One CRM Replaced My Tech Stack and Centralised Every Client Message | Ep 282

Please note: This transcript was generated using automated transcription tools and may contain typographical errors or inaccurately captured words or phrases.

Dr Steve Day: About two years ago, I missed an important message from one of my clients. It led to a bit of an embarrassing situation, and I had to apologize. And I just felt the whole thing could\'ve been avoided massively. See, I\'m really bad at checking my messages, whether it\'s WhatsApp or social media or text messages or emails.

But I\'ve figured out ways to get other people to deal with things like emails and social media for me. The problem lied when things were in texts or WhatsApp. Today, I wanna talk about how I solved that problem, the platform I now use. And all the other stuff that platform now does, which I was totally not looking for. But has transformed my subscription bill or reduced my subscription bill, I should say, massively for apps. And also just streamlined the whole of my IT infrastructure.

Today\'s episode is all about CRMs. But I didn\'t start out this journey to find a new CRM. I was looking for a way to better my communications. To give my team access to the stuff that was currently locked into my phone. Things like my SMS messages and also some of my WhatsApps as well. You can use things like WhatsApp Web, but it was clunky and it got disconnected from time to time. And if I wasn\'t around or, you know, wasn\'t available to actually log back in for them, then it could be days before someone actually picked up on an important message.

And that\'s exactly what happened in the circumstance or the situation which led me to go into a long process of figuring out how to improve and centralize all the communication in my business. I wanted a single place of reference that when I look at a particular client or a contact in my CRM, I could see everything that was said to them by anyone in my team.

That, to me, seemed like a pretty logical way to do business. You have one place to go and you can see all the threads. But the way I had things set up with the CRM I had at the time, which was ActiveCampaign. Using WhatsApp on my phone because it\'s convenient. Using emails and social media and everything. And it was just things weren\'t connected.

If I sent a text message, it was from my phone. If someone sent me a WhatsApp, it was, yeah, in WhatsApp Web, whatever, but sometimes it wasn\'t in my CRM. And so often we\'d have threads of conversations spanning different channels. It would get confusing at best or just completely missed at worst. And if my team were involved as well and they were communicating with the particular contact or client, it got even more messy.

And so I just thought there must be a simple and better way of dealing with all this. That wasn\'t as simple to fix as I thought it would be. I went round the houses on looking at different solutions like Twilio and some WhatsApp services. I looked at different CRMs and eventually landed on what I now use, which is GoHighLevel.

GoHighLevel is a CRM, so a Customer or client Relationship Management tool. So it does all the normal stuff that a CRM does, like email marketing and campaigns and, all your text messaging as well. But it also has some plugins that allow you to do other stuff. And one of them was this cool plugin for WhatsApp. Now, most CRMs have the ability to use WhatsApp Business. And that\'s not what I\'m talking about here.

What I\'m talking about is using a normal WhatsApp account. It could be a Business WhatsApp, or it could just be a personal WhatsApp. But using it through GoHighLevel, just like you are sending it from your phone. And the difference between using this way of doing it and using a typical Business WhatsApp through the API, as it\'s called. Like for example, if you have a WhatsApp widget on your website and someone sends you a message, then you can reply to them.

That\'s the typical way of using WhatsApp Business for a page or a communication tool. But the problem with that is that if someone messages you, you can reply in the next 24 hours. If you miss that window, you can\'t send them a message. You can send them a templated, pre-approved message to restart that conversation. And then they can reply, and you\'ve got another 24-hour window.

It doesn\'t really lend itself to natural conversations. Especially when I\'m talking about my own clients who are not, I\'m not trying to pitch anything to them. I\'m trying to help them. I\'m trying to reach out and say, \"Hey, I\'ve not spoken to you in a few days. How are things going?\" Or, yeah, keeping people accountable or letting them know of a change to a, you know, a meeting that I\'ve booked with them. And I need to actually just reschedule it quickly.

Rather than going through email, which you just get lost sometimes in the whole inbox craziness or inbox chaos. I wanted to be able to send a WhatsApp message. I thought this would be a really simple thing to do. But it ended up landing that I had to do it from my phone. This meant that, as I said before, that some messages were coming from my phone. Some messages were coming from my CRM. Some messages would be coming by text message. Or I might even be sending stuff, we used to send stuff by, Facebook, Messenger as well.

So we had loads of different threads and loads of different ways of communicating with our clients. Oh, and I\'ve also got my community platform. So I\'ve got another place there, which is another thing altogether of having a separate direct messenger thing within my community. But I wanted to figure out a way that I could have everything in one place.

