Your Google listing is more than a digital business card—it’s your most underutilized marketing asset. In this episode, Lani and Jeana dig into the real power behind your Google Business Profile (GBP): why most business owners are using it wrong, what to fix today, and how to make it your highest-converting source of leads without spending a dime on ads.

If you're still relying on word of mouth or chasing leads that never close, it's time to make Google do the heavy lifting.

What You’ll Learn:

• The #1 mistake most people make with their Google listing
• How the “map pack” works and why it’s your ticket to free visibility
• What info Google needs to trust your profile (and rank it higher)
• Why automation makes or breaks your review strategy
• Tools to collect 100+ great reviews with less than 5 minutes of effort
• What to post on your listing to keep it active and converting

📌 Instagram: @stealthfreedomtoexit

📌 Facebook: Lani Dickinson

📩 Email: info@stealthfreedomtoexit.com

🌐 Website: stealthfreedomtoexit.com

>> Lani Dickinson: Welcome back to Freedom to Exit. I'm your host, Lonnie

Dickinson and Gina Desaier.

Today we have been presenting over the last few

episodes the introduction to our tool belt

empire and book Solid Radio.

Today we're going to talk about your Google business

profile and how it's not just a map pin, it's a

money magnet. Now this is one of the things that

Gina really loves. So

you're going toa want to take notes and probably open up your phone

by the end of this episode. So coming in

hot. Okay, Gina, here's the stakes. Let's say

someone's looking for handyman near me.

Window installer near me. Painter near me. Home

remodeling near me. Cause that's what they're putting

in. Well, that's actually the thing that gets fed to them. Near me is the

first thing that comes up and then they type that into

Google.

>> Lani Dickinson: What happens now?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Well, the first thing you see nowadays is the very first thing is

AI generated answer. And

then the next group you gott look, it'll say

sponsored. Those are people that paid to be there. They

may not be any good, but they're paying to get up there.

>> Lani Dickinson: Right.

>> Jeana DeShazer: And then the next group is what you really want to look at is what we call

the map pack.

>> Lani Dickinson: Map pack.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Mac pap. Map pack. It's hard to say,

but there's three of them and those are like

the top three based on a lot of

things of your Google business profile,

your reviews. Is it in active?

are you adding things to it? Are you adding

photos? Are you adding questions and

answers and things like that that lets them know that this business

is still alive. Google loves those kind of things.

They want you to stay on Google. That's why they're

making it more and more like it's your own little website. Because they want

people to stay on Google. Yeah. so

you want to be one of those.

And getting there is

half the battle.

>> Lani Dickinson: Half the battle. And if you're not showing up

there, you've already lost the

battle.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yes. Very few people will. I some will. They'll go

on down the page and look, but

very few will. And if you show up on

second or third page, you're pretty much

notnna get well.

>> Lani Dickinson: And we know that 98% of people say

they first go to Google.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Right. And. And 86% of

customers say that they won't even consider a business with

no online presence.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah, it's serious.

>> Jeana DeShazer: It is, it is.

>> Lani Dickinson: So what are some common problems that

you see when people come to you, they've been doing it themselves.

>> Lani Dickinson: And it's still not working. So they again think, oh, this

doesn't work either. What are some common problems, you see?

>> Jeana DeShazer: well, one of the main things is not

even having it set up. Right. Like not

having, Maybe you don't have your phone number on there.

Or maybe you've changed your phone number and you haven't went back and updated

your Google business profile.

>> Lani Dickinson: Or maybe you put the wrong address on like I did when I did it May.

Instead of having you do it.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah, good.

>> Lani Dickinson: I was 111 instead of 112. It makes

a difference.

>> Jeana DeShazer: It does. It makes a huge difference.

And so that kind of stuff,

is one of the first things that we look at. Have you linked

your website? I mean, if you have a

website.

>> Lani Dickinson: Well, they will after they get done with us.

>> Jeana DeShazer: That's right. That's right. Then you need to link it.

used to. You could even like, chat people

from there. But Google, for some reason, turn that off. I don't know

why. I don't know. Anyway, we

just look at those kind of things. First of all, accuracy.

>> Lani Dickinson: Like hours.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Hours, yes.

>> Lani Dickinson: I really wish chiropractor would hear this

episode because his hours are never accurate. His Facebook

page says one thing, the Google profile

says another. I have to take a picture every time I'm at

his office.

>> Jeana DeShazer: I take a picture of the door, see what's new.

>> Lani Dickinson: Because it changes all the time.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah. And another thing that goes along with this is what we call

citations. This is just a freebie here.

