Blog

Julians’ Blog. Topics include HighLevel and marketing.

Internal Influencers, AI Search and Building Your Own Media Company

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If you follow Ryan Deiss, you will have heard the phrase: "Every business is now a media company." Over the past 12 months, I have seen this play out first-hand. More and more of my clients are now finding me through AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity rather than Google. At the same time, the idea of internal influencers has become increasingly important. Not external influencers, bu...
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Tawk.to vs HighLevel: Why I moved from Tawk.to to HighLevel for Live Chat, CRM and Automation?

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talk.to vompared to HighLevel. Why I moved form Talk.to to HighLevel

If you are currently using Tawk.to for live chat, you are not alone. It is one of the most popular free chat tools available. It is simple, reliable, and does exactly what it says on the tin. But if you are starting to think about CRM, automation, follow-up, and scaling your marketing, you may be asking a bigger question. Is Tawk.to still enough, or is it time to move to HighLevel? In thi...
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Why Are My SMS Messages So Expensive in HighLevel?

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why are my highlevel sms text costs so high

I was recently asked by a new MarketerM8 subscriber why his text message sending costs were so high. He thought MarketerM8 was charging a hefty premium. Some of his messages were costing over 25p, not the roughly 6p you would expect for a standard 160 character SMS segment. That didn’t sound right. So I dug into it to understand exactly what was going on. Once I worked it out, it became c...
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Why Your HighLevel Sub Account Has Restricted Tools & Features (And How To Fix It)

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why is my highlevel account restricted and missing tools and features

If you’ve logged into HighLevel and noticed features missing, limited, or not behaving as expected, you’re not imagining it. This is one of the most common frustrations for HighLevel users in the UK and globally. The key thing to understand is this. Not all HighLevel accounts have access to the same features. In this guide, I’ll break down exactly why this happens, what you might be missi...
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How to Integrate Pabau with HighLevel to Capture, Nurture and Convert More Aesthetic Clinic Leads

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integrating Pabau with HighLevel for aesthetic clinics

If you run an aesthetics clinic and use Pabau to manage your patients, appointments, and treatment history, you are already ahead when it comes to clinic operations. But there is a gap I see time and time again. Pabau is excellent at managing patients. It is not designed to capture, nurture, and convert new leads. And that gap is where revenue is being lost. Recently, I have been w...
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What Is MarTech? Is HighLevel a good example of MarTech?

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What is MarTech - highlevel is an ideal example of MarTech

You may have started hearing the term MarTech appearing more often in business and marketing conversations. The word is simply a shortened version of marketing technology, and it refers to the software tools businesses use to plan, run, automate, and measure their marketing. Put simply, MarTech is the technology that powers modern marketing. Today’s businesses rely on software to capture lea...
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Daymond John Aligns With HighLevel. What This Means for AI-Powered Business Systems

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daymond john joins the HighLevel bandwagon

HighLevel continues to gain momentum in the marketing technology world, and a recent announcement adds another well-known entrepreneur to the story. Shark Tank investor and FUBU founder Daymond John has publicly aligned with HighLevel to support its vision of AI-powered business building. At first glance this might look like a typical celebrity endorsement. But if you look beyond the headlin...
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How to AI Search Optimise Your Website: 11 Practical Tips That Help AI Recommend Your Business

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How to Optimise Your Website for AI Search 11 Practical Tips That Help AI Recommend Your Business

A practical guide to Answer Engine Optimisation, Generative Search, and being discovered by AI Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how people find businesses online, no longer is Google Search the go to place for information - we now have AI Search. Consultants such as Julian Mills, who work daily with marketing automation, CRM systems, and real-world client websites, are already seeing...
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Stop Guessing Your Marketing. Deploy The Ask Method Inside HighLevel

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the ask method and highlevel with julian mills

The Ask Method Explained. And Why HighLevel Is the Perfect Tool to Deploy It If you want better leads, higher conversions, and marketing that actually feels relevant to your audience, there is one principle that sits above almost everything else. Stop guessing. Start asking. That simple idea is the foundation of The Ask Method by Ryan Levesque, a strategy built around discovering what you...
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The Ask. What’s The Best Survey Funnel Software Bucket.io Alternative for Ryan Levesque’s Ask Method (HighLevel)

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Ask Ryan levesque bucket.io funnel survey software

