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Feb 11 •
Start Here. Welcome to Local Leads Academy!
So glad you made it. This space exists for real business owners and managers who want clearer thinking, better execution, and more reliable local leads. No fluff, no shortcuts, and no “guru” hype. Just practical, practitioner-level digital marketing that actually works for small and medium businesses. If you want to get a feel for how we think, start with the free courses inside the Classroom. They’ll get the creative juices flowing and give you something useful right away. To get us rolling and help Jon and me shape content that’s genuinely useful, please introduce yourself in the comments. Tell us who you are, what you do, where you’re located, and who you serve. Share a photo of your workspace, whether that’s your office, shop floor, home desk, or even your truck… wherever you actually do your work. Finally, tell us the biggest hurdle you’re facing with your digital presence right now. There’s no perfect answer here. We just want to understand you better so we can build something that actually helps you win more local business. Warm regards, Trevor
Pinned
Feb 13 •
Why We Built Local Leads Academy
If you’re new here, a quick introduction. My name is Trevor Clendenin. My background is a mix of formal training and operating experience. I earned a Master’s in Visual & Digital Media from IE Business School in Madrid, where I studied branding and corporate identity at a strategic level. That training shaped how I think about systems, positioning, and economic advantage. Before that, I served as Director of New Media at WTJX PBS, where I learned how to manage digital channels within real budget constraints. Public media forces clarity. You do not get to waste money. Later, I co-founded and operated a brick-and-mortar guitar shop in Savannah. That experience changed my perspective. Marketing is different when payroll depends on it. Today, through Sun Digital Marketing, my partner Jon and I work with small and mid-sized businesses to design structured demand systems. That means SEO, paid media, analytics, automation, and disciplined measurement. One recent client saw roughly 25 percent year-over-year growth after we cleaned up architecture, clarified messaging, and improved tracking. I built this community because most local operators are drowning in tactics and starving for structure. My approach is not hype-driven. It is systems-driven. Structure before execution. Measurement before scaling. If you’re serious about building reliable lead flow and making better capital allocation decisions, you’re in the right place. Introduce yourself below. Tell me what you operate and where you feel friction. Let’s build this the right way.
Pinned
Feb 13 •
Audit Your Demand System in 10 Minutes
Most local businesses fall into one of three categories right now. 1. DIY Operator: You are using AI tools, building pages, testing ads, and figuring things out yourself. You’re capable. You just don’t know if the architecture is right. 2. Agency Survivor: You’ve paid a retainer. You received reports. You’re not sure what actually improved. You suspect you overpaid for activity. 3. Hybrid Builder: You want to own execution, but you want experienced guidance on strategic decisions. Which one are you? Then answer these five questions: • Where do your last 10 leads come from? • What is your cost per lead? • What is your close rate? • What is your average job value? • What part of your system feels weakest? No fluff. Just numbers and friction. I’ll respond to every serious answer with a structural observation. No strings!
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4d •
What becomes possible when the foundation is clean: six e-commerce scenarios from a live engagement
I want to pull back the curtain on something I am doing right now with an e-commerce client and share the six scenarios we mapped out in the Phase 1 diagnostic. These are not hypothetical. They are the direct output of an honest audit of where a real brand stands today. The brand has been in business for decades. They have a Shopify store, a Klaviyo account, a Google Ads account, and a Meta pixel. None of it is connected correctly. Sound familiar? Here is what the diagnostic found and what becomes possible once we clean it up. Scenario 1: Story to campaign, start to finish The brand has a creative team. They produce content. Right now that content lives in one place and their marketing automation lives somewhere else. The fix is wiring the two together through a single workflow: the story gets produced, ingested, and turned into a Klaviyo flow, a landing page, and an AI-optimized content piece, all on a shared Google Calendar so every department sees exactly where things stand. This is the storytelling company model in practice. The brand creates. The system distributes. Scenario 2: Honest attribution Their Google Ads account has been paused for years. Their Meta attribution is self-reported by the Meta pixel. Neither number is real. The work here is clean tagging, proper conversion events, and getting every dollar tracked back to actual revenue, not platform-reported ROAS. This is table stakes and most brands do not have it. Scenario 3: Wholesale automation They have hundreds of wholesale accounts in Shopify with nothing behind them. No welcome series. No reorder reminders. Every order placed manually. Klaviyo can fix all of this without a hire. The accounts are already there. They just need a program built around them. This is one of the fastest revenue unlocks available in e-commerce and almost nobody has done it. Scenario 4: Orchestrated product launches Right now when they launch a new product, the email goes out late, the ads start after the launch window, and the creative team is scrambling. The fix is one workflow that coordinates everything: product page copy, email sequence, Google Ads activation, social briefs, Meta retargeting, all on a shared calendar with the whole team seeing what fires when. Planned once, runs every time.
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18d •
Patience is a virtue.
Hey everyone. I hope you enjoy the materials, and I apologize for not being around for a little while to facilitate any discussion. The fact is I have been codifying everything in here to an AI-native stack that we will be launching as a SaaS before the end of the year. Essentially, we have built a stack of the top 34 search engine optimization and branding tools available and given them a brain. Any business can connect to their real-time branding data and metrics and have a conversation with an AI agent to identify gaps in their plan and execute. It's not too good to be true, and I can't wait to show everybody.
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