This is a guest post from a consultant who wishes to remain anonymous.

Some people market their businesses locally. And a new trend toward “hyperlocal” business is increasing in popularity, as if we are like prodigal entrepreneurs who journeyed far and wide and then returned to the family in the end.

But let me give you a devil’s advocate view of local marketing; the reasons I don’t market my business locally. Now, I need to make a BIG disclaimer here before I go any further: This applies to my business, and might not apply to yours. A real estate agent, for example, who needs local clients might disagree with my opinions.

First, online marketing has a broad, global reach. If I want to reach my local market, I need to find local marketing opportunities and they are just not there yet. (At least where I live). Yes, there are paid options but they are expensive. And there are offline options but they aren’t trackable. My options: Inexpensive and highly effective articles and press releases online or expensive billboards or newspaper ads or “pennysaver” ads that don’t reach my niche market. So, given the choice between better ROI and local, I’ll take the better ROI.

What would change my mind is when local marketing becomes as big of an opportunity as online (read: global) marketing. But right now, it’s too fragmented and not worth the cost.

Second, local business comes with a different set of rules. Want to know what drove me away from running a local business? I had two customers, each of whom insisted that I had to attend meetings at their office (even though I had nothing to contribute) and that I had to drive there to pick up my consulting check and no, they wouldn’t pay me for the hour or more commuting time.

When they called me up for more work, they didn’t understand why I turned down the work. But the unpaid commuting time (when I could be billing) didn’t make sense to them.

What would change my mind is when local business realizes that you can accomplish just as much (I’d argue that you can accomplish more) at your office than at theirs.

Third, local business has different pay and hours expectations. As a global consultant, I’m happy to stay up late (for me) to talk to my clients in Singapore. But they understand that I do have downtime. However, my local client called me up on a Sunday evening and begged me to do some extra work even though I wasn’t able to spend the time on it. And when it came to payment, they argued that my rate was far too high compared with other local consultants.

What would change my mind is when local businesses accept that there is a bigger world out there and they treat local partners the same as they would treat international ones.

I think this will change in the near future. We are seeing a local trend returning as people discover that they have millions of buyers on their doorstep which they’d forgotten about when they chased after the millions on their virtual doorstep. Until then, I’m closed for business (in my own town).

photo credit: Brooks Elliott