Last Updated on: 5th May 2025, 11:31 am
In a recent conversation on The Simply Be Found Huddle, co-founders Dean and Rob discussed why many small businesses struggle with traditional marketing agencies, how their approach differs and why they fail at organic marketing for local businesses. Here are the key insights from their discussion:
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Key Takeaways From This Huddle
TThe conversation opened with a common reality: many small business owners turn to agencies because they don’t know where to begin. Dean explained that while agencies may offer SEO, web design, or paid advertising, they often deliver cookie-cutter packages that don’t reflect the unique voice of each business.
Rob added, “You end up spending as much time [working with an agency] as you would just telling your own story.” That’s the danger of outsourcing without strategy—your message gets lost in the noise.
The Tree Concept: How to Visualize Organic Marketing for Local Businesses
Dean introduced Simply Be Found’s “Tree Concept” as a better way to understand digital growth. Think of the roots as your online presence across 1,000+ networks, the trunk as your website, and the branches as your outreach channels—like email, social media, and directories.
The problem with most agencies? They treat Google like the only root. But real organic marketing for local businesses requires a full root system. “Google is just one part,” Dean said. “You need to grow across the whole digital ecosystem.”
Why Voice Search and AI Demand a Smarter Strategy
Voice search and AI have changed how people find local businesses. That’s why Simply Be Found built its Listings Engine—to help businesses get listed beyond Google and be found through the voice search systems people actually use.
And unlike generic automation tools, Simply Be Found emphasizes original content, lower spam scores, and connection across platforms. That’s what makes organic marketing for local businesses not only possible—but powerful.
Organic vs. Paid: The Long Game That Wins
While paid ads can be useful, the real ROI comes from organic marketing for local businesses. Rob emphasized that paid strategies are expensive and often short-lived, while organic visibility compounds over time. “Organic used to take 1–2 years,” Dean explained. “But our members often start seeing results in 60–90 days—some in under a week.” That’s because Simply Be Found removes the technical barriers and empowers owners to focus on what matters most: authentic content.
What Business Owners Should Still Do Themselves
Even with the best tools in place, organic marketing for local businesses still requires a personal touch. Dean and Rob encouraged business owners to stay hands-on with review responses, Google Business Profile updates, and sharing expertise through real content.
These small, consistent actions build long-term trust and community visibility.
The Simply Be Found Advantage in Organic Marketing
Most platforms focus on ads. Simply Be Found focuses on being found. With one of the largest data networks in the industry, their Listings Engine supports organic marketing for local businesses across 1,000+ directories, platforms, and voice search tools.
“When you get those robocalls saying your business isn’t listed, you can confidently hang up,” Dean said. “Because you are being found. Everywhere.”
There’s More To Learn About Marketing
Dean and Rob barely scratched the surface on what you need to know when it comes to organic marketing. If you want more help, feel free to check out the Simply Be Found member benefits and see how we’ve been helping many businesses grow.
Transcript
- 0:00 | Welcome to the Huddle
- 0:46 | Why Agencies Don’t Work for Most Small Businesses
- 1:52 | What Agencies Actually Do (And Don’t Do)
- 3:00 | Simply Be Found vs. Traditional Agencies
- 4:36 | Our Listings Engine Explained
- 6:01 | How AI and Voice Search Changed the Game
- 7:52 | The Real Value of Unique, Original Content
- 9:00 | Why Google Isn’t the Only Root in the Tree
- 10:30 | The Truth About Organic vs Paid Traffic
- 12:04 | Our Tools vs Agency Contracts
- 13:18 | Does Our System Work for Your Industry?
- 14:58 | Getting Found on Over 1,000+ Networks
- 16:22 | Factors That Affect Organic Ranking Speed
- 17:51 | The Real Secret to Long-Term Visibility
- 19:16 | What Business Owners Should Still Do Themselves
- 20:41 | Wrap-Up: Where to Go from Here
0:00 | Welcome to the Huddle
Dean: Welcome to the Simply Be Found Huddle. You have Dean and you have Rob where we talk about everything business and marketing and all the fun stuff in between. We do it raw, we do it uncut, we don’t make a bunch of edits or anything like that, so let’s dive into today’s conversation. How are you, Dean?
Rob: I am doing great, how about yourself? I started to interrupt you there while you’re in the introduction so I apologize for that.
Dean: It’s all about being raw not edited. I’m doing pretty good. I’ve got this… I’ve got this damn allergy still.
Rob: Yeah, well if you start coughing and goes quiet, that’s everybody knows that Rob’s having it as his attack. You should be trying to be on the phone with him when he does that.
