Conquer Local Podcast

Conquer Local

Welcome to the Conquer Local podcast, hosted by Vendasta Co-Founder, Jeff Tomlin. Get insider content geared toward helping you better serve local businesses, from interviews with sales & marketing experts to exciting new ideas that will improve your digital revenue dramatically. Subscribe now to start conquering. Presented by Vendasta.

  1. 823 | Meet the Man Who Cracked LinkedIn with AI (copy his EXACT system) | Charlie Hills

    2d ago

    823 | Meet the Man Who Cracked LinkedIn with AI (copy his EXACT system) | Charlie Hills

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 How Charlie Hills Hit 200K+ LinkedIn Followers in a Year (& the 9 AI Prompts Behind It) 🎯 Get all 9 prompts here: https://www.vendasta.com/content-library/youtube-content-library/ LinkedIn reach is down ~80%, AI content is everywhere, and most agency owners are posting into the void. So how did Charlie Hills go from posts dying at 400 impressions to 200,000+ followers and a client pipeline in just over a year? In this episode we break down the exact system — the profile setup, the content strategy, and the full library of AI prompts Charlie uses with Claude and Gemini to create high-performing LinkedIn content without sounding robotic. You'll learn why "how I did it" beats "how to," the 70/20/10 content split that drives both growth and revenue, and how to engineer hooks, carousels, and infographics that actually stop the scroll. Whether you're an agency owner, founder, or solo creator trying to turn LinkedIn into a lead machine, this is the playbook. What You’ll Learn in This Episode:✅ Post as much as is sustainable early on to gather data, then double down on what works ✅ Storytelling and a specific point of view beat generic "top 10 tips" content in the AI era ✅ Your profile is a landing page, not a CV — optimize the headline, banner, About, and Feature sections to convert ✅ Content is the engine of your pipeline: it generates intent signals from your ideal clients ✅ AI does the heavy lifting, but the ideas, perspective, and judgment have to come from you ✅ It's a long game — expect 3 to 6 months before real traction 🔗 Connect With Charlie Hills 🌐 Website: https://www.linked-agency.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-hills/ 📩 Newsletter: https://charliehills.substack.com/ 🔗 Connect With Vendasta 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    29 min
  2. 822 | Selling AI Agents Almost Killed My Agency (I Wish I Knew This Earlier) | Isabella Bedoya

    Jun 16

    822 | Selling AI Agents Almost Killed My Agency (I Wish I Knew This Earlier) | Isabella Bedoya

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 She tried to sell her AI agency… and discovered she'd built the WRONG business model. 🎯 Isabella was one of the first agencies on earth licensed to deploy AI voice agents — working 18-hour days, scaling fast, looking successful from the outside. Then she sat down with M&A lawyers to find out what it was all worth… and got the wake-up call that changed everything. In this episode of the Conquer Local Podcast, she breaks down the exact difference between an agency capped at a 2X valuation and one building something worth 20X — plus the AI employee playbook agencies are using to target 70–80% margins heading into 2026. If you run an agency, sell AI services, or want to start an AI business without a technical background — this one's a cheat code. 🚀 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: Why "human-centric" AI services quietly kill your valuationThe micro-SaaS founders making $30M–$80M with teams of 5 (or one 18-year-old)Productize vs. service: the real reason one founder builds 20X and the other stalls at 2XWhy AI voice agents for cold calling is the WORST use case (and what to do instead)The 3 AI agents businesses are paying the most for right now: Speed-to-Lead, AI Receptionist & After-Hours AgentHow to price agents like a real employee salary — and stop leaving 5–6 figures on the tableThe exact difference between a $3K/month agency and a $50K/month agencyIsabella's 90-day, $100K playbook (and the #1 mistake that makes it crash and burn)Her 3 non-negotiable principles for starting an AI business today THE BIG IDEAThe AI gold rush isn't consulting or "ChatGPT training." It's productized AI employees that do the work, scale without breaking, and get compared to a real salary — not a "bot." #AIAgency #AIEmployees #AIVoiceAgents #MicroSaaS #ConquerLocal #AIforBusiness #Entrepreneurship #AIautomationY #SaaS #AgencyGrowth 🔗 Connect With Isabella Bedoya:🌐 Website: https://izzygpt.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/izzword/ CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    18 min
  3. 821 | This Unique Niche Scoring Framework Prints AI Agency Millionaires | Luke Pierce

    Jun 16

    821 | This Unique Niche Scoring Framework Prints AI Agency Millionaires | Luke Pierce

