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Local Marketing Vault Review (2023): Are James & Jason Legit?

Last Updated: April 3, 2023
By: Hope
By: Hope
Welcome to my Local Marketing Vault review. My goal is to answer common questions like: how much it costs, if it's a scam, if you can actually make money with it, & who Jason and James really are. The end goal is to help you understand if its a good fit for you personally, and if there are any better alternatives out there.
LMV local marketing vault

Disclaimer:

This Local Marketing Vault review has been thoroughly researched with information and testimonials that are available online to anyone in the public. Any conclusions drawn by myself are opinions.

What I Liked

What I Didn't Like

Before we get into it... who am i?

Always good to put a name to a face, so firstly, my name is Hope!

Like you, I was stuck working 8-10 hour days building someone else’s dream.

I worked at one of those cool tech companies that has omelet stations for breakfast & craft beer on tap for after hours.

To a lot of people that’s a dream, but to me… something was missing.

All I really wanted, was to actually enjoy life – more vacations, less stress, buy myself nice things without worrying about the cost… but that was something my 9-5 couldn’t provide me.

That was until a few years ago when I discovered a way to make money online by actually helping real people. 

People in this case were local business owners across the US.

Me and My Puppy

The page above is an example of how I do it. That one-page site generates $1,500/mo and I haven’t even touched it since it was put up.

That’s an $18,000/year raise from just one page.

That’s why local lead generation is my #1 business recommendation for recurring, semi-passive income. If you want to learn about that business model, click here.

Important: I am not an affiliate

for Local Marketing Vault

Why Does That Matter?

A lot of course reviewers have no experience with any of the business models or programs they review, and so they’re just making stuff up.

They do that because they want you to click through their link to buy from the person that the review is about!

They have no clue what it’s actually like to run the type of business Local Marketing Vault is teaching you to do.
I have absolutely no relationship with Local Marketing Vault, so you can rest easy knowing that I’m going to give you my honest opinion
This review is written based on my own experiences with this business model.

All that being said, let’s jump into things.

Internet marketing is indeed a good equalizer, as it has leveled several business playing fields. You and your competitors are given equal opportunities and platforms to generate leads.

Anyone can establish an online business, and it doesn’t require much technical skill. But the thing is: you have to be constantly updated with online marketing trends.

Today, numerous tools are available claiming to help you develop an online business. All of them promise to help you make income faster and easier than the rest.

James’ and Jason’s Local Marketing Vault is one of them. Their focus is on running Facebook ads and Google adwords for local businesses.

Plus, they provide training on how to construct your website, online and offline SEO, and all the ups and downs of creating passive income.

The course is fine, but there are better available programs.

I’ll give all the details during this review.

local marketing vault review

Local Marketing Vault is a course that teaches you how to build your own advertising agency. The core idea here is that they’ll teach you how to not only run the ads themselves, but also how to (hopefully) build a successful business with it.

In my opinion, ad agencies are one of the best business models out there, and to be honest – they will always be needed (more on that later).

While Local Marketing Vault has its merits, it is NOT my top recommendation if you’re interested in running your own ad agency.

My top program in the ad agency category is going to be Josh Osborne & Sean Kochel’s Digital Landlords program.

Here’s the thing:

There’s a good way and a bad way to run an advertising agency.

The bad way involves only knowing how to run ads.

It may seem counterintuitive, but stay with me for a minute.

Probably the least important part of running an ad agency is actually knowing how to run ads on platforms like Facebook and Google.

It’s the things that go on behind the scenes that make a 6-or-7-figure agency.

Any monkey could take some random “template” that some guru gave them and plug it into Facebook or Google – that will not make you a 7 figure earner.

Why? 

Because after a while, the market gets overwhelmed with the same message, and it stops working.

If you don’t have a system for thinking about how to run ads properly, you won’t be able to pivot.

So what’s the good way to run an ad agency, then?

The things that really separate a 6 or 7 figure agency from one that fails after a few months are:

  1. Having a proven sales process
  2. Knowing how to convert users that land on your client’s website

Let me explain why:

#1 – Most ad gurus out there have never run a 7-figure agency, so how could they possibly teach you a sales process that’s going to actually work? If you don’t have this nailed down, nothing else matters, because you won’t have anyone to run ads for!

#2 – Getting clicks on an ad is easy… getting them to actually go on and buy something from you is the hard part. If you don’t know about conversion rate optimization, landing page design, & email/text marketing, your ability to copy-paste some random ad won’t matter.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I recommend this ad agency program, because it helps my boyfriend and I personally make over $20,000/mo on autopilot.

