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EP178: Rey Perez - How To Create A Powerful Personal Brand
49 Plays5 years ago
Do you want to boost your personal brand? Rey Perez, who is a branding expert and founder of the 360 sites platform, has the solution. His passion is helping entrepreneurs build quality relationships and credibility to attract more leads and eventually turn them into sales. During this conversation, you’ll discover…
- The importance of personal branding
- Why you need to have a strong commitment
- How to have a goal oriented mindset
To find out more about Rey, visit https://www.thethoughtleaderrevolution.com/.
Recommended
Transcript
The Power of Personal Branding
00:00:00
Speaker
And one of the things I realized for myself was that the majority of people that were buying my products and my services were doing it because of the relationship that they had with me, the way that they felt towards me, that I was an integrity, that I honored my word, that I was someone that cared about their business and really went out of my way to help them get results. And when I started to realize that, I started to think, well, I'm investing all this time and all this money
00:00:29
Speaker
into my business, into my logo, into my company brand, into my website, but the majority of the sales are being done by me. And then I really thought about it. All the sales are being done by me. So I said, wait a second, if I'm the number one salesperson in the business, I'm the reason that people are saying that they're buying, wouldn't it make sense if I focused my time, energy, and effort on building my personal brand?
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven-figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:32
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, the Thought Leader Revolution.
Introducing Ray Perez and His Journey
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm your host, Nicky Baloo. And boy, do we have an incredible guest lined up for you today. I met this man a scant three and a half weeks ago, but I was so blown away by his wisdom, by his generosity, and by the brilliant way in which he approaches branding. He is known as the number one global
00:02:00
Speaker
Branding expert he is the innovator founder and creator of the incredible 360 sites platform I am speaking of course of none other than the one the only the legendary Ray Perez Ray Welcome to the show pal
00:02:18
Speaker
Thank you, Nicky. A pleasure to be here on the show with you. Man, the pleasure is all mine, man. You know, Ray, when we met, the thing that really impressed me is that you're real. You're not full of caca, as my good friends say. And the reason that what you do is attracting so many adherents is because it works. In fact, I was so impressed with you, I went to an event,
00:02:44
Speaker
An event that a friend of mine runs, and every time I say to myself, I'm not going to buy anything. I'm just here to learn. And every time I find one person there who's authentic, who's real, who's got something super valuable, and this time that was you. And I bought your program, and I signed up for your 360 platform sites. And I've gotten to know you. You're an incredible guy, but my audience doesn't know you. They want to know why they should listen to you.
00:03:07
Speaker
They want to know what makes you so great. They love that I think you're great, but they need to know for themselves why you're so great. So tell us your backstory, pal. Well, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 14 years old. I remember starting my very first business cutting the neighbor's lawn and I would just go down the street and I would find another one, another one, another one. And I launched Ray's Lawn Service and had that for quite a while till about the age of
00:03:34
Speaker
I would say 19 when I was in college and I learned about the industry of nightclub promotions in Miami Beach.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I was introduced it because I was pretty popular. I was in a fraternity. I knew a lot of people and a friend of mine said, hey, can you help me promote a party at Senor Frogs on South Beach? You know, I'll get you in for free and some close friends and I'll get, I'll pay you $4 per head for everyone that shows up and I'll give you a percentage of the bar if it does well. And sure enough, it did great. I made $800 cash my very first night.
00:04:10
Speaker
And that's when I made the decision to say goodbye to raised lawn service and transfer over into the event promotions business. And the way I handled it was really managing it as a business. I didn't really party. I wasn't your typical club promoter. For me, it was really, this is a new opportunity to really start building my capital, building myself as a young man. And I did that till around the age of 24, once I got pretty much burned out of being up till seven o'clock in the morning every night.
00:04:39
Speaker
waking up at two in the afternoon and that's when I decided to shift over into business marketing branding and promotions and basically to what I do today.
The Shift to Personal Branding
00:04:49
Speaker
which is work with entrepreneurs and business owners, take their personal brand and marketing to the next level through graphic design, web development, photography, videos, and technologies to allow them to network more efficiently, create more leads, more customers, more importantly, sales, but really through the process of building relationships. Because I truly believe that the sale will come through building a quality relationship. And that's what I do today.
00:05:17
Speaker
Ray, that's what I love about you, man, because you're all about the relationship. You're all about making sure that the connection happens. And you're a master brander, right? Tell the audience, why is branding so important? So I'm very specific when it comes to branding. I specialize in working with entrepreneurs, business owners, anyone who's the face of their business, because my niche is personal branding.
