The Zoomers to Boomers Business Show
Our goal is to speak to entrepreneurs from across all facets of the generational spectrum. We’ll be smashing stereotypes, encouraging genuine dialog, and breaking through barriers to real communication. We’ll discourage the practice of pointing fingers of blame across generations, and we’ll continue to tread on roads less traveled for most business shows. (Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out!)
https://www.hankeder.com/zoomers-to-boomers-business-show/
The Zoomers to Boomers Business Show
Cultivating a Thriving Home Enterprise Through Strategic Online Engagement
Uncover the transformative power of technology in enhancing human connections with serial entrepreneur and visionary, Tom Gay, in our latest podcast episode. As we traverse Tom’s innovative landscape, you’ll be introduced to EngagePro.com and ChatBridgeConnect.com—two groundbreaking platforms poised to revolutionize your professional network. Prepare to bridge the gap between the digital realm and trust-forging relationships, harnessing the strength of referrals and personalization to catapult your business success.
Join us for a compelling journey that celebrates the surge of our Alignable community and unwraps the essence of creating meaningful relationships amidst the digital buzz. From Tom's insightful strategies to my reflections on the delicate dance between high-tech and high-touch interactions, this episode is a trove of wisdom for entrepreneurs looking to thrive from the comfort of their homes. Tune in, and let's chart the course toward independence and prosperity together, with the Home Business Success Show lighting the way.
Website: https://chatbridgeconnect.com
Website: https://engagepro.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/thomasgay
Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.
Welcome to the Home Business Success Show. Join us as we speak to home business entrepreneurs for tips, tricks, do's and even don'ts for running a successful home business. Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy, host of the Home Business Success Show, and you're listening to bizradious all entrepreneurs all the time. We'll meet our guests right after my Two Cents Marketing Minute. You know solid relationships are a cornerstone of successful business. Building relationships is an art. When we learn to give value freely to others, we start to understand how to begin building real relationships and how we can all dance in a flow of mutuality with our business relationships. Well, that being said, today's guest has spent a lifetime building relationships as well as successful businesses.
Hank:Tom Gay is a highly accomplished serial entrepreneur, making a career of solving complex business and marketing problems through innovative web solutions. He's currently the CEO of EngageProcom, a referral sales building platform for professionals, and the creator of ChatBridgeConnectcom. Previously, he founded Refercom, which served almost 5 million users. Throughout his career, tom has started other successful companies, including National Decision Systems, which pioneered advanced target marketing technologies and earned two coveted INC 500 awards, and Vista Info, a NASDAQ company that provided geo-targeted property risk info to banks, insurers, realtors and homebuyers. Tom was recognized by Individual Investor Magazine as one of the five best undiscovered small company CEOs in the USA. Tom also does a lot of charity work and in Cape Town, south Africa, he started Monte Cristo Ministries, helping people caught in institutional poverty, and they implemented feeding programs reaching up to 7,000 children a day. They built infrastructure to help youth and families and they assisted in supporting children and infants with HIV and AIDS. Tom, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here with us.
Tom:No, thank you, Hank. I appreciate the opportunity to build a relationship with you and serve your audiences.
Hank:Well, we really appreciate that If you would please tell us about what you do.
Tom:Well, as you know, I'm a serial tech entrepreneur and I am enjoying building EngageProcom. Engagepro is a tool to help us bring relationships back into the middle of our business model, the middle of our life. Over the last 20 years, or more even, we've had so much advance in the way of technology that served as much to separate us as it has to connect us and, as I've recently written, it's time for a relationship reset, and EngagePro is a tool to help business people and more build, know, like and trust relationships in a systematic and repeatable way that always leads to good outcomes. Usually for business people, they're looking for more referrals, more sales, more opportunities, referral partners, and EngagePro delivers on that and as well. We are focused on bringing those same tools into the nonprofit world so that they can raise the support to fulfill their mission, so that's part of our goal in this season of my entrepreneurial journey.
Hank:Well, that's very cool. You know it almost sounds counterintuitive. You know that technology would bring us closer together rather than separating us like it's done in the past. So I would say kudos to your success at bridging that gap between technology and relationships. To me that's incredible.
Tom:You use the word bridge, and I want to put some emphasis on that. We need a bridge and I call it a trust bridge. Building the bridge of trust between people is what we're focusing on and, as you've all heard, people do business with those who they know like and trust. That's where our focus has been with EngagePro making sure that that trust bridge is built, because once the bridge is built, all kinds of traffic can go across that bridge. That's beneficial to both parties on either side of that bridge. So it's an interesting metaphor for how we convey what it is we do.
Hank:Which brings us to the other product that you've got out there right now ChatBridge Connect. I came in when I first heard about it and I think it was towards the beginning of your putting it out there, and I must say, and to our listeners I'd like to say that you know a lot of you as solopreneurs, as home business owners, go to a lot of Zoom meetings. You go to a lot of Zoom meetings and you save the chats, but what do you do with all that information? And it's so. You know, I had an English client who used to say things were higgledy-piggledy. And you get that information and it's all higgledy-piggledy. And ChatBridge Connect really organizes it by conversation, by the names, by the people, and it allows you to bring it into spreadsheets or bring it into CRMs. How did you get started building that?
