Daniel Levine

SPEAKING.COM: What do you want people to learn/take away from your presentations?

LEVINE: I don’t presume to know more about any industry than the very professionals who are in that business sitting in my audience. What I do know more about is their customers, what is motivating them to buy stuff, and what you can do to attract them. In my presentations I show audiences which trends are relevant to them and how they are motivating people to buy goods, services and experiences. Then, as both inspiration and education, I offer compelling examples of innovative things that businesses in other industries are doing to draw those same customers. Finally, I help attendees come up with their own effective ideas to attract customers, strengthen loyalty, be more relevant, and increase sales.

Since the majority of businesspeople have small businesses with limited budgets, staffing and resources, I make sure to focus on easy, low-cost ways of embracing trends in creative and powerful new ways.

Each of my presentations end with a very specific list of things that members of the audience can do to benefit from trends and hit the ground running when they return to their offices on Monday morning.

SPEAKING.COM: What kind of special prep work do you do prior to an event? How do you prepare for your speaking engagements?

LEVINE: My staff and I do extensive work prior to each presentation so that we can tailor my talks to each event. We employ the full resources of the Avant-Guide Institute to create completely up-to-date and inspiring programs. We start by canvassing our global network of Trend Spotters to spotlight the latest and most innovative business and consumer trends, along with specific ways in which audience members can take advantage of them. For McDonald’s I showed the audience how to benefit from social trends related to food, nutrition and changing global tastes. At Tourism Futures in Australia, I helped travel industry stakeholders understand what is driving leisure travel around the world. At the International Franchise Association Annual Conference I helped entrepreneurs get up-to-date on tech trends for business. Finally, at BMW I shared our research and vision about the future of retail.

SPEAKING.COM: Have you had any particularly memorable speaking engagements / unusual situations arise while on the road?

LEVINE: I’m not really one for pomp and circumstance, nor do I get too excited about meeting celebrities, but some situations do stand out. At IBTM in Cannes I shared the stage with the iconic astronaut Buzz Aldrin, which was very cool for me. In Northern Ireland I was privileged to be seated as the guest of honor between the two power-sharing First Ministers, Martin McGuinness and Arlene Foster. In Australia, Colombia and several other countries I have been the warm-up act to their respective prime ministers.

I’ve definitely found myself in some surprising situations as well, like when I arrived for an event in the Bahamas and was escorted by a police motorcycle motorcade, leap-frogging ahead of my car to block cross-traffic as we rolled through. In Slovenia I was picked up from the airport in a car emblazoned with a huge picture of me, an advertising vehicle which I was told was one of several driving around the capitol for a few weeks.

Some of my most memorable engagements, though, are the pro bono speaking engagements I do each year for students or charitable organizations that I care about. For example, I’ve been to Barcelona three times to present at an annual event for Business with Social Value, a terrific organization that connects companies with mentally- and physically-challenged workers.

SPEAKING.COM: What types of audiences most benefit from your message?

LEVINE: Social trends are not specific to any one industry. Trends reflect what people are thinking and feeling, and customers are looking for those same needs to be answered in all parts of their lives: in the cars they drive, the foods they eat, the clothes they wear, the electronics they use, and more. It’s about lifestyle. For this reason, understanding trends is important for every business.

As a trends expert, I think of myself as a generalist in a world of specialists. Most businesspeople know an awful lot about what they themselves do, but they are less familiar with what other people in other industries are doing to tackle the same challenges and attract the same customers. The greatest benefit I bring to audiences comes from helping them look outside of their own industry to what’s trending with their customers, and why. Then I inspire them to come up with their own ideas to embrace these trends and innovate in ways they never thought of before.

SPEAKING.COM: What inspired you to start doing speaking engagements?

LEVINE: There is no better way to really understand other people than to roll up your sleeves and work with them, so I decided to turn that passion into a career. When I’m giving speeches and running workshops I get to help people from around the world create new ideas and build their businesses, which brings me so much satisfaction. Of course it also helps that I get a charge from being on stage as both an entertainer and a teacher.

For me, the study of trends is the study of human nature and the world in which we live. It’s an intriguing mix of psychology, business, science and many other disciplines, with the useful purpose of creating value and bettering people’s lives. I believe strongly in the power of trends to create and grow businesses, and I love to share all the amazing examples of products, services and experiences that the world’s most inventive people are creating. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to speak so often to people around the world about a topic I feel passionately about.

SPEAKING.COM: How do you keep your audience engaged and actively listening during your keynotes?

LEVINE: As a keynote speaker, the most effective way to thrill audiences (and please clients!) is by being as entertaining as you are informative. I would even go as far to say that when I’m on stage, I consider myself to be in the entertainment industry. In addition to being amazingly and extraordinarily funny, I have spent a lot of time learning how to engage audiences using body language, voice modulation and other tricks of the trade. I wear a headset mic so I can exploit the entire stage and, importantly, my visuals are all powerful images, each selected for their ability to elicit visceral responses from audiences, ranging from surprise to laughter to awe. So far no one has ever fallen asleep!

SPEAKING.COM: What are some of the successes you’ve helped clients achieve?

LEVINE: I’ve work directly with numerous clients on projects. For instance, I helped Intel create a cool new product designed to showcase their big data capabilities, and I did consulting for Jumeirah Hotels while they were developing a new brand for Millennials.

What really gets me excited, though, is when my keynote audiences come up with ways of making my creative ideas their own. Many people who attend my presentations contact me afterwards to tell me about innovative moves they were inspired to make, from a major new marketing initiative undertaken by an American bank, to an experiential resort hotel that actually got built by an Icelandic hospitality group. However, success doesn’t always have to be so grand. More times than I can count, triumph came simply as a result of attendees learning how to communicate with their customers more effectively.