Travels from Minnesota, USA
Shawna Suckow's speaking fee falls within range: $15,000 to $20,000
Shawna Suckow, is a globally recognized consumer behavior expert and champion for small businesses. She helps audiences understand how a seismic shift in consumer behavior over the past five years has created opportunities that (finally) favor smaller companies. With a few key insights, small businesses can unlock advantages they already have, and attract customers – even when their prices aren’t the lowest.
As the creator of Microstories™, Shawna shows businesses how to find and share small, memorable stories that reveal the humans behind the brand. These everyday moments help customers connect with a business, remember it, and have a reason to choose it. She calls it learning to Out-Human the Competition™.
Her Customer Brandships™ framework takes that connection further, helping businesses build loyalty that feels like friendship. Customers feel known and cared for, trust grows, and they keep coming back – and they spread the word to others.
Shawna speaking style feels less like a lecture and more like a candid conversation with a friend who happens to know things your competitors don’t (plus she thinks she’s pretty funny). Audiences leave energized, more confident, and armed with strategies they can actually use on Monday morning.
She holds the CSP designation, the speaking profession’s highest earned credential, and has spoken on five continents in 18 countries. Her seventh book, Small Is Your Superpower! How Small Businesses (Finally!) Can Outsmart Big Brands at Marketing, shows why being small has only recently become an extremely powerful advantage – and how to translate that advantage into real growth.
Three Microstories™ about Shawna:
Her first car was a bright orange Volkswagen Beetle that caught on fire on her way to school.
She used to live in a 120-year-old house that was very, very haunted.
She once played in the World Series of Poker Main Event on ESPN. Needless to say, she did not win.
From caller ID to the phasing out of e-mail, technological changes are rendering even the sales techniques of 3-5 years ago obsolete. Shawna Suckow helps you get into the minds of B2B and B2C customers so that you can boost your ability to identify and connect with promising prospects in today’s dramatically different buyer landscape. In addition to presenting relevant tools that you can immediately put into use, Shawna gets the entire room exchanging experiences, ideas, and laughter.
Small Is Your Superpower! How to Win More Customers in a Shifting Marketplace That Finally Favors You
Whether you're a retailer, manufacturer, or wholesaler, shifting consumer behavior is (finally!) giving smaller businesses new leverage. Small is having its moment, and you can take advantage of it if you understand what is getting attention and influencing today’s buyers.
Customers now discover businesses and develop trust in them in entirely new ways. This gives smaller brands more opportunities to compete using brand personality, flexibility, and strong customer relationships. More than ever, people want to know the humans behind the business. That’s your edge.
In this session, consumer behaviorist and small business champion Shawna Suckow will show you how to turn your size into your biggest advantage. You’ll discover inexpensive, manageable ways to stand out wherever you find customers: online, at events, or in your community. You’ll learn how to use Microstories™ to create connection and conversation, and give customers solid reasons to choose you even when you are not the lowest-priced option.
Microstories™ How Small Stories Help Customers Trust, Remember, Choose, and Refer You
Your customers are surrounded by businesses making the same claims about quality, service, and trust. If your marketing sounds like everyone else’s, you become part of The Blandscape™. Customers may see you, but will they remember you?
Stories are up to 22 times more memorable than stated facts, making Microstories™ the #1 way to stand out, build trust, and stay in your customers’ minds. These short moments reveal who you are, why your work matters, and what customers can expect from you.
Consumer behaviorist and marketing truth-teller Shawna Suckow will show you how to find the stories inside your business and use them across your marketing, sales, and customer experience. You’ll learn how to leave The Blandscape™ and become easier to trust, remember, choose, and recommend.
CUSTOMER BRANDSHIPS™: HOW TO OUT-HUMAN THE COMPETITION™ Trust & Customer Experience Keynote or Breakout
Your customers want badly to trust businesses. The problem is, they are finding fewer reasons to do it.
Shawna Suckow’s research found that 98% of Americans distrust businesses more than they did 10 years ago. We are in a full-blown trust crisis, and that creates an advantage for you if you know how to earn what customers are reluctant to give.