If you’ve read Ask by Ryan Levesque, you’ll know the core idea is simple.Stop guessing what your market wants. Ask them. The Ask Method is built around surveys, segmentation, and personalised follow-up. It remains one of the most practical frameworks for turning audience insights into higher conversions. But there’s one issue many readers face today. What Happened to Survey Funnel Software ...
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HighLevel Is Now the World’s Second-Largest CRM, Behind Salesforce, Says CEO Shaun Clark

If you run a small or medium-sized business and are considering HighLevel, here’s a statistic that might give you some confidence in the platform. In a recent interview with Mike Cooch, HighLevel co-founder and CEO Shaun Clark said HighLevel is now the second-largest CRM in the world, behind only Salesforce. He also revealed that HighLevel is currently growing at more than 50% year-on-year. Those are Shaun Clark’s own figures rather than independently verified market-share data, but you can hear him make the claims yourself in the interview. Watch the interview with Shaun Clark on YouTube. The relevant section starts at approximately 26:36 min, with the growth and CRM size figures discussed from around 26:55 min. That’s quite a statement for a CRM platform that many UK business owners have still never heard of. But perhaps the more interesting story isn’t simply how quickly HighLevel is growing. It’s what this means for smaller businesses. Enterprise-level CRM technology is no longer just for enterprises Salesforce has long been one of the biggest names in enterprise CRM. Large organisations can invest significant sums implementing CRM, marketing automation and, increasingly, AI across their businesses. Historically, that kind of technology has often come with an enterprise-sized price tag too. One of our own clients in Ireland, for example, had previously been quoted around £150,000 for a Salesforce implementation. Compare that with the new generation of platforms such as HighLevel. At MarketerM8, we provide businesses with our customised version of HighLevel for £97 + VAT per month, with unlimited contacts and users. Of course, I am not suggesting that paying £97 a month suddenly gives you the equivalent of a fully designed and implemented £150,000 Salesforce solution. HighLevel is an extremely capable platform, but most businesses will need some level of configuration and customisation around their particular sales and marketing processes. That may involve additional consultancy or implementation costs. But increasingly, businesses can also do more of this themselves. HighLevel’s AI is making it easier to configure the platform yourself One of the most interesting ways HighLevel is evolving is through the increasing use of AI within the platform itself to help with setup and implementation. Tasks that previously required specialist technical knowledge are increasingly being assisted by AI, and the capabilities are improving incredibly quickly. I’ve already seen this happening with my own MarketerM8 clients. An orthodontic dentist built three websites himself One orthodontic dental client called me recently to tell me how pleased he was with the three websites he had built himself using HighLevel’s AI Studio. I was genuinely surprised by what he’d been able to achieve without needing me to train him or build them for him. Interestingly, Shaun Clark talks about exactly this type of use case in the interview, describing how HighLevel’s AI Studio can create websites and incorporate functionality such as forms and calendars. An entertainment business built its own custom data structure Another client in the entertainment industry needed to create a custom data object structure inside HighLevel. Previously, you might have expected the client to ask a consultant to design and configure this for them. Instead, with assistance from HighLevel’s Ask AI and the 24/7 support available through MarketerM8, the client organised and built the structure themselves. No additional consultancy from me was required. A private knee surgeon built his own integration in around 15 minutes The third example takes this a step further. A private knee surgeon wanted to connect HighLevel to the third-party booking system used by his practice. Not very long ago, my response would probably have been: “We’ll need a developer to build a custom API integration.” That could easily have meant £1,000 or more in developer time. This time, I pointed the client in the right direction and he built his own “vibe coded” solution in around 15 minutes. Think about that. Something that might previously have required a specification, a developer, custom API work and a four-figure budget was created by the business owner himself in about a quarter of an hour. That illustrates something much bigger than HighLevel simply becoming easier to use. AI is starting to reduce both the cost and technical barriers involved in customising and connecting business software. A field service client ended up training me Another client wanted to add field service software to their MarketerM8 account. They found FieldTask, a specialist app built to work with HighLevel, and asked us to add it to their HighLevel sub-account. We did that part. Then the client went in and configured FieldTask themselves around the way their business operates. On a later call, they actually walked us through how they were using FieldTask in practice and how it fitted into their day-to-day processes. The client was training me. That was quite a turnaround. In the traditional software consultancy model, the consultant would often be expected to understand, configure and teach every part of the system. Increasingly, that isn’t necessary. The HighLevel ecosystem gives clients access to specialist apps, AI assistance and support, while the agency can focus on helping them choose the right direction and making sure the different parts of the technology stack fit together. Am I making myself redundant? I sometimes joke that HighLevel and AI are making me redundant. There is an element of truth in it, but a better description is that my role is evolving into that of an AI & Automation Architect. Clients increasingly don’t need me to physically build every website, configure every workflow or commission every integration. My value is increasingly in understanding the business, identifying the problems and opportunities, and then architecting how the CRM, marketing automation, AI, workflows, data and third-party systems should work together. Once that architecture is clear, HighLevel’s AI, vibe coding, 24/7 support, specialist apps and the client themselves can increasingly handle more of the implementation. The expertise hasn’t disappeared. It’s moving up a level. For clients, that’s potentially very good news. Less budget needs to be spent on routine technical implementation, leaving more Read more…
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🎓 GoHighLevel Live Training Workshop #5 : Automation & Workflows Workshop

