh, sub locations and it's like, yeah, it, it is worth every penny of $10,000 a month because it probably produces a half a million dollars a month of sales.

Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. It's the craziest ROI we have. So it's like, as we go through the things of like how to, how to do it, it's worth the squeeze I think is. Um, my big message for the listener. 

Sam Preston: GBP still is still one of the It's king [00:12:00] strongest. It's king lead. Yeah. It really is. It's one of the strongest lead, uh, drivers for the majority of our clients.

And not just the strongest from a volume standpoint, but also a cost per lead. Like, I was in an account the other day, I was seeing like a $32 cost per lead, um, which, you know, for plumbing in a major area, like that's, that's really good for hvac. Like that's really good. Mm-hmm. You're not gonna get that in LSA.

You're not gonna get that in PPC. 

John Wilson: Well, LSAs and GS are like the same now too. Whereas like we have a bunch of episodes probably from two years ago where it's like, here's how you win with LSAs. And like those rules don't even apply anymore 'cause they merged LSA and GP. So like you have to have a great GP so that your LSAs can deliver.

So if someone's LSAs aren't doing good. Okay, well, what's your review cadence like? Are they good reviews? Are they bad reviews? Are you doing photos? Are you changing hours? What's your primary category? Like all the norm, you know, all the big stuff. They're intrinsically connected. 

Sam Preston: We actually saw that earlier this year where we were selling a bunch of like one-offs, like either GPP [00:13:00] or LSA, and we started seeing the, the clients that did both had a significantly better results.

You have to. Yeah. And so I ended up. You know, training the sales team, like, Hey, if you're going to sell one of these, try to sell both, because it'll go better for them. Now if they already have, like, someone's already taking care of their LSA and doing it fine. Um, but like if you're not doing LSA, you just wanna do GVP, it's mm-hmm.

It's just not gonna result in this, you know, as good of a result as if you did both. So, uh, we really encourage people to try. Like, if you're gonna do it, do both. 

John Wilson: Yeah. We started doing this thing where we were driving, uh, we've been driving reviews. To all the Gs. Mm-hmm. And photos to all the Gs. And you know, we use the like heat map thing that like tells us like you're ranked four 20 or one or whatever.

Uh, and it's been improving for like a couple months straight, which is pretty cool. And with it. Like more calls, uh, which is obviously [00:14:00] great, but also like more paid calls. So both of them are work. 'cause we need both. We need the organic calls, we need the paid calls. Let's dive into like what are the big hitters that people can do, um, like top, I don't know, top 10, like things that people can take away from this and let's improve our GBP.

Sam Preston: Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing you should realize is like when somebody searches. Um, you have a shot to show up in the top three, and the first thing that is going to hit, uh, or, or going to allow you to hit is proximity. Like, how close are you to that person? It doesn't matter how good John's GBP marketing is.

Me and Charleston, if I search for, you know, plumber near me, I'm literally like, John's never going to show up. And so proximity is one of the big ones. Next is gonna be keyword strength. Do you even. Have the keywords in your profile. Um, and so you usually have like one primary keyword that you're going for, and then you have set, uh, you know, sub [00:15:00] categories there.

Um, and so you have to make sure that the categories that you're selecting, um, are there and, and the keywords are there. It doesn't matter, you know, how much I search for a restaurant, uh, as close as I can to John. He's never going to show up unless you guys start selling tacos, in which case. I'm just saying that would be amazing.

Um, that would be amazing. You should, you should. Yeah. Third is going to be reviews, and I think those are the top, to me, like the top three things that you should be focusing on. Uh, reviews are still king, um, and will consistently be king. Um, so if you are. Very close, and your keyword strength is perfect, but you get bad reviews or no reviews.

It doesn't matter how good your marketing team is at what they do, you're just not like Google's not going to show you. Um, and so now if you have those three things set. Then we can get into like all the other like small practices on, uh, speed to lead and how fast you're responding to reviews and [00:16:00] making sure that you have your services selection and photos and videos and back, uh, backend optimizations and all that kinda good stuff.

Mm-hmm. But the first things that you wanna do is make sure you're in a good location. Right. Um, yeah. You know, because I know you, and you could talk about this, like specifically went outta your way to, uh, put your location in a perfect spot. 

John Wilson: Make 

Sam Preston: sure you have your keywords set and make sure you're getting consistent reviews.

John Wilson: Yeah, I, yeah, I think we can riff on refund each of those and I think that, yeah, I think those are good. Uh, proximity. Yeah, maybe with each one so it's proximity, uh, category and keywords and then reviews. And I think each of those has like three things, uh, to, to work on. But yeah, we've, we say this a lot at our workshops, um, but.