Dean: Stupid, stupid allergies, stupid asthma, you know typical.
Rob: Yeah, all those wonderful things. So anyway, you know, let’s talk about our membership a little bit.
0:46 | Why Agencies Don’t Work for Most Small Businesses
Rob: And the people that are there, they’ve come to us and they’re putting in their own information. We have so many people that go, “Can you do it for us?” and we don’t. And they go to agencies. So my question is, what would be the advantage of going to a third party or why would you even want to consider a third party talking about your business? You know, what’s your opinion on that process? I know… I know, but let’s share that with the world out there a little bit.
Dean: So in my opinion, it depends on if your agency is doing something for you. I mean, agencies come in all breeds and sizes. Some are doing SEO and they’re doing all your on-page SEO. Some of them are doing your website. Some of them are doing some of your paid advertising. Some of them are doing your local SEO as well for citations. And a lot of marketing… we’ve worked with a lot of marketing agencies that use us. I mean, we’re a competitor against Yext, Moz, BrightLocal, or any of those types of networks for our listings engine.
1:52 | What Agencies Actually Do (And Don’t Do)
Dean: For our social media suite, we’re a competitor against like Hootsuite, Buffer, Social Pilot, or any of those types of networks. But it’s one of those things to where coming into us as a small business, especially if you’ve designed your own website where you’re not getting listed on all the networks, we’re that alternative to be able to come in and enter your information to be able to get that information done.
We also do websites. We have that ability. You just have to ask us for a quote. So we can do things that an agency would do. We do it a little bit different because we look at the data side, but what we’ve done is we’ve designed the tools. So that’s our bread and butter. We’ve designed the tools for you to be able to enter your own information that way you know it’s accurate. That information then is going to be sent out by API, which is a language of how networks talk to each other for a direct integration. Some are going to be through our aggregation system, but what we’ve done is we became our own aggregator and our own listings engine.
And when we went in and we designed that process, we designed that process to be different than what is currently on the market, a lot of the networks that are out there.
3:00 | Simply Be Found vs. Traditional Agencies
Dean: So if you look at Yext or any of those types of networks, they’re doing the same thing they’ve been doing. What we did is we saw a shift inside of how the market was going to change because the market was going to make a big huge tweak once AI came into the picture and once voice search entered the arena. It’s changed the whole piece. So we watched the data side and we’re like, “Nope, we got to make our own,” because what was currently out there was not working.
What’s going to happen is they’re going to fill out that information at one time from their listings engine. They can go through and they can edit it whenever things change, but pretty much that’s a set it and forget it. If it’s working, you’re getting calls, you’re getting traction, great! If you’re not getting those tractions and you do a profile review with us, obviously, right?
Rob: But I think I’m sure, you know, let’s jump back to the agency. You know, why would people want to go that way, though? I mean, we’re talking about what we’re doing, but why? What—and I know because I’ve done the agency piece with my business, and it ended up being I spent more time doing that than using our tools on our platform because you’re going to get a call because they don’t really know your business. But so, I guess, you know, we’ve got some wonderful tools and this set and forget it, but where do you think people are? Why would…do you think business owners think that an agency is necessary?
Dean: Well, most of them don’t know where to start. They don’t know where to begin. They don’t know where to even begin inside of the marketing.
4:36 | Our Listings Engine Explained
Dean: So if you look at this as our tree concept, which is where your organic pieces down at the bottom of your root structure of your tree, your website is that tree trunk, and then you have all these different branches. A lot of agencies focus on these wrong branches and don’t look at it from that data aspect. So when somebody’s confused and they don’t know what to do, they’re trusted that agency.
Now that agency is going to try to make decisions to that business that they necessarily might not know what to do there, but it’s worked for everybody. So you’ll see a lot of agencies—I don’t want to pick on them too much—but you’ll see them go out and they’ll pick like a roofing business and they’ll do the same thing for all their roofers and they’ll have the same template, and they’ll be doing the same thing over and over again.
My problem with that is if you keep doing the same thing and you’re not making it unique to them, you’re never going to get anywhere. It’s why our marketing packages are different when it comes to it. It starts with the tools, it starts with the listings engine, starts at the social media suite to be able to start getting them to where they’re able to put their messages out there.
When we do a, like for example, if we’re acting as a full agency and we are working with one of our members for their website, we’re asking them to record videos, we’re asking them to bring their real knowledge inside of there to be able to complete their full tree because we look at their full tree as a complete organism. So everything has to connect to one another.