Workflows are where HighLevel really starts to earn its keep. Instead of relying on somebody remembering to send an email, follow up a lead, move an opportunity, notify a colleague or perform another repetitive task, HighLevel can potentially do it automatically. At its simplest, a HighLevel workflow follows a very straightforward principle: Something happens → HighLevel automatically does something else. For example: Website enquiry received → Send acknowledgement → Create opportunity → Notify salesperson → Start follow-up Once you understand that basic principle, you can start building increasingly sophisticated automations around the way your business actually works. But there’s an important warning. Automating a bad process doesn’t make it a good process. It simply makes the bad process happen automatically. That’s why our free HighLevel Automation & Workflows training workshop isn’t simply about learning which buttons to click. We’ll look at how HighLevel workflows work, but we’ll also look at what you should automate, why you should automate it and when you shouldn’t automate it at all. The workshop is part of MarketerM8’s rolling programme of 13 free live HighLevel training workshops. Want to Automate More With HighLevel? Join our free live HighLevel Automation & Workflows workshop and learn how triggers, actions, conditions and automation can turn repetitive processes into workflows. Register for the next Free HighLevel Automation & Workflows Training Workshop What Is a Workflow in GoHighLevel? A HighLevel workflow is a series of automated actions that can take place when something happens. The event that starts the workflow is generally referred to as a trigger. What HighLevel subsequently does is controlled by the actions inside the workflow. So the basic structure is: Trigger → Action → Action → Action For example: Form submitted → Send email → Create opportunity → Notify salesperson That simple concept is the foundation of much of HighLevel’s automation functionality. You can explore HighLevel’s official Getting Started with Workflows guide alongside our live training. What Can You Automate With HighLevel Workflows? This is where the possibilities become enormous. HighLevel workflows can potentially help automate activities across marketing, sales, customer service and internal administration. Examples include: responding to new enquiries; lead follow-up; email nurture sequences; SMS follow-up; appointment confirmations; appointment reminders; no-show follow-up; creating sales opportunities; updating opportunities; assigning leads to team members; sending internal notifications; creating tasks; customer onboarding; review requests; reactivation campaigns; database management; and much more. The question therefore isn’t usually: “Can HighLevel automate something?” The more useful question is: “Should we automate it, and what should the process actually be?” Start With the Process, Not the Workflow Builder This is probably the most important lesson I can give anyone learning HighLevel workflows. Don’t start by opening the workflow builder. Start by mapping what you want to happen. For example: New enquiry arrives → Acknowledge within seconds → Tell salesperson → Add to sales pipeline → Follow up if salesperson hasn’t made contact Now we have a process. We can then ask which parts should be handled by HighLevel. That is considerably easier than dragging actions into a workflow and hoping they