Biography

Bruce travels the world helping leaders and companies thrive in the brave new world of increased consumer expectations and choice. He helps his clients and audiences uncover creative solutions and messaging strategies that can futureproof their brands in a world of constant disruptive upheaval.

Bruce’s clients include Fortune 500 companies and industry associations around the world. Bruce brings them creative solutions and shares those solutions through keynote speeches and company presentations. His concepts help inspire leadership and spark innovations that propel his clients to new levels of success.

Bruce founded Turkel Brands, a global brand consultancy that has worked with clients including Discovery Networks, Bacardi Limited, Miami, Jewish Health Systems, and more.

Bruce’s fifth book, the bestselling All About Them, was chosen as one of Forbes’ top ten business books of the year. Each week his blog explores innovation, leadership, and branding success. He is a frequent guest on Fox Business, CNN International, and CCTV (Chinese State Television) where he helps viewers understand the branding issues that affect their pocketbooks and their lives. 

Currently, the sale of Turkel Brands set him on the road that developed into the book Is That All There is?

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Videos

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7 STEPS TO BUILDING BRAND VALUE

Learn seven simple steps to building, maintaining, and communicating a great brand. Bruce Turkel provides entertaining anecdotes and real world examples to illustrate the finer points of brand building. Add significant value to your products by making your products more valuable to your customers.

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF CREATIVITY

Managing creative people can be a challenge. How do you establish a professional atmosphere that's productive AND inspiring? Bruce has supervised award-winning creative teams for 20 years. He shares practical and engaging tips that will help you manage and nurture your creative staff.

PRESENTATION SKILLS

Creating a great product or great advertising campaign is only half the battle. As Bruce says, "It don't mean a thing if you don't sell a thing." His 7 Steps to Building Brand Value provide solid advice for overcoming nervousness, organizing your thoughts and presenting yourself and your work in a dynamic, compelling way.

DEFINING YOUR BRAND ESSENCE

BMW defines its brand essence with four words. Nike, GE and Wal-Mart use three. Barack Obama sold the most powerful product in the world with two: “Hope” and “Change.” In this multi-media speech, Bruce Turkel shows you how to reduce your brand message to its most practical, actionable, and compelling essence.

THE KEYS TO INNOVATION

Hidden in Plain Sight, Content vs. Context, Non-Linear Thinking and the true definition of WTF??!! Are just a few of the concepts explored and explained in this irreverent but very practical talk. Bruce Turkel looks at innovation in a whole new way that will have your audience slapping their heads and thinking, “Why didn’t I see it like that before?” Your attendees will leave energized and excited about putting their new-found skills of imagination to work.

YOU DON’T NEED SOCIAL MEDIA. YOU NEED A STRATEGY.

You don’t need social media. You don’t need a website. You don’t need mobile. You need a strategy.

Don’t take this dramatic rant too far and become a marketing aesthete. You do need all those tools. They’re the ways you’ll market yourself and your business and get the word out about who you are and what you do. But before you create noise, you’ve got to know what you’re creating noise about and why anyone should care. If you don’t know what you’re yelling and screaming about, you’re wasting your breath.

Creating a hubbub in social media without a powerful strategy and wondering why your messages don’t go viral is like sneezing into your elbow and wondering why no one catches your cold.

Bruce Turkel shows his audiences exactly how to build their brands online. He will show you how to take the best tools, tips, and techniques from the analog world and move them online where they will generate global interest and response.
Spend time with Bruce and you’ll learn:
• Why an unfocused online presence is like a tree falling in a forest.
• The danger of GMOOTs and how to avoid their traps.
• How to build a powerful brand that will make a difference online.
• How to tailor your message for each of the different social media.
• How to get the most bang for your buck and increase the echo effect.

Bruce Turkel’s concepts are simple but not simplistic and his methods are easy to understand and immediately actionable. His talk presents a profound, proven, and potentially profitable way to plan your social media activities.

THE DESIGN OF SALES

It happened again! You blinked and the world changed. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t notice (it was hidden in plain sight). But whether you saw it or not, all of a sudden the planets realigned, the tectonic plates slipped, the paradigm shifted.

While you were dealing with your day-to-day affairs, function and competency took to a back seat to design. Its John Lennon’s prediction coming true: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Back in the dark ages of analog production, we bought stuff because it worked better than other stuff. The Sears Craftsman tools in your shed were unbreakable and warrantied for life—in case it ever turned out that they weren’t. The Mercedes diesel in your garage would run for 300,000 miles without a hiccup. The Timex on your wrist would “take a licking and go on ticking.” Those products were successful because they were anomalies. Back then, most stuff just plain didn’t work. These things did.

Remember your old television? It broke all the time. Tubes would blow, dials would strip, and those funky remote control buttons would stop controlling remotely. But today, TVs simply don’t break. I’d be willing to bet that your giant flat-panel TV works just as well today as the day you mounted it on the wall.

Remember when cars used to leave you stranded? Back then it made sense to spend the extra money for a Volvo or Mercedes because they were so much more reliable than less expensive cars. But today, an inexpensive Kia or Hyundai will provide you just as much hassle-free driving as the most expensive BMW or Bentley. Maybe more.