6:01 | How AI and Voice Search Changed the Game
Dean: So no matter, so when you record that video for example and you get done, I’m going to pick on the contracting business because it’s probably one of the easiest ones to do. They get done doing a job or they get done doing a bid, and they could talk about the job or the bid they just did, and they can go through and talk about, you know, what problem they are going to solve. Or if they just finished a job, they’re going to talk about what they just finished.
Now this can be done for any kind of area. It could be a chiropractor talking about a solution you just gave for somebody and without giving names or anything, and what problem you just solved. Well, from that video, you could create a blog, you could create your social media, you could create all those different pieces, and that ties into how your keywords and everything are also going to work inside of the listings engine. So then it ends up being that whole entire full workup of how that entire piece ends up working. Does that make sense?
Rob: It does, and you know, I really find it interesting. You kind of hit a sore point with me. We’ve talked to people that they only specialize in one industry, and the problem is, you know, and maybe they and they repeat—they’re not given original content. You know, they’re changing names a little bit, they’re giving a little bit.
7:52 | The Real Value of Unique, Original Content
Rob: But I think some of the some people—I’m not, and like I said, I’m with you, I don’t want to throw, because there’s some great agencies out there doing great things, and there’s some that are just dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s and doing the little check boxes and saying, “Look what I’m doing for you,” and they’re really not getting that whole piece done for you.
And what you’re talking about with the content with the videos, like what we talk about and getting some ideas, that’s such a great easy way to get information because you’re talking about yourself. It’s not AI generated, and it’s your business original—again, original.
Dean: Well, it brings that quality score up, it reduces your spam score, so it brings all that up. So if you look at the new way that Google’s operating, the new way that Bing’s operating for their algorithms…
9:00 | Why Google Isn’t the Only Root in the Tree
Dean: If you look, if you want to get your business listed on Chat GPT, all of those pieces are going to matter on how your data structured and how your quality score is going to be. So if you don’t have good quality, it’s not going to pick you up. You’re going to sound like absolutely everybody else.
Rob: So, you know, I’m going to jump back to the tree thing and one of the things that I saw with a couple of people that are out there is, you know, we talk about the root structure. That’s our listings agent where you’re putting all this information out to all these different networks. I’ve seen some agencies that concentrate on Google only, and so you got this root down there, but it’s not enough root to hold the tree up, and it’s got to go boop, because there’s more to it than just Google. I’m not, you know, I mean Google’s still a factor. It’s a big root in the system, but it’s—you got to have all the root system, you got to have all the networks. And I think some agencies have a tendency to get blinded on certain techniques because that’s what worked in the past. Do you agree with that a little bit?
Dean: I do agree, and the whole entire reason why everybody focused on Google is because Google used to be the hottest thing since sliced bread.
10:30 | The Truth About Organic vs Paid Traffic
Dean: Your Google Business Profile or what, if you’ve been doing this for a while, Google My Business, I mean, getting your business to rank inside of there, getting, doing Google Ads, all that stuff—it worked for a really long time, and most people say they’re going to Google you, they don’t say they’re going to Bing you, they don’t say they’re going to ChatGPT you, they don’t really say those things. They might say, “Hey, I’m gonna go talk to my AI and see what happens.” That might be a new thing coming up, right?
But you have to make sure that you have that root structure there because even Google itself is going to go fact-check you across all kinds of different networks. It’s part of your quality score. So by being listed on those right pieces, you’re going to build your backlinks up and you’re going to build backlinks up that matter. So those are going to be native backlinks versus being just organic.
They’re going to be organically done versus hiring a backlink company that is going out and just buying those backlinks and buying those spots. It’s going to be able to build that piece up. That website piece needs to have that right structure, that right piece to it. Now, do we require to do the website for them? No, you can have any website with any provider and they can use the listings engine and blast their information out, and we’ll provide that information without creating duplicates or any of that stuff.
Rob: Yeah, so I think your allergies are contagious. All set up.
Dean: Well, congratulations. I’m glad I could share.
Rob: Yeah, no, I was listening to you and trying not to cough at the same time.
12:04 | Our Tools vs Agency Contracts
Dean: So, I mean, it’s one of those things to where it gets really confusing. We make it a lot less confusing. Our tools could be used by anybody, and you can start at any point or have anything there. You could even do your own website—we don’t really care.
Rob: So, just to clarify, what “anybody” means is not I mean, you can be tech-savvy, not tech-savvy. And an in, I don’t know, an industry that it doesn’t work for. Can you name something that doesn’t work for?
