The Blog

Earlier this year my wife and I came close to buying a commercial bakery with a coffee shop at its door. The numbers taught me how independents actually beat the chains.

There's no magic number. The real answer is relative to who's currently beating you — here's how to find your actual benchmark instead of guessing.

You search your own business category in your own city and you're nowhere to be found. Here are the six specific, checkable reasons this happens — and every one of them is fixable.

Private equity has bought nearly 800 home-service trades companies since 2022. Here's what it means if you're the independent shop still standing.

Your competitor isn't ranking above you because they do better work. Google has more measurable signals pointing to them — and every one of those signals is fixable.

ROAS is the metric every agency puts in their report. It's also the metric that keeps you addicted to ad spend. Here's the number that actually tells you if your marketing is working — and why you should never rely on paid ads as your primary strategy.

I'd spend an hour doing research. Then I'd find the businesses that should have been ranking — but weren't. Then I'd pick up the phone. Here's what happened next.

A homeowner in your town had a burst pipe last night. They searched for a plumber. They found someone else. Here's exactly why that keeps happening — and how to fix it.

Someone in your town just searched for your service — and your name never came up. Not because you do bad work. Because Google couldn't find you. Here's what that's costing you and how to fix it.