Location is a marketing decision. People don't treat it like a marketing decision, but it's 100% a marketing decision because Google's gonna opt, like, prioritize you. So if I search plumber near me, like physically right [00:17:00] now, I'm gonna get five plumbers, but they're all within one mile. And so like how do you get within one mile of the people that you want to be working for or three miles within the people you wanna be working for?

And that's like the densest area that you could have A GBP. I think they say five miles is like. That's the circle that you sort of wanna be in because like, I'm not gonna get someone if I search, you know, hot water repair today or something, I don't even know. I'm just not gonna get somebody from the other side of Cleveland without paying, but I'm not gonna get that organically.

Uh, so the way to win that, pick a good spot, which again, locations, a marketing decision, took us a long time to find the place that we're in because we wanted to be, we're in the wealthiest section of our county. That was where we wanted to be. And we came from like a really sort of rundown area of the city.

So like we weren't anywhere near our customers. And it showed. And then we moved here and we [00:18:00] grew 50% the first year. Like it was ridiculous. So move your headquarters is always a good one. Uh, I think that's the best one. 'cause you can game it and we'll talk about that. But if you move your headquarters, they'll see your vans.

They'll see your texts, they'll see you around. So there's like, there's a good benefit of just physically moving to wherever the best spot is. The way you can game it is you can open up, you know, make sure you're following Google's terms of service, but you can open up like a secondary office somewhere, have a CSR or something, report there, make it a functional office and drive reviews to it.

And if that's in the dead center of the wealthiest part of your city, then amazing. You're probably gonna do great. That's the ways to win proximity. And it, yeah, totally. Like huge win. Uh, versus, um, like, look, if you run an amazing business, you're in the middle of nowhere, or like you're completely surrounded that mile around you.

No one could ever hire you, you know? It's of no good. Might as well not be there. Yeah, proximity 

Sam Preston: is an interesting one 'cause you, you definitely wanna [00:19:00] move. Um, and there's definitely the game of like get to the place that you want to be, um, where, uh, you know, the wealthiest people in your area are, but also you wanna find opportunities where, uh, there's not as much competition.

Right. Yeah. Um, I would rather be the single, uh, plumber in an area, uh, and even an area that's not as well. What actually kind of 

John Wilson: happens is I think you do, if you prioritize location, you do end up being the only one. And the reason you have, the reason I have to nail down like location is a marketing decision is because you will probably pay more for rent.

Mm-hmm. It's the same like, Hey, are you on a main street as a restaurant or are you on a side street? The difference in revenue is probably like 80%. Yeah. But you have to be on the main street, even though the rent's three times as much. Yeah. So it's a similar cost or like, you know, analysis, I think where, Hey, I'm in, I'm in the wealthiest section of our county.[00:20:00] 

This is the least dense. Quadrant for home service companies to be at because they can't afford, or they don't want to afford the rent to be here. They're all in industrial parkways in mm-hmm. Like where we used to be in the most rundown areas, because that's where they can get the cheapest rent. 

Sam Preston: Yeah. 

John Wilson: So, yeah.

I, I actually think it ends up being the same thing if you can overinvest in your facility. You will win and there will be less competition. 

Sam Preston: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I, I'm, you know, to your other point is having multiple locations is a good thing. Um, couple things on that you wanna make sure is that you're not overlapping the map.

So when you're putting in your locations and your zip codes and your neighborhoods and stuff like that, yeah. You do wanna make sure that they don't overlap. You will get your hand slapped. Um, we do have, uh, you know. Some clients who, uh, move locations and then just never shut that GBP down. So I'm not saying not to do that.

Just whatever you do, make sure you don't do anything that [00:21:00] requires you to reverify. You're in that area. But you can still keep posting, keep getting reviews there, uh, keep doing some of the basic stuff to have you drive leads from that area. Um, and then, you know, getting, just talking about locations, you're gonna get 20 different.

Sections that you can put, locations are, you can put one, like I do all of Ohio or Akron. Mm-hmm. Um, the more details that you put in there, the better off you're going to be. I would suggest putting all 20. Um, and I would go down to neighborhoods or zip codes or whatever it is, uh, to be as specific as possible and cover as much of the area as possible.

But yeah, that, those are the things from a proximity standpoint. I, I, I think you're right. It's a, it's a marketing play. Uh, and to be in the place where you wanna be. 