Dean: I mean, as long as you’re, it basically it would fall underneath the same piece of Google Business Profile. If you’re eligible to be able to get a Google Business Profile in your industry, pretty much our system will work for it. I guess there are some industries that are a little bit on the cusp that don’t work, but I mean, most industries—some have specific requirements of what you can and cannot talk about.
13:18 | Does Our System Work for Your Industry?
Dean: And you know if you’re in one of those industries. If you are, you know, a marijuana dispensary or anything like that—and now I’ll probably get triggered for being X-rated since I said the word marijuana—but if you’re in that industry, you know that you’re in that industry, and you know to be able to talk to us and say, “How do I best get ahead of this and how do I fix it?” If you’re in that high-risk industry.
Now I mean, there’s a lot of different industries out there that are high risk. Locksmiths have a little bit more of a system to be able to put in place because of how many different spots were just popping up. There’s certain pieces that are out there, and you know you’re in one of those industries.
Rob: But no, I mean, that’s the biggest thing is that the digital search works for all the industries that fall under those limitations. I mean, if we were to look at our whole entire user base for all of our members, I mean, we have everything going from weight loss people to chiropractors to dentist offices to flooring guys to contractors to home builders to realtors. I mean, the list goes on and on. I was going to break that down one day, and I was like, I looked at the numbers and I’m like, it’s all over the place.
I, you know, we kind of looked through how many SIC codes were out there, and I remember what we came up… we did that whole list, but it works for basically all the businesses are in those SIC codes that are out there for everybody.
Dean: Well, and it’s a matter of being able to focus on what’s organic, and that’s what makes us a lot different than what a lot of these other agencies would be. They’re really focusing on that paid search traffic, and I just don’t agree with the paid search traffic. It has its points, it has its place, and I’m a big believer in retarget marketing. I’m a big believer in making sure that you keep your email list up to date and not spamming out there.
14:58 | Getting Found on Over 1,000+ Networks
Dean: But other than that, you really don’t have to focus on your pay-per-click and the retarget marketing. You can do that yourself inside of all these platforms. Just make sure you have the right pixel on your website, and it’ll just automatically do it. Set your daily budget and you’re just making sure you stay inside of somebody because you got to remember, no matter if you’re talking organic, if you’re talking paid, the more touches you have, the more higher chance of being able to make a sale on it, right?
Rob: Right, and so that’s such an important piece is just getting your information out there and making sure—I mean, that’s what it’s all about. But I like I said, you know, I’ve been the agency piece. You end up spending as much time doing that as you would just telling your own story. It, for most businesses—I shouldn’t, I don’t want to overgeneralize that, but for some B—for most businesses, I think that’s a true statement.
Dean: It is, and I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day. They’re like, “Well, I’m opening a web development agency.” And I was like, “Oh, how long have you been doing that?” He goes, “Well, I watched a course online. I’m now open this up.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” Like, I mean, you got to watch who you’re going through and trusting inside of there. Make sure they know what they’re doing and make sure that they’re at least following some kind of proven systems and not using you as a test dummy and charging you for it.
I mean, it’s one of those things to where you got to be careful with that. Some people are really good at designing and they can make a beautiful website, but then they don’t know how to drive traffic to it. And I think there’s a lot of business owners that are out there that are stuck inside of that state right now, that they have a great looking website, they’ve spent a lot of money on their website, and they just don’t know how to drive traffic.
16:22 | Factors That Affect Organic Ranking Speed
Dean: And when they go and they Google it and they look for anybody to do it, the number one thing that comes up is paying for ads. And that’s expensive and it’s not a long-term play. I think that’s where organic really kind of shines, especially in today’s market.
Rob: Right, and organic in the long haul is a very cost-effective way of getting your—yeah, it takes time to get there. That’s one of the problems, and that’s where the paid advertising comes in a little different because it goes a little faster. But the organic is such a better way in the long game, in the, you know, because once you get that established, your net output is way less than doing the ad piece.
Dean: Well, you have a few different concepts that come into into the picture. So with organic, we used to tell people it take a year to two years to be able to see good results out of it and consistent results. I go back to the old school pieces of it—it took time. There’s a few things that come into factors when it comes to how fast you’re going to be able to rank using organic. It’s going to depend on how much search volume there is. So that’s everybody that’s searching for whatever product and service you offer inside of that very top of that funnel piece.
That next piece is how much competition do you have, because you’re going to have to be able to compete against your competition. The next piece down inside of there is being able to have your message right, and so you’re the one that’s converting, make sure that you’re ranking there.
