How to Leverage Branding to Increase Your Company’s Value with Rey Perez

Intro (00:09):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, Rich Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration and those aha that change everything. And now here’s your host Rich Goldstein.

Rich (00:35):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs where I featured top leaders in the path they took to create change past guests include Roland, Fraser, Ryan DYS, and Joe Polish. Um, this episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein Patau, where we help you to protect your ideas and products. So if you have an idea, um, go to Goldstein, patau.com to find out more about how to protect your idea. Um, and so this is a bit of an unusual apple, so because I’m rolling down the highway in Florida, going from, uh, Sarasota to Miami might be a little bouncy if you’re watching the video version of this. Um, and if you are watching the video version and it’s kind of fun, you get to, um, see me and my guest here just kind of hanging. And we, uh, spontaneously decided to do this podcast episode. Um, and so I have with me here today, Ray Perez, um, Ray is the branding guru.

Rich (01:29):
He’s the guy who helps you to kind of take what is already true about you and spread that message out into the world. Um, and, uh, he created, um, three something called 360, so ice, which is a way that facilitates, um, you connecting with other people easily using their preferred method of connecting, whether that’s by Facebook or, um, by, um, text message or what have you. And we’ll talk a bit about that more later, but, but Ray is the branding expert. I’m so excited to have him here. So Ray, welcome to the show. Thank you. I, I, I love that. I get to be part of the one unique episode when we’re rolling down the highway at 80 miles an hour, while we do this, uh, podcast. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And, and by the way, thanks for the ride to Miami. Absolutely.

Rey (02:17):
My pleasure, my pleasure. This is the executive travel for all our premier clients. Yeah. We’re, we’re in Ray Escalade. And, uh, and so we, you know, we’re traveling in comfort and, um, uh, I’m speaking tomorrow in Miami, so it’s just really awesome that this work that we got to spend this time together. So, so yeah, let’s talk about branding. How did you first get interested in branding for yourself and for other people? Well, it’s, it’s really interesting because it, initially I got into the world of Brandy and marketing and promotions by being a nightclub promoter in south beach. So I was in college going to Florida international university. And, uh, I was in a fraternity and a friend said, Hey, you know, a lot of people do you think you can help me out promote this party at senior frogs in south beach? And you just invite some people and I’ll pay you per head and I’ll give you a percentage of the bar and mind you I’m like 20 years old.

Rey (03:10):
I, I can’t even drink, but I said, yeah, I know a lot of people, I invite them. And the first night I made $800 cash. And back then, you know, to make $800 cash in one night, basically inviting people to a party and doing no work was out of this world. I actually had a lawn service. I used to cut lawns and I used to make it a weekend, like 300, 350 bucks, which was pretty good, but it was like three days of 12 hours a day of cutting grass, sweat, and being in the dirt to make 350 bucks. And here I am in one night, 800 bucks cash. And that changed my entire view on business. And, and, uh, and that’s really where I said, okay, I’m gonna pursue this. And what I had to do to get people to know about the event, to know about the nightclub, to get them interested in coming is basically the same of stuff I do today to get people to come to live business events and seminars and stuff like that.

Rey (04:04):
We, uh, attend together. But it wasn’t until four years ago where I started to learn about the power of personal branding. I was branding businesses. I was branding companies. I was branding events and I understood branding and marketing, but I didn’t understand what it meant or took to be a personal brand until I started becoming a speaker. And once I got on stage, and once I started learning what it is to be someone that not only inspires and moves an audience, but also gets them to take an action. I started to realize, wait, if we can connect with people faster, build more of a relationship. They’re more likely to trust us. They’re more likely to wanna do business with us. So I started taking all the branding and marketing skills that I have from the past. And I started integrating them into my speaking, using my personal brand.

Rey (04:52):
Within two years, I, I was outperforming all the other speakers that I was traveling with, uh, in the small business expo, we were on a national tour, attending all these different, uh, events. I’m not sure if that’s how we met or not. Um, we met with, uh, yeah, some of the power team events that there you go, that’s it. I was on the speaking tour. Yeah. So, but I was the number one speaker out of every, and besides the main guy, right bill, he was the number one, but I was the number one of all the smaller speakers. And it was because I incorporated my personal branding, my marketing into what I was doing. And then what ended up happening, the speakers would ask me, Hey, can you do this for me? And then it turned into an entire business. And now I specialize in personal branding.

