Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

Google LSAs: The Easiest Way to Add Leads Tomorrow

• John Wilson • Season 1 • Episode 275

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This is the literal easiest lever you can pull to add leads tomorrow: turn on (and properly run) Google Local Services Ads (LSAs).

In this episode, John Wilson sits down with Sam Preston (CEO of Service Scalers) to break down why LSAs are still absurdly underutilized in home services—and how a simple setup + consistency flywheel (answer calls → book jobs → earn 5-star reviews) can ramp a business fast.

They also zoom out into the operator view: how John evaluates acquisitions through the lens of marketing, why under-spent businesses with strong reviews are so attractive, and the biggest LSA mistakes they see (turning it off, wrong services/locations, and “set it and forget it”).

If you’re a contractor owner (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc.) and you want a no-excuses playbook to get more calls in 2026, start here.

🚀 What You’ll Learn:

  • How to set up LSAs fast (and what to verify so you don’t waste spend)
  • Why consistency beats tactics in Google’s ecosystem
  • The simple “don’t turn it off” rule (and how to throttle without nuking performance)
  • What operators look for in a target company’s marketing before buying
  • How GBP activity and reviews directly impact LSA performance
  • When LSAs cap out and PPC becomes the next lever


🎙️ Guests / Hosts:

💼  Shoutout to ReferPro

Most home service businesses rely on referrals, but without a system, a lot of that revenue gets left on the table. ReferPro helps automate referral reminders, attribution, and rewards so referrals actually turn into booked jobs.

Owned and Operated listeners get 20% off plus discounted onboarding — learn more HERE

💼 Big Reputation — Stop chasing reviews and watching competitors outrank you. Big Reputation is the AI-powered review + SEO platform built for home service pros. Automate review generation, respond with AI, track local SEO, and integrate with your CRM. Setup is free, and your first month’s on the house.

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

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

OAO 275

[00:00:00] This is the literal easiest thing to do to just add leads tomorrow. 

He had to keep turning it off 'cause he was just getting booked out way too much through LSA. But turning it off is just not, not acceptable. 

In the eight deals that we've done that have been distressed, I had personally gone in and solved it.

The. Whole system of LSA is built around. Get phone calls through it, do the job and get a five star review 

even in 2025, like that's still apparently low hanging fruit. 

Go to YouTube, look up how to set one up and start. If 

you can do a change today that will impact you today, like that's incredible. 

What marketing problems are you not willing to fix?

Um,

welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. Today I'm joined by my good friend Sam Preston, the CEO of service Scalers. Welcome back, Sam. 

Thanks, man. It's good to be here. It's good to be 2026. I'm done with 2025. 

I'm super [00:01:00] done. I'm super done with 2025. We did like a recap, uh, with, with Jack like a week ago.

Yeah. 

And it was like, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for this. I'm ready for, for whatever's next. 

Yeah. No, it's, it's 2026 is gonna be a better year for sure. For sure. Yeah. Uh, but I'm also known as the optimist in my family, like my brothers, bro. Shut up. Optim, shut up. And it's like, it's gonna be a better year. So 

yeah, a lot of the challenges for 25 feel like one times, uh, like the refrigeration change over.

I mean, weather, who knows? Like, we'll see what happens with weather, but yeah. Yeah, hopefully all one time. 

Yeah. I mean, 2026 will either be a better year or I'm gonna gaslight the universe into believing it's a better year and we're just gonna make that happen. I think that's the way to 

do it. Yeah, I think 

that's 

the way 

to 

do it, 

for sure.

What, what do you have big up in 26? What's the goal? 

Uh, a lot of traveling. Uh, gonna try to put on a marketing conference and hint, you know, wink, wink. We'll see. Yeah. Uh, when we announce that, uh, wanna hit a lot more [00:02:00] conferences up. Uh, what a double in size, but like what CEO doesn't. Wanna double in size.

Yeah, right. I wouldn't mind. Yeah, I wouldn't mind. Let's do it. Um, you know, we're still small enough where we can double in size. We haven't gotten like Yeah. So big that, that's like, bro, that's, that would actually break things. And so yeah, just a lot of, a lot of new ideas, a lot of new things that we wanna do for our clients internally, for our team.