John Wilson: Yeah, I think just be where you wanna be. Like we used to, I could show our ServiceTitan map, but it's kind of interesting because we used to be 30 minutes from where we are now, or like [00:22:00] 25 minutes or something.

And we move towards the wealthiest section and like, you know, it shows like density, like how much revenue do you do? And it's the darker green it is, the more revenue. And like that used to be like white, like we didn't do anything. And now it's like dark green and like the best section. So. Be where you want to be.

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Keywords is kind of an interesting one. So I heard keywords is like primary category, but there's also like, or like primary secondary category. Is that what you meant? 

Sam Preston: Yeah. Primary, secondary category. Uh, the big mistake we see is we just, people don't put a lot of subcategories. They'll put like one keyword and they won't put others.

John Wilson: Yeah. If, if I'm a, and I, I've seen people try to game this in a way that like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. So like the primary secondary categories have to make sense for what you're offering. Basically, so I've had people try to pull off like self-storage and plumbing. Those don't make sense.

That's not something that makes sense. Google doesn't care, the customer doesn't care. Like no one thinks that's gonna make sense. My best example for that is like what you said earlier, if I start selling tacos, if somebody searches plumber and my primary category is Mexican restaurant, like I sh, I will not show up.

It just doesn't make sense. And like vice versa, like, yeah, Chipotle shouldn't show up if somebody searches like plumber near me. It just [00:24:00] doesn't make any sense. So as you think about keywords and categories, what we found, I'm curious what, what you've seen, but like, so we have multiple offices and. It's pretty much like what the primary category is, is what you're getting.

Like you might get a little bit of something else if it's very Pareto, like if I have plumbing as my primary category and HVAC as my secondary category. Out of 10 calls, I'm getting eight plumbing. 

Sam Preston: Your primary category is gonna be the main thing that you want. I think drives it. Drives it. Definitely driving.

John Wilson: Um, so it almost requires multiple offices if you are running multiple trades to drive like the most value through GBP? 

Sam Preston: Yeah, I mean, I, I would say like, obviously it depends on the, the size of company you are and how much. Marketing revenue or marketing budget that you have to throw at that. Um, yeah. So if you have enough money, yeah, go get more offices and really focus those offices.

Um, [00:25:00] but um, you're gonna run into the issue real quick of, uh, location, um, being an issue. 'cause you can't overlap that. So you can't have one office that's just plumbing and then right on top of it, another office that's, uh, you know, electrical. Um, and so, you know. You can absolutely still drive that. Uh, you just have to, you know, do it well and make sure that you are adding in those subcategories and making sure that you're posting about those other, uh, those other services.

Um, yeah. But your primary one is always gonna be the thing that Google recognizes you the most, um, um, with. 

John Wilson: Yeah. I, and I think if you're doing multiple trades, what we've done is. One electric or two electric, one or two plumbing, one or two hvac and uh, like built on where do we want more plumbing and, and how do we drive more organic?

So our big growth push for next year is our plumbing department. So we're gonna be adding like four Gs in [00:26:00] plumbing. I love how aggressive you are. 

Uh, 

yeah. Yeah. Four doesn't even feel like that. Crazy to me, but I mean, maybe it is. I don't know. 

Sam Preston: Well, I mean, most of the conversations I have is people are like, well, we think we're gonna add one.

Um, so I just, I love 

John Wilson: that. Well, I, I think like the more. Yeah, I mean, we're really bullish on this. Like the more money you can put into GBP, you will win. It is the gift that keeps giving. Uh, to me it's like, as, as much of our marketing budget as humanly possible that can go into this, the better. Like how do we increase reviews?

How do we put more photos up? How do we add more GBP profiles? Like how do we just continue to scale this effort? Because the ROI is like 30 or 40 times versus like, you know, LSA is 10 times. Like it, it's just a ridiculous, outlandish return on our money. So yeah. Gps are huge. Last one was reviews. I know.

Like how, how are you thinking about it? What are the things you're seeing that [00:27:00] matter? Reviews matter. Reviews 

Sam Preston: are, are, uh, obviously, uh, the, you know, one of the most important parts of this entire, uh, marketing game, the companies that, uh, spiff. Their team members are gonna get the best results. Mm-hmm. Um, and it doesn't always have to be like, you know, something boring.

It could be something big, uh, something interesting. You know, it could be, uh, as simple as, you know, giving them a gift card to something or, or, mm-hmm. Um, I don't know, an award or something like that. But doing nothing is gonna result in nothing. So, uh, companies that reward for. Reviews get better. Um, the other thing I really like is when you are rewarding customers for giving your review.