Customer Brandships™ are the business version of friendships. They are built through familiarity, consistency, shared values, honesty, and the feeling that someone actually knows and cares about you. Your customers are not asking your business to become their new best friend, but they are looking for many of the same qualities they value in one.
In this session, consumer behaviorist Shawna Suckow will show you how to Out-Human the Competition™ by replacing polished promises with believable proof, creating more personal customer experiences, and removing the small trust-breakers businesses often overlook. You’ll learn how to turn transactions into relationships, occasional customers into regulars, and satisfied customers into people who defend, recommend, and rave about your business.
When trust is scarce, becoming genuinely trustworthy gets noticed. This session will help you build the kind of Customer Brandships™ that make your business easier to choose, harder to leave, and much more likely to be referred.
SPEAKING.COM: What do you want people to learn/take away from your presentations?
SUCKOW: Most of all, I want them to feel a sense of relief – that they don’t have to keep trying to work harder and harder to be successful. I hate the fact that so many salespeople feel the need to be on-call 24/7/365. There are many tools available that are working, so salespeople can be successful AND have a personal life.
I also want audiences to feel empowered to try new tools, and let go of old ones that no longer produce results.
SPEAKING.COM: Have you had any particularly memorable speaking engagements / unusual situations arise while on the road?
SUCKOW: There was that time when my daughter was eight, and I was on a quick overnight trip with a presentation in the morning. Imagine my surprise when I was getting dressed in the morning, and realized I had packed HER underwear, and not my own! (How’s that for authenticity?!).
SPEAKING.COM:What types of audiences would most benefit from your message?
SUCKOW: Audiences of sales professionals and business leaders resonate with my message – especially those who are particularly aware of the consumer behavioral changes underway.
SPEAKING.COM: Which of your keynote speaking topics are your favorites and why?
SUCKOW: I love my newest keynote where I get to reveal my findings from a buyer survey. There are some real game-changers, and I love to see the faces in the audience when they have “a-ha” moments. I also love my session on Sales Hacks for Productivity & Profit. It’s all about apps, as well as non-techie tips that will save them a bundle of time and frustration. I update it monthly because the market changes so rapidly and new tools are constantly coming on-line.
SPEAKING.COM: What inspired you to start doing speaking engagements?
SUCKOW: I was one of those people who hated public speaking until I was forced to do it several times as a buyer. I would have never foreseen this career path for myself! Once I realized that I had a very unique message as the only sales speaker representing the buyer perspective, I knew I had an obligation and an opportunity.
SPEAKING.COM: How do you keep your audience engaged and actively listening during your keynotes? Do you use case studies, personal stories and/or in your speeches?
SUCKOW: I’ve been told that my presentations are like listening to a friend tell you the truth. I speak in a really comfortable, easy style that keeps the audience actively listening, but I’m not blind to the shortening attention spans in our society! I infuse my engagements with case studies, videos, audience conversations, and personal examples I’ve experienced as a buyer.
Morgan
September 17, 2022
Shawna was a wonderful speaker at our recent Tahiti Specialist Conference. Not only was she funny and relatable yet got our audience to participate and not think outside the box but to not box think. She was inspirational and informative.