eventually form a sensible business process. Process first. Automation second. HighLevel third. Understanding HighLevel Workflow Triggers A trigger tells HighLevel when the workflow should start. There are many different events that might cause automation to begin. Depending on the process, that could be something such as: a form being submitted; a contact being created; an appointment being booked; an opportunity changing; a particular customer action occurring; a tag being added; or another event within your HighLevel setup. Choosing the correct trigger matters. If the wrong people enter the workflow, even perfectly configured actions can produce the wrong result. Understanding HighLevel Workflow Actions Once somebody or something enters a workflow, actions determine what HighLevel should do. For example, HighLevel might: send an email; send an SMS; wait for a period of time; create or update an opportunity; assign a user; add or remove a tag; create a task; send an internal notification; update contact information; or move the workflow down a different path. By combining actions, relatively simple automations can become complete customer journeys. HighLevel Workflows Don’t Have to Be Linear A real customer journey rarely follows one perfectly straight line. Some people respond. Some don’t. Some book. Some cancel. Some buy. Some aren’t suitable prospects in the first place. That’s why HighLevel workflows can use conditions and branching logic to make different things happen depending on circumstances. Using If/Else Conditions in HighLevel Workflows An If/Else condition allows a workflow to ask a question and send contacts down different paths depending on the answer. Conceptually: Has the prospect booked an appointment? YES → Send appointment information NO → Continue follow-up Or: Is this person already a customer? YES → Customer journey NO → Prospect journey This allows workflows to become much more intelligent than simply sending everybody exactly the same sequence. Use Wait Steps to Control Timing Good automation isn’t simply about what happens. Timing matters too. Sometimes an action should happen immediately. Sometimes it should happen an hour later. Sometimes tomorrow. Sometimes only after another event occurs. HighLevel workflows allow you to build waiting periods and timing logic into your automation. This becomes particularly important for lead nurture, appointment communication and longer customer journeys. HighLevel Workflows Can Automate Lead Follow-Up This is one of the most obvious uses of HighLevel automation. A prospect submits an enquiry at 8:37pm. Nobody in your office is working. That doesn’t mean the prospect has to hear nothing until tomorrow morning. HighLevel could potentially: Receive enquiry → Send immediate acknowledgement → Create sales opportunity → Notify salesperson → Start appropriate follow-up The automation isn’t necessarily replacing the salesperson. It’s making sure the salesperson has a better chance of having the right conversation at the right time. HighLevel Workflows and Sales Pipelines Workflows become particularly useful when combined with HighLevel Sales Pipelines & Opportunities. For example, a workflow might automatically create an opportunity when a new enquiry arrives. Another event might move the opportunity to Read more…
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🎓 HighLevel Live Training Workshop #4 : Sales Pipelines & Opportunities Workshop

