"We found your presentation, motivating, entertaining and thought provoking. Your unique style provided a refreshing perspective on effective communication techniques in today’s diverse business environment."
-UPS"When asked “What was your favorite session?” Hands down in the United States, The Netherlands and Nigeria your session received the most votes. None of the other sessions came even close. Your session was high energy, humorous and gave very practical advice. Thanks for all your preparation in making sure that it hit the mark."
-Royal Dutch Shell"Garrison was able to get through to our people like no one else. We thought we knew it all; we were wrong."
-Chevron"Garrison did a great job tailoring his presentation to the group, starting out the conference with a bang! Garrison was not just a motivator, he had us laughing out loud and participating in this lively, team building experience. Bravo!"
-Sysco"Our people really enjoyed your presentations. Very clever and spot on with solutions about moving through change and communicating results throughout our infrastructure. We had people there from all over the world and the feedback was great. Being so animated and clear made your program work on a global level."
-Hewlett Packard"Garrison’s presentation was entertaining and fast paced while delivering a key message for our sales and marketing. Garrison took the time to understand our business prior to speaking and delivered a powerful and informative talk that received high ratings by everyone in attendance. I would highly recommend Garrison for any speaking engagement where the desire is to learn and have fun while doing it."
-Showa Best Glove Team"We asked Garrison to customize a one hour safety keynote for the 22 events we scheduled. He got rave reviews (at all 22 events) and covered the specifics we needed for our people. These presentations were highly effective, entertaining and exceeded our expectations. He was referred to us by another subsidiary of our parent company, Southern Company and we really appreciate their recommendation. ALABAMA POWER"
-Alabama Power"As an event coordinator you have a great responsibility to select speakers that will hit a home run with your audience. We were looking for two things…humor and an impactful message. Our customers were in informational meetings all day and we brought Garrison on board to lighten the mood…and hit our customers with the most important message of our conference…”Why Does a Customer Pick You?” Garrison did a great job researching our customers and making every topic he touched on relatable. His humor was right on…and his message was powerful. Selecting speakers for conferences can be an inexact science. Save yourself the time and effort and hire Garrison."
-Napa Auto Parts"Your general session, “Making the Most of Difficult Situations: Changing Markets, Changing Times ” was rated 4.92 out of a possible 5.00. You got some very nice comments from your session and you definitely made the most of a difficult situation as you may recall that the air conditioner broke at the hotel during your session! Didn’t affect your evaluations at all!!"
-Cornerstone Credit Union League"We wanted someone to be the closing speaker at our annual conference who was energetic, humorous and would deliver a content-filled message. Garrison Wynn hit on ALL cylinders! He got a standing ovation and our people said he was the highlight of the conference. He understands what we are going through and helped us get reconnected to our mission."
-O'Reilly Automotive, Inc."This is by far the best program we have ever had. This is a tough group of seasoned professionals, so our choice of presenter was critical to ensure our objectives were met. You did an excellent job of addressing the specifics we identified and accomplished that with humor and grace. Getting everyone on the same page, being really funny and focusing on a repeatable process for communication was the key. Most importantly, feedback from our staff was highly positive and we have had a 23% increase in sales."
-The Royal Bank of Scotland"Garrison hit four home runs!! Very practical and no BS! Great job, we will do four more next year as well. You have made huge difference for us."
-Oracle"We have used Garrison fifteen times already this year, with terrific results. His funny, interactive approach keeps the group focused, and his “dealing with difficult people” segment, among others, was particularly effective. Garrison helps us provide excellent value-added training to our customers."
-AIM Management"Garrison was a hit with the 400 members of Generation Y attending the conference. The reviews were wonderful. The audience enjoyed getting a leadership message in an entertaining way, with research behind the theories and thoughts. Garrison was able to relate to our audience and keep them engaged while conveying important messages essential to their future success. We would highly recommend Garrison Wynn, and will certainly be using his services again for future conferences."
-Lockheed Martin"You were a huge hit with the conference attendees. Thank you and your team for helping us put on the event for our customers."
-PPG"Garrison Wynn is a Boys & Girls Clubs Alumnus who has spoken at two of our conferences and on both occasions received standing ovations. If planning a conference or event where you want to share an important message with humor and excitement, I recommend that you give Garrison your highest consideration."