Rey (05:34):
I mean, I’ve gone deep in the rabbit hole. I took, I took the red pill and went all the way down. And I’ll tell you this, if you’re listening to this pod ask, or if you’re watching the video, your personal brand has way more value than you give it credit. And we all have a personal brand, whether you like it or not, the question is who’s gonna dictate it. Is it the world that’s gonna dictate it or are you gonna control it? And that’s what we do for our clients. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> no, that’s amazing. And, uh, you know, and to be clear, you say you are the number one speaker. Um, really what that means is selling from stage, the ability to, um, you know, it, which really is, I think one of the, the most amazing skills, um, that you’ve developed, which is to be able to take an audience and give them value and move them to wanna work with you so that they ultimately walk to the back of the room with their credit card and say, I wanna work with you more.

Rich (06:26):
I want more of what you have. You’ve shown me some valuable things about branding and, and I’m excited about what else I could learn or learn from you or gain from working with you. So like, you know, you know, that’s kind of like a, again, that that’s a really high level skill to be able to instill that value get past. People’s just automatic skepticism. Yep. And, and, and, and get them able to, or just willing to, to take action and take their wallet out and pay you. I will add to that though. Yeah. I, I did become good in speaking and selling and getting people to take action, but I also learned how to cultivate a relationship with those individuals, get them connected to me, get them to give me their information. Yeah. Maybe, maybe they’re not ready to give me their credit card in that 60 to 90 minute presentation, but they would give me their information.

Rey (07:22):
They would follow me and connect with me. And then later on, I would also make sales. And that’s something that I’ve never personally really seen a speak to cell speaker do effectively. And now that’s something that I teach and train because there’s only me, so many people that are gonna take action and buy within 60 to 90 minutes of getting to know you. But there’s a lot more people that be willing to give you their information and continue to cultivate a relationship. And maybe a month down the road, two months, six months down the road they’ve been following you, they’ve been watching, they’ve been listening and now they become your customer. And that’s what I believe in. I, even the balance of both. Exactly. Well, and, and that’s the thing too, is like, not everyone can be as, as good and as effective a speaker as you are going to be.

Rich (08:07):
And so what you, you are able to, to show other people what to do is how to not just generate sales when you can, but also generate leads to make contacts. Then you can cultivate and follow up. So that even if someone isn’t totally moved to do business with you on the spot, um, you are able to make a good impression, which is what BR what branding comes in. So you help people learn how to make that right impression. Uh, and then you show them how to create systems where they can follow at those contacts. So they’ve made a good impression, and then maybe it takes a bunch of additional touch points to actually generate business from it. But, um, because that they’ve made that connection because they’ve captured the information now that’s possible. That’s right. And, and, and in business and anyone, who’s an entrepreneur business owner, business professional, that’s listening to this podcast, you know, there’s, there’s, I, I see that there’s two areas that we need to work on, uh, for, for business growth for business scaling, number one is leads.

Rey (09:09):
How do we generate people to be interested in what you do? And then number two is sales. How do you get those people that are interested to actually become a buying customer? Now, some people have a leads problem. Some people have sales problem. Some people have both, I particularly work in the area of leads because it’s the first step, right? You can’t make sales without leads. And it really goes down to what you were saying about cultivating a relationship, providing value, making this person want what you have or trust that they want to have a conversation with you to see if you can provide a quality product or service. And at that point, once you’re on a call, once you’re on a zoom, once you’re in a conversation, then comes to sales part, which my partner is actually the one who specializes in that, I’m pretty good.

Rey (09:58):
But that’s where I partnered with, with top salesperson to be able to provide that, that resource as well. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess the elements of, of what we’re talking about here is first of all, making an impression, which is branding. Yep. So like finding the right. And I mean, you’re a genius at this. I like you do workshops. I’ve been to your brand in two days workshop where you kind of go through the room and you talk to, to the people participating and, and you recognize, okay, what, how do we characterize what you do? And then you capture it in like three words. Yep. And then that’s the identity that they become. And then you create, help them create branding. That’s wrapped all around. Well, let, let me add to that. So to build a brand identity, there’s three pillars, your visual identity, your verbal identity and your value identity.

Rey (10:48):
Those three is what builds that brand identity. And when you’re talking about the three words, that’s language, which is really the most important in marketing, anybody who studies marketing knows that language or copywriting, the written word is the most important part of marketing. So when you have good language, meaning who I am and what is it that I do for you, then people will be attracted and they’ll say, oh, I want that, oh, that person looks valuable to me because people are only interested said, and, and what’s in it for them. W I F M what’s in it for me. So when people are marketing themselves, sometimes they talk about themselves, opposed to talking about what they do for them, which is what people really want. And that’s where we really specialize in creating that language. So people say, oh yeah, I want that. And then they’re attracted to you.