The cool part is that it shows you pretty much exactly what to do to create a recurring revenue stream, that can bring you in anywhere from a few thousand, to $10,000+ per month.

I really like how you can build it with only an hour or two each day, and you can grow it as big (or small) as you want to.

The people that run it have an actual 7-figure marketing agency, so you know their systems work.

If that sounds interesting to you, check out the Digital Landlord program here

That being said, let’s continue on to the Local Marketing Vault review.

Meet James Bonadies & Jason Mckim

The gurus wear black (James on the left and Jason on the right)

James Bonadies started a comfy career as a teacher in Business Education. He graduated with a Masters in Business Administration & Supervision degree.

Along the way, James realized that it won’t give his family the life they deserve. So he quit in 2014 and started to build and run a business.

Because of his knowledge, he completely understood how to operate a business. And so, he progressed from an ordinary employee to seven figures.

On the other hand, Jason McKim started as an entrepreneur but eventually became a financial adviser. The business world hit him hard, so he shifted to corporate.

Jason found an ordinary “real job” in the music industry, but he wasn’t happy with it. He despised the job and focused on optimizing SEO for a law firm instead.

Because of SEO, his passion for the business was reawakened. His mind began to wonder about the possibility of getting back into entrepreneurship.

In a matter of time, he became an SEO master – a lot of firms were demanding his paid traffic service. He met James and began to partner with him.

Imagine a guy expert in SEO and a guy knowledgeable in business teaming up together. These dudes came up with Local Marketing Vault.

Now, they’ve gained up to 13,000 followers across the globe. Considering that they don’t update very often, these guys still have a lot of followers.

What Is Local Marketing Vault?

Local Marketing Vault

Aspiring marketers can build their own digital marketing agency and get incurring income through paid ads. LMV teaches this method.

It offers a wide range of training courses, from attracting your first client to automating your business once it’s running smoothly.

Over the last three years, they gained around 5,500 clients who shared a common goal. You can check out some results here.

Once your monthly profits rise to 10k, you can get access to their exclusive network group. You can even raise questions about the training.

Their Facebook group claims to be active 24/7. This community gives a sense of belonging as you all support each other and thrive together for better results.

What’s Inside The Local Marketing Vault Course?

Local Marketing Vault Courses

In general, the Local Marketing Vault course teaches about how to create a lead generation business. This company presents several strategies in each section.

Local Marketing Vault Modules

1) Start Here – It simply covers the introduction to the whole course. Jason orients on what to do and what not to do, even how to raise questions on the Private Facebook group so that that other vault members can respond.

According to the guru, good questions are the key to getting things done.

2) How To Get Clients – Local Market Vault offers a wide range of free and low-cost alternatives to attract new customers.

Their landing page uses Clickfunnels, which is a bit pricy. Outbound marketing techniques are taught in this portion. You’re to create your sales funnel to get a few clients.

They know that getting customers won’t be easy, so they cover stuff like responding to mean calls and emails and even attending networking events.

3) The Vault Mindset – The two gurus strongly impose that it takes a renewed mind to be a successful entrepreneur.

Local marketing vault teaches the necessity of perseverance, patience, and consistency. It takes wisdom to keep the business up and running.

As a newbie, you must set up a backup plan. Your mind must always be on the run -thinking of the next step.

For example, having many lead choices is not always a good thing. You must be more concerned with the quality of service you render so that you can stay in the loop.

Instead of hitting tens of thousands of clients in a year, focusing on five clients per year would be better.

Those qualified five clients would serve as your firm foundation along the way.

You can get thousands of income in a year, then lose your streak on the next. Consistency is their key point here.

4) Learn Marketing Strategy – It revolves around generating leads and bringing in new clients. Their strategy is called “The Value Ladder.”

Basically, you’ll give additional service based on your customers’ specific needs. You’ll access a free advertising action plan, which is similar to the Vault ladder concept.

5) Get To Know The Vault Services – James and Jason present the main factors to success: Brand, current customers, and future customers. These three are the categories to give a vivid picture of what you offer.

This section helps your Google My Business Listing be optimized – a business can only be found on Google if it has a Google My Business account.

These things were a crucial part of your website’s functionality. Vault service includes Google Adwords and other social media brand exposure schemes to help you gain new consumers.

6) Learn Sales Strategy – This module is focused on identifying what is important to the client – meaning to say you have to see things based on your clients’ lenses.

For the most part, clients have no idea about what “landing pages” or “SEO” entails. You’ll have to change your terminology for them to understand.

7) Build Your Agency – This part leads to digging out all reasons for starting your own business. Generally, the gurus lend strategies to building your business framework.