If you’re using HighLevel as a CRM, one of the most useful things you can do is create a clear picture of where every potential sale currently stands. That’s what HighLevel’s Sales Pipelines & Opportunities are designed to help you do. Instead of leads sitting in a database with nobody quite knowing what’s happening to them, you can create a visual sales process that shows: who has just enquired; who has been contacted; who is qualified; who has booked an appointment; who has received a proposal; who needs following up; and which deals have ultimately been won or lost. But there’s an important point. A HighLevel pipeline is only useful if it reflects the way your business actually sells. That’s why our free HighLevel Sales Pipelines & Opportunities training workshop isn’t simply about showing you where to click. We’ll look at how the HighLevel CRM works, but also at how you can design a sales process your team can actually use. This workshop is part of MarketerM8’s rolling programme of 13 free live HighLevel training workshops. Want Better Visibility of Your Sales Pipeline? Join our free live HighLevel Sales Pipelines & Opportunities workshop and learn how to turn your contacts and enquiries into a sales process you can actually manage. Register for the next Free HighLevel Sales Pipelines & Opportunities Training Workshop What Is a HighLevel Sales Pipeline? A HighLevel pipeline is a visual representation of a process. Most commonly, that will be your sales process. For example: New Enquiry → Contacted → Qualified → Appointment Booked → Proposal Sent → Won / Lost Each stage represents something meaningful that has happened in the relationship with the prospect. Your team can then see opportunities moving through the pipeline as each sale progresses. HighLevel’s own guidance recommends that pipeline stages reflect the actual steps in your sales process, rather than blindly adopting generic stage names. View HighLevel’s official Pipelines & Opportunities Getting Started guide → Contact, Opportunity, Pipeline and Stage: What’s the Difference? This is one of the most important concepts to understand when you start using HighLevel as a CRM. HighLevel describes the relationship as: Contact → Opportunity → Pipeline → Stage The Contact The contact is the person. For example: John Smith His contact record may contain his email address, telephone number, company details, communication history and other information. The Opportunity The opportunity represents the potential deal or sale. John Smith may be a contact in your database, but perhaps he’s also considering buying a £5,000 service from you. That potential £5,000 sale is the opportunity. The Pipeline The pipeline represents the overall process that the opportunity moves through. For example: New Business Sales Pipeline The Stage The stage tells you where that particular opportunity currently sits within the process. For example: Proposal Sent So we might have: John Smith → £5,000 potential deal → New Business Sales Pipeline → Proposal Sent Once you understand that distinction, the Opportunities area in HighLevel starts to make considerably more sense. Don’t Build Your Pipeline Around HighLevel This may sound odd in an article about HighLevel pipeline training, but I’d avoid opening HighLevel and immediately creating stages. Start with your existing sales process. Ask: What happens when a new enquiry arrives? Who is responsible for contacting them? What makes a lead qualified? Do they normally book an appointment? Do you send a quotation or proposal? What happens if they’re not ready to buy? What happens if they don’t respond? At what point do you consider the sale won? Why do you normally lose opportunities? Those answers should help define your pipeline. Design the sales process first. Configure HighLevel second. Keep Your HighLevel Pipeline Stages Meaningful One of the easiest mistakes to make is creating too many pipeline stages. More stages don’t necessarily give you better information. Every stage should answer a useful question about where the sale currently stands. For example: New Enquiry tells us the lead has arrived but hasn’t yet progressed. Qualified tells us we’ve established that this is a genuine potential opportunity. Appointment Booked tells us the next sales conversation has been arranged. Proposal Sent tells us the prospect has received an offer. A stage called something vague such as “Follow Up” may be less useful unless everybody on your team knows exactly what it means. HighLevel’s current pipeline guidance similarly recommends stages that are clear and action-oriented so users know when an opportunity should move forward. Your Pipeline Should Tell Your Team What Needs Attention A good sales pipeline isn’t simply a historical record. It should help your team decide what needs to happen next. Imagine opening HighLevel and seeing: 12 new enquiries nobody has contacted; 8 qualified prospects waiting to book a meeting; 5 proposals waiting for follow-up; and 3 deals that haven’t moved for three weeks. That gives your sales team something practical to work with. The pipeline becomes a management tool rather than simply another place to store information. HighLevel Opportunity Values Help You See Potential Revenue An opportunity can also have a potential monetary value associated with it. That means you can start thinking beyond: “How many opportunities do we have?” and towards: “What are those opportunities potentially worth?” For example: Opportunity Stage Potential Value Company A Qualified £2,500 Company B Proposal Sent £10,000 Company C Appointment Booked £4,000 Now you can start seeing not only how many opportunities are in the pipeline, but where potential revenue is sitting. HighLevel Opportunities Can Have Owners If several people sell within your business, responsibility matters. An opportunity shouldn’t simply sit in the pipeline with everyone assuming someone else is dealing with it. HighLevel allows opportunities to be assigned to owners. That means the business can see who is responsible for progressing a particular potential sale. This becomes increasingly important as your sales team grows. Open, Won, Lost and Abandoned Opportunities HighLevel also uses opportunity statuses to describe the overall outcome or current state of a deal. The current default statuses include: Open – the opportunity Read more…
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HighLevel for Cleaning Companies: CRM, Marketing, Automation, Field Service and AI