>> Lani Dickinson: Freebie. You heard it here.

>> Jeana DeShazer: And a citation is your information

is out there on places you don't even

know. I mean, Google, Bing,

Yahoo, and there's tons of other ones

that we can run a report and show you where

these places are. And you're like, I don't even know those places.

>> Lani Dickinson: Here's another. Phoebe, do you know who wrote the code for

Bing?

>> Jeana DeShazer: No.

>> Lani Dickinson: Marty Pell. Barney Pell.

This my homie.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't know that.

>> Lani Dickinson: You think you're a tech. What do you call yourself?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Tech wizard. You call me a tech wizard? Anyway,

if those citations are different, like you want

them to be the same on all of them, if your

address on one is different than another one, Google goes out and

looks at all these citations and

it gets confused and it's like, oh, there's a phone number on here

that's this one. And then this phone number is this one. And

so it gets confused and it doesn't like that. So it's kind of like

a mark against you. Like, you know, in school

you got a mark against you.

>> Lani Dickinson: You know how rules that problem.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Your hands, a ruler slap. You ever.

>> Lani Dickinson: I did not get ruler slaps. My parents whooped

me with.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Maybe I'm the only one in this.

>> Lani Dickinson: Group together there was ever a need. Okay, quick story.

I lived in Japan from second to sixth grade,

on a military base. And, I come

home and it's strict. I go to

Department of defense schools. If you get in trouble there,

they call your dad's boss. It's not like you're not

just getting a little note home they call your dad's boss. So it

serious business. So I come home, come back to

California in sixth grade, and, I

was far ahead of the class, so I was

grading papers and stuff all the time, and I

got asked to carry something to the office. And I saw

a line of people lined up out the door getting paddled by

the vice principal. And I was like,

what in the world is this?

>> Jeana DeShazer: The principal spanks you too. You don't

anymore. Yeah, not anymoremore.

>> Lani Dickinson: Anyway, I got whooped with and I turned out fine.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Well, Google will

ruler slap your hands if you get citations wrong

in all these places.

>> Lani Dickinson: You know how I deal with that? For me, because you

know, I don't.

Whenever I try to do it myself, Ginaus sends me messages.

Why don't you just let me do this for you?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Leave it alone.

>> Lani Dickinson: But the way I get the, address correct every time in the phone number, I

keep it on a Google Doc and I cut and paste it on everything

I do because you told me about that problem.

Y. Yeah.

>> Jeana DeShazer: So there's little things like that that we can go look

and see and let you know why

you're down here instead of up here.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah. So you're good customers. You can also

ask them to post pictures in their review if you have a

relationship. That I think really helps too.

Have I wrote a Google review for

a junk hauller guy, the servant king. There's a plug

Chris. And he said, lonnie,

would you be willing to post pictures with your. I was like,

sure. So I took a few pictures. That review has

been looked at over like 12 or 1300 times.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Wow.

>> Lani Dickinson: He's like, that's what I need. I need more pictures. So

ask your good customers for to, upload

pictures.

What about respond? Responding.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Responding. Yeah, we talked about that in earlier episode as well.

>> Lani Dickinson: This is the Google episode.

>> Jeana DeShazer: I. I know, but we got ahead of ourselves. It was A

leak. It was a leak. It was a leak. And so, yes,

responding to the reviews. Google wants you to respond to

every review, good or bad.

>> Lani Dickinson: Customers do too. okay. I wish I'd looked

these stats up. I said that in another episode.

companies who respond to even negative

reviews within 24 hours,

I think it's something like 30% of

them. It may not be that high, 20 or 30% of them.

The reviewer will usually change that from a 4,

3, 2 to a 3. They won't probably give

you a 4, but a 2 to a 3. That average makes

a big difference in your overall rating. So it's

worth it to respond to the negatives. And then there's another

percentage, I don't remember, of people

who discredit people who don't respond to the negative

reviews. And for every

negative, review that's responded to or

every negative review that's responded to, it's something like an

additional 3%. Click, click through rate to your

websites and your booking links. If you have those things

attached there. It's interesting. It's

like, okay, everybody knows stuff

happens. How does this business owner respond when stuff

happens? Do they make it right?

>> Jeana DeShazer: I'm a tech wizard for other people as well,

and I know, right?

but another one told me that she

got more, leads

off of her responses to a

bad review than she ever did off of the responses

to the good ones.

>> Lani Dickinson: Proving my point.

