Speaking
Nick Westergaard has been called “one of the most jaw-dropping marketing speakers.” His scrappy strategies help those struggling to stand out in our crowded, distracted world. Your audience will learn, laugh, and leave with ideas they can implement right away. All programs are available in-person or virtually. Check availability, discuss your upcoming event, or put a date on hold now.
Popular Presentations for 2024 Include
Leading with Story: Using Story to Connect & Inspire
In study after study, communication consistently ranks as a top leadership skill. Communicate effectively and your team can move mountains. But how can you stand out as a leader in our crowded, distracted world? Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for connecting with and inspiring others. By learning to tell your story, you can take ownership of your unique voice and put it to use in your work as a leader.
During this actionable and engaging keynote, you’ll learn the science behind storytelling, how the five types of leadership stories work, and how you can integrate your own story into your work to build trust and inspire your team.
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Craft and share your own personal story and integrate it as part of your personal brand as a leader.
- Employ the five leadership stories at work — trust stories, teaching stories, action stories, values stories, and vision stories.
- Lead with story — creating a shared vision of the future and empowering others to follow it.
- This keynote can also be paired with a “How to Tell a Story” storytelling workshop focusing on teamwork, shared values, and other themes.
- For a preview, check out Nick’s HBR article on leadership through storytelling.
Story-Framing Your Ideas: How Story Drives Action
Whether you’re pitching new ideas internally or externally, it’s harder than ever to capture and keep attention. Audiences today are overwhelmed. Today’s technology has made it harder than ever to communicate and connect. That’s why we need to turn to one of our oldest, most powerful tools — story.
During this engaging keynote, you’ll learn how to frame your ideas and your communications using the power of story. Along the way, in addition to learning how this works, you’ll understand the neuroscience of why this works.
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Frame your ideas using the science of story — from pitches and fundraising appeals to bold new business ideas.
- Develop captivating messaging that connect with your audience.
- Move the audience from basic understanding of your idea to emotional connection with it.
- Drive audience action to support, purchase, donate, get involved, and more.
- Inspire others in your organization to story-frame their ideas for success.
Standout Brand Storytelling: Building Brands with Story
Despite the fact that technology has made marketing easier than ever before, the increased noise has made it harder for brands to actually stand out in our crowded, distracted, digital world. Rather than continuing to interrupt our way around this problem, we need to learn the secrets of the oldest, most powerful communication tool — story.
As part of this entertaining, educational, and actionable keynote, audiences will learn the brain science behind why story works with examples from pop-culture classics and story-driven brands. In the end, they’ll move beyond talking about the trend of storytelling to implementing stories as tools for their brands.
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Define the key elements of brand story including protagonist, antagonist, and world building.
- Capture attention by creating empathetic stories based customer challenges.
- Create marketing gravity through compelling content and an engaged community internally and externally.
- Craft captivating stories that drive profitable actions and long-term brand loyalty.
- For a preview, check out Nick’s article on brand storytelling.
Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small
When it comes to marketing, it’s the best of times and the worst of times. New media allows us to reach more people, build personal relationships, and deliver real value to our customers. However, budgets are tighter than ever and we’re constantly distracted by all of the shiny new things coming at us. The answer? Get scrappy.
During this myth-busting and actionable talk, you’ll discover how getting scrappy can help you put your brains before your budget, do more with less, and simplify your marketing in today’s complex world. The book Get Scrappy — the basis of this talk — was named one of Mashable’s Best New Marketing Books.
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Create a scrappy marketing strategy grounded with solid business objectives that shows what channel or platform works best when.
- Simplify content marketing with four easy-to-employ hacks.
- Measure what matters in social media and digital marketing for continuous improvement.
Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World
With the rise of digital media, you’d think it’d be easier than ever to be heard. Yet, most messages—especially marketing messages—fail to cut through the clutter in our crowded, distracted world. To stand out today, you have to start with your brand. But the rules of brand building have changed.
