Why we're called SandwichBoardAI
Before there was Google, before there were yellow pages, before there were neon signs in shop windows, there was a small business owner standing on the sidewalk holding a sandwich board.
It worked because it answered the most important question in local commerce: when someone walks by looking for what you sell, do they see you, or do they see your competitor? The merchant who put themselves in the foot traffic — and put the right message on their sign — got the customer. The merchant who didn't, lost the sale. And the smart ones kept their sign up after the first week, when the new butcher down the street put his out.
AI changed the sidewalk. Today the person looking for a landscaper, an attorney, or a plumber isn't walking down Main Street. They're typing a question into ChatGPT. Asking Siri. Talking to Alexa. The AI walks past dozens of businesses on their behalf, evaluates them based on signals most business owners don't know exist, and picks one or two to recommend. The rest disappear.
This is the new sidewalk. And most local businesses are invisible on it. Not because their work is worse than the competitor that gets recommended. Not because they're priced wrong. But because nobody's told them where the foot traffic is now, how to put their sign up where the AI will see it, or how to keep it up once competitors do the same.
That's what we do. Same idea your grandfather had. New sidewalk.