Rey (11:40):
Right, exactly. Because what your, your verbal title is then is the thing that they’re looking for. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Yep. Exactly. So, um, uh, I mean, it’s like, I’m, I’m just gonna have an obscure example though. It’s like, if someone is a doctor, they’d say, well, I’m a doctor. Um, but maybe to the, the buyer, they are the, um, kind of, um, wellness, uh, you know, like the, the, it, it could the, the leading health and wellness, um, physician, right. That would be different than saying I’m a doctor. Right. And just that shift in language shifts the perception of value of the person that’s reading, or that’s listening to it. And that’s what we really should do when it comes to branding is how do we use our visuals, our language, and our value systems to have other people who come across this, whether live in person virtually or digitally, cuz there’s a difference.

Rey (12:42):
Right? Right. We’re physically live in person, right. People who are on a live stream or on a zoom call is virtual. It’s still live, but it’s, it’s virtual. Digital is anyone who’s listening to this podcast or watching this recording. They’re watching a digital representation of us. There are messages, digitally being sent. So when you start realizing, wow, I can do things live in person. I can do things virtually or I can communicate digitally to anyone in the world at any time. Then you start saying everyth, I say, and how I say it has a meaning, has a purpose, has a value, has a connection with the audience. That’s consuming it. So if I’m gonna share something about myself, shouldn’t it give them the most value so that they feel more attracted to me. And I’ll give you a perfect example. Let’s think of a celebrity.

Rey (13:31):
What’s your favorite celebrity? Oh, celebrity. <laugh> I don’t do good with, um, the, on the spot questions like this. Let’s just say the rock. Okay. The, oh, I love him. Yeah. D right. Dwayne Johnson. The rock I love he’s like the new Schwarzenegger, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> like, he’s bad. He’s funny. He’s funny. He’s funny. He’s so the rock, when he first came out, before he even made it to wrestling, nobody knew who he was. So the perception of value before he was even the rock of Dwayne Johnson was very low. Right. You could have met him. You could have pictures with him and makes no difference. Once he got into professional wrestling became the rock perception, went up once he started getting into movies and went up once he started doing all the stuff that he has now, now the guy is famous. He’s a celebrity. So the question is this, do you feel that people love the rock?

Rey (14:26):
They do. They do. Yeah. But how many of ’em actually met him? Um, probably 0.1%, if that right? Yeah. If that, yeah. So how is it possible that a human being can actually like, have an affinity towards another human being that they’ve never, ever met? It’s um, they, um, in their mind they create a notion of who they are and then there’s an, there’s an impression, there’s an impression that’s made that kind of lines up with something that they value. Perfect. How’s that impression made? Um, well, um, visually and also, I guess, um, through auditory means too, what they hear, right. What they see and what they read and also what they feel right. Well, and what they feel are responsives perfect. Yeah. It’s what they see, what they hear, what they feel, uh, what they see, what they hear and what they read. Okay.

Rey (15:22):
And it’s how they feel based on those three things, right. The connection that starts to build, but it doesn’t happen right away. It happens over time. So I say it’s the amount of exposures to what someone sees, hears and reads over time. Many exposures, many exposures starts to create that connection. That feeling after a while they feel like they know the person and they’ve never met them in their entire life. That’s what I’m talking about. Personal branding. How can you as an entrepreneur, how can you as a business owner, how can you as a business professional start putting in front of people, these exposures of what they see here and read consistently over time to a point where they feel that you’re a celebrity and they feel connected to you. And they’re like, you know, what, if I needed that service, I’m going to you, or I’m gonna introduce you to someone that I know.

Rey (16:22):
And do you know why they’ll introduce you to someone that, you know, if you have a high level of credibility or a high level of value, um, because they, um, uh, <affirmative>, you know, it, it’s kind of, it, it, it, uh, increases their value because they know you, they know someone like you, it makes you look good. Right. And as human beings, we are egocentric. We are interested in what’s in it for me. So if you have high level of value and I, I know you, and I introduce you to someone that I feel can benefit from your services. Now that person looks at me and says, oh, wow, thank you, Ray. And you just made me look good. So the more you focus on your branding of increasing your level of value, the more referrals you’ll get, the more introduction, the more business will organic be attracted to you.

