The Marketerâs Toolkit isnât just a podcastâitâs a behind-the-scenes look at how top GoHighLevel (GHL) users are building smarter, scaling faster, and creating systems their clients actually use.
At the heart of it all is Tom Bristolâthe brilliant mind behind The Marketerâs Toolkit. Known for his out-of-this-world support, rapid innovation, and uncanny ability to solve GHLâs most frustrating gaps, Tom has become a beloved creator in the GoHighLevel community. His Toolkit gives SaaS builders and agency owners the edge they need to rise above the noise.
In each episode, youâll hear real stories from Toolkit usersâcreative founders, niche SaaS pros, and accidental agency owners who turned a system into a sustainable business. From intuitive dashboards for neurodivergent users to automated onboarding that scales with heart, these stories show whatâs actually possible inside HighLevel.
đ§ Hosted by Virginia Scheuer, co-creator of the In the Spotlight YouTube series and long-time Toolkit power user.
Whether you're building a SaaS from scratch or refining your white-label GHL experience, this podcast delivers clarity, community, and copy-paste strategies you wonât find anywhere else.
Brought to you by The Marketerâs Toolkit
Glenn Wasserman [00:00:05]:
If you, if I, if you hand someone a tool, if I gave you a screwdriver or a chisel and a hammer, you're not going to produce the same thing that like a carpenter or someone who uses those tools all the time is going to do. And the issue with, with products that are software generated is you should always align yourself with a company that's forward thinking, that is constantly adding to the tool or product that you have and is there for you for support. It's. If you don't have that, my advice is maybe take a step back and maybe look at, look at another product. Tom and his product have proven themselves multiple times over to be something that requires you or you should absolutely take time to look at.
Virginia Schauer [00:00:45]:
If you've ever wanted to get insight on how to integrate many different solutions into one from someone who has worked in the software business for over 40 years and understands systems, your you're in the right place because Glenn Wasserman started in the software business in 1985. He then built an agency in 2008 during the recession of all times and now focuses on a SaaS solution for the commercial vehicle industry. He's going to talk to you today about real world strategies for integrating systems reducing churn scaling sustainably and how he brings his grounded, honest lens to the world of automation and customization and what he does with the marketers toolkit. He's a lifetime member and so what he does with that integrated into his own SaaS and his own systems. So I'm excited for you to listen in and see how this can apply to what you're creating in your business. Welcome to in the Spotlight, a marketer's toolkit special where we highlight members of the toolkit, what they're doing in their SaaS, how they're using the toolkit. You're gonna get an inside look at the back end of the marketer's toolkit and at the same time get some maybe great ideas for your business as well. If you're on the fence of joining Marketer's Toolkit or you're in there and want to see more features or you're just someone out there that are looking for ideas for your business, you are in the right spot.
Virginia Schauer [00:02:19]:
My name is Virginia Schauer and I'm your host. So let's get started. Welcome Glenn, to the in the Spotlight series with the Marketers Toolkit. I'm so excited that you're here.
Glenn Wasserman [00:02:30]:
Good to be here. Good to see you again.
Virginia Schauer [00:02:32]:
Good to see you too. So can you tell us A little bit about your business and what brought you to the marketer's toolkit.
Glenn Wasserman [00:02:38]:
Yes. So I've been selling software for a long, long time, since 1985 and along the road of my journeys and working for different companies and so forth. I found myself, gosh, back around 2008, 9 recession, getting laid off and figuring out okay, what am I going to be when I grow up? So I started up an agency originally started out servicing local businesses, doing email marketing campaigns, some web development. I was lucky enough to get a grant because of the recession and the lack of jobs and there was some grant money available. So I, I took some tests and learned a couple of skills and to kind of fast forward and, and go there. I got involved in using a tool and found the toolkit as a way to enhance the functionality of what I was doing. And the gentleman who has the toolkit, Tom, Tom Bristol, just has a lot of things in there that without that application, without that bolt on if you will, would make what I do today much harder. So that's how I found the toolkit and I'm actually a lifetime member of the toolkit.