Tom:It's a great question. All of my companies are started on the foundation of a problem what is the problem? And we had a philosophy that said if a problem is endured or enjoyed by more than one person, then you need a system to solve it, and if there's enough people with that problem, that system turns into a business, an opportunity. Now, back in January of a year ago, a dear friend of mine from Atlanta came to me and said Tom, I don't know what to do about this. I go to all these Zoom networking meetings, I download the Save Chat as they all advise and I open to all these Zoom networking meetings. I download the saved chat as they all advise and I open it up. And it's unusual, can you fix it Now? That was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, because I know the prevalence of Zoom networking and the millions of Zoomers out there. So, after a little research and a few months of work, we brought out ChatBridge Connect and now, in a quarter of a second, after you select that download and save Zoom chat file, it gets brought into ChatBridge and converts into an easy to use, simple follow-up system so that you can harvest the potential of what you just spent an hour or whatever amount of time investing in going to that networking meeting or that different group meeting.
Tom:It's now proliferated into a global solution. People all over the world use ChatBridge Connect and they go back into their desktops where they've saved dozens and dozens of previous meeting events. The chats from those have been sitting there for weeks and months and now they can open them up and uncover the gold that's lying there on their desktop just waiting. We have a story of this one woman from the Washington DC area In 20 minutes she wrote this in a post she said in 20 minutes she opened up 20 previously saved Zoom chats, put them all through ChatBridge and came up with 400 leads that she had left live fallow. And so we're really proud of ChatBridge. And came up with 400 leads that she had left live fallow, and so we're really proud of ChatBridge. It's been adopted by some major organizations, as I said, across the globe and still growing nicely as we enter our first year, or end our first year in just a couple of weeks.
Hank:Well, I understand that ChatBridge, Connect and Engage Pro have been I don't know what the expression that I should use not picked up, but they're allied now with the platform called.
Tom:Alignable. Yes, hank, you're right. What happened is we had a training session on the use of these two products back in November and it's an open session, so anyone can come. Well, in that session, a couple of top execs from Alignable came and sat in the Zoom room and heard me speak of it and demonstrate it, and a week later we had a proposal on our desk to become what's called an Alignable community partner, to become what's called an alignable community partner.
Tom:In late December we released it inside of the alignable community, and ChatBridge and EngagePro are being offered to 8.5 million alignable members here in North America and it's skyrocketed in growth. Our community group, as it's called, which is where people go to access the training tools that we provide, and we do a lot of workshop training on the principles that underlie why these products exist. Those are all free in that group, but we've had unusual success, skyrocketed growth in that community group, and it's been a privilege to serve people in another way and it's an honor to be a part of the alignable community. I highly recommend it to anyone who listens to this message today. Very, very dynamic organization.
Hank:Steve Browning. Yeah, I've started looking at alignable up. You know, of course, there's so many platforms out there that I'm now just beginning to take notice of that one. But I've started looking at Alignable. You know, of course, there's so many platforms out there that I'm now just beginning to take notice of that one, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. Now, tom, you've focused on relationships as an important factor in business for quite a long time. How and why did this become important to you?
Tom:Well, it's driven a lot of success for me, truthfully, and there was a point in time when the light bulb came on. But I reflect back to looking for the beginning, and in the 80s I built a very successful company. Our team built. I mean, we started it with one person in 1979, and we had about 350 people in 1989 when we sold it, but we didn't have any of the technology that we have today. So one of the things I would do in an attempt to build a relationship with a prospect is I would collect dozens and dozens of trade magazines they were prolific in those days and I'd find ones that lined up with target markets that we were aiming for, clearly, tear the articles out that related to my prospective client's interests, take them over to you'll remember this the Xerox machine, make copies of them and then write notes on top of those articles and circulate them out to the people I was trying to break through the front door to have a conversation with. It's amazing, after two or three of those articles being delivered over the course of a couple of months, I had people open to talk with me, because I was both a giver as well as one who built the image of being an expert, the two key elements you have to have in order to build that bridge of trust. One key is the key of character as a giver. The other key is the key of competence. In this case, the background from those industry articles were the source of that key. But when you put character and competence together, now you become trustable. Trustworthy. You could say Well, our business skyrocketed.
Tom:We created and then took over a whole industry. There wasn't anyone who could match what we did because we always focused on the relationship first. Now, about About that time, there was a book written you may have heard of it called Megatrends Megatrends by John Naisbitt, national bestseller international. In it he was talking about the megatrends that businesses would have to understand in order to be successful in the longer term. One of them I think it was number two in the book was the principle of high tech and high touch. High tech because high tech was emerging robustly. High touch, in his thesis, was you've got to build person to person relationships and not just surrender everything to tech, and that's been baked into everything that I've done since then. I owe a lot to his premise.
Hank:So it's a synergy really of the technical and the familiar to us, which is the reaching out, which is the giving, which is the sharing, which is the touch. So it brings those worlds together. I think it merges the best of those worlds.
