Speaker, Consultant and Coach Scott Ramey

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results than less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast speaker consultant coach with Scott Ramey Group. The man himself, Scott Ramey. How are you, man?

Scott Ramey: I’m great. Stone. Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here and chat with you.

Stone Payton: Yeah. It’s a delight to have you on the broadcast. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. Let’s start by getting a feel for mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Scott Ramey: Well, I think for me, it’s really to transform the way that we we code, that we sell and that we present and that we lead and really bring a more authentic perspective to, to, uh, to all those attributes. And I’ve been spending my life as, uh, leading and selling and, um, you know, now dropping into the consulting and coaching aspects is what I’ve found is there was really a void and and the authenticity that drives better results. And I feel like I’ve got the formula to help people get there.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to tell you, you cannot follow your work in any of your communication without running across that term authentic. Speak more to that. And it’s application for leadership selling life.

Scott Ramey: Yeah. So it’s this is kind of a lesson I learned too. Well frankly. So if I look back at my career of 30 years in financial services industry, and if I’m being really honest and critical and self-critical of myself, I think I wore a mask for the greater part of that career, not in the sense of how I led and how I interacted with people, because I think I was very genuine and 100% authentic in the way that I led and interacted. But I really never revealed the true challenges that I had faced underneath the surface. And it goes back to my first panic attack when I was 19 years of age and a junior in college, and so I had anxiety with me my entire life. I still am working through anxiety on a daily basis, and it wasn’t until, I mean, Stone was about two and a half years ago that I finally unmasked myself and my true identity. Other than Michelle, my wife, nobody else knew that I had been living with anxiety and a bit of a struggle throughout my career, and it wasn’t until I had a conversation with my daughter, Aubrey. And she doesn’t mind me sharing this story because I think it positively impacted her and positively impacted me. But Michelle came up the stairs here in my office about two and a half years ago and said, hey, look, Aubrey’s having a real challenge and I think you need to call her.

Scott Ramey: And I said, well, what’s going on? And she said, well, she just left a sports psychologist and Aubrey was a Division one soccer player, and he wants to put her on antidepressant anti-anxiety meds. She was benched the Saturday before that for making a couple of mistakes on the on the pitch. And as a father, she did make a couple of mistakes, as difficult as that. Is that for me to admit. And she had just flunked a presentation class, her first presentation class, and her college class she was taking. And I thought before I called her, I was like, what would I have wanted to hear? Um, you know, when I was 19, so a long, long time ago. And what I wanted to hear, um, that I didn’t hear immediately, but I finally did start to understand this, was that I wasn’t broken, that I was that it wasn’t a flaw. That, in fact, maybe the sensitivity that I was experiencing that was causing my anxiety may be a superpower. Um, and at that moment, it freed me to be myself. And I started talking more about that experience. And I felt like the way that the word the world came off my shoulders and, and maybe and if not more importantly, that also gave Aubrey the courage to be herself and authentically herself.

Scott Ramey: And long story short, she jumped into the infamous transfer portal, found her way to Valparaiso University. Um, she started every single game for her team. Uh, played every minute of every game, including playing on a stress fracture. The last two months of the season, they won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. She was all all tournament team, and they played the first round of the NCAA tournament against Notre Dame. And now she’s going on to do really cool things in financial services industry herself. So it freed me up and gave me courage. And I think the conversation gave Aubrey courage, too. So it was a pivotal moment in my understanding that that a lot of people are scared and a lot of your listeners are scared and it’s okay to be scared. But I think eventually we need to confront those fears and discuss them openly. And that’s why I lean in so heavily to authenticity, because I see what’s happening to a lot of individuals. It breaks my heart when I see it and experience it, and I just want to be an area and a platform to go to for safety.

Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the work a little bit. Maybe share a use case. Of course, you wouldn’t want to name names, but just kind of walk us through. I’m particularly interested in the early stages of an engagement or relationship with with in doing work with with you. But yeah, walk us through the the day to day. How does this really unfold?

