| 09 December 2009
Ramon DeLeon is a social guy. Everywhere he goes, he talks to people. He’s just as friendly to new people he meets on the street or in his stores as he is to longtime friends. And to friends as well as customers, he’s always just a text, tweet or Facebook message away.
If you’ve ordered a Domino’s pizza in Chicago roughly anywhere between Wrigley Field all the way down to U.S. Cellular Field, then you’ve likely ordered your pizza from Ramon DeLeon, also known to many as “The Pizza Guy to Know in Chicago” – a moniker Ramon himself coined. As an operating partner with Domino’s Pizza and owner of six franchises, it’s no wonder he’s a popular guy to know, especially for late night eats, game days and feeding massive numbers of people at events around the city.
But how is he so well known? Social media plays a big part in his business plans. Ramon uses social media tools to interact with his customers and potential customers; all the while, he’s not pushing pizza like you might think would be necessary for a successful franchise owner in the nation’s largest (and most discriminating) pizza-loving city.
Building relationships with customers is key, he says. Ramon does, from time to time, post on Facebook or tweet about nationwide Domino’s deals as well as quirky exclusive deals in his own stores. But he spends a majority of time using social media tools to give his customers a unique and interactive experience to supplement their pizza consumption needs. Putting a face to a logo, he says, is what has made his operation so successful.
But make no mistake – there’s no director of social media at any of his stores. Ramon is the sole guy behind all the tweets, Facebook posts and videos.
In 1998, Ramon began using AOL Instant Messenger to reach his college-aged customers near Northwestern and DePaul University campuses. He started accepting online ordering via instant messaging long before Domino’s corporate offered their fancy online ordering and tracking system, the Pizza Tracker. Many credit Ramon with using social media for his business before the term ever really even existed, and with more than 2,300 followers on Twitter and hundreds of Facebook friends, Ramon shows no signs of slowing down.
There’s no doubt his ability to talk to strangers like friends and his beyond creative methods have served him well in this business. With over 20 years experience with Domino’s, Ramon says he’s stayed in the pizza business for this long because it’s fun. He’s worked for Domino’s in numerous capacities: as a delivery driver, a store manager, a consultant all over Mexico, a multi-franchise owner in Chicago and now as a highly-coveted guest speaker.
Chicago’s “Pizza Guy to Know” has gone coast to coast, north and south and now global, too.
This year, he’s been on local radio and TV news. In the fall, Ramon addressed the Harvard Gravity Summit (http://www.viddler.com/explore/dpzramon/videos) and was also the keynote speaker at the Latinos in Social Media Conference in New York. (http://www.viddler.com/explore/dpzramon/videos/44/) traveled this year to address Domino’s franchise association conferences in Canada and the UK. He’s spoken all over the Chicago area at marketing and social media conferences and gatherings, and he was even invited to speak at a conference in Mexico City, which he had to decline because he was traveling at the same time for another conference.
“Now more than ever, we have to take our game to the next level,” Ramon says of how he keeps up. “You need a plan, and to create that plan, find out where your audience is and that’s where you have to be. Always talk to your customers.”
And talk to the customers he does. One element that has helped create additional buzz for him in the social mediasphere is sponsoring charitable events – often related to his Twitter followers or Facebook friends. When Café recently tagged along with Ramon on a night when he was a food sponsor for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s annual Light the Night walk in Chicago’s Grant Park, it was an incredible sight to see. There was some serious orchestration on the part of many to coordinate a successfully timed delivery of 600 pizzas from several different franchise locations.
During the madness, he was live-tweeting and making video shorts, switching back and forth between speaking English and Spanish, and all the while keeping his cool when one of the deliveries started to lag behind. And, of course, in his signature style, Ramon made time to talk to a number of Light the Night participants, including a family with t-shirts in Spanish. After getting to know them a bit, he found out they were walking in support of a family member from Mexico who recently passed away. Next time they have a family party, Ramon offered, the pizza is on him.
“You can't give it all away,” Ramon says. “But when you can give some of it away, it will always come back to you.” Creating a win-win situation for both the business and the customer is something Ramon has definitely mastered, and with his generosity and enthusiasm, people all over the world are inspired by “The Pizza Guy to Know in Chicago.”
You can friend Ramon on http://www.facebook.com/ramon.deleon or follow him on Twitter, http://www.twitter.com/Ramon_DeLeon for all the skinny on pizza
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