They guide you in naming your agency, choosing the right tools, estimating costs, targeting traffic, and a whole lot more.

As a result, you get greater assurance and confidence in starting a business.

8) A “Done For You” Value Ladder – It teaches everything about reputation management.

You’ll learn how to provide a “Brand Reputation Report,” which covers the list of reviews given of all firms in Google, Facebook, and other sites.

9) All About Funnels – This part discusses the aspect of Clickfunnels.

By default, Clickfunnels Affiliate Badge is pinned on your pages to get affiliate commissions. But sometimes, customers get distracted, so you would have to turn it off.

Local Marketing Vault Added Features

1) Get To Know The Vault Software – This session covers two tools: The Vault’s automated follow-up function and Vault’s automated review section.

2) Become A Master At Funnel Automation – James and Jason make funnels less complicated. For example, you can send a notification to your client each time a new lead kicks in.

3) Learn FB Messenger Chat Bots –It discusses the difference between messenger lists and email lists. You can welcome visitors to your page through the messenger automated message.

4) Become A FB Ads Expert – The most important aspects of running a campaign are addressed here. Setting up a tracking pixel, researching Facebook ads, as well as building marketing campaigns are all covered in detail.

5) Learn Google Ads/PPC – This part teaches you how to optimize keywords, develop a landing page, and choose a domain name.

6) Listen To Every Single Question & Answer Call – You can watch a replay of Q & A forums on their website.

7) The Vault Campaigns – Using Local Marketing Vault’s 32 funnels, you can rapidly get started with your business setups and campaigns. You’ll discover every action needed to produce leads.

Local Marketing Vault Added Services

Local Marketing Vault 10K Club

1) Tech Concierge service – This support service costs $25 per hour. 

Tech Concierge assists you with Facebook pixels and Landing pages problems. They give “extra” time to help you out, depending on your purchase credits.

2) Fundwise – Your Vault homepage will be connected to Fundwise, which offers a $15K to $150K business loan for starters.

3) Done For You Funnel – A small crew from their Private Facebook Group will set the marketing strategies on your behalf. Apparently, they didn’t provide much detail about this so it’s hard to say how it is.

This service was clearly not free. It primarily targets those who can’t figure out their niche or just don’t want to do it on their own.

4) The 10K Club – Every member who gains $10K up per month would be given an opportunity to share their story in the 10K Club.

The company gives a plaque to anyone who has unlocked an achievement. Plus, a one-on-one interview with Jason.

Aside from that, you might be chosen as a resource speaker for their live events and webinars.

On the other hand, we both know that this kind of service was two-sided. You get exposure, but they get free promotions.

James’ and Jason’s Lead Generation Course A Scam?

Scam Alert

Time for the $1,000,000 question: is Local Marketing Vault a scam?

No, not technically. They aren’t going to take your money and run off. It’s actually a decent program.

It’s just not my top choice.

The Digital Landlords program is unique. They give you over 30 proven templates (ad copy, targeting, keywords, exact landing pages, etc) so that you can hit the ground running on Facebook, Google, Youtube, Snapchat, Pinterest, & more.

Outside of the ad training, they teach a whole bunch of skills: their proven sales process, building high-converting landing pages, email & text marketing, and a lot more.

The people that run the program actually have an agency that does 7-figures per year, which is a major advantage over most other ad agency courses.

What if you could put in a few hours of work each day (whenever you feel like it), and you were rewarded with a recurring $500-$2,000 payment for each site you put up?

And what if it only took you a week or two to get that first payment?

And what if you could double or triple that payment over the following month or two?

That’s what you get when you’re a Digital Landlord.

All you really need is a laptop and some internet.

Some of my friends are Digital Landlords that run their 6-figure businesses from:

  • Camping trips at national parks
  • Beachfront in Hawaii
  • On the road in a camper-van (with a pet pig!)

They focus on living an enjoyable life first, and focus on income second. All thanks to this program

They can take weeks or months off, and money keeps rolling in.

Living happily is the top priority.

If the thought of living perpetually at your dream vacation spot interests you, being a Digital Landlord might be for you!

Local Marketing Vault Cost

Local Marketing Vault price range from $3,000 to $6,000. Most newbies do not have the dough for this online course, so the company offers installment plans.

You can pay half, then add in full if you decide to continue the program. They call it the VIP section, which obviously, you can only access when you pay in full.

Yeah, most of the reviewers quote it as an expensive lead generation course.

