Preserving Birmingham's Past While Building Its Future | David Fleming of REV Birmingham

Preserving Birmingham's Past While Building Its Future | David Fleming of REV Birmingham

In this episode of The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with David Fleming, president and CEO of REV Birmingham. REV is the nonprofit that works to grow downtown Birmingham and the Woodlawn neighborhood, and David has been doing this work for 30 years. He is a self-described building hugger, a Bessemer native, and a walking encyclopedia of Birmingham history. Carrie and David open with a Birmingham history lesson. Why the city was founded as an entrepreneurial response to the collapse of the Southern slave economy, why the immigrants who came here to open dry goods stores and furniture shops mattered as much as the industrialists, and why understanding that DNA is critical for anyone leading the city into the future. Then they get into the last 30 years of downtown revitalization. Why 2010 was the pivotal year. How Railroad Park and Regions Field changed people's belief in what downtown could be. Why Second Avenue North became a corridor and how Urban Standard lit the fuse. The second half is a practical guide for small business owners. What REV actually does (place management, economic development, marketing and storytelling, advocacy and policy), the CAP program you see downtown in the blue shirts, the Business Improvement District, the historic preservation easement program, and the real estate advice REV offers for free to any business owner trying to figure out where to open. David also shares what a 2000-person survey revealed about what people actually want to see downtown, and why the answer is not what most people expect. If you own a small business in Birmingham or love the city, this conversation is full of practical resources and Birmingham history you should know. Watch on YouTube [https://youtu.be/SzBIAXr8HDM] _______________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode • REV Birmingham [https://revbirmingham.org] • Downtown Birmingham [https://downtownbhm.com] • Sloss Furnaces [https://www.slossfurnaces.com] • Birmingham Historical Society [https://www.bhistorical.org] • Railroad Park [https://railroadpark.org] • Regions Field [https://www.milb.com/birmingham/ballpark] • Pepper Place Farmers Market [https://pepperplacemarket.com] • Alabama Theatre [https://alabamatheatre.com] • El Barrio [https://www.elbarriobirmingham.com] • Filter Coffee Parlor [https://www.filtercoffeeparlor.com] • Church Street Coffee & Books [https://www.churchstreetshop.com] • Gus's Hot Dogs [https://www.gushotdogs.com] • The Localist episode with Gus's Hot Dogs [https://carrierollwagen.com/podcast-episodes/] • The Localist book by Carrie Rollwagen [https://www.carrierollwagen.com] Thanks to Our Sponsor, Infomedia The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia. They are a Birmingham-based web and digital marketing company. They help small businesses grow online. • Contact Infomedia [https://infomedia.com/contact] Join Us at Localist Lab Localist Lab is a free event series for small business owners. It meets on the third Thursday of most months at Saturn in Avondale. Free tacos and coffee too. • See upcoming events and register [https://infomedia.com/events] Subscribe to Carrie's Newsletter Want more small business tips from Carrie? Sign up for her newsletter. • Sign up here [https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9]

AI Changed the Rules of Marketing. Here's How to Play. | Alan Harned of Uptick Marketing

