Be Locally Loved

In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura sits down with Jeremy to explore how local businesses can build lasting relationships with new residents instead of relying on one-time promotions to attract customers. Their conversation highlights a valuable opportunity for businesses: connecting with families as they move into a community, settle into their homes, and begin looking for trusted local services.

Jeremy explains why traditional marketing tactics, such as direct mail offers and discounts, don't always create lasting customer relationships. Using examples from industries like home improvement, furniture, and dentistry, he illustrates how consistent brand visibility helps businesses become familiar and trustworthy long before someone is ready to make a purchase. The goal isn't simply to generate a transaction. It's to become the business people remember when they need a service.

The conversation also explores how BeLocal helps local businesses connect with new movers through a combination of high-quality print publications, digital magazines, geofencing, and targeted digital marketing. By reaching residents throughout their first year in a new community, businesses have more opportunities to establish meaningful connections and become trusted local resources.

Ultimately, this discussion reinforces a central idea behind Be Locally Loved: thriving communities depend on strong relationships between residents and local businesses. When businesses focus on building trust and helping people discover local favorites, they contribute to a more connected community while creating opportunities for sustainable growth.

💡 What You’ll Learn

-Why new movers are a valuable audience: Understand why people settling into a new home are actively looking for dentists, restaurants, furniture stores, landscapers, and other local services.

-The difference between transactions and relationships: Learn why discounts and promotional offers alone may not be enough to win customers who already trust another business.

-How consistent visibility builds trust: Discover why businesses need to stay in front of their ideal customers before those customers enter a buying cycle.

-What it really means to build a brand: Explore how storytelling, consistency, familiarity, and trust go beyond logos, colors, and visual identity.

-Why timing matters in local marketing: Learn how reaching residents early in their move and continuing throughout their first year creates opportunities to build lasting connections.

-How print and digital marketing work together: Understand how community publications, digital magazines, geofencing, and targeted advertising can reinforce a business's presence.

-The value of third-party credibility: Discover how an established community platform can introduce local businesses to residents in a way that feels more like a trusted recommendation than direct solicitation.

-Why brand building never really stops: Explore how ongoing marketing helps businesses stay top of mind until customers are ready to choose their next local provider.

🤝 Why This Conversation Matters

For local business owners, the challenge isn't simply getting in front of more people. It's earning their trust before they need what you offer. This episode offers a practical perspective on how businesses can move beyond short-term promotions and build recognition that leads to stronger customer relationships over time.

It's also relevant to community leaders and residents who want to see local businesses thrive. When newcomers can easily discover trusted local services, restaurants, and shops, they have more opportunities to feel connected to their new home. By helping businesses and residents find each other, platforms like BeLocal support the relationships that make communities stronger.

🎧 Listen & Share

Watch or listen to the full episode to discover how consistent marketing and community connections can help local businesses become trusted neighborhood favorites.

Share this conversation with a business owner, community leader, or someone who cares about helping their town thrive. Subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people, businesses, and ideas building stronger communities.

In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Theo, the founder of Get Age Fit, shares how his personal transformation led him to build a fitness community centered on more than exercise. After experiencing the impact of a 12-week fitness transformation himself, Theo discovered that helping others become stronger and healthier was more than a business opportunity. It was a new direction for his life and a way to help people experience what they are capable of.

Theo explains why Get Age Fit takes a different approach from a traditional gym. Rather than focusing primarily on appearance, competition, or ego, the business celebrates older adults and the lives they have built. Its mission is to help people maintain their strength, mobility, energy, and independence so they can continue enjoying meaningful experiences, whether that means traveling to Machu Picchu, walking the Camino, or simply having the freedom to choose how they spend their time.

A defining part of Get Age Fit is its culture of love, joy, gratitude, and encouragement. Theo shares how faith, his wife's support, and the people around him have helped him navigate the challenges of building a business. Inside the gym, progress is celebrated collectively, and relationships with trainers help members develop confidence that carries beyond their workouts and into everyday life.

This conversation reflects a central idea behind BeLocal: strong communities are built when people feel valued, supported, and connected. Get Age Fit demonstrates how a local business can do more than provide a service. By creating an environment where people encourage one another and find renewed purpose, it can help individuals thrive and strengthen the community around them.

