In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, host Rudy Rodriguez welcomes Rey Perez, a globally recognized branding expert. Rey shares his insights on innovative technology utilization for brand visibility enhancement and creating enthusiastic fans through events. Rey has a knack for recognizing individual qualities and fostering excitement about branding. Rey's organized and simplified approach to brand messaging through a 360-degree strategy, enables individuals to align their identity and brand to their true potential.

Rey's journey in event promotion began in his youth as a nightclub promoter and spanned over two decades. Despite evolving tactics, Rey has consistently implemented effective strategies to attract attendees. Rey's extensive experience, especially how he employs technology to strengthen audience connections and cultivate dedicated fans, permeates the episode.

Rey's unique strategy employed in his personal and client events focuses on a 360 site platform. He developed this to foster faster relationships and better connect with individuals primarily using Google and social media. Rey's platform includes various media and prioritizes building trust before leading individuals to his website, establishing a successful rapport and meaningful connections.

The evolution of Rey's business through his unique technology also forms a substantial part of the conversation. Rey narrates how he started using the platform for his events, leading to the establishment of a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, now with over 4,000 members. Rey walks us through his innovative approach to capturing contact information without traditional opt-in forms, enabling a quicker contact exchange and facilitating immediate communication.

The importance of building strong relationships and fostering passionate fans is emphasized, with Rey demonstrating how he provides QR codes for attendees to interact with him across various platforms. Rey's strategic direction towards his 360 site ensures maximum exposure and consumer trust building. He stresses the significance of fostering strong relationships as the foundation of business success, with his approach leading to speaking engagements, event invitations, collaborations, and overall business growth.

Finally, Rey directs listeners to his comprehensive website, Reyperez360.com, offering a range of resources, training videos, lead capture scripts, and the chance to schedule a discovery call with him. He suggests software platforms Scipio and GoHighLevel for text message marketing, based on an individual's unique needs. Rey calls for feedback and invites listeners to reach out for guidance on leveraging text message marketing in their events, underlining the essence of efficient strategy implementation. Join us in this enriching episode to learn from the best in business.

Want to connect with Rey? 

Visit https://reyperez360.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlobalBrandingExpert

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reyperez360/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reyperez/

If you'd like to be a guest on the High-Profit Event Show, click HERE.

Welcome to the show. Rudy Rodriguez here, your host of The High Profit Event Show. And today we have a really special guest, Mr. Rey Perez, who is going to be sharing with us how to leverage really cool technology to increase your brand and generate raving fans with your events. Before I bring Rey on, I was going to give a couple of bio points, but he actually helped me out by creating a really awesome intro video. So I'm actually going to go ahead and share my screen. For those of you who are watching the video, for those of you who are listening to the audio, you'll still be able to hear it. And we'll include the link in the description here. But I want you to actually get a chance to get to know Ray through his video. So hold on one second. I'm going to push play. And you're going to see. Ray Perez.

His ability to see what's special about you and to be enthusiastic about that and really get you to share that enthusiasm and be excited about your new branding.

And the community that he's created has been really cool. So I've been able to learn a lot of best practices.

The great benefit about working with Rey Perez is that he's going to drive your brand. When he drives your 360 brand, it's going to be a simplistic way to streamline and to organize your message.

The easiest thing about referring Rey is that he has a system and he's going to help people become better.

I watch him do it all the time. The biggest benefit of working with Rey is that he gives you an identity. He gives you a branding that matches with who you are in the world, who you can be in the world.

It's not about do you need to wear a suit? How do you want to make value in the world?

That's what I feel like. You need to celebrate because if you don't, then what's the point of working so hard?

We need to celebrate. I want to celebrate Mr. Rey Perez. Welcome to the show, sir.

What's up, buddy? How are you doing, Rudy?

I'm doing well, man. I'm doing really well and excited to have you on. This is a long awaited interview. I've been looking forward to it since we were hanging out in Guatemala a few years ago. You were writing your book.

Right. I actually got it right here.

Let's see it. Hold it up to the camera.

This is the newest one. This is the one before.

Not one, but three books have come since then. That's awesome.

Working on my fourth as we speak right now. Super excited. Just super blessed. Thank you for having me on the show.