Scott Ramey: Yeah. So it unfolds itself in a lot of ways. But what I found the common, the common characteristics of individuals that come to me is really based on fear. And it’s fear because they’re taking on something new and different. So I’ll give you a great example. I, I recently worked with the head of investor relationship or relations for a capital development company, and given the commercial lending is so tight, they had to change their business model and they had to go to high net worth individuals and family offices. And she called me on a Thursday and said, hey, I need your help. Um, we’re in the middle of a raise, and I just committed to a $5 million raise. But the story is not where it needs to be. And so this individual came and worked with me. We spent a half day together, uh, really redeveloping the entire story and pitch that she could take to market. The great news is they oversubscribed on that particular offering. But what it did for her stone was it gave her confidence. It gave her confidence and certainty and clarity in what she needed to do. And look, I just facilitate this process, this particular individual. She did all the work. I mean, she really rolled up her sleeves with me, but I was there to support her and kind of a safe net for her to fall into.

Scott Ramey: We could go through the, you know, many, many repetitions and tell the story over and over again and tweak it and fine tune it. And what came out of it was not only a lot of confidence with this individual, but a really great story, frankly. I mean, we developed a really great story together. So that’s just one of many examples. Another is a CEO, founder, CEO who was the number two, who was accustomed to being the chief operating officer, who now has started her own venture, and she needed to go out and raise capital. And we have an ongoing relationship that we speak no less than once a month. And, um, again, I think it’s just a sounding board, but somebody who, you know, that my whole my whole career, I raised money. That’s what I did in different aspects of business development, relationship management, sales, you name it. I’ve kind of done it. And I guess the gift that I will share with people is that what it comes down to is human connection. But you have to have a really tight grasp of what you want to say so that you can be who you need to be. And if you’re thinking about what you want to say, then you can’t be authentically yourself.

Stone Payton: So what do you find is a is a primary catalyst for that kind of shift? That kind of turnaround is part of it. Taking a mask off for a little while and a well facilitated, truly authentic exchange with an objective pair of eyes like yours.

Scott Ramey: Yeah, I think it’s part that, but I think it’s the expectations of what we think we have to do. And I see this I saw this in my entire career where and a lot of sales and business development professionals think we have to behave a certain way, and we have to go in and convince someone to do something. And yeah, so we strip that back and say, no. Like, you just need to be really clear about your message and you need to take the attention off of you and put it on your audience. And when you do that, and the quote I use and I created was, when it’s no longer about you, the pressure is no longer on you. When you shift the focus to your audience and not on yourself, you in turn free yourself up to just to connect. And when we connect, it’s a beautiful thing. And then we find ourselves not selling at all, that we’re just having this lovely conversation. It gets to an outcome that’s mutually beneficial to everybody.

Stone Payton: Well, if people continue to listen to me, they’re going to hear me repeat that phrase, and I will try to remember to credit you. But, you know, after a while it’ll be, you know, like I always say.

Scott Ramey: But it’s but it’s true. I think, you know, again, I led large sales organizations. The largest was we had 740 people. We were 14 to $18 billion a year. Given the year and our success on the institutional side. But that was the common thing. Sales reluctance is real, but it’s based in fear. And when we have fear, when we bring fear because we’re so focused on ourselves and we bring that into an environment or a situation, it’s even for leaders, too, especially for leaders. We spend so much time worrying about how we’re going to be received, what people are going to think of us, um, whatever it might be that we’re not truly ourselves and we’re and again, I know far too well from this, based upon my own personal experience, I would I think the thing that that I remind people of and not often, but I think is sometimes it’s worth repeating, is that I’m not. This isn’t just theory. This is practical. And when you’re coming from the experiences that I had with the first panic attack and always thinking about the next, and that’s the worst thing about panic, the first one, it’s all anticipatory, you know, I like to call it my shadow is always there, lurking, hiding, waiting to appear in the right circumstances. But a lot of us are bringing panic like behaviors to interactions with people, and we’re not connecting with them because we’re so focused on ourselves. And so when I when I talk and use the word authentic, and it seems to be used a lot these days, um, I like to think I think of it in a different way.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you these days.