-Boys & Girls Club of America"Thank you so much for your keynote address at our Member Pooling Expo in October! The evaluations are back and it’s official… our members loved you! Many commented that this was the best keynote address they have had at our event and that you were amazing, hilarious and had great information to share. Thank you for making us look good! On a personal note, it was a pleasure to meet and work with you. I appreciated the time you took to meet with us by phone and to customize your presentation for our audience. Please feel free to list me as a reference for potential clients. They are missing out if they don’t hire you!"
-Association of Washington Cities"Your presentation to our team allowed us to produce some of the most successful and profitable years in the history of Caterpillar. The impacts of your work are still in force today. We would highly recommend Garrison Wynn to help any company make the necessary sales-focused transition that we have successfully made."
-Caterpillar"Well, back in the office, and the event is being called “The Best Ever!” by our executive team. Garrison is a pro’s pro. He took our pre-con conference call, and unlike past presenters, was able to weave our theme and our core culture points of “Commitment – Humility – Respect” throughout it, and he did so with ease and continuity while entertaining the audience continuously. But like I said, not only did the audience enjoy him, but our executive team knew we made the right decision to put him on first – just as he suggested. Using our past keynote presenters as reference points, they felt Garrison was indeed the best, and able to adapt his speech to our message."
-Arby's"Funny, fast and entertaining. I was shocked at how much information I received from just the 60 minutes that Garrison spoke. His energy level was way up there, and the stories tied it all together! In my 30 years with Subway, he was one of the top three motivational speakers we have ever seen."
-SubwayThe Real Truth About Success: What The Most Influential Do Differently And Why They Won't Tell You
Prepare to laugh and learn as a decade of Wynn Solutions research reveals what makes owners and managers of top-performing businesses so effective – and it's not what you'd expect! If you enter this keynote session expecting to learn all about best practices and superior strategy, you'd better read the title again. Standout success in a challenging economy often comes from personal advantage, whether it's perceived value, personality, leadership-style, communication skills, abundant resources, or access to privileged information. This entertaining session takes a realistic look at the influence you'll need to make sure your knowledge and hard work deliver the results you want.
In Demand: How To Make Sure People See Your Value
It doesn't matter how skilled you are or how much value you offer if no one wants what you have. Leadership, change management, sales, customer service, marketing, and safety all have one thing in common: they require a specific level of personal influence to be sustainably successful. This customized keynote session combines humorous storytelling with serious takeaways that will bring all the elements of your conference together for maximum impact.
Dissolving Conflicts: Separating The Data From The Drama
Success is almost always about working well with others to get the best possible result. The issue is not everyone agrees on what's important, and it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Also, some people are so set-in-their-ways that they see everything through a filter of distrust. Or worse, things get overly dramatic and can develop into a "blame distribution" environment that affects morale and productivity.
This entertaining research-based session shows you how to gain agreement without manipulation and create clear, unified actions so you can quickly dissolve conflicts.You'll find out how to make sure people value your opinion and quickly turn disputes into workable collaborations.
Making The Most Of Difficult Situations: Changing Markets, Changing Times
This funny, insightful keynote combines relationship building with no-fluff motivation and change to deliver real solutions in uncertain times. Garrison examines the challenges we face and shows how we can laugh at our problems while using them as catalysts for success. This session covers a lot of ground and provides no-cost, easily implemented, proven solutions that your people can use right away.
Available in Motivational, Sales and Management versions.
Value-Based Leadership: Making Employee Engagement Actually Happen
We hear the term "employee engagement" a lot these days; we also hear how recognition, goal alignment and a clear path to success can create it. But how can an individual positively influence the opinions his or her employees and coworkers have about their job? This highly entertaining session, backed by Evolve Performance Group research across 46 countries (and combined with over 70 years of Gallup survey data) shows that the thing people value most is feeling valuable! It gives the specific communication tools that anyone can use to dramatically reduce resistance to change, difficult behavior and employee turnover. The impact of this program reaches far beyond the session itself, creating an emotional shift that fuels immediate implementation.
The Real Truth About Generational Differences
When relating to younger crowds, people love to say “I was young once.” The truth is, “No, you weren’t!”—at least not in a way that compares with today’s youth. You were young whenever that was, which is not now. And younger workers, you might occasionally hear about your attitude of entitlement, as though you somehow did this to yourself!
Despite the friction that can arise when generations misunderstand each other, intergenerational teams are simply better at getting the job done. Grounded in behavioral research, this entertaining session reveals how and why this is so.
