Ryan Estis

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• Sell Your Way Forward: Driving Sales Growth in the New Economy

  You can grow a business in any economy; however, attacking this defining moment in the short term and capturing the opportunity will require a resilient mindset, shift in go to market strategy and a compelling value proposition. The time is now!

  During this interactive, virtual experience Ryan Estis will leverage both his proprietary research and personal experience growing a business through crisis and uncertainty. Ryan will review lessons learned and provide very specific and actionable insight producers can leverage right now to create more qualified opportunities and drive sales growth.

  This customized, interactive, virtual experience will reveal the exact playbook Ryan used to grow his own business 10 consecutive years which has proven to provide a distinct competitive advantaged to thousands of sales professionals across categories, inside the world’s best brands. Every producer participating will receive a complimentary copy of our eBook, Adapt & Thrive.

  Get ready to thrive in this next normal.

  Learning Objectives

  • Pivot back to a performance mindset
  • Cultivate emotional resilience amid uncertainty
  • Stay in the “learning lane” to achieve breakthroughs
  • Win with an emphasis on “total client experience”
  • Solidify your value proposition and engagement to meet customers where they are
  • Pre-call plan and conduct your own “growth audit”
  • A game plan for capturing opportunity and accelerating growth right now

• Lead Your Way Forward: Resilient Leadership for the New Economy

  For an entire generation of business leaders the actions they take now and in the months ahead will define them and their companies. Navigating this defining moment in the short term and preparing to capture opportunity in the long term will require a healthy mindset, critical decision making and strong relationships.

  During this interactive, virtual experience Ryan Estis will leverage both his proprietary research and personal experience leading a business through crisis and uncertainty.  Ryan will review lessons learned and provide very specific and actionable insight participants can leverage to respond to the short-term challenges and create momentum to capitalize over time.

  This customized, interactive, virtual experience will provide leaders the continuing education they need to thrive in this next normal, and every leader participating will receive a complimentary copy of our eBook, Adapt & Thrive.

  Learning Objectives

  • Downturn psychology and the window of opportunity
  • The character traits of a “Futuremaker” & making the future happen
  • Coaching mindset and emotional resilience amid uncertainty
  • Drivers of engagement and emotional commitment
  • Keys to effective leadership communication during a crisis
  • True North leadership questions that create impact

• Passion on Purpose: Turning Corporate Culture Into a Competitive Advantage

  This keynote reviews how to cultivate a high-engagement, high-performance work culture. As we prepare for the next growth cycle in business, leaders need to understand the needs and expectations of the modern workforce. Ryan pushes back on conventional thinking with new research and case studies from category-leading companies that succeed at maximizing human potential and elevating performance.

  To win in today’s market, you need a healthy organization: tuned-in employees, authentic leadership, open communication and trust. Leaders are called to cultivate the kind of workplace where people come first and performance and profit follow.

  Most organizations leave too many opportunities on the table and waste a huge amount of their people’s potential. This keynote offers practical advice to help you reverse that trend.

  After this keynote, audiences and organizations will understands what it takes to elevate engagement, unleash human potential and compete to win in the new world of work.

  Learning Objectives

  • Embrace change in the new economy
  • Learn from global workforce trends and forecasting from our research portfolio
  • Build high-trust, high-value relationships
  • Connect employees to a shared vision and set of values
  • Effectively use emerging technology to improve communication, culture and work life

• The Brand Experience: Accelerating Business Growth Through Remarkable Experiences

  This keynote focuses on how you can elevate the relationships you have with your most important stakeholders: your customers. Ryan teaches organizations how to create remarkable experiences and earn customers for life.

  Customer expectations have changed. For buyers, an alternative choice is usually just a click away. Today, customers want an experience, and the best brands step up and deliver, consistently. This keynote examines how category-leading companies start with their people, aligning employees around a common mission and empowering them to create memorable customer experiences.

  Ryan explores current trends and shares standout customer stories from his portfolio of case studies. He will demonstrate how technology and social connectedness are influencing consumers’ thinking and changing the way we engage with a brand. He helps participants shift their thinking and emerge with new ideas about both customer and employee relationships that will impact the business.

  The outcome of this keynote will be an audience prepared to capture employee commitment and customer loyalty to drive business growth.

  Learning Objectives

  • Learn global workforce trends from our research portfolio.
  • Understand how to capture your unique How Advantage.
  • Explore what it means to be a chief experience officer.
  • Examine the importance of brand evangelism.
  • Understand the impact of social connections and technology on the brand experience.

• Adapt & Thrive: Preparing to Win In A 2025 World

  This keynote presentation will prepare entrepreneurs and business owners to thrive in today’s increasingly connected, competitive business environment. Ryan challenges conventional business growth practices and explores progressive techniques and technology that pace with the evolving needs of today’s entrepreneur.

  We are navigating a landscape with unprecedented disruption, elevated customer expectations and constant change. Our proprietary research proves that traditional leadership practices are giving way to a more connected, collaborative and flexible approach to managing people and business performance.

  This interactive keynote will deliver new ideas and actionable insights that attendees can leverage immediately to jumpstart innovation, elevate performance and improve profitable growth.