Uh, yeah, to just be better. Um, yeah, and that's the pursuit, that's the fun part, is just getting, making this better and better. 

That's awesome. This, uh, this year we want to double, but we want to double ebitda. So we want to go from three and a half to seven. Uh, which I actually think we ended a little bit higher than three and a half, which is cool.

I think we're, um, I think we're like potentially low fours, but I, I gotta wait for final numbers. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we want to get to like seven and, uh, the biggest way we're doing that is like add-on acquisitions. So we closed one. 48 hours ago. Oh, dang. And then, yeah, so we're like fresh. So I spent my morning there, just like [00:03:00] integrating, switching everything over.

And then we announced to their team on Monday. And then, um, we have two more that we're actively talking to and we'll probably close at least one more in January. 

Dang. Do you get the, like Yeah. When you make a big purchase, like a, a car? I've only done one acquisition, so like, 

yeah. 

I'm sure you get this feeling more often than not, but like you make that acquisition the next day, you're like.

Was that a good idea? Like, was that a good choice? Like just that doubt that creeps in or is it always for you? No, it's like you feel really good about it. 

I feel good about it. Like closing day is like a big swing. There's like just a, so this, this specific acquisition, we, we went, we closed in like, uh, I should actually do the math, but it was like 20 days.

It was quick. Okay. And, uh, I had to get it done prior to the end of the year. So. We closed in about 20 days, maybe 25. Uh, so the whole thing moved fast. Okay. Which, uh, I liked, I thought, I thought was good [00:04:00] and, but no, I've a lot of confidence the whole time. Now there's another one that we're working on that is like a distressed situation, and that one I'm less, maybe I will feel regret of like, what did I do?

Because, um, I, it's gonna be really hard work to, to sort of like turn that ship around. 

Okay, well, let's, uh, why don't we talk nerdy about that for a second on, uh, both of 'em, but like that first acquisition where you feel really good. Yeah. Tell me about the marketing. How was, like, in general, how is the marketing?

Oh, it's, 

it's exciting. So like, I, so our topic today that we're gonna dive into is LSAs. So like, we're, we're gonna hit that. But I get really excited when I see these small businesses that either have not turned on LSA yet, or have LSA turned on. Just like not very often. 

Yeah. 

Um, I know I've said this on the show before, but we were talking to another acquisition target and they grew 50% last year.

And the biggest change that they made was they turned on LSA, which is like, uh, like so easy. Like [00:05:00] that's amazing. So yeah. So I get really excited when I look at these little, little brands and you still can do something like so straightforward to just double Now, obviously it. I'm gonna put this caveat out there.

If it's only that easy, because we have like a centralized platform to add a location onto, right? Like I already have hr, I already have a marketing team, I already have accounting. Like we have a robust structure. So for us, adding a new branch actually is not that complicated. Whereas like, if that's your main thing, obviously doubling is very complicated, right?

Uh, so I'm, I don't want to be like rude. Uh, but for us, this really is like more leads. We'll just allow this thing to explode. Do you get that? That gets me really excited is when there's almost no ad spend. Very high gross margin, very good net margin. That's like, okay, this is, I can do something here. 

Okay.

So you prefer to come into a company that has very low ad [00:06:00] spend, but has some like the marketing stuff going, but just like clearly don't know how to turn it up? Yeah. 

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And book a demo@referpro.com. Or through the link in our show notes, mention owned and operated for 20% off and a discounted onboarding because most people are willing to refer you. They just need a little help remembering. So if I'm looking at a company, because Google business profile and local service ads are like the same thing now.

So how good's the how good's, the Google business profile, how many reviews. [00:07:00] What's the rating? Is it like, is there easy stuff to optimize there? Like, can I get more reviews? Can I add the hours of operations? Does it, is it a service area, GBP versus a storefront with the address? So like, what can I just fix?

