Businesses are built on relationships. As a global branding expert, Rey Perez’s logo says, “It’s more than business, it’s a relationship.” Rey found the formula to cracking the celebrity code of how to elevate yourself or your brand in your particular space so that you will attract more business and more people to you and create raving fans who will promote you and your message to the world. In this digital age, we’re in, more and more people are drawn to regular individuals who are now becoming celebrities through social media channels and platforms. Rey says if you can create that kind of heartfelt connections in your business, you’re going to explode in a way that’s never been possible in previous years. He shares a system they developed to achieve this and talks about their event called Brand in 2 Days.
We have Rey Perez here. He is the guy I run into everywhere. He is the number one global branding expert. He’s the CEO and Founder of a multimedia marketing company. He does so many things. I’m going to have to ask him to explain because every time I see him, he is doing more things.
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Cracking The Celebrity Code: How To Attract More Business with Rey Perez
I am here with Rey Perez who is the number one global branding expert. He’s the CEO and Founder of a multimedia marketing and event promotions company, AMP Productions. He’s a sought after inspirational speaker, talk show host, philanthropist, you name it, this guy does it. I’m very excited to have him here. Welcome, Rey.
Thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it.
You’re welcome. This is going to be fun. We know each other. We’ve seen each other at several events and I’m always impressed with everything. I got a little sneak peek at what you do with business cards on the phone. I got to see you do some kind of video production stuff. You do a lot of things. I’m trying to figure out what you do exactly. Can you give me a background on you so that people know a little bit more about what led to what you’re doing and what you do now?
Everything boils down to the bottom line. What I do is I produce results for entrepreneurs and business owners. What I mean by that is I produce more leads, more relationships and more sales. The way that we do that is through the power of branding and marketing, specifically personal branding. I work with entrepreneurs, business owners, thought leaders, influencers and business professionals from all over the world to create more trust, credibility and position them as an expert in their niche or industry so that they can build more valuable relationships faster. I truly believe that business is built on relationship. My tagline, my logo says, “It’s more than business, it’s a relationship.” Over many years, I’ve been doing this myself personally in my business. I realized that there’s a formula to cracking what I call the celebrity code of how to elevate yourself in your particular space so that more people will be attracted to you or want to do business with you.
More importantly, they’ll become what’s called raving fans because when you have raving fans, they will share your message. They will share who you are and they will promote you to the world. We can talk about some people that are already achieving that like Gary Vee, Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins. These guys who are business people have cracked the celebrity code and have built an amazing raving fan base. They’re getting paid millions of dollars, not because of what they do but because of who they are, which is completely different. This digital age that we’re currently in with social media, our iPhones, these mobile devices, how the internet has exploded and having instant access in our fingertips, people are being more and more driven and drawn to other individuals who are not necessarily movie stars or rockstar musicians and sport athletes. Regular people are now becoming celebrities through these channels. If you can do that in your business, you’re going to explode in a way that’s never been possible previous years. We’ve developed a whole system and a process to achieve this.
It all boils down to an event that we call Brandin2Days. We do this on our studio in Miami, Florida. Clients come from all around the world for 48 hours. We do photography, graphic design, copywriting, brand building, social media, web development. We do everything that a branding and marketing company would take about three to six months to develop. For our clients, we do it in 48 hours done-for-you turnkey solutions. The next day, we have Marketing Implementation Bootcamp. We will teach them proven strategies that I’ve been using for many years. I taught hundreds of other entrepreneurs and students saying that they can implement what we’ve created the two days before so they can attract more leads and more sales for their business. That’s in a nutshell what it is that we do and the results that we produce and how we do it for our customers.
You bring up a lot of great things that come to mind when you say all that. I know we were at an event together where Kevin Harrington was speaking. I know he was in your video that I watched. We’ve gotten to a lot of things where Jeff Hayzlett has been there and a lot of people. I saw Les Brown had recommended you. A lot of these guys are super charismatic. Can you teach that? Is that part of what your strategy is or do you have to have natural charisma to become what you’re talking about?
Everybody has an energy that you can feel and you can connect with. Click To TweetIt helps when you’re a charismatic person like yourself and me, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had people who you would say don’t have an outgoing personality. Through the power of branding and the power of video magic, we’re able to bring out the best in them and capture it and put it out into the world. When you think about it, the beautiful part about creating digital designs and having videos is that once it’s complete, once it’s finished and polished, you can use it over and over again. You’re not going to have to edit it. It’s done, the message is exactly the way you want it, which makes a big difference than having to say the same thing over and over every time you meet someone.