Scott Ramey: Oh man, I love seeing people win and have, have and do things that they never thought they were capable of doing. And that includes myself. I mean, the fact that I, you know, to leave corporate America after three decades and go out and become an entrepreneur, that’s it’s hard. And I know you have a lot of listeners who are entrepreneurs as well. We all can appreciate how difficult it is to start a business. Um, so I celebrate on a daily basis the wins I have. But I love, love, love, love seeing somebody do something they never thought was possible. And you know, the example I gave you earlier with the head of investor relations, the CEO, when I when you know, they they fine tune their message and they get it to a point where they, you just see them light up and they realize that they’re taking, they’ve just taken an incremental step in a positive direction. Man, I love that, I love that.

Stone Payton: Do you sometimes find at least early on that from time to time you have to combat or address? I don’t know, myths might be a little bit strong myths, misconceptions about preconceived notions about your work or the direction of your work, or the the kind of results that engaging in this kind of activity can yield.

Scott Ramey: Oh, 100%, I think that’s the thing. You know, look, my my target market are typically more senior people or more, you know, in terms of where they are in their career. I think the biggest obstacle I have is for those individuals to actually admit that they need help. Mhm. Um, and because I again, I know, I know how difficult it is as you progress in your career to demonstrate that level of vulnerability. Um, and I know how difficult that is. But the fact of the matter is the it all of us need some sort of improvement. We just do. It’s just the nature of life. None of us are perfect. So I think the biggest obstacle I tend to find myself up against is that is the willingness and willingness of someone to raise their hand and say, you know what? I need help. And and, you know, Scott, maybe you can help me or not. You know, in terms of once the person raises their hands and then we have a hand and then we have a conversation. Typically the conversation isn’t particularly difficult because of my track record and my experience and what I’ve been able to accomplish in my career. And I think we tend to find out pretty quickly that either I can or can’t help that individual, or it’s a good or a good fit or not. And if it’s not a good fit, then obviously I try to help that individual find somebody who can help them.

Stone Payton: It sounds like it may not even be an issue at this point in the development of your practice, but again, maybe early on, like, how did the whole sales and marketing thing work? Do you just have to get referrals, or do you have to get out there and shake the trees like the rest of us?

Scott Ramey: Sometimes? No, all of the above. So what I what I found early on is that my referrals was and still is the best source of somebody who knows me, has seen the quality of the work I do or, or then referrals from individuals who I’ve worked with. You know, I think there’s a strong misconception out there that you start posting a lot on social media, all of a sudden people are going to line up or if you build it, they will come. That’s not how it works. Um, I’m constantly prospecting. I also speak a lot, and I speak for free because I want to get my message out there. I get paid to speak. Um, because, look, I view every interaction, whether no matter how small or big is my goal is to impact one person. That’s it. And I was a college basketball player. And I remember in high school going to five star and you see Rick Pitino and Skip Prosser’s and Pete Gillen’s, and there were all these incredible Hubie Brown’s, all these incredible coaches. And but they all started out their speeches in front of us the same way. If you just take one thing away, um, then you’re going to be a better player. And so that’s how I view it. So my job is to try to find one person at a time that I can impact, and maybe something I’ve said resonates with them. And and they realize that, hey, maybe this guy can help me because of his experiences and what he’s been through and how he’s overcome his challenges. So I probably have oversimplified that. Um, I’m not looking to get millions of followers because I don’t need to have millions of followers to make an impact. I just want to make sure I get connected to people who really need help. And it’s, um, you know, look, I’m a mission driven messenger now in my career that I really I love helping people and I want that work. I want that to be demonstrated every interaction I possibly can have.