Lead Generation Course Pros and Cons

Weighing the pros and cons

I jot down the upsides and the downsides of James’ and Jason’s Lead generation program. It’s great to see each angle before deciding.

The Pros

1) Local Marketing Vault is suited for beginners – For the most part, I agree that you wouldn’t need any prior marketing knowledge to make good use of this tool.

Their lead generation includes all of the essentials. They give both marketing and sales strategy training. Facebook Ads, Vault Software, and PPC Training were included in the package.

2) Local Marketing Vault has reliable testimonials – I’m pretty sure reading some good testimonials would inspire marketers to join. But these are not the typical results.

I recall the group of students who were able to get 30 wedding photographers in a matter of three days. These clients give in more money to the students’ pockets. More leads equate to higher commissions.

3) Local Marketing Vault has thrived group and online forums– Being virtually surrounded by colleagues is a great motivation to keep the business on track.

Whenever you get confused about the training curriculum, they can easily answer and help you out.

The Cons

1) Local Marketing Vault is too expensive – As much as I want to be transparent with the price, they just didn’t include it on the website. Which, in my opinion, might discourage you from joining if you know the pricing.

If you have savings, you can purchase this training program. But again, $6000 is just too much to invest in a course like this.

2) Local Marketing Vault is typically effective in the United States or Canada ONLY – This concern has already reached the attention of Local Marketing Vault.

They received numerous complaints about the issue. If you happen to reside outside the mentioned countries, it would be a bit harder for you to generate leads using James and Jason‘s program.

The Verdict

As I sat through some of their free videos, I realized the how much work would need to be done. Local Marketing Vault will sure help you out, but as an owner, all responsibilities are on your shoulders.

You can’t rely on the concepts alone. In one way or another, you have to jump through so many hoops – and that would take more than just $6000!

I have nothing against local generation business. So many people are trying it out with great success. But you have to find a suitable program for you.

If it takes much of your time studying the lessons, applying every step, then stressing over to everything you’ve missed out on… you’ll experience burnout.

What Is Our #1 Recommended Online Business Model In 2023!

Make Money Online as a Digital Lanlord!

I’ve personally tried all of the major online business models:

  • I’ve sold fidget spinners through Amazon FBA
  • I’ve drop-shipped a toilet-bowl putting green on Shopify
  • I’ve sold women’s health supplements via Clickbank affiliate marketing

And I made money with all of them, so trust me when I say: there is no “perfect” business model.

That being said, my #1 recommendation for making real money is, hands-down: being a Digital Landlord.

Whether you’re a complete newbie, or you’ve been around the block before but have never had that “big win” to propel you forward, becoming a Digital Landlord is for you.

Why?

1) Time commitment: If you have an hour or two per day, you can do this. Even if you want to drop everything and commit fully, that works too.

You don’t have to be constantly working to make money. The income you generate is recurring.

Imagine taking off for a month to places like Hawaii, Paris, National Parks, & other spots people only dream about – all while collecting dozens of little $500-$2,000 checks. It’s like a dream come true.

But it’s only possible to do it when you’ve separated your income from your time.

2) Complete control: You completely control everything, which means no one can take your business away from you. This is a huge difference from other lead generation models, where Google can end you at the snap of a finger.

3) It’s Effectively Copy-Paste: Here’s my favorite part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up, you can literally copy-paste another version of it and find another willing “renter” in a few days. DOUBLING your income doesn’t get much easier than that…

4) Great Margins: Being a Digital Landlord, your profit margin is nearly 100%. 

Watch here to learn how.

Just a reminder: these Digital Rental Properties are worth (at a minimum) $500/mo in semi-passive income. And each time you create another one, your income increases, and the effort put into creating the next property decreases.

Best case scenario, you have properties bringing in over $3,000+/mo on auto-pilot.

5) You’re Helping REAL People: When you’re a Digital Landlord, you’re helping solve REAL problems that people are ASKING for help with:

Small local businesses around the world need one thing: customers. Without them, their business would fall apart. If we can provide those customers, they’re going to be really happy – and they’re going to pay you for it.

You’re helping a struggling mother or father put FOOD on the table for their families, put their kids through college, or simply live life a little bit more comfortably.

Having this type of impact on the world is what will help you sleep soundly at night.

So, the rest is up to you. You could keep looking at other programs like Local Marketing Vault, which might work out.

You could keep researching and researching for the next few months (or few years), never making a concrete decision.

OR, you can look deep inside, think about those dreams, hopes, & desires, and make the decision to ACTUALLY make it happen, just like it has for thousands of other students before you.

Making a fortune while actually helping real people that need it.

If this sounds like you, click here to see how it all works.

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