Part of our process and our system is to teach people, if you’re going to have to say or share a certain amount of information, more than one time a month, then let’s figure out a way to automate it. Whether that be through a video, maybe that would be through some visual infographics or comes from a copy. The idea is not to make you work harder. It’s to make you work smarter, produce more output in less time so you can build more of those relationships. Through our program and in the process of how we teach people to become this personal brand, there is a lot of internal mindset shifts that occur. The moment you see yourself looking like a celebrity, it changes the way you feel in an internal space. When our clients walk out of our event, they are walking taller. Their chests are out, they’re smiling, they’re happy, the energy shifts in who they are.
I’m not a woo-woo type of person, but I truly believe everybody has an energy that you can feel and you can connect with. When you’re authentic, when you’re in integrity, you’re your true self, you share the love with others and don’t make it all about business, it’s going to lead to these big greater connections that will, in turn, lead to the raving fans, which will then lead to the business. This is the philosophy and mindset that we teach during our event. It’s not just about pretty looking photos, graphic designs and these cool looking videos. It’s about a heartfelt connection between one human being with another, which is why you will see greater results. We’re not focused on sales and marketing, we’re focused on giving back, providing value and relationship building. Therefore that leads to them making their decision to do business with you.
I’m thinking about the videos you’re talking about. Are these the traditional brag real speaker things? How long are they, for one thing?
There is no one video for everything. That’s the one thing I’ve learned. There is no one solution to all. We have multiple different videos that I’ve crafted and perfected over the years for myself personally and then I’ve done the same for my clients. That’s one of the biggest benefits of working with myself and my team. Anything that anyone ever gets from us, not only have I done it and improved it, I use it on a daily basis. I have results on a daily basis from what it is that we do. If you’re going to talk about social media and having your presence out there, you don’t want it to be any longer than 60 seconds. Usually, 30 to 60 seconds is the number you want to have when you’re doing a promo video to get attention on social media.
Once you’ve got some attention and engagement and now you want them to learn a little bit more, which is what I call your first impression, you want to have it around two minutes, no more than that. A minute and a half to two minutes is good and that’s when you get a little bit more in-depth. What I liked to have and I’ve been doing this for over a decade, I like to have testimonials cut into the video. If you’re the owner of the business, you’re going to say that your product or your service is the best thing because you own it. People are not going to believe you as much as they’re going to believe someone that’s your customer that talks about their experience working with you. The majority of my videos, I’m speaking very little if at all and it’s my clients telling the story of their experience working with me. That speaks to the person that you want to buy from you.
This is very strategic. We have specific questions that we’ve cultivated over many years and the answers that the person on the video is going to be giving is speaking directly to your future potential customer or client. The questions make an incredible difference. I cannot tell you how many times I see people who have testimonial videos, but the testimonial is a bunch of fluff. It isn’t result-based testimonials, which is what people buy. People don’t buy your product or service. They buy the results that you produce from your products or services. When you had a testimonial video, if the people in the video are not speaking directly about the results and the benefits of the results that they received, the rest of it is fluff and it’s not going to make an impact on the people that are watching it. This is something we’ve specialized in for over a decade, which is why our marketing videos along with the combination of the branding are so much more effective than the competition.
The second thing is how they set up the video. One of the things that I love to do and you can see in almost every video I have is if someone’s going to be giving a testimonial about me, I want to have my banner that has my picture and my name right behind them. The reason is if someone is saying all these wonderful experiences and results that they received from me, the person who’s watching it needs to be listening to these words and connecting a face and a name to those results. If there’s just faded background or a pretty picture or you’re at an event, you don’t have that visual to connect with what they’re saying, you’re not going to be branding yourself and make a strong enough impact, therefore the results won’t be as great.
I agree with a lot of the things that you were talking about. I was in sales for decades and we talked about benefits versus features. You need to tie it down to why is this important and not just the fluff. A lot of people maybe are interested in becoming next level consultants who listen to the show sometimes and people like that. Maybe they’re more down to earth. Maybe they’re not going to want the sports car driving video, but they want to show a different side. Did you determine based on their personality how to showcase them? What if they don’t have the customer base to get great testimonials yet?