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 Most AI agencies are broke for one reason: they picked a niche that can't pay them. 🎯 Luke Pierce has built 80+ AI systems with a near-100% adoption rate and he uses a 7-point scorecard to know which niches print $1M+ before he ever sends a single pitch. In this episode, Luke Pierce (founder of Boom Automation) breaks down the exact framework he uses to score any industry and predict — before a single sales call — whether it'll make money or bleed you dry. He's worked with everyone from small local businesses to mid-market investment firms, and he's learned the hard way that the niche you pick decides everything: your close rate, your deal size, your margins, and whether you're still in business in twelve months. What You’ll Learn in This Episode:→ The 7-point scoring system that separates $1M niches from time-wasters (and the ONE criterion that overrides the other six combined) → Why the most painful, "perfect-on-paper" niches are actually the trap that kills agencies → The 5 local business categories with a pain point AI absolutely crushes right now — and the exact automation each one will happily pay for → How to find any industry's #1 AI opportunity without ever working in it → Why specialists get chosen while generalists fight for scraps on price If you run an AI agency — this is the playbook. 🌐 Connect with Luke Pierce: Website: https://boomautomations.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-pierce-boom-automations/ 💬 Which niche are you going after? Drop it in the comments. CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    18 min
  4. 820 | His AI System Gives Agencies a MASSIVE Edge Selling to Local Businesses | Jeremy Grandillon

    Jun 16

    820 | His AI System Gives Agencies a MASSIVE Edge Selling to Local Businesses | Jeremy Grandillon

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 The 5-Minute Response Window That's Killing Your Agency (And How to Win It Back)🎯 While you're manually checking LinkedIn on Wednesday, your competitors closed the deal on Monday. In this episode, Jeremy breaks down why prospecting in 2026 isn't a volume problem — it's a timing problem — and reveals the exact AI-powered system that's separating winning agencies from the ones bleeding out. If you're still buying bigger lists and sending more cold emails hoping something sticks, this conversation will completely rewire how you think about lead generation. What You’ll Learn in This Episode:✅ The 5 AI employees every agency should be hiring TODAY (and which one to build first) ✅ Why the "send more messages" diagnosis is destroying your pipeline (and what actually works) ✅ The critical difference between a lead list and a buying signal — and why confusing them costs you deals every week ✅ The REAL buying signals local businesses send every day (hiring spikes, review velocity, job changes, website updates, social engagement, expansion announcements) ✅ How to build an operational ICP that filters in real-time — not a useless persona doc collecting dust in Google Drive ✅ The "waterfall filter" system that qualifies prospects for free before AI ever touches them ✅ The 4 components you need for a 5-minute response system that's structurally impossible to beat manually 💡 Who This Is For:Agency owners selling to local businesses (home services, med spas, restaurants, plumbing, wellness), founders scaling B2B outreach, and anyone tired of spray-and-pray prospecting that stopped working five years ago. 🔗 Connect With Jérémy Grandillon🌐 Website: https:https://tc9.ai 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygrandillon/ CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    19 min
  5. 819 | His Advice Could Help Agencies Survive AI Search | Eli Schwartz

    Jun 16

    819 | His Advice Could Help Agencies Survive AI Search | Eli Schwartz

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube For 20 years, the SEO industry sold one promise: rank #1 on Google and the traffic will come. Eli Schwartz is the man telling everyone that promise is dead.He's consulted for Tinder, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, and Mixpanel. He wrote the book on product-led SEO. And in this episode, he doesn't hold back on what AI has actually done to search and why most SEO agencies are about to get wiped out. What You’ll Learn in This Episode:→ Why ranking #1 on Google is now worthless (and the data proving it) → How one company lost 60% of their traffic but kept their revenue → Why the $5K/month blog post retainer is officially dead → The "search market fit" framework most startups completely miss → The brand signals AI is actually paying attention to (it's not what you think) → Why eBay lost the SEO war to Amazon — and what every business can learn from it → The $30,000/month link-building mistake Eli made early in his career → Why your SEO agency might be lying to you (and how to tell) → What agencies need to sell instead of rankings to survive 2026 If you're a founder, marketer, or agency owner who's watching AI Overviews eat your traffic — this is the episode that explains what's actually happening and what to do about it.Eli isn't sugarcoating it. Most agencies won't survive this shift. But the ones that adapt are about to win bigger than ever.⏱ 👤 ABOUT ELI SCHWARTZEli Schwartz is an SEO consultant and the author of Product-Led SEO. He has consulted for Tinder, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, Mixpanel, and dozens of high-growth companies. His upcoming book Customer Intelligence (Wiley) explores how businesses can actually understand their ideal customer. 📩 Follow Eli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwartze/ 📬 Subscribe to his newsletter: https://www.productledseo.com/🎙 CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    23 min
  6. 818 |  He Learned the HARD TRUTH About Selling AI Agents (His NEW Formula Works)| Luke Pierce

    Jun 16

    818 | He Learned the HARD TRUTH About Selling AI Agents (His NEW Formula Works)| Luke Pierce

