Bill Schley
Bill Schley is author of Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the lost art of the big idea (Penguin/Portfolio), a book based on his "Dominant Selling Idea" philosophy and personal brand-building experience. It won the "Top 5 Marketing Book of 2006", award from Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy Business magazine, and has been used in the curriculums at respected MBA programs around the US. He is also a marketing creative executive and successful entrepreneur, having built brands at nearly every business stage from global giants to promising start-ups several of which were his own companies.
Schley is currently President of david ID, a strategic branding firm he co-founded in 2003. Before that, he was a founder and chief brand strategist at two businesses that went from a standing start to become #1 industry brands in their categories. Home Financial Network began with 5 employees. In three years it had a staff of over 50 and was sold to Sybase, a New York Stock Exchange company. The merger was re-named Financial Fusion and in just eighteen months, went from #4 to #1--the top brand in its new category as reported by Celent, a major industry research group.
Schley began as a writer at Ted Bates, the legendary New York Advertising Agency where he won the national Effie Award for sales-effective advertising. He later took time out to write a movie screenplay for 20th Century Fox. His first book, Power-of-10, was a nationally acclaimed best seller published by HarperCollins in 2001. Schley has appeared on CNBC is a frequent guest on TV and radio programs. He is a featured speaker at industry conferences on communications and branding.
He is a graduate of Harvard University, a trans-Atlantic sailor and an avid skydiver.
MOST REQUESTED TOPICS:The Most Important 30 Seconds in the Life of Your Business
You’re at an industry event and see ten of your top prospects. You have about 30 seconds to stop and engage each one. What exactly will you say in those 30 seconds?
What’s your Dominant Selling Idea? The one idea that’s so unique and important that they must remember you? How will you articulate it so succinctly and confidently, they can’t help but combine your name and motivating difference into one, whenever they think of you?
If you stumble or hesitate, so will your employees. So will your sales people, so will the people who write articles about you in the press and most importantly, so will potential customers costing you untold opportunities.
In this talk, Bill shows you how to read the compass that points you directly to your Dominant Selling Idea answering questions that all marketers ask but few agree on: What is branding, really? Why isn’t it optional? What’s the one biggest rule? How can you be #1 in a category when you’re surrounded by competitors?
He’ll cover:
- The “One Item of Carry-On” rule of branding
- Why if Perdue could brand a chicken and Perrier could brand water--there’s a big idea inside your brand, too
- The Universal Paradox why the power and reach of your message is inversely proportional to the number of things you talk about.
- Spotting the big ideas all around you--then spotting your own
- The keys to the safe why you can be brilliant at this
- How to focus, when you’re focus challenged
Most managers these days are familiar with the book Good to Great. But here’s the problem if you’re already a well established company most likely at the top of your class. Like an Olympic athlete, you have to go out every day and win at a world class level. You’re already great. You’ve got to go from Great to Greater.
And that’s not easy. You don’t win at this level by big dramatic margins. You don’t go out and create the next iPod or Starbucks or start a revolution every day the way some marketing consultants say you should to win as a brand. Because World class competitors don’t win like that. They win by 100th of a second in the Olympic down hill, or by a nose at the Preakness or by a stroke at the Masters.
They just need to tip the scale, not buy a new one. Because that win by an inch, by 1% is every bit as good as a mile and can be worth billions.
In this talk, using examples from industries as varied as spaghetti sauce and sports cars Schley lays out the keys that not only created the greatest brands in history-- but most importantly--kept them great.
Schley covers:
- Why the key to "doing it differently" is the opposite of what you think
- How to avoid the biggest "big company" traps
-
- Get great, stay great
- When it’s right to re-brand
- The 8 week idea turn-around
- How to spend 10% of the time saying it, and 90% proving it through Total Consistant Alignment
- Where big companies find their Dominant Selling Ideas…
...and much more.
Schley has delivered this talk at companies with some of the world’s most revered brands such as Starbucks and its divisions. If you’re in marketing, communications, or sales you’ll find valuable insights you can put to work today.
The Branding Secrets of #1 Sales People
All top sales people have an instinctive grasp of the Dominant Selling Idea concept and use it daily to close more sales. It means the key to great branding for the mass market, can also be your most powerful tool when you’re face to face with a prospect. Your advantage is you don’t have to guess at the "hot button". You can ask to see it, listen while they explain exactly how it works for them, then press it to your customer’s delight.
It comes down to understanding the simple branding secrets of the great masters, then remembering to apply them on a micro level; sharpening the tip of the arrow, then putting all your wood behind it.
Schley covers:
- Why sales people are the best marketers - they just don’t know it yet
- The 15 minute master’s degree in branding
- Strategy: Converting 8 weeks into 8 minutes
- One Big Rule (and 17 little ones)
- Ask and Ye Shall Receive - and not just closing
- "Paint me a picture, tell me a story"
- Your 30 second "commercial" that does it all
Schley combines decades of experience as a strategic marketer with years in the field of personal selling to give sales people a new, intelligent edge.