I can answer them in a couple of different ways. Depending on the person’s business and their demographic, we will match the brand according to them. I’m the number one global branding expert and that’s not me showing off. If you type in Google “global branding experts,” anywhere in the world where you’re at, I’m going to pop up on top. I am the number one and there’s nobody else that pops up after me. The only thing that pops up are articles and things like that because this is what I’ve been specializing in for years. I’ve never met anyone else that specializes as much as I do when it comes to personal branding. I always create the brand, the feeling and experience around the individual, their company and their people.
I would say the majority of my clients or the majority of people who are consultants, who are coaches, who are trainers, they fall into a similar category if you understand what I mean. They might not be driving flashing cars and wearing a suit. I live in Miami so it fits with my style. Even though I’m a very down to earth person, that’s not my persona. It’s definitely not who I am. I’m all about love and connectedness. I’m never about arrogance or showing off, even if I might seem that way from the videos. I have had yoga instructors, I’ve had massage therapists, I’ve had energy healing clients. They look and feel much more holistic. There are more greens and there’s beautiful nature in the background. I’ve had people who are intuitives and reiki masters.
Their brand is completely different than what a trainer, a consultant, a speaker, an author’s brand would look like according to their messaging, according to their business. We do guide them that direction, even though I will say this, we have mastered a few types of videos that have the same format no matter who you are. One of those is called an introduction video. We have a very interesting take to an introduction video. It’s black and white. The background is completely black. It’s a person from about the chest up and they follow a particular format. Who am I? What is it that I do for you? What do I love about my business? What I’m doing when I’m not working? What’s my biggest passion? What’s the way to connect with me? It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. That formula works for everyone because that formula is built on connecting people to each other.
I don’t believe in trying to sell anything to anyone until you’ve made a connection with them. It’s a proven marketing fact that it takes seven to twelve exposures before someone makes a buying decision. What I teach in our branding program and our process is instead of trying to sell people, your goal should be to create at least seven exposures to this person prior to having any sales conversation. Therefore, your closing ratio will go up considerably because of the law of how people purchase and make buying decisions if based on those exposures.
I was thinking of the first time we met. You gave me a digital business card on my phone. Do you suggest connecting to say, “This is cool,” could do something to stand out like that? You’re the only person I know that did that and then it’s not your main business. It made you stand out from others at the meeting. As I recall, we were with Jeff Hayzlett’s group at that particular point in San Francisco. I remembered you because of that. Nobody does that. You’re the only guy I’ve known to do that with me. Is that part of your business or is that somebody else’s platform that you sell or is that something to capture my attention? I’m curious where that fell in your process.
People don't buy your product or service. They buy the results that you produce from your product or service. Click To TweetIt’s almost all of the above. 100% is intentional to stand out from everybody else. This is the one thing we all must do. It has nothing to do with my business. It has nothing to do with what I sell. It’s what you said, I stood out for you in that group of 100 people that were at that event because I gave you an experience that you hadn’t had before.
Since I was in sales, I’m always fascinated by what everybody does. I pay special attention. I’m a hard person to sell because of that but I love that.
This is so cool that you’re bringing this up because it goes back to what I finished saying about exposures. That was only my first exposure. I am now in this interview with you after probably five or six exposures that you’ve had with me. Think about that for a second. It wasn’t like, “This is cool. I want to invite you to be on my show.” It didn’t work like that. You needed at least five, probably seven because in between you saw my Instagram, my Facebook, my LinkedIn or you watched my video. Each one of those different things is exposure. Then you said, “You might be a good fit for my show,” which proves the fact that it’s never about selling people. It’s about focusing and elevating your trust, your credibility, your expert status, and being constantly visible and memorable to everyone who meets you.
We are in a new world because of social media and technology. We should not only be focused on today, but we should also be focused on the future. When I meet you for the first time, it was never about selling you or anything. It was about building a connection, first impression, and then being able to revisit that later on. Through social media, I can start to build a relationship with someone that was never possible before because we only had email and snail-mail. Now people build relationships with people all the time and they’ve never met them. They are watching their videos and their posts and they love them. That is the celebrity code that I’m talking about that you need to be able to crack in your business. You need to be that person that even if they didn’t buy from you, they’re watching you and they’re following you.
The next thing you know, six months down the road, they’re inviting you to be on their talk show or they’re asking you for some advice or now they’re saying, “I want to introduce you to someone.” I can sit here for five hours telling you story after story about someone who tells me this statement, “I’ve been watching you on social media,” then they go into whatever they want from me at that point. I’m talking about some very high-level people, I’m not going to mention names. I’ve been found, I’ve been contacted and I’ve gotten some very high-level clients because they say, “I’ve been watching you on social media.” It’s incredible how this is now possible, which was never possible many years ago. The other thing is the technology allows me to connect with someone because I was able to not only allow you, I was able to get your information and put you into what I call my next step in the sequence of exposures.