Most definitely, man. We bring people on the show who are experts in their specific niche and also have experience in the event space. You're both. You're a globally recognized branding expert. In fact, if you Google search Rey Perez, you're going to get the number one global branding expert. You have a lot of experience in events. In fact, you're doing an event less than two weeks and you do one or two every other month. I think this is a great interview and looking forward to hearing what you have to teach us today.

Thank you. It's interesting because I've been doing events since I was 18 years old. Actually, 17 if I really go back to when I started promoting my very first nightclub right here at Miami Beach. I started as a nightclub promoter. I've been promoting and marketing events for 20 plus years at this point. The craziest thing is the same exact strategies that I used to get people to a nightclub in my 20s are the same strategies I get people to use to get people to a business event now in my 40s. It's interesting how things have evolved, but the strategies are still the same.

Yeah, they say a strategy lasts and tactics change. Awesome, brother. Doing events for sounds like over 20 years or about 20 years. A lot of experience, man. Really interesting to hear how you leverage cool technology to better connect with the audience and to build more raving fans.

One of the things that I've been doing is the latest strategy that I've implemented in my personal events and then to the clients that I work with in their events. That's the really unique benefit that I bring to the table. I run my events on a quarterly basis and I do multiple events in between those as well. But I also have a production company that will host events for my clients and other people. I'm always using strategies within my own events, but then I'm tweaking them and then I'm implementing them in other people's events. One of the latest technologies and strategies that I've been using for the last couple of years that's really made a tremendous difference for me and my clients has been using the technology of a 360 site. A 360 site is a platform that I built about, I don't know, six, seven years ago at this point. I initially created it because I felt that I wanted a faster, more effective way to connect with people when I first met them, whether that be at a live event, whether that was networking, whether it was through social media. I just knew that passing out a business card or sending people my website wasn't the most effective way to build rapport and relationship and connection. As most people know, all buying decisions are based on emotion backed by logic. If I really want someone to eventually buy my products or services, I have to focus on building a relationship and a connection with them first so they like, know and trust me before they're ever going to make that buying decision. Understanding that, I really started to ask myself, how do human beings research one another in today's market?

How do they build rapport? How do they look each other up? The answer that 99 % of people give is number one, they Google. Number two, they're going to look up your social media.

People aren't really initially looking to check out your website because we all know that you can own and operate all the content on your website. People want to look at your socials because psychologically they want to know what you're up to in the world. Who are you really? What are you doing? Understanding that psychology, I was like, okay, if I need to build a relationship with people faster, I need to build this connection, I need to build this trust, this credibility, people are using Google, they're checking out social medias, they want to build rapport and get to know me and like me before they do business and check out my website. Wouldn't it make sense that if I somehow got my social media in front of them first so that they can build that relationship with me faster and I can get ahead of my competitors? The challenge was I don't know what social media preference every other human being on the planet has because there's so many social medias, right? Now I can guess based on the demographic, based on the age what social media is their preference, but at the end of the day, it's not a guarantee. So then the thought was, how do I just put it all in one place? How do I put it on a silver platter, give them one link and let them choose what social media they want to connect with me on or research me on and build rapport, right? That's how it started. And then expanded to, well, okay, if they're checking out my social media, maybe they want to also check out my podcast interviews. Maybe they also want to check out my websites. Maybe they also want to check out my nonprofit. Maybe they also want to check out my videos. Maybe they want to check out my articles on Forbes, Entrepreneur, Los Angeles Tribune, USA Today, right?

So little by little, we started adding all these other collaterals and materials and media that are in the world that we all have, right? You have a video, you have a podcast, you might've been on a talk show before, you did some press release, like you've got websites and content, right? We all have this stuff. And little by little, we started to aggregate it. Now, this isn't like a website because a website would just be too difficult to have all this stuff on a website. And if you know anything about marketing, the number one rule in marketing is when you get someone to your website, you don't want them to leave your website. So it goes against everything I've ever learned in the world of marketing to put all your social media and all this stuff on your website that takes them away from your website. Because once they get to your website, we want them to do what? We want them to potentially schedule a call and buy, right? So, being a marketer, my brain said, it does not make sense to build this amazing website that I want people to convert and buy from me and then send them to Facebook, send them to Linkedin, send them to my podcast, right? I have to do it in reverse. I have to give them all that information first, let them build a relationship, let them build a rapport, let them feel connected that I'm a trustworthy, credible expert. I like this guy. He might have funky hair, but I like him, right? And when that happens, then they come to my website, then they schedule a call, then we make a buying decision. And figuring out how to create that process has made such a tremendous difference for me when I'm connecting with people. I just realized all these medias of communication are all just avenues of how I can get someone to build more rapport and connection with me.

