It has never been easier now to start a business, although for budding entrepreneurs, the challenge is how to grow that business. To further dive into the topic of growing a business, our host John Rebecchi (M.B.A. ’83), Ph.D. sat down with Ramon (Ruh-moan) Ray (B.S. ’07) entrepreneur, leading expert on personal branding, motivational speaker, author, founder and CEO of ZoneofGenius.com and SmartHustle.com.

Ray’s extensive background include working at the United Nations, started four small businesses and sold two, to sharing the stage with celebrity business thought leaders, interviewed the President of the United States, and spoke at the White House on personal branding.

Ray pointed out that, the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs today is ironically to grow the business and getting attention. He discusses the importance of personal branding for small businesses and how to manages it before it evolves on its’ own. “Once we [small business] hone that, once we enhance that and learn that we have it [personal branding] whether we like it or not, I think that’s when things start getting good.” Rebecchi added, “personal brand exist whether you like it or not.” Therefore, anything we post becomes part of our personal brand.

An advice Ray has for budding entrepreneurs is to “be like a startup, but do think like a business.” He recommend on getting into the selling as soon as possible since it is a matter of run way; the amount of time a business can keep operating before it runs out of cash.

Listen to the full episode: Podbean, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify

By Patthara Chandaragga