Susan Friedmann:         Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Ramon Ray. Ramon is a leading expert on small business success. He inspires and educates thousands of business owners a year through his articles, podcasts, and in-demand media interviews. He's the founder of smarthustle.com and the author of four books, including his most recent Celebrity CEO. He's a successful entrepreneur, in-demand motivational speaker, and event host. He started four companies and sold two of them, and audiences around the world are inspired by his high energy and ability to connect and to care. Ramon, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show. And thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.

Ramon Ray:                  Hey Susan, you're so welcome, and I can see why you are so successful yourself. Thank you for the care you took to craft and curate this discussion out of the many you've done over the years, just for your audience and to bring out the best that I can for your community. So thank you, Susan, the pleasure is mine, and I can tell you love and are good at what you do.

Susan Friedmann:         Oh, well, thank you. Back to you too. The connecting and caring, as you know, I saw you on an NSA replay of a session that you did for them and I was like, "I have got to have this guy on my show." Yey. You were just so generous and said that you would appear. So I'm honored. Let's get down and talk about some... I have some exciting things and I know that one of your claims to fame Ramon is that you actually interviewed President Obama in a historic first presidential live Google Hangout. I've just got to ask you about that experience. Talk to us about that, because it sounds really cool.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. It was pretty cool. I think there's a few ways to get the attention of the president of any country you're in or someone who's really high profile and commits a crime. Like a big, big, big crime. That's probably one way to get their attention, but it has to be really big, like national crime. Two, maybe you need to get whatever you call it when they commute your sentence. They say you're innocent. I forgot the words escape me. But the president signs the decree and says, you're going free. And I could go on and be playful about it, I want to waste time. But anything big like that. Get the president's attention, give a lot of money to the campaign, be a cabinet member. But the bottom line, Susan, how that happened, Google at the time many years ago was trying to hype up and promote their Google Hangout.

                                    Maybe one of the first tools many of us used was a consumer version of video chat and their hook was, "Interview the President." As he was coming into the office some years ago. I believe Susan, it's my understanding 100,000 or 300,000 people, some insane number of people applied. And lo and behold, they picked me and four other Americans or people to interview the president. And I believe if it's a tip, I always like to leave tips, not just my story, Susan. But if it's helpful, I think part of it was, I was different. I was trying to find what's a hook, what's something that will make them say yes. I think I was engaging, and a bit fun. So I know kind of how to play the game of it. It's video. They want someone who's not boring. So those are two things. And I would like to think that those two things helped me get an interview with President Barack Obama some time ago. So thanks for asking. It was a cool happening and I'll never, ever forget it him saying, "Hey Ramon. Hey Ramon."

Susan Friedmann:         What did you ask him?

Ramon Ray:                  Yeah. And so it's a boring question. But at the time there was some rumor that he or his department would blend together these small business areas of the US government under the Department of Commerce. At the time, it was a headline. Now it sounds trivial, but it was a headline at the time. And Susan, you know what I love, small business. So I said, what a great hook. And I got that idea from a friend of mine. And that's what I asked. So I asked him that, but clearly Google and the White House liked, ah, a question about small business. What an easy toss to the president to knock it out of the park. So I think that in hindsight, that was the right question at the right time that he wanted to address.

Susan Friedmann:         Excellent. Wow. Your recent book, Celebrity CEO: How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive by Building a Community and a Strong Personal Brand. I know that building a strong personal brand is just something that you feel really strongly about. Let's talk about that. How can we do that? Let's get down and dirty with this.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. Two things I'll mention and then you can guide me on how far down we should go. But two things I think are important Susan. One is definitely some things that you do offering a book and many people listening to us either have authored one book or should author another one or are thinking about it. So that fits in there. Books, events social media, things like that. So I'm getting ahead of myself. But two things I say are one, ask for a smile before you ask for a sale. And that's this concept, Susan instead of us trying to get a client, "Hey, Susan, I have a course on, I don't know, LinkedIn marketing. Could you buy it?" No. Susan doesn't know me. She doesn't like me. She doesn't trust me. Who's Ramon? Why you? Instead, first, let me comment on her LinkedIn a bit.