00:05:45
Speaker
So for those of you that are listening on this podcast, I just want you to understand if you're the one that does the majority of the sales in your business, if you're the one that works for the customer, the client, the majority of the time, if you are the face of your business, you are what I refer to as a personality driven business. And that's just like me. And one of the things I realized for myself was that the majority of people that were buying my products and my services,
00:06:12
Speaker
were doing it because of the relationship that they had with me, the way that they felt towards me, that I was an integrity, that I honored my word, that I was someone that cared about their business and really went out of my way to help them get results. And when I started to realize that, I started to think, well, I'm investing all this time and all this money into my business, into my logo, into my company brand, into my website,
00:06:41
Speaker
But the majority of the sales are being done by me. And then I really thought about it. All the sales are being done by me. So I said, wait a second. If I'm the number one salesperson in the business, I'm the reason that people are saying that they're buying. Wouldn't it make sense if I focused my time, energy,
00:07:00
Speaker
and effort on building my personal brand. So I really believe this was like a divine message that was sent to me. And little by little, I started doing exactly that. I started including myself into all my marketing, like my photo, my name, my expert title, and I started mixing it with my company brand. And little by little,
00:07:21
Speaker
I just started seeing more business, more business, and I started to feel that the flow of connection and relationship building and getting customers was becoming easier and easier. So over the course of about two and a half years, I ended up removing everything in my marketing that had to do with my business. And today I only brand and market myself. That doesn't mean I don't have a company. That doesn't mean I don't have a company website, a company logo, a company brand. I still have all that.
00:07:51
Speaker
But when it comes to meeting people for the first time, building a relationship with them and moving them along the process to potentially being a customer or a referral that introduces me to a perfect customer, everything goes through me. And now my business has tripled within just under three years, which is incredible to be able to say.
00:08:12
Speaker
and I've made such a difference in so many people's lives because this process that I did for myself has actually turned in by accident into an entire business and it also allowed me to launch the 360 site platform which connects people to everything that you are in the world at one place at one time.
Simplifying Branding with 360 Sites
00:08:36
Speaker
That's incredible. You know, yesterday I interviewed the founder and chief designer of William Henry Brands. Are you familiar with William Henry? No, I'm not. So William Henry started off as a knifemaker.
00:08:53
Speaker
and they make some of the world's most beautiful knives. While we're talking, Google them, WilliamHenry.com, right? Their knives are functional works of art. They use materials like diamonds, silver, topaz, incredible, gorgeous things.
00:09:10
Speaker
I had a friend, actually one of my mentors, Mark Von Muser, he had a William Henry knife, he told me about it, he checked it out. I checked it out, I loved it. I subscribed to the Rob Report and they ran ads in the Rob Report and I do a vision boarding session once a year, okay? So my vision boarding session, I saw a photo of a beautiful William Henry knife, I cut it out, I put it on my vision board. And I'm staring at this thing forever and I'm like, I want this knife, I gotta have this knife.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I found out it cost $2,500 US and I went and I found someone who was a dealer here in the Greater Toronto area and I bought the knife. And I got to know Matt Conable who's the founder and I interviewed him.
00:09:54
Speaker
And this guy, his stuff is incredible. I mean, check it out. It's beyond gorgeous. As a gentleman, I think every man's got to have some William Henry knives, pens, bracelets, money clips, et cetera. So I did the interview, and the interview's out. And so Matt's assistant, Mercedes, reached out to me and said, so listen, can you send me all your platforms?
00:10:20
Speaker
And I just sent her my 360 site. I said, here, everything about me is here. Check it out, right? And I haven't heard back from her since, but it was so cool to be able to do that rather than have to go and gather everything and put it all in an email and like waste 10 minutes every time making that happen, you know?
