Localfi Your Business

Justin Recla:

Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today we’re going to have some fun. Today we’re going to talk about some things that probably you don’t think of when you think about marketing. And my guests today are dear friends of mine, Kim Coates, and Issac Navias, who it’s obvious how you say his last name, Navias. I had to get that in there, Issac. Because that way the rest of the audience is not going to forget your last name either.

But we’re talking about how to LocalFi your business. Issac and Kim are the owners of LocalFi. It’s a marketing service with a purpose, with a mission. They’ve got a social impact feature that they do with their business that when you include this in your marketing strategy when you can focus on something bigger than just driving money and clients to your business and have an impact on the world, success comes. I know this to be true, because, during the height of COVID, they ran a marketing company to service local businesses.

And of course, during COVID local businesses started to shut down, but their clients did not. And not only that, but they were able to grow their marketing agency from just a local business to now a national-based marketing agency that will help get your business ranked, not just locally, but nationally as well. Kim and Issac, welcome to the show.

Issac Navias:

… three or four years. Yeah.

Kim Coates:

Yeah.

Justin Recla:

All while running a marketing business that is driving huge returns to your clients. So how do you do it?

Issac Navias:

I would say, the number one thing that really elevated LocalFi was our understanding of systems. I had been what I now call a wantrepreneur for about eight years previously. I had had a fair bit of success and the products and services that I offered were always exceptional, but I never really grew to the point where I own the business. I had only created a job that I had owned.

And so when I had met Kim and we had decided, hey, we want to pull Kim out of her traditional 9:00 to 5:00, because we did the finances and realized with her working over 40 hours a week, she was actually going into debt $100 more every single month. 

Kim Coates:

I was working in the veterinary industry.

Issac Navias:

So here she is a vet tech, who dedicated her life to serving the community and the animals in the community. And because of her medical and student debt, was not making enough money to even pull herself out of those debts. And so we wanted to look at how we can help her really become an entrepreneur. Of all the things that I had done in the past eight years, the local marketing aspect of things had always returned extremely good ROIs for our clients. And so we decided to launch that.

And what really then helped me understand how to own a business was Kim was able to take these systems I had in my head and actually document them, which allowed us to then start duplicating ourselves, hiring a team, and being able to grow. And so that was hugely instrumental in our growth was Kim essentially pulling all of these systems that I had created in my head out and putting them into a consumable format for other people.

Justin Recla:

I absolutely love that. Now, talk to me about the social impact. Where does that come into the marketing picture?

Issac Navias:

Yeah, so when I launched LocalFi, one of my biggest passions was helping local businesses. I believe that the communities all around America are essentially like the electricity that powers America and the local businesses in those communities are the cornerstones of any great community. And so, growing up, my dad actually owned an international masking puppet museum in Syracuse, New York.

Kim Coates:

You had that, right?

Issac Navias:

Yeah.

Kim Coates:

Nice.

Issac Navias:

And what I saw was that he was one of the only theater companies that were able to survive. And yet by the time he retired, he was really an administrator, he wasn’t anymore doing what he was really passionate about, which was the arts. Just to be able to survive, he constantly had to hustle for grants, donations, these types of things. And so I wanted to be able to create a company that was able to help these local communities who would offer the best products and services, but really didn’t understand the marketing aspect of things.

And so that’s kind of where we started with this social mission was helping these local businesses in order to help these communities. What we’re able to grow into is actually expanding on that and starting to donate, because of our growth we were able to start donating marketing packages to not-for-profits as well. So last year alone, we donated over $10,000 of marketing to these non-for-profits serving communities all across America and even actually some serving communities outside of America.

And so that was really cool to be able to utilize, not only are we helping local communities, but we’re actually helping these non-for-profits who are working their hardest to serve the communities therein.

Justin Recla:

I absolutely love that, having that social giveback is something that we’re going to see more of as businesses evolve, as we start to get away from old business tactics and old business techniques. I have faith in the fact that I think that kind of business building is going to be what helps bring our society closer together because the businesses that are focused on giving back are going to be the ones that people turn to more frequently. So let me ask you this, what does your ideal client look like and who can you help? Start there.

Kim Coates:

Yeah, so our ideal client is definitely both the brick and mortar locations, but it’s also service-based industries too. One thing that I personally love so much about LocalFi is that we actually have not niched down and we do help 50 plus different industries, which makes it really fun for our entire team, connecting with people. But we’ve helped plumbers, electricians, animal hospitals, salons, there are so many different people we can help. And now the fact that we’ve offered both local SEO and website SEO opens our market to even more people.

Issac Navias:

Yeah. So, we’ve been able to expand tremendously because when COVID hit, I didn’t know where local marketing was going. And so we really fleshed out a web development team as well as our website SEO team because I believe that most local businesses should have an online means of obtaining revenue because we just have no clue where this world is going at this point. And so, now we’re able to help, for instance, one of our fine arts studios in Old Town Scottsdale, we’re helping him set up a whole e-commerce store so that he can actually sell his art nationwide. And he carries a lot of local artists. And so this is really helping the whole local art community by being able to reach out and sell the art nationwide with the additional services that we are able to offer now.

Justin Recla:

I love the fact that you guys have grown because I think we met when you were first starting in this vision together. I think Kim, you may have still been working in the veterinary industry.

Kim Coates:

Yeah.

Justin Recla:

And to see the success that you guys created and the fact that you’re in so many different industries is huge. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to our mutual friend, David Cogan over at Eliances here in Phoenix.

Kim Coates:

Hello.

Justin Recla:

Give him a shout-out, that’s a phenomenal community. It’s the place for entrepreneurs to align, just absolutely fantastic. And I know that they’ve had a huge impact on our business and a huge impact on your business. And I just want to make sure we give them a shout-out for all the wonderful things they do here in the Phoenix Metro Area and nationwide. Absolutely fantastic. So before we go on break, where can people go to find more information about you two?

Issac Navias:

So they can go on to localfiseo.com. localfiseo.com is our website. And we actually have a free academy on that website. And it goes through not only talking about SEO, local SEO, and those types of things, but we actually have whole massive articles about how to create systems and build teams and that kind of stuff, to really help build your actual business and create a real business that you are an owner of.

Kim Coates:

One of the other cool things on our website and that free academy, Issac is talking about, is a free business scan, where you can actually type in your information about your business and see how you’re appearing all over the web on these different websites. If you’ve ever moved a location, you probably have the wrong phone number address floating around the internet, which actually hurts your ranking online. So that’s a valuable resource.

And you can also book right on our website an appointment with one of our LocalFi advocates or myself, just to find out some more information and see if you’re a good fit.

Justin Recla:

Fantastic. Folks, if you’ve been looking for a marketing solution that matters, you want solutions that grow and have been proven to succeed, make sure you give LocalFi a quick stop and take a look. Go check out their resources and see how they might be able to assist you. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.

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