How does owning a local media brand make you the go-to person in town?

I spent nearly twenty years in insurance. I know what it's like to walk into a chamber meeting as the salesperson.

"But now, I'm the local media guy. I'm the guy with 25,000 eyeballs in the town. Guess what? People line up to talk to me, right? Because I have what they want, which is the audience."

What changes when you own the local audience?

As an insurance or mortgage broker, people literally avoid you, and in most cases rightfully so. As the local media person, you have something they want. Business owners at a chamber meeting, or at your own event, want to talk to you.

Building an audience nationally is very hard. Building one locally is very easy if you do what I'm doing.

What's a super connector?

Someone who knows everyone and connects them. There's a book called Super Connector, and I'd known for five or six years how valuable the idea was. My problem was the how. I didn't know that many people. I got the value, but what was I supposed to do?

Owning a local media company is the cheat code. You still have to do the work of going in person: hosting events, going to events, meeting people. But the doors open. A developer of multiple buildings reached out and invited me to see a building that was 80% done so I could make content about it. That's a relationship I can build on.

Can a narrower niche work, like being the AI person?

Yes, and I'm very bullish on it. I live in a big HOA. I posted in the HOA's Facebook group asking whether anyone was building with Claude Code, because I wanted to meet people nearby doing this. 40 people said yes, from one HOA. Separately, a free AI 101 training I posted in my newsletter got 100 sign-ups.

More on running these in how I market with free events.

Why does this matter more as AI spreads?

Everything is about having an audience, and that only becomes more true as AI takes over, because people are going to care more about people. I think AI pushes people local and in person, toward events. If you own the local media brand, you're the one with the eyeballs to tell people where to go.

A big local newsletter creator told me he's not bullish on local newsletters if all you do is sell ads. I mostly agree. It can be done, but it's hard. Becoming the go-to source for relationships in your community, whether through dinners, business or AI, is the path to real success.

Why do people miss this?

They think first order. "You want to charge me $2,500 a month? That's a lot of money." The value is in the second- and third-order effects: becoming the local celebrity, the relationships, what comes from them.