If you run a cleaning company, you probably didn’t start the business because you wanted to spend your evenings chasing enquiries, updating spreadsheets, sending appointment reminders and trying to remember which quotations need following up. But as a cleaning business grows, marketing and administration can quickly become almost as complicated as doing the cleaning itself. You need to generate enquiries, respond quickly, keep track of prospects, follow up quotations, communicate with customers, ask for reviews and encourage previous customers to use you again. Then there is the operational side of the business. Jobs need scheduling, cleaners need organising and customers need to know when somebody is arriving. This is where HighLevel can be particularly useful for cleaning companies. HighLevel can provide the marketing, CRM, sales and communications engine for the business. If you also need field service management, an application such as FieldTask can extend HighLevel into the operational side of running your cleaning company. I’ve worked with cleaning businesses at very different stages of development, from a startup through to established cleaning companies using HighLevel as part of much more sophisticated business systems. So rather than looking at what HighLevel could theoretically do for a cleaning company, let’s look at how it can actually be used. What Can a Cleaning Company Use HighLevel For? HighLevel brings together many of the systems a cleaning business might otherwise have to purchase separately. For example, a cleaning company can use HighLevel for: Websites and landing pages Enquiry forms CRM and contact management Sales pipelines Quote follow-up Email marketing SMS WhatsApp Appointment booking Automated reminders Facebook and Google advertising Review requests Customer reactivation campaigns Workflows and marketing automation Recruitment campaigns Voice AI and other AI tools This means an enquiry can come into the business and automatically become a contact in the CRM. That prospect can enter a sales pipeline, receive appropriate follow-up and move through the sales process. Once they become a customer, HighLevel can continue to manage communications, reminders, review requests and future marketing. Could HighLevel Work for Your Cleaning Company? If you’re considering HighLevel, let’s look at how your enquiries, sales, customer communication and field service currently work. Book a Discovery Call with Julian Is HighLevel Cleaning Business Management Software? Not really. HighLevel is extremely strong at marketing, sales, CRM, communications and automation. It isn’t primarily designed as field service management software. If you have cleaners or technicians travelling to customers, you may also need functionality such as job scheduling, dispatching, work orders, staff management, timesheets and tracking what happens in the field. This is where FieldTask becomes interesting. HighLevel + FieldTask for Cleaning Companies FieldTask is a field service management application designed specifically to work with HighLevel. Rather than having one system for your marketing and another completely disconnected system for running jobs, FieldTask extends what you can do with HighLevel into field service management. HighLevel can handle: Marketing → Enquiry → CRM → Sales Pipeline → Follow-up → Customer FieldTask can then help with: Job → Scheduling → Dispatch → Field Staff → Work Completed → Invoice FieldTask includes capabilities for managing jobs and work orders, scheduling and dispatching work, field teams, timesheets, invoicing and other aspects of service delivery. More importantly, it has been designed to work with HighLevel. Contacts, appointments, jobs, estimates, invoices and other information can remain connected between the marketing and operational sides of the business. For a smaller cleaning company, sole trader or growing cleaning business, HighLevel + FieldTask can therefore provide a very interesting combination. HighLevel attracts, converts and communicates with the customer. FieldTask helps manage the work once somebody needs to go out and deliver the cleaning service. A few years ago, this sort of joined-up CRM, marketing automation and field service technology was much more likely to be the preserve of larger businesses with substantial software and implementation budgets. Today, a small cleaning company can start putting together remarkably sophisticated systems without needing enterprise-level budgets. What If I Already Use ServiceM8 or Another Field Service System? Keep using it if it works for you. I’m not an advocate of replacing perfectly good software simply because something new has appeared. In fact, I’ve worked with cleaning companies that were already using ServiceM8 when HighLevel was introduced. The important question is what each piece of software needs to do. If you’re already successfully using ServiceM8, Jobber or another field service management application, HighLevel can potentially become the marketing, CRM and communications layer around your existing system. If you’re starting from scratch, or particularly want field service management designed to work closely with HighLevel, I would also look at FieldTask. The right solution depends on the complexity of the business. Example 1: Using HighLevel From the Startup Stage One cleaning business I work with started using HighLevel right at the beginning of its journey. The owner was already using field service software to help with service delivery, but he needed something else. He needed to market the business. We worked with him to build the company’s website inside HighLevel and put the marketing and sales infrastructure around the new business. Leads come from several sources, including referrals, social media and Facebook advertising. Social media has been particularly useful, with the owner creating videos featuring happy customers and sharing them through channels such as TikTok. We’ve also used HighLevel’s Ad Manager for Facebook advertising. When somebody makes an enquiry, the opportunity can be managed through a HighLevel sales pipeline, providing a structured process for following up potential customers. This is a good example of why HighLevel and field service software solve different problems. The field service system was already helping manage service delivery. HighLevel was introduced to help market and grow the business. From Finding Customers to Finding Staff More recently, the challenge has changed. The owner has become busy delivering cleaning jobs and simply doesn’t always have enough time to work on the marketing. This is a problem I see in many owner-managed businesses. Having marketing software doesn’t mean the marketing magically Read more…
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HighLevel for Carpet and Flooring Companies: Marketing, CRM, Sales, Payments and Field Service