00:10:39
Speaker
It's very, very powerful to me to be able to focus everything about me in one place so that I can present myself in the best possible way. That's what I love about the 360 platforms. Absolutely. And thank you for sharing that with me because, I mean, this was the problem that I had to solve for myself. Every time I have the opportunity to go
00:11:05
Speaker
speak on a talk show, on a radio show, on a podcast, do a Facebook Live, you name it, people always want your stuff. They want your, and it's like, I had to sit there, I had this long email, and I'm very good with processes. So I had this email all prepared. It was like already saved in my documents. All I had to do was put their name and send it, but it just looked messy. It didn't look clean. And for me, obviously being the number one global branding expert in the world,
00:11:34
Speaker
It's very important that I present myself at the highest possible way. The 360 site has allowed me to do that, but it's also allowed me to mix in things that I never thought possible. For example, having your podcast on your 360 site, having your multiple websites on your 360 site. This is a connection platform to everything that's you in the world. I said this many times at my event, but I'm going to say this on your podcast. For everyone that's listening,
00:12:04
Speaker
This is kind of that moment when Mark Zuckerberg talked about what Facebook's going to be in the future. My 360 sites is going to be the ultimate connection tool for the world because I believe that nowadays people ask other humans, other people that they meet, hey, what's your LinkedIn? Hey, what's your Facebook? What's your IG? What's your Twitter? What's your YouTube? What's your email? What's your WhatsApp? What's your phone number? There's only one question.
00:12:29
Speaker
that people will ever have to ask once this goes out into the world. And it's, what's your 360? So I want you to remember that statement, everyone who's listening, because a couple of years in the future, when everyone is saying, hey, what's your 360? You're gonna say, I heard that interview on the Nicki Baloo podcast with this guy who launched this vision out into the world, and now we can all more effectively connect with one another and communicate. And here's the really cool thing, Nicki,
00:12:59
Speaker
When anyone ever asks me to connect someone that's my client or someone that I know like you, they say, hey, what's Nicki's number? You know what I send them? 360. 100% because I don't want them to just have your number. I want them to see your videos. I want them to see your podcast. I want them to see your Facebook. I want them to build a relationship before they even speak with you. And the other day this actually happened. I'm part of an organization called the C-suite network.
00:13:28
Speaker
and the hero club started by Jeffrey Hazlitt. And one of the people from the conference, we were in touch and he messaged me. He said, hey, by the way, can you introduce me to your, to your buddy, Craig, who does the watches? I have a good friend of mine who's one of my partners and he does very high end, beautiful watches. He has a place in Beverly Hills. And I said, yeah, of course, I'll connect you right now. I did a three way text and I included his 360 site.
00:13:53
Speaker
by the time that Craig replied in the three-way text and said, hey, thanks for the introduction, Ray. So nice to meet you to the person I was introducing him to. The gentleman replied, so your branding's awesome, by the way. And I just booked on your calendar a call for tomorrow. Because on the contact button, it has to either call, text, book a call. So before my friend could even reply
00:14:22
Speaker
he already had an appointment scheduled on his calendar. That's the type of power that I'm talking about.
00:14:32
Speaker
No, that's incredible, man. That's super incredible. On my 360 site, I put my webinar as the first thing that pops up, right? And that's the thing I want people to go to, primarily. Not everybody, but most people. And what's awesome about that is that more people get to see my webinar. It's easier for me to let them know about my webinar. I love that. I think it's powerful.
00:14:55
Speaker
So, Ray, you talk about personal branding, and I agree with you, personal branding is extremely important, especially for the folks that we serve, the folks that listen to this podcast, the folks that are part of East Circle Academy and come to our immersions.
From Newcomer to Thought Leader
00:15:08
Speaker
Having a strong personal brand is everything. It's critical to being known as the go-to expert, the thought leader, if you will, in their space, right?
00:15:17
Speaker
And one of the things we say, and this is a quote from one of my mentors, Matt Church, is an expert someone who knows something, but a thought leader is someone who's known for knowing something. Oh, wow. Can you repeat that? Yeah, an expert someone who knows something, but a thought leader is someone who's known for knowing something.
00:15:40
Speaker
Most people that you and I run into are experts. They're really good at what they do. In fact, some of them are probably among the best in the world at what they do, but they're not thought leaders. Nobody knows who they are. Nobody knows why they should do business with them. They are stuck in the sea of sameness. They are not in the oasis of differentiation. And here's something I took through my previous guest.
00:16:09
Speaker
I do all my interviews in one day and my previous guest, great guy, I took him through this model I created called the stages of the thought leader's journey. It can actually be the stages of any entrepreneur's journey. But imagine that a thousand people start out in business, okay?
00:16:26
Speaker
Everyone starts off the same. Everyone's a newcomer, right? But most people stay stuck as a newcomer. And the problem for a newcomer is this way. A newcomer basically is excited, but they're not sure what makes them great. They're not sure what makes them different. And as a result of that, most of them never make any money. They're lucky if they make 5, 10, 15K a year. And out of every thousand people who start off as newcomers, 800 of them never get out of the newcomer stage.
