Bruce Turkel
Bruce helps his audiences understand how to make their brands relevant to their customers and how to differentiate themselves from competitors.
Bruce is a sought-after speaker on the subjects of branding, creativity, innovation, and leadership. An accomplished passionate presenter, he gladly shares easy-to-follow, proven steps for building brand value with his audiences.
Bruce has an overarching theme for his talks: "it's all about them." Bruce instructs your audience members to focus on their customers, not their products or services, helping them to open their minds and discover their creativity. Drawing from his 30-plus years of ad agency experience, Bruce helps your audiences understand how to make their brands attractive to their customers, as well as how innovation can differentiate them from their competitors.
Bruce is captivating and insightful on stage. His unique presentations combine engaging wit, creative insights, thought-provoking ideas and smoking hot notes on his harmonica.
Satisfied audiences from Bruce's talks at MIT, Harvard, CHRIS and TEDx, and attendees at hundreds of corporate and industry events all agree that Bruce's message, entertainment value, and inspiration stick around long after the session is over. That's when your participants go back to work and think… differently.
Bruce was recently listed within the World's Top 30 Brand Professionals for 2023 by Global Gurus.
Many conference attendees commented on how much they enjoyed the presentation. What Bruce said had a profound impact on many people in the audience.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Walker & Dunlop
Bruce's presentation was spot on. It’s been a game changer. Taking his approach [already] fostered some truly meaningful engagement. I appreciated his commitment to helping all better ourselves and grow.
Compass
Sincere, entertaining, educational, and a real world way that our team really appreciated. We are beyond pleased that we selected Bruce to speak at our summit.
Chief Marketing Officer, Bacardi
Bruce was the highlight of our meeting! His subject was right on, and through our survey I received great reviews on his presentation.
COO, InterContinental Hotels Group
Bruce was a significant part of the success of the event. We had a terrific response from his keynote.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Walker & Dunlop
My speaking topics...
A Creative Look at How Your Organization Can Use Creativity
The most creative works in human history – every piece of music, every painting, every novel - were all created with the very same tools, notes, colors, and words that we all have access to every single day. Maybe that suggests that there's a new way of looking at the creativity that we can all tap into, enjoy, and benefit from.
Bruce Turkel shares his experience leading a global brand consultancy – and as a world-class musician – to help instil more creativity into your organization. He won’t just tell them that they’re creative, Bruce will prove it with a fun and interactive exercise that will have everyone in your audience on their feet, tapping into their creative rockstar potential!
Audience Takeaways:
- Your audience will discover how to remove the intimidation factor from creativity, freeing them up to use this powerful tool daily.
- Your audience will discover their own creativity even though they might think they can’t “draw a straight line” or that they can’t sing because they’re “tone deaf.”
- Your audience will look at opportunities in a new and exciting way, understanding how they can tap into their own creativity to solve problems.
Watch me...
Know Thyself
BMW defines itself with a four-word descriptor. Nike, GE and Wal-Mart use three words. Barack Obama and Airbnb use two. 7-Up used one.
Pablo Picasso, Henry Ford, Oscar Wilde, and Andy Warhol baked their definitions directly into their work. Ironically, this current as tomorrow concept can be traced all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, who inscribed “Know Thyself” over the entrance to the Temple of Apollo almost 2,500 years ago.
A clearly defined position is critical to focus entrepreneurial energy, secure investment, motivate and retain employees, and successfully deliver concepts to the market.
After all, if you can’t identify your key issue, what exactly are you selling?
Your audience will discover:
- How to define an identity to make their businesses more valuable no matter who they are.
- Why understanding their brand identity is more important than what they sell.
- What they’re doing wrong — without even knowing it — that’s hurting their business and costing them money every single day.
Join business solutions guru Bruce Turkel for an entertaining interactive romp through history, art, music, business, and commerce and uncover the most critical skill businesses owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and businesspeople need for success.
When your audiences spend time with Bruce, they’ll know exactly what to do to put the power of branding to work for their businesses and their lives. And they’ll thank you for it.
Watch me...
Is That All There Is?
How organizations can shift from The Great Resignation to The Great Retention
FORTUNE Magazine says the Great Resignation stunned business owners and employers. Today nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers are looking to change jobs or leave the workforce.
“Researchers have revealed turnover patterns that explain why so many are quitting in droves right now. Employers looking to stop the exodus should pay attention: Much of the onus is on them to give workers better reasons to stay. Research has shown that people tend to quit their jobs after experiencing a turnover shock: a life event that precipitates self-reflection… Shocks can be positive… or negative. Or they can be global catastrophes like COVID-19 that upend every aspect of daily life.”