So long story short, we pulled it all together. I started using it, speaking at a lot of events, running my own events, and then other speakers and other attendees started asking me, hey, how'd you do that? I want to do that. Can you do that for me? Okay. We clone the site. We build another one. We take all my information out. We add that person's information. After 180 sites of cloning and changing information, I said, I think I figured something out here. And I think this is something that people can benefit from and they like it. And that's how the business started evolving. I'm now selling this as a service to people, which is a SaaS company, software as a service, which I didn't even know back then. I didn't even know I had a SaaS company. And since then it's grown. We have over 4,000 change members on all different levels. And we teach now how to use this technology at live events, whether you're an attendee, whether you're a sponsor, or you're the actual speaker, or you're the event promoter yourself. Because those are all the different capacities of events. And as event coordinators and as people who put on events, we play all those roles. Sometimes we show up to the mastermind and we're an attendee. Sometimes we show up to that event and we're the speaker. Sometimes we have a booth and we're a sponsor. Or sometimes it's our event and we're the promoter.

And being the number one global branding expert, I understand the value in elevating who I am in people's mind. The more perception of value that someone has of you, the more they're going to listen to you, the more they're going to follow you, and the more they're going to share about who you are and what you do, which means you create more attraction. The more attraction you have, the more impact you can make. So that formula is something that I teach during our business group bootcamp.

If I were to meet you, Rudy, and you ask me what I do, and I give you my business website, in one way, shape, or form, you're going to feel I'm trying to sell to you. Because the reality is I am. Because we all are. But if I say, hey, let's get connected, and I give you a 360 that says Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, podcast, Facebook, videos, it no longer feels like I'm trying to sell anything.

Because what do you think the rest of the world would do? The rest of the world is giving out a business card or giving out a link to their website. That's what the rest of the world is doing. So everybody's doing the same thing. And I believe in being that one person that does something different, that one person that stands out. And I can get into it in a moment, but the follow up sequence is really what makes the difference. The technology is cool, and it does give an impact like, wow, that's cool. And it does give that first impression. But the real power is in the follow up. Because consider this. If I meet you, and I give you a business card, or I just give you my website, or I have you put my phone number in your phone, because those are all scenarios that people do at events, right? I'm still making you do work to have to follow up with me. Either you're going to type in my 10 -digit number, either you're going to have to look for my email. With the system that we teach, using the 360 technology, and I'll demonstrate it in a moment, we'll share a screen, you can download my contact information into your cell phone in less than 10 seconds. All my information is in your phone. My email, my phone number, my birthday, my address. I tell people I like chocolate for my birthday, send me milk chocolate. All my information and my picture. So my picture pops up on their phone. Now, the system that I teach at my event, and for anyone that's at events, is as soon as they save my information in those 10 seconds, I go click on their phone, I go here, text me your full name and your best email. So I can save you in my phone. And immediately, they do it, because I'm standing next to them.

And they go boom, boom, boom. And if we were virtually, I would tell you to do it, and I would wait right here until you do it. And they send me their name, and they send me their email. Now, the cool part is this. I only asked for them to send me their name and email. Didn't ask for their cell phone number. But I get the cell phone number, because when they click that button, it actually opens up a text message. And the most important piece of contact information that we could ever want to have from somebody that we meet at any event or any situation is their cell phone number.