  Learning Objectives

  • Understand the “Futuremaker” mindset required to embrace and lead change.
  • Discover four actionable insights from our research for progressive small business owners.
  • Develop understanding on the evolution and opportunity associated with elevated customer expectations.
  • Hear case studies on how progressive small businesses are proving disruptive and preparing to win in a 2025 world.
  • Walk away with an action plan to address the most critical next steps in your business performance and growth.

• Unleash Your Inner Superhero: Keys to Achieving Breakthrough Performance

  This keynote helps attendees tap into their deep reservoir of potential and unleash their unique capability into the world. Ryan helps people see new opportunity through techniques that remove the barriers of fear, doubt and uncertainty that threaten to inhibit performance.

  This important message introduces key insights about productivity and performance. Ryan coaches the audience through embracing change to achieve more meaning, mastery and momentum in their work life. He introduces several real-life superheroes, and shares examples of the incredible results you can expect when you embrace your own potential.

  The keynote serves as a call to action for those who are looking for fulfillment from their work and are determined to achieve their full potential. Participants will emerge better prepared to become their very best and achieve their next big, breakthrough moment.

  The outcome of this keynote will be an audience inspired to take action and become the very best version of themselves.

  Learning Opportunities

  • Learn how to leverage change as a catalyst for growth and success.
  • Discover transformation techniques designed to unleash peak performance and become your very best.
  • Find out the keys to building high-trust, high-value relationships.
  • Explore the superhero ethos: “Be humble. Stay hungry. Always hustle.”

• Workshop: Leadership Training: Managing for Breakthrough Performance in the New Economy

  As we prepare the organization for this next growth cycle our approach to leadership is being transformed. Globalization, economic, generational, and technological drivers are accelerating change and introducing new challenges to the way we engage employees and customers. Understanding the attitude and expectations of today’s workforce is mission critical to building the leadership competency necessary to compete in a global marketplace.

  Ryan Estis’ management development practice leverages models and methodologies designed to emphasize talent and culture as an organization’s most enduring competitive advantage. The future of work is going to look different and progressive leadership will be required to elevate engagement, improve the employee experience, and earn the confidence and trust of the knowledge worker to accelerate business performance.

  Leadership training is typically delivered as a half-day seminar or full day course.

• Workshop: Leadership Training: Engage. Inspire. Empower.

  The Engage! workshop experience will review the essence of cultivating a competitive advantage through high engagement work experiences. We will review the evolution of work style design and leadership role in cultivating culture, commitment, shared values, and vision. Ryan Estis will examine new tools, techniques and technology that pace with the evolving trend line in the practice of people and leverage case study examples from category leading employers. Estis will challenge conventional leadership practices with emphasis on innovation and collaboration that offers leadership “actionable content” to impact the organization immediately.

  Through this challenging economic climate, employers have been forced to manage the delicate balance of declining revenue and cost containment with employee engagement and productivity, all while preparing the business for future success. As we emerge from this recession progressive leadership will be required to elevate engagement and improve the employee experience to accelerate business outcomes.

  Learning objectives include:

  • Talent first leadership.
  • Branding for talent and the reputation revolution.
  • Communication and trust.
  • Work style design.
  • Chief engagement officer.
  • The generational divide.
  • Recognition and feedback.
  • Autonomy and flexibility.
  • Leading with passion and purpose.
  • Fun at work.

• Workshop: Sales Training: Selling Value in the New Economy

  Our training emphasizes the evolution of seller competency focused on delivering value in complex and competitive sales engagements. We explore the seller role in advancing qualified opportunities and earning commitment around a clearly differentiated and compelling value proposition. Ryan Estis will challenge conventional sales methodology, demonstrate why it is proving increasingly less effective, and offer the sales organization a set of clearly defined practices to drive breakthrough performance.

  Participants will leverage a proprietary sales process designed to elevate value creation at each inflection point in the sales cycle. Curriculum is designed for the competitive sales arena and the learning experience is interactive, helping provide sellers with both the content and context needed to shift competency and provide an immediate return on investment.

  Understanding the expectations and economic drivers of today’s buyer is mission critical to earning more qualified opportunities and customer commitment. Our curriculum is designed to integrate with any existing sales methodology and will help reinforce the new selling habits required to produce big results.

  Learning objectives include:

  • Sales 2.0 defined.
  • Selling barriers explored.
  • Understanding the new customer decision journey.
  • Sales DNA: Characteristics of a “Rock Star Seller”.
  • Skill building: Sales 2.0 core competencies.
  • Selling value: Constructing a value position that matters.
  • The relationship between value and price.
  • Control and commitment: Leveraging courageous conversations.
  • The law of incremental commitment.
  • Capturing a “how advantage”.
  • Social selling: New techniques and technology.
  • Sales 2.0 preparedness: Pre-call planning checklist.
  • Why salespeople succeed and fail.
  • A game plan for growth.