And WhatsApp, integrated with GoHighLevel using a third-party plugin, this is the essential thing. And the one I use is called WhatsApp Web. Means that I can literally send WhatsApp either from my phone or from GoHighLevel. And they appear in both places simultaneously. Same with emails. I can send an email from my Gmail account or from my GoHighLevel account, and they appear in both places simultaneously.

This means wherever I look to try to find a thread of conversations, it\'s all centralized. I don\'t get lost in trying to remember where I send stuff. I don\'t need to because it\'s all there. You can also pull in all the social media stuff like you can with most CRMs, things like LinkedIn messaging and, Facebook page messages and WhatsApp Business typical messaging.

You can pull all that in as well. But this was the addition of the normal, natural conversation that I wanted to figure out. What this allows me to do is to have a separate Business WhatsApp that I use for my, just working with my clients. And my staff can actually access that. So when I\'m not paying attention to my phone, which is most of the time, like, for example, I don\'t have, the ringer on my phone ever. I have notifications switched off because that\'s the way I keep my brain less distracted.

And I want to therefore have somebody else being able to monitor things for me. Just like I do with my email inbox. I don\'t have my email inbox open. I rarely check it unless I know that, you know, I\'m waiting for an important message from a solicitor or something, I might keep an eye on it.

The rest of the time, I let my team go in and check things for me. And then let me know when there\'s something that I need to actually deal with. And I want the same thing for WhatsApp, and that is what GoHighLevel with the plugins allow you to do. There are other plugins out there. Some of them are different, have different price points depending on if you want multiple WhatsApp accounts linked to a single GoHighLevel. Or like me, you just have one per GoHighLevel account. Lots of ways you can do this.

But the point is this combination allowed it to happen. So that was the reason that I went looking for a new CRM. But what I actually discovered in doing this was that the CRM I was using, which was ActiveCampaign, had served me well for quite a while. But it lacked some key features. And some stuff that I wasn\'t even aware of.

Like, at the time I was looking, I was paying for quite a few different apps. Because they worked much better than the apps sort of within ActiveCampaign. Or that ActiveCampaign just didn\'t have that functionality. Or it allowed you to plug things in. And that\'s what I was doing. I was using third-party apps, plugging them into ActiveCampaign. So it was all sort of synced. But I was ending up paying for lots of, subscriptions, which I didn\'t really need to.

Things like, I had a Calendly subscription. I had a DocuSign subscription, I had my ActiveCampaign subscription, obviously. I was also using a completely separate checkout thing called ThriveCart for doing my transactions. And so all of these have associated subscription costs. But also they all need to talk to each other. And they all need to stay synced, and therein lies another problem.

Like, when you\'ve got multiple apps and you have contacts in each of those apps that are the same contact, if you like. If one thing happens in one app, it\'s not reflected in another app. You can centralize things in your CRM. But then in the individual apps, you can\'t see the interactions. You\'re always jumping between stuff. And it just gets messy.

You\'ve also got to train your staff on using multiple different platforms. So if you want people to manage all this stuff for you, you\'ve got to figure out, you know, do you add them as users and pay for more licenses? Do you have separate training for each of these different apps you\'re using?

And this is what we did. We had training and operation manuals for using DocuSign. We had training and operation manuals for using ThriveCart. We had training and operation manuals for using ActiveCampaign. So it means we have to start tripling or quadrupling or whatever the amount of work we had to do, the amount of apps we had to learn. And the am- amount of integrations and syncing that had to happen.

After I moved from ActiveCampaign to GoHighLevel, with the primary reason for centralizing my comms. I realized that GoHighLevel has most of these apps, well, actually all of the ones I\'ve mentioned, integrated. And a lot more besides.

So while the intention was to sort out my communication, what it actually allowed me to do was to simplify all of my apps. Across calendars, across my checkouts, across my communications, all into one place. Meaning that I reduce my bills and make it far, far simpler for my team.

Another one which I later figured out I could do in ActiveCampaign was my automations. So I was using Zapier, and we still use Zapier for some stuff. But it\'s more and more moving into using GoHighLevel as the central platform. So I\'ve actually reduced my subscription on Zapier now from a pro account, or whatever it\'s called, down to a basic account. Because all of the high volume stuff I was doing was all around the integrations between my clients and customers and coaching, et cetera.

That\'s all the stuff that happens, like, regularly for me on a day-to-day basis. And because all my clients are in my CRM, it\'s much easier to do it directly from the CRM. And so now huge amounts of my automations have now been pushed into Zapier as well.

