Cheat Sheets that hold up in the real world.
Step-by-step playbooks for the builds that matter, written from real agency operations and current GoHighLevel behavior. Each one ends with how Claude makes it faster.
SaaS mode: sell GoHighLevel under your own brand
The agency endgame: package GHL as your own software product with plans, self-serve signup, and automated rebilling, turning your agency into a software company with recurring revenue.
Launch a new sub-account the right way
Create a sub-account with a complete business profile so nothing downstream silently breaks. Timezone, address, and branding feed every calendar, send window, and A2P registration you build later.
Authenticate your email sending domain
Set up a dedicated sending domain with the right DNS records so your email lands in the inbox instead of spam. Do this before any campaign or nurture goes live.
A2P 10DLC registration that passes first try
Register your brand and campaign for US SMS so carriers do not filter your messages. Precision matters: most rejections come from mismatched business data or weak opt-in evidence.
Design a pipeline that mirrors your real sales process
Build stages your team actually moves deals through, named by completed outcomes, so reporting tells the truth about your funnel.
Custom fields, custom values, and a tag taxonomy
Define your data structure before automations reference it. Fields hold facts, custom values hold reusable brand strings, and a written tag dictionary prevents casing chaos.
Import contacts without wrecking your data
Bring an existing list into GHL with clean mapping, source tags, and duplicate protection, and respect consent so you do not text people who never opted in.
Booking calendar setup, end to end
Create a calendar that books real appointments: correct availability, sane buffers, an intake form that qualifies, and confirmations that reduce no-shows.
The Launch Five: core workflows every account needs
Five automations cover most of the revenue: speed-to-lead, missed-call text back, appointment lifecycle, review requests, and database reactivation. Build all five as Draft, publish after QA.
QA a workflow before you publish it
Catch trigger, timing, branching, and copy problems with a test contact before real leads hit the flow. Ten minutes of QA prevents the 2 AM "why did every contact get texted" call.
Funnel launch checklist
Ship a funnel that captures, converts, and complies: the page, the form or calendar, the thank-you step, policy pages, mobile rendering, and tracking, verified before traffic hits it.
Reputation engine: reviews on autopilot
Connect Google Business Profile, store the review link once, automate the ask at the moment of peak happiness, and handle every review that lands.
Package your build as a snapshot and deploy it
Turn a proven sub-account build into a reusable snapshot so the next client launch starts at 80% done. Clean before you capture; deploy then customize.
Your first phone number, wired for revenue
Buy a tracked number, route it to a real human, and make sure every call and text lands inside GHL where automation can catch it.
Call recording without the legal headaches
Turn on call recording for coaching and quality, with consent handled correctly so the recordings help you instead of haunting you.
Facebook and Instagram in one inbox, zero missed DMs
Connect your Meta pages so every DM, comment, and lead form lands in GHL Conversations where it gets answered, tagged, and followed up like a real lead.
Turn your Google listing into a booking channel
Connect Google Business Profile so searchers can message you, calls get tracked, and your listing becomes a measurable lead source instead of a static card.
The chat widget that turns visitors into text threads
Install GHL’s chat widget so website visitors start a conversation that continues over SMS, which means you keep the lead even after they close the tab.
Opt-outs done right: DND, STOP, and staying sendable
Understand exactly what GHL does when someone says stop, what you must never work around, and how to keep your database clean and compliant.
Quiet hours: send at times that convert and comply
Configure send windows so automations text at 10 AM, never 3 AM, across every workflow, and understand the timezone mechanics that make or break this.
Ad leads answered in seconds, not days
Pipe Facebook and Google lead forms straight into GHL with field mapping and instant follow-up, because ad leads decay by the minute.
Smart lists that run your morning
Build the saved segments that turn a messy database into a daily operating rhythm: who to call, who to chase, who is going cold.
Blast a list without burning your domain
Send a bulk email or SMS to a segment the safe way: consent checked, list cleaned, send throttled, and results measured before the next one.
Lead scoring: let hot leads raise their hand
Score behavior so the hottest leads surface automatically, and your team spends its energy where the money already is.
Selling B2B? Track companies, not just contacts
Use business records so three stakeholders at one company read as one account, and your pipeline reflects deals, not people.
The 20-minute backup habit that saves accounts
Export what matters on a schedule so a bad import, an angry ex-employee, or a platform hiccup is an inconvenience instead of a catastrophe.
Round robin booking that keeps reps honest
Distribute booked calls across the team fairly, keep ownership consistent from booking to close, and stop the "whose lead is this" argument forever.
