We recently connected with Ramona J. Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Ramona J. , appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

I knew nothing about sustaining a business when I first purchased my LLC and created my business plan. I would have trained under an entrepreneur and hired a business coach to help me understand how to actually run a business. I’ve learned that it is too easy to start a company. Anyone can purchase the name, sell products, create a website and social media pages. However, most people do not know how to keep their businesses running, how to scale their businesses and how to identify trends and new innovative ways to improve their businesses. These are things we are still working on at my company.

Ramona J. , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We transform lives through the power of words. Our motivational speakers educate, inspire, empower, and persuade audiences globally. Our public speaking coaches help clients with upcoming presentations successfully overcome glossophobia (stage fright), through unique best practices. Our founder has conquered the number one fear in the world, speaking in public. She outlasted 30,000 of the world’s greatest speakers to become the World Champion of Public Speaking. Our programs and coaching have helped millions of business professionals, aspiring speakers and students gain the confidence to successfully speak on any stage.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Like many other business owners, we had to pivot during the pandemic. Our speakers primarily connected with audiences in person. They would travel to the events and present on stage in living color. When the pandemic hit, travel was halted. Businesses were cutting budgets tremendously. Our speakers faced cancellation after cancellation. Instead of getting discouraged and closing our doors, we shifted to the virtual world. We learned how to utilize Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and many other video conference apps. We created online courses and posted them on Eventbrite. We increased our email marketing and our social media engagement. It was a challenging period, but we made it through. Now that the world is post Covid, we are transitioning back to our in person speaking. Yet, hybrid engagements are still highly requested.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We honestly got lucky. When our founder won the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2018, the media coverage was nonstop. The photos, Memes, articles and interviews intrigued thousands of people. They started to follow our pages. In just a few months we went from hundreds of followers to tens of thousands of organic followers. The way we retained many of those followers is simply consistent and relevant posts. Followers need businesses to post content regularly that is valuable and entertaining. We recommend checking your analytics to collect the data that will show you what your audiences resonate with. Reels have been phenomenal for us. We’ve had several reels go viral. The largest reach from a reel was 5.7 million views! Consistency, value and knowing what your followers want to see will help build your social media presence.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ramonajsmith.com
• Instagram: @ramonajsmith1
• Facebook: Ramona J. Smith
• Linkedin: Ramona J. Smith
• Youtube: Ramona J. Smith
• Other: [email protected]