Um, and so text on site, finish a job, um, and have like a gift card on hand and say, Hey, we're doing a review. Challenge inside work and giving out Starbucks gift cards or whatever you allowed to do that coffee company. Why not? Like [00:28:00] Google's never gonna see that. Um, and just, yeah, they literally just say, Hey, if you scan this QR code and leave us a review, whichever one you want, like whatever you want, we'll we'll give you this, um, you know, $10 gift card.

So Google, like literally, unless Google's on site is never gonna know that 

John Wilson: we did. Cash prizes, which has been really helpful for our team. And ideally, like you paid out pretty fast. And then like small contests to drive it. And then like the easy one is like automation. Uh, so what we found, so the reviews, I think you can break it down into a bunch of different things, but there's like review quality, are they good or are they bad?

Mm-hmm. Are there pictures or no pictures? What's the frequency? What's the volume? So like frequency is like, was your last review five years ago or was it yesterday? Obviously the one that got it yesterday is gonna be more valuable. Uh, the one that got a hundred yesterday is gonna be more valuable, the one than the one that got two [00:29:00] last week.

So volume, frequency, quality, is it a photo? I think all those different things matter. So we, yeah, we have a bunch of automation set up to like drive that. Uh, it is been improving quite a bit. I like, we're in the, uh, I think we're at like 60 to 70 a week now, and when we really started pushing on this That's good.

A couple months ago we were like 20 or 30. Pulling up the scorecard now, 

Sam Preston: did you feel any difference in volume, like call volumes when you hit certain tiers? Like, you know, we see a difference, like once you hit like a hundred reviews, it kinda like ticks up and then once you hit like certain other levels.

But like, did you feel any difference in call volume when you hit like a bigger tier? Yeah. Paid volume goes down. 

John Wilson: Hmm. And then our Gs, like we use that heat map thing and our Gs are all ranking higher. So what we used to do is we used to focus all of our reviews on one GBP at a time and like hyper load this one, then switch it, then switch it.

Uh, now we like the [00:30:00] software we're using equal spreads them. So then it like you could have a hundred and it, what it does is it wherever the job is. It sends the review and like a picture from that job and a few other things to the closest Google business profile to that job. Nice. Which is fucking awesome.

Sam Preston: Okay. 

John Wilson: So what it ended up doing is like all of our Gs started ranking from, like, some of 'em, like we haven't touched in, they haven't gotten a review in like six months. Um, and they've really like started shooting up, which has been sweet. That's happening. That's happening. Yeah. No, it's, it's been really good.

Um. So, yeah, the, the automation side of it has been, has been good. 'cause you wanna be able to like, keep a consistent, frequent high volume and Yeah. Then add new ones as you keep going and expand like Geoscope. 

Mm-hmm. 

I, anything I'm missing, like, what else do you think I should be doing on reviews to get better?

Um, rewarding 

Sam Preston: your team members, you know, making sure that you're doing it with your, uh, mm-hmm. Your customers. [00:31:00] Um, another, another, uh, uh, you know, tip is, uh, happy calls. Obviously, if you're not doing those, oh yeah, you should be doing those. Um, but did you have a good 

John Wilson: experience? Can you leave us a review?

Sam Preston: Yeah, yeah. Like just hitting them, uh, the automation. Process, uh, of, you know, after the tech has left, if they have not left a review, hitting them a couple times via email or text message, um, you basically just want. A really solid, uh, outbound campaign to get that review. Uh, and so hit 'em in person, hit 'em on via text message, email, and then a phone call.

Um, and do everything you can. Uh, and then obviously if it's not a good experience, like, you know, not bugging them too much, but I, I think people are used to it at this point. I guess I got a text message from like two months ago when I bought a new car, uh, and to go leave them a good review. Uh, and so, you know, yeah, I get it when I go out to dinner, I 

John Wilson: get it everywhere.

Yeah. It's just sort of a part of the deal. Yeah. Alright, so the big takeaway is, uh, proximity matters. Uh, ideally the [00:32:00] cl you want to be where you want to be. Yep. Primary category will be the majority of your calls. And just like, don't play stupid games with primary, secondary categories like. If you're a plumber, be a plumber.

I, yeah. Like, don't be like a storage facility that's also a plumber. Like this is dumb. Mm-hmm. Um, and then, uh, reviews, like get more, make sure they're good and get them frequently, which is like all stuff we know. I, I, I think we can debunk a couple things too of like, you know, that list is like 187 things of like, things that like don't matter that much.

