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Welcome to our podcast, where we dive into everything Go High Level—from mastering the basics to tackling the most complex tasks. I use GHL daily in my business and rely on Google NotebookLM to stay ahead of the curve, keeping up with all the latest GHL features, tools, and innovations. This podcast is powered by AI, fueled by the research and insights I personally curate to bring you the most valuable and up-to-date content.
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Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a digital marketing agency trying to like send an automated happy birthday text message to a three-bedroom house. Oh, I guarantee it. And they're probably staring at their screen completely baffled as to why their client CRM has turned into just an absolute unmanageable disaster. Yeah, exactly because when you try to force, you know, physical real-world assets into a data structure that's built exclusively for human beings. The whole system eventually just breaks down. Right. It completely falls apart. Well, welcome to the deep dive. We have a massive show lined up for you today, but uh before we even get into the weeds, I want to immediately announce something very special. Oh, yeah, this is huge. It really is. If you're listening to this right now, you can get a free 30-day Go High Level trial. And that is double the standard trial length, which is amazing and the link to claim it is waiting for you right now in the show notes below. Definitely go click that, guys. Yeah, you're going to want to grab that because today's deep dive is custom-tailored for digital marketing agency owners who are ready to like completely elevate their Go High Level game. We are taking a master class today really on how to move an agency CRM builds far beyond just the basic um, the basic concepts of contacts and opportunities. Right. The simple stuff. Exactly. We're going to examine the official Go High Level developer documentation along with the latest release notes, uh specifically the update logs for March 9th through the 13th. We really want to understand how to model complex real-world business structures. So the mission here is simple. We want to give you practical actual takeaways so you can build stickier, significantly more valuable systems for your clients. Which is the ultimate goal, right? Retention. Always. So we're looking at the architecture of custom objects alongside those newest platform upgrades. Okay, let let's unpack this. If standard CRMs are fundamentally built around, you know, people and sales pipelines, what exactly is the paradigm shift when an agency introduces custom objects? Well, the shift is moving from a relational model that's based solely on human communication, um, to a model that actually reflects physical inventory and operations. Interesting. Yeah, think about the fundamental purpose of a standard CRM. It's built to manage a relationship with a person. Right, you have a first name, last name, email address, your phone number. Everything revolves around contacting that specific person. But, um, if you look at a local real estate agency, for example, their core revenue-driving asset isn't just the human buyer. It's the property itself. Yes, exactly. It's the house. And the property has its own distinct life cycle, right? I mean, it gets listed, it has open houses, it goes under contract, it gets an inspection. None of those actions actually apply to the human buying it. Precisely. Or, you know, look at a veterinary clinic. The human is just the wallet essentially. Right, right. The actual patient, the entity receiving the services, the vaccinations, the surgery is the pet. And a golden retriever doesn't have an email address. No, definitely not. Or a landscaping company managing complex multi-week projects, or a software company managing tiered subscriptions. Custom objects allow you as the agency to track these things as first-class citizens in the database. That's a great way to put it, first-class citizen. Yeah, you're defining brand new record types in the system, each with its own specific fields, its own distinct life cycle, and critically, its own automations. So it's like I always think of it like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole when you use a contact record to track a house. Because, you know, a house doesn't open marketing emails, but it does have a square footage and an MLS status. That's the perfect analogy. So the actionable takeaway for you as an agency owner is to audit your client's businesses right now. You need to ask yourself, are they currently cramming unrelated asset data into contact records? Right, like if a client has custom fields on a person's profile for dog name, dog breed, and rabies vaccine date. Yes. What happens when that person adopts a second dog? The data structure collapses. It just fails. The client ends up creating a duplicate contact record for the exact same human being just to track the second dog. Which means marketing emails get sent twice, and data silos are born, it's a mess. Moving these assets into first-class custom object records cleans up the CRM and unlocks infinitely better reporting. The house or the pet or the project, it exists once, independently. But, you know, there has to be a time when you shouldn't use them, right? Yeah. When should an agency look at a client's request and say, no, we're