Conquer Local Podcast

On January 11, 2022, Vendasta, our organization, announced the acquisition of MatchCraft from Advance Local. MatchCraft is a leading global software company specializing in search, display, and social media advertising solutions for digital marketing agencies and resellers who serve small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) at scale. Brendan King, Co-founder and Vendasta CEO says the following:

“MatchCraft and Vendasta have been longtime friends, and we’re fortunate to have them join the Vendasta team... This partnership will bring MatchCraft’s enterprise-level technology to all our channel partners, allowing them to have a superior technology stack only large companies could previously afford. We know MatchCraft exceeds expectations because we hear it from many of their partners—who happen to be our partners, too.”

The deal marks an acceleration of both companies’ strategic growth plans, which aim to enhance and expand technology offerings for the benefit of partners and their SMB clients around the world. The addition of advertising technology to Vendasta’s portfolio of offerings allows channel partners to use one unified system to help their SMB clients build customer interest, awareness, connections, delight, and loyalty. In this episode, listen to George Leith, Brendan King, and MatchCraft CEO, Sandy Lohr discuss this new partnership and what it means for local economies.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners, agencies to enterprise-level organizations. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Continue your learning in the Conquer Local Academy.

Marcel Petitpas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems. He’s also the fractional COO at Gold Front, an award-winning creative agency in San Francisco working with brands like Uber, Slack, Keap, and more. As well as the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world.

Today he's going to dissect agency profitability. This is a coast-to-coast breakdown on the financial aspects, how to manage time, and how to approach clients. Everything you need to increase margins and scale your business is in this episode of the Conquer Local Podcast.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners, agencies to enterprise-level organizations. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Leading expert on time management and selling negotiations, Chris Croft from Chris Croft Training and Management joins us again this week to discuss price negotiations. He is one of the most viewed authors on udemy.com and on Linkedin Learning with 36 courses, 24,000 views a day, and 18 million students in total. His Negotiation Skills course on udemy is the most popular negotiating course in the world. Most negotiations are from the buyer's perspective. We're flipping the script today. SMBs and agency owners especially need someone rooting for them. Here's how to become more confident in charging what you're worth. Actually, it's more than charging what you're worth- here's how to get what you're worth. Listen to Chris' Top 10 Price Negotiating Tips for sellers in this week's episode, and find them listed here:

1. Set a walk-away point
2. Buyers have weaknesses
3. Say 'no' the first time
4. Instead of 'yes' or 'no'... negotiate!
5. Try not to open first
6. Don't open with a round number (sounds made up)
7. Open beyond your best hope
8. Do the flinch; watch for the flinch
9. Justifying opening price after reducing price (what's the trade?)
10. Look out for the nibble

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners, agencies to enterprise-level organizations. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Leading expert on time management and negotiations, Chris Croft from Chris Croft Training and Management joins us this week for part 1 of a 2-part series. He is one of the most viewed authors on udemy.com and on Linkedin Learning with 36 courses, 24,000 views a day, and 18 million students in total. His Negotiation Skills course on udemy is the most popular negotiating course in the world. This week he joins George Leith to discuss time management. Chris has this brilliant ability to make the impossible very attainable through incredibly clever tactics and his realist approach to taking on projects. We are all very busy, and time is historically known as being a "scarce resource". Let Chris guide you into finding its abundance in this week's episode of the Conquer Local Podcast.

Chris' 5 choices you have for getting more time:

1. Say no - ie. "I can't do it."
2. Negotiate - ie. "I'll do it, but only if this..."
3. Say yes and give it to someone else - ie. establish a trusted team you can delegate to (like Producer Bret for George)
4. More efficient systems - ie. standard emails to send, files, spreadsheets for automation etc.
5. Be less fussy - ie. is your input really going to impact output enough to justify your time and energy expense? If not, don't sweat the details.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners, agencies to enterprise-level organizations. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Andy Crestodina started building websites in the early 2000's with a roommate and to this day has not pivoted. Through what he likes to call "zero-waste marketing" (and doing phenomenal work) he has turned this into Orbit Media Studios; a 48 person, ~$7million project-based yearly revenue business. His LinkedIn newsletter "Digital Marketing Tips" has accumulated 120,000 subscribers in its first year and he has facilitated $600,000 worth of digital marketing services donated through Chicago Cause, a nonprofit he helped create.

Andy Joins George Leith this week to discuss account-based content marketing and webinar building through LinkedIn, zero-waste marketing and how to align sales and marketing teams, and meeting what you know will work vs. what the client thinks they need. 

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

This week, renowned sales leader and your host, George Leith goes over the anatomy of an entrepreneur. Every entrepreneur is different. We all have certain skills and capabilities that we have specialized over the years that are unique to our craft and our own grind. George Leith goes over 8 underlying characteristics that he has seen successful entrepreneurs exhibit and relates them to his own experiences. As you listen to this episode, note the anatomy highlighted and cross-reference it with your own strengths and weaknesses. Are there aspects you could improve on or have you checked off the entire list? Lastly, understand that everyone is unique. If some aspects of the anatomy highlighted don't come as easily, that's when we build a complimentary team to take us to the next level.