💡 What You’ll Learn

-Why fitness should focus on quality of life, not just appearance: How strength, mobility, endurance, and energy help people enjoy the lives they have worked hard to build.

-How a personal transformation can become a business purpose: How Theo's experience with a 12-week fitness program inspired him to become a personal trainer and help others.

-Why older adults deserve to be celebrated: How Get Age Fit challenges assumptions about aging by recognizing the accomplishments, experience, and continued potential of its members.

-How community creates lasting motivation: Why encouragement from fellow members can make progress feel shared rather than something people have to achieve alone.

-Why relationships matter in personal training: How accountability, thoughtful coaching, and trust help members push beyond their perceived limitations while feeling supported.

-How physical strength can influence other areas of life: Why the confidence people develop through training can carry into their businesses, decisions, and daily challenges.

-Why a strong business culture starts with intentional values: How Theo strives to build a culture rooted in faith, love, joy, gratitude, and mutual encouragement.

-How resilience grows through challenges: Why the difficulties of entrepreneurship can develop a person's capacity to handle greater responsibilities and future obstacles.

🤝 Why This Conversation Matters

As communities grow and people move through different stages of life, it's important to create places where everyone can continue to feel valued, capable, and connected. Get Age Fit offers an example of how a local business can respond to a meaningful need by building relationships and creating a culture where people support one another. Its approach reminds us that community impact isn't measured only by the services a business provides, but also by the confidence, connection, and opportunities it helps people develop.

This episode is especially relevant for local business owners, entrepreneurs, fitness professionals, and residents who want to see their communities become more supportive places to live. It offers a practical reminder that building a locally loved business starts with understanding people, honoring their experiences, and creating an environment where they can thrive together.

🎧 Listen & Share

Watch or listen to the full conversation to hear Theo's story and discover how Get Age Fit is helping people build strength, confidence, and community.

Know someone who cares about helping their town thrive? Share this episode with them, and subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people and ideas making communities stronger.

What if growing your business started with giving instead of selling?

In this conversation, we explore what it looks like to become part of the fabric of your community—to serve, connect, and build genuine relationships before asking for a transaction. We talk about supporting local organizations, partnering with other businesses, sharing your values openly, and finding ways to use your business to make a meaningful difference.

We also unpack the idea of “serve before you sell” and why generosity can become one of the strongest trust signals a local business has. In a world where technology and AI can make it harder to know what—or who—is real, people are still looking for something technology cannot replace: human connection.

For us, thriving communities are built on something simple: being neighborly. Neighborly in our homes. Neighborly in our businesses. Neighborly in the way we notice people’s needs and choose to help.

If you’re standing at the fence wondering how to make a difference where you live, maybe the invitation isn’t to do something bigger. Maybe it’s simply to step in, get connected, and start serving.

Break Free Blueprint (Today’s Takeaway)
• Serve before you sell.

• Find something you genuinely care about and become part of it. Support a local organization, connect with other businesses, help a neighbor, or use your gifts to meet a need.

• Don’t wait until everything is perfect. Get involved, build trust, and let your relationships open the door for what comes next.

Connect & Subscribe
If this conversation encouraged you to think differently about business, community, and connection, we’d love for you to stay connected with us.

What happens when a community refuses to say, “We’re done”?

In this conversation with Kim, we explore what it looks like to keep showing up, investing in people, and building a community that continues to grow. Georgetown’s recognition as the inaugural Best Downtown in Texas became more than an award—it became a reminder that meaningful work is never finished.

We talk about the power of collaboration, the role of local businesses and volunteers, and the importance of staying connected to the people around us. Kim shares how Georgetown continues to raise the bar, not because everything is perfect, but because there is always another opportunity to serve, improve, and invite more people into the community.

For those of us standing at the fence wondering how we can get more involved, this conversation is a gentle invitation: start where you are, get connected, and keep showing up. Sometimes transformation happens simply because people are willing to say yes again and again.

Break Free Blueprint (Today’s Takeaway)

• Don’t wait until you feel finished or fully ready.

•Take one step toward connection today. Volunteer. Reach out. Support a local business. Join the conversation.