sticking to the standard contact. Oh, absolutely. If a client comes to you and says, um, they want to track attendees for an upcoming seminar using a custom object, you need to steer them right back to standard contacts. Why is that? The reason is purely mechanical. Custom objects do not support email campaigns. They don't support bulk email or bulk SMS. Uh, cuz you can't email a seminar ticket. You email the person holding the ticket. Exactly. If the primary functional goal of the data is to send a newsletter or a webinar reminder or a follow-up marketing blast, the standard contact object is perfectly optimized for that. You really do not want to overcomplicate a simple communication need. Makes total sense. But once you do identify the real-world entities you actually need to track, so the properties, the vehicles, the pets, the next hurdle is figuring out how to correctly wire those entities into the existing CRM architecture without completely breaking the system. Yeah, and this requires the agency owner to play the role of a really strict database architect. And every architect needs to know the constraints of their building materials, right? Looking at the docs, Go High Level allows up to 10 custom objects per location. And that's available across all plans, which is incredibly generous, but it does enforce a level of discipline. It forces you to prioritize. Yeah, 10 per location. I can easily see a client getting excited and wanting 50 custom objects for every little thing, like, ooh, let's track the office supplies. Let's track the maintenance schedule for the espresso machine. Oh, they will absolutely try to do that. Right. As an agency owner, we have to be the voice of reason and say, no, you have a limit of 10 per location. Let's reserve these for your core revenue-driving assets. That governance right there is what separates a high ticket agency from just a basic freelancer. You are the consultant dictating the data model, and within those 10 objects, you define the fields. Okay, let's talk about the fields. Right. So a critical technical feature here is unique fields. A unique field ensures that no two records in the entire subaccount can ever have the exact same value. Okay, so for a real estate property, that unique identifier would be the MLS number. Exactly. For a pet at the vet clinic, it could be the microchip ID. For a vehicle at a dealership, the VIN. You've got it. Currently, the supported unique field types are single-line text, multi-line text, number, and phone. And there is a strict limit of 10 unique fields per object. 10 unique fields. Got it. And the system enforces this uniqueness globally. So, it doesn't matter if the data comes in through a manual user entry or an automated workflow, a web form, or even a direct API integration. If that MLS number already exists, the system will just straight up not allow a duplicate custom object to be created. Which is amazing for data hygiene. I love that. Right. But reading the developer docs, there's a massive warning label attached to this feature. The permanence of these architectural decisions is no joke. No, it's very serious. Like if you set a field is unique, and a month later you decide to downgrade it to a non-unique field, that change is irreversible. You cannot ever make it unique again. Measure twice, cut once. That's the rule here. And the deletion protocols are even more strict. Only admins have the permission level to create or edit these custom objects. Good. Keep the clients out of it. Exactly. And if an admin decides they want to delete a custom object, they can't just click a little trash can icon. They have to literally type the word delete in all capital letters to confirm it. Wow, because it's the nuclear option. It really is. It wipes out the object, all the underlying records, all the custom fields you built for it, and every single association tied to it. It's just gone forever. You must plan the data model thoroughly before you ever touch the software. Yeah, whiteboard it first. Definitely. So let's talk about those associations because that is the glue that makes this whole thing work. How do these isolated custom objects actually connect back to the people and the sales pipelines? So, associations are how you reflect the messy reality of real-world relationships. You can create one-to-many or many-to-many relationships. For example, you can link an opportunity in a sales pipeline directly to a property custom object. But to keep the context clear, Go High Level allows you to use up to 10 unique labels for these connections between any two objects. Oh, I love this feature so much. So instead of just a generic kind of vague link between a person and a house, the label defines the exact context. Yes, exactly. So one contact record might be labeled as the buyer of a property, while another contact is labeled as the listing agent for that exact same property, and maybe a third contact is the inspector for the property. It gives your pipeline total, unified, three-dimensional context. Right. But, and this is but, having a perfectly organized multi-dimensional database is really only half the battle. A static filing cabinet, even a beautifully labeled one, doesn't actually save a client time or make them money. Right, to truly prove your ROI as an agency, those architectural links need to be brought to life through automation. Let's talk about that. This is where we move