I sent you a little image of my branding and everything to give you a little bit second interaction with me. We move forward and give you my social media. We slowly with no pressure started building a semi-relationship. Since then, I’ve gotten very good at this process. When we met, it was the very beginning when I was launching that software, which I created for myself because there are a lot of “digital business card softwares.” I’m not interested in a mobile marketing website. That’s what all these companies are. I’ve researched them all. I used it and all they are is a glorified mobile website with a bunch of stuff about the person. Here’s the secret and whoever is out there, this is where you need to stop what you’re doing and lean in, nobody cares about what you do. They only care about the results you produce.
Before they make a buying decision, they’re going to want to know who you are. The way people research each other nowadays, when they Google, it’s through social media. They look at your Instagram, your Facebook, your LinkedIn. They want to know what you are up to in the world before they decide to give you money. I wanted to have a platform that gave people exactly what they want. I didn’t want to have a platform that had a bunch of links about myself and who I am because they don’t care about that. They want to go look at the public sites and see my profiles. That’s how My360Sites was born. It is the first-ever all-inclusive website, which looks like an app, but you don’t have to download anything because it’s web-based. It gives people full transparent access to someone that they’re considering doing business with.
If you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re a small business owner, if you’re the face of your business, people want to learn who you are and connect with you before they’d give you money. This tool allows you to do that very quickly from any channel and allows you to put all your media into one place. For example, website, I personally have six companies. I have six different websites. My360Sites has one button that says Websites. All six of my websites are in that one button. I have never been able to give that accessibility to people so quickly until now. That’s why I had to invent this technology. I’m at this event in Dallas, Texas, CEO Space. For those of you, it’s CEO Space International. It’s probably one of the largest and one of the first organizations for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners to come together to collaborate.
I have made more connections in a room of 150-plus people than anyone else. I have made the biggest impression and I have people sending me others to go see the technology that I have. At this point in time, I’ve already made several clients just because of what they’ve seen. They don’t even know about the branding that I do. That’s the type of impression I want my clients to have when they go to any event. I want them to stand out. I want them to wow people. I want them to build relationships faster. I know from personal experience and client experience that if they can focus on doing this, it’s going to lead to more business in the future.
That was interesting. I’m looking at My360Sites. When they set this up, does this bypass having to go to LinkedIn and Facebook? Could t6hey see almost like if you were doing MeetEdgar, where you’d set up all your sites to blog and post things on Twitter and everything all in one area. Does it bypass the site? Is it like a platform over it? I’m curious how that works.
The way I like to refer to it is, “The ultimate connection hub.” If you have something that has a digital footprint, it has a www in front of it, you can connect it to your 360 site. Social media is the first one. There are multiple social media that everybody has. There are websites, books, podcasts, radio shows, TV shows, events, blogs, presentations, and videos. If you can name me something that you have online, I can show you how to connect it all in one under 360 site. You will never have to send anyone to a different link. You’ll never have to memorize a website ever again. This is the key to everything. The reason you send them to your 360 site and not directly to the piece of information they ask for is because you want more exposure to your personal brand.
It does not make sense if you asked me for let’s say a copy of my book and I send you directly to Amazon because I get no extra exposure. If you say, “Rey, I’d like to get a copy of your book.” I say, “Absolutely, Diane. Go to my personal website. It’s ReyPerez360.com.” When you land on there, you can connect with me on any of my social media, but you’re also going to notice that there’s a button with a book. Click that button and you’re going to be able to purchase any of the three books that I have. All of a sudden, you’ve crossed-promoted yourself and you’ve only given them one action step to do. It makes it simple for them. You increase your exposure points by 10X and you’ve been able to cross-promote other things that you have all in the click of one button. That is genius.
It is and I’m on your site playing around while we’re talking. I find this fascinating. What’s the biggest mistake people are making on their website? Is it that they’re not keeping everything within their website like this? Is it the content? What is it that you find the smaller maybe consultant type person makes the most issues with on their site that they’re doing wrong?