Tom:I use a term today and you're 100% right, but I use the term hyper-personalization. We have hyper-technology everywhere PCs, cell phones, social media. Now, in order to distinguish yourself in a hyper-technical world, you need to become hyper-personal. For example, I happen to know where you live. I've known you for a year or so and when we first connected today, I asked you about the breaking out of springtime there in North Carolina and it became a bridging component of our reconnecting conversation today. Now, if I asked you about the in this season of this recording the March Madness basketball tournament that's about to take place, and I happen to know that you were a I have to be very careful here, but let's say you were a North Carolina fan or an alum and I talked with you about these things. The bridge of trust is coming because I've made the conversation hyper personal, all about Hank's interests, and that's what our Engage Pro tool has been built to. Easily provide for people is the ability to be personal and in the continuing communications mechanism or mode so that that relationship takes root.
Hank:Yeah, those things that bring us together. You know, when it comes to sports with me, it doesn't matter what you say because you know I've never been a big follower of any of it, but still coming up with that, that thing that did bring us together. You know, how is spring in the mountains? I mean, it's a beautiful topic because spring in the mountains is beautiful. So, yeah, the things that break the ice, that make us share a common bond, I could see that that's a good thing to have all across the board, different ways that we can just reach out to somebody, even if we're just meeting them for the first moment or so. There's got to be some common ground family hobbies.
Tom:Well, I closed a significant sale when I learned my prospect, who wasn't very, let's say, active, getting to the sales completion table. He was kind of dragging his feet when he said, tom, we'll pick this up when I come back from a golf trip. I'm planning with my wife to Hilton Head. Okay Now, to me that was almost the kiss of death in any sales process. That's the proverbial stall.
Tom:However, before the phone had cooled off on that Friday evening, I had gone onto the web, into Yelp, found the internet address for Hudson's Seafood Restaurant. You know, as I said to him, just over the bridge, when you drive onto Hilton Head Island, there's a seafood restaurant on the left with the best black and red fish in the southeast. I put that in an email to him that same night where he gave me the stall. He got the link to that restaurant before he left for his drive to North Carolina. Well, he called me that evening and said no one's ever done that for me. Let's get started. It's all about putting yourself in the shoes of the other person based on their interest, that's hyper-personalization.
Hank:Yeah, that's a great example there, Because also, when they have a good experience, like at that restaurant, for example, they'll always remember that you took the time to do that. You know it's amazing how time is flying by here. Why are you still doing these things basically engaging in relationships and helping others with relationships at this stage of your life?
Tom:Well, I enjoy it. If I've ever been, then I'm no longer a good golfer and I don't know if I can ever claim I was. Today I'm in my late 70s and active every single day, interacting with people all across the globe. Today I've been to South Africa, I've been to the UK, everywhere and I can't ever imagine not trying to help people become better versions of themselves as I become a better version of myself. So it's a stage of significance. Kevin Patton, I wrote an article about three months ago called it's Time for the Great Relationship Reset. It's time for the pendulum to swing back away from its impersonal technology side to back where people matter to each other and they're actively carrying out those steps to show they matter and that was published in a book now on Amazon to show they matter and that was published in a book now on Amazon. But it's time that those of us who know the difference take a stand and make a difference.
Hank:Yeah, I think that takes us back to that ever important why. Because when you know your why, everything else comes so much easier, and your why brings you that energy and the enthusiasm. So, tom, it looks like you've been into your why for a very long time. Is there anything else you'd like to bring up that I haven't asked you?
Tom:Wow, man, that's like a real open-ended question. Basically, I think if people will simply stop and ask the question, what could I do to have a positive impact on people I interact with every day, what would I do? Look at the world. We're in Continuous conflict, lots of noise, partisanship, all kinds of things that separate us. Let's work and focus on the things that bring us together, or should bring us together, and make this world a better place, and I think that's the opportunity that lies ahead, especially for those of us who have seen other versions of how we live in our decades of experience here.
Hank:Well, yeah, I think that's something definitely to work for, to strive for, and I think it's a goal that not only is possible, but is very, very plausible. So, thank you, thank you for being here with us today, tom. If you would please tell our audiences the best way to connect with you.
Tom:Well, I would love to connect with anyone. You can find me on alignablecom, number one, as we talked about earlier. Number two is I'll share my email, if that's okay with you here, and that's tom at engageprocom. I'm in LinkedIn and I would say lastly, every week I put on two training workshops that are free on these principles of how to go about becoming more successful as you learn about building relationships and how that affects your sales and referrals, and you can find those workshops publicized in Alignable. They're very popular, usually have 100 or more people registered for them, and would always welcome meeting any one of you that hear this who have a desire to know more, who with one of those means.
Hank:Well, thanks so much, tom, and for our audience, thanks for being here with us today. Tune in every Wednesday for the Home Business Success Show here on bizradious. Remember you can achieve success, freedom and independence in your own home business. Success, freedom and independence in your own home business. We'll see you again next Wednesday. This is Hank Eder, wishing all of you a fabulous day of home business success.