Harry Beckwith

Harry Beckwith has led major marketing initiatives for 14 Fortune 100 companies, including Target, Wells Fargo, Merck and IBM, work that has won the American Marketing Association's highest award.

Harry is also an internationally-acclaimed speaker, with over 96% of audience members awarding his presentations perfect scores. He regularly lends his expertise to various media outlets, on topics ranging from the Pentagon and White House's handling of the invasion of Iraq, to the branding of the country of Canada.

His first book Selling the Invisible, recently was named one of the top ten business and management books of all time. His most recent books, The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, have already sold over 120,000 copies in the United States. His latest book is entitled You, Inc: The Art of Selling Yourself, is in collaboration with Christine Clifford.

Harry graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, won the national collegiate journalism award as a freshman, and later served as Oregon Law Review Editor-in-Chief, the school's highest honor, and as a law clerk to a federal judge.

Harry left the practice of law in 1980, and four years later was named creative supervisor of Carmichael-Lynch, the fastest promotion in the history of the agency.

Harry Beckwith's Blog Posts:

Seven Speaking Tips That Beat "Pretend Your Audience Is Naked"

• The Invisible Tool Kit: How to Sell in A Relationship-Based Economy

• What Clients Love

  This presentation reveals the nine keys - from affinity and predictability to the four most powerful words in any relationship - using vivid, and sometimes amusing, examples from many businesses of all sizes.
  
  This presentation is ideal for anyone in a company or organization that has contact with customers and clients, and is particularly well received by professionals, such as those in financial services, healthcare and technology services and consulting as well as consultants, accountants, lawyers and physicians.

• Selling the Invisible

  Hailed by the top executives of Procter & Gamble and ABC as "amazing," Harry Beckwith's painstakingly customized presentations on sales, marketing and customer service have earned perfect scores from over 96% of people attending his worldwide presentations--and prompted one executive to say, "you told our people things about our business that they didn't even know!" Drawing on unique examples -- Pulp Fiction, the mysterious success of Yahoo!, and stories of ugly kittens, Pablo Picasso, Bell South and many Fortune 200 clients -- Harry clearly isolates the four keys to growing a service business in presentations that are sincere, engaging, witty, moving, and in the end, enormously inspiring.

• Sensational. Our company is famous for both its marketing and its presentations, and I still can say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
  The Procter & Gamble Company
• A standing ovation for a presentation on marketing--how often do you see that? Absolutely terrific.
  Coldwell Banker
• Harry's advice is extraordinary and contain not just answers, but the answers for modern service business. If businesses read and adopt only 20% of what Harry suggests, they will completely transform their businesses.
  Dr. Dawn Fotopulos, Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern Graduate School of Business
• Great. Every person, even the two-thousandth in the back, looked to be hanging on every word.
  General Bill Henderson, Former United States Postmaster
• I have never written a speaker, but I could not resist. Your speech was the best of any kind I have ever heard. No one for one moment averted his or her eyes from you. I will never forget your hour with us.
  Franklin Templeton
• Time and again, people from the audience came up to me and uttered the same word: 'Fabulous.'
  The Pareto Group
• Anyone who missed this presentation missed the opportunity to become a better marketing professional, a better executive and a better human being. Not only did you teach us how to do a better job...you made us WANT to do a better job. I have never heard a presentation as informative and inspiring.
  ABC Television
• Highly motivational and energizing. . .Working with him was a most professional and rewarding experience, and his address launched a wonderful week-long sales meeting during which his ideas played a major role. There is no doubt in my mind that his message has led to many of the recent individual sales success stories at McDougal Littel."
  McDougal Littel
• Without question, he is the master.
  Fidelity Investments

• 
  January 2011

  Unthinking

  What do Howard Hughes and 50 Cent have in common, and what do they tell us about Americans and our desires? Why did Sean Connery stop wearing a toupee, and what does this tell us about American customers for any product? What one thing did the Beatles, Malcolm Gladwell and Nike all notice about Americans that helped them win us over? Which uniquely American traits may explain the plights of Krispy Kreme, Ford, and GM, and the risks faced by Starbuck's? Why, after every other plea failed, did "Click It or Ticket" get people to buy the idea of fastening their seat belts? To paraphrase Don Draper''s character on the hit show Mad Men, "What do people want?" What is the new American psyche, and how do America's shrewdest marketers tap it? Drawing from dozens of disciplines, the internationally acclaimed marketing expert Harry Beckwith answers these questions with some surprising, even startling, truths and discoveries about what motivates us.

  
  
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  March 2007

  You, Inc.

  As founder of Beckwith Advertising and Marketing, Harry Beckwith learned early on in his career that no matter what product is being sold, the most important component of the sale is you. Here Beckwith teams up with his wife, motivational speaker and former sales executive Christine Clifford Beckwith, to provide tips, anecdotes, and insights based on their 30 years of selling experience. Written in a traditional homespun style, the Beckwiths offer doses of humor and practical knowledge to anyone who wants to learn how to seal the deal and thrive in business.

  
  
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  January 2003

  What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business

  Harry Beckwith applies his unparalleled clarity, insight, humor, and expertise to a new age of mass communication and mass confusion. What Clients Love will help you stand out from the crowd-and sell anything to anyone. From making a pitch to building a brand, from designing a logo to closing a sale, this is a field guide to take with you to the front lines of today's business battles.

  
  
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  March 2000

  The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing

  Harry Beckwith's guide shows how markets work and how prospective clients think. It delivers business wisdom aimed at keeping clients by utilising the keys to modern marketing - price, brand, packaging and relationships.

  
  
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  May 1997

  Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

  In Selling the Invisible, Beckwith argues that what consumers are primarily interested in today are not features, but relationships. Even companies who think that they sell only tangible products should rethink their approach to product development and marketing and sales. For example, when a customer buys a Saturn automobile, what they're really buying is not the car, but the way that Saturn does business. Beckwith provides an excellent forum for thinking differently about the nature of services and how they can be effectively marketed. If you're at all involved in marketing or sales, then Selling the Invisible is definitely worth a look.