So much misinformation here.
If you are talking about ranking a local business, the actual answer to your question is me. No brag, just fact. I do my own local SEO, and do it for customers, and do it affordability.
You can find many good SEO providers for less than $600 a month that do not use automated tools. Geez, this is local, you don't need automated tools for local at all.
You hardly even need backlinks. Certainly you do not need link wheels and a bunch of other stuff that IMers think are involved with SEO.
If you do not use me, (and I do not blame you, you don't know me from Adam and I do not have a BST) look for someone who really knows Local SEO. If they are talking backlinks, tier one and two, and all the general SEO knowledge that everyone spouts, they do not know local.
You do not rank a local site the way you do an IM site. Not if you do it right.
These people will be talking consistent local directory submissions, press releases that actually announce something press worthy, business related organizations, local involvement, very high quality articles to a few WEB 2.0's all of them hand written and edited by someone who knows what the fuck they are doing.
When you think you have found someone, ask for their work, websites they have ranked, then go there and find the website owner and ask the owner if this person in fact does the SEO, and if O, what they think of him.
Contact the owner through the website, not by the number you SEO person gives you.
Anyone who really knows local has some sites they ranked, or they are still learning.
If you promote a local site like an IM site, sooner or later it will crash and burn.
If you do it right, it will be able to withstand a neg SEO attack, and no algo will ever touch it.