                                    Let me gently say, "Hey Susan, what a great poster did. Here's four ways you may want to improve it." Over time now Susan's going to be like, "This guy, Ramon, he knows a lot about LinkedIn. Maybe I will have a discovery call." So I'm playing a bit here, but I'm sure you can walk me through if you want me to say more, but that's one. Ask for a smile before you ask for a sale. The second principle Susan is to build a community of fans and then nurture them to buy from you. Similar to the first one, but it's truly underlining. Yes, sales is important. Direct sales is important. Cold calling, all the things that we've learned that you can do, but just kind of chill. Step back. In a way Susan podcasts are a great way, what you're doing. We're not hard-selling anything. Susan's building her brand a bit. I'm building my brand by being on her podcast. We're sharing and adding value, nurturing. And that's great. Those who like us will dive in further. So is that helpful, Susan, at a high level?

Susan Friedmann:         It really is. And I wanted to talk more about this whole idea of asking for a smile. I love that. Asking for a smile and then nurturing that community of fans because I know that that's something that you do extraordinarily well. So give us some tips as to how we can improve what we are doing.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. I think a few things, most people and you correct me if I'm wrong, immediately just say, "Ramon, stop." And I'll stop talking. But most people in Susan's audience they're probably doing some level of social media. People by now, it's 2021, you know you need to post on LinkedIn. You're probably afraid of it, but you know you need to do videos. Susan and her guests have probably told you this. All that "stuff", yes, you should do. What I find that people lack in, Susan, is taking it to the next. Either A, it's too perfect or two, they're afraid of doing video more. Three, they're still a bit too salesy, not asking enough value. Four, they don't have a clear call to action. "Hey, I haven't posting this video all day long. If you want to blah, blah, blah, then do X, Y, Z." Five, Susan, they're not really clear on who they're for.

                                    I can use tons of examples. We do painting for anybody who has a house, anybody who has breath, and in fact, anybody in the world. It's too broad. So those are a few things, Susan, it's more about, let me be a good neighbor. As I post content, let me think of Susan as it were and just think of her and serve her. If I do that over and over and over and over and over at some point, Susan's going to want to do more with me. So that's what that means. It's not just doing the stuff, Susan, we all do. We know what we should do. I don't think I have to talk one-on-one to your people. Maybe I should. I'm happy to, but it can you really do it better? That's what it's about.

Susan Friedmann:         Something that you touched on, and my audience knows that I just love the whole idea of niching and finding that exact person that you rightly said who you should be talking to, who really is your customer because it's not about throwing enough spaghetti against the wall hoping some of it'll stick. It's really addressing who needs what it is that you have to offer and directing that message accordingly. I think people are fearful too, because I'm at fault for it, the whole video thing. That's why I love audio so much.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure.

Susan Friedmann:         But it's like, how often should we be doing this? Is this something we should be doing daily? Is it something that we should be doing weekly? I mean, I do my podcast on a weekly basis, but how often? Let's go back to that.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. Do you mind Susan, if I take the reigns of this show for 30 seconds?

Susan Friedmann:         Oh you do it.

Ramon Ray:                  Okay, 30 seconds I'm the host. I'm going to be the host for 30 seconds, everybody. The clock starts now. Hey everybody, this is Ramon Ray, guest hosting for Susan. Susan, I have a question to ask you, Susan. I'm going to put in the front lawn of your house, Susan, a money machine that spits out, I don't know, $1 bills every minute. It's a small machine, it doesn't get in the way, it's safe. When would you like me to shut off the machine? Every minute I will send out a dollar bill. In fact, I'll make it better. Every minute I'll send out $1000. Susan, you tell me, should I ever stop the machine or should I keep the machine going for the rest of your life?

Susan Friedmann:         Ideally, the latter.

Ramon Ray:                  Yes. Okay. You're the host again now, Susan. So what I was trying to get at is that if the content is good, if you're serving your audience, ideally, and I'll address the direct question, you said actually how often, but side question is never stop, never. So what I'm trying to get at, as you may know, a bit, Susan, we've talked ahead of time, my forte is working with very, very large brands, helping them market to very, very small businesses. That's my specialty. And of course, I talk to small businesses, of course, but my point I'm trying to get at, since that's my specialty and what I do in serving small businesses, most of my audience, "So Ramon, we see you all over." And at first, I'm wondering, is that bad or good? They're like, "I loved it. I loved your article in the park. I loved it when you were sliding down. I loved it when you were waiting for your wife in the church parking lot. I loves it when you open up a soda bottle and it spills all over the place." Whatever I'm saying.

                                    So what I'm trying to get at Susan, if the content's good, I'm happy to break down along the channels if you like, but overall keep doing it. I post on Twitter several times a day because it's made for that. Facebook probably not more than two or three times a day, spread out because the newsfeed, I don't want to see Susan's face in my newsfeed every hour. That kind of gets annoying. Just based on how Facebook is. Instagram, you can do stories frequently, especially for the authors out there. Post stuff five times on stories. And then on an Instagram post, I don't know, two times give or take, let me pause there, Susan, but I hope that's helpful if I've answered the question or if I've made it more complicated and confusing, I'm sure you will tell me in a minute.