• Workshop: Sales Leadership Training: How to Build and Lead a Winning Sales Team

  This program offers the sales leader a set of practices designed to develop a sales culture of accountability and performance. A former chief sales officer, Ryan Estis will review the evolution of customer buying behaviour and focus on how to develop sales competency required to compete and win in the new economy. Estis will challenge conventional leadership practices with an emphasis on coaching techniques and culture building designed to capture maximum potential from every producer in the sales organization.

  Sales leadership now includes sophisticated analytics to identify opportunities, software to discipline processes and produce forecasts, and negotiation expertise to help producers navigate complex deal structures. Our training emphasizes the intersection of sales intelligence and the leadership discipline of skill development, performance management, and creating a culture of consistency where sellers embrace best practices to gain a competitive advantage.

  Learning objectives include:

  • The evolution of customer buying behaviour and impact on seller competency.
  • Coaching a culture of performance and accountability.
  • Developing “sales ninja warriors”.
  • Progressive pre-call planning and post-call analysis techniques for the sales leader.
  • Where to spend the most time as a leader to get the biggest impact.

• Workshop: Sales Leadership Training: Driving Value in the New Economy

  This high energy, high impact “how-to” session will transform thinking by teaching you how to develop and deliver a value proposition that promises to elevate emotional engagement and earn you BIG commitment from the people you care about the most: employees and customers!

  Your value proposition answers the most important question in professional selling: Why should customers buy from you?

  A home run answer can help you compete and win more business.

  The effective value proposition litmus test is pretty straightforward:

  • Authentic: Do we deliver on that statement of value consistently?
  • Differentiated: Is that statement of value clearly differentiated from our competition?
  • Compelling: Is the statement of value powerful enough to prompt additional interest and motivate change?

  A value proposition is a promise. That promise serves to create expectations about an experience. The experience needs to make a meaningful impact for the customer and everyone in the organization should be able to clearly communicate your position of value.

  This workshop experience will provide participants with case study content related to both the rationale and ROI of developing a quality value proposition. Participants will actually initiate the value proposition development process and begin to consider fundamental questions like what grand purpose do you serve? How do you make the world (or at least the world you work in) a better place? What is the one thing you do better than anyone else that your customers simply cannot live without?

  The value proposition should serve to challenge the status quo and create some sense of urgency around change. If you get it right the value proposition can:

  • Create a strong differential between you and your competitors.
  • Increase not only the quantity but the quality of prospective leads.
  • Gain market share in your targeted segments.
  • Assist you in enhancing tools that will help you close more business.
  • Align employees and customers to shared outcomes.

  We deliver this program stand alone or in combination with our additional sales training modules.

• Workshop: Human Resources Training: The Future of Work and Human Resources

  * This program has been approved for HRCI Strategic recertification credits

  This high energy, interactive Ryan Estis experience will examine the opportunity for human resources to make a high impact contribution to the organization and lead performance and growth. Featuring data, mega trends, and the latest thinking on work style design and organizational effectiveness, Estis introduces ideas related to what is next, new, and needed now for HR to impact talent strategy, workforce readiness, and business performance.

  As we prepare for the next growth cycle our approach to human capital management will be transformed. Estis will explore the evolving role of HR and introduce new tools, techniques, and technology that pace with the evolving trend line in the practice of people.

  Learning objectives:

  • Evolving workforce insights and mega trends.
  • Defining Rock Star HR – what does it take to deliver impact today?
  • Delivering HR from a position of influence — developing high trust/high value relationships with business partners.
  • Rethinking the HR value proposition.
  • The impact of emerging technology and the next generation workforce.

  The outcome of this engagement will be HR professions rethinking their role and opportunity to impact business performance and growth. This program is HRCI strategic management credit approved and available as a keynote or half day workshop.

• Workshop: Human Resources Training: Recruiter Effectiveness Training

  In the present innovation economy, where talent is increasingly becoming an organization’s most distinct competitive advantage, intense competition to both attract and retain disruptive A-level talent will always be an essential element of the business plan.

  As talent acquisition strategy evolves the skillset of the corporate recruiter is going to increasingly mandate more sales and marketing acumen. This “Recruiter Effectiveness Training”, led by a seasoned sales and marketing executive, will introduce professional sales skills, techniques, and competency proven successful for client attraction/retention and transferable to support the attraction/retention of A-level talent. If you are an organization looking to expand your network with quality professionals, develop a pipeline of targeted talent with the right skills and elevate your workforce by targeting highly desired, skilled professionals, this program will enhance recruiter efficiency and expedite your results.

  The audience will be engaged, challenged, and leave with specific and actionable ideas that can impact their organization immediately. The training format, typically delivered on site as a half-day workshop, is interactive.

  Key insights include:

  • A synthesized understanding of the parallels between professional selling and talent acquisition.
  • Precision targeted recruiting and managing the decision cycle.
  • Question mapping and the law of incremental commitment.
  • Lead generation and closing techniques that challenge the current HR paradigm.
  • The recruiter ready digital footprint.
  • Generational influencers and talent drivers.
  • YOU are the BRAND positioning the recruiter as an extension of the employment brand and promoting advocacy and ambassadorship to win talent.

  The outcome will be a recruiting team exposed to fundamental and foundational knowledge that will enhance the competitive talent acquisition skill set to achieve more “talent wins” for the organization.