Ramon Ray is the founder of CelebrityCEO.com, BWCDaily.com (shorthand for “Breakfast with champions”) and ZoneofGenius.com. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has started and successfully sold multiple companies. Ramon Ray is also unapologetically positive and passionate about making the world a better place.
Ramon’s latest book, “The Celebrity CEO: How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive by Building a Community and a Strong Personal Brand,” is all about how entrepreneurs can leverage the power of personal branding.
In this episode of Mitlin Money Mindset®, Ramon shares how to make your side gig your full-time job, how to hone your marketing efforts, and how to overcome challenges as a small business owner.
You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…
- How Ramon Ray became an entrepreneur [2:54]
- Why Ramon is unapologetically not boring [5:24]
- How Ramon develops content that resonates [6:34]
- The right way to make your side gig your full-time job [10:05]
- The best piece of advice Ramon has received [14:05]
- Why Ramon spoke at and attended the Jolt Conference [16:15]
- The challenges Ramon has faced as a Black entrepreneur [18:23]
- How to overcome the challenges small business owners face [20:39]
- What makes a successful marketing strategy? [24:31]
- What Ramon did today that brought him joy [30:20]
The right way to make your side gig your full-time job
Ramon became an entrepreneur for one reason: he got fired and needed to make money to feed his family. Ramon had a full-time job with the United Nations. The UN had permitted Ramon to start a side business.
That permission was taken away because someone was jealous of Ramon and made his life difficult. When the permission was revoked, he kept his side job. Because of this, his contract with the UN was revoked and he was fired.
His first business was “Family Computer Consulting Services.” He installed modems and memory chips. It was borne out of a passion for the work and a desire to make money. To build a sustainable business to generate money, grow, give, and build generational wealth, you need passion and competence.
Ramon emphasizes that if you have a side gig and want it to become your full-time job, build recurring revenue first. Get six months’ worth of money in your savings to cover your expenses. Have a backup plan in place.
How to overcome the challenges small business owners face
Ramon believes there are always two competing forces at play: internal and external forces. External forces are the things that we have no control over, such as Covid, market crashes, etc. All you can deal with is how you react to the external circumstances.
Then there are internal forces at play. How did you grow up? If your family didn’t have money, you may hold on to it and be hesitant to invest. Were you bullied? That may negatively impact your mindset. We have to keep these things in mind as build out a business.
Ramon wants you to focus on answering these questions:
- Who is your customer? Who needs what you’re selling?
- What are you selling them? What is your solution?
- Where are they? How can you be around them over and over again?
- Get someone’s attention and earn their trust to build sales.
Learn to hone in on where to get more yeses than nos and you’ll have a viable business. Listen to hear what else Ramon recommends to build a viable and successful business.
What makes a successful marketing strategy?
What’s your message? A successful marketer hones in on their ideal customer. What are their pain points? You need to get detailed about what they like and dislike. The better you know them, the better you can speak their language. And successful marketers speak their language over and over again.
If you’re just starting out and don’t have a team to assist your marketing efforts, what do you do? Let’s say you sell specialized microphones for podcasting.
- Step #1: Find your ideal customers. Go to podcasting events.
- Step #2: Find a way to show your ICP your product. Get on a Q&A panel using your mic and quickly highlight its features. Allow them to hear how it’s different.
- Step #3: Give them a call-to-action: Get them to come to your booth, sign up for your emails, get them holding/using your product, etc.
After you hone in on the type of people buying your mics, you can build a marketing avatar and learn to speak their language.
What is the best piece of advice Ramon has received? How does he create content that resonates? Listen to this episode to learn much more.
Resources & People Mentioned
- Financial Planning Made Personal by Larry Sprung
- Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins
- Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
- Soundtracks by Jon Acuff
- Jolt Conference
- Sign up for Zone of Genius
- Celebrity CEO
Connect with Ramon Ray
Bio
Ramon Ray is unapologetically positive and passionate about making the world a better place. He’s the publisher of BWCDaily.com and ZoneofGenius.com and an entrepreneur who has started 5 companies and sold three of them.
As the founder of CelebrityCEO.com, He’s a leading expert in helping coaches and consultants get more attention for their businesses and be more known to their future customers.
Ramon is an in-demand expert on small business success and a sought-after motivational speaker and event host. He’s interviewed all 5 Shark Tank sharks and President Obama. He’s shared the stage with Simon Sinek, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and other notable business leaders. Ramon’s latest book, Celebrity CEO, is all about how entrepreneurs can leverage the power of personal branding. Get to know Ramon better at www.RamonRay.com
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