Thomas Ryan Podcast Transcript
Thomas Ryan joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Tom Ryan. Tom Ryan, CEO and founder of Bigly Sales, is a visionary leader reshaping the sales landscape through innovative AI solutions. With a background in staffing and executive experience at WorkBeast, Tom identified the need for streamlined sales processes in the evolving market.
His journey from the staffing industry to the forefront of AI driven sales reflects his dedication to leveraging technology evident in Bigly sales, cutting edge tools for lead generation and customizable landing pages. Tom’s commitment to efficiency and client appreciation positions Bigly sales as a trailblazer in the tech industry, showcasing his ongoing dedication to enhancing the sales experience through the power of artificial intelligence.
Well, good afternoon, Tom. Welcome to the show!
Thomas Ryan: Good afternoon. How are you today?
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Appreciate you making the time Tom. I know we. Traverse the globe on this podcast, so far, 50 countries most of them in North America, but we’ve been around the globe. So again, just appreciate you making the time and Thomas jumping right into your first question.
Let’s talk about your transition from a career in staffing to leading an AI driven sales company. What inspired this shift and how has your background in staffing influenced your approach at Bigley sales?
Thomas Ryan: Sure. So, I got pulled in on a project probably back in 2003, they were redoing the CRM system at the company I was working at, and they pulled me on to that initiative and they said, Hey, can you take a look at how this works, how it should work?
And that was really my introduction to kind of thinking about CRMs and really how to do outreach for sales, right? Because that’s what a CRM should do. It should help you do more sales. So, I started building my tools at my own business back in 2008, nine, 10. And we built tools for years and the things that moved the needle was ways to automate the outreach.
Everything else was, you know, kind of pushing the hay around. Automating the outreach is what really worked. And I had started off building a platform that was really a CRM that incorporated text messages, phone calls, emails, and reporting all in one place. And then when AI came out. AI is the game changer.
So, I know AI has been out for a while, but it didn’t really become useful for most businesses until, you know, some point about a year ago. And we were one of the early adopters. We were just outside of the beta group for chat GPT. We were part of the beta group for Claude, and we’ve been building tools on it since they’ve been available.
So. That was really how I got involved and how the transition made sense. And why I’m dealing with sales tools is I was running sales teams for, you know, about 20 years. And you know, it was just kind of a, a natural transition.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Appreciate the story. That’s. Certainly, you know, from the outside looking in the transition, a little odd, right?
Probably to most people, how’d you go from that to, AI driven sales company, right? So, do appreciate the story. I love it. And you’re right about AI. It’s a game changer for everybody. I think we’ve all tapped into it. And now not just the big corporations can use it, but we, you and I, the everyday.
Average person can tap into that power. So, appreciate that. And Thomas, as a CEO with a track record of driving substantial growth, such as 1500 percent revenue growth at Barton and associates, can you share your leadership philosophy and how has it shaped the culture at Bigley sales?
Thomas Ryan: Yeah, I think it starts with hiring great talent, right?
So, you want to hire great people and give them directions but give them some freedom to, to do things as well. So. You know, you hire great people. You set the goals of what they’re supposed to accomplish. Something that’s a little different about this company is I don’t have an office. I don’t have a physical office outside of my home.
We’re closing in on 30 employees, but they’re all spread around the goal around the globe. So, they’re in India, they’re in Pakistan, they’re in Brazil, they’re in Columbia. Obviously, some here in the U S as well, but. You know, we’re truly spread out globally where you can find better talent around the world than I can within 10 miles of where I live or 20 miles of where I live.
You know, so I’m finding great programming talent all over the globe right now, I’m actually sponsoring a coding competition. At Laricon India, where we’re going to find some of the best coders in India in this coding competition where, you know, there’s going to be, I believe, 1,500 to 2,000 people that are going to be there and you know, we’re unbelievably excited about it.
I’m hiring out of IIT right now, which is the MIT of India, except they have an acceptance rate of under 1%. So, I think in the new world, it’s just opened up these opportunities that were never there before. I would never have been able to get that sort of talent in South Florida previous to, you know, a few years ago.
And now there’s just a world of opportunities that are out there. So, find great people, find them wherever they may be get them on the team, give them some guidance. We use an agile methodology to everything that we do. We set. You know, short term goals that people can work at getting and you know, just measuring results rather than measuring attendance.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And you’re right. It’s totally a global marketplace now, and that goes for talent and. Like you, I’ve seen a lot of great talent from various locations around the world, and I’m glad you’re able to tap into that and leverage that. I think that’s amazing, so I appreciate the share. And Thomas, can you discuss how AI has transformed traditional sales processes?
Specifically, how have the AI tools developed by Bigly Sales enhanced lead generation and client engagement?