Susan Friedmann:         Well, yes, and yes. Okay.

                                    The idea of picking one and going with that and working that one versus you are on many different channels. The platforms, LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram, there's already four places. Now, social media is one of your big things, but if it isn't, is your recommendation still to go with the different platforms or just to go to LinkedIn?

                                    Sure.

                                    Do Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. What's the best strategy for a solopreneur?

                                    Sure.

                                    Yeah, that's probably how long is a piece of string?

Ramon Ray:                  Exactly. I think it'll be three guidelines if it's helpful, Susan. I think one is that the default for most of us in our little community here is that people will say LinkedIn. I get it. It's safe business. The typical that most of us do and are taught and say, and I have nothing against just going on LinkedIn. Having said that, everybody and their mother is on IG. IG is in fact growing quite a bit and we're hearing more and more even business owners are on TikTok. So, you may want to stretch a bit and explore one or two other platforms depending on where your audience is. But I must say the Ramon Ray playbook, Susan, noting as you said, social media is my thing, kind of an influencer, right? So we all have different paths. And I think you have to do, you, as in metaphorically, Susan's audience, what works for you, but here's why I'm on multiple platforms, Susan, I'm seeing it's working.

                                    I have two shows I regularly do on Clubhouse. As you may get a sense, I post all the time on Instagram, either a post or a story. And I also do Facebook, a different post on Facebook. Twitter's automated. Automated means it's me, but I have queued up zillions of tweets. So again, if I'm still being confusing, let me know. But I hope I've answered it in three different ways. Yes, LinkedIn or whatever the platform, just do that. But Susan, everybody is, right? So the guy or gal who's bombarding people on all platforms and it's good content kind of answers rhetorically, not you Susan, but our audience who's going to win and have more visibility? You tell me.

Susan Friedmann:         So if one of the things, and this is so interesting and I love going down this route, talking about the fact that you are building your fan base on these different platforms, however, should one of those go away at any one time or they change their algorithms and they start asking you to pay to play, you've built your on rented land. All these people may go away. What is your conversion then to your email list so you're building your database as well? How do you transition to that?

Ramon Ray:                  I love it. It's a great question. For sure and thank you, I should have mentioned it. So Ramon Ray as well has us strong growing email list. Social media for me is the icing on the cake and Susan, English is not my good thing and I'm not so strategic. So Susan's going to help me say this better. I say that half jokingly, but my brain is so distracted. Sometimes Susan I'm like, squirrel, but you could say, "Ramon, Ramon, come back." So anyways, what I'm trying to get at where email is that icing on the cake or foundation depending on how you look at it. Social media is that top level thing. You know that, "Hey, get attention, Ramon Ray or Susan." Take your pick as it were, but using me as an example. That's just the, "Oh, I'm out here. Look at my Philly little pants or dress, whatever you want your fans... But yes, on smarthustle.com as an example, every Thursday, 2:00 PM, I send out an email newsletter.

                                    We have thousands and thousands and thousands who are on there. So Susan, thank you for bringing it out. Yes. Social media is just the start of the journey. The biggest thing everybody wants is to have something so compelling, and I think many people know this. I'm sure you've talked about it in your podcast. Lead magnet, some incentive, and it's not slimy. If Susan has Ramon, here are 49 ways to publish your next book. Please take my email, baby. Take it, please, because I want that download. This is what it is. If it's so valuable, people want to engage with you more. Is that helpful?

Susan Friedmann:         It is. How many times, let's say, and going back to this, how often would you encourage people to come to sign up for a lead magnet of some kind? A checklist or a check sheet or whatever. I mean, you can't be doing that the number of times that you post. I mean, how many of those would lead them to come and sign up, let's say, to your list?

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. I would do it a few ways. And one of these, I got it from Marie Foley, Seth Godin, and others. But I would look at this as a matrix. Social media is a constant bombardment of good stuff. So at the top of people's minds. Let's say Susan's on my list. Let's say I'm on her list. I still want Susan to follow me on social media because she'll forget about me even by email. That's one, if you understand what I'm trying to draw here, kind of social media is still the top of the icing to get the attention. Email then, I send my email out twice a week, once on Thursdays and once on Sundays. It's fresh content every single time. That's point number two if that's helpful. So mine goes out twice a week. Some people do it daily. Seth Godin does, every single day, he has an email, but it's so good and unique.