>> Jeana DeShazer: So. Yeah, exactly, proving your point. So,

automating those reviews. I know, we're going toa

talk about AI later in another episode, but using

AI to answer those reviews, I know, sounds

scary to let someone else take over. And

we've had people go, o. I don't know. But once they do it and they

see them, they're so good, such good.

>> Lani Dickinson: Responses that they're like, how many hours back?

>> Jeana DeShazer: I gu calendar that at least two hours a day

of trying to think of what, how to answer them,

how Google would want them answered. Whereas an

AI knows that and so they're answering them. And even

the bad ones we had when get a bad review and they were blown away

at the politically

correct because as a business

owner, someone gives you a bad review, what is your first instinct?

Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, defend, defend, defend.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah, I have, my, my big H vac client in my exit

business. Yeah, my, my first

meeting with him, you know, I had d done my whole assessment. He had d already hired me

and, and I came in, gathered information, did my whole, I

said his name

you are not allowed to respond to the

reviews anymore on Google or

Glass Door. No

more keyboard for you.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah, because you get, it's an

instinct, it's natural instinct to defend yourself.

>> Lani Dickinson: Defend yourself.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Whereas AI just present. AI doesn't

have feelings so it just like presents it well.

It knows how to say things politically

correct.

>> Lani Dickinson: Well. And it knows where we're trying to get them and all those things because we've trained

it.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Right.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Right. So

you had.

>> Lani Dickinson: Nope, that wasn't Google. You have a

story about the lady went on vacation and when she came back she was booked

out for two weeks.

>> Jeana DeShazer: No, that's Automations.

>> Lani Dickinson: It was Automations.

>> Jeana DeShazer: It's not Google.

>> Lani Dickinson: Automations are important too. All right,

so in our opinion,

I think we could say, Google business

profile plus its optimization are one

of the quickest wins that are guys.

It's, you know, it can help everybody. But for,

especially for the service based home improvement

type people, they're googling, they're

looking at reviews and we

know, we see it make more money for people.

It's just a fact. So

if they wanted to do that, what would be their steps?

Besides our free Google business audit

call that they can have? What m are some of the things

that they can do?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Well, they can go look at their Google

business profile number one and go through some of the steps that we just

discussed. Is my address right? Are my

hours the same? Because when you set it up, you might

been open seven days a week and now you're like, oh no, I'm not working

on Sunday anymore. And so you take that off.

Or maybe there's after hours, like if you're an

H vac, what's an emergency number if it's different

than the first one and all of that stuff. So

to me just go look at all that stuff and then look at the

last time you had a review. Did you answer? You can go

back and answer them. It doesn't matter. I know we've been talking

about answering them quickly.

>> Lani Dickinson: Well, it'll help build the habit.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Just go back and answer them. Go back through there

and answer them. I'mnn client that goes back and answers

them. That's been there for a long time. Oh, it's not been

answered. Let's answer that. yeah, add pictures

of your, you know, your truck.

Maybe get in the habit of before and after

job pictures of a job. Maybe you're

remodeling something. And before picture and after.

>> Lani Dickinson: I have a solar guy who does sends a lot of solar, you know, before

and after and night. I used to think

how many before and after solar panel pictures do we

need? But guess what?

>> Lani Dickinson: It's a big deal.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah.

>> Lani Dickinson: I mean solar panels will. Solar panels.

>> Jeana DeShazer: But, but how did it look on this house?

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah, exactly.

>> Jeana DeShazer: So get in the habit of doing that and then uploading them

there. So those are just, I mean those are a

few things that you can do on your own to move the

needle of your profile.

>> Lani Dickinson: And when you wanna get serious, you gotta get this profile aud it.

Because we help you add the automation and all those

things.

>> Jeana DeShazer: We talk about reviews and how big they are. And they are,

they're big. But you're like. And you tell someone,

hey, go leave me a review. well like how do

they find that? Well that's the hardest part

is getting them to go to their phone or to their

computer or whatever and Google you and then

try to find where it says leave a review and

click on it. And then it comes up and with this box and

these stars and all that. So that's the hardest part.

So the easiest thing to do.

Number one, do you have your card?

We've got NFC cards, ye

Google card. And you just go tap this on their phone.

Our podcast guy has the very same thing right here.

>> Lani Dickinson: He said it changed his life.

>> Jeana DeShazer: 320 creative changed his life because he, he doesn't have

to hand out business cards anymore. His is the business card.

You tap it on a phone and it just automatically

goes to his link tree that has all the stuff. If they

don't have that capability then there's a QR code on the back.