Um, is the GBP in a good area? Yeah. Is it in a high wealth area or is it in a crappy area? Yeah, so the one where the one we just bought has, uh, 4.9 400 reviews. Uh. They turn on LSA, but they mostly keep it off. So LSA does produce for them. Yeah. They just, for the most part, leave it off because they don't have enough people to run the calls.

Yeah. Which like we can solve that. Um, so like all, yeah. All those different things are what get me really excited about like, Hey, this, this opportunity isn't even close to fully tapped out yet. Like, we could just turn on a lead aggregator. We can just add more budget to LSA and maybe we can add three plumbers.

And, you know, double it. 

To me, that's, that's the ones where I like, I [00:08:00] like where, you know, 'cause we get a lot of home service companies that will come to us and go, Hey Sam, we just take, check out the marketing. Like, is this a good bet? Yeah. And it's really hard when the, the company they're buying already does a great job in everything.

Like, yeah, you can take that and you can grow it, but it's so much easier. Just like increase ad spend. Like, it's just so much easier to like, oh, hey, well, like you're just not consistent. You just need more team members. Yeah. Like those are like the easy fixes, whereas like, hey, you, you actually have the biggest part of the market and you already own, uh, the majority of the SEO organic traffic.

Uh, and you already have a robust Google ad. You, you're in a 

highly, uh, high wealth area. How big is the customer list? Is another one. Yeah. Um, 'cause what I usually find is I'll find like six to 10,000 customers inside a database that have never been talked to once. Mm-hmm. So, okay. Can I, can I put that into a rehash campaign and just generate calls here?

So, yeah. That when, when I see just like that. [00:09:00] Great, great reviews. Good. GBP an underutilized LSA, A decent sized customer list, but doesn't have a tech stack to rehash. That is like, yeah, hell yeah. We can, we can do something here. 

No, I, 

so anyways, so we did do something there. We, you did, we acquired them. We did it.

We put our money where our mouth was. 

Now the other one where you're not as excited or like you're excited, but you're just like, Hmm, I've got a couple red flags on this date. 

We're, yeah, we're excited. Um, it, yeah, there's a lot of red flags. Uh, distress deals are just their own brand of complicated, um. You know, what are you coming into?

What are the liabilities? What are the unknown liabilities? What's the project? What's the culture like? What's the cost structure that you can't get rid of? What's the cost structure you can? We have officially completed 10 acquisitions in industry, so we've done a handful of deals and eight of them have been distressed.

Okay. So 

[00:10:00] we have like. A good handle on how to handle a distressed deal. You know, each one's a little bit different. Yeah. Like how did it get distressed? Why did it get distressed? Uh, can it be unstressed? Uh, so each one's a little bit different. Um, so we are excited about it. We feel like we have the chops to take it down, but it is in a new market so that, that adds some complication.

Uh, the big one is like in the eight deals that we've done that have been distressed, I have personally gone in and solved it. And in that case, I can't do that. So that's one of the big, like, okay, how do, how do I work through a leadership team? With something that is really gonna be hard. Yeah. Like it's gonna be hard.

Like I have done everything that needs to happen here, but I'm not the one doing it. Yeah. So how do we do it? 

No, that's a good question. I have not gotten there in my own business yet. I bought one company and it was a, yeah, it was a lot of fun because it was a friend and so like I got the, you know, the dirty insight and he wanted to [00:11:00] stay.

On. He just wanted to be a part of what we were doing. So it's like, great. Yeah. Come on. Um, mm-hmm. And so that was an easy one, but no distressed agencies yet. Maybe we wanna stay or, or maybe I go after. Yeah. A, a plumbing company, you know, who knows? 

I mean, hey man. Yeah, it distressed is interesting. Like we, you know, we bootstrapped our way here, like it's still us, like myself as an owner, Brandon, my present as an owner.

So a part of the reason we've taken down distressed deals is because that's what we could afford. Like, I can't compete in the marketplace for a million dollar EBITDA businesses. Right. I just can't, like I'm, I didn't raise a fund. Uh, we have to be creative in how we do things, so I think we've just naturally fallen into this rhythm of fixing businesses because that's what we could afford to do.