17:51 | The Real Secret to Long-Term Visibility
Dean: And the companies that are just focusing on Google, and if you’re only focusing on Bing, sure, they’re there if they go and they search for you on Bing or Yahoo, or they do a search on Alexa or Siri, or any of the map networks, or if they’re asking any of these AI pieces like Chat GPT or anything. Then you have a lower chance of coming up if you’re not following the right procedures.
So but if you have all that right and you have that search and there’s enough search volume, the competition is moderate—or it could be high, it might increase your time for how long it takes to rank organically based on that—but that’s how you end up getting those results. And I would say our average is 60 to 90 days to be able to get good results. We have members that report that they get results in a week. It depends on how much search volume, what your competition looks like, and where you already are when you start.
Rob: Yeah, and it sometimes when you’re a newer business, you have a higher chance of doing better than somebody that’s been around for 50-some years because there’s not as much cleanup that goes on behind the scenes. Because you got to remember, when we send off that information using the listings engine, we have those direct connections through the API. We also have connections that are going out using our aggregator network, and then we also have the social media suite that’s sending out inside of there.
Depends on what you have there and what has to get cleaned up because behind the scenes, when you send that information, you’re going to fill out that, you know, one set of forms, asks your business name, your phone number, your address, descriptions—three different descriptions: a short, a medium, and a long—and then it’s going to ask your business hours and all that different stuff.
19:16 | What Business Owners Should Still Do Themselves
Rob: Once you submit that out, our data team is going to look at it and make sure there’s nothing that they see that’s going to be there, or if anything gets triggered by the networks. So you go out, and it gives that feedback. So if you stay in pending status and we’re not seeing that, you have to be able to say, “Hey, guess what, what can I do to be able to get out of this state?” If you’re not going out to the networks, you’re not getting those results.
It takes that communication back and forth because we can’t see how many phone calls are coming into you. We don’t know any of that data. That doesn’t get reported back to us. So you have to be in communication with us, and so we can help you be able to tweak your profile to get you to that next level. If you’re not doing that tweaking, it’s going to take you longer because you’re sitting stagnant inside of those stages.
Dean: Right, and you know, we and all with our with our tools, we do so many great things with those. But one of the things that a lot of businesses don’t do is they don’t do some of the other things that are necessary for themselves, which is not much work, you know, but they still have to, you know, talk about themselves, answer reviews—those kinds of things that ask for… ask for reviews.
Do your social media posts, make sure you’re posting to your Google Business Profile for its updates, make sure that you’re blogging on your website, make sure that you have the right schema on your website. These are all things that we can help you, depends on what package you’re on, how much level of detail we go into for this.
20:41 | Wrap-Up: Where to Go from Here
Dean: But I mean, it’s one of those things to where you can make sure that you have all that stacked because you got to remember that tree concept. Everything is talking to one another. So when you post, you know, take that one piece of content, you got to make sure you’re directing those algorithms to know where to go get it. So when you do a social media post, that should include some of your blogs that you’re talking about, that be part of that same topic, so that way you’re pointing back to your website, that way you’re putting all that in there. Make sure that all that information is in there and it generates connections. It’s called internal link building, and I include internal link building even out to your social media networks.
Rob: That’s really good advice, Rob. So, I don’t know where else to go with this. I think we’ve kind of covered that topic and that’s just how the listings engine kind of works and what to expect.
Dean: I mean, and if you have any questions on it, make sure you hit Dean and I up on the website because that’s a huge spot to be able to get a hold of both of us, and we can help you be able to take that to that next level and be able to help you build your business up to where you’re getting found organically.
And we like, I said, we work on our—our listings engine works with over a thousand networks, which I think we’re one of the biggest data aggregators out there.
Rob: I think we are. Last time, and we’ve got, you know, just the whole process is fascinating, but you don’t have to deep dive in it as a business owner. Let us do the deep dive for you of where you need to be.
Dean: Right, and then when you get these phone calls saying you’re not on the voice search activation or voice search department or any of those things, or your business isn’t registered on Google or whatever they decide to say on these phone calls, as you say, probably the most, Dean, they can hang up with confidence and know that they’re being found out there.
And we have things that kind of go over inside of the huddle that talk about, you know, different parts of what to do when someone calls you up but says you’re not on one of these, and how those are really generated. And I mean, keep an eye out there and just use your best judgment on that.
Rob: All right, well anyway, Rob, I don’t have any other things to talk about unless you do.
Dean: All right, thank you so much for joining us. Make sure you check us out simplybeFound.com. My name’s Rob. I’m one of the co-founders here at Simply Found.
Rob: And I’m the other guy, Dean. So thanks for joining us today. Bye-bye.