So I\'m just gonna run through some of the stuff that I currently do in GoHighLevel. Which previously was spread across other apps. And just to put this in context before I do this. I\'ve not just used GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign before. I\'ve also used HubSpot and Infusionsoft, which is now called Keap. And also Insightly as well. And a couple of other CRMs beside over the years.

I\'ve moved CRMs more times than I\'d like to admit to. And the cost in terms of time, of relearning, of retraining teams, of lost data is massive. And I didn\'t want to do this again. So I wanted to make sure that the app that I actually chose this time was one that I was gonna stick with for the long term. So I was happy to find out that, yes, GoHighLevel did everything I needed it to and a lot more besides.

And this is some of the stuff that I currently do in GoHighLevel. So we\'ve got full calendar management. Which means that all of my calendars, so when someone books a meeting with me, or we run an event, or it\'s a coaching call, I can provide someone with a widget. And they basically can book a call in.

And it appears automatically in my CRM. It sends them reminders out. They can link it to their calendar, and it appears directly in my Google Calendar. And one of the cool things that I think with GoHighLevel is if I then move that event in my Google Calendar, it automatically syncs back to the CRM. And then lets the client know the event has been moved. So it\'s meaning that I\'m basically managing things from my Google Calendar, instead of having to go into my CRM even. It\'s all absolutely synced.

Another thing we do is sales pages and funnels. So all of our tools, for example, that we share on this, or the guides, sorry, that we share on this podcast at sys.academy/guides, they\'re all linked onto pages which are hosted on GoHighLevel. This means that I can see when people land on them. When they put their details into a form, they go straight into my CRM. I can see if they clicked on the next page, if they opened the thing that they\'ve downloaded, et cetera. I can track all that seamlessly because it\'s all in one place.

It also allows me to put checkouts on there. So GoHighLevel has a built-in checkout service that links to things like Stripe and PayPal and Apple Pay and all the rest of it. And so I can have my pages for my free stuff, and also can have my paid pages as well. And again, it\'s all in one place. So I\'m not syncing my contacts between all these different services.

The calendar, the checkout, whatever it is. It\'s all happening in the same place. Which means there\'s so much less in terms of automation maintenance than I had previously. Another thing that I was totally unaware of when I signed up for it, was it does DocuSign stuff as well. And what I mean by that is, is e-signatures on documents.

So when a client signs up with me, I will send them a terms and conditions which I ask them to sign. This used to be done by my virtual assistant picking up the fact we had a new sale in ThriveCart. And then there were task would be created in Asana for them to then go away and upload the client details into DocuSign, send it to them. And then go and chase them up if they didn\'t actually sign the document.

It was pretty labor-intensive, as most things are when you start creating systems, in business. And I wanted to automate this entirely. And GoHighLevel allowed me to do that. So I reduced the cost of having DocuSign. And also it means that when someone pays in GoHighLevel for a service, whatever that is, it automatically registers them as, you know, a new client.

They automatically get sent the document to sign, and it automatically chases them up. When they sign it, it\'s automatically added to their client record. So it keeps everything in one place. And I can find any of that information out wherever I want. As I mentioned before, I\'ve also reduced my Zapier bill by building a lot of my automations directly in the CRM now. Which has massively simplified stuff as well.

I used to have my Zapier account basically getting information from my CRM, passing it somewhere else, then coming back and putting it back into my CRM. It was massively, just like duplication for the sake of it. It just, it was frustrating of how technical it was to do some of the simpler stuff. And a lot of that has been simplified.

It\'s not simple. It\'s been simplified. So the automations are still complex. They\'re not, it\'s not just easy to do complex automations between different apps in any platform. But, the having it all centrally in my CRM has made it far, far simpler than it was. And there\'s some cool things as well you can do in GoHighLevel.

So for example, I have, in my community, I have a client, and then a client has staff. And so those staff are associated with the client. So if the client upgrades their account, all the staff needs to be upgraded. If the client leaves, all the staff need to be deleted, for example. And so what I can do in GoHighLevel is actually associate different contacts together.

So everyone, for example, who has the same company name will be linked together. And then I can deal with them as one unit. Which again, massively simplified some of my automations. Which used to involve lookups on spreadsheets and other complex stuff, which just basically broke half the time. And I was the only one that knew how to fix it. So I end up doing a lot of the work that I was trying to offload and automate. Because I was the only one that actually had the knowledge of how the whole thing was set up.