When you offer a free gift, when you offer a free report, when you offer a copy of your book, whatever that is, we want to give it in exchange for people's information. So if you're at an event, not as an attendee, but let's say you're a speaker or a sponsor, you're probably going to have some type of lead capture tool, gift, what we call it in the marketing world. And probably 95, 96 % of the time, it's going to send them to a landing page. And on that landing page, it's going to ask for their name, their number, their email. Marketers know that the chances of people filling out that form goes down. I don't remember the percentage, maybe you know, Rudy, it goes down when you ask for a phone number. And if you want to have the best opt-in percentage ever, you only ask for an email. That's like known high-end marketing knowledge. But I want the phone number. I want the cell phone number because I know that that's the most important piece of information for me to connect with this person. And I do believe in text message marketing. I do believe in picking up the phone and making phone calls. So I said, if the studies prove that when you give a form, it doesn't matter what it is- it can be your book, it can be your podcast, it can be your presentation, it can be your white paper- the fact that they have to fill out a form to get that gift makes people less likely to give their information.

I'm just going to do away with the opt-in form. I'm no longer going to have a page that they go to with an opt-in form. Instead, I'm going to have them go to my 360 site. I'm going to have them click the contact button. And I'm going to have them click send text. And I'm going to say to the audience, or if I'm a sponsor, whatever, the person in front of me, I say, text me your full name and your best email. And I'm going to send you my, whatever- that call to action, irresistible offer, gift, whatever you want to call it, that lead capture. Here's what I've realized. And this is the coolest thing. And if you're listening to this podcast, you need to listen super closely to what I'm going to say, because this is the game changer. This is the ninja strategy. When I say, text me your full name and best email, the last thing that they hear is email. And most people, because they're interested in what it is that you're offering, whether it's the course, the white paper, the book, whatever, because they want that thing, the action steps you give them is send your full name and best email. So they write their full name, email, and send. They're not thinking. They're not processing. I'm sending them my cell phone number as well. Does that make sense? Now, maybe some people are, like a small percentage of people are like, wait a second, he's going to get my cell phone number. And that's totally cool, because I'm not trying to hide anything. I just want you to understand the difference between someone typing a form that says fill in your phone number here. That creates resistance with a person.

When you say, send me your full name and best email, there's no resistance. People just, boom, they do it. Now, as a speaker, for those that are listening to this, that are speakers, this is the greatest thing I've ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever figured out as a speaker. Changed my freaking life. Changed the way I build my audience.

I opened up my app, because it's not my actual personal cell phone. I will admit, it's not my personal cell phone. It is a text messaging number that goes to an app. But I open the app on my phone, and I start saying everyone's name who's texting.

So I'll go, Rudy, I got you, buddy. Jennifer, I got you. James.

And you know what starts happening to that audience? Everybody wants the speaker to acknowledge them from the front of the room. And all of a sudden, more people start messaging, because they want to be acknowledged in front of the room. Nothing about sales. Nothing about marketing. Nothing about opting in. About relationships. About connecting with people. So initially it was my strategy on how to get more leads. That was my initial goal. But later on, I really started to look into it, and I started to realize, you know what? I want to serve people. I don't want to just get their information and make money. I want to build connections. I want to give people a good feeling. I want to acknowledge other human beings. I want to make someone a little bit happier and have a little bit more joy in their life when I have the power as a speaker on stage. I don't want to just do this to get people's information. And my whole mindset started shifting. It started shifting from like, wow, this is the best marketing strategy in the world, to being like, I love to give my audience praise. I love to give people joy. And I love to build relationships with them, because then they become my clients and they become my friends.

But the reality is, I've been able to do that because I've built so many amazing relationships with all my clients. I've served them at such a high level that people have raving fans that are like, I love Rey Perez. I love Rey Perez. And it fills my heart. And my love language is words of affirmation. So it really does speak to my soul. But at the end of the day, this strategy isn't just about being more effective at generating more leads for your business. It's really about how you as a speaker or as an event promoter or a sponsor of an event can really contribute and give back to the people while you're being effective in collecting this information.

And there's going to be a QR code. And on that QR code, it says, call, text, email, or get socially connected with Rey. Because of this QR code, they can call, they can text, they can email, or they can see all my social media, website, podcast, media, everything in one place. So my team will have them scan and have them do the exact same thing while they're at the table. Do you want some more information? Great. Here you go. Scan this. Send your full name and best email. And my team's going to send you Rey's presentation. And it all goes into my text messaging software. My team, wherever they're in the world, has the software logged in on their computer. I also have it on my cell phone so I can see everything that's happening. And they put them into the follow up sequence as if it's me following up with them. Especially if my team doesn't know how to answer that question or it's someone that I know.

