WHY BOOK ME?Because I’m Not Speaking From a Textbook.
I’m Speaking From the Scars. For more than 40 years, I’ve been in the arena—building brands, creating breakthrough marketing, developing products, challenging conventional thinking, making mistakes, experiencing extraordinary successes, surviving failures, and starting over.
I’ve created some of the largest and most successful promotions in the marketing arena, developing programs and partnerships involving Gerber, Target, PepsiCo, Sony, FOX, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and many others. My work has generated extraordinary consumer engagement, retail participation, and measurable sales growth. It has been recognized with numerous industry awards, including the Gold REGGIE Award for the best promotion in North America. I’ve developed products, proprietary marketing concepts, and patented ideas and innovations. I’ve taken ideas from a piece of paper all the way through strategy, positioning, product development, advertising, promotion, retail activation, and sales. I also served as Chief Marketing Officer of Ashley Furniture Industries during one of the most extraordinary growth periods in the company's history....From $800MM to $3BN in less than 5 years. But my successes aren't the most important part of my story. |
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The failures taught me more.
- I've made bad decisions.
- I've trusted the wrong people.
- I've watched good ideas fail.
- I've had assumptions proven completely wrong.
- I've experienced professional and personal setbacks that forced me to question what I thought I knew—and sometimes start over.
Those experiences changed the way I think about business, leadership, marketing, growth, failure, and success.
And that's what I bring to an audience.
I DON'T DELIVER MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES.
I Create Conversations That Make People Think.
- No academic theories.
- No recycled business clichés.
- No 73-slide PowerPoint filled with charts nobody will remember tomorrow.
- Instead, audiences get:
Real stories. Real successes. Real failures. Humor. Provocation. Experience. Lessons learned the hard way.
And perhaps most importantly:
Questions that may make a few people uncomfortable.
Because sometimes the most valuable thing a speaker can do isn't give people another answer.
It's make them question the answers they already believe.
WHAT CAN I TALK ABOUT?
TURNING FAILURE INTO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
The Business Lessons I Learned the Hard Way
Everyone studies success.
Maybe we're studying the wrong thing.
Some of the greatest business lessons come from decisions that didn't work, opportunities we missed, assumptions that proved wrong, and moments we'd rather forget.
A candid, sometimes funny and occasionally uncomfortable conversation about failure, resilience, reinvention—and what you do next.
Everyone studies success.
Maybe we're studying the wrong thing.
Some of the greatest business lessons come from decisions that didn't work, opportunities we missed, assumptions that proved wrong, and moments we'd rather forget.
A candid, sometimes funny and occasionally uncomfortable conversation about failure, resilience, reinvention—and what you do next.
THE ARROGANCE OF IGNORANCE
Why Successful Companies Stop Asking the Questions That Made Them Successful
And certainty can make organizations stupid.
A provocative look at complacency, institutional arrogance, legacy thinking, corporate echo chambers, and why yesterday's success can become tomorrow's greatest liability.
- Success creates confidence.
- Too much success creates certainty.
And certainty can make organizations stupid.
A provocative look at complacency, institutional arrogance, legacy thinking, corporate echo chambers, and why yesterday's success can become tomorrow's greatest liability.
I FIX BROKEN GROWTH
When growth stalls, companies blame the economy, consumers, competitors, employees, technology, interest rates—almost anything except themselves.
- I ask a much more uncomfortable question:
WHAT IF THE PROBLEM IS US?
This conversation challenges leaders to examine differentiation, relevance, strategy, customers and the assumptions their organizations have stopped questioning.
40+ YEARS. A FEW THINGS I'VE LEARNED.
SUCCESS CAN MAKE YOU STUPID.
The more successful we become, the easier it is to believe we have all the answers.
FAILURE IS ONLY WASTED IF YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM IT.
Some of my most expensive mistakes became my most valuable education.
ASK BETTER QUESTIONS.
Great decisions often begin with somebody willing to ask the question everyone else is avoiding.
RELEVANCE HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE.
Yesterday's success doesn't guarantee anyone will care tomorrow.
DIFFERENT IS BETTER THAN BETTER.
“Better” is subjective. Different gives people a reason to choose you
EGO IS EXPENSIVE.
Especially when you're paying people to agree with you.
DON'T CONFUSE EXPERIENCE WITH WISDOM.
Doing something for 30 years doesn't necessarily mean you've been doing it right.
BAD NEWS DOESN'T IMPROVE WITH AGE.
Problems rarely disappear because leadership doesn't want to discuss them.
The more successful we become, the easier it is to believe we have all the answers.
FAILURE IS ONLY WASTED IF YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM IT.
Some of my most expensive mistakes became my most valuable education.
ASK BETTER QUESTIONS.
Great decisions often begin with somebody willing to ask the question everyone else is avoiding.
RELEVANCE HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE.
Yesterday's success doesn't guarantee anyone will care tomorrow.
DIFFERENT IS BETTER THAN BETTER.
“Better” is subjective. Different gives people a reason to choose you
EGO IS EXPENSIVE.
Especially when you're paying people to agree with you.
DON'T CONFUSE EXPERIENCE WITH WISDOM.
Doing something for 30 years doesn't necessarily mean you've been doing it right.
BAD NEWS DOESN'T IMPROVE WITH AGE.
Problems rarely disappear because leadership doesn't want to discuss them.
NEVER WASTE A GOOD SCAR.
If something nearly destroyed you, make damn sure it taught you something.
WHY I WROTE THE BOOK
I didn't write a book because I thought I had all the answers.
I wrote it because after more than 40 years in business and life, I realized how much I'd learned from getting things wrong.
Some stories were easy to tell.
Others weren't.
Writing the book forced me to revisit successes, failures, bad decisions, disappointments, and parts of my life I would have preferred to leave buried.
But there was a reason to tell them.
Maybe somebody else doesn't have to learn every lesson the hard way.
The book provides the stories.
The stage is where we talk about what they mean.
I wrote it because after more than 40 years in business and life, I realized how much I'd learned from getting things wrong.
Some stories were easy to tell.
Others weren't.
Writing the book forced me to revisit successes, failures, bad decisions, disappointments, and parts of my life I would have preferred to leave buried.
But there was a reason to tell them.
Maybe somebody else doesn't have to learn every lesson the hard way.
The book provides the stories.
The stage is where we talk about what they mean.
I'M NOT COMING TO TELL YOUR AUDIENCE WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR.
I'M COMING TO MAKE THEM THINK.
Bill Napier
Marketing Instigator • Strategic Growth Advisor • Former CMO • Author
Keynotes • Executive Meetings • Leadership Conferences • Corporate Events • Workshops
40+ Years Challenging Conventional Thinking.
Marketing Instigator • Strategic Growth Advisor • Former CMO • Author
Keynotes • Executive Meetings • Leadership Conferences • Corporate Events • Workshops
40+ Years Challenging Conventional Thinking.