Speaker rating 10/10
“If you haven’t experienced the genius of Shawna, fix that. Her insight from her meeting planning days combined with her appreciation for the speaking industry make her an asset to your event.” – Neen James, MBS, CSP, Client Experience Expert
“As a speaker she is dynamic, capturing, and relatable. She inspires attendees and leaves the audience with ideas that make one take action.” – McKenzie Kaufeld Counts, CMP, Senior Marketing & Event Manager
“I’ve booked some of the greatest speakers in the world, and Shawna is one of the best. She is so, so amazing!” – Frank Doyle, C.O.O. · NVAR
“Our event was elevated by Shawna’s presence. The audience left energized and ready to take action on what they’d learned.” – Conference Organizer, Regional Trade Group
“Shawna was recommended to me by several of my peers and those I work with who had seen her speak at various national events. To my delight we were able to bring her to our annual sales conference as the keynote speaker. Her presentation was tailored to my staff of (60), designed to enlighten, motivate and unlock creativity previously untapped. Boom! What she discussed for ninety minutes was spot on leaving my team wanting more as they took away many aha! ideas to introduce to our potential and existing clientele. Shawna is a class act and wonderful woman who is at the top of her game. So glad that our paths crossed & looking forward to our next encounter!” – David Brown, VP of Sales & Revenue Management, PCH Hotels & Resorts
“Shawna changed my life. Yes, that is rather dramatic, but she has had a huge influence on how I sell. I’ve listened to several of her web classes, read her book, and heard her speak and as a result, I stand out from the crowd. I truly believe I get more emails answered, appointments, and business booked because she challenged me to do things differently. I don’t want to give away my secrets here, but she gave me permission to be funny, offbeat, and authentic, which is what clients are craving these days. I can’t say enough. I don’t want my competitors to engage with her in any way, but I like her too much not to tell people about her! Trust Me, Hire Shawna for your event” – Laura Harper Chappell, Assistant Director of Sales, Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort & Spa
“I’ve been producing meetings for over 15 years, and have worked with a lot of emcees. Shawna received the highest ratings at our latest conference, out of all the speakers who presented over the course of three days. She has a natural, intuitive, and fun style that made everyone feel comfortable right away. She was great at refocusing the attendees between sessions, reinforcing key messages, and adding energy to our long days. Exactly the type of emcee we needed for our corporate sales meeting. Book SHAWNA TODAY, YOU WON’T BE SORRY! She will take your event to the next level with her wisdom and knowledge. Your attendees will thank you” – Dan Yaman,President, Live Spark & LearningWare, St. Paul, MN
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Small is Your Superpower!: How Small Businesses (Finally!) Can Outsmart Big Brands at Marketing
What if being small is actually your biggest advantage today?
In Small Is Your Superpower, Shawna Suckow—small business champion, award-winning marketing speaker, and former corporate insider—flips the script on traditional marketing advice and shows you how to outsmart the big guys by leveraging your size and your uniqueness in new ways that resonate with today’s busy, skeptical customers.
This is not another dry business book filled with outdated tactics and buzzwords. (We’ve had enough of those, thanks.) Instead, you’ll get real talk, smart strategy, and actionable ideas that work for real small businesses—especially the ones run by people who are doing all the things.
The Roaring Twenties! Marketing & Selling Better in the Post-Pandemic Decade
Welcome to the Roaring 2020s! Shawna’s newest book aims to help you understand how consumer behavior is rapidly evolving in the post-pandemic, so you can make the most of what’s next. How can you stand out from the noise, on any budget, and break through to your ideal customers? What’s important to them now? What are they paying attention to? What are they ignoring? It’s all changing…again! It’s going to be a wild ride! Straight Talk for Meetings Industry Sales Professionals: How Planners Really Think, Act and Prefer to Do Business
Times are a-changin’, but you already knew that. What you are doing is not working the same way it used to. In the meetings and events industry, planners don’t buy the same way we used to buy, and we don’t communicate the same way we did before. Shawna’s uncovered a lot of hard truths in three years of researching both planners and suppliers, and we can each do better.
The economy has changed, our industry continues to evolve, and technology continues to transform everything. To those who think the way they have always done business is still fine—this is your wake-up call. The way you’ve sold in the past won’t work anymore, but this book is full of solutions, straight from your customers’ mouths. Planners: Learn What We Do That Drives Suppliers Crazy, and Affects Your Business Outcomes! This book is full of insight direct from over 1,000 suppliers on all the things we planners do that drives them absolutely crazy, yet they have no choice but to keep a smile on their face at all times and thank us for the pleasure of serving us (although Shawna knows many times it’s definitely NOT a pleasure at all!).
Shawna’s learned a lot from suppliers, and admittedly, she admits she’s guilty of many of the bad behaviors she’s written about in this book. It’s cost her in negotiations, in relationships, and in her reputation, without even knowing it until now. She hopes her planner peers will take note of their suppliers’ frustrations and be willing to make some changes in how they conduct business going forward. You’ll improve your ability to negotiate, get more of what you want on site without having to be that planner, and improve your reputation among the supplier community (they talk to each other about us, just like we do about them!).
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