Social media, networking and brand expert, and keynote speaker, Ramon Ray shared some wisdom during our interview. Enjoy the summary below or watch the video for the full interview.
Ramon Ray is a leading expert on small business success who brings his knowledge and his energy to audiences because he is unapologetically not boring. He is a motivational speaker and a successful entrepreneur who inspires and educates 1000’s of business owners a year through his articles, his podcast, and his in-demand media interviews. He is the founder of SmartHustle.com and the Entrepreneur in Residence at Oracle NetSuite. Ramon has started four companies and written four books including The Celebrity CEO. Ramon is also a great host and has interviewed some amazing people including a former president of the United States, all five sharks on Shark Tank. He is often seen collaborating and sharing the stage with Seth Godin. He is a great piano player.
Like many young people, Ramon wanted a job to get money so he spent many years working at the United Nations. However, Ramon always want to do new things. He believes entrepreneurs are born with the desire to take risks. To fuel his knack for technology, his first business venture was Family Computer consulting services where he helped small businesses with technology and networking. For Ramon, technology is very important as it helps a business scale faster because more things can be done with less resources. Technology also helps a business save money and be more efficient.
One of Ramon’s books, The Celebrity CEO, is about being a dime a dozen and how you can be well known to your community. It is also important to find your niche and the perfect customer and make the two fit perfectly.
Ramon believes that social media is not a must but it’s an important asset. It’s free and you can connect and reach with so many people. It’s different than the fax machine, yellow pages, bulletin boards, and word of mouth. Publicity is another thing that is important for Ramon. For him publicity is about, first and foremost just promoting yourself. He believes, if you have something interesting about you, people would want to talk to you.
Date your leads, marry your customers. Ramon tries to live by this phrase all the time. He believes leads could lead to a customer so it’s important to do what you essentially do on a date – spend time with them, get to know them, nurture them, and educate them. Ramon’s perfect audience are very small businesses that are just starting out. He advises newer speakers to just keep building, keep getting cache, and keep getting interviews because it adds up to a full plate of cache or of credibility to get you a win over the next guy or girl.
Rapid Fire Questions with Ramon Ray
LI: What is your favorite word?
RAMON: Incredible.
LI: What is a sound that you particularly love?
RAMON: I love walking in the forest. Where I live is a fake forest and hearing birds early in the morning, construction randomly. The sound of early morning wherever you may be. The sound of the morning.
LI: If there’s a character you relate to either on TV or the movies, who’s a character who sort of reflects Ramon?
RAMON: I like Matt Damon because he’s the boring guy and I just, *does fighting moves* I like all that. Denzel (Washington), he’s got some swag.
LI: If you could be anyone or anything for a day, what would that be?
RAMON: Maybe Guy Raz. I want to be him for a day because he’s connected with many of the entrepreneurs I want to connect with.
LI: On this day, in one year, what’s Ramon doing?
RAMON: He’s hosting a nationally syndicated television show, because Steve Harvey has retired, and they called Ramon to fill his shoes.