Thomas Ryan: Sure, so The main tool that we’re rolling out right now is an AI that sits on top of SMS. So, I don’t know how familiar you are with the new TCPA rules coming out, but they’re closing the loophole within the TCPA, where it used to be, if you weren’t on the DNC and you filled out a form, they could basically resell your information a thousand times, as long as they had their terms and conditions set up right.
And then you’re getting calls from all these different companies that you weren’t expecting to be called by. And you know, it gets, it just keeps getting passed around. So, people hate that. And they’re changing these rules. So, a lot of people who used to just buy large quantities of data aren’t going to be able to do that anymore.
Those new rules go into effect February 2025. And what we’re doing is we have an AI that sits on top of SMS sits on top of email as well. But SMS is just everyone sees it. SMS messages within a few minutes. The read rate is, you know, something like 97 percent versus 20 percent if you manage to avoid the spam filter and email.
So. With SMS, it’s very powerful that way. And what we’re doing is we have the AI automatically. As soon as that form gets filled out, the AI reaches out to that person, and then it automates all of the follow up. It will continue to pinging them if they haven’t responded, and it will push them either into an immediate phone call during the hours when a call center is open.
Or it will schedule a appointment with that person. And the numbers are striking. It’s if you don’t talk to someone in that first hour, your odds of closing that deal dropped 95%. It’s. You’re literally 2000 percent more likely to close a deal with someone if you contact them within that first hour. So all of these people, they get a lead in at 10 o’clock at night and they’re like, Oh, I’ll call it the next morning.
They’re probably not going to close that deal. If they end up calling it a couple of days later, it’s almost impossible for them to close that deal. If someone has a real need, they’ve moved on to another company and they have found what they needed already. And they’re not going to end up working with you.
So we automate that process. We make it immediate. We follow up as many times that are necessary. And basically, we get a stop or we get An appointment. And if someone has filled out the form, you know, they are usually pretty interested. So oftentimes we will get that appointment. It will have much higher rates of setting those appointments than people doing this on their own.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And again, just leveraging Some of the technology. And of course, you’ve got a lot of experience here to add to this to really dial this process in. But I love you explaining and stepping through the process. So, thank you again. And Thomas last question of the day. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are looking to innovate in the AI and technology space?
Thomas Ryan: Especially in sales and marketing. I would get started. That’s the big thing. I think, you go back five years, you probably needed to be an engineer. Now you don’t. Now with ChatGPT and Claude and the other tools that are out there, it can literally walk you through how to do pretty much anything. Unless you’re talking about very complex engineering problems.
You can do it. That it will literally give you step by step instructions of how to start. What code you need, if some of the code doesn’t work, you can put in, you know, you can feed it back into ChatGPT. It will tell you what errors are there. There’s a bunch of no code tools like Bubble that are out there; Gumroad, things like that, where you can set up a web store. You can automate these processes, so. You know, there’s really no excuse to, to not start in a business anymore. And even if you don’t have a ton of capital, if you need some help with something, you can go to a site like Fiverr now we use deal for everything.
They don’t actually provide the employees. They just give me a platform to pay everyone. Legally anywhere in the world. I think deal. com is amazing. D E E L. com. I’m not getting paid by them. I just think it’s a great product. Fiverr is a great one. Upwork is a great one. You can find a specialist in pretty much anything that you’re looking for over there, somewhere around the world for, you know, pennies on the dollar and people do a short project for a couple of hundred bucks, 50 bucks, whatever the number is.
But it’s something that almost anyone can afford. So, I don’t think there’s the excuses anymore. Boy, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t have the technical knowledge. I can’t afford to hire a team. I, you know, I think those excuses have kind of gone out the window in the last couple of years. And again, you can have the AI literally teach you how to do anything.
If you want to learn AI, the best way to learn AI is to ask chat GPT or to ask Claude, Hey, how do I do something? How do I do this coding problem? How do I, how do I set this thing up? How do I set up the server? How do I set up Azure? How do I, you know, pick something technical that is the strongest area.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, I think I’ve been using chat beach GPT for about a year now, and it’s just been able to automate so many of the things that I do on a daily basis. And again, appreciate the plugs. I know you don’t work for deal, but we hear plugs all the time.
People using these apps. That helps them be more efficient during their day. So, Thomas, I appreciate that, and Thomas. It was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Thomas Ryan: Yeah, thank you so much. One other thing. We do have an AI calling feature coming out in the next couple of weeks here as well.
Well, it will actually be able to. Do a phone call, enroll someone into Medicare, Medicaid, sign them up for an insurance product. You’ll need a licensed agent at the end of that process, of course, but it will be able to do 90 percent of the work. So that’s a new product that I’ve coming out that I’m really excited about.
And I believe it’s the first one out there that doesn’t use an IVR solution that actually can take real language and you know, respond on the fly within about a second.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Bye for now.
Thomas Ryan Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