>> Lani Dickinson: That he can give them a good shot of that they might need podcasts.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Hold it real still. Can you zoom in? And

if you need podcast help, but ours

also, we can program it to go directly

to that box. It just automatically

pops up with the review box and the

start thing. They don't have to even think about it.

>> Lani Dickinson: This helps with everything, not just Google profile.

I know this because

all of my rentals in Jacksonville were just due for their

termite inspections for the insurance.

And I got a notice that it was my

final time to pay or whatever, you know, I am. If

it's not on automation, it doesn't happen. And

I emailed them twice. I said, can you send me a link to

pay?

>> Lani Dickinson: And they said, oh, you gotta go look in your junk box. It's on the invoice,

there's the address, there's still mailing,

waiting for checks from across the country.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah.

>> Lani Dickinson: Oh my gosh. Everything needs to be a link

directly to what you want them to do. Busy people are

notnna chase it down for you.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Exactly, exactly. So,

yeah. So we've got easy ways and a

lot of people are like, that's hard. It's a hard ask.

Hey, can you go review me? Mean, did you like this? I

mean they're afraid.

>> Lani Dickinson: They're gonna go, have you done the review yet? That's not even gonna

come, right?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah, they're like, they're afraid they're gonna go, heck no, you were awful.

I'm not gonna do that.

>> Lani Dickinson: The worst thing they're worried about is like, it feels like, you know, like we're

begging for validation or something. And that's a big

deal. But also if it

comes when we'd rather be going to

sleep, going to dinner with our family, going to the ballet

recital.

>> Lani Dickinson: All the things we'd rather be doing, it's

going to fall to the bottom.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Right?

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Right. If you have a store,

if someone can come to you, then

we can put it on like a. And you've seen them in stores.

It's like a little stand with the Google and you just

tap your phone on it and it automatically goes there.

we've had waitresses take them and when they

take the you take your card back after you've

paid your. If you've enjoyed your meal. We wouldn't mind

your. When they lay it there and they just say just tap your card

on that and it'll take you and you can leave a review and then

they come back and pick up the card. Soeah a lot of

ways we can help you make that an easier

ask and an easier

response from your customers.

>> Lani Dickinson: And then the automation will respond in.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Justonds and answers it.

You could also set up an automation that goes to them that thanks

them, you know.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah. And gives them a. Well, you can incentivize them and ask

gives them a reason to keep doing.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Business with y and ask them if they have a friend that needs their

business.

>> Jeana DeShazer: You know, tell them about Automate that

anyway could. We could go on all

dayimations.

>> Lani Dickinson: So if you don't know how your

Google listing looks and you didn't know some of this

information or you haven't touched it in months,

let us know. We can help you. We'll run a free

Google business profile audit

and it'll show you exactly what's helping you and what's

hurting you and what you need to do to Optimize it and all of

that. You can also go to the link that's in the

show notes and download our 6 hidden

links. 6

hidden leaks in your business that

are bleeding you dry and how to fix them fast.

Because showing up is the first step. Converting those

leads, knowing where the money's going, all those

things are. They still need to be taken

care of in the trades.

You know this better than we do. People

judge what they can see.

Your Google business profile is often the

first and only thing they can check and see.

So make sure they have something to look. Look at

90,

92. Hold

on, it's going toa come to me. It's a stat.

I think it's 92% of people lead in

their brain visually with the visual field. Some people lead

with their auditory and some people lead with

kinesthetic. But most people lead

with visual. That's how they start their interaction in their

engagement with the world. So give them something to look

at. If it looks solid, they're going to

trust you. If it looks sloppy, they're going to say,

I don't know, that looks crazy. So go

check your listing, book your call

for your gole profile,

Google profile audit and

let us help you get it tuned up. Anything else you want to

add before we hop off? We've

said enough. I know. As always, we are so

grateful for your time. We're glad that you're here. We'd love for

you to share this with anybody who, you know, needs

it. Subscribe to the podcast and

join us next week. What are we going to talk about? AI'next

week?

>> Jeana DeShazer: Sure, I would love to talk about AI.

>> Lani Dickinson: AI is her thing. She's all in it all day long.

AI and how. Let's see. I don't remember the title. Just

join us next week. We're go going toa talk about

how.

>> Jeana DeShazer: AI can enhance your business.

>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah, enhance your business. We'll come up with a better title with by the time

we record it.

>> Jeana DeShazer: Yeah.

>> Lani Dickinson: Thanks so much. Have a great day.