00:16:53
Speaker
Imagine that 800 out of 1,000 people never get out of the newcomer stage. And this speaks to the importance of personal branding, right? Out of the 200 that get out, they go into this other stage. I call.
00:17:06
Speaker
the unconscious expert. This is where some people understand that you're good and they want to do business with you. And you get to do business with some people, you actually make a difference for some people. But you don't know how to articulate it well. You still don't really understand what makes you different. Most people in the newcomer phase are lucky if they make 30 to 50, 60K a year. Some make a bit more.
00:17:27
Speaker
But that's most people. And out of the 200 that make it into the unconscious expert phase, only 50 get out of this phase. So that's 5% of the original thousand. They go to the next phase, which I call the conscious expert. This is where you know what makes you different. People know what makes you different. And it's great.
00:17:46
Speaker
You're making money. You're dialed in. You're making $100,000, $150,000, $200,000, $250,000, $300,000 a year. But it's still all time-based. It's time for money. You're burning out, right? It doesn't work in the long run. Out of the 50 people that get to this phase, only 10.
00:18:02
Speaker
1% of the original thousand get to the next phase, which I call the thought leader phase. This is where you've arrived. This is where people know who you are. This is where your expertise stands out. People seek you out. You get to make the difference you were born to make. It's not time for money anymore. You get to choose who you work with. You get to choose when you work.
00:18:19
Speaker
And this is where you make between a half a million to two and a half million dollars a year. It's an incredible place to be. Now out of the ten people that make it to this phase, one person gets to the final Penny Ultimate phase. That's the phase I call celebrity thought leader. This is where the Robin Sharma's, you know, the
00:18:37
Speaker
Tony Robbins is, the Marie Forleo's Hangout. This is where people make two and a half to a hundred million dollars a year. They work when they want to work. Captains of industry call them, the world leaders call them, and they're the best of the best of the best.
00:18:54
Speaker
And here's the challenge, man. Most people never will get to be in those top two stages of the journey. Now, our community here in North America, as well as Matt Church's community in Australia, we've had 57% of our people get to at least conscious expert and thought leader. And a couple, one or two got to celebrity thought leader. Matt's got 83% that get to thought leader and conscious expert. Well, with most people, it's 5%, brother, 5%.
00:19:24
Speaker
When the events like the one you and I met at, amazing as they are in the programs, amazing as they are, only 5% of the people get to those levels. And what I like about what you do is you give them a chance to not be stuck in the 95%.
Overcoming Obstacles in Business
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, because it's true. I believe, and you can give me your opinion, I believe the reason
00:19:48
Speaker
that it's so hard to make it to that next level is because people don't know what to do, number one. And then number two, even when they have the opportunity, they don't either they say to themselves, I don't have the money, or have some story that disempowers them to not do it. Because the number one reason
00:20:12
Speaker
that I've ever had someone not enroll in our programs is because they have a scarcity mindset and they have a money conversation. And what I teach to every single person that I ever work with is, it's never about the money. And for those of you that are listening that have ever thought this and said, oh, I don't have enough money for that, or I can't afford that, just understand that language
00:20:36
Speaker
Specifically, the language that comes out of your lips and your mouth is very powerful because what you think about is what you believe and what you believe is what you say and what you say is the actions you end up taking, right? So when people say, I don't have enough money, it's not about having the money. It's about what are you committed to?
00:20:57
Speaker
I always explain to people, if you have a strong enough commitment to doing something, to accomplishing a goal, then you can figure out a way to get the money. And if you really wanna put it in a sense where people can understand, I mean, if you're a family member, the closest family member in your life has some tragic accident and you need to get $10,000 to save their life,
00:21:26
Speaker
What are you going to do? Whatever it takes. But that is because you're so committed to this. And if people would operate that way with their business, there wouldn't be this small group of people. There'd be a lot more people transitioning to that next phase. And this is one of the biggest challenges.
00:21:46
Speaker
that I see every single day. And I've gone through it myself. I'm not immune to this. And that's the reason why I understand it and why I focus and I do so many things to keep my head in alignment and spending my time with higher thought leaders like yourself. And because if not, then we're gonna fade away into that other type of mindset that is instilled in us from birth. So yeah, I agree with you. Ray, powerful and well said.
Accessing the 360 Platform and Opportunities
00:22:20
Speaker
So Ray, how do people find out about the 360 platforms? Well, the cool thing is the best way to connect with me on any of my social medias, any of my platforms, watch my videos, check out my events, call me, text me, what's at me, the whole nine yards, just go to RayPerez360.com. RayPerez360.com is the ultimate place to connect with me.