                                    He can do it. It's just a bit much for me, meaning for me to do it. That's point two. Then, point three, this aspect, Susan of campaigns. Let's take your business, but correct me if I'm getting it wrong. But let's say Susan could say, "Hey guys, we're going to help you design the front cover of your book. We're going to do that next week." That could be an email sequence or social that's a bit different.

                                    Then Susan stops. In two months, she could have a different campaign, fresh and different, "How many of you want to know how to rock your table of contents?" So I'll stop there, Susan. But is that helpful? What I try to draw is that social media has its place for the attention, the attention, the attention. Susan's always seeing Ramon. Email is kind of a consistent, nice tip in the space that I originally knew, Susan for that always will go out, and it should be different. The third bucket, though is a campaign. This is where Susan maybe hit it a bit harder. "Hey, take this action so I can teach you this." Let me know if that's helpful in some way. Puts perspective on it.

Susan Friedmann:         Yes, it is. I mean, as you rightly said, I mean it's sort of a matrix, a campaign. It serves different purposes.

Ramon Ray:                  Yes.

Susan Friedmann:         Depending on what you want to achieve. And I think that's a really important aspect here is what do you want to achieve? As you said, pick a topic and go down that topic for a week or so. And so if you picked a topic, just like you said, book covers or publishing tips or table of contents or whatever, take a tip. Would you use that in your social media as well as your email campaign?

Ramon Ray:                  Yes. And I love that question. What I do I have a team member, and again, any content I publish is Ramon, but I do have a team member that helps me with some other things. So, staying on the book publishing example, there could be something like short and sweet. That's it. I can see that word coming up on Instagram. And then, in the comments, get your free tips sheet here if you get what I'm saying. So social's kind of for that. You can rip apart the more long-form content and just tease people, but tease them well. Adding value. So as they're scrolling, they're still learning, getting a sense, so that's kind of the power of the email, you nurture, nurture, nurture, long-form, educating Ramon every week, every two weeks. The social, though, okay, Susan has a little meme about a dog on a typewriter. Another little meme came up about whatever may be or, "Hey, here are the books that I read to learn how to do that are book writing." Things like that are what social's good for.

Susan Friedmann:         Excellent. I know that one of the subjects that I wanted you to talk about was the whole idea of the Celebrity CEO. Perhaps we covered it without actually talking about it, but let's go back and talk about what exactly it is? Why should we care?

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. The reason why Celebrity CEO is important and what it's not is trying to be Barack Obama, Donald Trump, whoever you wish, Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, pick your genuine celebrity person of the day. It's not being that. What it is for us, if I may say us, small people, Ramon and Susan and others who are serving a small people, it's can you be well known for what you do to your perfect customer in the context of where you serve them? That means Ramon Ray, as I said initially, yes, I help small businesses. And I talk on so many topics, but one of my core pillars, I'll say it again, very, very large companies who target very, very small businesses usually focused on tech. So that means General Electric, Is they a fit for me? No, but is Kip? Yes, the new NSA partner. What I'm trying to get at Susan is that the Celebrity CEO means are you serving, producing content, educating so that when people think of your name, they think of what you do.

                                    That's the Celebrity CEO. And you're not going to reach everybody. But that means in Denver or in Seattle or New York, it could be, or authors who are successful looking to publish books, they only think of maybe three or four people. And ideally, one of them is Susan. That's what that celebrity CEO concept is all about. And it takes time. It takes time. And that's why I've honed the Ramon method, at least. Why I've done all about five or six things that I talk about in the Celebrity CEO concept is, are you doing events? Are you rocking social media? Do you have an email newsletter? Do you have a branded website? Do you have a book? Are you getting publicity? And it could be six or seven a few other core things that I think you must be doing to have a strong celebrity CEO status.

Susan Friedmann:         Beautiful. I know another aspect of this is your mindset. You talk about this in your book, and I know in many of your articles as well, it's a subject I've covered more times, but I don't think you can ever exhaust it. So talk to us about that mindset as you go into all of this that we've talked about.

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. And I'm humble to talk about this because definitely Susan, probably others you've interviewed who have the mindset celebrity CEO status that I've done, they can talk about this much more than me, but thank you. And I think a few things it means, especially if we talk about our speaker community and people like this, coaches and consultants, if you're coming at this saying, I'm a professional speaker, I'm a coach. That's one aspect of, I would dare say, maybe you should adjust your mindset. And instead thinking you are a business owner. Part number two of the mindset of entrepreneurship Susan, as you probably know, is hard work. It's tough. It's not easy. People don't like Susan's hair. Don't like my hair. Don't like the color of our shirts. Don't like how we speak. We did it wrong. You got to have thick skin. Welcome to the game, baby.