Classes and group events that fill themselves
Run recurring group sessions with seat caps, one booking page, and automated reminders, for gyms, workshops, webinars-as-classes, and orientation calls.
A bookable service menu, salon-style
Let clients pick the exact service, the right duration books, the right staff member gets it, and the price is attached, like the booking flow at a good salon.
Get paid the moment they book
Attach payment or a deposit to booking so no-shows drop toward zero and your calendar only holds people with skin in the game.
Your domain on your funnel: DNS without fear
Put funnels and sites on yourbrand.com (or a subdomain) with SSL, correctly, in one pass, no matter which DNS host you use.
Forms that qualify leads while they capture
Use conditional logic and multi-step structure so the form adapts to each answer, qualifies intent, and still converts better than the long flat version.
The quiz funnel that sorts your leads for you
A "Which X are you?" or "What is your score?" quiz captures leads at far higher rates than a plain form, and every answer segments the follow-up.
Trigger links: know exactly who clicked what
Wrap important links so a click becomes a trackable event that fires automation: interest detection, hot-lead routing, and honest campaign math.
Webinar funnels that show up full
Registration page, confirmation, a reminder ladder, and replay follow-up, assembled so registrants become attendees and attendees become booked calls.
Lead magnets that start the sale, not the archive
Deliver the download instantly, then bridge from the freebie to the next step with a short nurture that treats the magnet as chapter one, not the end.
Order bumps and upsells: higher AOV, same traffic
Add a checkbox offer at checkout and a one-click upsell after it, the two highest-leverage additions any order flow can take.
Campaign sends that land in the inbox
The routine for one-off sends and newsletters: right segment, tested render, scheduled window, and results read before the next send.
Deliverability vitals: the weekly five-minute check
The handful of numbers that predict whether your email keeps landing: read them weekly, react early, and you never have to dig out of the spam folder.
Warm up a new domain before the big send
A new sending domain has no reputation, and reputation is earned by volume ramped slowly to engaged people. Rush it and you start life in the spam folder.
Products and order forms that take money today
Create products with clean pricing and put a working order form in front of them, the shortest path from "we should sell this" to a Stripe notification.
Recurring revenue: subscriptions and payment plans
Set up subscription products and installment plans with trials, correct billing cycles, and the failed-payment safety net that protects the revenue you already earned.
From estimate to paid invoice, no awkward asks
Quote with estimates, convert to invoices on acceptance, and let automation do the chasing so you never write another "just following up on that invoice" email.
Proposals with e-signature that close themselves
Send proposals and contracts as signable documents with tracked opens, so the close happens in the document, not in a print-sign-scan email chain.
Text2Pay: collect payment inside the conversation
Send a payment link mid-text-thread and get paid while the intent is hot, perfect for deposits, quick services, and "yes let’s do it" moments.
Coupons that move product without killing margin
Create discount codes with rules, expiry, and tracking, deployed as campaigns with deadlines instead of permanent price erosion.
Package what you know: launch a course
Build a course in Memberships with clean structure, drip if it serves the student, an offer attached to checkout, and completion that leads somewhere.
A community your clients actually open daily
Launch a GHL community with structure, seeded conversation, and moderation rhythm, because an empty forum is worse than no forum.
One login for everything: the client portal
Give clients a single branded login for their courses, community, invoices, and appointments, replacing "what is the link again" with one URL.
Turn happy clients into a sales force
Launch an affiliate or referral program with tracked links, fair commissions, and on-time payouts, so word of mouth becomes a system instead of an accident.
The bot that books while you sleep: Conversation AI
Deploy GHL’s Conversation AI to answer, qualify, and book across SMS and chat, rolled out supervised so it earns autonomy instead of assuming it.
An AI receptionist that never misses a call
Voice AI answers the phone, handles the common asks, books appointments, and hands real conversations to humans, turning after-hours and overflow calls into booked revenue.
Agent Studio: build your own AI employee
Compose a custom agent with its own instructions, knowledge, and actions, then map it into Ask AI so your team can summon it by name.
Premium actions: webhooks, Sheets, and custom code
Reach beyond GHL’s native actions: post to any API, log to Google Sheets, branch on custom code, and know what each execution costs before you scale it.
Pipe any tool into GHL with inbound webhooks
Start workflows from events in the outside world: your app, a payment platform, a form tool, anything that can send an HTTP request.
Push snapshot updates without breaking client builds
Roll improvements out to existing client accounts safely: know exactly what a push overwrites, protect client customizations, and verify after landing.