Virginia Schauer [00:03:48]:
That's awesome. What have you been taking advantage of within the toolkit?
Glenn Wasserman [00:03:53]:
Yeah, so for those who don't know, the toolkit is basically a set of features that bolt on and it allows for a lot of customization and additional functionality beyond what is natively already in the application. So for me it allowed me to create just shortcuts to do processes. For example, add like a button on the screen for a customer that when they click that button it fires an action or makes something happen in the background that normally would require more custom programming. And because of the way the toolkit's structured, it's more of a GUI interface that you can go in and set some things up, you put a script on the site and then that makes things happen in the background. So it's been a great tool and a time saver for me.
Virginia Schauer [00:04:44]:
That's awesome. What are you most proud of? Building your own SaaS. You think?
Glenn Wasserman [00:04:48]:
Yeah, that's a big question. Because it's, because it seems like it's always a work in process. We have an integration from a CRM platform from this product I'm using a CRM platform over to an operations set of software that I work with through a strategic relationship partnership and we're able to example for example fire automations and some things with some of those tools and things I've added through the toolkit. In general, it's really been invaluable in allowing me to customize and personalize my application to the needs of my customers primarily, yeah.
Virginia Schauer [00:05:22]:
And you said that you were in the commercial vehicle industry.
Glenn Wasserman [00:05:26]:
Yeah, just quickly, in 1885, started working for a company called ADP Dealers. They had a dealer service division and I started working for them and we were selling in house business systems in the primarily automotive at that time. And then it morphed into the heavy truck or commercial vehicle side, the trucking side of it. So. And I've been in and in and out of that business for, gosh, you know, well, since 1985. And I don't, I don't necessarily have to give my age away, but I'm a senior citizen, so there you go.
Virginia Schauer [00:05:58]:
So, you know, I'm sure you've had a lot of interactions with all kinds of clients in your industry. What do you think has been a consistent running core principle or philosophy that has really been a driving force to how you work with your people and your clientele?
Glenn Wasserman [00:06:18]:
Well, you know, coming so coming from the software industry more than the marketing industry really for me, kind of positioned me in a little different way in working with my customers because I understand so from the marketing side, typically in a marketing agency you're providing some kind of a service and you know, hopefully if it's anything from lead generation to social media exposure or anything like that. But in the software industry the difference is, is that we have to be concerned about customers and their hands on experience in working with a particular software platform. So it's no longer just the result, it's the process. And, and for me it's a fine line because on the one hand you want customers to adopt and use any piece of software that you might provide to them to carry out a task that they've hired you to do for them. So you want their engagement, but the same token, you want to make it as frictionless as possible. So, so it's kind of a tightrope of let me give you some tools, let me give you some easy things you can go in and do on your own. And that way you don't have to be paying a third party to do every single thing for you. You could take a little of that responsibility on yourself and at the same token, then allow me and my team to fulfill the things that are beyond the resources or the people that have in house that just may not have the expertise to fulfill those things.
Glenn Wasserman [00:07:48]:
So for me, because I come from the software industry, my perspective's a little bit different maybe than just someone who's purely a marketing or advertising agency perspective.
Virginia Schauer [00:07:59]:
Sure, they're selling the system, but you're actually there to support the functionality of the tools within your system.
Glenn Wasserman [00:08:07]:
Yes. And my, my main strategic partner who's been in this vertical longer than me over 45 years, you know, because they're selling a software and the software that, that or I sell through them, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a contractor as well, an age sales agent for that, for that product as well. You know, I, I'm very sensitive to making sure that when we put something out there to a customer that, that we provide, you know, the resources, how to use it, training, support and all those kind of things that, that they need to be successful. At the end of the day, whatever you do, if you're providing a tool and you can't get the customer's adoption, you can't get them to use it, then you always run the risk of what we call churn or someone leaving and saying this is too much work for me, I can't do this. So, so I think the responsibility, at least from my perspective, is I want to, I want to do both. I want to provide you a tool, I want to make you comfor enough to use some parts of it, but I want to be the guy in the background that you can always call and that can always get you out of trouble and provide whatever kind of service or support you may need.