                                    Welcome. It's tough. Clients aren't going to pay you, one skip out of town. You thought you had a good employee you hired to help you with your graphics, it sucked. You're frustrated. Your child's tapping you in the back. "Mommy, mommy, daddy, daddy, go to the park." You scream at them because you're trying to get this done for the client. All I'm trying to say is that this is hard work. Hard work. And I encourage us all because I've been there, and I'm sure I will be there. I'll need encouragement one day. But let's focus on having the mindset of business owners who happen to be speakers or coaches or consultants or authors. That's kind of how I see it if I've helped in that respect.

Susan Friedmann:         So as we transition, one subject that I know our listeners love hearing about, and that is mistakes. Not necessarily mistakes you've made, but mistakes in general that you see. You've worked with so many companies, large, small, all sizes. What are some of the common mistakes that you find that people make?

Ramon Ray:                  Sure. I will say one mistake I've made, which helped me right size my profitability, is just paying money for things that I couldn't track through a short investment. That's a whole longer discussion. You probably know better than me, Susan, but I'll just leave that gem is that at some time we're spending money on things and you're like, "This is not generating money back from me." That's one. I think two is being too perfect, Susan, just so straight-laced looking at other people. I talked to another, maybe, you know him, Mike MacCallum, it's another fellow author. And he echoed a similar thing is that sometimes we look at other people. I look at Susan, the sound of a voice, wishing I had a sound of a voice like this, and how do I know she's not chuckling inside? Ooh, I wish I could sound like Ramon. But the point is, I think more and more of us need just to stop that and not take ourselves too seriously. I'm sure you heard this before, but the work we do take seriously that's something that I would like to leave, Susan.

Susan Friedmann:         Okay. Yes, comparing ourselves. I always remember in the early days, there was one speaker I adored and I said, when I grow up, I want to be like you. And I suddenly think about that. And I was like, no, I don't want to be like you. I want to be like me, but taking some of the great things that I learned from this lady, I can never be like her.

Ramon Ray:                  Yes. That's true. That's true. Exactly, and I think we can learn from each other. Absolutely learn, but we definitely can't be somebody else. I'm in part of a group, Susan. They say like-hearted but not like-minded. It's a group I'm in at Clubhouse. So I thought that it was interesting how they said it. We're not going to think the same, but our hearts more or less going in the same direction.

Susan Friedmann:         Yeah. I love that. Ramon, how can listeners find out more about you and your Smart Hustle and your Celebrity CEO? Talk to us more about how they can find out.

Ramon Ray:                  Thank you for asking Susan. What a great discussion it's been with you. Thank you for how you serve so many people. But what I could offer, listen, if people want to know more about me and especially want to get some of the insights that I share every week, if you go to smarthustle.com, there'll probably be a popup box or somewhere. You can just put your email in there. And every week, you'll get some fun, insightful, engaging tips from Ramon about all sorts of things on small business growth. But yeah, smarthustle.com is probably the best way to find out more about what I do.

Susan Friedmann:         Excellent. And I know that we're going to carry on this conversation in our premium membership, but before we head on over there, I always like our listeners to leave with a golden nugget that they would like to share with our listeners. What's yours?

Ramon Ray:                  Find a way to explain to those closest to you what you do because most people won't understand what we do, how we make our money, and the more they understand what you do, the more they can emphasize with you, the more they can uphold you. They can support you. They can look out for you. But I think we often don't take the time to explain here's what mommy does, what daddy does, here's what this person does, whatever it is. So they can better understand and support us because the more people have understanding, the better they can support us. And that's what makes the world go around better.

Susan Friedmann:         That's so true because I remember, whenever I tell people, well, I'm a speaker. What do you mean? Well, what do you do?

Ramon Ray:                  Are you between jobs, Susan?

Susan Friedmann:         Yes.

Ramon Ray:                  Can we help you, Susan? Do you need us to go on the supply line? Yep. I've been here.

Susan Friedmann:         I know. It's like some people pay you to speak, yes. Yes. It's amazing. Well, Ramon, you've been amazing. We're going to carry on this discussion. I know on our membership site. In the meantime, thank you for sharing your wisdom on this side of the podcast, and thank you all for taking time out of your precious day to listen to this interview. And I sincerely hope that it sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.