Now it\'s much simpler. It\'s in GoHighLevel using the system the way they intend it to be used. So I don\'t have to create training on how it\'s all done. I just need to tell people how I\'ve set it up. But the core training on, you know, how the functionality works is actually part of the GoHighLevel system. So another thing that I really like.

Another part of GoHighLevel, which is similar to many other CRMs out there, is you can have pipelines. So I can set up a, in effect, a Kanban style board where people are moved from one stage to the next. Depending on where they are in some sort of pipeline. Could be a sales pipeline, an onboarding pipeline.

So it could be that they\'ve inquired, they\'ve been followed up. They\'ve booked a call, they\'ve had the call, they\'ve been sent a proposal, they\'ve follow-up call. They\'re now, made a purchase, they\'ve become a client. And we can track that so we can see where people are up to in that journey.

Another cool thing is this thing called Custom Objects, which I\'m sure other CRMs have, but I\'ve never seen it before. And I\'m sure it\'s something that, you know, it\'s a HubSpot and the like have probably got now. But it means that you can create different relationships between different people.

So for example, I\'ve got a client who is an estate agent. And they have properties, they have landlords, and they have tenants. So one property could have, will have one landlord, but one landlord may have many properties. And one property may have many tenants, but each tenant would only have one property.

So you have these different one-to-many and many-to-many relationships between different entities in your business. And it could be anything. Could be whatever widgets you sell or you have in your business, you know, that was, you can set up a Custom Object. And then create these relationships between them.

And that means that you can sync things much more easily. So if a change happens in a property, then obviously all of the tenants in that property need to be notified. And so there\'s a way you can do that and link things together. Personally, it\'s not something, except for the company relationship I talked about before, which is, it is an object, but it\'s a built-in custom object. Not custom, it\'s a built-in object.

But the company object is like how you can link people by a company name. That\'s something that\'s just built into the actual goHighLevel infrastructure. But you can create these custom objects. And it\'s not something, as I said, I use, but my clients have used it with really good success to simplify how things are all synced together.

And the other thing that I think is probably the best I\'ve seen so far, but things are moving fast in this arena, and that is AI. So when I started using GoHighLevel, they seemed to be really ahead of the game in some respects with regards to the AI voice and the AI chat. And they\'re just piling more and more AI in.

And I\'m, sure that other CRMs are doing the same as well. So I\'m sure this isn\'t unique to GoHighLevel. But with regards to how to better use AI natively in an app, I think CRM\'s a great example of that. So for example, I could have a AI agent set up that when someone sends me a text message or even an email, or it could be a WhatsApp. And says, \"Hey Steve, can I book a call with you?\"

It can then go and check with that client record, see what subscription they\'re on. And then offer them the right calendar appointment or booking link depending on, you know, what they\'re entitled to. Or it could be that I have an answerphone service. And again, I\'ve not done the answerphone service. But I have got a client that\'s done this.

And the answerphone will, so the AI agent will answer the phone for the business, and then direct the call to the right place or take a message. And when I say take a message, it\'s not less like taking a recorded message. Like the AI can actually fill out forms, it can direct people to different places.

It can pass it from one AI agent to another as well. And so you can take lots of information initially in a call. Pass that, say for example, to a sales agent and they can then follow that up. And it can do this in a real natural way, asking questions like, \"Oh, what\'s your name and your phone number?\" Or just finding out information.

And, this is I think one of the coolest things I\'ve seen, is that your AI can have access to all of the knowledge within your CRM that you give it permission to see, of course. And so you can build a knowledge base, which is managed by AI, but built for AI. That allows your AIs to communicate with people who are inquiring about your services. By pulling information from all of the knowledge base articles that you\'ve given it access to.

So it could be about your products or your services or your refund policies or whatever it is. And so you can have these agents fielding a lot of the stuff. And it\'s all built into the platform. I\'m sure you\'ve seen or, and experienced all of these types of things. You know, when you go onto someone\'s website and you start having an annoying conversation with an AI. You can do that too.

You can set it all up and you can annoy other people. But you can do it in a way that doesn\'t annoy people. It can be in a way that you can easily pass things over to a human, or you can just take a message and send them back. You can use it in lots of different ways.

But it means you don\'t have to have this 24/7 coverage that, you know, many of my clients say they work in property and they have businesses. Sorry, they have property and they have clients arriving all times of night. They\'re in short lets. And it\'s allowing them to create a gatekeeper between them and the out of hours services. So the AI gatekeeper can answer most questions.