from mere data storage to actual business operations. Object-based workflows. You can now build automations that run directly on the custom object itself independently of the contact. Wait, so the trigger for the automation isn't a person clicking an email or filling out a form, the trigger is the thing doing something. Yes. The available triggers include when a custom object is created or when it is changed. There is also a trigger for an inbound webhook. Oh. Yeah, it's incredibly powerful. Imagine you're pulling in live status updates from an external MLS database or um a veterinary lab testing system. The external system pings the webhook, the custom object updates, and the workflow just fires automatically. Okay, let's map out the actions. A property changes its status from pending to sold. That's our trigger. What can we actually make the system do in response? The actions are incredibly robust. You can create or update associated records. Okay, give me an example. So the property changes to sold. The workflow automatically finds the associated buyer's opportunity record in the sales pipeline and just moves it to the closed one stage. That's awesome. You can clear specific data fields to prep the object for its next life cycle. You can fire off custom webhooks to send that object data out to an external endpoint, or, you know, you can log the data directly into Google sheets for legacy reporting. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting. I'm looking at this workflow capability. And I have to ask, if I'm an agency owner, does this mean I can essentially build a bespoke ERP? Like an enterprise resource planning system for a local business right inside Go High Level, rather than just a marketing funnel. Yes. That is the exact evolution this technology represents. You are transitioning your agency from simply providing lead generation to offering full inventory and operational automation. That is a massive upsell opportunity. Huge. You aren't just the vendor running their Facebook ads anymore. You're the architect of their daily operations. Like for example, when a property object's status changes to sold, the workflow can automatically update the associated buyer's opportunity, text them congratulations, and fire a custom webhook to the client's external accounting software to trigger the commission. Exactly. They could never fire you. You become the engine of their business. You're completely indispensable. But as clients start using the CRM to run those daily operations, automated actions aren't quite enough. What do you mean? Well, humans still need a way to interact with these systems, right? A workflow can change a status to sold, but what if the veterinarian needs to document a highly specific behavioral quirk about a dog? Or what if the real estate agent needs to note that the property's basement smells slightly damp? Human team members need a way to communicate seamlessly about these custom assets. Which leads us directly to the massive feature drops that just went live in the release radar between March 9th and March 13th. Yes, the notes update. Let's talk about the brand new notes on custom objects because this solves that exact human communication problem. It is a massive upgrade for team collaboration. Users can now capture record specific context directly on the custom object itself. So how does it look? You just open the pet record, you go to the notes panel on the right side and you type in your observations. It has full search functionality, filters, and sorting. It mirrors the exact note capabilities you already use on contacts and opportunities. But the underlying mechanics of how these notes work is what really caught my eye. The developer logs highlight a single source of truth rule for associated notes. How does that actually function in practice? Okay, so if you associate a note from a contact, let's say the pet owner, to the custom object, it does not create a duplicate copy of that note. It shares the exact same single note across the connected records. That is brilliant. Associating a note instead of copying it is like having a live Google Doc versus emailing a Word file back and forth. Yes, that's the perfect way to look at it. If a vet updates the note about a dog's severe peanut allergy on the pet object, the front desk receptionist looking at the owner's contact record sees the exact same updated note instantly. No crossed wires. Because associated notes are shared rather than duplicated, if a team member edits that note anywhere in the system, the change appears everywhere it is associated instantly. It fundamentally prevents data silos. So the actionable takeaway for agencies is that you need to actively train your clients to use these shared notes instead of manually copying and pasting information across records. Now, managing all these new physical assets, tracking notes, and running operational workflows, that generates a massive amount of data. And inevitably, when humans are involved, data gets messy. Always. That's why I think the new merge contact workflow action, which dropped in this same release radar window, is so critical for these complex builds. It's totally essential for data hygiene. When front desk staff at a clinic manually enter a pet owner twice by accident, it used to require manual cleanup. Which is super tedious. Exactly. Now, you can build logic that automatically identifies duplicate records