🎯 Free Book Download: Marketing Quick Wins

50+ Tips, Tricks & Hacks to Grow Your Small Business

What if you could get dozens of proven marketing ideas… without having to wade through a 300-page business book?

That’s exactly why we created Marketing Quick Wins — a no-fluff guide packed with 50+ real-world tips, tricks and hacks to help you market your small business more effectively, save time, and generate more sales.

Between us (Julian & Atticus Mills), we’ve got over 25 years of experience working with small business owners “in the trenches.” Over that time, we’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and where the easy wins often get overlooked.

So we decided to compile them all into one short, readable resource.

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What’s Inside the Book?

⚡ Quick Wins — Short, practical ideas you can implement fast. No waffle. No jargon.
🧠 Proven Marketing Strategies — From email hacks to offline campaigns, referral ideas to pricing psychology.
💡 Tool Tips — Our favourite (often free) tools for design, automation, video, and productivity.
🤖 AI & Automation — How to use ChatGPT and marketing automation to save hours each week.
📚 Book Recommendations — The must-read books that helped shape our approach to small business marketing.

Who’s It For?

This book is designed for:

✅ Small business owners
✅ Solo marketers
✅ Startups and service providers
✅ Anyone looking to make their marketing more effective (and less overwhelming)

You don’t need a big team or budget. You just need some smart ideas — and the willingness to try something new.

Why Quick Wins?

We believe momentum matters. Marketing isn’t about waiting for a “big idea” — it’s about consistent action.

One small improvement each week can compound over time into big results. This book is full of those little improvements.

Get Your Free Copy 👇

We’re giving away the entire Marketing Quick Wins book for free — no catch. Just enter your details in the form below and we’ll send it straight to your inbox.

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I would definitely recommend Julian to other Keap / Infusionsoft clients .

Jordan Conlin - SHOUT Network
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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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🎓 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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How to Build a Spam Honey Trap in HighLevel Using Workflows and AI

