Google’s AI Is Failing Local Businesses. Get Paid $297/Mo to Fix It

0:00I just asked Google's AI to find me the best electrician in Greensboro, North Carolina, but instead of giving me a giant list of businesses to sort through, it gave me just five names. Now, here's why that matters. When I opened Google Maps and searched electricians in that exact same city, there were more than 90 businesses to choose from. That's right, more than 90 electricians. But, when I used Google's AI, it only put five of them in front of the customer, which means that more than 80 businesses never even made it into the answer. They weren't even considered. And one of the businesses that got left out has been wiring houses

0:33in Greensboro for 25 years, and they've got a 4.7 star rating. I mean, that's not a bad business. That is a good business. But, when a homeowner asks Google's AI who to call, Google doesn't even say their name. And look at what happens to the businesses that do make the cut. Google puts a call button, a directions button, and a website button right there inside the answer. What this means is that the customer isn't going to keep searching. They're going to pick one of these businesses. They're going to tap the call button. They're going to be done. Which means a business used to compete to be one of the options

1:02available. Now, it's either the answer or it's invisible. It's binary. It's pass or fail. Google's AI is apparently decided that free choice was slowing everybody down. Now, if you've been trying to land your first client or your next one by offering websites or social media posts or ads, and every business owner keeps telling you the same version of, "We're good. We've already got that covered." I've got good news for you

1:25today. Because the problem isn't you. It's that you've been offering things that these business owners think that they've already got taken care of. But, being left out of Google's AI answer is a brand new problem that most business owners don't even know they have. And takes about 10 seconds to show them on their own phone. And once they've seen it with their own eyes, charging $297 a month in order to fix the underlying problem, which is typically stale reviews and an incomplete Google profile, it's not a hard sell. And

1:52believe me, I've done this the hard way. One Saturday a few years back, I spent nine straight hours building a sample website for a roofing company. I sent it over, all excited, and then never heard a single thing back. Which, if you've never experienced it before, is a surprisingly efficient way to turn nine hours of work into an existential crisis where you start seriously reconsidering every decision you've ever made that has led you to this point. Anyway, all of this happened because I was offering him something that he thought he already had covered. Since then, I've built three seven-figure agencies, worked with over 1,500 small businesses, and run

2:23thousands of campaigns. And today, I do it all as a one-person agency with zero employees. So, this isn't something that I just read about somewhere. This is what I actually do every single day. So, here's exactly what I'm going to show you today. I'm going to show you how to spot the businesses that Google's AI is skipping, and how to find them in about 30 seconds each, so you're never guessing which business owner to contact. I'm also going to give you the exact word-for-word email that gets business owners to reply, and I'm going to give you the exact follow-up messages for the business owners who don't reply

2:50right away, so you're never staring at a blank screen wondering what to say. And I'm going to show you the exact two-part fix that you're going to charge $297 a month for, so you know exactly what work that you're going to be doing before you send a single message. Okay, so with that said, let me quickly show you what actually changed. See, for 20 years, Google was basically a phone book. You searched, you got a list, you picked something, but over the past year, Google flipped it around. Now, Google's AI reads everything about a business, the customer reviews, the business's page on Google Maps, which I'm going to

3:23call the listing, and their website. And then, hands you an answer. So, let's go back to Greensboro. We're going to take a look at who made this list. Well, the first name that Google gave me here is Dr. Sparky. Fun name. Anyway, five stars, 192 reviews, the owner replies to reviews, and the business added new photos six days ago. That's right, six days. Now, here's the one that Google skipped, the Steel Electric Company. 25 years in business, 4.7 stars, but only 15 reviews, and the newest review is eight months old. Nobody from the business has ever replied to a single review, either, including a one-star review that's been sitting there for 4

3:59years with no answer. And, the only photo on the entire listing is a street view picture with some trees on the side of the road. Think about what that means. Here, we've got two good electricians in the same city. Google surfaced one, and then it skipped the other. And, when you compare their listings, you can see there's a pretty obvious difference. Doctor Sparky, fun name still, gives Google a lot more information to work with. What they do, are they any good, are they still around? The new photos alone tell Google that the business is still active. Steel Electric, on the other hand, gives Google a whole lot less. It's not that

