One way to use Local Lead Finder. Local Lead Finder is a $10 Google Sheets template I built that turns any Google Maps search into a lead list: every business, with phone, website, rating and reviews. This post is one use case for it: finding dentists to pitch for local marketing work. I’m not a web designer or local marketer; this is the playbook I’d follow if I were, run for real with the template. Other ways to use it are listed at the end, or see all 18 lead generation ideas.
You build websites or run marketing, and you want local clients. Dentists are a classic one: they have money, they need new patients every month, and the ones who are good at their job aren’t always good at being found. Search “local lead generation” and page 1 is mostly agencies selling lead generation services, Google’s own pay-per-lead Local Services Ads, a comparison of lead services like Angi Leads, and a Reddit thread of people asking where to start. Nobody tells you which businesses to call, or what to say to them.
So here’s what I’d do this week if I wanted dentist clients in Spokane. I ran it for real with Local Lead Finder, a $10 Google Sheet I built that pulls every business on Google Maps into a spreadsheet. By the end you’ll have 225 dentists, a median of 209 reviews to measure them against, 31 practices rated 4.8 or higher with fewer than 50 reviews, and one practice whose Westview office has 2,042 reviews while its Lidgerwood office has 23.
TL;DR
- One “dentist” search across 59 Spokane areas returned 225 dentists, and 31 are rated 4.8 or higher with fewer than 50 reviews.
- Only 15 of 225 have no website, so pitch reviews, not websites: the median Spokane dentist has 209.
- Clean the list before you pitch: a dentist in Dartford, UK and a cemetery made it in.
Who this is for
- Freelance web designer: you get a short list of dentists with a specific gap you can open a call with.
- Local SEO consultant: reviews are the gap here, and this shows which practices are behind their neighbors.
- Reputation management freelancer: 31 well-rated practices with fewer than 50 reviews is a ready list of people who need a review request flow.
- Small marketing agency owner: one search gives you 225 dentists in one sheet to compare and sort.
- Someone starting a local lead generation business: you can see how one search turns into a list worth selling to or working yourself.
Before you start
- A Google Places API (New) key
- Local Lead Finder set up in your Google Drive
- Local Lead Finder itself
- Your region, like Spokane, Washington
- A niche to search, like dentist
- A short opening line that uses the practice’s own number of reviews
Don’t have a Places API key yet? How to get one free. Haven’t set up the sheet? Setup takes 5 minutes.
The local lead generation setup
Region: Spokane, Washington. Find Areas pulled 59 areas from OpenStreetMap: Spokane, Spokane Valley, Airway Heights, Millwood and Mead, plus Spokane neighborhoods like Hayford, Manito, Lincoln Heights and Kendall Yards.
Keyword: dentist. Search in All AREAS.
225 dentists, each with a phone number, address, Google rating, number of reviews and website.
What “normal” looks like in Spokane
Before you can spot an under-marketed practice, you need to know what a normal one looks like. I added a tab with some counts:
- The median Spokane dentist has 209 reviews.
- 45 practices have 500 or more.
- Only 15 of 225 have no website listed.
So “you need a website” is the wrong pitch here. Almost everyone has one. The gap is reviews.
The top of the list shows what winning looks like:
=QUERY('dentist (AREAS)'!A1:J226,"select A, D, E where E is not null order by E desc limit 10",1)
Northview Family Dental’s Westview office has 2,042 reviews. Remember that name.
The under-marketed list: web design leads worth calling
Here’s the filter I’d hand to a web designer: rated 4.8 or higher, fewer than 50 reviews. Patients who go there love it. Not many people have said so on Google.
=COUNTIFS('dentist (AREAS)'!D2:D,">=4.8",'dentist (AREAS)'!E2:E,"<50")
That’s 31 practices. To see them, sorted from most reviews down:
=QUERY('dentist (AREAS)'!A1:J226,"select A, D, E, I, J where D >= 4.8 and E < 50 order by E desc",1)
A 5.0 practice with 9 reviews is competing on Google against 4.9 practices with 1,000+. Most people pick the one with more reviews. That’s the pitch: a review request flow, a better Google profile, a site that actually asks happy patients to leave a review.
“Cold outreach is a numbers game. The more people you reach out to the more engaged leads you get.” (Alex Hormozi, $100M Leads)
31 practices is a list you can actually work through, and you’re not guessing which ones to call first.
The best lead on the list
Northview Family Dental - Lidgerwood: 5.0 rating, 23 reviews.
That’s the same practice name as the most-reviewed dentist in Spokane. Their Westview office has 2,042 reviews. The Lidgerwood office has 23. Same brand, same website domain, and one location is basically invisible next to the other. If I were pitching anyone on this list, I’d start there, because they already know what reviews do for them.
How to get web design clients from this list
The list doesn’t get you clients by itself. You still have to call or message them. Each row has a phone number and a WhatsApp link, and you can mark a row Outreached so it turns green and you don’t pitch the same practice twice.
“Don’t tell me you’re an entrepreneur if you have never sold anything in your life.” (Gary Vaynerchuk, How To Start)
A list of 31 dentists with a specific gap is the easiest first sale I can think of: you can open with their own number of reviews.
Clean it before you pitch
The list needs a once-over. In this run:
- A dentist in England. Spokane has a neighborhood called Dartford. The “dentist in Dartford” search found Dartford Dental & Implant Centre, at 24 Market St, Dartford, UK, with a +44 phone number. It’s in the top 10 above with 1,379 reviews. It’s the only result outside Washington, and it’s easy to spot once you look at the addresses.