•We don’t have to do everything. We simply have to be willing to obey the next invitation God places in front of us—and trust that small acts of faithfulness can become part of something much bigger.

Connect & Subscribe

Stay connected with Be Locally Loved and keep discovering the people, businesses, and stories shaping Georgetown.

Follow the City of Georgetown and Visit Georgetown, and look for opportunities to volunteer, get involved, and build deeper connections in your community.

In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura Capes Terry sits down with longtime marketing strategist and community connector Liz Hamm to unpack what local business owners often misunderstand about marketing. Rather than chasing every new platform, trend, or “shiny object,” Liz explains why effective marketing starts with understanding the purpose of each tool, knowing where a business stands, and making thoughtful choices based on its goals, budget, and market.

Liz shares lessons from decades in marketing and communications, along with her experience as a BeLocal area director in Richmond, Texas. She explains why businesses should first strengthen their foundations—including their brand story, digital presence, community involvement, and customer experience—before adding more sophisticated marketing efforts. She also explores the value of maximizing partnerships businesses already have instead of immediately assuming they need something new.

A major theme throughout the conversation is the power of reputation, relationships, and being present in the community. Liz encourages business owners to step out from behind their logos, participate in local organizations, support schools and charities, and use those relationships as meaningful parts of their marketing strategy. She also discusses how AI and an increasingly noisy digital landscape are changing visibility and why businesses need to show up consistently across multiple places.

The conversation also introduces Liz's community resource, Let's Go Locals, a centralized online calendar and community information hub designed to make it easier for residents, businesses, schools, charities, and organizations to share what's happening locally. At its heart, the episode reinforces a simple idea: marketing is a system, not a single tactic—and building a business people know, trust, and choose takes consistent effort and genuine community connection.

• Why marketing is not a one-size-fits-all strategy and how businesses can choose tools based on their specific goals, market, and audience.
• How to identify and maximize the low-hanging fruit in marketing efforts and partnerships you already have.
• Why a strong foundation—your brand story, digital presence, messaging, and customer experience—should come before adding more marketing channels.
• How community involvement, local partnerships, schools, sports leagues, and charities can build goodwill and brand awareness.
• Why businesses should look beyond immediate ROI and recognize the value of reputation, relationships, familiarity, and trust.
• How to make the most of existing partnerships by turning collaborations and sponsorships into content, social media opportunities, and additional visibility.
• Why local businesses need to stay adaptable as AI, digital platforms, and consumer behavior continue to change.
• How Let's Go Locals was created to give communities a centralized place to discover and share local events, milestones, fundraisers, and other community information.

For local business owners, marketing can quickly become overwhelming because there are so many possible places to spend time and money. Liz's approach brings the conversation back to fundamentals: understand your business, know your audience, strengthen your foundation, maximize existing relationships, and then decide what to add next.

This episode is especially relevant for business owners, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and anyone involved in local organizations. It offers a practical reminder that building a locally trusted business isn't only about advertising. It's also about showing up, creating relationships, contributing to the community, and consistently giving people reasons to know and trust you.

Listen or watch the full episode to hear Liz and Laura unpack what thoughtful, community-centered marketing can look like.

If the conversation gives you a new way to think about marketing your business or supporting your community, share it with someone who cares about their town—and subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people, places, and ideas that help communities thrive.

If your website looks great but sales aren’t increasing, your leads aren’t converting, or your happy customers aren’t becoming repeat customers and referrals, the problem may not be one marketing tactic—it may be that the pieces of your business aren’t working together.

In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura Capes Terry sits down with Trisha Hendrickson, founder and chief of big ideas at Moxie360 Marketing. With 35 years of marketing experience, Trisha shares a practical framework for understanding marketing as an interconnected puzzle, covering everything from positioning and digital foundations to sales, retention, reputation, legal considerations, and metrics.

The conversation explores why attracting more leads isn't always the goal—attracting the right leads is. Trisha and Laura also discuss the importance of building authentic relationships, creating a friction-free customer experience, owning your customer data, using AI thoughtfully, and understanding what the numbers are actually telling you.