4:31Steel is a worse electrician, it's that Google just can't tell. Which means, at least for now, the AI doesn't recommend whoever it thinks is best. It recommends whoever it knows the most about. You might want to write that sentence down, because that one sentence is this entire opportunity. So, here's the fix. It has two parts, and neither one of them involves a sales call. Part one, you get his reviews flowing again, because fresh reviews give Google a constant stream of new information about the business. And, part two, you complete the Google Business Profile, which is that listing on Google Maps. So, it can actually answer the questions that customers are

5:04asking. Okay, so step one is finding the businesses that Google's AI is skipping here. Now, what you're looking for here is one type of business where a single missed customer costs real money. I've got a list of 30 boring, but incredibly profitable types of businesses below this video, but for now I'm going to save you a 45 minutes of research and three spreadsheets and 17 open browser tabs and somehow still ending up on Reddit, because today, we're going with electricians. It's because one panel upgrade, that's the box that controls all the power going into a house, is a couple thousand dollars, and every city has dozens of electricians. So, let's

5:37hop back into my computer here. So, here's the whole process, and it takes about 30 seconds a business. First, you want to ask Google's AI who the best electrician in your city is, and then write down the names that it gives you. Then, you want to open Google Maps and search electricians in the same city and scroll right past every name you just wrote down. Every business that's left, that's a possible client. And here's what you want to check on each business that Google didn't name. There's three

6:02signs. Sign one, a solid star rating. This way you know that it's a real business doing real work. Sign two, a low review count compared to the other businesses that Google did name. See, every business that the AI picked in Greensboro had at least 43 reviews. Sign three, no owner replies to the reviews that they do have. Old or missing photos, well, that's a bonus. Any business showing two of those three signs goes on your list because the problem is right there on the listing and that makes it easy to show the business owner. Remember, the AI recommends whoever it knows the most about. These businesses aren't losing to

6:37better electricians in their city. They're losing to electricians that Google knows more about. Okay, step two is the message. Here, we're just going to use email. You want to pull the email address off of the electrician's website. It's usually right there on the contact page or in the footer and you want to send it this exact note, word for word. The subject line is, "Hey Mike, quick question." All lower case and that's on purpose because this reads like a note from a real person, not a marketing campaign from a company. Also, this message that I'm about to show you is probably worth writing down or taking

7:05a screenshot of. So, here's how it goes. "Hi Mike, I was looking for an electrician in Greensboro on Google this morning and the AI recommended five of your competitors. Your business never came up. I recorded a short video showing why. Would it be all right if I sent it over?" Okay, before your brain finishes saying, "Why would he listen to me? I've never done this before. I don't have a case study. I should probably spend six more weeks watching YouTube videos." I want you to stop. You're not claiming to be an expert here. All you're doing is pointing at something that he can go out there and visually

7:35check for himself. Now, full disclosure, most business owners won't reply to the first email and that is completely normal. It's usually just bad timing, which is why most replies actually come on messages two or three. So, the sequence is three messages across six days. Message two goes out two days later. It's not a brand new pitch, it's just this. So, might want to write this down or screenshot it as well. Sorry, forgot to mention. There's one thing with your reviews you can fix yourself in about five minutes. I'll show you exactly what it is in the video. Is it all right if I send it over? Then

8:04message three goes out a few days after that and this one is low stakes on purpose. It looks like this. Last one for me, promise. I know you're busy, so totally get it if this slipped by. Just didn't want the video to get lost in the shuffle. Is it all right to send it over? And that third one is usually the one that gets the reply. This is because you've told them the messages are ending either way and weirdly enough, that's exactly what makes it safe for him to

8:26say yes. Anyway, after that, move on. You still got more than 80 other electricians in Greensboro alone. Now, when somebody does reply and say, "Yeah, send it over." Well, that's when you record the video, not before. You're never recording videos for strangers. You're recording them for people who asked for them. To do this, I use a free tool called Loom, which records your screen while you talk over it. We're talking about two minutes tops here, not nine hours on a Saturday. I've already conducted that experiment, peer-reviewed it personally, and the results were terrible. Now, that Loom video does four things in particular. It shows the owner that his

8:58business is missing from Google's answer. It explains why that matters to him because the customers are being sent somewhere else. It gives him one free thing that he can fix today and then it asks one question. It never names a price and it never tries to sell him the system. But, here's exactly what I'd say in an example for Steel Electric and while I was at it, I ran their Google presence through a quick audit. Their overall score was just 41% and their score for replying to reviews is literally zero. So, it's basically the entire story in two numbers. So, here's what I'd say. Hey Mike, thanks for