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 How Luke Pierce Closed 80+ AI Automation Deals With Local Businesses.🎯 Luke Pierce, founder of Boom Automations, has closed over 80 AI builds ranging from small projects to six figures and his #1 piece of advice to agency owners is to stop leading with AI entirely. In this episode, Luke breaks down the exact framework he uses to identify ready buyers, run discovery calls that close 60%+ of qualified prospects, and turn operational chaos into six-figure deals with local businesses. If you're an agency owner, automation builder, or consultant trying to sell into plumbers, clinics, contractors, or real estate teams — this is the playbook. 🔑 What you'll learn:→ Why leading with "AI automation" kills your deals before they start → The 5 positioning pillars that separate $100K agencies from price-shoppers → 7 signals that reveal a local business is sitting on $100K+ in operational waste (before you ever talk to them) → The exact 30-minute discovery call structure that closes 60%+ of qualified prospects → The 9 workflow questions that uncover billable system components → How to do live ROI math with the prospect's own numbers → How to handle the 3 objections unique to local businesses without losing the deal 📌 Real client results discussed:600+ manual invoices automated per month for a home services company 100% reduction in quoting process time Lead intake systems that score, enrich, and route in under 2 minutes Proposal generation triggered by a single form submission 🌐 Connect with Luke Pierce: Website: https://boomautomations.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-pierce-boom-automations/ CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    23 min
  7. 817 | She Made $1.2M Selling AI Agents  (EXACT 4-Step Framework) | Isabella Bedoya

    Jun 16

    817 | She Made $1.2M Selling AI Agents (EXACT 4-Step Framework) | Isabella Bedoya

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 She built a $1.2M AI agency without a single sales call, zero paid ads, and no cold outreach. Here's the exact system she used. 🎯 Most agency owners are stuck doing 20 sales calls a week, chasing cold leads, and burning out, only to close maybe 5% of them. Isabella Bedoya did the opposite. No cold emails. No sales team. No paid ads. Just a razor-sharp 4-step system that attracts high-ticket clients, warms them up automatically, and converts them — sometimes while she sleeps. In this episode, Isabella breaks down exactly how she: → Sold $180K of AI agents in 6 weeks from LinkedIn alone → Replaced 200 exhausting sales calls with one system that made 3X more money → Charges $10K–$20K per AI agent — without ever hopping on a pitch call And the most counterintuitive part? The more she gave away for free, the more people paid her. KEY CONCEPTS COVERED IN THIS VIDEO ✅ The 3 AI agents businesses are paying most for right now — and how to sell them fast ✅ The exact email sequence that converts cold leads into high-ticket buyers ✅ How to build a personal brand that makes Forbes, podcasts and clients come to YOU ✅ The upsell ladder that takes clients from $47 all the way to $20K/month ✅ How to use buyer enablement to sell $10K AI agents straight from a landing page 🏷️ WHO IS THIS FOR?This episode is for you if you are: An agency owner stuck trading time for money Trying to sell AI agents but don't know how to package or price them Tired of cold outreach and discovery calls that go nowhere Ready to build a high-ticket offer that sells while you sleep Wanting to productize your AI services and scale past $50K/month 🔗 CONNECT WITH Isabella Bedoya:🌐 Website: https://izzygpt.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/izzword/ CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    27 min
  8. 816 | She Built 11 AI Agents and Cut 80% of Her Workload (Here’s How) | Ashley Gross

    Jan 19

    816 | She Built 11 AI Agents and Cut 80% of Her Workload (Here’s How) | Ashley Gross

    ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube 🎯 AI automation isn’t about doing everything faster. It’s about deciding what shouldn’t require a human at all. 🎯 In this episode, we sit down with Ashley, AI operator and founder of AI workforce Alliance, who cut her workweek from an unsustainable 80 hours to 25 hours, by systematizing the exact workflows that quietly drain most modern businesses. It’s a real breakdown of the 5 workflows Ashley automated first, and the 11 AI-agent “workforce” she built next. If your team is: • Drowning in inbox + follow-ups • Spending hours repurposing content • Doing the same research before every call • Losing deals after hours (and weekends) • Struggling to define what “sales-ready” actually means This episode will give you a clear playbook for what to automate first and what to protect as human-only work. What You’ll Learn in This Episode:• The 5 workflows Ashley automated. • 11 agents that act as 80% of her operational muscle • How to build a content engine that only costs $75 • How to automate your inbox without automating relationships • How to build an after-hours AI agent that qualifies, enriches, and books meetings • How to use an AI CFO persona to stress-test pitch, offer, and closing hook • A simple 3-question filter for deciding what to automate first • Why 2026 will be messy and how to build foundations before you build agents KEY CONCEPTS COVERED IN THIS VIDEO AI workflow automation Content repurposing systems Inbox triage + drafted responses Lead qualification + CRM enrichment After-hours AI agents (chat + voice) SOPs, SLAs, and knowledge bases Renewal prep + relationship intelligence Client sentiment tracking (“happiness meter”) AI CFO roleplay for sales enablement The automation-to-agents autonomy spectrum 2026 readiness: foundations → automations → agents CONNECT WITH ASHLEY GROSS:💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/theashleygross/ 🌐 aiworkforcealliance.com/ CONNECT WITH VENDASTA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/ X: https://x.com/vendasta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/ Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜 💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn ABOUT VENDASTA:Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team. We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort. 👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/

    24 min
5
out of 5
110 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Conquer Local podcast, hosted by Vendasta Co-Founder, Jeff Tomlin. Get insider content geared toward helping you better serve local businesses, from interviews with sales & marketing experts to exciting new ideas that will improve your digital revenue dramatically. Subscribe now to start conquering. Presented by Vendasta.