Virginia Schauer [00:09:19]:
Absolutely. And talking about that churn, I think that that's what the marketer's toolkit supports. I mean, at the end of the day, the marketer's toolkit simplifies what we have as our core foundation and brings, brings the customer in, in a way that makes it easier, right?
Glenn Wasserman [00:09:37]:
Absolutely. I would say this from. Because I've been in the SO industry so long, no matter what piece of software you use, everyone's use case is going to be somewhat different. And therefore it's very difficult for any particular piece of software to be able to necessarily be the right or perfect fit for every customer. So having a third party tool that bolts onto your main software or your main tool set, if you will, having another tool to make that easier, to do that and extend the functionality beyond what just the software makes, just makes the overall package so much more powerful. So if I just took a piece of software and I did a little bit of magic to it, a little pixie dust on it, and we said here it is and we're going to help you with it, but now we can do that and Add a whole bunch of functionality and things that the native application just would not necessarily have or support on its own. So it's a great thing.
Virginia Schauer [00:10:37]:
Yeah, yeah. Can you give us, like, one example of that, how you have incorporated the toolkit with your program?
Glenn Wasserman [00:10:45]:
Yeah, sure. So I have, with my strategic partners, a company out of the Texas area, DSI Solutions, that services. They provide software in the commercial vehicle industry. And that's all the operations side of it. So the general ledger, the inventory management, the point of sale, invoicing for parts, tracking labor for people who like service, fleets of vehicles, for example, and all those kinds of things. So we built an integration between our. My CRM product. My product and their product.
Glenn Wasserman [00:11:16]:
And for example, if we have a contact record that's in the CRM because they came to us, either filled out a form or made an inquiry, whatever may happen, that customer is not necessarily now inside of the operations software that my partners provide. So we built an integration, and by using the toolkit, for example, we have a little button that says, push customer into my partner's software and that fires a workflow and some things that happen to make that happen. So the customer basically is operating on my end. They're operating on the screen, entering contact data, you know, information about the. The prospect or customer or whatever it may be. And then if they want to push that data now without retyping it into my partner software, they just literally click a button. The button fires this. This action.
Glenn Wasserman [00:12:05]:
It moves the customer's record and data into the new system. And now we have, you know, a balance of the customer existing on both sides of both pieces of software. So.
Virginia Schauer [00:12:14]:
That's awesome.
Glenn Wasserman [00:12:14]:
Yeah, the toolkit was just made it easy to do those kind of things.
Virginia Schauer [00:12:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. That is so awesome. So with what you have in your niche, can you see this being used in other niches that could use like, the buttons and things like that?
Glenn Wasserman [00:12:28]:
Absolutely. Again, I'm just one guy servicing customers in a specific vertical, but there's thousands of people like me that are servicing customers in other verticals, may that be chiropractic or, or. Or the carpentry or the elect, you know, plumbers or electricians or whatever kinds of industries. And every one of us has problems that we have to solve for our customers. So when we find a piece of software or tool, a toolkit for that matter, that allows us to take that piece of software and extend the functionality of what we're working on, that's a win, you know, That's a win for everybody.
Virginia Schauer [00:13:08]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So how did you, how did you fall upon the marketer's toolkit? Was it like in some sort of community or did. How did you find Tom or.
Glenn Wasserman [00:13:18]:
I was showing up on different groups and meetings and learning because for me, from my standpoint, I need to be careful about the tools that I invest in and I spend money in. But I found the product that I felt comfortable would work for my needs and that I could grow with. And then the amazing part of it is we found these people like Tom and the toolkit and folks out there that built these additional or third party products that integrate with the core product. So for me it was a fairly simple implementation to get it kind of get it plugged in to work with the main software I have. And then, you know, other than the learning curve of how to do things, it's a pretty easy bolt on kind of marriage of the two platforms that work together now. So I can solve most of the problems that I've come up with, at least so far. Most of the problems that I've come up with or enhancements or questions that have come across from customers to me. Can you do this for me? We'd love to do this.
