As many of you may have heard, NMX (BlogWorld) recently purchased a new conference: Ramon Ray’s Small Business Summit. We’re super excited to work with Ramon, who is an absolute firecracker.

Ramon was actually a speaker at NMX 2013, where he talked about personal branding and how this affects your company’s growth. Knowing Ramon on a personal level, not just seeing a faceless Small Business Summit logo, is part of what enticed NMX to want to work with him in the first place, so he was the perfect person to speak on this topic.

His session covered an incredible amount of information in just a short 30 minutes (and you can watch the entire session as a premium member of NMX University), but today, I wanted to cover his five steps for personal branding success. (And a big thank you to Jess Boyer for helping with this post by taking notes during the session!)

Step One: Establish Your Platform

People like to put other people and businesses into neat, little boxes. If you don’t define yourself, others will do it for you. So think about what your message will be, what your brand will be. What are your strengths? What do you want people to know about you? What makes you stand out?

Step Two: Show the Hell Up!

According to Ramon, you don’t have to tweet all day long. What you do have to do, however, is be visible online and in your community. Volunteer. Join your local chamber or business networks. Look for new opportunities for people to get to know you. You can’t phone in the personal connection factor.

Step Three: Be an Online Publisher

Ramon also stated something we know extremely well here at NMX: if you aren’t online, you don’t exist. You have to lead with your content online, rather than the sell. Get out there on social media and start a blog so you can tell your story. People will listen, and once they get to know, like, and trust you, they’ll also want to do business with you.

Step Four: Plan for Media Exposure

Once you establish yourself online and in your community, the media will start to contact you, and this has a snowball effect. Media leads to more media leads to more media – provided you are an interesting story to cover. So be ready. Be personable and have your story ready to tell in a quick easy-to-understand way.

Step Five: Organize an Event

This is by far the hardest step in Ramon’s plan, but it can also be the most rewarding. You don’t have to plan the next NMX or Small Business Summit. Even on a small level, events will help you network with others in your industry, attract media attention, and boost your credibility. However, it’s important to be aware that organizing an event can be stressful and expensive. If you work with people you trust, though, it can be an incredible personal branding tool.

Remember, you can watch Ramon’s complete session, along with dozens of others about business, online content creation, publishing, social media, and more at NMX University with premium membership (our 2013 virtual ticket). Check it out today!