Stone Payton: My father has been a tremendous inspiration, advocate, champion and true mentor for me in a lot of areas of my life, including my continued development in my career. Incidentally, he was a high school basketball coach. Okay, but I understand that that your grandfather has had a real impact on on your life and work, hasn’t he?

Scott Ramey: Yeah, unfortunately, I didn’t meet him. He actually he passed away when my father was seven. But, um, his legacy has lived on. And my grandfather, Robert Winford Ramey, was a naval naval aviator. He was stationed and the family at the time was stationed in Sanford, uh, Sanford, Florida. So just down the road from us here in Jacksonville. He passed away on June 1st, 1958. He flew a plane called the A-3 Skywarrior. It was one of the first jets built as a super heavy jet for, uh, for an aircraft carrier, especially back in the day when the decks were still wooden. Um, it was an intercontinental first one, the first intercontinental ballistic, um, planes to take missiles and things of that nature. So during the height of the Cold War. But long story short, he passed away, unfortunately in an accident. And, um, the A3D for those in the Navy probably know it as it’s the nickname is either the, uh, the whale because it was so big and heavy. Uh, the Skywarrior or all three dead because it was preceded that plane preceded the modern catapult system. So there are actually two hatches, one in the roof and one in the floor, and the one in the floor was between the captain’s seat and his crew seat. And it basically was like a chute that would drop down, you know, in emergencies.

Scott Ramey: So the plane was having difficulties And the alarms were flashing from what we’ve understood. And one of the crew members got hung up on the slide. The tube slide. And so my grandfather had to leave his station as the pilot and helped this individual get unstuck. So he and the other crew member could exit the plane. And unfortunately, he just didn’t have time to escape himself. So it’s a story of her heroism. It’s a story of pride. But I just I think about it a lot because as I led individuals, I’m like, that’s what selflessness looks like. That’s what leadership looks like. And that was obviously to a, um, a very, very, very extreme. But it was something that I hope that I received some sense of leadership from my grandfather and how he viewed his role as a leader, that it wasn’t ever about him, and that he was willing to do everything he could to help his crew. And, you know, at the end of the story was not only did he save the crew, but he was able to, being a skilled aviator, to avoid hitting a church and a school that the plane just missed as it crashed land in the field. It’s an impactful story for for all of us in my family.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s an impactful story for me. It is at once tragic and impactful and, uh, and inspiring. I, uh, speak a little bit to this. I read this in some notes. The power of three. You apply that a lot in your work, don’t you?

Scott Ramey: I do, and again, it came out of necessity as I was early on in my career, what I realized two things I needed to anticipate the challenges, because if I or potential obstacles and really prepare for every opportunity I had to speak, present or sell. Um, so I really needed to understand what I was kind of walking into, understand the potential objections and concerns the audience might have. Prepare myself, you know, beyond prepare like be overly prepared. Um, so I developed what I call the power of three, which is simple framework. It’s really simple, in fact, and I use it not only with the individuals I work with, but I use it every single day of my corporate career. There are three goals, three steps, and three parts to the power of three. The three goals are. First, you need to identify the main purpose. Why are you there? Why are you in the room? Why are you going to do the presentation? What do you want to accomplish with with the talk of the presentation? Have a specific. And I know this seems almost elementary, but it’s not because I can tell you I’ve been in so many environments where it just seems like the person doesn’t have a purpose. I have no idea why they’re even talking to me. Mm. The second is a key message, and I would encourage the audience to think about the key messages. If if I want the audience to remember one thing, what would it be? So it’s as if you’re pulling a thread through your talk or your presentation or your sales messaging that and, you know, at the end you pull it back and say, look, if you remember one thing from this conversation, I want you to remember this because we’re trying to stand out every single day, no matter what venue we find ourselves in.

