Why Agencies Win With One Dashboard: Shawn Clark on Go HighLevel
The Night Five Apps Failed Me
At 11:42 p.m. a Colorado roofer called me, swearing the phone tree ate his $75-per-click Google lead.
Turns out lead #188 had been forwarded → zapped → tagged → abandoned somewhere between Calendly and the CRM-du-jour.
Five apps, one lost roof, zero excuses.
That was the moment I muttered the same words Shawn Clark once did: “There’s got to be a better way.”
Shawn’s 2-Man Code Sprint
Shawn didn’t chase VC checks or Forbes covers—he chased sleep. Client follow-ups pinged him at dinner, proposals went cold by breakfast, and his dev partner Robin joked they should just glue Twilio to a CRM and call it a day. So they did, shipping the first HighLevel build from a guest bedroom.
Fast-forward: 40,000+ agencies and 1.2 million businesses now run on that code , landing HighLevel at #426 on the 2024 Inc 5000 .
How a Roofing Crew Became a Case-Study Legend
I slammed HighLevel into Energy Lacking Integrity duct-taped stack:
Missed-call text-back = +38 % quote requests
Review automation = 97 new 5-star reviews in 30 days
Pipeline triggers = $1.3 M revenue lift in 60 days
Owner’s words: “I work Fridays for golf now.”
Watch the Full Interview on YouTube
Beats, Bars, and a CRM
When Produced by Nef swapped Google Sheets for HighLevel, every Instagram DM paired to a beat-store funnel. He sold out two exclusive tracks in 48 hours—then cloned the snapshot for other producers at $297/mo.
“My music pays rent and platform fees,” he laughed.
Community Highlight — Codie’s Mastermind & the $5.1 M Exit
Go HighLevel’s team invited me to share this on their YouTube channel after I spilled how Codie Sanchez’s Contrarian Thinking mastermind rewired my approach to scaling.
On that same platform, I mapped out the Testimonial Waterfall and automation sequence that powered a $5.1 million sale contract—one I famously walked from during my own exit journey. (Proof that owning your tech stack can lead to exits you never saw coming.)
Mindset Check — App-Hopper vs HighLevel Operator
App-Hopper HighLevel Operator
Tool Count 5–12 “best in class” apps 1 white-label dashboard
Monthly SaaS Spend $600–$1,200 $97–$497
Data Flow Zap spaghetti, fingers crossed Native objects, no leaks
Client Perception “Tech stack chaos” “You built proprietary software?!”
Owner’s Time Support tickets & debugging Selling & scaling
Action Steps — Rip & Deploy in 14 Days
Day What to Do & Why It Matters:
1 Spin up the Agency Snapshot Instant funnels + automations
2–3 Import contacts; tag by source Cleaner reporting → smarter ads
4 Turn on Missed-Call Text-Back & Reputation Manager Recapture & review snowball
5–7 Build a 3-Email / 2-SMS nurture per service line Turns tire-kickers into booked jobs
8 Customize the mobile app with your logo Sell “your software” at $297/mo
9–10 Layer Testimonial Waterfall SOP triggers Clients sell for you 24/7
11–14 Measure pipeline velocity; prune dead automations Speed beats pretty dashboards
Bail OUUUUUT of your LinkTree account. It's killing your assets......READ MORE
Stream This Episode of the Scale to Sale Podcast on Spotify
High-Signal Resources
Start a 14-Day Trial — comes with my “SCALE Snapshot” & a 30-min onboarding call.
Testimonial Waterfall SOP — inside Rabbit Hole members area.
12. Sources (paste into Google)
Go HighLevel growth stats
https://blog.gohighlevel.com/from-startup-to-success-5-years-of-highlevel/General Atlantic minority-stake report
https://www.wsj.com/articles/general-atlantic-takes-minority-stake-in-marketing-software-provider-214f5dc8