Yeah. Even the, you know, I bought my parents' business and then the second business. Was, we bought like 13 months later and that was a distress deal. Like revenue was sinking. They were losing 30 grand a year for like five straight years. [00:12:00] And um, I was 26 and like we just went in there and like got it done, but I.

If that was profitable, I couldn't have afforded it. 

And I'm just gonna push this back to marketing, just 'cause that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. What, what marketing problems are you willing to fix and what prom marketing problems are you not willing to fix 

if, uh, if a company had zero service presence?

Like it was a hundred percent new construction with no service leads. I'd be out, like right off the rip. Like, I, I don't wanna solve that. Um, I've, I've had to do that a few times now, and I'm, I'm a little tired, so if there's a decent service base and it is getting leads somewhere, I'm up for it. So I guess that would be my measurement.

Like, is there any service, even if it's all organic, uh, then I would, I would take on that, take on that problem. But if it's less, if it's like. 50 50 new construction service. Mm-hmm. Like if it's, if it's any more weighted to new construction, um, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even touch it 'cause our playbook is [00:13:00] shut down, new construction day one if possible.

Mm. 

Uh, 

or otherwise, as soon as humanly possible, get, get rid of all new construction and pivot to service. So ideally you already have a service base to build from. 

Is there any thought towards, uh, how many channels they're growing? Like this is a really good looking business, but it literally only has LSA, doesn't it have GBP doesn't have Google ads or any other marketing channel, just like one, so it's like it's varied.

No, no. Doesn't matter. I 

don't, I think I would take that on. Okay. Just 'cause that stuff's so easy. Like signing up for, I mean, so much of it's the tech stack. So if, if a lead comes in and it gets collected and rehashed, that's all tech stack. So if you have a good tech stack, then I mean, any lead aggregator can be turned on in an hour.

So it, it doesn't seem that complicated. 

Okay. At least one channel driving. Uh, yeah. And you'll go after it. Yeah. 

And what's the price like? [00:14:00] Price has to make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Doing deals 2026. So we're probably gonna acquire four companies next year total, which would be the most I've ever done in a 12 month period.

My previous record was three. Here to beat 

Records, though. 

Yeah, we're here to beat some records. Uh, so should be, should be really interesting. The difference this time is, uh, we have a platform that we're building from. And when you're in the, like when you're at the size we are, adding a new branch is complicated for a number of reasons.

But, um, it's also like. Not that complicated. Yeah, like our tech stack is pretty built in. We just plug it in. Our payroll stuff is built in, we plug them in. Our HR stuff is built and it is just a lot of like. Uh, let's just plug all this in over here. Mm-hmm. And let them do the good work they've con they've been doing.

Cool. 

Let's hit, uh, let's hit LSAs. Do we, uh, do we start this off with the basics? Like, what is an LSA or do we just like, does everybody already know this? 

Well, uh, uh, some people don't. I mean, though, like, there was [00:15:00] that the, again, the guy that I told you about. He didn't even know that this was an option.

And, and this is the, uh, I mean, this is the literal easiest thing to do, to just add leads tomorrow. Like it's very easy. 

Yeah. So if you're not driving, if you're at a computer watching this on YouTube or something like that, yeah. Please go to Google and search for your. Um, your service and your location.

Hit that enter button. That first thing that'll show up. It'll be a, it'll say sponsored is LSA. It's local service at, uh, or you'll see Google, guaranteed. Google is basically guaranteeing your work, I think up to like two grand. Two, yeah, I think 

2000 bucks. Yeah. 

It might have changed, uh, since I last looked at it, but it is guaranteeing you up to two grand, uh, your work.

And so if Google is going to guarantee your work, they're gonna be damn sure that you are good at your job. Mm-hmm. Um, and so the whole system of LSA is built around, can you [00:16:00] get a, uh, get phone calls through it? Do the job and get a five star review. Yeah, if you can do those three things well, uh, you can will win.