Let me say this first. The biggest mistake is that people are sending potential clients to their website first. They should be building a relationship with them first before they try to sell them anything. Everybody’s website is trying to sell something. It is what it is. I will never ever send someone to my website. I will always send them to My360Sites and I will say to them, “Let’s connect on Linkedin, Facebook, and any other social media you have.” I’m trying to build a relationship first because I understand the method that people buy. If I meet you for the first time and I send you to my business website, what do you feel I’m trying to do? You feel that I’m trying to sell, which at the end of the day we all are. That’s no secret, but you don’t want ever to make someone feel that you’re trying to sell to them.
Don't try to sell anything to anyone until you've made a connection with them. Click To TweetWhat I teach is never send anyone to your website. Even if you asked me for my business website, I would still tell you, “What I want you to do is go to my personal website, ReyPerez360.com.” You’ll notice that you can connect with me on any of my social media. You can watch my videos, check out my blog, all that stuff, even my event. What I’d like you to do is click that little button that says, “Website.” On that button, you’re going to notice that I have six different websites because I have six different companies. The first one is my production company where we do live events and we do video production for entrepreneurs and business owners like you.
The second one is my branding website, which is the one I’m going to show you in a second where we have our branding two-day event. We build people’s personal brand from head to toe in 48 hours. The third one and I go on and I explain it. It doesn’t sound salesy, yet I shared everything that I do and I elevated my credibility in who I am. Now I’ve seen, “I thought you were successful, but you got six businesses. I didn’t know you have six businesses.” In a matter of seconds or minutes, I’m able to share that through the technology in a capacity that’s never been able to be done. Diane, you’ve been at those events where someone gives you a business card that says, “This is my company, but let me give you my other one with this company.” You feel this awkwardness when that happens. You feel like there’s this weird experience that happens when someone starts handing you two business cards and you’re like, “What are you doing?”
I figured out a way that I can share six businesses without handing out anything and it elevates my credibility instead of lowering it. There was a lot of psychology if you haven’t realized behind this website. It’s not what’s superficially seen. That’s why I’ve created a training course. I have a four-week branding and marketing training course that entrepreneurs and business owners can enroll in once they purchase our membership. Our membership is very inexpensive. It’s between $30 to $120 a month. It’s very low for what you’re getting. The real value comes when you learn how to market and promote yourself using the software and the system. That’s what I now have gotten into teaching.
I’m looking at all the things you do on your site. I knew you had a talk show. You list that as one of your websites. Are you still a talk show host? What does that show about?
I’m the host of Today’s Premier Experts where I interview entrepreneurs, influencers, thought leaders from all over the world. I’ve had guests like Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank. Les Brown, the number one motivational speaker in the world. I’ve had Jeffrey Hayzlett and Bill Walsh. I’ve had so many different thought leaders as well as smaller experts in their space and business owners on my show. The purpose is to find out what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, what people need to do to be experts in your field and also provide resources to other people out there that are looking for their area of expertise. I’ve created it in a way that gives people a platform to share their story in an interview format as if you were going on Oprah. My clients who are on the show can get that interview. They can use it on their website, on their YouTube, on their social media, on their email marketing as well as being on our platform, on our website, on Roku, Amazon Fire Stick and Apple TV.
That gives them a lot more access, not only to viewership but to be able to use those logos and say, “I’ve been a special guest on Today’s Premier Experts talk show with global branding expert Rey Perez. Watch my interview on Roku, Amazon Fire Stick or Apple TV. I’ve been alongside Les Brown, Kevin Harrington, and all these other celebrities.” It gives people who are consultants, speakers and authors a lot more credibility at bragging rights as well as being able to share their story. It’s like what we’re doing on this interview but in a full real talk show setting. Because I had a production company, I’ve leveraged my studio, the 6,000 square feet in Miami and my full production team. It was very easy for me to create this show for these entrepreneurs and business owners to get their message out into the world.
They do have to go to Miami to be on your show. You do them in person always.
Yes, people fly in. It’s a one day shoot so a lot of people can come on the same day and fly out. What I’ve done with a lot of my clients, because we also do our branding two days event around the same time, clients come in, they get their branding done. They go on the talk show, they get their videos done, and then they fly out three days later. They get more done in those three days than they’ve done in the last three years.
That would be quite a whirlwind. I’m curious what the MIB event is if that’s not the branding two-day event. What does that mean?
That’s the date after the branding two-day and it stands for Marketing Implementation Bootcamp. We teach you how to implement everything we created two days before.