If you connect all your communication channels to HighLevel, there is an inevitable consequence. The genuine messages come into HighLevel. But so does the spam. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram messages can all end up in your CRM. And the problem isn’t simply having to look at annoying spam messages. Those incoming messages can create spam contacts in your HighLevel database. That potentially creates two much bigger problems. 1. Spam Contacts Can Fill Up Your CRM Every spam submission that becomes a contact is another record sitting in your CRM. If your CRM provider charges according to the number of contacts you store, allowing thousands of spam contacts to accumulate can potentially push you into higher contact tiers and increase your costs. HighLevel itself is relatively unusual in offering unlimited contacts on its main agency plans, but this is still an important consideration when designing CRM systems generally, particularly if data is being synchronised with other platforms that do charge by contact volume. Even when there isn’t a direct additional contact cost, you probably don’t want thousands of fake Facebook accounts, spammers and bots mixed in with your genuine prospects and customers. 2. Spam Contacts Can Become a Deliverability Problem This is potentially the more serious issue. Imagine a spam email message creates a new contact in your CRM. Six months later, you send a marketing campaign to everyone in your database. You’ve now potentially taken a contact that sent spam to you and turned it into a contact that you are trying to send marketing messages to. That’s not good. The same principle can apply across SMS and WhatsApp. If your CRM repeatedly attempts to push outbound messages to fake, invalid or unwanted contacts, you risk poor delivery signals, bounces, complaints and other negative engagement. Over time, that can contribute to problems with your sender reputation and messaging deliverability. So the objective isn’t simply: “How do we stop our team seeing annoying spam?” It is: “How do we identify spam contacts as they enter HighLevel and prevent them from contaminating our genuine marketing database?” Back in my Infusionsoft days, we used to build automations that we called “Honey Traps”. The idea was simple. Catch contacts that clearly weren’t genuine prospects or customers before they became mixed into the rest of the database. With HighLevel, we can take that old Honey Trap idea considerably further. We can combine simple workflow rules with AI to create a multi-stage Spam Honey Trap. And the clever bit is that we don’t need to pay for AI to analyse every incoming message. We can use simple workflow logic to catch the obvious spam first. Then only messages that get through that first layer need the more sophisticated AI treatment. Use rules for what you already know. Use AI for what you don’t. That’s the basis of the HighLevel Spam Honey Trap we’re going to build. How the Multi-Stage Spam Honey Trap HighLevel Workflow Works At its simplest, the process looks like this: Incoming message ↓ Stage 1: Free If/Else spam checks ↓ Not caught? ↓ Stage 2: AI analyses the message ↓ Stage 3: Legitimate, suspected spam or human review ↓ Stage 4: Learn from what got through The important point is that AI isn’t our first line of defence. There’s little point paying AI to analyse a message if a simple HighLevel workflow condition could have identified it immediately. Stage 1: Catch the Obvious Spam With If/Else Logic We can start our workflow using the Customer Replied trigger. HighLevel allows this trigger to respond to incoming messages and filter them according to things such as the reply channel and phrases contained in the message. That gives us our first Honey Trap. Think about the spam you already receive. You may repeatedly see messages containing phrases such as: “Your Facebook page will be deleted” “Your account has been suspended” “Community standards violation” “Copyright infringement” “Your account will be permanently disabled” Other recurring phrases specific to the spam targeting your business HighLevel’s own spam example demonstrates this approach using words and phrases such as “violation”, “permission” and “suspension”. These are known patterns. We don’t need AI to understand them. We can simply use workflow logic to ask: Does the incoming message contain one of our known spam phrases? YES → Send it down the Spam route. NO → Move to Stage 2. HighLevel’s Customer Replied trigger currently supports Contains Phrase and Exact Match Phrase filters, as well as filtering according to tags, intent and reply channel. That means you could also have slightly different Honey Traps depending on whether the message arrived by email, SMS, WhatsApp or social messaging. Don’t Try to Catch Everything With Keywords This is important. The Stage 1 Honey Trap isn’t supposed to be perfect. If you build hundreds of complicated rules trying to identify every possible piece of spam, you could create something that’s difficult to maintain and potentially catches legitimate messages. A genuine customer could quite reasonably use the word “suspended” or “violation”. So Stage 1 should concentrate on the really obvious patterns. If we’re not confident, let the message continue. That’s what Stage 2 is for. Stage 2: Let AI Look at the Message Now we reach the messages that weren’t obvious enough for our simple rules. This is where AI becomes useful. Rather than looking for individual words, AI can consider the meaning and context of the entire message. We could instruct it along the lines of: “This is an incoming message received by our business. Analyse the message and determine whether it appears to be a genuine customer communication, unsolicited spam, a phishing/scam message, or something you cannot confidently determine.” We can also give the AI examples. Spam: “Your Facebook Business Page has violated our policies and will be permanently deleted. Click here to appeal.” Legitimate: “I tried to log into my account this morning but it says my account has been suspended. Can somebody help?” Both contain language about accounts being suspended. Read more…
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EU AI Act Article 50 Is Now in Force: What HighLevel Businesses Using AI Chatbots and Voice AI Need to Know