LSA. The best advice for LSA that I can tell you is to be consistent on everything. Make sure that you're posting consistent, making sure that you are, uh, marking everything inside the LSA account for, uh, phone calls or books, jobs, making sure you're going and getting. Five star reviews. If you can do those three things, just that flywheel of consistency, you'll see your account grow and snowball.

It's surprising how overlooked it is. Uh, I think inside like the sphere of people pushing, it's. Unknown quantity. But again, I'm, I've, I've talked to a few people as we've been talking to acquisition targets again this year, and it has come up multiple times of like, yeah, we turned on Google for the first time and we grew.

And [00:17:00] I'm like, how, how, how? Yeah. How is this still, uh, low hanging fruit, which is again, is depending on where you are to me. That's very exciting. Um. That even in 2025, like that's still apparently low hanging fruit. 

Yeah. I was going through the, um, uh, call with the team, internal team to look at like how many of our clients are on track.

Uh, we do that every Friday. Um, and today we have like 93% of our LSA accounts on track, meaning that our, our, our clients are hitting their goals. Only seven target are off track. Uh, yeah. Which I don't know if you know from the agency side that's high. Uh, yeah, that's crazy. That's, you know, not I'm making an a, uh, on LSA.

Um, and so, um, I, it, it's probably the second most important. Uh, marketing channel you should be running. And what I mean by that is like GBP is your first, you have to have your GVP. Yeah. But GBP is [00:18:00] connected to LSA. Yeah. So you should be doing both. Um, yeah. And you should have a budget, even if it's just a small budget, you should have a budget for it.

Um, I personally, I'm under the impression and the way I run my business is I would just have that budget always on. Always trying to work it. Even if you don't, you're not getting a lot out of it. Uh, or if you're getting a lot out of it and you have to turn it down because you have too much leads, always just have a small budget of phone calls coming through.

We do a lot of like, turn off, you know, marketing for us is a very act, active, uh, contact sport is what we call it. So like every day, three times a day, we're looking at the board, we're turning down budgets, we're turning up budgets, we're doing like whatever. Um. I think, I think that is, yeah, the, the right way to do it.

I like the idea of turning down, but uh, something that this company that we just acquired is doing that I, I'm kind of a big fan of is they turn it down to like a hundred bucks instead of to zero, whereas we turn down to zero. Uh, 'cause then I think it probably like shows Google that [00:19:00] there's always something versus like, on, off, on, off, on off.

Um, so I, I don't know. I liked that. 'cause it still keeps something coming through, but not like full tilt. 

Yeah. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in LSA is turning it off, uh, even with too many leads. Yeah. What we have seen with clients time and time again is they will turn it down to zero because they have too many leads and then they go, oh, hey, we need more leads.

So we turn it on and then just like a 

ramp. 

Yep. Yeah. It's like a little ramp and it's like. 

Yeah. 

You know, we try to warn you like, Hey, just don't do it. Just throw a hundred bucks at, it's a worth a hundred dollars a week of wasted spend of phone calls coming through. But yeah, don't, don't turn it down to zero.

Turn it down to something you can do. In fact, what I would do is figure out whatever your cost per lead is, per like week, and just set it to that. So if it's $70, $70 a week or Yeah, whatever that is, 

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Yeah. Um, how do you feel like Google's like tr uh, treating 'em right now? Pushing 'em harder, less? Like what do you think? 

I feel a little bit of an uptake, not a crazy amount, but as you've seen over the last year, GPP has become like the number one thing for driving Leap. Leap g's. 

Yeah. Crazy. 

Absolutely.

Insane's crazy. Yeah. What's the problem with GVP in Google's eyes? 

It's ible probably, um, they'll make 

money for you driving leads. Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. That's a good, that's a good point. 

You know what they do make money off of LSA. Yeah. LSA. Yeah. And so I, what I, what we're seeing is like, you know, a year ago they made this transition to where your LSA and your GVP is like [00:21:00] completely connected.

You get one review for GP, it's connected to your LSA. So what you can see is just like LSA is becoming more and more important because of that. And so the activities you're doing on your GBP will affect your LSA and your LSA, your GP. In fact, we're, we've trained our sales team that, uh, we want to sell both and obviously, you know, greedy capitalists and what's drive, you know, build his business bigger.