So any questions that\'s been asked before goes into the knowledge base. And if it\'s, for example, I had one client that was actually the key codes to get into a specific property. If the person phoned up and said, \"Hey, I dunno what the code is for my property.\" They could check the name, check some details for security or whatever. And then say, \"Yeah, no problem, here\'s the key code,\" by pulling it out of this client record or from a, you know, a database which holds that sort of information.

And so it was allowing them to reduce their overhead on, like out of our services by actually putting an AI as the, as I say, the gatekeeper. And anything that the AI can\'t deal with, it just gets passed on.

So massive, massive savings in terms of subscription costs. But also in staff costs as well, that I see just for me now, but also going forward as we grow the business as well. Couple other things that I, that we use it for. One of the newest things is actually the Reputation Management. And this is about collecting reviews from your clients or your customers.

And it\'s been there for ages. I\'ve just, you know, so much in there that I\'ve not actually, you know, looked at it all. And one of the, what it allows you to do is to send a request to say, \"Hey, can you leave me a review?\" And send them a link to, say, a Google business profile or to a Facebook page. And they will then leave the review on there, and it\'ll then appear on your page.

But what I wanted was an app that I was just about to pay for. Which was to send them a link for them to record a short video saying, \"Hey, I\'ve worked with Steve. He was great. You know, go and work with him if you\'ve been thinking about it. He\'s amazing, wahaha,\" That sort of thing. And so I was going out looking.

And my, one of my coaches suggested us a particular app, for doing this, the one that he used. And I thought I\'d just check with GoHighLevel. And this is one of the things I love about GoHighLevel, they literally are launching new stuff all the time. It\'s hard to keep up, but it means there is loads of cool stuff out there.

And I went into the, what\'s called the Labs, which is like the beta testing thing, and sure enough, there was a Video Review Capture tool. And what that allows me to do is to send a link. The person clicks the link. It literally fires up a camera.

It\'s got, it tells them what, like, the questions on the screen. So side by side, they got the questions. And then they\'ve got the camera. And they just hit record. They record a two-minute video, click, upload, done. And then that arrives and sits on my, wall of fame, so to speak, where all my reviews go. And so I have one for written reviews. I\'ve got one for Facebook and, Google reviews. And then I\'ve got this one now for my video reviews.

So going forward, it means that I can automate the process of collecting reviews. I can give people multiple options about the channel they want to do it on, written or Facebook or video. And when they send that stuff in, it will automatically, with approval. Because obviously we want to just have a look at reviews before they actually get posted off. Just in case it\'s a fake spam review like we used to get all the time on WordPress.

So we can say, \"No, it\'s not spam,\" like put it up there, great. But it will then automatically go onto whatever webpage we\'ve put this widget on. So we\'ve got a widget that\'s going on my webpage shortly. Which has got, like, a bunch of reviews that we\'ve had in the past.

We\'ve got new video reviews going on there. And it\'ll mean that when a new review is added, it automatically arrives on my website, which is awesome. It\'s just another thing not to have to think about. Because I\'ve been really bad at actually publishing all the reviews we get. We get loads of reviews.

I\'ve had some amazing, amazing feedback from people over the years. And no one sees it. Because it\'s always been a challenge to go into WordPress and edit the page and fit it in and make it look good. And so it just doesn\'t get done. This now will allow me to automate that, which is awesome.

Another big feature I think of GoHighLevel, which most CRM don\'t have, is the community and the courses aspect as well. Now, I must say we don\'t use the community and the courses. Because I have already set things up on our platform Circle. And Circle is, at the level I\'ve got it, better.

But I pay over three grand a year, £3,000 UK a year for my Circle membership or my Circle account. And there\'s some better, easier AI features and automatic transcripts. And a better universal search, for example, that searches across all of the courses. The transcripts for lessons, the podcasts that I\'ve ever written, all my knowledge base articles.

So my clients have got a cool AI agent that sits in the community and will answer loads of their questions for them. You can set it all up in GoHighLevel to do very similar stuff. But it\'s just not as slick and it\'s a little bit more work to actually set it up. Which is why I avoided it, you know, whenever it was, 18 months ago when I was thinking about should I go down the Circle route or GoHighLevel route.

However, like I\'ve got a client who I\'ve explained, you know, these pros and cons of both to, and they\'re going to go down the GoHighLevel route. Because, well, it\'s free. And it\'s means it\'s one less integration. They don\'t have to have, like I have, dozens of complex automations to link GoHighLevel and Circle together to keep everything nicely synced.