Segments include:
(1) real tolerance (true acceptance), (2) understanding each generation’s peculiarities and (3) how each generation’s contributions heighten a team’s success factor. A multigenerational audience will be amused, enlightened and, best of all, equipped with solutions that make an immediate positive impact. Available in leadership and team versions.
Finders Keepers: How to identify, attract, and retain a loyal workforce.
From developing a marketing campaign to attract the people you need, to making sure they have a culture that makes them feel valued, this thoroughly researched program (Gallup, Harvard Review and Evolve Performance Group) gives you the tools to solve your labor problem and consistently improve employee performance.
Segments include:
Engaged Safety: What The Most Successful Safety Leaders Do Differently
We hear the term “employee engagement” a lot these days. We also hear how recognition, goal alignment and a clear path to success can create it. But how can engagement produce a sustainable culture of safety as we strive for zero incidents? By leaders making their employees the "heroes" of safety.
Drawing from Gallup research across 46 countries (research shows that engaged employees are 48% safer on the job than their disengaged counterparts), this highly informative and entertaining session reveals how skilled leaders at all levels create safety: They give employees what they value most—the feeling that they are valued. From this session, leaders acquire specific communication tools they can use to dramatically reduce resistance to change and to create a safer work environment. The impact of this program reaches far beyond the session itself, creating an emotional shift that fuels immediate implementation.
What The Most Influential Leaders Do Differently
This insightful keynote session delivers the specific actions that attract, create and retain top talent. Based on new research about the origins of outstanding performance and laced with Garrison’s trademark professional-grade humor - this program is high on content and low on boredom.
Millennial Loyalty: Keeping And Attracting Top Young Talent
People in their 20s don't want what their parents wanted from a job. They are also more likely to live at home and less likely to put up with a work environment that cramps their style. What a shift in mindset! Attracting the young people needed to replace your retiring workforce (and making sure they stay long enough to make a difference) is crucial for your organization's future. This entertaining yet heavily researched program shows business owners, leaders and managers how to adapt their organization into a company young people want to work for and how to establish a culture they do not want to leave. Besides actually having a work force 10 years from now, the benefits include improved performance and heightened accountability from the millennials who represent your company's future.
Inclusion + Tolerance = Success : Creating A Diverse Culture That Drives Performance
Having a culture that includes and supports all people is more than just a moral obligation. It is a critical and commonly overlooked ingredient for success. An alloy is stronger and has more applications than something made of just one material, and research shows the same is true for high-performance teams. This entertaining session (heavily supported by research from Gallup, MIT and Rutgers) shows that tolerance leads to awareness and understanding that creates long-term value. From attracting top young talent with a culture they'll support to fostering the diversity of thought that is the foundation of creativity, this high-energy program is a great kickoff keynote or closing session for your Inclusion and Diversity Conference.
Winning The Talent War: Keeping and Attracting Young Top Performers
People in their 20s don't want what their parents wanted from a job. Also, many Gen Y "potential employees" would rather work temporary jobs (through staffing companies) than commit to a company full time. This means there are far fewer people looking for jobs than anticipated. That means more jobs than job seekers (for the first time since this kind of data has been gathered) creating a "War" for top young talent. And they are not lining up for labor jobs (where you might get your hands dirty} even though they pay four times more than the job they took at the mall! They are also more likely to live at home and less likely to put up with a work environment that cramps their style. Attracting the young people needed to replace your retiring workforce (and making sure they stay long enough to make a difference) is crucial for your organization's future.
This entertaining yet heavily researched program shows business owners, leaders and managers how to adapt their organization into a company young people want to work for and how to establish a culture they do not want to leave. Besides actually having a work force 10 years from now, the benefits include improved performance and heightened accountability from the millennials who
The Real Truth About Success - Version 2: What The Top 1% Do Differently And Why They Won't Tell You
Be prepared to laugh and learn as this research-based keynote reveals how top performers harness the power of their advantages, even when the odds are not in their favor. Business relationship expert and Amazon.com bestselling author Garrison Wynn delivers a high-impact program that answers two monumental questions: How do you get people to do what you want them to do? And how can you get better results from the challenging people you encounter along the way? With an emphasis on what you can actually walk out of the session with and achieve tomorrow; this program shows you how to weather the perfect storm while still looking really good in a raincoat!