Glenn Wasserman [00:14:14]:
Between my ingenuity, the software we use, and then tools like the toolkit, it allows me to kind of create a full comprehensive solution for those customers and provide.
Virginia Schauer [00:14:24]:
So you customize, you customize per customer? In some cases, yeah, we, we.
Glenn Wasserman [00:14:30]:
So I'm trying to get to the point where I really can have like a full, total cookie cutter scalable solution. But the reality of it is no matter how good that looks on paper, every customer does have some unique needs and issues that force us to have to kind of tweak things and make them a little more custom. So I think, I think that, I think the idea is having a balance of both, of being able. You can't. If you're going to go in the marketplace and you're going to build custom solutions for everybody, it's extremely costly, it's extremely timely and doing that. But if you can build a solution and then with small amount of tweaking, take that and make it fit into a certain like vertical customer that most are going to have the same requirements, but again, uniqueness also, if you can, if you can do that, then you know you can keep your expenses down, your investment down, your development costs and all that stuff off the table. So anytime you can, you can sell a piece of software and enhance it with a, with a few, a few little tweaks here and there is going to make the product better for the customer and the customers listen, the happier the customer is, the longer they're going to stay with us. If we keep solving their problems, they're going to stay with us.
Glenn Wasserman [00:15:45]:
And, and that's really the name of the game if you want to build a long term business.
Virginia Schauer [00:15:48]:
Absolutely. Is there one customer in particular that you can think of that maybe was your most like, you're like, that's a cool customization I did for them.
Glenn Wasserman [00:16:01]:
Well, yes, and, and I, and I, I often wonder if I pulled my hair out over it initially. But one of my earliest beta customers had a unique requirement because they sell a lot of, in their case a commercial truck parts on ebay motors. So that required us to make a kind of integration not only between, you know, my, our software, our CRM and my partner's operations software, but now we had this third party called eBay or ebay motors that we needed to communicate with as well. So we were able to put some time and sweat equity and you know, and curse a lot of cursing and effort. We built an integration that now this customer has a relatively seamless process where inquiries for purchases come in from ebay. They hit our CRM. Our CRM is processing and managing the prospect's inquiry or the sale or purchase of what they want to do. And then they, because we integrated back to our, my, my strategic partner software, then they can invoice the item and do that and keep the inventory under control on that product.
Glenn Wasserman [00:17:10]:
So we really have three pieces of software in his case that are all kind of working together to give him a full solution for that he wants.
Virginia Schauer [00:17:17]:
I think that is something that so many people who are not in the software end, they're in the marketing end. They're like dreaming up in their heads ways to solve problems for their clients. What is in your mind, how could they do something like what you did?
Glenn Wasserman [00:17:34]:
So the lessons I've learned is that, and I'm coming from the software industry is that when you get into integrating with third party products, it sometimes opens up a rabbit hole because there are so many little nuances. Well, what if this happens and what if that happens? And sometimes you don't necessarily know all that going in. I think if you have a team and you have staff and you understand the problem really and you're willing to take on those kinds of projects and build solutions that I think you can have a great business. But you have to be realistic. If you have the expertise, the experience and access to the people you'll need because you can't be an expert at everything. You need a team of developers or programmers or whatever in those situations. If you're willing to take that on, I think you have a great business. So my advice to a person doing that is just be realistic and just say, is this something I really want to get into? And then you have to say to yourself, if it's just one customer, do you really want to build a solution that you can't monetize over and over and over.
Virginia Schauer [00:18:40]:
Absolutely. And we can put ourselves down so many rabbit holes.