At the heart of the conversation is a simple idea: marketing isn't something you can set and forget. Businesses change, customers change, technology changes, and the marketing strategy has to adapt. When the different pieces are aligned, marketing becomes part of a much bigger system that helps a business build trust, serve customers well, and grow.

💡 What You’ll Learn

• Why clarity and positioning are the first pieces of an effective marketing strategy—and why knowing who isn't your ideal client matters too.
• How your digital foundation—branding, website experience, SEO, Google Business Profile, analytics, and authentic content—supports everything else you do in marketing.
• Why relationships and visibility still matter in an increasingly digital world, including networking, public speaking, community involvement, and earned media.
• How to think about paid and owned channels as complementary parts of a larger marketing system rather than relying on a single channel.
• Why marketing and sales need to work together—and how a repeatable sales process, CRM, lead tracking, capacity, and KPIs can affect conversion.
• How friction in the customer journey can cost you sales, and why businesses need to meet customers where they are.
• Why onboarding and delivery are critical to building trust, retaining customers, and creating opportunities for referrals.
• Why business owners should pay attention to retention, referrals, reputation, legal considerations, and data instead of focusing only on acquiring new customers.

🤝 Why This Conversation Matters

This conversation is especially relevant for business owners who feel like they're doing everything “right” with their marketing but aren't seeing the results they expect. Instead of immediately adding another tactic, Trisha encourages business owners to step back, look at the entire system, and identify where the disconnect might be—from the first message someone sees to the sales process, customer experience, and follow-up.

It's also a valuable conversation for anyone building a local business and trying to balance technology with genuine human connection. The discussion reinforces that strong communities are built through trust, relationships, service, and businesses that understand the people they serve.

🎧 Listen & Share

Listen or watch the full episode, then share it with a business owner, community leader, or local entrepreneur who could use a fresh look at their marketing puzzle.

And subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more thoughtful conversations about the people, businesses, and ideas helping communities thrive.

What if the work you do could help more than your business grow? In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura Capes Terry sits down with Candice Ellensohn, an entrepreneur, community builder, and longtime N2 Company franchise owner who has spent more than a decade using local media to connect residents, support businesses, and strengthen the communities around her. Through Stroll Foxville and BeLocal Tri-Cities, Candice has built her work around a simple idea: helping people find and connect with the local resources around them.

Candice shares how her own experience moving from the city to the suburbs helped her understand the value of having a trusted local guide. She explains how BeLocal helps new homeowners discover businesses, restaurants, activities, events, and other resources, while also encouraging longtime residents to rediscover their own communities.

The conversation also explores why local business visibility is about more than immediate transactions. From partnerships with chambers and downtown organizations to supporting nonprofits, local events, and community initiatives, Candice describes how her platform can connect businesses, residents, and community organizations in meaningful ways. The result is a model centered on awareness, trust, relationships, and giving back—not simply advertising.

💡 What You’ll Learn

• Why new movers are such an important audience for local businesses—and why their needs go far beyond home services.
• How BeLocal helps newcomers discover trusted local businesses and feel more connected to their new community.
• Why local businesses need to build brand awareness as new residents enter the market and existing customers move away.
• How a local guide can help longtime residents break out of their routines and discover new restaurants, events, businesses, and activities.
• The importance of being a credible first impression rather than focusing only on immediate conversions.
• How print, digital, social media, community relationships, and a local team work together as part of the BeLocal approach.
• How Candice uses her relationships and platform to support business partners, local organizations, chambers, and community events.
• Why supporting the community can create a ripple effect where residents, businesses, and local organizations all benefit.

🤝 Why This Conversation Matters

For business owners, community leaders, and residents, this conversation offers a practical reminder that local growth is about relationships as much as transactions. Candice's experience shows how a business platform can become a connector—helping people discover their community, helping businesses become known, and helping local organizations reach more people.

At its heart, this episode asks us to think differently about the role our work can play in the places where we live. When businesses use their relationships, platforms, and influence to connect people and support local organizations, the impact can extend far beyond their own businesses.

🎧 Listen & Share

Listen or watch the full episode, then share it with someone who cares about their town and wants to see their community thrive. Subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people, businesses, and ideas helping communities grow stronger together.