9:28letting me send this over. So, I asked Google's AI for the best electrician in Greensboro and this is what it came back with. Five businesses and Steel Electric isn't one of them, which surprised me because you've got a 4.7 star rating and 25 years in town. Here's why. Google's AI recommends the businesses it knows the most about, and right now your listing isn't giving it much to work with. 15 reviews, the newest one is 8 months old, and nobody's replied to any

9:56of them. One thing you can do today, for free, is reply to your last three reviews, even if it's just, "Thanks, glad we could help." Google reads those. The bigger piece is getting new reviews coming in every week, and there's a simple way to have that happen on autopilot. If you like, I can show you how it works, just hit reply and let me know. And when the owner comes back with, "Okay, so what do I do about this?" here's the message you send back. "I set up a system that sends fresh review requests every week and completes the missing information on your Google profile, so both your

10:25customers and Google's AI can actually see what you do. It's $297 a month, there's no contract, and you can cancel at any time. And if you're not getting more reviews than you are right now within days, you don't pay for that last month at all. The no contract part kills the biggest reason that he'd stall. And if he says, "We're good, my niece already handles it." don't argue with

10:44him, just say this. "Totally understand. Do me one favor, though. Open Google, ask it for the best electrician near you, and if you come up, ignore me, no hard feelings. But if you don't come up, that's exactly the problem I'm offering to fix." Okay, so we said yes, he paid, congratulations, you've now got a client. So now the question becomes, how do you actually deliver this service and get results? Well, good news here because this service is pretty small,

11:08simple, and almost completely automated. So, here's what it looks like from top to bottom. Part one does most of the work, and that's the reviews. And the reason most businesses don't have enough reviews is pretty simple. You see, business owners don't actually have a review problem. What they have is a remembering problem. The owner forgets to ask for a review, the front desk forgets to ask, the technician finishes

11:29the job and just leaves without asking. Even the customer who was totally happy and who totally meant to leave a review, well, they forgot to because life gets busy sometimes. So, the business does great work all week long and Google sees basically none of it. And the fix for a remembering problem isn't more effort from the business owner. It is a system

11:48that remembers so they don't have to. So, here's what I call the review engine. This is one automated set of messages that runs inside HighLevel, which is the software I use to run my entire agency on, and it runs forever. And you don't have to build any of it. You can copy it out of my Agency OS, which is my collection of ready-made systems, on day one and then just change the business name. The review engine starts the moment that an owner marks the job as complete inside HighLevel on his phone. Then, it sends three messages in order, completely automated, all on its own. The first is a simple check-in

12:17right after the job and it looks like this. Hey Sarah, this is Mike from ABC Electric. Just checking in to make sure everything looks good with the work we did today. There's no request, there's no link. We're doing this on purpose because if anything's wrong with the job, the business owner finds out now, well, it's easy to fix instead of two weeks later with a one-star review. If the customer replies and says everything looks good, the review request goes out next. And if they don't reply, it can simply go out a couple hours later. And this one looks like this. Hi Sarah, Mike here from ABC Electric. Just wanted to

12:46say thanks again for the opportunity. If you have 30 seconds, would you mind sharing your experience in a quick Google review? It helps other homeowners know they can trust us. And then the third message is the one that almost everybody skips, which is crazy because this is the one that generates the most reviews of all three. The beauty here is that the system also checks whether the customer already clicked the link that opens the Google review page. If they did, the automation stops so nobody gets bothered twice. But if they didn't, it sends one gentle reminder a day or two later because most people meant to leave

13:15that review, but life just got busy and things got in the way. So, here's what the final message looks like. Just a quick follow-up, if you haven't had a chance yet, we'd really appreciate a quick Google review. Now, one thing here is not optional, which is that every single customer gets the same message and the same Google link. You never want to send this only to customers that you think are happy, because picking who gets asked, that's called review gating, and it goes against Google's terms of service. Also, you never want to offer anybody anything in exchange for a good review. A lot of business owners are

13:43already doing one of these two things by accident, which isn't good. Your system, on the other hand, does this the right way by default, so you're also helping to keep these businesses out of trouble that they didn't even know they were in. And yes, you could send these texts by hand, manually, from the owner's phone with calendar reminders. The software just helps to make sure that it happens automatically every time without anybody having to remember. Now, real quick here, if you want the exact review engine I just showed you, here's the fastest way to get it for free. I've got a link in the description below this