Glenn Wasserman [00:18:44]:
Can you? Can. And you know what, Virginia? I don't know if it's the agency business or that we just want to please everyone and we want to do the right thing. We also have to learn to say no to people about things, and we really have to decide what business are we really in and what business can we support. I think we sometimes need to have a better lens and take a step back and look at your customer and go, okay, is this something that I really want to tackle?
Virginia Schauer [00:19:11]:
Exactly. And I know that for myself, I really want to fill everybody's needs. And so it's nice to say no sometimes. And that's not my wheelhouse.
Glenn Wasserman [00:19:23]:
Yeah. You know, there's a certain maturity to accepting the fact that we're not superheroes, heroes, and that we can't solve everybody's problem all the time.
Virginia Schauer [00:19:32]:
I know you explained earlier about, you know, knowing what you want your business to be, and then when it comes to actually implementing and creating the SaaS that you want to create, do you have any tips that you'd like to give them?
Glenn Wasserman [00:19:46]:
Yeah. So what I would say to someone new running a business, creating a business, and especially in this digital marketing vertical and software vertical that we're talking about in this industry, is that whatever you think is going to take twice as long as you assumed it would take. So that's the first. That's the first thing. Number two, be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, the business that I am in still revolves around sales. We still have to talk to customers and people that have needs for us to be able to fill them. And if you're not comfortable, you're introverted, you may not be a great communicator in that particular case.
Glenn Wasserman [00:20:27]:
You may have a very hard time getting it out to the marketplace because it's not your skill set. You don't. You don't possess that killer instinct or, you know that. That communications capability that you need out there. So I think the lesson is that you should play on your Strengths. You may be coming into this industry from a, from some job that you've been in for years and all of a sudden you find yourself in a territory that you're not really that comfortable in. So what I would say to those people are don't be afraid to reach out to others and form partnerships or alliances. You can't do everything.
Virginia Schauer [00:21:05]:
I love that.
Glenn Wasserman [00:21:06]:
Absolutely. Tom Bristol, who created the toolkit and the software that he has that, you know, we, we use, that we bolt onto our system really is a, it does a lot. It has a lot of different moving parts and functionality to it. Everything from the, from changing the way the software actually appears on the screen, creating themes and managing logos. So those are visual aspects of it and then there's a whole bunch of functionality type aspects to it. To it as well. As I said, click putting a button on a piece of software. If you didn't have the toolkit, you would need a developer to write some code.
Glenn Wasserman [00:21:43]:
You'd have to inject it into the source code of the application that you're trying to modify as opposed to picking up a product that Tom has and just being able to do those things simply. So if anybody's out there trying to make their product a little more unique, bring some more functionality, I absolutely suggest you should book a meeting with Virginia or Tom or someone and take a look at the marketer's toolkit. It is definitely a time saver and lifesaver in a lot of cases and then make the decision if it's the right fit for you or not. It's individual, but it's a real product. It works. I've been using it for probably three years from now, at least, and I recommend it to anybody who needs functionality.
Virginia Schauer [00:22:23]:
Why did you. Last question. Why did. I'm curious. Why did you choose to do the lifetime membership?
Glenn Wasserman [00:22:31]:
I just happened to get involved and learned about the toolkit at a time when Tom was first rolling out this product, the marketer's toolkit, you know, yeah, it costs a little money up front when you're first getting going. You don't have a lot of, you know, you never have enough money in the bank, you know, to do something. But it was, it was well spent money that of course now over time has paid me back multiple times by not making a monthly recurring payment in the case. So I'm very lucky someone's watching this, this interview and this video out there. And you need to extend functionality for whatever reasons, either for your vision of what your product that you want to offer is or to solve a specific problem for a customer. I would say, you know, Tom and his product, product have proven themselves multiple times over to be something that requires you or you should absolutely take time to look at and see and see if it's going to fit you. One more thing I want to say is that in the software industry we also have issues of companies that spring up and develop products, but they run out of money or they run out of vision or the product gets like stale and it never changes. And then you get to a point sometimes down the road, especially if you're paying a consistent monthly fee for it and you know, you know it's the same set of functions that you've had three years ago, you stop, you start questioning why am I continually paying for this product? The thing I want to say about Tom is Tom, you know, I can send him a Facebook message, send him an email, a support, you know, email question or something.