Uh, you know, we sell as big of a, a contract as possible. But like, there is a tangible difference for when you're doing do two, both those activities. So if you are not, uh, doing LSA, uh, or at least if you're doing it with another agency or if you have an internal, we just wanna see the activity happening.

Uh, if we're gonna do the other service, 

I think, um, uh, my sister-in-law works at, I think it's Yahoo, might be Yahoo. And they're launching a home service. Lead generation tool, which should be kind of interesting. Like she's on that team that's like launching that [00:22:00] project. That's cool. Uh, and it, it, it did remind me a lot of like, uh, like, you know, a new LSA or I, I'm, it'll be really interesting to see out actually looks, I'm not sure what Yahoo's like, percentage of searches versus Google's, but like, I don't think Bing has their own.

No, like search 

function because maybe they team up with Yahoo. I don't remember how they get their data. 

Yahoo is owned by Bing. Um, so is, uh, duck, duck go. Um, but like, I, I would not be surprised if Chad Chippie launches its own perplexity Yeah. Type of thing. Um, yeah. That would not surprise me. 

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense.

It makes sense. Um, yeah, it, it'll, it'll be interesting. GVP definitely became. The dominant monster of 2025, uh, still is like, you know, we've been investing a ton into our GS and like every dollar just continues to overproduce. Um, but LSAs are exciting 'cause they can still just ramp, uh, and it [00:23:00] does feel like, just like pure vibe, no data.

You know, 20 23, 20 24, people were like, oh my god, LSAs are so, like, it's, they broke. And then it seems like by combining it with GBP, like. They're back to good again. Yeah. Um, because again, there's all these companies just like. I added LSA and I doubled and I'm like, yeah, okay. So it's clearly working for like the small contractor.

I mean maybe less for the large contractor, but like everyone I've talked to that did that is a, a small contractor, like two to 4 million bucks. 

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I'm literally having a conversation on Monday with the guy who, uh, the issue we had this past year is he had to keep turning it off 'cause he was just getting booked out way too much through LSA.

That's what's happening with this acquisition target too. Like, it's just wild. They turn it on and it just like explodes and they have to turn it off like a day later. 

I feel like you just have to go figure out that people problem real quick and that ne you know, you just have to, 'cause turning it off is just not, not [00:24:00] acceptable.

It's pretty lame. Yeah. It's 

not okay for the rest of us struggling with leads, John. We can't be having people I know. Um, other mistakes I see with LSAs, uh, just turning it on and forgetting it. Not posting it. That's what we used to do, not doing anything with it. Um, I even have like, we on our SOPs, our team will get in there and do like random shit.

So like, we'll get in like just change the budget up a little bit and then the next day we'll change it down. We want to show Google that we're actively Yeah. Google wants to see in there. 

Yeah. 

You know, obviously the biggest, uh, you know, mistakes we, we see when we're auditing, uh, other people's is they have the wrong services selected or the wrong locations.

Yeah. Um, and so you just wanna make sure that your locations are set correctly and, um, you know, get detailed with those locations. Um, and then services is, is a tough one, right? Because sometimes that you can't be as exact as you want. Um, I have another conversation with a client who's gotten tons of LSA leads.

The problem is they're [00:25:00] all like low order values. And so he wants to go after like bigger order values and he just can't get it through LSA consistency consistently. So we are trying to test out PPC 'cause we can be a lot more choosy over the key words and what we're willing to pay for. 

Yeah, I mean, LSA is like.

Yeah, you really can't get specific, like, we'll, we'll uncheck all the boxes and, and make it like water heaters only and we'll get faucet repair calls or like drain calls. Like, it, it, it could do it, it just chooses not to. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, maybe someone searches plumber. I, I don't know how it ends up that way, but like, yeah, we've experimented a lot of like, well, we have it just for water heaters.

We also just got this drippy faucet. Yeah. From LSAs, like, walk me through it. Uh, so yeah, it doesn't seem to work as you'd imagine. 