This is fascinating. I was always interested in what you do because every time I run into you, you’re doing something else. You’re up in Camelback Mountain here in Paradise Valley, Scottsdale area. You were at that one mansion that we went to. I don’t even know if you were in Dallas event I went for C-Suite and a few other things I’ve seen you at. I was always wondering, because every time I saw you, it seemed like you had a lot of different things going. I finally get to ask you all the things that you have going on. I was very curious. This has been so much fun. I wanted to know if there’s anything else that we didn’t touch on that you’re working on. I see your philanthropy, look at the list of the things you do. Is there anything else that I forgot to ask you?
There are two things. Number one, giving back is something that is important to me, not only personally but in my company. It’s something that I teach to all my clients, to all my members, everyone that I work with. I believe that when we give, it’s the best way for us to receive. I’ve tied in all my business with a give-back component to give back to charities. I personally love giving back to charity, but it has to do with youth, children, entrepreneurship and business. We work with NextGen entrepreneurs. We work with NFTE and National Leaders Association. There are so many different charities that we work with. On My360Sites platform, one of our give-back component is every time a new member signs up, we give a basic membership of our 360 platform to a student, active military or a nonprofit organization or 501(c)(3).
If anybody knows, any students, active military or 501(c)(3), go to our website and let us know. We will give them one of our basic memberships for our 360 sites for $1. That’s one of our give back portions. The other thing that I’ve personally been doing for a few years and it’s exploded my business and that’s why I’m always in a different city, speaking in different places because I’ve got into public speaking, is that now I have partnered with one of the world’s top speaking coaches. We brought together what he’s doing with speaking sales. We’re merging my branding and marketing skills, and now we’re giving people a one-two punch. We’re going to help you get more leads, more sales and more traction through the power of branding marketing. We’re also going to teach you how to close more, one-on-one and one-to-many.
That’s been something that’s truly made my business explode. I’m so excited that now I’m being able to provide this to my clients as well. It’s awesome to make you look great, make you feel like a celebrity, have people attracted to you and have all this business coming at you, but if you don’t know how to properly convert that business into sales, then it doesn’t make a difference. I’m so excited to be able to provide both of those resources to our clients, to our members and our attendees, and we’re seeing phenomenal results. If there’s anybody out there that wants to get their presence out into the world, attract more leads and more sales, if they want to become a better speaker, maybe they have never spoken and been able to sell one to many. To sell $30,000 to $100,000 an hour is incredible, I never thought it was possible, but now I’m doing it. I’m teaching others to do the same. That’s something that I’m passionate about, I enjoy and I want to share with the world. That was the last thing I wanted to make sure everyone knew.
The biggest mistake that people make are sending potential clients to their website. They should be building a relationship with them first. Click To TweetAre you a photographer too? Because you were taking pictures at the events.
Not by trade, but I am a pretty good photographer. When my fellow speakers are on stage, I know what I would like. I do the courtesy for everyone and I take some pictures. I make sure they get it for their social media.
Are you tapped for board positions at all? I would imagine they could use your expertise on board advisors or board of directors. Have you done that at all?
I’m sitting on a few boards. It depends on the company, it depends on the business, but I’m always open. I’m always about giving back. If there’s any way that I can provide value or service or make a connection, I’m always open.
This was interesting and I’m so glad you were able to join me on the show. A lot of people need help with a lot of this stuff. It’s very confusing. There are many things to take into account. A lot of people see other people being very successful and don’t know how to do it. I can see that there’s definitely a market for it. You’ve mentioned a couple of your sites, but I want to take this last minute to share how they can reach you. They can go to ReyPerez360.com, is that the best way or are there any other sites you want to share?
That’s the beautiful part about what I created. There’s only one place to go for everything. If you want to connect with me on social media, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, you name it. If you want to call, text, WhatsApp, email me, download my contact information, visit my website, watch my videos, my blog. If you want to do anything Rey Perez related, there’s only one place to go and that’s ReyPerez360.com.
Have you written a book? That’s the one thing I don’t see on here. We need to get you to write a book.
If you click on the top left-hand corner, click on my icon. You’re going to see two of my books.
What Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Know About Personal Branding on Social Media: The Untold Truth of Why Perception is Ultimate Reality, which is interesting to me because I’m writing about perception. We’re going to have to talk about that the next time I run into you, which I’m sure I will.
That is probably going to be an even better episode because when you hear my take on why perception is the ultimate reality, we’re going to have a field day.
That will be fun to talk about. I wrote an assessment about that and we can have plenty to discuss. It’s important to realize that perception is involved in the business. Many people know about IQ and EQ and cultural quotient, CQ, but it all comes down to combining a lot of that into your perception. A lot of people can use help with that. Bestseller, I see in your books, congratulations. Thank you so much for being on the show, Rey. This was fun.