The anatomy of an entrepreneur as discussed in the episode:

1. Calculated & Logical
2. Motivated & Focussed
3. Confident& Outgoing
4. Risk-taker & Courageous
5. Strong Work Ethic
6. Creative & Innovative
7. Patient & Persistent
8. Versatile & Agile

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Back for part 2. Last week Rishad Tobaccowala gave us some insight on staying human in the age of data. This week, he's expanding that conversation by discussing what he calls the "ABCDE of Marketing Re-invented" (access link for Rishad's blog). Rishad's ABCDE framework for how marketing has changed and continues to change is used as a way for him to help guide people he advises. He believes that this is the future of marketing, below are descriptions for his framework as discussed in another can't-miss episode:

a. Audience: Who we are marketing to, how we find them and their mindset has shifted greatly over the past decade.

b. Brands: Brands continue to be important but the way they are built is changing greatly. Today Experiences, Purpose, and Employee Joy matter the most in building brands. These changes explain the long-term secular decline of advertising and communication but the renaissance and rise of marketing.

c. Content: Content has always been a key to marketing. The three big differences are that there is much more of it, it is far faster and there are many new ways of making it.

d. Data: Data is key to the future of marketing. It is like electricity. Without electricity, one can not keep the lights on. Without strong data, a company cannot compete. It is necessary. But it is not sufficient. Because just like few companies differentiate themselves by how they use electricity, very few companies will find a competitive edge in data. It will be a key ingredient and not the be-all or end-all of strategy. And very few companies will be able to live on their own data.

e. Enterprise: If a company is to deliver experiences in a world of people with god-like power while steering itself with a purpose and looking after its stakeholders particularly its employees but also making sure it delivers tangible results today it will new to sculpt itself into a new form by building new muscles.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Rishad Tobaccowala is an author, speaker, and advisor with four decades of experience specializing in helping people, organizations and teams re-invent themselves to remain relevant in changing times. Rishad’s best-selling book “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” was published globally by HarperCollins in January 2020 and focuses on helping people think, feel, and see differently about how to grow their companies.

In the first episode of a 2-part series, Rishad is going to go over restoring the soul of business and what it means to remain human in an increasingly digital landscape, the 6 C's in how to navigate change, and curing your inner dinosaur disease. As mentioned in the episode, the 6 C's include: Cognition, Creativity, Curiosity, Collaborate, Communicate, Convince.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Heather Monahan is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, and Board Member of Healthlynked Corporation. As a former C-suite executive in media, she was named one of the most Influential Women in Radio in 2017, and Thrive Global named her a Limit Breaking Female Founder in 2018. Heather’s podcast Creating Confidence is a Top 100 show in the Business category on Apple Podcast. Heather was named one of the Top 40 Female Keynote Speakers of 2020 and Top 50 Keynote Speakers in the World 2022 by Real Leaders and her new book Overcome Your Villains is available now.

Heather joins us this week to propose the idea of auditioning for the role of yourself. It's a new year, and entering a new year typically comes with some new goals and ambitions. These require a new set of habits, routines, and a shift in mindset. How do we maintain and rewire ourselves in a manner that will finally allow us to take those steps necessary to accomplish what we desire? Listen to Heather layout what made her realize she was quite literally building someone else's mansion. This is when she decided that she had the knowledge and resources to build her own. In this episode, she covers her Beliefs, Actions, and Knowledge model to overcome adversity. Alongside this, how she got Gary Vaynerchuk as her first podcast guest, and how driving the revenue for her CEO of 14 years finally triggered her big move to becoming who she was meant to be.

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

2021 was a historic year for Vendasta and the Conquer Local ecosystem. In this episode, Vendasta CEO and Co-Founder, Brendan King takes us through it all with a 2021 year in review. Brendan and George Leith discuss macroeconomics and how inflation is building, robotic process automation (RPA) and how we leveraged it to win in 2021, and the big topic of adapting to change. As always, we ask Brendan King what's in his incredibly accurate crystal ball. This year he's seeing images of robotic process automation, inflation, and how technology and automation can help with this, and possibly the "end" of Covid in 2022. Adaptation continues to be the name of the game and in 2022 it will be absolutely necessary. However, small businesses can pivot and adapt faster than anyone and will continue to win the day. 

Thank you all for a record-breaking year with the Conquer Local Podcast. It has been with great pride that we continue to bring you the best of the best, ensuring you have the resources and knowledge to set yourself up as the local trusted expert. 

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5+ million local businesses through 50,000+ channel partners. Learn more about Vendasta and we can help you build your dream agency or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) are making up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.