Scott Ramey: And if we don’t, we don’t emphasize the key message and the takeaway. And in particular, I think about my career where I was oftentimes presenting to committees filled with skeptics, and I was one of three or 4 or 5 potential partners or vendors. And so the key message is really important. And then lastly, the third goal is a desired audience action. Like what do you want them to do. What exactly do you want them to do. So with those three goals answered, then you can start to develop your presentation. And not until those those three goals are answered. And then the three steps to building the presentation or the messaging or the stories. First brainstorm. So based upon all of your three goals with potential objections, the audience are going to have, this is where you just spend time ten, 15, 20 minutes anticipating every objection, every issue, every concern. And then you start to organize into three parts power of three, three parts. Why? Because people tend to remember if it’s three three or less items. And then lastly you start to refine your points as you develop the presentation itself. Now, when you construct the presentations where the three parts come in, the three parts opening hook, core content, and memorable conclusion. The opening hook is what it suggests is how do I want them? How can I make them want to hear more? What’s what can I share? Story and antidote, statistics, quote, whatever it might be.

Scott Ramey: And then the core content are your three points. Now this is an important point that I want to share as well. Stone, is that where I see people really falter in a sales process or a presentation, is we have a tendency to want to tell people everything we know, and this is why the power of three is so impactful. Or we memorize it and then we’re no longer we’re not able to connect with our audience. So when you’re starting to develop your core content, what I encourage people and again, this is the second part of the three parts. So opening hook core content. So you know the body of the presentation is write it out in bullet points. Don’t memorize it. Don’t write out long sentences because we need to connect with our audience. And if we talk about authentic connection, if you’re memorizing, you’re stuck in your head. You’re not going to be able to connect with somebody. And then the last part is memorable conclusion. So you reinforce the key message. You bring back the key points of the points of the bullet points that you established, and you go to move to your close or next steps. So essentially you tell them what you’re going to tell them. You tell them. You tell them what you told them, emphasizing the key message and move to a conclusion or close or next steps. So that’s it in a nutshell. Um, it’s on my website. You can download it for free. I like I like to provide value. Um, so it’s easy to access on, on my website.

Stone Payton: So we do a lot of on site conferences for trade shows and that kind of thing. And I have sat in my chair of boardrooms over the years. I hope everyone who has a presentation in front of them gets an opportunity to hear what you just said, or take advantage of that resource that you just mentioned. It would be so much more powerful and candidly, a lot more fun to participate.

Scott Ramey: Well, it’s about not only was, again, as I said earlier, out of necessity, but now it’s out of necessity to keep my sanity because I, too have sat in those those same boardrooms. And I can’t tell you, you know, the first question we always ask when we get asked to speak, which I think is the wrong question, is how much time do I have? Mhm. And it’s like, no, that’s the wrong question. The real question is you know, I think we go back to your three goals that I laid out is what’s the purpose. Why do you want me there. What’s the key message you want me to enforce. And then what’s our desired audience outcome. And you have kind of this shared experience agreed upon. And then you can start to build your presentation. But, yeah, having spent 30 years in corporate America is always, hey, we haven’t we have 45 minutes. Let’s figure out how we can fill in the 45 minutes. And I’m like, no, if I have 45 minutes, I’m going to figure out how I can make it shorter and more impactful. And you don’t need more words to make a point. We need we need fewer words to make a point.

Stone Payton: So hobbies, interests, passions, pursuit. Uh, outside of the scope of this work, anything you have a tendency to nerd out about other than the work?

Scott Ramey: I’m a top 1% nut. So whether it’s, um, from an athletic standpoint, anything sports related, I’m watching. And especially the ones that are really, really good at it. So I’m kind of I’m kind of infatuated with those that can really outperform consistently. Um, you know, I found myself digging into Netflix and the series of the cooking shows and things like that, where the top chefs in the world that. And then we just finished our, um, our last official college swim meet. So not only did my daughter, our daughter Aubree, play college soccer, but our daughter Sasha just finished her last seen, uh, her last swim meet at Boston University. So she was a Division one swimmer as well. So Michelle and I are going to have a lot more free time. But we have two labs here at the house, so I’m sure they’ll keep us busy.