14:12video where you can grab an extended 30-day free trial of HighLevel, which is the software I use to run my entire agency. And when you start through my link, you're also going to unlock my complete AgencyOS, which has over $15,000 in pre-built funnels, follow-up automations, and client outreach scripts, and sales scripts, and a 30-day HighLevel quick start, all installed

14:30into your account with one click. There's private community access as well, and a whole lot more. The link's in the description below. Okay, so part one is the reviews. Part two now is the Google Business Profile, the listing. Remember Steel Electric's listing? 15 reviews, no replies, and a picture of some trees, which would be great if they were selling Christmas trees, but it's slightly less useful when you're trying to convince Google that you're the guy that people should call when their

14:52electrical panel needs replacing. Remember, Google's AI can't use information about a business that nobody ever wrote down. So, the not-so-secret secret here is to just fill in everything Google gives you. The hours, the services, the description, and photos from real jobs. And you never have to take the photos yourself. You just send the business owner this. Hey Mike, one thing I need from you, next time you're on a job, can you take five or six photos from your phone and text them to me? Trucks, the crew, finished work, doesn't need to be fancy. I'll take care of the rest. Now, filling out their Google Business Profile takes

15:24maybe an hour. You do it one time, and then you just update it when something about the business changes. So, that's the whole service. The review engine runs on its own, and the profile gets filled out once, and then stays current. In real numbers, this is maybe an hour or two to set up the complete system, and after that, for most months, it's probably going to take you 15 to 20 minutes per month. I usually just say 30 minutes though, cuz I'd rather overestimate the time than make it sound easier than it really is. Then, once a month, you check that the review engine actually sent its texts, you compare his

15:52review count against last month, and you send him one short note that looks like this. "Hey Mike, quick update for the month. You picked up nine new reviews, which puts you at 24 total, up from 15 the day we started. Every one of them's been replied to. I'll send you the next update in a month." Now, real quick, but very important here, you do not want to skip that note. See, people cancel services where they're not really sure what's being done, even when the work is getting done. The note that you send shows him that the number moved, and that's the reason that he keeps paying

16:20you month after month. Now, I want you to see how this grows, because one client at $297 a month is just a starting point. 10 clients on this exact same system is nearly $3,000 a month, run from your laptop in about 15 to 20 minutes per client per month. But, where things really get interesting is that once a client trusts you with their reviews, you can add more services to that same client one at a time. And that's how one small $297 a month service grows into a real one-person agency, one that pays you every month and gives you control over your own schedule. But, don't worry about any of

16:51that today. Today is about one business and one simple solution. Okay, I've got two important warnings that I need to share with you before you go out there and send your first email. Warning number one, don't promise the AI will recommend them. Nobody controls what the AI says. Not you, not me, arguably not even the AI. I mean, we're all kind of just participating in this experiment at this point. What you want to do on the other hand is promise only what you can deliver. More reviews, fresher reviews, and a complete current profile. That's a promise that you can keep every single month. Warning number two, please do not

17:21spend this entire week picking a business name or redesigning a logo. You already know enough to send 10 emails tomorrow. That extra research is just fear dressed up as preparation. In over a decade, I have never gotten a single client because of my logo. And that 9-hour Saturday website that I told you about earlier, well, same mistake but

17:40wearing slightly fancier clothes. Basically doing impressive work that nobody asked for. But the best part of all of this is that need 10 clients on day one. You don't even need two. All you need is one local business willing to let you try this. Even if it's your dentist, your barber, or a shop you already walk into every week. Then, screenshot how their listing looked before and a month after. Because that one before and after becomes the proof that you show the next business. And the next one after that. So, here's exactly what I do right now. Grab the extended 30-day free trial of HighLevel through

18:09the link in the description below. Install my Agency OS and the review engine is already sitting inside your account waiting for the first business name that you type into it. But here's the thing, everything I showed you today is just one piece of how a one-person agency actually works. If you want the full picture, how to pick your niche, how to price your services, how to put every system together, I've put together a complete free masterclass that I've got linked up right here. It's going to walk you through the entire thing step by step. So, feel free to tap or click that now. I'll see you in there in just

18:36a second.