Rey (17:15):
And all of a sudden, you’re like, where’s this, all this coming from it’s because what you put out, you get back. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And so I think that leads naturally though, to then how we have those repeated connections, uh, of those repeated, uh, touch points, which comes from connecting, you know, connecting with people and, and, uh, um, and techniques for connecting with people. Uh, and I would say, um, we could just jump right to talk about the, uh, 360 sites in which you did there. Cause that was a very important innovation yeah. Uh, that you did to help people to connect. So like maybe let’s talk about the problem that people face when they, they meet people and they want to connect and exchange info. What’s the, well, I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the problem I had. Yeah. That I, I needed. Cuz the reality is this.

Rey (18:02):
I’d love to say that I, I invented this for entrepreneurs cuz I, I wanted to make it the world a better place for them. But the reality is human it for you. I made it for me. Yeah. Because I had a problem. I would go to networking events. I’d go to seminars, I’d go to trade shows. I would speak at events. I would be a vendor at the events. I’d be a sponsor at the events. And I needed to figure out a more effective way to network because it was taking too much time and energy and wasn’t producing enough results. So one pro problem was effective. Networking. Number two was I realized that in today’s digital day and age, people like to research one another using Google and social media. Would you agree? Yes. Now you might be listening and never consider that people are actually looking you up on Google and social media, but they are okay.

Rey (18:52):
Which means what’s on your social media actually will give a reflection of who you are and the value that you bring in the world. So I started thinking to myself, okay, all these entrepreneurs and business owners have websites, including myself. But a website is built by you controlled by you. Social media is not. So human beings prefer to look at the social media cuz they get to fi figure out who you really are more than looking at your website. People are smart. So I said, okay, well what if I made my social media the same stuff that’s already on my way website. And it gives the perception of value of what they see, read and hear about me the way I want them to have it. Because in the end of the day, it’s what we, what we all want is entrepre disorder. Right. So I said, okay, but how the heck do I know?

Rey (19:44):
What’s your preferred social media? When I meet someone, do they like LinkedIn? Do they like Facebook? Do they like Instagram? Are they a Twitter? Like how the heck do I know? And I’m not gonna sit there and ask ’em to connect with me with five social medias. Cuz first of all, they’re gonna think I’m creepy. They’re gonna think I’m strange and I’m too forward. So I thought to myself, it would be absolutely amazing. If I had one link that gave all of my social medias on my website, my contact information, my videos, my book in one place and let that person, who’s getting to meet me, choose how they want to research me how they want to connect, not make them have to Google me. And that’s how a 360 site was born. One link, one place with everything that exists on the internet in this one place.

Rey (20:33):
So people don’t have to do the due diligence or let’s be honest. They might not spend too much time researching you. But if everything’s in one place and they can just click around, they might actually spend more time learning about who you are, connecting more, building more rapport, which ends up making them trust you more and ends up wanting to do business with you. Yep, absolutely. And, and it’s, and I think, um, even more than what you just said in terms of like the channels, it’s also the, the preferences. So like if someone comes to your 360 site and they want to connect with you on Facebook or Instagram or by um, you know, through their phone number for like text messaging, then that’s one thing. But it also could be like, Hey, I’d like to watch a little short video about this person. Boom.

Rich (21:19):
And it’s also, it’s like, you know what? I’d like to read, read an article that they wrote. Uh it’s like their preference of how they want get to know you better. It’s not just the channel, but it also could be a different type of medium. Some people joke and say, it’s how people like to stalk you. Yeah. <laugh> but, but Hey, it is what it is. Right, right, right, right. It’s like, I’m not gonna deny. Yeah. It’s like inviting them, be my stalker and, and choose your stalk preference and choose your preference. And, and here’s another thing that happened by not by coincidence, but by like God’s grace, it, it it’s become a way that has allowed me to cross promote my different services. My different companies, my different products, even though they might not have anything to do with each other, it’s allowed me, oh, I didn’t know you did that.

Rey (22:10):
Oh, I watched this video. I saw your nonprofit. I saw your charity. I love what you’re doing with the kids. See, that’s hard to do on one website. You can’t put multiple businesses on what website, because then you look like a Jack of all trades master of none. Right. But this platform has allowed me to show people. I have a nonprofit, I have a video production company. I have a branding company. I have a talk show. I have a blog. I have two books. And nobody ever feels that I’m trying to be salesy. Cause that’s the one thing that I’ve never, ever wanted to do. I’ve never wanted someone to feel that I’m trying to sell to them. Yeah. Well I think the thing about being salesy is that what it occurred is something that they don’t want. It feels salesy when occurs is something that’s natural, but it fits, got it with what they wanted next is like, oh, I’d like to read up on you.