Real estate professionals call these the Seven Ds—Divorce, Downsizing, Disease, Disability, Disaster, Debt, and Death. Besides the blessings of a larger family or greater income, they are the main reasons people sell their homes and move. They can also be the reasons why people decide to ditch their careers or their lifestyles, especially if you add two more Ds—Dissatisfaction and Disappointment.
Bruce Turkel explored this in his latest book, Is That All There Is‽ Bruce interviewed people who successfully pivoted to understand why, when, and how they changed their lives. His stories will clearly demonstrate how you and your company can move from uncertainty to clarity.
Your audiences will learn:
- Why workers are leaving their jobs in record numbers.
- What employers can do to stop the exodus and retain their people.
- How purpose drives retention in the new world of work.
- Proven ways to move from uncertainty to clarity in your business and your life.
Watch me...
All About Them
Less than 20 years ago the key to selling yourself was to promote how great you were. If you didn’t blow your own horn, who would? Selling yourself was the only way anyone could learn about your company. Back then, “customer service” said everything you needed to know about being successful:
- Your customer would arrive.
- You would provide service.
But today we each carry a magical wafer of silicon and glass that gives us instant access to all the world’s knowledge. This means all your potential clients and customers know everything about you before they do business with you. Today’s customers can buy Anything, from Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, and at virtually Any Price. And they have unlimited ways of communicating their pleasure — or displeasure — with your business.
Success today – AND TOMORROW – requires that you turn the lens around and focus relentlessly on your customer.
Bruce Turkel’s wildly entertaining presentation includes fascinating examples from Johann Sebastian Bach to The Wizard of Oz, from Andy Warhol’s excesses to the Toyota Prius’ successes, from history lessons to headlines right out of today’s news.
Your audience will discover:
- What future success looks like
- Why they must stop selling function
- The magic behind content and context
- Why it’s All About Them
- The incredible power of CC2CC
Watch me...
See me...
https://odemanagement.com/presenters/bruce-turkel#sigProId2edbb8fb34
Is That All There Is?: What Are You Doing for the rest of Your Life?
Some of us work hard and achieve our dreams. We grow the business, raise and launch our kids, and settle in for the long haul. Some of us have our dreams interrupted - the market changes, a health crisis intervenes, we fail despite our best efforts, we make a mistake, or having reached our destination, we get bored. Whatever our circumstances, we inevitably find ourselves asking, “Is that all there is?”
Thus begins the search. Do we go back to school? Do we start a new business? Do we retire?
While the challenges are different for each of us, the question is universal. And Bruce Turkel has arrived with answers. Bruce’s widely-loved commentary and witty observations introduce a collection of engaging interviews with smart people who faced the same questions you are facing and are willing to share their experiences. You’ll discover personal stories of their own pivots - career changes, lifestyle shifts, and clever strategies for keeping life’s spark glowing. And every one of them are presented with the goal of helping you move forward in your own life.
Wondering what to do next? Start with this book!
Building Brand Value
Bruce Turkel explains how companies and individuals can build their brand value with simple, clear explanations, anecdotes, and illustrations.
Brain Darts: The Advertising Design of Turkel Schwartz & Partners
Turkel Schwartz & Partners is an advertising agency. Our clients pay us to get people's attention. Since 1983 we have been creating messages that catch attention and present ideas - no matter how busy or distracted our audiences are.Simple, powerful, often humorous messages break through the clutter and stick in the minds of the people we aim them at.We call this kind of communication Brain Darts - the simplest, most-powerful messages that talk to our consumers in a way that they'll understand, appreciate, remember, and act on.Easy? No.Exciting? Certainly.Successful? Absolutely.Come take a trip through this book and look at some of the brain darts we've created over the last 15 years.
New Design Miami: The Edge of Graphic Design
The New Design series celebrates some of the finest new design talents each featured city has to offer. This city-by-city tour is the insider's guide to dozens of design firms that are making an impact on the industry.
Selected by designers for designers, the work in these pages reveals what makes graphic design tick in the city of Miami. Fresh, new, and vital, this is a valuable collection for all design professionals, from advertising and media aficionados, to artists, educators, students, and all those with a strong interest in graphic design.
All about Them: Grow Your Business by Focusing on Others
The best companies and most successful salespeople live by a three-word mantra—"all about them"—because when they relentlessly focus their brand on their customers instead of themselves, their businesses flourish. All about Them shows readers how to use this simple but extremely powerful influencing technique. Bruce Turkel, who has advised some of the world's greatest companies, including American Express and Bacardi, lays the groundwork by relating his personal journey of discovery to the "All about Them" principle. He goes on to explore our technology-driven, hyper- connected culture; the power of storytelling (and story-selling); brand authenticity and transparency; and more.