What happens when one click brings your business to a standstill? In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura Capes Terry shares her firsthand experience of being hacked after clicking a link that appeared to come from a trusted contact. Within minutes, she lost access to email, social media, software, and multiple devices. What followed was days and weeks of stress, lost productivity, password resets, device wipes, and rebuilding.

Laura is joined by Greg Torosian, owner and president of TeamLogic IT of Round Rock, who has more than 25 years of technology leadership experience. Greg explains how attackers can exploit trusted relationships, SIM swapping, stolen credentials, and vulnerabilities across connected accounts and devices.

The conversation goes beyond what happened to Laura and focuses on what business owners can do before an attack happens. Greg walks through practical layers of protection, including multi-factor authentication, authenticator apps, password managers, software updates, mobile device management, email threat protection, and secure network connections.

For small businesses, cybersecurity isn't just about protecting data. A technology failure can mean lost time, lost productivity, lost access to critical systems, and potentially lost revenue. That makes prevention an important part of keeping local businesses—and the communities that depend on them—strong and resilient.

• Why even a message from a trusted contact can become the starting point of a cyberattack
• How a SIM swap can allow attackers to intercept SMS-based authentication codes
• Why authenticator apps or passkeys can provide stronger protection than SMS-based MFA
• Why you should never reuse the same password across multiple accounts
• How a password manager can securely organize passwords and help with account recovery
• Why storing passwords in a computer file or browser can create additional security risks
• Why keeping operating systems and apps updated is an important layer of protection
• How mobile device management and email threat protection can help identify and block malicious links
• Why businesses should consider layered security rather than relying on a single tool
• Why preventative cybersecurity measures can be far less disruptive than recovering from a compromise

Small business owners are busy building their businesses, serving customers, and supporting their communities. Cybersecurity can easily become something they put off until something goes wrong. But as Laura's experience demonstrates, recovering from an attack can consume significant time, create enormous stress, and disrupt the ability to operate.

This episode is especially valuable for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and anyone whose business depends heavily on technology. The message is practical: security doesn't have to mean doing everything at once, but it does require taking reasonable steps before an incident happens. Protecting the technology behind a local business is ultimately another way of protecting the people, customers, and communities that business serves.

Watch or listen to the full episode to hear Laura and Greg's conversation about cybersecurity, prevention, and the real cost of a business disruption.

Share this episode with a business owner or entrepreneur who needs to hear it, and subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people, businesses, and ideas helping communities thrive.

In this episode of Be Locally Loved, Laura Capes Terry sits down with Kaylee Harcrow, a marketing strategist who works with small businesses in Georgetown. With a background in marketing, sales, social media, content creation, analytics, and local business marketing, Kaylee brings a practical perspective on how customers actually decide which businesses they can trust. Her experience working closely with small businesses gives her a firsthand understanding of the challenges owners face when trying to get noticed and turn awareness into real relationships.

The conversation explores the often-overlooked journey customers take before making a purchase. Even when someone discovers a business through a recommendation or word of mouth, they will often search for it online, check reviews, visit the website, look at social media, and encounter multiple other touchpoints before deciding to act. Kaylee and Laura discuss why businesses need to think beyond the final Google search or website visit and recognize the "messy middle" where trust is gradually built.

From maintaining an accurate Google Business Profile and building a clear, useful website to using AI thoughtfully and creating social content that feels human, the conversation is filled with practical advice. They also explore why word of mouth alone isn't a marketing strategy, why brand awareness is difficult to measure, how marketing budgets should be approached, and why local businesses need to build relationships before the moment a customer urgently needs them.

At its heart, this episode is about becoming a trusted local resource rather than simply another business competing for attention. That connects directly to the mission of Be Locally Loved: helping people discover businesses and resources that contribute to stronger, more connected communities.