And like one of 'em was like, Hey, geotagged photos. It was literally 186 on a list of 187. It was the second to lowest possible thing to rank versus like, are you getting reviews? Are you near where your customers are? Yeah. Are you open? Like that's a big one. Like, are are your hours updated? Did you change it to 24 7?

Like, are you open? [00:33:00] Which it, it's all like the five most important things are all the things you can probably think of, but like my guess is people aren't. I bet more people are focusing on like, you know, did I enrich like this photo versus like, are my hours, right? Like I think people are focusing on like the least valuable part versus like.

Is it just working? 

Sam Preston: Yeah, and I think it's a, it's obviously difference if you're running it yourself versus like, me as a marketing agency, I have to think of the 186 different things a hundred percent. Um, because I have to go compete 'cause you're gonna grade me on my ability to drive you leads. Um, and so like there are those things and those are important too.

Uh, you know, you know, for example, all that like backend optimization, uh, that nobody talks about. Like, so for example, you can put on there like, Hey, no one here speaks Spanish. That's an important thing. 'cause then otherwise you might get calls for someone who wants to be, uh, talking to somebody who speaks Spanish.

Or if you do, if you're like, Hey, I've got a tech here that speaks fluently. Yeah, that's an [00:34:00] advantage that you can take. You know, take advantage of in that market to drive calls for somebody that is looking for that. And you get pretty, pretty detailed there. And so, like all those little things on the back end is things that I care about.

Um, 'cause it's the, the, it's the thing that the other marketing agency or just somebody doing it in person isn't doing. So that's like the advantage that I can try to take over, 

John Wilson: uh, or take advantage of. Well, I think, I think that makes sense. 'cause to me, I, I, I think my point wasn't, my point wasn't like the whole list doesn't matter.

It was more like. I think people are like, the whole list does matter. Like we basically do everything on that list, right? Yeah. I think that people are just like trying to mess with the wrong thing. Or they're just like not focusing it at all, which is like the greatest sin. Like you have, like, this is the most important, uh, marketing asset you have is your GBP, uh, like almost nothing else matters.

So if you're in invest, if you're like trying to figure out how to wrap your trucks better, like nobody gives a shit like work on your GP. [00:35:00] 

Yeah. Like, 

Sam Preston: yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. If you're, if you're. Uh, fairly new or, you know, rather small. You need to focus on the primary things, right? Yeah. That are gonna drive you leads right now so that you can keep, keep growing.

Uh, yeah. If you're bigger, then that's when you really need to focus on, you know, how do you get to 20 or 30? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, phone calls a week kind of thing. Yeah. Like, how do you get to that next size? Yeah. Um, and that's where you have to be really consistent. You have to be posting three to five times a week.

You have to have like, all those small, like details done. Mm-hmm. Um, so, but yeah, a hundred percent like the, the main three things that you should be focusing on. It doesn't matter. Size is gonna be proximity, keyword, strength, and reviews. And then after that there's a, you know, a list of, uh, a thousand different things that you could potentially do or not.

Thousands, a couple hundred, uh, different things that you should be thinking about, uh, to get the most out of. Uh, your GBP marketing, 

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Sam Preston: GBP?

Uh, I know Google is trialing, getting rid of q and as we started to see on some of our clients. Yes, I, I saw something on that. See, moving it, so for now, keep adding the q and As, but like. Within really soon. It may not even matter anymore. Um. So, which I think is an interesting choice, but yeah, GBP is changing.

It always is. We're always seeing some new stuff. Um, like we'll be in a, a client's account and we'll start, we'll see like a drop. It'll go from like, you know, 50 leads a, a week and down to 40. Yeah. And it's like, what happened? And we'll realize like [00:37:00] they're testing something, we're. Please Google for love of everything.

Good. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Um, so just know that like sometimes that like literally you're doing all the right things and you still have a drop. And it might be 'cause they're trying to test something out new. Uh, or it could be a seasonal, there's like mm-hmm. Seasonality, there's a myriad of things it could be.

Um, but yeah. You know, um, do it, do it. Mm-hmm. If, if I'm ranking. Uh, GBP, um, it's God tier, right? Like it is the Oh, totally. Yes. Every last year. It's amazing. Should be doing it. Yeah. Every, everyone should be doing it. Uh, if you are small enough to where you don't have the money to pay somebody else to do it, whether internal or an agency, go to YouTube.

You know, 80% of what we do is on YouTube, uh, that you can go learn and just make it happen. Um, so highly encourage it. Uh, definitely should be 

John Wilson: focusing on it. Sweet. Thanks everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure you give us a [00:38:00] five star review wherever it is, you listen to podcasts and sub on the YouTube.

I'm desperate.