They\'re just going to have everything in GoHighLevel. Which reduces the stress and overheads and technicality and cost. Means that they can basically create it all in one place. And you can have courses and quizzes and certificates and communities and levels and scoreboards and gamification and all that stuff, all that jazz. And it works pretty well. A little bit more to set up. But actually once you\'re in, it\'s pretty good.

So yeah, that\'s a quick rundown of basically some of the cool stuff that I do with GoHighLevel. There\'s probably a few more things besides that I\'ve actually forgotten. But primarily the reason for sharing this is because I\'ve never really talked at like how impressed I am by GoHighLevel.

I will say that it is not without its faults. Like sometimes it just doesn\'t load for, you know, a minute or two, which is really frustrating when you\'re just trying to get on with stuff. And sometimes things, the functionality just doesn\'t quite work and they\'re not quite, you know, ironed out their bugs yet.

And it is a relatively young app when you compare it to something like, Infusionsoft or, Keap or, HubSpot, for example. Which have been around for a lot longer, and they\'re much bigger companies if you look at their, revenue and et cetera on the, listings. But what they do is fix problems, create new features, they listen to their community, and they\'re constantly developing it.

And lastly, another massive selling point, I want, should\'ve mentioned this earlier, is that GoHighLevel, you pay for a single subscription And you then get unlimited users, and you get three separate CRM accounts that you could potentially use for three different businesses.

So I, for example, had a client who was, using Keap. And she had a, tourism business. And she decided to flip this into, split this into three: a restaurant business, a bespoke tour business, and a pilgrimage business. And she was in this position where she was gonna have to pay three times.

It was HubSpot, sorry, she was on. She was on HubSpot. She would have to pay three times for HubSpot, which was gonna cost her way over £1,000 a year, and probably more like £2,000 a year when she actually started developing them and getting all the features.

Whereas she just got one account in GoHighLevel, which was at the time of recording, it\'s like $97. And then she could basically create the three separate businesses, which have three contact lists because they\'re completely separate entities, in one account, agency account for one cost and manage it all centrally with one bill. So for her, it was just this, you know, it just happened at the right time. I got into it. I\'d seen what it could do.

I suggested it as an alternative to HubSpot, and then we had this idea, well, she had this idea of splitting the business. It became a no-brainer. But a lot of my other clients are using it, and they\'ll have one account or one, account that they have. They use that for the main business, and they\'ve got another.

I\'ve got one of my clients who uses one of the other accounts for a charity that he runs. And so there\'s loads of opportunities. So for me, I\'ve got my main marketing arm of the business, so to speak. So anyone who\'s not a client, all the outgoing, so that\'s got my, the, phone number that\'s visible to the outside world or my WhatsApp number that\'s on my website, all those sorts of things.

And that\'s in one subaccount. Then when you become a client of mine, you get into a, you get passed into the next CRM, which means I can now share with you the phone number that\'s on my phone because I want to be able to interact with you as a client. I don\'t want to interact on my phone with people from the outside world because I don\'t know who they are.

I want to interact with them in my business. I want my staff to deal with that as well. But I don\'t want them to be, you know, pinging me at, you know, at, 7:00 in the morning. It\'s stressing me out. So I keep it separate, and that for me has worked really well. It means all the automations are separate, the clients are separate, everything\'s separate, which actually there\'s a little bit of, cross-referencing if you like sometimes.

But, other than that, it\'s actually been, really cool. So, you know, if you\'re interested in checking it out, I, I do have an affiliate link. I don\'t mind if you don\'t use it or not, but it\'s at sys.academy/tools. You\'ll find my affiliate link on there, and it gives you a couple of weeks of free trial.

I don\'t know if that\'s a bonus on top of what you normally get or not. I\'d massively appreciate it if you did want to check it out and use it. sys.academy/tools, as you know, it just helps support me producing more podcasts. But yeah, go and check it out. I think there\'s loads of stuff on the internet about it.

It\'s one of those platforms. I\'ve got one more thing you need to know before you go. I\'ll share that in a second. It\'s one of those platforms which has got loads of community people behind it, loads of people producing stuff on YouTube about how to use it, which is a good and a bad thing. It\'s great because you can find the answers to what you want to do pretty much for anything pretty quickly.

But there\'s also can be a bit of an overwhelm So two things is I always go to GoHighLevel central knowledge base first, and this is goes for any app. I always go to the app provider first before I go looking on YouTube, so I don\'t go down some rabbit hole. And then if I can\'t find what I want, I\'ll go elsewhere.