Running a carpet or flooring company involves much more than fitting floors. You need to generate enquiries, answer calls, arrange measuring appointments, prepare quotations, follow them up, take deposits, schedule jobs, keep customers informed, collect final payments and generate reviews. For a larger nationwide flooring company, building systems around all of that might once have meant investing in expensive CRM, marketing automation, call handling, payment and field service software. For a smaller flooring company or sole trader, that kind of technology could easily have felt out of reach. That is changing. Today, a small independent flooring business can have access to marketing and CRM technology that only a few years ago would largely have been the preserve of businesses with substantial IT and marketing budgets. One combination I think is particularly interesting is HighLevel plus FieldTask. HighLevel can manage the marketing, enquiries, CRM, appointments, follow-up, sales, customer communication and payments. FieldTask can then manage the operational side of sending people out into the field and completing the flooring job. That gives you two specialist systems working together rather than trying to force one piece of software to do absolutely everything. The Typical Customer Journey for a Flooring Company Think about what happens when somebody decides they need new flooring. They might find you on Google, see an advert on Facebook, receive a recommendation or already know your business. Google, Facebook or Referral ↓ Website Enquiry or Phone Call ↓ Initial Conversation ↓ Home Measuring Appointment ↓ Quote ↓ Follow-Up ↓ Customer Accepts ↓ Deposit or Payment ↓ Job Scheduled ↓ Flooring Delivered and Fitter Assigned ↓ Installation ↓ Final Payment ↓ Review Request ↓ Future Marketing and Referrals There are really two sides to this process. The first is winning and managing the customer. The second is delivering the job. That is why I like the idea of using HighLevel and FieldTask together. HighLevel manages the customer. FieldTask manages the job. HighLevel as the Marketing and CRM System for a Flooring Company HighLevel is particularly strong at the front end of the customer journey. Through MarketerM8, it can become the central marketing, sales and CRM platform for a carpet or flooring business. Rather than having enquiries spread across email inboxes, spreadsheets, phones, Facebook messages and different apps, you can bring much more of the customer journey together around a central CRM record. Generate Enquiries Through Your Website and Landing Pages Your flooring website should do more than show photographs of previous installations. It should generate enquiries. You might create dedicated pages for services such as: Carpet fitting Luxury vinyl tile Laminate flooring Hardwood flooring Commercial flooring Vinyl flooring Floor restoration Home measuring and fitting Someone searching for a particular flooring service can arrive on the relevant page, complete a form or make contact and have their enquiry added directly to HighLevel. That means the sales process can start immediately. Bring Flooring Leads Into One CRM Not every flooring enquiry will come through your website. A prospective customer might contact you through telephone, website forms, Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, Facebook Lead Ads, WhatsApp or email. HighLevel can bring much of this activity together around the customer’s contact record. That is important because one of the biggest problems I see in small businesses is not necessarily generating too few leads. It is failing to properly follow up the leads they already have. I call this the leaky bucket problem. I explain this in more detail in How HighLevel Fixes the Leaky Bucket That’s Costing Your Business Leads, Sales and Revenue. What Happens When You Miss a Call? Missed calls are particularly relevant for flooring businesses. If you are measuring someone’s house, talking to a customer in the showroom, unloading flooring or actually fitting a floor, you may not be able to answer your phone. Unfortunately, the person calling may simply move down the Google results and ring the next flooring company. HighLevel can automatically respond to a missed call. Customer Calls ↓ Nobody Answers ↓ HighLevel Automatically Sends an SMS ↓ Customer Replies ↓ Conversation Continues Inside Your CRM You can go further too. HighLevel can be used with AI voice technology to answer calls, gather information and potentially book appointments. I have written more about this in Looking for a Small Business Phone System? Why HighLevel Could Replace Your Office Phones and CRM. Book and Manage Home Measuring Appointments For many carpet and flooring companies, the measuring appointment is one of the most important parts of the sales process. The customer has made an enquiry. The next objective is to get somebody into the property, understand what they want, measure the rooms and gather the information required to prepare a quotation. HighLevel can help manage that process. The customer can be booked into a calendar for a home measuring appointment, with that appointment attached to their contact record. You can then automate much of the administration around it. New Flooring Enquiry ↓ Measuring Appointment Booked ↓ Confirmation Sent ↓ Automatic Reminder ↓ Estimator Visits the Property ↓ Measurements and Notes Recorded ↓ Quote Prepared ↓ Opportunity Moves to Quote Sent You could have different calendars for different estimators, salespeople, showrooms or geographical areas. The person carrying out the appointment can also access the customer’s information through the HighLevel mobile app while away from the office. At this stage, you are still trying to win the business, so it makes sense for the measuring appointment to remain part of the HighLevel sales process. Once the customer accepts the quote and places the order, the operational side of the job can begin. Keep Customers Updated by Text and WhatsApp HighLevel can also help you keep the customer informed throughout the process using SMS and WhatsApp. For example, you could automatically send measuring appointment confirmations, appointment reminders, quote follow-ups, deposit confirmations, fitting date confirmations, job updates, completion messages and review requests. Customers can reply too, with the conversation kept against their contact record. For a small flooring business, this can make the whole Read more…
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Can I Use HighLevel to Send Cold Emails?