Rich (22:58):
Oh, I’d like to connect with you on Instagram. Then it doesn’t feel salesy. Correct. Because it’s, it’s just fitting what they want when you’re interrupting them and say, Hey, wait, I over here, let’s have a conversation. Like I didn’t want, I didn’t wanna, I didn’t wanna go overt. Wanna have a conversation. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, so that’s amazing it, and so, um, again, it’s 360 site. That’s what it is. So that’s like the, the innovation was creating this, um, type of website where you, um, essentially you give someone one link, you be like rich golds to 8, 360, which by the way, I’ve gotta update my 360 site. Um, you know, seeing you reminded me that I, you know, I know there’s a lot more features you have, I gotta update mine or, you know, Ray Perez, three sixty.com. Um, and like that’s the notion of it.

Rich (23:45):
And so one of the things we did though is, uh, is, is we said, Hey, this is something that could really take off and not only could take off, but it’s like even the, even the notion of it is like a 360 site, like your 360 site, like come check out. My 360 site was something that was important to your business and growing your business. So we, we, and the name was important. The name was important. So that the reason why we hired Jews, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so we recognizing that IP is important. Um, we protected those things, which we think people might find valuable in it and that people might try to amputate, you know, what would concern me? Someone else would would say like, you know, um, I offer 360 sites. Well, no, we wanted to clarify for people that the 360 site is something unique to, uh, Ray president of this company and my IP.

Rich (24:38):
Yeah. And so that’s why we did trademarks for my 360 site, two 60 site, things like that also for like, oh, you did it from my, my branding event. Which, which same thing, my intellectual property. Yeah. You know, we’ve been able to figure out a way to brand people in two days, create all their medias, their videos, everything. There might be some other people that are trying to do something similar, but nobody can now use my IP and nobody can use my name because of the trademarking. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so <affirmative>, um, I think then, um, you know, that’s a, that’s a key thing. Well, that’s an important thing for your business. We establish that and it kind of gives you the freedom to, to go out there and say like, um, like, Hey, you know, 360 sites promote 360 sites. A lot of times people that don’t have protection, they find themselves in the situation where they wanna promote it.

Rich (25:29):
But they’re afraid that if they promote it too much, someone will see it. That will then copy it. I would copy it. It’s like, it’s like, you know what? I could get you on Oak. Like, oh no, we’re not ready for, we’re not ready for that because, well, what if someone sees it? Yeah. And so once you’re able to protect it, you can just go out there and say like, I’m just gonna tell the world about 360 these sites, because that’s my brand. And, uh, and, and if it gets big, it’s gonna be me getting big. That’s not someone else. And what happens cause you, you, you shared this thing once before someone else starts to copy, you starts to get big. What can you do when you have the, the trademark? Well then, um, you know, essentially you have the ability to shut them down.

Rich (26:08):
You know, having, having the trademark, uh, gives you the ability to stop them from doing anything that would be confusingly, similar, something that would confuse other people into thinking that they’re doing business with you when they’re doing business with them. And that’s exactly what you wanna prevent. That’s right. Cool. Awesome. And we’re grateful for that. So thank you. Yeah, no, um, absolutely. I’m grateful for this interview and, uh, um, if, if people wanna learn more about you and I think for once I know the answer to this question, <laugh> people wanna learn more about you get in touch with you, how do they go about doing so Ray Perez, three sixty.com. Everything’s there, my social media, my books, my websites, my contact information, F videos, everything you want in one place. And one thing I didn’t mention, um, that we did not have when we set up your 360 site a few years ago is we have a community now. So you actually can go into the directory and type in a industry, a, a title, uh, a key word, and find people in the 360 community that pop up. And

Rey (27:11):
When you click on them, it takes you to the 360 site. So if somebody’s looking for trademark or patent or attorney, you’ll pop up inside the 360 community and they can connect with you. Yeah. That’s awesome. I love all right. Well, well Ray, thanks so much for, for doing this interview. Thank you. Thanks for the ride in one of your, and your Escalade, one of your eight cars. <laugh> but, um, um, but yeah, and I guess now just off to Miami. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Outro (27:44):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web@innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.