The person's at your event. So you don't need to get their phone number and email. You already got that information. So what is this going to do? Well, do you know if all the people who are live in your event are following you on your Instagram? Do you know if everyone in that room is connected to you on LinkedIn? Do you know if they're all your Facebook friends or following your fan page?

I'm like, all right, everybody pull out your cell phones, scan the QR code, go to my 360. If you're not already connected with me, connect with me on Instagram, connect with me on LinkedIn, connect with me on Facebook. And my team is going to look through the connections and we're going to select a winner and we're going to give ‘blank’. It could be a signed copy of my book. It could be a hundred digital dollars, which they can use towards any of our branding and marketing services, whatever your gift is.

Even YouTube subscribers, a lot of event coordinators are struggling. They're doing well in events, but they might be struggling on their YouTube channel. They have a couple thousand on their YouTube channel. Well, it's hard to get more views. Guess what? You've got a hundred people in your audience, have them scan a quick QR code, click on YouTube. All of a sudden you got a hundred new subscribers in that one event, in addition to what you're already doing. So these little tiny strategies using the technology actually creates even better results from an event than just sales. Then what we're obviously all trying to do is sell more, but these little strategies create intrinsic value because the more followers you have does not necessarily equate to more money, but it does equate to a higher perception of value.

So if you're an event promoter and you're doing a live event and you have 30, 40, 50, 200, 300 people in the audience, why wouldn't you take advantage of that opportunity to get them to follow you, subscribe? And again, if it's a one day event, two day event, you can split it up. You don't have to do everything in one day. Right. We like to split up on day one. We get everyone to follow us on Instagram and connect with us on LinkedIn. On day two, we do Facebook and Twitter. On day three, we do Youtube and Tiktok. It's because we don't want to overwhelm people. And every day we're going to pick like two or three winners because we're picking two or three social medias.

And they have all your additional content. It's proven that it requires a minimum of seven to 12 exposures before someone makes a buying decision. Now, if someone's at your event, they obviously bought to be there, but what do we really want them to do?

Oh, I didn't know Rey was on Forbes. Oh shit. I didn't know he was on The Los Angeles Tribune. I didn't know he had a nonprofit organization. Oh, this is cool. I didn't know. I've been watching this video. You're giving more exposure to who you are and what you do to your consumer, which means they're going to build more trust, relationship, and credibility. Your perception of value is going to go higher. That's going to assist in the sales process on the backend.

I don't send them my Zoom link. I send them the direct link to my 360 site that has the Zoom button. So they get to the page, that's my 360, they get to the Zoom button, and then they click the Zoom button. And guess what? It takes them into my Zoom room. Here we are. Congratulations. We finish our call. They close the Zoom. Guess what stays open right in front of their face? Everything that is connected to me in the world is in one place, sitting on their computer or sitting on the phone. I've planted my media, my exposure opportunity, because I logistically gave them what they asked for, but I did it through technology so that I could maximize my opportunity with them.

I don't send them directly to the event page. I send them to the button on my 360 that says events. Now guess what? I do multiple events. So I cross -promote my event, I cross -promote my other event, and when they're done, all my other videos, podcasts, websites, everything stays sitting right in front of their face once I'm done.

And at the end of the day, when it all comes down to it, I believe business is built on relationships. My goal is always to create better relationships with people. If they have a need for what I do, the likelihood of them buying or doing business with me goes up the better the relationship we have.

So I'm always trying to create amazing relationships, because one way or another, it will eventually lead to some type of business. Maybe they'll get me to speak on a podcast like you. Maybe they'll have me speak at an event. Maybe they'll invite me to their mastermind. One way or another, as long as I create this connection, this value, this higher perception, it's going to lead to some type of business at some point. So that's kind of the whole empirical sense.

Well, Rey, I got pages of notes here from what you shared. Yeah, a couple of my quick takeaways here. Honestly, the psychology that you were talking through around the opt-in. It's known that the more you ask for, the more resistance, the less likely you are to move forward. But you're right. Psychologically, if people are being asked for a name and then the email and then send, they give you the phone number and there you go. I never thought about it from that perspective, but it's a small thing that's big. It's really big.