If you’re already using HighLevel for your CRM, email marketing and marketing automation, you might reasonably ask: Can I use my HighLevel account to send cold emails? The short answer is yes, technically HighLevel can send cold emails. But for most businesses, I wouldn’t recommend using your main HighLevel email infrastructure for cold email campaigns. For serious B2B cold email prospecting, I recommend using a dedicated cold email platform for the initial outreach and then bringing interested prospects and leads into HighLevel. This protects your main email infrastructure and lets you use HighLevel for what it does particularly well: managing, nurturing and converting genuine sales opportunities. Can HighLevel Send Cold Emails? Technically, yes. However, there is an important difference between something being technically possible and it being the best way to structure your outbound marketing. HighLevel’s email guidance recommends precautions around cold outreach, including: Validating email addresses before sending Using bounce protection Sending in smaller batches Warming your sending domain Separating cold outreach from your normal sending infrastructure Using a separate domain rather than risking your primary business domain HighLevel has also recommended using purpose-built cold email tools to qualify prospects before importing them into HighLevel. That’s essentially the same approach I recommend to HighLevel clients. Why I Don’t Recommend Cold Emailing From Your Main HighLevel Setup Your email reputation is valuable. When you’re using HighLevel to communicate with customers, enquiries, subscribers and genuine sales opportunities, you want those messages reaching people’s inboxes. Cold email introduces additional risk. You’re contacting people who may never have heard of your business. That can potentially mean more bounces, lower engagement and more spam complaints. Those signals can damage your sending reputation. If your main business domain becomes associated with poor-quality or unwanted email, you could potentially affect the deliverability of the emails you actually care about. That’s why I wouldn’t recommend simply obtaining a database of thousands of prospects, uploading them into your normal HighLevel account and starting a large automated cold email workflow. There is a better way. Use a Dedicated Cold Email Platform For cold outreach, I prefer to separate your prospecting infrastructure from your CRM and marketing infrastructure. There are specialist cold email platforms designed specifically for this job. HighLevel itself has referenced platforms such as Instantly and Smartlead in its email guidance. My personal favourite is QuickProsp. Dedicated cold email platforms can provide functionality specifically designed for outbound prospecting, such as multiple sending mailboxes, mailbox rotation, email warm-up, sending sequences, bounce monitoring and personalised outreach. That’s a different job from the one I primarily want HighLevel doing. HighLevel is where I want to manage the relationship once somebody becomes a genuine lead. Protect Your Main Business Domain Another important part of a sensible cold email strategy is separating your cold outreach infrastructure from your main business email infrastructure. Rather than conducting cold outreach through the same domain your team relies upon for everyday communication, dedicated secondary domains and sending mailboxes can be used for outbound prospecting. Those mailboxes can be configured correctly and gradually warmed before significant outreach begins. A specialist cold email platform can then distribute the campaign appropriately across those mailboxes. The objective isn’t simply: How many cold emails can we send? A much better question is: How can we generate conversations with potential customers while protecting the email reputation of the business? Is Cold Email Legal in the UK? Cold email is not automatically illegal in the UK. However, the rules depend on who you’re contacting, what information you’re using and the circumstances surrounding the campaign. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) distinguishes between corporate subscribers and individual subscribers under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Corporate subscribers include organisations such as limited companies and limited liability partnerships. According to current ICO guidance, the PECR electronic-mail marketing rule does not require prior consent when sending B2B marketing emails to corporate subscribers. However, you must not conceal your identity and you must provide a valid way for the recipient to opt out of future marketing. Sole traders and certain types of partnerships are different. They are treated as individual subscribers under PECR. Unsolicited marketing emails to them generally require consent unless the requirements of the soft opt-in are satisfied. If you don’t know whether an address belongs to a corporate or individual subscriber, the ICO recommends treating it as an individual subscriber. What About UK GDPR? UK GDPR can still apply to B2B cold email where you are processing personal data. For example, an email address identifying a particular employee or director can constitute personal data even though you’re contacting that person in their business capacity. You therefore need an appropriate lawful basis for processing that person’s data and must meet the relevant transparency requirements. Legitimate interests may sometimes provide an appropriate lawful basis for B2B direct marketing, but it isn’t automatic. You need to consider the purpose of the processing, whether it is necessary and whether the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms override your interests. You should also honour objections to direct marketing and maintain an appropriate suppression or do-not-contact list. You can read the current ICO guidance on B2B direct marketing here. This article provides general information rather than legal advice. If you’re unsure about the legality of a particular campaign or database, take appropriate professional advice. Does Cold Email Break HighLevel’s Terms of Service? This needs a little more nuance than simply saying: “Cold emailing is against HighLevel’s Terms of Service.” HighLevel’s current Terms prohibit using the platform in violation of applicable laws or regulations and prohibit unlawful advertising, junk mail, spam and similar solicitation. The Terms also make the user responsible for ensuring they have the necessary consents, permissions and authorisations required under the applicable law before contacting recipients. So I wouldn’t interpret HighLevel’s ability to technically send a cold email as permission to upload any prospect database and start sending. You are responsible for ensuring that your particular campaign complies with the applicable rules. You can read the current HighLevel Terms Read more…
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