If your ads aren't performing the way they used to, if you keep hearing about AEO and wondering what it is, or if you have a Google Business Profile you haven't touched in a year, this episode is for you. In this episode of The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with Alan Harned, Director of Account Services at Uptick Marketing. Alan works with small business owners every day on digital ads, SEO, AEO and analytics. He's honest about what has changed, what still works, and what small business owners can do right now, even without a marketing budget. Alan and Carrie talk about why AI has accelerated changes in marketing analytics, why pausing keywords based on an AI report can actually hurt your campaign, and why platforms need 30 to 60 days to learn what a good lead looks like for your business. They get into hard conversions versus soft conversions, why Google Ads is now prioritizing conversion data more than ever, and how small changes to a website (like adding a schedule button) can turn analytics into a real business insight. The second half of the episode covers small-business AI use cases: how to use ChatGPT and Claude to analyze your own analytics, build an AI advisory board, critique your website, and catch things like spammy backlinks you did not know existed. Alan also answers audience questions on whether customers are actually finding businesses through ChatGPT and Perplexity, whether SEO is dead (spoiler: no), how to handle a Google Business Profile you have neglected, whether Google Ads are still worth the money, and what budget you actually need to start working with a marketing agency. Watch on YouTube [https://youtu.be/E26dzF1bvz0] _______________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode • Uptick Marketing [https://www.uptickmarketing.com] • Infomedia [https://infomedia.com] • ChatGPT [https://chatgpt.com] • Claude [https://claude.ai] • Perplexity [https://www.perplexity.ai] • Google Business Profile [https://www.google.com/business/] • Google Analytics [https://analytics.google.com] • Google Ads [https://ads.google.com] • StoryBrand [https://storybrand.com] • Yelp for Business [https://biz.yelp.com] • Bing Places for Business [https://www.bingplaces.com] • Ohm Jiu Jitsu [https://www.ohmjiujitsu.com] Thanks to Our Sponsor, Infomedia The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia. They are a Birmingham-based web and digital marketing company. They help small businesses grow online. • Contact Infomedia [https://infomedia.com/contact] Join Us at Localist Lab Localist Lab is a free event series for small business owners. It meets on the third Thursday of most months at Saturn in Avondale. Free tacos and coffee too. • See upcoming events and register [https://infomedia.com/events] Subscribe to Carrie's Newsletter Want more small business tips from Carrie? Sign up for her newsletter. • Sign up here [https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9]

This Pizza Entrepreneur Uses AI to Level the Playing Field | George Gilliam of Uncle G's Pizza

How do you compete with Domino's when you are running a small pizza shop with two food trucks and a brick and mortar? In this episode of The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with George Gilliam, owner of Uncle G's Pizza in Birmingham. George is honest about the journey. He has pivoted his business more than once, from food truck to brick and mortar to takeout-only with a commissary kitchen. He has built one of the most engaged social media presences of any small business in Birmingham. And he has been openly using AI to give himself back the time he needs to run the business and create good content. George and Carrie talk about why pizza parties for first responders perform better than product shots, why short form video has been a sea change for his business, why the social videos that perform best are the ones he throws together quickly, and how he uses CapCut to build them. They also nerd out on AI: where George uses it for the back end of the business, where he avoids it, why he believes it can level the playing field for small business owners, and why the AI conversation feels risky to even have publicly right now. If you are a small business owner trying to figure out where AI fits, how to use social media without being self-serving, and how to make small business work in 2026, this is an honest, funny and useful conversation. Watch on YouTube [https://youtu.be/5zxXRgpFwvM] _______________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode • Uncle G's Pizza [https://unclegspizza.com] • Donate a Pizza Party [https://unclegspizza.com/donate] • Hop City Birmingham [https://www.hopcitybeer.com/birmingham] • Trim Tab Brewing [https://trimtabbrewing.com] • Ghost Train Brewing [https://ghosttrainbrewing.com] • CapCut [https://www.capcut.com] • Adobe Premiere Pro [https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html] • Google Gemini [https://gemini.google.com] • A. Studio That Works / Andrew Thomson (designer of the King Pep mascot) [https://www.instagram.com/a_studio_that_works] • Noah Stalcup (illustrator of the King Pep mascot) [https://www.instagram.com/stalcupdesign] • Andrew Jackson Hood (designer of Ohm Jiu Jitsu branding) [https://www.instagram.com/ajhoodart] • The Camel music venue (Richmond, VA) [https://www.thecamel.org] Thanks to Our Sponsor, Infomedia The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia. They are a Birmingham-based web and digital marketing company. They help small businesses grow online. • Contact Infomedia [https://infomedia.com/contact] Join Us at Localist Lab Localist Lab is a free event series for small business owners. It meets on the third Thursday of most months at Saturn in Avondale. Free tacos and coffee too. • See upcoming events and register [https://infomedia.com/events] Subscribe to Carrie's Newsletter Want more small business tips from Carrie? Sign up for her newsletter. • Sign up here [https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9]

