Top Recommends is founded on one idea: when people get more than they expected, they tell everyone.

Over-deliver, and the customer wants to share the experience.

Craig Wallace built his first agency on it in college and gave it a name in 2018: Micro Value Marketing. Give people more than they expected and they can't help telling someone. No ad has ever done what a neighbor saying "you have to call them" does. Every part of Top Recommends still runs on that one idea.

Connected communities reach further than any one of them alone.

In college Craig ran a network of about 150 Instagram accounts with more than five million combined followers. A post in one carried through all of them, and an idea could reach millions of people in an afternoon. That was the lesson that shaped everything after: a single audience is valuable, but a network of audiences changes what's possible.

A cause with one employee reached 30 million people.

At The Long Walk Home, a veterans nonprofit in Venice, Craig ran marketing, public relations and technology as Associate Director. In two years the organization grew to 60,000 followers, one organic post reached more than 30 million people with over 100,000 comments, close to half a million dollars was raised, the staff grew from one to five, and thousands of veterans were served. None of it was bought.

How you treat people is the whole reputation.

As Chief Marketing Officer of a Bradenton marketing agency, Craig led strategy, sales and account management across dozens of verticals and managed the teams that served them. The lasting result wasn't the campaigns. It was the relationships, many of them lifelong, with the owners, partners and neighbors he worked alongside. Three years inside that many local businesses proved one thing: the way you treat people becomes your reputation, and people who feel that become your advocates. In 2025 he moved on to build his own company on his own values, and in eight months the Top Recommends network became the largest word-of-mouth network in Florida.

High-trust business owners, one network.

Top Recommends was funded by the kind of businesses it exists to recognize. Five founding members put their capital and their reputations behind it: Dan Kelleher of H2O Heroes, Kevin St. John of Boomin Business Solutions, Tom Hadrava of All Angles Real Estate Media, Lea Graf of Sterling Tax, and Tina and Andrew Pilz of Lakewood Ranch Med Spa.

Then the group owners joined. Dan Kelleher brought eleven groups. Chrissy Rose brought 67. Derek Almy brought Bradenton Word of Mouth, one of the fastest-growing groups in Florida. Kevin St. John brought two. Stanley Cochran brought three. More are joining every month. For years everyone had been running separate networks in the same towns. Together it became the largest word-of-mouth network in the state, and every group keeps its owner, its name and its voice.

Paid to be seen. Never paid to be recommended.

Every platform that ever touched a neighbor's recommendation ended up selling it. Not here. Recommendations come from verified neighbors and nothing else moves a business up. Membership buys a written feature, a place in print, the awards and the giveaways. It never buys a recommendation, a ranking or an award. Earned, never bought.