This was a treat. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it and I look forward to doing it again.
We’ll have to and I’ll see you at the next event.
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It was a lot of fun to have Rey on the show. He brings up a lot of things that I’m interested in. I work with a lot of consultants and that’s where I run into Rey at a lot of the events where consultants are always trying to find the next way to become more relevant, to reach out and help organizations and be more successful. That’s what I’m doing with the work I’m doing with curiosity and perception. I was glad that we got to talk a little bit about that with Rey. What I’d like to address was what we’re doing with the Curiosity Code Index. For consultants, HR professionals, anybody who’s in the business of making companies more successful, we’re certifying people to become CCI certified.
That means you can give the Curiosity Code Index and in the process, you get five hours of SHRM recertification credit, which is great. You also get reduced prices on giving the assessment in the future to organizations. I have companies who are interested in being resalers and being affiliates and all that we’re offering, which is important right now because everybody’s trying to be relevant out there. We have many companies who their leaders are concerned about innovation, engagement, and productivity. A lot of the assessments they’ve given have done great things in terms of opening up some communication about emotional intelligence. Maybe they even know more about their preferences with Myers-Briggs or what their types are with DISC and all the different assessments and they’re good.
This is something different. It’s not about categorizing people into groups. This is about recognizing the factors that keep people from being curious through researching thousands of people over the years. I’ve done quite a bit of research on this to determine the factors that keep people from being curious. Those four factors that I found are fear, assumption, technology and environment. What we found is the fear, as the first factor was not such a big surprise to me. It’s a huge part of what keeps people from communicating at work. They have somebody either shut them down in their present position or in the past or any type of situation where they felt uncomfortable. It’ll make it hard for them to stand up and be heard in meetings.
A lot of people have issues. Maybe they’re introverted and they do feel like nobody gives them enough time to speak. There are many different factors that can cause somebody to have a fear of speaking up. The problem is if people are not speaking up, we’re getting a lot of companies that are getting status quo results. They’re status quo thinkers. Everybody is saying yes around you. If you’re a leader and nobody’s questioning why we’re doing this or saying that maybe we need to look at something a little differently, then you’re probably not as innovative as you could be. You probably don’t have a curiosity-based culture, which is very problematic because curiosity is the spark that leads to drive, motivation, and all the things that organizations are working to achieve, which I found fascinating in the research.
I wanted to address the other factors though since I brought up fear. The second factor was assumption, which is the voice in our heads. We all tell ourselves certain things that we’ll be interested in something. We might not be interested in something else, that this is something that I find boring, that is going to be too hard. We all know how we can get these thoughts in our heads and that can hold people back from exploring new areas. As technology and artificial intelligence and everything are starting to expand and take over different positions, people are going to have to be realigned.
We know we have less than a third of the workplace actively engaged. That’s a huge problem right now. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find out what makes people interested by exploring their curiosity and get them over that voice in their head so that they can try these new areas so that we can align them to jobs that would be good matches for what they would be interested in doing? The huge part of solving a lot of the problems that companies have is working on these assumptions or the voice in their head.
The technology, I’d brought up a little bit. A lot of people are either under-relying or over-relying on technology, which can be a real problem because they don’t have the foundation behind it. Some people are afraid of it or some people have been trained in something. They don’t want to be trained again. They’ve gone through it. You get this cycle that goes around and around. If we can have days where we have low-technology days or high-technology days to learn about technology, a lot of that will bring about a lot of this foundation that we need in our workers and not over-reliance instead of we want to have people understand it.
The last is environment. That’s a huge factor for a lot of people. I know it was a big one for me. I mean if you have a family, friends, teachers, coworkers, peers, everybody you could think of, anybody, even social media, anybody that you’ve had interactions with impact what you think is a good idea or not a good idea or a good thing to do or not to do. We have such an influence from our environment. You might have come from a family where everybody was expected to be a college professor. Everybody’s expected to be a policeman or a policewoman or whatever the background is. Sometimes when you veer off the path that others expect of you, it makes you uncomfortable. It makes other people uncomfortable. What we’re trying to do with this assessment is talk about all these things so we recognize what it is that’s holding us back. I’ve likened it to baking a cake.
