The 30-Minute Marketing Checkup.

You do not need an agency to tell you where your marketing leaks. You need your own phone, thirty minutes, and the honesty to look at your business the way a stranger does. Six checks, five minutes each. Grab a notepad and keep score.

Check One: Search Like A Stranger

Open a private browsing window on your phone so Google forgets it knows you. Search the way a customer would: your service plus your city. "AC repair Stuart" or "med spa Palm City," not your business name.

• Are you in the map results, or is that three competitors?
• Are you anywhere on the first screen of results?
• Now ask an AI assistant the same thing: "who should I call for AC repair in Stuart?" Are you in the answer?

Pass: you show up in the map or the first results, and AI tools mention you. Fail: you had to scroll to find yourself, or you searched your own name to feel better. Strangers never search your name.

Check Two: Your Google Business Profile

Look at your profile like a customer deciding between you and the shop above you.

• Are the photos recent, and are they of your actual work and team?
• Are your hours, phone, and service list current and complete?
• Is there any post or update from the last month, or has it been quiet since you claimed it?
• Any customer questions sitting there unanswered?

Pass: it looks like a business that is alive this week. Fail: the newest photo is from another era, half the fields are empty, and the profile is coasting. Google notices coasting, and so do customers.

Check Three: The Website Thumb Test

Open your site on your phone like a first-time visitor, and count five seconds.

• In those five seconds: is it obvious what you do, where you do it, and what to tap to book?
• Is there one clear button, or a menu maze?
• Did it load fast, or did you watch it assemble itself?
• Can someone book or call in two taps, without pinching and zooming?

Pass: a stranger could book you one-handed in under a minute. Fail: it is a brochure. Pretty, maybe. But visitors admire brochures and book from systems.

Check Four: Secret-Shop Yourself

This is the check most owners never run, and it is where the most money leaks.

• Call your own business after hours tonight. What actually happens? Voicemail is a fail. Most callers do not leave one. They call the next name.
• Fill out your own website form with a fake name, and time the response. Minutes is a pass. "Sometime tomorrow" is a fail. Leads cool off fast, and the first responder usually wins.
• If you list a number people can text, text it. Does anyone answer?

Pass: every path gets a response in minutes, at any hour. Fail: any path goes quiet. Every quiet path is a paid-for lead walking to a competitor.

Check Five: Reviews

Pull up your reviews next to your busiest competitor's.

• Who has more? Whose newest review is more recent?
• Does anyone from your business reply to reviews, including the rough ones?
• When did you last actually ask a happy customer for a review, with a link in their hand?

Pass: steady recent reviews, replies from you, and a habit of asking. Fail: a wall of silence since last year. Reviews are the receipts strangers check before trusting you, and recency counts as much as the number.

Check Six: Content Pulse

Find your business anywhere a customer might: Instagram, Facebook, your own blog, your profile posts.

• When was the last time you posted anything, anywhere?
• Does anything published in the last month show your actual work?
• If a stranger found only your social pages, would they be confident you are still in business?

Pass: a stranger sees recent proof of real work. Fail: the last post is old enough that they wonder. Silence reads as closed.

The Scorecard

• Check One: a stranger's search finds me
• Check Two: my profile looks alive this week
• Check Three: my site passes the five-second thumb test
• Check Four: every lead path answers in minutes, after hours included
• Check Five: reviews are recent, growing, and replied to
• Check Six: there is fresh proof of my work in public

Six for six: you are in rare company, and scaling is your next conversation. Four or five: tighten the misses this month before spending anything on new traffic. Three or fewer: your marketing is not underperforming, it is leaking, and more spend would leak with it.

What To Fix First

Fix in this order, not in the order that annoys you most:

• Check Four failures first. These are customers you already earned and then lost. Fixing capture pays for everything else.
• Then the website. Every channel you ever pay for lands here.
• Then profile and reviews. They close the strangers your visibility brings in.
• Then search visibility, then content. Traffic into a fixed funnel compounds. Traffic into a leaky one disappears.