169 | Stop Buying Cold Leads: Growing Your Business with Live Local Warm Marketing with Billy Sammons

Episode Summary

In this episode, Rodric sits down with entrepreneur and former teacher Billy Sammons, founder of Live Local Warm Marketing, to talk about ditching cold leads and building a business on relationships instead.

Billy shares how a simple decision to film a free commercial for a local brewery turned into a repeatable strategy for meeting business owners, becoming the “mini mayor” of his town, and growing his business for 16+ years without buying leads or getting yelled at on cold calls at 9am.

They dig into why builders and other local pros can’t afford to just sit in their trucks waiting for million-dollar jobs to fall from the sky, how to become the person everyone in your town knows and trusts, and why old-school human connection is about to matter even more in an AI-saturated world.

You’ll also hear Billy’s simple 3-step warm marketing framework, his barebones video setup, and a powerful conversation about burnout, time, and only saying yes to opportunities you’d be willing to do tomorrow.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• Why Billy walked away from cold leads after one week and built his business through warm, local relationships instead.
• How a free commercial for a local brewery became the blueprint for Live Local Warm Marketing.
• The power of serving business owners first so they open their audiences up to you.
• How builders and other pros can stop “doing nothing” for marketing and start attracting ideal clients locally.
• Billy’s simple 3-question framework for warm marketing: who you need to meet, how you can add value, and what they actually need.
• The minimal tech setup for effective local video: phone, tripod, and lapel mic.
• Why handwritten notes, lunches, and “hand-to-hand combat” will always beat passive social media alone.
• How to think about burnout, boundaries, and time so you can keep adding value without working yourself into the ground.
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Highlights & Timestamps

[02:30] Who is Billy Sammons and what is Live Local Warm Marketing?

Billy introduces himself and explains how he teaches entrepreneurs to grow with warm marketing instead of cold leads, paid lists, and miserable cold calls.

[03:40] The brewery commercial that started it all

Billy shares his “superhero origin story”: a new local brewery, a free commercial, and how that one act of generosity turned into more videos, more relationships, and a thriving referral network.

[04:50] From growing an audience to serving business owners

Billy realizes that the real niche isn’t just building his own audience—it’s meeting business owners, giving them something valuable, and letting their audiences discover him in return.

[05:45] Builders doing “nothing” for leads

Rodric talks about home builders who spend $0 on marketing, sit in their trucks waiting for million-dollar jobs, and then wonder why they don’t have leads. They riff on simple lead magnets, real value, and how warm marketing fits in.

[07:45] Case study: becoming the preferred builder for a big employer

Rodric shares a client example: a builder who approached a major trucking company to become the preferred builder for their C-suite. Billy breaks down why it’s smart and how he’d think about adding value to larger companies.

[09:30] Finding pain points and adding value (including short-term rentals)

They brainstorm ways builders can help with relocation, short-term housing, and solving real problems for big employers—then tying that into permanent home builds.

[10:30] Where do you start if you’re overwhelmed?

Billy walks through a starting point using real estate as an example: lenders, title companies, breweries, bakeries, charities, schools, and other local...