Yeah. It, it is a little bit of annoying, uh, from an agency standpoint. 'cause every once in a while we'll get that angry email from a client who's like, Hey, this is, this league's not [00:26:00] even in our service area, what the, it is like four hours away.

And we'll go through and we'll look at the locations and we've selected it correctly. Yep, yep. It just came through. And that's, you know, I don't wanna blame. Google for just like trying to get a little bit more money. Grab They're not doing it on purpose. Yeah, they wouldn't do that. 

Yeah, they wouldn't, they wouldn't do that Google.

No, they're good people. No, they're good. 

Yeah, that's fine. We're tight. Um, but yeah, like sometimes that's gonna happen and you just gotta eat it and just keep working through it. Yeah. Uh, whatever you do, do not sue Google. I've seen that happen and it doesn't go well for them, so Yeah. Just don't do it. Yeah.

I can't imagine. 

Yeah. That'd be a huge waste of money. Okay. Uh, LSAs at scale, uh, I think we're running. We're not running at multi-location. Well, I guess we are as of two days ago. Uh, we used to, um, and we've run it on multiple GMBs for our, like external offices. Uh, something that's kind of interesting. A friend of mine says this and I am, I'm just like fascinated [00:27:00] by, 'cause they probably know so, so hi.

His opinion is, Hey, I don't know how. But Google somehow figures out a way to feed us exactly the amount of leads that we can handle. Like if I am Wilson and Joe Schmo down the road is, you know, twice my size or half my size or whatever, um, Google just seems to know that. And if we both set our budget to a million dollars a month or a million dollars a week, or however budget gets set.

Then it would still send us proportionate amounts of leads, which I just think is fascinating. Uh, so this was his experience. Uh, it's Matt from Call Dad. He'll, he, he's like, yeah, I don't know how, but we launch an LSA, they know that we can handle. Leads for two people. So that's what they send us. And then we slowly add more people and then they add more.

But this one over here that has 10 people get sent enough leads for 10 people. And, and it is like, I'm [00:28:00] like, yeah, that is, yeah. Yeah. That's weird. That is weird. Uh, so somehow like staffing is going to be, you know, Google knows. 

Just add more people to your team. It doesn't have to be real. See what happens.

It's the newest experiment. Yeah. 

Like more vans or like Yeah. I have no. I don't know, but it, it is, uh, it, it is pretty funny. But so ul ultimately I think like more people equals more. You can either leave it on more or you can accept more or whatever, whatever Google's determining to send you more leads.

'cause they have this like divvy system where they spread the leads out. 

Yeah. 

Uh, somewhat proportionally versus like a lead aggregator. Five different people can buy the same lead at the same time. Google like spreads it depending on how much you can accept. Uh, so yeah, more people is a big part of it.

Multi-location always seems, also seems to be a big part of it. Like this is a good reason to buy another branch or open a satellite office or something [00:29:00] because it will give you access to more. Um, potential leads. 

Yeah, I mean, more, more locations is always better because again, like they're gonna, part of their algorithm to figure out who this lead's gonna go to is proximity.

Like how close you are. Yeah. Uh, how much you're willing to spend on a lead. Um, you know, how well you do with answering a call and booking that call for a service. Um, all those things matter. To Google. Yeah. So 

I wonder if Google will like hit companies if they use AI versus human. 

I don't think they're doing that now, but I wouldn't be surprised in the future if there's something like that 

because they, you get dinged for AI for SEO.

Uh, maybe it's, no, I'm thinking about YouTube. Like maybe it's YouTube. Yeah, YouTube AI videos. So like, my point is Google has like an AI detection tool. Um, I guess I don't really know what they're doing with SEO. 

Nothing that I can tell yet. Uh, okay. The big thing from an SEO perspective, and obviously this is not [00:30:00] SEO call, but if, uh, the more unique your content is.

The better it's gonna do. And then, uh, read time still matters. So if somebody jumps onto your yes, your content and then just leaves, like, it doesn't matter how good the content is, it's just like they, they weren't reading it. So you wanna make sure that you're writing content in a way that people are sitting in there and actually reading it.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Hard to do. Cool. Alright, so LSAs, what's your, what's your take? You said second most important lead channel. 