Bill Schley is author of Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the lost art of the big idea (Penguin/Portfolio), a book based on his "Dominant Selling Idea" philosophy and personal brand-building experience. It won the "Top 5 Marketing Book of 2006", award from Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy Business magazine, and has been used in the curriculums at respected MBA programs around the US. He is also a marketing creative executive and successful entrepreneur, having built brands at nearly every business stage from global giants to promising start-ups several of which were his own companies.
Schley is currently President of david ID, a strategic branding firm he co-founded in 2003. Before that, he was a founder and chief brand strategist at two businesses that went from a standing start to become #1 industry brands in their categories. Home Financial Network began with 5 employees. In three years it had a staff of over 50 and was sold to Sybase, a New York Stock Exchange company. The merger was re-named Financial Fusion and in just eighteen months, went from #4 to #1--the top brand in its new category as reported by Celent, a major industry research group.
Schley began as a writer at Ted Bates, the legendary New York Advertising Agency where he won the national Effie Award for sales-effective advertising. He later took time out to write a movie screenplay for 20th Century Fox. His first book, Power-of-10, was a nationally acclaimed best seller published by HarperCollins in 2001. Schley has appeared on CNBC is a frequent guest on TV and radio programs. He is a featured speaker at industry conferences on communications and branding.
He is a graduate of Harvard University, a trans-Atlantic sailor and an avid skydiver.
MOST REQUESTED TOPICS:The Most Important 30 Seconds in the Life of Your Business
You’re at an industry event and see ten of your top prospects. You have about 30 seconds to stop and engage each one. What exactly will you say in those 30 seconds?
What’s your Dominant Selling Idea? The one idea that’s so unique and important that they must remember you? How will you articulate it so succinctly and confidently, they can’t help but combine your name and motivating difference into one, whenever they think of you?
If you stumble or hesitate, so will your employees. So will your sales people, so will the people who write articles about you in the press and most importantly, so will potential customers costing you untold opportunities.
In this talk, Bill shows you how to read the compass that points you directly to your Dominant Selling Idea answering questions that all marketers ask but few agree on: What is branding, really? Why isn’t it optional? What’s the one biggest rule? How can you be #1 in a category when you’re surrounded by competitors?
He’ll cover:
- The “One Item of Carry-On” rule of branding
- Why if Perdue could brand a chicken and Perrier could brand water--there’s a big idea inside your brand, too
- The Universal Paradox why the power and reach of your message is inversely proportional to the number of things you talk about.
- Spotting the big ideas all around you--then spotting your own
- The keys to the safe why you can be brilliant at this
- How to focus, when you’re focus challenged
Most managers these days are familiar with the book Good to Great. But here’s the problem if you’re already a well established company most likely at the top of your class. Like an Olympic athlete, you have to go out every day and win at a world class level. You’re already great. You’ve got to go from Great to Greater.
And that’s not easy. You don’t win at this level by big dramatic margins. You don’t go out and create the next iPod or Starbucks or start a revolution every day the way some marketing consultants say you should to win as a brand. Because World class competitors don’t win like that. They win by 100th of a second in the Olympic down hill, or by a nose at the Preakness or by a stroke at the Masters.
They just need to tip the scale, not buy a new one. Because that win by an inch, by 1% is every bit as good as a mile and can be worth billions.
In this talk, using examples from industries as varied as spaghetti sauce and sports cars Schley lays out the keys that not only created the greatest brands in history-- but most importantly--kept them great.
Schley covers:
- Why the key to "doing it differently" is the opposite of what you think
- How to avoid the biggest "big company" traps
-
- Get great, stay great
- When it’s right to re-brand
- The 8 week idea turn-around
- How to spend 10% of the time saying it, and 90% proving it through Total Consistant Alignment
- Where big companies find their Dominant Selling Ideas…
...and much more.
Schley has delivered this talk at companies with some of the world’s most revered brands such as Starbucks and its divisions. If you’re in marketing, communications, or sales you’ll find valuable insights you can put to work today.
The Branding Secrets of #1 Sales People
All top sales people have an instinctive grasp of the Dominant Selling Idea concept and use it daily to close more sales. It means the key to great branding for the mass market, can also be your most powerful tool when you’re face to face with a prospect. Your advantage is you don’t have to guess at the "hot button". You can ask to see it, listen while they explain exactly how it works for them, then press it to your customer’s delight.
It comes down to understanding the simple branding secrets of the great masters, then remembering to apply them on a micro level; sharpening the tip of the arrow, then putting all your wood behind it.
Schley covers:
- Why sales people are the best marketers - they just don’t know it yet
- The 15 minute master’s degree in branding
- Strategy: Converting 8 weeks into 8 minutes
- One Big Rule (and 17 little ones)
- Ask and Ye Shall Receive - and not just closing
- "Paint me a picture, tell me a story"
- Your 30 second "commercial" that does it all
Schley combines decades of experience as a strategic marketer with years in the field of personal selling to give sales people a new, intelligent edge.