and merges them seamlessly, ensuring your complex custom object associations don't get tied to like ghost contacts. And what about making sense of all this operational data once it's actually in the system? The release radar teased ask AI capabilities. I mean, it's not just a generic chatbot gimmick, is it? It actually serves a functional purpose for these complex architectures. Oh, it completely changes how users retrieve information. When you have a contact associated with multiple custom objects, years of shared notes, and dozens of workflow histories, finding one specific detail takes forever. Right. Ask AI integrates directly into the platform, so a user can query their own data naturally. A real estate agent can literally ask the AI what were the last three properties this client toured and what were their objections. That's completely wild. The AI parses the associated custom objects and notes and instantly synthesizes the answer. It saves hours of manual reading. We also saw new goal events added to workflow, specifically invoice paid and review request clicked. This ties perfectly into the operational ERP concept. It really does. Instead of relying on a clunky external webhook from Stripe to know if a client paid for their landscaping project, the invoice paid event is natively recognized. Those goal events are brilliant because they allow you to yank a contact out of an aggressive follow-up sequence the very second they actually pay the invoice or click to leave a review. Thank goodness. Right. It makes the automated system feel incredibly responsive and observant because nothing annoys a client more than receiving an automated text asking them to pay a bill they settled 10 minutes ago. Exactly. All of these features, the custom objects, the AI, the shared notes, they all generate incredible value for the local business. Yeah. But as an agency owner, if the client doesn't explicitly see that value, they will eventually churn. Which is the harsh reality. Right. Which brings us to the final and perhaps most subtly powerful update for client retention. The new dashboard date picker and filter persistence. Yeah, filter persistence simply means that when your client logs into their dashboard, sets a specific date range, and applies specific filters to view their data, the system remembers those exact settings the next time they log in. I imagine that's huge for agencies. You can basically lock in a custom ROI view. And the client sees those exact metrics every single time they log in without having to rebuild the dashboard over their morning coffee. It is the ultimate retention tool. The actionable takeaway here is to sit down with your client, configure the dashboard to highlight the exact metrics that prove your agency's operational value, you know, the volume of custom object conversion, the speed of the automated pipelines, the total revenue collected, and lock that view in. Set it and forget it. Exactly. Every single time they open the software, the very first thing they see is the undeniable mathematical proof of the value your agency is delivering. It's all about combining these tools. When you look at how all these individual features coalesce, the custom data models mirroring physical reality, the automations running the business, the live shared notes keeping the team aligned, the AI, the dashboards, it creates a single undeniable competitive advantage for digital marketing agencies today. It allows you to offer a level of operational sophistication to a local plumber or vet clinic that just five years ago, would have required custom enterprise software costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And now you're just deploying it directly within their CRM. Exactly. So, to summarize what we've unpacked today, custom objects allow you, the agency owner, to fundamentally evolve your service offerings by modeling an entire business's real-world operations in Go High Level. Whether you're tracking houses, pets, vehicles, whatever. You transform from a replaceable marketing vendor into an indispensable operational partner. You're bridging that massive gap between simply generating a new lead and actually managing the physical reality of what that lead requires. You're building the digital architecture, you're setting the rules, and you're automating the friction right out of your client's daily workflows. Which leaves us with a provocative thought for you to mull over. As you look at your own agency's business model, what if the future of the digital marketing agency isn't just about bringing in new leads, but becoming the central nervous system for how a local business interacts with its physical assets every single day. It's a complete paradigm shift. You are moving from selling marketing to selling a total business operating system. And you can start building that exact system today. I want to remind you one more time, the link for the free 30-day Go High Level trial, which again is double the standard trial length, is down in the show notes right now. I strongly encourage you to click it. Start experimenting with custom objects today and build something incredible for your clients. It's really time to start mapping out the real world. Because at the end of the day, a business is a lot more than just a straight line from a dot to a dollar sign. Sometimes, to really help a business grow, you have to be willing to build the house they live in.