It's the tiny hinges that swing big doors. And this is a tiny hinge, but it's a big freaking door.

Yeah, very big. And I'm also a big believer in speaking to people on the phone as well. So to be able to have a warm person that wants to interact with you. I love the Sps platform you have on the back end. I'm curious, is that something you're willing to share with us here as well? Like which platform that you use?

Yeah, actually, if you want to share your screen or you want me to share my screen, I'd love to give everybody who's listening to this podcast an opportunity to get exactly what I'm teaching.

Let's do that. Go ahead and share your screen. Okay.

So for those that are listening and not being able to view, I want you to go to Reyperez360.com. Reyperez360.com. And on that page, you're going to have everything I just talked about. So you're going to see my book. You're going to see my socials, my events, my media, my videos, my websites. There is a button on this page that's called presentation. When you click this presentation, this actually will give you access to my training video and my lead capture scripts. This will give you verbatim, like I actually wrote the script for you on a Google Doc, and you'll be able to take that Google Doc, copy it into yours, and then take out my call to action and add yours. And when you finish watching the training at the bottom, I'll just show it for those that are watching, it's going to give you a link to set up your free 360 site. So you go ahead, fill out your information. It'll take you to the next page. And on the next page, it'll give you my actual training. And on top of the training, right below, it's going to give you a chance to schedule a call with me. Let's say if you have a few questions, you want to learn more, you're a friend of Rudy's, you heard me on this podcast, just mention, let me know that you heard me on the podcast, and you can schedule a 15 minute discovery call with me and ask me anything you want. Below that is an opportunity to claim your free 360 site so that you have the technology.

That's a great walkthrough and demo, and I appreciate you sharing that. We'll be sure to include the link in the show notes for the episode as well. And I'm curious about the process you have. You capture all of these phone numbers, and you said you have an SMS platform that you monitor, and you're able to respond to. Is that also the 360 site, or is that a separate platform?

So the 360 site basically connects everything that you currently have. So we're vendor agnostic. The one that I've been using for a very long time is called Skipio. They're out of Utah. I've been working there for a very long time, very good company. There's another software that I've also been using that's called GoHighLevel, and the reason I've been starting to use them a little bit more is because they have become more integrated altogether. Sipio is a solely text messaging software platform, and it does everything that you need to do with text messaging, and they're absolutely amazing. But GoHighLevel also has CRM, email marketing, and several other things that I can incorporate into one. So currently we use both softwares and a couple other softwares, but if I were to give you feedback, I would first say it depends on your situation. And I'd like to ask you three or four questions before I give you my feedback. So if you're considering, if you're listening to this or watching it, and you're considering how do I incorporate text message marketing for lead capture, for follow up sequences, for all of that, feel free that when you click that presentation and once you set up your 360, schedule a call with me and say, hey, I want your feedback Rey on how I should go about setting up a text messaging software. Because there are different prices, there are different benefits, it depends if you're just starting out, are you speaking once a week, are you speaking once a month, are you speaking to an audience of 30 people or 300 people? All these little details are a deciding factor of what's best for you to use. And because you're listening to me on Rudy's podcast, I'm happy to provide that value for you and answer any questions you guys have.

Thank you so much, Rey. I appreciate that, man. It's been a great interview. Tons of golden nuggets here. I'm going to go back and review my notes and rewatch the podcast. And I'm going to go download my 360 site free trial as well. So thank you.

Please, please. And for those of you that do this, I want to hear your feedback because you guys are into events. I don't care if you're attending, if you're sponsoring, speaking or doing your events, I want to hear what happened. And feel free to reach out to me. Hey, Rey, I'm doing my next event in a month. What do you think is the best strategy? How can I leverage this? That's what I'm here for. That's what my team's here for. Let us serve you. Let us give you the ideas because I promise you, I've been doing this for 20 years. I have figured out the ninja strategies on how to be even more effective than how we currently are. And it's not about doing things differently. It's just about doing things more efficiently, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. Thank you, Rey. Appreciate you again, man. And for our audience, be sure to check out Rey's 360 site. Get your free trial. Reach out to Rey if you have questions. And let us know. Give Rey feedback based on how you use the software. It'd be great to hear.

I'd love that. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, man. Thank you for allowing me to be here with you.