Yeah, that feels right 

to me. Yeah. Still underutilized. You know, there's these companies that are implementing LSA and growing by 50%. Yeah. Which is just like crazy. It's crazy to me.

Uh, I'm like, is this 2015? Yeah. Like, I don't know. I remember, I remember when LSAs first came out, it was like 2018 or 19 or something. And. It's easy. Like it's easy, it's, you know, put coin in, get lead out. 

Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm honestly envious. Uh, we don't have an LSA for marketing [00:31:00] agencies, so maybe like that's the next thing, um, that we can develop.

Yeah, that would be sweet. But that would be sweet. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, like we have to do the hard work of finding new clients. Uh, yeah. Whereas you can just start this. Um, the reason why I'm gonna put, uh, LSAs and S Tier is one, everyone should have this. Like literally, it doesn't matter how big or small you are, I just, you've got to go get this.

This is like, you start the company on Wednesday at 2:00 PM by 3:00 PM you have a GBP by 4:00 PM your LSA is set up and you're trying to send in the papers to get approved, right? Like that is that, that is the order of the things that you should be doing. Uh, before you go work with a marketing agency, you're, you're going to YouTube and you're gonna learn 80 to 90% of what we do.

From a marketing agency on YouTube, uh, we got a couple of those, you know, secret sauce up our sleeves. But like you, you can run an LSA successfully without us go do it. Um, and honestly, like the biggest reason why you get, uh, an agency involved is one, you're stuck and you don't [00:32:00] know how to get unstuck. Or two, you don't wanna go hire the person to do the work.

It's just cheaper and easier to hire an agency, um, to just do it. Um, so yeah, like those are your two options. Um, and so everyone should have it, in my opinion, everyone should have an ad spend budgeted for it. Um, 

yeah. 

And doing it much no matter what. It's like 50 

bucks a day or you know, something to just get that one lead, keep, keep it on, keep it cooking.

Yeah, I agree. And it, and it's, it's just such low hanging fruit. Yeah. It's like reviews, like you can just go get more reviews and the business will be better. Now, obviously, like it's slightly more complicated than that, you have to figure out tech Stack or ask people or whatever, but like, it's something that you could do today to help yourself today, which like that's a dream change in a business is like, I could do something today and I will get the reward of that today.

Yeah. We, we did this, uh, we did this, uh, negotiation about a year and a half ago, uh, like 15 months [00:33:00] ago. On equipment that involved a rebate and discounts and all that stuff. And 15 months ago and next month we get the check from that negotiation. So like 16 months. Now granted the check is really big. It's like 200 grand, but if you can like that took 16 months.

So like if you can do a change today that will impact you today, like that's incredible. Like, that's the, that's low hanging fruit. 

It's, it's one of my favorite things when we're jumping on. Um, because it can be pretty easy, you know, from a setting standpoint, a client doesn't have it right, or has never turned it on to look like superheroes by just like, turning it on, um, and getting leaf flows in.

So it's, it's definitely a low hanging fruit. Highly suggested you should be doing it. Uh, if at this moment you're sitting there going, man, maybe I should, or like, you don't have one, just pause. Go to YouTube, look up how to set one up and start. Yeah. Like there's no excuse. Yeah. By end of today you should have this going.

Sweet. Any final thoughts? [00:34:00] No. Uh, welcome to 2026 the year. Uh, if you don't already, you are going to get an LSA shape. Uh, you're gonna work, you work off that 2025 suite Christmas pie, uh, and get into the LSA 2026 shape, uh, and get cracking. 

Yeah. 2026 for us is. Let's double ebitda. Let's see how we can do it.

It should be fun taking down deals. We're back 

baby. We're back. Business is easy, you know, or it's simple. It's hard, but it's, but it's simple. Get more leads. Sell more deals. 

Yeah. Sell more things. Yeah, fulfill. 

You're good. You got this. 

It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful cycle. Alright, thanks everybody. Give us a five star review wherever it is.

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