Curiosity in respect of what everybody can relate to, let’s think about baking a cake. If you take the ingredients, let’s say you’ve got flour, oil and eggs. You take everything, you mix all these ingredients together, you put it in a cake pan and then you put it in the oven, what’s going to happen? If you didn’t turn on the oven, not much. We were not going to get cake. That’s what’s happening in the workplace. We know what the ingredients that we want. We know we need drive, motivation, engagement and innovation. We’re mixing all these ingredients, trying to get them together to end up with this end product of productivity, but nobody’s turning on the oven. We’re not getting cake because the spark, the oven is curiosity. All the people I’ve had on my show from Francesca Gino and her work at Harvard with curiosity to everybody who were creativity expert, they all talk about that. Whatever they’re saying boils down to curiosity.
We need to work on that foundational aspect of building this in organizations. That’s what we’re trying to teach people in the Curiosity Code Index training assessment. Not only taking the assessment but going through the CCI workshop if you’re interested in becoming certified to give it in your organizations. I go to organizations and give this. Other consultants do the same. If you’re a consultant, an HR professional or a leader who wants to have somebody get certified within their company, these are on-demand workshops that people can sign up for. It’s a half-day. They’re very inexpensive. They’re very simple to go through, plus anybody who goes through it gets five hours SHRM recertification credit, which is great. They get a lot of materials, information and discounts off of it. The future CCIs, if they want to give to other people in the organization.
It’s something that a lot of big companies are looking at in different organizations throughout the globe. I worked with people in the Netherlands and everywhere. If you look at what we’re doing, nobody’s doing anything like it. I know a lot of people are tired of giving a lot of the old assessments because they’re not getting anywhere with them in some respects. They’re not getting the engagement results or they’re not getting certain results. They’re not getting cake because they’re not turning on the oven. Those are important assessments, especially emotional intelligence. I wrote my dissertation on that. I think it’s one of the most important things we can help leaders with. You have to have that drive, that curiosity, that sparks, that drive to ask the questions that build empathy. Empathy is a huge part of emotional intelligence.
Our interpersonal skills are a huge part of our emotional intelligence. If we don’t explore the questions and ask all those probing things that we need to ask to learn more about people, we’re not getting to know them in a way that helps us understand their perception and our own perception. Perception is a huge part of the cultural clashes and the situations that we’re having in the workplace because we have such a diverse workplace. If we don’t work on the perceptive issues, we’re going to continue to butt heads. This all ties into the same stuff that I’ve been working on. I’m still in process with the perception assessment, but we have had unbelievable results with curiosity.
If you’re interested in becoming certified to give the Curiosity Code Index, all that information is at CuriosityCode.com. You can also go to my main website at DrDianeHamilton.com and all the curiosity information’s there. I hold a lot of free webinars to learn more about the Curiosity Code Assessment. If you’re interested in those, you can contact me through my website. It’s my name at DrDianeHamilton.com and you can find everything there. There’s so much more that we’re doing. I know a lot of people are very familiar with the radio show, but with all the speaking that I do and the consulting and the training, I don’t usually spend a lot of time on my shows talking about that.
I thought this was a great opportunity to do it. Since Rey is dedicated to talking to a lot of consultants and people that are in the same boat, I thought I’d tie it into this show. I enjoyed the conversation with him and all the work he does is fascinating. I hope you take time to check out his site and all the guests’ sites that they’ve shared on the show. They’re all at DrDianeHamilton.com. We had so much great content in this episode. If you’ve missed any of the guests from past episodes, please go to the website, please check out the show. If you have any questions you can always contact me through my site. I enjoyed this episode and I look forward to the next episode.
Important Links:
- Rey Perez
- AMP Productions
- BrandIn2Days
- Jeff Hayzlett – Past episode
- My360Sites
- Today’s Premier Experts
- Facebook – Rey Perez
- LinkedIn – Rey Perez
- Instagram – Rey Perez
- YouTube – Rey Perez
- ReyPerez360.com.
- What Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Know About Personal Branding on Social Media: The Untold Truth of Why Perception is Ultimate Reality
- CuriosityCode.com
About Rey Perez
Rey Perez is the #1 global branding expert. He is the CEO and Founder of Multimedia Marketing & Event Promotions Company, AMP Productions. Rey is a sought-after inspirational speaker, talk show host, successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and elite business coach, who leads masterminds, marketing seminars and socially infused networking events nationwide. Leveraging more than 15 years of sales and marketing experience, Rey and his team create world-class celebrity brands for top entrepreneurs and professionals who want to dominate their niche or industry.
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