00:22:43
Speaker
whether it's about my 360 sites, our Brandon two days event or any of the amazing events we're doing all over the country, RayPerez360.com is the place to go. Okay, great. So I'll make sure we put that in the show notes for our listeners. So listener, Ray Perez is the real deal and you're going to want to check this out. It's phenomenal. I've got my own 360 site. It's NickyNICKY360.com. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes as well. So Ray, our listener,
00:23:12
Speaker
wants your three top expert action steps, your top three tips, and let's give them top three expert action steps as bullet
Steps to Success: Mastermind, Mentor, Integrity
00:23:22
Speaker
points. What are the top three things you want them to do to take their business or their life to the next level? Top three things really simple for me, because I've been studying this for a while. Join a mastermind group. If you're not already part of a mastermind group,
00:23:37
Speaker
This is the number one step that Napoleon Hill in thinking grow rich says is the most important out of his 17 principles, uh, being part of a mastermind with like-minded individuals. Hopefully you're not the smartest person in the room. That's what I can tell you. Always try to join a higher level mastermind, uh, because that community and just being around that energy and these people and the conversations that we'll be having,
00:24:03
Speaker
and the amount of energy that gets put out into the universe that will bounce back to you to get you to that next level of success is incredibly powerful. So number one, join a mastermind. Number two is find a mentor. Find someone that has already accomplished what you want to accomplish. The fastest way to success
00:24:24
Speaker
is for you to learn from someone that has already done it before. And that could be someone that you're watching online, that could be someone that you hire to actually be your coach, really depends on your particular situation, but 100% you need to have a mentor and preferably someone that has already accomplished or has
00:24:46
Speaker
has been producing the types of results that you wanna have in your life, because results is the most important thing. And I will add this, if you're ever considering working with someone, and they're selling you some type of service or some type of whatever, find out if they've done it for themselves, and most importantly, are they doing it for themselves? Because I preach,
00:25:10
Speaker
that every single thing I teach in any of my events, any of my programs, anything that someone will pay me money for, not only have I done it and proven it and shown results, but I continuously do it every single day of my life. I practice what I preach. If I say chair, a chair pops out of my mouth, and that's what actually leads me to my number three is always be in integrity. Always honor your word.
00:25:40
Speaker
Keep your promises if for whatever reason it's out of your control and you can't, what you do is you acknowledge what happened that you weren't able to and then you recommit to something greater. And I believe that that being an integrity, it will always make a difference in the way that people perceive you and the relationships they have with you and relationships are the number one thing to really help anyone grow in their life and in their business. Those are my top three.
00:26:05
Speaker
Ray, I love those. Those are fantastic. And thank you for making the first one be part of a mastermind group, given that E-Circle Academy is the sponsor of this podcast and my company. We believe in that wholeheartedly, so thank you for that. And listener, Ray Perez is the real deal.
00:26:21
Speaker
And if you're wondering to yourself, hey, could I be like Ray? Could I get my voice out there? Of course you can. Go check out his 360 platform sites. The information is going to be in the show notes. And the way for you to get your thought leadership out there is very simple.
00:26:37
Speaker
You need to go into your heart. You need to find what purpose God put in there for you. You need to find out what's the difference you were born to make. And the best way for you to do that is to jump on a call with myself. And the way to do that is go to e-circleacademy.com forward slash appointment, or go to the top right hand corner where it says set up your success call now.
00:27:00
Speaker
I'll jump on a phone call with you. I will have a conversation with you. Let's just have a straight conversation. One that will help you get past any fear that you have, get past anything that's getting in your way from having the greatest version of yourself be out there. Ray Perez, thank you for being on the call with us today, brother. It's been an honor to have you on the show.
00:27:24
Speaker
Thank you so much, Nicky. It's been a pleasure. And again, I'm going to plug you. If you want to get to know Nicky a little better, go to Nicky. That's N-I-C-K-Y 360.com. If you do it from your cell phone number, you can also click the Contact button and schedule a call with him just like he said. But every single way to check out this amazing man is at Nicky360.com. God bless you, Ray.
00:27:50
Speaker
That wraps up another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. To find out more about today's incredible guests, the one and only Ray Perez, go to thethoughtleaterrevolution.com. And to jump on a call with me, you can go to my nicky360.com site or to ecircleacademy.com and click on the button in the top right hand corner. Until next time, goodbye.