- A cemetery. Fort George Wright is one of the Spokane neighborhoods, and “dentist in Fort George Wright” returned Fort George Wright Cemetery. It’s rated 5.0 with 2 reviews, so it landed on the under-marketed list. The same thing happened with a few other neighborhood names: the Hutton Settlement search found Hutton Settlement itself, and Orchard Prairie found the Orchard Prairie School District.
- Dentists listed twice. 20 results are listed under a person’s name, like “Dr. Mitchell Orsi”. Some of those are a dentist’s own listing at a practice that also has its own listing. Dental Clinique shows up both ways. Merge those before you count leads.
- No reviews yet. 11 results have no rating at all. The sheet can’t tell you whether that’s a new practice or something that isn’t a dentist, so look those up before you call.
Step by step
- Get a Places API key and set up Local Lead Finder (links at the top).
- Run Find Areas on your region. For Spokane that was 59 areas.
- Check the AREAS tab and untick anything that shares a name with a place somewhere else.
- Type your keyword (dentist) and run Search in All AREAS.
- Add a summary tab: median reviews, how many have no website, how many have under 50 reviews.
- Filter for rated 4.8 or higher with fewer than 50 reviews, sorted by reviews.
- Clean the list: out-of-area results, non-dentists, duplicate listings, no-rating rows.
- Start with the best lead, pitch, and mark each one Outreached.
A few notes if you try this
- 59 areas is 59 Places API requests on your own key.
- Check the AREAS tab before you search. Any neighborhood that shares a name with a famous place somewhere else (like Dartford) can pull in results from there. Untick it, or just delete the stray rows after.
- Ratings and review counts are a snapshot from the day you run it. If you’re going to pitch a practice “you have 9 reviews,” check it’s still 9.
- Every search makes a new tab, so you can run “orthodontist” or “pediatric dentist” separately.
Common pitfalls
- Pitching “you need a website”: 210 of 225 Spokane dentists already have one, about 93%. Pitch the review gap instead.
- Trusting results from neighborhood names: Spokane has a Dartford, and “dentist in Dartford” found a dentist in Dartford, England with 1,379 reviews. Check the addresses, or untick names like that in AREAS before you search.
- Pitching a cemetery: “dentist in Fort George Wright” returned Fort George Wright Cemetery, rated 5.0 with 2 reviews, right on the under-marketed list. Hutton Settlement and the Orchard Prairie School District came in the same way.
- Counting the same dentist twice: 20 results are listed under a person’s name, like “Dr. Mitchell Orsi”, and some practices show up both ways. Merge them before you count leads.
- Calling no-rating results blind: 11 results have no rating. Look them up first; the sheet can’t tell a new practice from something that isn’t a dentist.
- Quoting an old review count: ratings and reviews are a snapshot from the day you run it. If you open with “you have 9 reviews,” check it’s still 9.
- Forgetting to mark Outreached: if you don’t, you’ll pitch the same practice again when you run “orthodontist” next week.
Learn the Google Sheets formulas in this post
- 3 Ways to Count in Google Sheets: the counting behind the summary tab and the COUNTIFS that found 31 practices rated 4.8+ with under 50 reviews.
- How To Sort A Filter: sorting a filtered list, like the QUERY that puts the under-marketed dentists in order by reviews.
- Use Min and Max for More Average Averages: why a middle number like the median of 209 reviews tells you more than the outliers at 2,042.
- How to Find Duplicates: spotting dentists listed twice, once under the practice and once under a person’s name.
- Make a Quick Pipeline (For Sales and More): a next step for tracking which of the 31 you called and who wants to talk.
Better Sheets has hundreds more tutorials like these. If you want to get better at Google Sheets, join Better Sheets.
Other ways to use Local Lead Finder
- How to Find Local Businesses Without Websites (131 hair salons, Chattanooga): for web designers looking for businesses that need a site.
- How to Get More Google Reviews for Local Businesses (side business): for reputation and local SEO freelancers looking for local clients.
- Where to Get Local Leads: Google Maps showed 20 plumbers, the sheet found 98: for anyone choosing where their leads come from.
- How to Get Snow Removal Contracts in Minneapolis: for snow plow and salting contractors going after commercial lots.
All 18, grouped by who they’re for: Lead generation ideas: 18 local businesses to sell to.
FAQ
Is local lead generation a good business for web designers?
It’s a way to find the businesses worth pitching. In this run, 31 Spokane dentists had great ratings and few reviews, and that’s a specific problem you can offer to fix. Whether you turn that into a local lead generation business depends on how many of them say yes.
Why look at reviews instead of websites?
Because in Spokane almost every dentist already has a website. Only 15 of 225 had none. The difference between practices was reviews: a median of 209, with 45 practices over 500 and 57 under 50.
How much does one search cost?
Each area is one Google Places request per results page, on your own key. This search was 59 areas, so 59 requests. Google gives up to 1,000 searches a month free, as covered in the API key post. The sheet shows the most a search could cost before it runs.
Is Local Lead Finder a scraper?
No. It uses Google’s official Places API with your own key, and writes the results into your Google Sheet.
How long does setup take?
About 5 minutes. The first run asks you to authorize the script in Google. Here’s the setup walkthrough.
What should I pitch a dentist with a great rating and few reviews?
The review gap. A 5.0 practice with 9 reviews is competing on Google against 4.9 practices with 1,000+, and most people pick the one with more reviews. Offer a review request flow, a better Google profile, or a site that asks happy patients to leave a review.
Can I use this for other niches besides dentists?
Yes. Every search makes a new tab, so you can run “orthodontist” or “pediatric dentist” next, or any other kind of local business, on the same areas.
Get the sheet
Local Lead Finder is $10, and free for Better Sheets lifetime members. One search, every result in a row, and a column to mark who you’ve already contacted.
