Newsletter # nobody checks their own Google listing _until a customer does_ The listing that brings you customers is the one page of your marketing you have probably never opened as a stranger. **Brandon Medina**, founder of BCM Results, Boston. Published September 20, 2026, updated September 21, 2026. Hi, Here is a question I ask every owner I talk to: when did you last search for your own business the way a customer would? Not by typing your company name. A customer who already knows your name is not the one you are trying to win. I mean the search a stranger makes: the service and the town, on a phone, standing somewhere in your area. "Plumber Newton." "Med spa near me." That search draws a map with three businesses on it, and that map is where most of your new customers come from. Almost nobody does this. The owner set up the listing years ago, or a nephew did, or the old web guy did, and it has been sitting there since. The phone number might still be right. The hours might not. The photos are whatever got uploaded on the first day. The primary category is a guess. And the owner has no idea, because the owner never looks at it from the outside. Picture a landscaper who has been in business a long time and does good work. He has a truck, a crew, a website someone built ages ago. If he searched for his own service in his own town, he would find three competitors on the map and himself nowhere. Not lower down. Nowhere on the map at all, because the listing's category says "contractor" and Google does not think he is a landscaper. His customers come from word of mouth, and he thinks that is just how the business is. It is not. It is a category field that was set wrong once and never checked. That is the lesson today: the listing is not something you set up. It is something you check. Google changes what it shows, competitors update their profiles, reviews come in or stop coming in, and your listing drifts. The only way to know where you stand is to search like a customer and look. So do this now, it takes a minute. Open Google Maps on your phone. Type your main service and your town. Do not type your name. Look at the three businesses on the map and answer honestly: are you one of them? If yes, what do they have that you do not? If no, what do the three have that you lack: category, photos, reviews, a description that says the service and the town? Then open your own listing and read it as a stranger. Does it say what you do in the first line? Does it list your services? Are the hours real? Is there a photo from this year? Would you call this business, or the one above it? Most owners who do this for the first time find at least one thing wrong. Usually more. The good news is that these are the cheapest fixes in marketing. No ad budget, no new site, just a listing that finally says what you do, the towns you cover, and why someone should pick you. I wrote out the whole checklist here: [how I rebuild a Google Business Profile](https://bcmresultss.com/services/google-business-profile-optimization/). You can run it yourself. Check the listing. Then check it again next month. It is the one page of your marketing that a customer sees before they ever see your face. Talk soon, Brandon P.S. Want the 3 tips that get you started? They are in the newsletter: [sign up here](https://bcmresultss.com/newsletter/). P.P.S. If you want me to do it for you, the plan is here: [the plan](https://bcmresultss.com/local-visibility/). ## Want to know where you stand? I send a free marketing analysis for your business within 2 business days: where you rank from different spots in your area, what your listing is missing, and what the site should change. No cost, no obligation. [Get the free analysis](https://bcmresultss.com/#contact) [See the plan](https://bcmresultss.com/local-visibility/) Brandon Medina I run BCM Results in Massachusetts. I help local businesses improve and measure their Google visibility. The written terms define a 90-day top-three goal and pause billing if that goal is not reached. Six public website examples are linked from the Work section on the home page.