In this episode of This New Way, Aydin sits down with Tom Crawshaw, founder of an AI automation agency, to explore how he built an AI SDR (Sales Development Rep) system that books over $200,000 in sales calls per month—completely automated and with no humans in the loop. Tom breaks down the tech stack, the flow of conversations, and why these two-way AI-powered chats sound so natural that they’re almost undetectable as bots. He also shares how this system scales personalized customer conversations at a fraction of the cost, and how similar workflows can be applied to everything from e-commerce abandoned carts to B2B demo follow-ups.
Timestamps:
1:15 – Tom’s background and pivot from email/SMS marketing to AI automation
2:57 – Why AI enables true two-way conversations at scale
4:06 – Building custom AI SDR agents vs. off-the-shelf chatbots
6:09 – Live demo: Booking a sales call through the AI SDR workflow
10:13 – How the system qualifies leads and handles objections
12:04 – Tech stack breakdown: Go High Level, N8N, Twilio, and A2P verification
17:02 – Under the hood: prompts, custom fields, and conversation logic
23:00 – Automating what 1,000 SDRs would do manually
27:04 – Costs: Running conversations at $0.25 each
29:25 – Other use cases: abandoned carts, B2B no-show follow-ups, e-commerce
34:00 – Context files: training AI on viral posts and high-performing copy
38:14 – Prompt Cowboy: turning lazy prompts into viral-ready content
40:29 – Where to follow Tom and learn more about AI SDR systems
Tools & Technologies Mentioned:
Go High Level – CRM platform used for SMS automation and pipeline management
N8N – Workflow automation tool connecting AI agents and custom scripts
Twilio – SMS and WhatsApp messaging infrastructure
A2P Verification – Compliance process required for sending business SMS in the US and Canada
OpenAI / Claude – LLMs powering natural language conversations
Prompt Cowboy – Tool for turning simple prompts into fully structured, optimized ones for better AI output
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