Available in motivation, leadership, customer service and sales versions.
Change Is Mandatory...Stress Is Optional
Change is something we all have to deal with, but the stress that accompanies change is more of choice. In this heavily researched session, Garrison applies his signature humor to a very serious topic. This fun, comprehensive program offers tools and tips for getting through big change with very little stress. More importantly, it creates an emotional shift for attendees as they see how much control they have over how change affects them. This session also shows attendees how stress is more about what we believe than it is about what is actually happening. From embracing big transitions in technology to dealing with growth or downsizing, this presentation helps leaders, employees and customers implement necessary changes with minimal resistance.
Being The Best Vs. Being Consistently Chosen
Success is more than being good at what you do; it's about being consistently chosen to do it. Garrison helps people to understand why their products, services or leadership styles or those of their competitors are selected. People don't necessarily choose what's best; they choose what they are most comfortable with, whether it's the best or not. We've all heard the importance of best practices and superior knowledge, so why aren't the smartest people with the most information always in charge or number one in their field? This keynote provides original research on managing expectations and emotions and shows there really is more to success than being the best.
Available in Sales, Leadership and Customer Service versions.
Getting Great Results: Turning Talent Into Performance
In this keynote, results from the largest management survey ever conducted are combined with real-life management and leadership solutions to get the most from your people, regardless of their skill level. Participants learn how to manage their ego-driven top producers, how to listen like leaders and make their people feel heard, how to hire for talent and turn it into top performance, how to create a culture of excellence with their most promising people and how to help their low performers fight their way to the middle.
Available in Leadership and Management versions.
Generations Working Better Together
This extremely informative, entertaining, solutions-based session explores why younger and older people don't see eye to eye, and what to do about it in the workplace. From pointers on motivating, managing and retaining younger employees to ways of preventing older managers from losing their minds, this research-based program shows it's possible for baby boomers and Gen X and Y employees to work well together.
Influencing People You Have No Authority Over
A great idea rarely wins out on its own merit. Sound, well-structured logic regularly loses out to mediocre ideas from people who really know how to influence. This enlightening, research-based session delves into the human condition, revealing that the true key to influence is not intelligence or logic, but an understanding of what people really value. Through a collaborative toolkit, this program delivers the tips and strategies you need to make people see the value of your ideas so you're well positioned to gain agreement.
Program segments include:
Influence In Action: How To Consistently Hold People Accountable
Great ideas are rarely good enough to get people to take action. Sound, well-structured logic regularly loses out to mediocre ideas from leaders who really know how to influence. This high-impact, research-based session focuses on revealing the true key to accountability: not intelligence or strategy, but an understanding of what makes people feel valuable. In this entertaining, interactive and sometimes brutally honest session, Garrison shows executives how to create a culture of accountability, even among employees at different performance levels. You'll learn how to push your average and low performers to reach a higher level and how to hold ego-driven top performers accountable without causing them (or you) to lose the will to live.
Influencing Safety
Whether you are trying to reduce your number of recordables or prevent a good safety record from creating complacency, this entertaining, customized session is more than just a safe bet. It will get your people laughing, learning and motivated to create a culture of safety while maintaining productivity. This program focuses on developing the personal influence to make things stick, whether you're helping leaders move change through their locations or getting workers to look out for each other on the job site. Garrison is authentic - a guy who's been there. He's a chemical plant explosion survivor who has developed environmental safety products still in use worldwide. He expertly fuses his experiences into key takeaways such as how to build the trust and relationships that make consistent safety a reality. He delivers those takeaways using a humorous approach that will have a serious impact on your event.
With talents that established him as a Fortune 500 leader and professional stand-up comedian, Garrison Wynn, CSP, fuses comic timing and research to deliver motivational business expertise. For 20 years, he has given keynote presentations to clients (such as American Express, Wells Fargo, Oracle and NASA) at corporate and association events. He is the author of the Amazon bestseller The Real Truth about Success, the Amazon #1 bestseller The Cowbell Principle, has been a weekly contributor to the Washington Post and featured Forbes and Inc. Magazines. In his teens he debuted the world’s first video gaming system (Odyssey) with baseball legend Hank Aaron and as a young man spent 6 years touring comedy clubs with the top names in the business. He went on to become the youngest department head in a Fortune 500 company’s history where he researched and designed processes for 38 company locations nationwide and developed & marketed products still being sold in 30 countries.