Glenn Wasserman [00:24:03]:
And if it's not him directly, it's you or a member of the state of his team or someone that gets back to you. And that is as important, if not more important than the actual tool itself. Because if you, if I, if you hand someone a tool, if I gave you a screwdriver or a chisel and a hammer, you're not going to produce the same thing that like a carpenter or someone who uses those tools all the time is going to do. And the issue with, with products that are software generated is you should always align yourself with a company that's forward thinking, that is constantly adding to the tool or product that you have and is there for you for support. If you don't have that, my advice is maybe take a step back and maybe look at, look at another product.
Virginia Schauer [00:24:48]:
I couldn't say that enough before I really came on board to be with Tom. I, the reason why I love him so much is because I am a toolkit user with my own SaaS and I couldn't believe how responsive he is, how on top of he is getting updates done, trying to provide as much value as possible to his members and not always trying to upsell them or this or that or the other. He is just the real deal. Would you agree?
Glenn Wasserman [00:25:15]:
No, no, totally. I totally agree. In fact, you know, it's interesting because again, when I first got involved and I saw Tom, there were a couple of other vendors that did similar type things, provided like little snippets of code and little plug tools and things like that. And when I looked at, you know, Tom's solution, the toolkit in general, I just was very impressed by how he kind of built it into a real product as opposed to just dripping out like a, a solution here, a little thing here. He really thought it out as a product and then that product that we called the Markers Toolkit has just, over time, over the three to four years that I've been using, it has just evolved into a really powerful set of tools. Right? A set, a set of tools, a toolkit. It's what it is, it's a set of tools instead of software tools that are designed to enhance a specific core product that we use to build these SaaS products, whatever industries that, that we're in, the software solutions. And yes.
Glenn Wasserman [00:26:16]:
So in Tom's case, it, it, it's, it's doubly good because the product's good and the support's good and the guy who develops it is a good guy. So I guess it's a triple win in that kid.
Virginia Schauer [00:26:27]:
It's a triple threat.
Glenn Wasserman [00:26:28]:
Yeah.
Virginia Schauer [00:26:29]:
As we say in the show business.
Glenn Wasserman [00:26:31]:
There you go, There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I don't, I, honestly, if I didn't have the tool toolkit today, I would, I would, I'm spoiled. I bought it as a, as a one time thing. I, I, you know, know I don't be paying more for it today, but I don't think, I don't think I could provide the solution and the product that I have now and look forward, more forward thinking in terms of more functionality and things that we want to add to it as we, as we grow as a company. As I become more stable in my revenue stream and my, you know, my support team and the people that I have, I think we have a long future ahead of us all here. So.
Virginia Schauer [00:27:05]:
I agree. Yeah, I agree.
Glenn Wasserman [00:27:07]:
Yep.
Virginia Schauer [00:27:08]:
Thank you so much, Glenn. This has been wonderful and you've provided so much value for people coming in and learning about like, you know, maybe they want to do industry work instead of just going like person to person or what, how to start out as a new agency. So thank you so much for your time today.
Glenn Wasserman [00:27:26]:
Thank you so much for allowing me to chat with you today.
Virginia Schauer [00:27:29]:
Oh my gosh, thank you and have a great rest of your day and we'll see you over in the marketers toolkit Facebook group.
Glenn Wasserman [00:27:36]:
I'll see you soon. Say hi Tom for me.
Virginia Schauer [00:27:38]:
I will, I will.
Glenn Wasserman [00:27:39]:
Thanks. Bye bye now.
Virginia Schauer [00:27:40]:
Thanks, Glenn.
Glenn Wasserman [00:27:41]:
Okay.