The second thing to note, and this is specifically for GoHighLevel and maybe some other CRMs beside, but none of the big ones that I\'ve mentioned previously, is that GoHighLevel is built for agencies in some respects. It\'s probably the reason you get three accounts instead of one, because they want to tempt you into this idea of creating sub-accounts and selling them off.

There\'s loads of people out there that are selling CRMs as a service, as a SaaS product, and they\'re basically just built on GoHighLevel. And so they\'re all the features of GoHighLevel, which is great, and you, think you\'re getting a really good deal. The reason I don\'t do that and I haven\'t gone with one of these providers is because I want to own the account that my entire business is built on.

I don\'t want to be a sub-account of somebody else\'s, you know, agency. This is like the central heart of everything I do. All of my clients in that, like for GDPR reasons, but also just for security of business going forward. I want to be in control of that. That\'s number one. Number two is that when you go through a third party, you lose access to GoHighLevel support.

So I can just contact GoHighLevel anytime I want. I can open up the chat, I can send a message, I can book a call, we can jump on and whatever, and I can get problems sorted relatively quickly. If you go through an agency, through a third party who\'s reselling GoHighLevel, you are or they are responsible, I should say, for providing you with all the support.

That\'s why GoHighLevel sells agency packages at s- at a low cost because it\'s actually basically offloading all of the, c- the cost, to the sub-provider, to the reseller. So the costs obviously are in the customer service and the provision of care and all the rest of it to their clients.

And if they keep that to a minimum by actually using these resellers, which is basically just any old Joe who\'s paid 500 quid a month for an agency account, and then they can resell as many accounts as they want at whatever price they want. So I\'ve seen people selling lifetime deals on GoHighLevel on the highest account for like $100.

So if what you\'d pay for a, you know, a, month subscription directly to GoHighLevel, they\'re offering you a lifetime deal. Well, the problem is, who\'s paying for the customer service that you need when things go wrong or you just need some help? Who is providing the longevity for that business? If that goes down and they basically just pull the plug and you suddenly can\'t let log into your CRM because they\'ve deleted the account or whatever, then that worries the hell out of me.

Maybe it doesn\'t for you and you\'re happy just getting a good deal. With something as important as a CRM, I think like, just, think before you go down that route. There are gonna be good providers out there that do a brilliant service, that have got the backup, they\'ve got the numbers, they\'ve got the revenue.

They\'re charging a fair amount, but not overcharging, so they can actually support this going forward. This is the last thing I\'m gonna say on this, is that the resellers can charge whatever they want for every single additional fee that comes with GoHighLevel. So GoHighLevel, you get one fixed fee and you can have three accounts and unlimited users, which is mega.

You can also have unlimited contacts at no additional cost, which some of the CRMs really ramp the cost up when you get bigger. So they have this one fixed fee, which is incredibly good value. However, they charge for sending emails, sending text messages, doing some automation stuff, AI stuff. It\'s relatively cheap, so it\'s not like it\'s an expensive product overall when you compare it to the likes of HubSpot or Keap or anything.

It\'s still really good value. But when you\'re going through a reseller, they can put a markup on every single thing that you spend. You actually pay the reseller, and the reseller will pay, GoHighLevel. So be very cautious when you do go into a reseller that, A, you\'re given all the functionality you should have from day one. And they\'re not gonna charge extra to unlock some other feature. Which you would have got, you know, out the door if you went straight to GoHighLevel.

Secondly, be absolutely sure that what they\'re charging you, and they promise to not increase their prices in the future, what they\'re charging you is relatively in line with the GoHighLevel, you know, main account. Because you may work out that, yeah, it looks cheap on the, you know, the front end, or maybe they offer.

Often they\'ll offer to build things for you, and they basically take a snapshot of the way they\'ve set it up, and they\'ll set it up for you in a similar way. That, again, sounds really, really tempting. GoHighLevel do have a setup service. They do help you do stuff, but some of these offer loads of different, like, funnels and things.

And just before you get sucked in, just, be really clear on what you actually need. And maybe you can negotiate a deal with them. Where actually you\'ll just pay them for the funnels rather than, you know, them actually owning your account. And that way you can get the best of both worlds and get them to actually import the funnels into your account for a fee. And then you get to then manage them going forward with the support of GoHighLevel.

If you\'re completely untechy and you really want someone to hand you all the digital for you, I think that is an option. Just go with a reputable company. But if like me, you like having a bit of control and don\'t wanna be at risk of losing access to your CRM. Then do consider thinking about, going for a, you know, you own the account.

