Tag Archives: public speakers

Change Requires Work and Choice

Change Requires Work and Choice

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

At the end of the CEO’s speech to his employees, he said, “And one other thing, we want to deliver better customer service.” Then he walked off stage.

Delivering better customer service is a good idea, but just saying you want to do so will not make it happen. Most likely, it will remain just a good idea, because, without the right implementation, the idea will never come to anything. Nothing will change.

A big part of my business is serving as a keynote speaker on customer service and CX for all kinds of companies and organizations. I always ask, “Why is this topic important to you and this audience?” Most of the time, clients have a good answer, but occasionally, I hear something like, “We have terrible customer service, and we need someone like you to come in and share what we can do to be better.”

Trying not to sound flippant, I ask, “So you think that having me or someone like me do a one-hour speech is going to fix that?”

This leads to a bigger discussion about the company’s desire to change and the resources – time, talent, and dollars – it requires to make that happen. I then continue with a few more questions:

  1. What makes you think you need help with your customer service or CX?
  2. What would happen if you continued to do what you do and didn’t make a change?
  3. What does success look like, and how quickly do you want to see results?

The answers to these questions are the fuel needed to make the choice to change an easy one.

Then, there is another series of questions to determine the investment they are willing to make to carry out this choice to change. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take training, which is about talent. And then there are the dollars. And one final choice must be made, and it may be the most important of all. Will the leadership get behind the choice to change?

To summarize, the choice to change, especially in customer service and/or CX, is more than a verbal commitment. It requires substantial and sustained effort backed by resources and leadership support. Simply expressing the desire for improvement is not enough. Real change demands actionable plans and the alignment of time, talent, and investment. Companies must determine their current service levels, define success, and commit to the necessary steps and time to achieve it.

One more question: Are you ready to invest in a future where exceptional service is not just an aspiration but a reality? Act now! Your customers and your business can’t afford to wait.

Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken

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Ten Reasons to Hire an Innovation Keynote Speaker

Innovation Keynote Speaker Braden Kelley

Innovation Keynote Speakers are often misunderstood, maligned, and underutilized.

We have all been to many conferences, and heard many good (and bad) keynote and session speakers with a variety of styles (all of which are perfectly acceptable), including:

1. The Motivator

Say this public speaking style and most people will envision Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Steve Ballmer or someone like that. Notice that not all three examples are people you think of as full of boundless energy, that can be incredibly motivating. The motivator tries to connect on an emotional level with the audience and dial up the inspiration.

2. The Academic

This speaking style is nearly, but not completely synonymous with college professors and others in the “teaching” business. My personal style straddles between The Academic and The Storyteller. The Academic focuses on bringing compelling content and connecting with the intellect of the audience, bringing them tools and concepts that done well, are easy to grasp and use.

3. The Storyteller

The Storyteller makes a strong use of similes, metaphors, and stories to get their points across. Bill Clinton straddles the line between The Motivator and The Storyteller. Storytellers try to connect on an emotional level and along with The Academic, tend to dive deeper into their points than The Motivator or The Standup comedian. Personally I love good stories and funny pictures and so my personal T-shaped speaking style embraces bits of The Storyteller and The Standup Comedian as well.

4. The Standup Comedian

The Standup Comedian aims to keep the audience laughing, using humor to underscore and to make their points. Other than comedy writers or standup comedians, few speakers will rely on this as their primary style, but many will drift into this style from time to time.

As you might expect, all of these styles are perfectly valid as long as the content is solid and valuable, but the energy of The Motivator entices a lot of people and as you can imagine, this group does the most to both help and hurt people’s perceived value of keynote speakers. Sometimes The Motivator inspires people to action, and other times they are the equivalent of cotton candy, firing people up with weak content that they can’t do anything with.

So, if with public speaking, like other communication vehicles, content is king and all speaking styles are valid, then you need to find the right content, the right speaker, and have the right reasons for employing one.

With that in mind, let’s look at the…

Top 10 Reasons to Hire an Innovation Keynote Speaker

  1. To begin an honest dialog around the role of innovation in your organization’s future
  2. To help build/reinforce your common language of innovation
  3. To bring in fresh ideas to inspire fresh insights
  4. To bring additional perspectives to existing innovation conversations
  5. To lay the groundwork for building an innovation infrastructure
  6. To help reduce the fear of innovation in your organization
  7. To reinforce your commitment to innovation publicly to your employees
  8. To increase the energy for innovation in your company
  9. To inject fresh life into an existing innovation program
  10. To combine with an innovation workshop to build new innovation capabilities

Click the image to download as a PDF:

Ten Reasons to Hire an Innovation Speaker

This is of course, not a comprehensive list of the reasons that companies around the world find value in periodically bringing in an innovation keynote speaker to dialog with their employees. Some companies choose to achieve some of these objectives via the innovation keynote, and others by sponsoring innovation training programs, or by retaining an innovation thought leader in an advisory capacity to provide the same kind of external perspectives, input, insights, and diversity of thought.

So, whether you are a new innovation leader seeking guidance on how to get off on the right foot, or an experienced Chief Innovation Officer, VP of Innovation, or Innovation Director, I encourage you to consider having myself or another innovation keynote speaker or workshop leader as a guest from time to time. I know you’ll find value in it!

Book Innovation Speaker Braden Kelley for Your Event

Innovation Speaker Sheet for Braden Kelley

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