Today people just expect the things they buy to work. And so function and competency are taken for granted. Instead of worrying about how well things work, consumers now buy things for how they look and feel, and more importantly, how the products make them look and feel.

Design, the former handmaiden to production, has become the differentiating asset consumers look for. To completely mix my metaphors, the king and queen of the prom have been upstaged by the AV guy with tape on his glasses.

Good design used to be something that was hard to acquire — it took a lot of time, money, and discerning taste — not to mention an unwillingness to accept the ordinary. Back in the day, being well dressed or having a beautifully designed home or office was a mark of distinction that was simply ‘out of reach’ for most people.

But today good design is available everywhere you look. Crate and Barrel, Target, and West Elm peddle it in every mall in America. Apple promises that the ubiquitous phone you carry in the pocket of your (designer) jeans or the computer sitting on your desktop is the most highly evolved industrial design you can own. Even products as prosaic as Nest thermostats, Plumen light bulbs, and Dyson fans have been designed to within an inch of their lives.

What hasn’t kept up with the blinding pace of design growth is the ability of salespeople to use aesthetics to meet their quotas. Believing that most consumers are still buying products based on what those products do, most salespeople are still busy demonstrating features and explaining capabilities instead of promoting what people are buying. Today an in-depth understanding of the modern consumers’ purchase motivations is what the best salespeople are using to push their products and services. Instead of inventorying capabilities, the savvy salesperson understands that their job has changed the best of them into editors and curators – constantly reappraising the aesthetic and lifestyle advantages of the products they sell and demonstrating these benefits to their customers.

A salesperson can’t sell what they can’t see.
1. How to uncover the motivations of today’s consumer.
2. The real difference between features and benefits and how to sell them.
3. Why the traditional “Speeds & Feeds” sales strategy does not work anymore and what has taken its place.
4. The critical difference between content and context, and how it can multiply your sales.
5. The special sales secrets that are hidden in plain sight.

Understanding how sales have changed can be the difference between obsolescence and success.

Testimonials

Bruce, you were one of the most impressive speakers we’ve brought in. Personally, I think you were the very best of everyone I’ve ever experienced in my career. Your remarkable ability to instill clear ideas with humor and yet connect to how brand really works was worldclass. Bravo.
– JAMES LAVINE/VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER - LOCKHEED MARTIN AERONAUTICS
Bruce is killing it! So funny and charming and super engaging. The group is tired from the World Series game last night but he is managing to keep them engaged and laughing. We all really really like him; great content, great stage presence, very very happy to have him close the event!
– STEPHANIE GLASSFORD CMP/ EVENT MANAGER - RE/MAX INTEGRA OA
Bruce gets his message across through captivating storytelling that people understand, relate to, and learn from; stories which stay with them long after he’s left the room.
– HENRY MARTINEZ/PRESIDENT - DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS
Bruce is incredibly gifted, engaging, and dynamic. His deep knowledge of the drivers of economic development and how best to use them to market yourself make him unique.
– ALEXANDRA VILLOCH/PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER - MIAMI HERALD MEDIA COMPANY

Booksby Bruce Turkel

Is That All There Is?

Brain Darts

Building Brand Value

All About Them

New Design Miami

Blog Posts

The Transformative Power of Improv That Will Unleash Your Creative Edge

What can you expect from an improv session? Learn how it helps boost creativity and inspire leadership with insights from Tony-award winning group freestyle+.

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Start Risk-Taking Like a Poker Pro Now with Caspar Berry

Risk-taking isn't gambling: learn how bold decisions on the poker table translates into innovative leadership, with insights from keynote speaker Caspar Berry.

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Heart Health Mastery: Transforming Workplace Wellness from the Inside Out

Prioritize heart health with actionable strategies for stress management and workplace wellness this American Heart Month. ❤️

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The Roots of Authentic Leadership Start with Self-Discovery

Transform your approach to leadership and ignite lasting change within your organization with insights from keynote speaker Amy Eliza Wong.

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Unlock the Power of Friendship for a Healthier Life with Shasta Nelson

A resilient commitment to friendship is the foundation for thriving at work and a healthier life. Embrace these strategies from keynote speaker Shasta Nelson.

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Cultivating a Confidence Mindset and Go From Chaos to Triumph

Transform chaos into strategic success with a confident mindset—insights from mindset keynote speaker Andrew Busch.

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Blog Posts

 

The Transformative Power of Improv That Will Unleash Your Creative Edge

Have you ever wondered if the secret to true creativity lies in embracing discomfort? What...

Read More

Start Risk-Taking Like a Poker Pro Now with Caspar Berry

Have you ever considered that the skills required to win at poker can also pave...

Read More

Heart Health Mastery: Transforming Workplace Wellness from the Inside Out

Have you ever considered how your heart health directly impacts every aspect of your life?...

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The Roots of Authentic Leadership Start with Self-Discovery

https://youtu.be/NV6B5rkyLc8 Have you ever wondered why many companies struggle to cultivate true leadership among their...

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Unlock the Power of Friendship for a Healthier Life with Shasta Nelson

Have you ever wondered why true friendship remains the cornerstone of both personal well-being and...

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Cultivating a Confidence Mindset and Go From Chaos to Triumph

In today’s volatile environment, how can leaders transform chaos into a strategic advantage? The answer...

Read More