Time fo writing: 20 August 2026 If you are using an AI chatbot, AI receptionist, Voice AI or an AI agent to communicate with customers, there is an important new rule you need to be aware of. Article 50 of the EU AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026. And one of the main requirements is actually pretty straightforward: If someone is interacting directly with AI, they should know they are interacting with AI. You can read the actual legislation here: EU AI Act – Article 50 on EUR-Lex The European Commission has also published detailed guidance explaining how Article 50 should work in practice: European Commission – Article 50 Transparency Guidelines So what does this actually mean for a normal business using AI? The days of pretending your AI bot is a human may be over This is probably the biggest practical takeaway. A lot of effort has gone into making AI agents sound as human as possible. That’s understandable. We don’t want customers talking to something that sounds like an old-fashioned automated phone system. But there is a big difference between making an AI sound natural and making someone believe it is a human being. For example, imagine you have an AI chatbot called Sarah. A customer starts a conversation and Sarah says: “Hi, I’m Sarah. How can I help?” The customer could quite reasonably assume Sarah is sitting at a desk somewhere. Instead, something as simple as this makes the position clear: “Hi, I’m Sarah, ABC Ltd’s AI assistant. How can I help?” You haven’t ruined the conversation. You’ve simply told the customer what they are interacting with. This could be particularly important with Voice AI This is where I think businesses need to pay particular attention. AI voices have become incredibly realistic. With platforms such as HighLevel you can now have an AI receptionist answer the phone, qualify enquiries, answer questions, book appointments and even transfer calls. Imagine phoning a heating company and hearing: “Good morning, ABC Heating, Sarah speaking. How can I help?” If Sarah isn’t actually a person, the caller could understandably believe they are speaking to a receptionist. A simple change fixes that: “Good morning, ABC Heating. You’re speaking with our AI receptionist. How can I help?” That’s hardly going to destroy the customer experience. In fact, I think businesses could turn it into a positive. “I’m ABC Heating’s AI receptionist. I’m available 24/7 and can answer questions, book appointments or get one of the team to call you back.” Now AI is part of the benefit rather than something you’re trying to hide. What about website chat? The same principle applies. If someone opens a website chat and an AI immediately starts answering their questions, make it clear that it is an AI assistant. You don’t need a frightening legal disclaimer. Something like: “Hi, I’m our AI assistant. How can I help?” may be all that’s needed to make the nature of the interaction clear. The important thing is that the customer shouldn’t have to spend ten minutes chatting before eventually asking: “Hang on. Are you a bot?” Don’t rely on the customer asking I’ve seen AI prompts which include instructions along the lines of: “If someone asks whether you’re an AI, tell them you are.” That’s sensible. I would definitely have that instruction in the prompt. But Article 50 isn’t really about admitting you’re AI when somebody catches you out. The person should be informed that they are interacting with AI from the start of the AI interaction. So I’d do both. Make the AI status clear at the beginning and make sure your prompt prevents the AI from subsequently pretending to be human. SMS and WhatsApp get more interesting This is an area I think businesses using AI for lead follow-up and database reactivation need to look at. Imagine you send a normal automated SMS: “Hi John, are you still looking for a new boiler?” John replies: “Yes.” An AI agent then takes over the conversation. The important point isn’t necessarily whether AI wrote the original SMS. The question is when John starts interacting directly with AI. At that point I’d want the AI to make its position clear. For example: “Thanks John. I’m ABC Heating’s AI assistant. I can ask you a few questions and arrange for someone from the team to contact you.” That’s transparent without making the conversation clunky. What about HighLevel users? This is one reason Article 50 caught my attention. GoHighLevel has been rapidly expanding its AI capabilities. Businesses can now potentially have AI involved with: Website chat SMS WhatsApp Lead qualification Appointment booking Database reactivation Voice AI AI receptionists Automated follow-up So if you’re using HighLevel AI, I’d spend ten minutes looking at your setup from the customer’s perspective. At what point does AI take over the conversation? Does the customer know? Could they reasonably think they’re talking to one of your employees? And try this one: Ask your AI agent if it is a real person. You might be surprised by the answer. If you’ve previously prompted the AI to stay in character at all costs, this is definitely worth testing. Does this affect UK businesses? Potentially. Don’t simply assume: “We’re not in the EU anymore, so this doesn’t apply to us.” The EU AI Act can have application beyond businesses physically established within the EU. If your AI systems are being used in the EU or interacting with EU customers, you should establish whether the legislation applies to your particular circumstances. This could therefore be relevant to UK businesses selling into Europe and UK agencies building AI systems for European clients. What about AI-written blog posts? This is another area where I think we’re going to see some misleading headlines. Article 50 does not simply mean that every piece of content created with the help of ChatGPT now needs a big: “THIS WAS WRITTEN BY AI” warning at the top. There are separate rules covering AI-generated and manipulated content, including Read more…
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