And you can always pay for someone to help you manage it, you know, if, you just wanna completely offload all of the admin. So, lastly, very lastly in this episode, I\'m not gonna go into this in a lot of detail now. It\'s just if you are gonna, if this is your first CRM, I think I would just go for it and have a try.

If it\'s not, and you\'ve already got things set up on a CRM, but you\'re thinking, \"Ah, this sounds like a good idea,\" maybe it\'ll reduce your cost now or in the future, or maybe it\'s got lots of different things that your current CRM doesn\'t do. Moving from one CRM to another isn\'t a small undertaking. You need to plan.

You need to make sure that you\'re, you know, segmenting your audience properly in your existing CRM. You\'re putting the right tags on them, cleaning up, maybe getting rid of some really old contacts that haven\'t responded to you for two years or whatever. So use it as an opportunity to reorganize. And when you import them into your GoHighLevel account or whichever CRM you\'re moving to.

Yeah, take that as an opportunity to reorganize and restructure, and give it time to think through before you pull the plug, before you actually make the switch. The more planning you do, you know, what custom fields are gonna be added. What tags are gonna be added, how are you gonna segment the audience for. You know, be able to send out emails to certain people, et cetera.

Do that planning before you export and then import, because that\'s the easy part. The hard part is actually just sorting it all out. So take the time to do that first before you make any move, and it will save you a lot of headache later. And I say this from experience. Because I did it where I just exported everything into a spreadsheet. And then had to try and sort it all out and, import it in.

It was a total mess. We lost loads of important data. So I just, yeah, tried not to, or, In this, instance, when I moved from ActiveCampaign to GoHighLevel, I did it properly. I spent, like, a couple of weeks, like, thinking about how I wanted to import people over. And then finally pulled the, not pulled the plug, pulled the trigger and did it.

Cool. So in summary, if you wanna check out GoHighLevel, go to sys.academy/tools. You\'ll find the link on there and to other recommended apps. And many of them have got cool, deals that we get through our subscriptions or our referral, sorry. And yeah, whatever reason it is for choosing to either get a new CRM. If you\'re just using something like MailChimp right now and you wanna get something more robust.

Maybe you\'ve not even got a CRM at all. Maybe this is the time to think about actually all the cool things you could be doing with a CRM. And if, it feels like a good time, then yeah, have a checkout of GoHighLevel.

And your reason for migrating to your CRM may be different. It may be that, you know, not like me, you\'re doing communication. Maybe you wanna sort out your pipelines. Maybe you wanna improve your customer service, your onboarding. Or maybe you wanna build, your funnel on there. I didn\'t mention that. You can build funnels and websites on there as well.

And, that\'s a big part of what we do actually. But yeah, so whatever your reason for wanting to move and put everything in one place and simplify stuff. You know, there\'s many reasons it could be. And doesn\'t need to be the one that I did.

Cool. But that\'s it for today. Thank you very much for listening.

I hope this has been helpful, both in terms of understanding what GoHighLevel can do and just CRMs in general, if it\'s something that\'s relatively new to you. If you\'ve enjoyed this episode, if this has been helpful, please do hit subscribe. Please share this with your friends and colleagues. And I look forward to seeing you next time.

Thanks so much.

One CRM Replaced My Tech Stack and Centralised Every Client Message | Ep 282

KEY TAKEAWAYS: The CRM Software Shift That Reduced Complexity and Cost

BEST MOMENTS: CRM Software Insights That Changed the Way I Work

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

Episode Transcript

VALUABLE RESOURCES

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

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One CRM Replaced My Tech Stack and Centralised Every Client Message | Ep 282

​KEY TAKEAWAYS: The CRM Software Shift That Reduced Complexity and Cost

BEST MOMENTS: CRM Software Insights That Changed the Way I Work

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

Episode Transcript

VALUABLE RESOURCES

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

For more articles related to using CRM Software in business and revolutionising clients' communication, you may also like:

Could a Fractional COO Help You Step Out of the Day-to-Day? ft. Tamara Munoz, Founder of Behind the Screens | Ep 272

SYS 134: Hack Your Success: The Personal Systemisation Plan for Effective Task Delegation, Organisation and Automation

SYS 164: Encouraging Innovation: Fostering a Culture of Continual Improvement in Small Businesses

How Small Business Owners Leverage The SixR System To Achieve Time Freedom In Under 90 Days

Free On-Demand Masterclass

KEY TAKEAWAYS: The CRM Software Shift That Reduced Complexity and Cost

How Small Business Owners
Leverage The SixR System
To Achieve Time Freedom
In Under 90 Days