Session 01 · Wednesday, September 16
Discoverability Foundations
How buyers actually find local businesses now that most searches end without a click, and which two channels deserve your next thirty days. The first session of the founding run.
Why this topic first
The map changed and nobody handed anyone the new one.
Most owners are not hard to find because their marketing is bad. They are hard to find because the way buyers search moved, and the advice available to a local business has not caught up.
68%
of U.S. Google searches ended with no click to any website
Early 2026
Source: SparkToro / Similarweb58%
of local discovery still starts in a search engine
The rest starts elsewhere
Source: GatherUp consumer survey60%
of consumers click the AI answer during a local search
Cited by name, not ranked
Source: Rio SEO 2025 studyBeing named in an AI answer is a different job from ranking in the links, and it is the newest place almost nobody around here is competing on purpose yet.
The hour
What actually happens between noon and one.
Fifteen minutes of teaching. Then you work, on your own business, in a printed workbook, with both facilitators moving around the room.
Welcome and the format
Five minutes. Why workshops fail, and what we do instead.
What changed and what did not
The nine channels, and where the numbers for each one actually live.
Exercise one · score yourself
Twenty minutes, phones out, quiet. Nine channels rated one to five with evidence next to each score.
Exercise two · commit
One channel. Three metrics with a baseline written today. One action with a date, signed and witnessed.
The sprint and the close
What report-back looks like on October 21. Ends at 1:00 exactly.
The two working blocks are the session. If we run behind, teaching gets cut before the writing does.
Exercise one
The nine ways customers find you.
Not nine tactics to run. One system, where the work you do in one channel feeds the other eight. You will score all nine honestly, with evidence, in twenty minutes.
Organic content
Published on a schedule a stranger could set their watch by.
Search and SEO
Someone who does not know your name finds you on the first screen.
Maps and local listing
Complete profile, current hours, recent photos, services listed one by one.
Social and short-form video
Your face and your work, where your buyers already scroll.
AI answer engines
Named in the answer, with the right details.
Reviews and reputation
Every satisfied customer asked, every review answered inside a day.
Referral and partnerships
They know exactly who to send, and you thank them so they notice.
Email and owned audience
A list you own that produces work when you send.
Measurement and attribution
You can say where the last ten customers came from without guessing.
Measurement is on the list because without it the other eight are opinions. AI answers are on the list because they are the newest and the least contested.
Exercise two
One channel. Three metrics. One dated action.
The three metrics are deliberately three different kinds of number. If all three are the same kind, a month cannot be diagnosed, only felt.
Metric 1
The work you did
Fully inside your control. Reviews requested, videos published, partner conversations held. If this is zero, the other two mean nothing yet.
Metric 2
How the channel responded
Reported by a platform, not by you. Profile views, impressions, review count, list size.
Metric 3
What the business felt
Inquiries, appointments, quotes, customers, revenue. In thirty days this often does not move. You record it anyway.
By [date] I will [specific, countable action], and my baseline today is [number].
The shape every commitment has to take before it gets signed. Countable, dated, yours alone, and checkable by someone who is not you.
What to bring
Four things.
- Your phone, because you will look up your own numbers
- A pen, though we will have spares
- One number you are tired of guessing at
- An hour where nobody needs to reach you
What you leave with
Four things.
- A scored business, nine channels, with evidence
- One primary channel for the next thirty days
- Three baseline numbers written the same day
- One action with a date, signed and witnessed
You keep the workbook. It is the first entry in your Business Playbook, and it is yours whether or not you continue into the paid program in April.
Founding run · no fee through March
Open to all for the founding run.
Anyone willing to attend and do the work can join the founding run through March. The program narrows to eighteen paid seats beginning in April.
Start your applicationNothing is sold in the room.