Stone Payton: I’m glad that I asked. And of course, after you described your, uh, your experience with Aubree, I thought this has been a fun conversation, but I want to interview Aubrey now. I want to interview Sasha. I end up interviewing the whole family because I’m sure it’s Michelle that keeps the whole opera from falling apart.

Scott Ramey: Oh man, I tell you, we were joking earlier. She’s, um. Michelle’s amazing. And I think the interesting thing that that I find with, and I have found with her entire career is like living with a husband who has anxiety is not easy, I’ll tell you that right now. The ebbs and flows and swings and the kind of the paranoia that comes with that. But she is not only held me together, she’s held the kids together. And she’s an amazing woman.

Stone Payton: I have no doubt. All right, before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners, if we could, with a couple of pro tips, either related to some of what we’ve been talking about or anything else that you’d like to. Let’s drop a little wisdom on them before you go.

Scott Ramey: So what I would say there’s a couple things I wanted to to maybe to share here is the first is the best present you can give anyone is to be fully present. And we are so distracted today. And I think of from a leadership Of standpoint. Sales standpoint. It doesn’t matter. I just I find that most conversations I find myself in today in a small group setting or individual one on one, some one of the parties is distracted. And so I would really just encourage everybody to be present and be fully present. Um, it’s just amplifies human connection. And I think that’s really what all of us are longing for is, is is really deep personal connections. So that would be one thing I would share. Stone and then the other thing I would share is that as it relates to authenticity, and this is another quote that I’ve developed, is that vulnerability transforms strangers and allies and stories into shared experiences, and authentic connection is really multi-pronged. It’s and, you know, when I think of and again, I heard this and I said this earlier that people are like, oh, it’s such a cliche now.

Scott Ramey: Authenticity or being authentic. And I think that may be becoming true unfortunately, Fortunately, but I would define it a little differently in terms. To me it has four components. First is affinity. Connect with people. Be fully present and connect with them. Second is be clear in your communication. The third is shared have shared experiences. I mean outcomes if you’re a leader, especially the wins and losses is what are what bonds you to your team and especially the losses. Unfortunately, when you when you experience loss together, that’s what that’s the opportunity for you really to grow. And then lastly, the fourth piece of authentic connection is around vulnerability. And you know there’s science to support this. Oxytocin is generated which is the bonding hormone. When we create when we demonstrate or share a story of vulnerability with our friends or loved ones or our team. And I know there’s such a reluctance out there because we view, particularly men view vulnerability as a weakness. I would say you’re missing the boat, and vulnerability is probably the the superpower that we all have that is underutilized, particularly around around bonding.

Stone Payton: Sounds like marvelous counsel to me. Man, I am so glad that I asked. So what’s the best way for our listeners to continue to tap into your work and connect with you, maybe have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, man.

Scott Ramey: Yeah, no, thanks, Stone, for asking. So the first is my website, which I referenced earlier. So it’s the Scott Grammy.com or the Scott Grammy.com. If you want to use Queen’s English, um, you can go there down. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can download The Power of three. No obligations, 100% free. Um, the second on social platforms. I’m primarily on LinkedIn and and Instagram. And then I’ll share my my mobile as well. If anybody wants to just call me or text me, it’s 904 area code (900) 488-5007 four. So those are probably the best ways. And if you want to engage me on LinkedIn or on Instagram, message me and I’ll make sure I respond to to any, any conversations. So I the on my website you can schedule a free consultation to talk about any challenges you’re having. Again, it’s my goal is to help impact individuals and and provide as much value as I possibly can.

Stone Payton: Scott, it has been an absolute delight having you on the program this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, your wisdom. Keep up the good work, man. The what you’re doing is so important for so many and we sure appreciate you, man.

Scott Ramey: Well, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to be here today, Stone. And I appreciate the conversation.

Stone Payton: Well, the pleasure is all mine. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Scott Ramey and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.