• Why customers rarely make decisions after a single interaction — the journey can involve multiple touchpoints across Google, websites, social media, recommendations, local events, and other channels before someone is ready to buy.
• Why your Google presence is part of your brand — businesses should keep their Google Business Profile, photos, information, website links, and social profiles accurate and up to date.
• How to use AI without losing your authentic voice — Kaylee recommends using AI as a brainstorming and idea-generation tool, then bringing your own expertise, personality, and voice into the final content.
• What makes a website effective — keep it clear, professional, easy to navigate, focused on what the customer needs, and make the desired next step—such as calling or booking—easy to find and complete.
• Why business owners need control of their website — if someone else builds it, owners should still have access to the backend and control over their website and information.
• Why social media shouldn't be about going viral — trends can create attention, but meaningful content should help demonstrate expertise, show the real people behind the business, and build relationships with the right audience.
• Why word of mouth is only one piece of the customer journey — recommendations can create initial trust, but customers still tend to research the business through other touchpoints before deciding.
• Why businesses should build their reputation before customers urgently need them — consistent brand awareness and community presence can help a local business become the trusted choice before a high-pressure buying moment arrives.

For local businesses, being visible isn't enough. Customers are surrounded by information, advertising, social content, AI-generated material, and competing businesses. What matters is whether a business can create a consistent, credible presence that makes people feel confident enough to take the next step. Kaylee and Laura's conversation gives business owners practical ways to examine that experience from the customer's perspective.

The episode is especially useful for small business owners, marketers, local entrepreneurs, and anyone involved in helping a community's businesses grow. It also reinforces an important idea behind Be Locally Loved: strong communities depend on businesses that don't simply sell to people, but consistently show up, provide value, build relationships, and become trusted parts of the places they serve. The episode's final advice is simple: Google yourself, review your website and social channels as if you were the customer, and make sure your online first impression is accurate, consistent, and trustworthy.

Listen or watch the full episode to hear Kaylee Harcrow and Laura Capes Terry unpack the customer journey, trust, marketing, and what it takes to become a truly trusted local business.

Share this episode with a business owner, marketer, or community leader who wants to help their local community thrive—and subscribe to Be Locally Loved for more conversations about the people, places, and ideas making communities stronger.

For decades, Jack Gilmore has helped shape Central Texas' culinary landscape by building restaurants that people don't just visit—they return to because they feel genuinely welcomed. In this conversation, Jack shares how growing up in South Texas taught him that hospitality isn't a business strategy; it's simply the way people should treat one another. That philosophy has become the foundation of every restaurant concept he's helped create.

The conversation explores the values behind Jack Allen's Kitchen, Salt Traders Coastal Cooking, and Daymaker—from sourcing fresh ingredients and supporting local farmers to hiring for personality before skill. Jack explains why long-term relationships with producers, employees, and guests matter more than short-term growth, and how consistency, humility, and listening have shaped his approach to leadership.

More than a conversation about restaurants, this episode examines how local businesses become gathering places where communities grow stronger. Whether it's supporting local farmers, feeding teachers, partnering with nonprofits, or creating spaces where families and friends naturally come together, Jack demonstrates that thriving businesses are built by investing in the people around them.

This episode reflects the mission of BeLocal by showing how businesses can strengthen the communities they serve—not through marketing alone, but through genuine hospitality, meaningful relationships, and a long-term commitment to giving back.

💡 What You'll Learn
How authentic hospitality begins long before someone walks through the front door.
Why supporting local farmers creates stronger businesses and stronger communities.
The importance of hiring for personality and teaching skills afterward.
How consistency and high standards help build a trusted local brand.
Why listening to customers is essential for long-term business success.
How restaurants become community gathering places for celebrations, conversations, and everyday connections.
Why giving back should be part of a business's identity rather than a marketing initiative.
How thoughtful, sustainable growth depends on investing in people before expanding locations.

🤝 Why This Conversation Matters
Strong communities don't happen by accident—they're built through thousands of everyday interactions between neighbors, local businesses, and the people who choose to invest where they live. Jack's story is a reminder that hospitality, generosity, and consistency can create lasting community impact.

This episode is especially valuable for local business owners, entrepreneurs, restaurant professionals, community leaders, and residents who care about helping their towns become places people love to live, work, and gather. It offers practical lessons on building trust, supporting local economies, and creating businesses that become part of the fabric of a community.

🎧 Listen & Share
Listen to or watch the full episode to hear Jack's inspiring perspective on hospitality, leadership, and building community through local business. If this conversation resonates with you, share it with someone who cares about strengthening their town, and subscribe to BeLocal Loved for more conversations about the people, places, and ideas helping communities thrive.