About Ray
Small Business Construction Expert, Investor, Mentor & Published Author
Ray Spooner is a long-term business owner and Chairman of Carmelcrest, a Main Contracting business, and Carmelcrest Homes, a property investment and developmant business. ​
Ray has spent a life time in construction, from beng a carpenter to building a £15m building firm and property portfolio.
Ray philosophy to growth is to be parranoid about almost everything. Develop yourself, do the work, take the action and just do it.
Ray withdrew from the building firm at the age of fifty-five in 2017, taking up a mentoring/Chairman role; then setting-up Carmelcrest Homes, which has a large property portfolio in the Midlands. He is still very much involved in building his businesses with his five sons. He just chooses what he wants to do these days and who he wants to work with. Freedom is an amazing feeling.
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Ray started from nothing, "where we lived in the East-End we didn't even have an inside toilet, we used to wash in a tin bath in the kitchen".
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Ray is a dedicated life-long-learner and believes in constant personal development. He is a Chartered Builder (MCIOB), Chartered Surveyor (MRICS) and an NLP master practitioner. His Masters dissertation was about family-run businesses, which has come in very useful, as the company is now very much family run. He is also a qualified personal trainer and has a diploma in nutrition, living a very healthy meat-eating lifestyle.
Rays mantra is, "If you want more, you have to become more".
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He has a great interest in Human Psychology and Biology and how this knowledge can empower business owners to better manage and motivate their team.
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Ray is author of three business books. 50 Skills - The Entrepreneurs Handbook. A book of 50 key skills Ray has learned in his thirty-five years plus in business. His second book titled The School leavers Guide to Money is aimed at young people to give them the money skills they should have learned at school. His recent book is The Art of Construction Estimating, a training manual for those wishing to pursue a career as a building estimator.
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Ray decided to mentor ounger leaders because he feels it his duty to pass on his skills to help others.