During this insightful and engaging keynote, you’ll learn about the seven Brand Now dynamics — meaning, structure, story, content, community, clarity, and experience — and how you can use them to build a standout brand.
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Implement the seven digital dynamics of standout brand building.
- Endow brands with a unique meaning, story, and structure. Standout brands stand for something.
- Create marketing gravity through compelling content and an engaged community internally and externally.
- Build a connected brand experience for customers both online and off.
Presidentially Speaking: The Communication Secrets of Our Commanders in Chief
Believe it or not, you have a lot in common with the U.S. presidents. That’s because you’re often charged with using communication, particularly writing and public speaking, to inspire others to take action. Now you can put the communication secrets of our nation’s chief executives to work for you.
Learn to prepare like Lincoln, to be clear and concise like FDR, storytelling tips from Theodore Roosevelt and Barack Obama, how to be physically commanding like Washington and LBJ, and vocally inspiring like Ronald Reagan. In the end, you’ll learn the skills to be a “Great Communicator” in your own work. Non-partisan and not just for white dudes (we’ll look at a few presidential hopefuls as well).
Key audience takeaways
After Nick’s talk, your audience will be able to:
- Develop clear and concise communications that inspire action.
- Employ vivid word choices and stories in presentations to stand out and connect with audiences.
- Deliver your next pitch or presentation like a successful stump speech or State-of-the-Union address.
Why You Should Hire Nick Westergaard
When you hire marketing keynote speaker Nick Westergaard, you get:
An Entertaining, Engaging Keynote
Beyond branding, marketing, and communication expertise, Nick Westergaard is a masterful storyteller, an energetic teacher, and a show-stopping keynote speaker. Building on his background in improvisational comedy, psychology, and as a college educator, he knows that an audience that laughs together is more likely to learn together. All of this is why Nick Westergaard has been called “one of the most jaw-dropping marketing speakers.”
In-the-Trenches Experience
Nick Westergaard has decades of in-the-trenches experience, helping those struggling to stand out in our crowded, distracted world. After a career in corporate marketing, he founded Brand Driven Digital to help organizations from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies build better brands online. As a university educator and TEDx speaker coach, he teaches students and professionals how to craft standout presentations that drive action. In short, Nick knows from experience what works and why.
Actionable Takeaways & Resources
There are a lot of entertaining speakers. In the end, you want your audience to leave your event entertained and armed with ideas they can implement immediately. As a practitioner first and foremost, Nick strives to make his keynotes practical and tactical. In addition to teaching a new system or framework for overcoming marketing and communication obstacles, he also provides attendees with actionable ideas, useful tools, and online templates resources they can use to impact their work right away.
Customized Content
Marketing and communication challenges vary from organization to organization, from industry to industry. That’s why Nick makes sure his presentation connects with your audience’s unique needs. During the prep calls leading up to the event, he makes sure he understands your attendees, your organization, and your industry. He then uses these insights to tailor not only his keynote speech but his pre-event promotion and his post-event audience resources (more on both below). On the day of the event, your audience gets the program they need.
Marketing/Promotional Support
Again, more than just a keynote speaker, Nick is a marketer. That’s why he works with you as a partner in promoting your event. This starts with regular prep calls and can include:
- A custom video by Nick for you to use in your event marketing
- Promotion of your event to Nick’s social networks and in his email newsletter
- An interview with someone from your event or industry on the On Brand podcast
- An additional breakout session or panel moderation
- Attendance at receptions and networking events
- Optional book signing before or after the keynote
- Slide PDFs available for attendees
- Additional tools, templates, and resources from the talk at a special link for the audience
Ready to take the next steps and make Nick a part of your next event?
Search Articles and Episodes
Nick’s keynote really helped explain the power of storytelling in a way I could ACTUALLY understand. I’ve seen a number of storytelling presentations and his was the best.
Lynn Melling, Digital Summit Attendee
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