Ray runs day-to-day operations across every Victory engagement, building the systems, automations and AI-powered workflows that hold the machine together. He has overseen operations behind more than $120M in revenue.
Writes about operations, systems and ai
Most low-traffic A/B tests can't reach an answer. The order we test small funnels in: tracking first, then offer, audience and message, then page details.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
An operator's evaluation of Manus, Hermes Agent and Claude agents: where each earns its keep, where it fails, and the human checkpoints every run needs.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
Ten rules for agencies putting transcripts, CRM exports and ad data into AI tools: business tiers, per-client context, redaction, connectors, consent.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Every figure with its publisher, sample and fieldwork dates, split into self-reported, measured and forecast. Use is near-universal. Scaled impact isn't.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Most teams use AI; few have scaled it. The SOPs, approval points, tool lanes, costs and data rules we use to run funnels with Claude and agents.
Ray Gillespie
20 min read
One context per client, calls turned into phased plans, Claude Code brains wired to Fathom and ClickUp, and the edits we make to Claude's copy.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Claude wins long-context work and client documents. GPT-6 Astra gives the better first website draft. Five agency tasks, with inputs you can rerun.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
How we run agency delivery in ClickUp: a Ready for Review gate, contractor scope checks, Looms for offshore teammates and call notes that become tasks.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
Course completion and membership churn statistics traced to their studies, with samples and dates, and why paying changes how people finish.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft sender rules, A2P 10DLC and the TCPA as one attendance system, with a dated table of what is actually in force in October 2026.
Ray Gillespie
19 min read
Work backwards from the seats: show rate gives you registrations, cost per registration gives you the budget. The seat-first calculator we use.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
A large event sent cold Meta traffic straight to ticket checkout. Why we moved it to a curiosity-led opt-in first, and rewrote the page to sell the why.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Free events earn money in four steps: seats, registrations, show rate, sales. The show-rate system we run, and the 2026 data behind each lever.
Ray Gillespie
19 min read
Attendance and no-show benchmarks for free, paid and virtual events, with each sample and denominator, plus the popular numbers that trace to nothing.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Keep webinar registration free and sell a small paid upgrade right after sign-up. Where the paywall goes, how much ad spend it recovers, how to build it.
Ray Gillespie
7 min read
The full chain we use to rebuild landing pages: Figma comps into v0, GitHub, Vercel, then back into GoHighLevel. Plus the tracking catch most guides skip.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
Work out each funnel stage rate, revenue per lead and revenue per visitor, then find the one stage whose fix adds the most revenue at your current spend.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Fix the stage that leaks most before you add ad spend. Stage benchmarks for coaching, course and event funnels, a tracking gate, and a test order.
Ray Gillespie
19 min read
One checklist for all three inboxes: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, spam rate, one-click unsubscribe and the CAN-SPAM footer, with enforcement dates side by side.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
What GoHighLevel should own in a coaching, course or event business, where the all-in-one breaks, and what it costs once you add email, texting and AI.
Ray Gillespie
16 min read
HighLevel's customer, workflow, contact and message figures checked against each other, plus the agency counts that circulate without a dated source.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
How we pair Claude and Higgsfield for ad variations: the workflow, real credit cost per clip, the Meta and FTC policy check, and where human footage wins.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
Run paid ads close to the date, start warm email and SMS earlier, and stack reminders on the day itself. The promo calendar and cadence we run.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Build two spaces: a free community that costs none of your time and a paid room where results happen. Challenges, ascension paths and what to measure.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
GPT-6 Astra drafts the site; the method around it does the rest. Our six steps from Claude intake to Astra directions, v0 refinement and a mobile QA pass.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Run it live first, then automate only the version that already won, and automate honestly. What the data shows, when hybrid wins and the FTC risks.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
What happens after a $27 sale: a consumption gate before the booking link, soft qualifiers, progress-based upsells, downsells and the GoHighLevel build.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
LTV:CAC tells you whether a customer is worth buying. 30-day cash tells you how fast you can scale. How to measure both, with worked numbers.
Ray Gillespie
11 min read
Clarity shows where visitors struggle, not which ad sold. How to get Clarity data into Claude, rank fixes by drop-off and friction, and review them.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
A free three-day event we ran missed badly. What went wrong, how we owned it, what multi-day attendance data shows, and the format rule we use now.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
A bump sits on the order form; an upsell comes after payment. We traced the popular take-rate stats to their origins, and give the placement rules we use.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
One owner per job: the eight tools we run, what each is the system of record for, the handoffs between them and what the stack costs a 10-person agency.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
A self-liquidating offer turns ad spend into buyers at break-even. The net-of-fees math, the ROAS target we hold, and why SLOs break when you scale spend.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
A funnel-first way to read Microsoft Clarity: start at the biggest drop, split by traffic source, watch four signals, and fix in order of cost.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
A2P registration lets you send, consent lets you market, verification proves the number works. What each layer requires and the evidence to keep.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
A dated status matrix for texting brands: one-to-one consent vacated, 10-day opt-outs in force, the FCC's September 2026 order and state quiet hours.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
Stuck between $1M and $10M? Find your stage, run the six-constraint test, read unit economics by offer and channel, and fix one constraint at a time.
Ray Gillespie
18 min read
Customers barely reward beating a promise and punish breaking one. How to promise accurately, keep it, and price every extra with Hormozi's trim and stack.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
One replay email to everyone wastes the best days of the funnel. The six follow-up segments we run, in priority order, and who gets a call instead.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
How to build a webinar funnel that sells: pick the destination, the format, the pages, the ad window and the follow-up, with benchmarks you can trust.
Ray Gillespie
17 min read
Webinar conversion rate means three different numbers. Every public benchmark on one denominator, why none covers buyers, and what good looks like.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Work backward from buyers to attendees, registrations and ad spend, with sourced defaults and the cheap baseline test we run before any webinar launch.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
A summit buys one concentrated pitch after a big spend. A webinar every week or two buys dozens of pitch reps a year. When to run each, and in what order.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
Unbounce's 6.6% is a median, not an average. 2026 landing page benchmarks by industry, traffic source and offer, plus the ranges we see on our funnels.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
The page people see right after they register is your first show-rate lever. The nine components we put on it, and what each one does for attendance.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Friction is a dial, not a defect. Where a price, a card or a qualifying question raises buyer quality enough to beat the volume you lose.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
Give every AI tool one job and score each lane on time saved, effort cut and who owns the judgment. Our lane map, with prices and a rule for cancelling.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
Count heads, not dollars, to find your scaling stage. Then run six yes/no checks to name the one constraint to fix first, and what to read next for each.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
Most no-shows trace to one failure point between sign-up and doors open. A symptom-by-symptom audit, and what controlled tests say about reminders.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
Seven-figure businesses stall when the systems behind the ads break. What fails at $1M, $3M and $10M, and the one-week stress test to run first.
Ray Gillespie
9 min read
The four causes we find behind most spam-folder problems, the recovery order that fixes them, and why plainer emails help while your domain heals.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
Traffic but no conversions means a leak. Check ad, page, offer, inbox, show rate and sales follow-up in order, each against a number, before adding spend.
Ray Gillespie
10 min read
A coach swapped monthly single-date webinars for a weekly multi-part series and lost the room. Why it happens, why B2B data looks different, what to run.
Ray Gillespie
8 min read