Writing with AI: What Works, What Doesn't and How to Use It | Janna Stevens

AI can give you words. But it can't give you judgment. This episode is a live recording from Localist Lab, the free monthly marketing event series for small business owners in Birmingham. Janna Stevens, Communications Director at Infomedia, takes the stage to walk a live audience through writing with AI. Janna is a career writer. She has spent years honing grammar, voice and style. She talks about what AI is actually good at, where it falls short, and how to use it without losing your voice. Janna covers where AI helps: beating blank page paralysis, drafting structured writing, repurposing content, editing for length, grammar checks, document summarization, research and brainstorming. She also covers where it falls short: average output, flattening your voice, not knowing your audience, sameness across the internet, and the iteration loop that often takes longer than just writing it yourself. Then she shares practical tips for getting better AI output, including building richer prompts, asking AI to critique instead of create, and deleting the first paragraph almost every time. If you've been wondering how to use AI for your small business writing without sounding like everyone else, this is a clear and honest guide from a writer who is using it every day. ___________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode * Claude (AI assistant) [https://claude.ai] * Claude Cowork [https://claude.com] * ChatGPT [https://chatgpt.com] * Google Gemini [https://gemini.google.com] * NotebookLM [https://notebooklm.google.com] * Pam Darden's SEO for the AI Era talk at Localist Lab [https://carrierollwagen.com/podcast-episodes/seo-for-the-ai-era-how-small-businesses-get-found-now-pam-darden-infomedia/] * Luke Richey email marketing episode of The Localist [https://carrierollwagen.com/podcast-episodes/email-marketing-small-business-luke-richey-uptick/] * Uptick Marketing [https://www.uptickmarketing.com] * Tempo Websites [https://tempowebsites.com] * Infomedia Studios [https://infomedia.com/studios] _______________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to Our Sponsor, Infomedia The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia, a Birmingham-based web and digital marketing company that helps small businesses get big results online. Contact Infomedia: https://infomedia.com/contact [https://infomedia.com/contact] ________________________________________________________________________________ Join Us at Localist Lab Localist Lab is our free live marketing event series for small business owners, held on the third Thursday of most months at Saturn in Avondale. Each session features practical strategies you can use right away, plus free tacos and coffee. See upcoming events and register https://infomedia.com/events [https://infomedia.com/events] ________________________________________________________________________________ Subscribe to Carrie's Newsletter Get more small business insights, resources and behind-the-scenes updates from Carrie delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for the newsletter: https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9 [https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9]

Can You Build the App You've Always Wanted? | Dan Atchison of Tend+

What if the app you have been wishing existed could actually be built by you, even if you don't know how to code? In this episode of The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with Dan Atchison, the creator of Tend+, an iOS app that helps you tend to the relationships already in your phone. You download the app, pick the people you want to keep in touch with, set how often you want to connect, and Tend+ prompts you when it is time to reach out. Carrie has been using it for months. Here's the twist. Dan is not a developer. He vibe coded the entire app himself, starting over Christmas break when he got bored. Dan talks about how he went from idea to App Store, what tools he used, what he learned the hard way, and why every small business owner should know what vibe coding can and cannot do. Dan and Carrie also talk about what Tend+ is really about. Why proximity used to do the work in our relationships and how that has changed. Why we should tend to people instead of managing them. Why the cost of delivery is directly tied to the value of the message. If you have an app idea, or you just want to be a better friend, this conversation has something for you Watch the Full Episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/1yFwetD-hIY] ____________________________________________________________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode * Tend+ on the Apple App Store * Tend+ website * Highlands College * Claude (AI assistant) * Claude Code * Anthropic * Famous.ai * Base44 * Lovable * Supabase * Netlify * Vercel * GitHub * Hattie O'Hara episode of The Localist * Dan's Substack: Truth and Wonder _______________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to Our Sponsor, Infomedia The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia, a Birmingham-based web and digital marketing company that helps small businesses get big results online. Contact Infomedia: https://infomedia.com/contact [https://infomedia.com/contact] ________________________________________________________________________________ Join Us at Localist Lab Localist Lab is our free live marketing event series for small business owners, held on the third Thursday of most months at Saturn in Avondale. Each session features practical strategies you can use right away, plus free tacos and coffee. See upcoming events and register https://infomedia.com/events [https://infomedia.com/events] ________________________________________________________________________________ Subscribe to Carrie's Newsletter Get more small business insights, resources and behind-the-scenes updates from Carrie delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for the newsletter: https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9 [https://gmail.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9c59a060684d71f12f6e495fc&id=98cd3122b9]