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- The Speaker Experts
In 20 years of producing events for blue chip brands, I have never seen such an engaging speaker as Jim Knight.
- Jim Crystal, The Revelry Agency
Are you on a quest for a keynote speaker that’s just a little bit different than your average fare?
Having led Global Training for Hard Rock International for two decades, Jim Knight teaches organizations how to attain their own “rock star” status. His customized programs reveal how to amp up organizational culture, deliver world-class differentiated service, and build rock star teams and leaders.
Check out what all the buzz is about.
JIM KNIGHT
You're nuts if you don't do whatever it takes to book this guy at your next event. Jim Knight is epic!
- Amanda Hite, Co-Founder/CEO, Be the Change Revolution
Programs
Jim's programs are customized and personalized for each audience, and can be delivered In-Person or Virtually for your next event.
Leadership That Rocks
Top Initiatives to Immediately Amp Up the Brand and Deliver Desired Results
This impactful keynote presentation is effectively designed to provide leaders of any level, practical and tactical initiatives to create an iconic business - internally and externally.
Key points include:
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Producing a Virtuous Environment
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Hiring Rock Stars
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Enhancing Employee Engagement
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Creating an Army of Giants
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Amping Up Communication
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Fostering Mentorship and Accountability
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Becoming Heart-Centered
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Developing Emotional Bank Accounts
This program will deliver rapid-fire best practices that any leader can immediately put into practice, starting them down the path to rock star success.
Edu-tainment will be served.
Create Unforgettable Experiences and
Turn Customers into Fans
Every business has competitors. And how you set yourself apart from those competitors will determine whether your customers will fall madly in love with you…or not.
This high-energy, interactive, and visual keynote presentation teaches how to differentiate your organization from the rest to become the business of choice.
Key points include:
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Becoming Customer Obsessed
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Delivering Personalized Experiences
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Avoiding Acceptable Mediocrity
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Eliminating 4-Letter Words
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Creating Raving Fans
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Building Mental Shelf Space
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Writing Yourself into the Story
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Increasing Value Proposition
Immersed in the spirit of Rock ‘n Roll, this edu-taining program will deliver thought-provoking best practices to create mind-searing customer obsession.
Service That Rocks
Culture That Rocks
How to Amp Up and Revolutionize
Company Culture
This high-energy keynote presentation focuses on individuals, departments, and entire companies who are charged with creating, maintaining, and revolutionizing an organizational culture. The program delves into every area of a company’s environment and reveals realistic solutions for systemic change.
Key points include:
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Defining Company Culture
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Understanding Heritage vs. Culture
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Identifying 3C Employees
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Creating Brand Ambassadors
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Amping Up Communication
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Enhancing Employee Engagement
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Handling Organizational Change
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Developing Resiliency
Regardless of your company’s cultural history or status, this program will inspire attendees to take up the challenge of enhancing their organizational environment.
Building a Rock Star Team
How to Find, Develop, and Keep Brand Ambassadors to Produce Iconic Results
This program is effectively designed to highlight best practices in every area of the Employee Life Cycle. Key strategies include how to tap into the needs of today’s talent pool and innovative ways to create, maintain, or revive a strong employee culture, regardless of its current state.
Key points include:
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Understanding the Drivers of Today’s Workforce
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Finding and Retaining Top Talent
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Overhauling Onboarding
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Revolutionizing Training Concepts
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Designing Effective Collateral
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Embracing Technology
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Amping Up Communication
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Utilizing Performance Management Tools
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Realizing the Power of Storytelling
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Fostering Mentorship and Development
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Celebrating Philanthropy
All business results (good and bad) occur because of human behaviors. This program explores specific strategies to empower, inspire, and elevate your employees, creating a team of rock stars for your organization.
There's no way to leave one of Jim's sessions without feeling energized, inspired & ready to start a cultural revolution in your organization.
- Alan Schaefer, Founder, Banding People Together
Video
Brand Ambassadors are the Differentiators.
Captured during one of his virtual keynote sessions, Jim uses the analogy of an electric guitar amplifier to illustrate THE inflection point of a company's differentiator.
The Difference Between Culture and Heritage.
Jim highlights how individuals contribute to an organization's evolving identity and the importance of focusing on fostering a behavioral-driven workplace, rather than an organization’s past.
Great Experiences Blow People Away.
Captured during one of his virtual webinar series, Jim stresses the importance of great customer service as THE differentiator in an experience.
Over Communicate to Create Memories.
As an experiential-starved consumer himself, Jim shares the value of ongoing communication with the team, which gets everyone to sing off the same sheet of music.
Treat People Like Rock Royalty.
Jim talks about the challenge of employee turnover and the value of finding Rock Star employees who “bring the thunder” every day...and then treating them like rock royalty.
All Roads Lead to Human Behavior.
Jim shares his thoughts that all results are produced from learned behavior, and that all the best training in the world is not going to help a bad hire.
As a meeting and events industry veteran, who knows so many speakers personally, Jim Knight is a rare gem among the rest.
- Rebecca Jacques, President, Inspired Hospitality Recruiting
Audiences
BIO
Renowned keynote speaker, author, and training and development expert Jim Knight teaches organizations of all sizes how to attain their own “rock star” status.
Although his illustrious career started at Gatorland Zoo in Florida (he has scars to prove it), Jim cut his teeth in the hospitality training industry and eventually led Global Training for Hard Rock International for two decades. Jim’s customized programs show how to amp up organizational culture, deliver world-class differentiated service, and build rock star teams and leaders.
Jim’s role at Hard Rock involved many facets of organizational training including creating and managing all staff and management training materials and programs; facilitating Hard Rock’s corporate university; overseeing management training locations; producing training videos; directing company e-Learning initiatives; facilitating leadership transitions; and traveling to properties to deliver onsite classes and measure company standards.
Jim put his experience and creativity to work, which has consistently developed cutting-edge training concepts. During his time with the Hard Rock brand, his team won coveted Telly Awards (Guest Service in 2000, Menu Rollout in 2007, Harassment & Discrimination Prevention in 2008); garnered Training Directors Forum’s 1998 prize for “Reengineering Training”; and won Brandon Hall’s Gold Best in Class Award for their “Service Recovery” e-Learning course.
Jim Knight was also recognized by Training Magazine as representing one of the Top 125 training companies in the world out of all industries & businesses. He has since been featured in Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, Entrepreneur Magazine and Fox Small Business News.
Jim has a music degree in Vocal Performance & Education and taught in the Florida public school system for 6 years. He is a lifetime member of CHART (an Association of Hospitality Trainers); previously sat on the Certification Governing Board of the National Restaurant Association; and started a local training forum & networking group (The Training Summit: CHART's 1st Regional Training Forum) with over 100 active members in Central Florida, to share best practices and discuss common issues with other industry professionals.
Jim is the Owner & CEO of Knight Speaker, delivering numerous programs worldwide on leadership, organizational culture, customer service, and employee experience and was listed in the Top 10 Most Booked & Rated Speakers in the U.S. by The Speaker Experts. He is also the best-selling author of Culture That Rocks: How to Revolutionize Your Company’s Culture, a how-to business book designed to amp up a brand in any industry. Entrepreneur Magazine listed the book as one of the "Top 5 Books That Will Transform Your Business". Jim's latest books, Leadership That Rocks: Take Your Brand’s Culture to Eleven and Amp Up Results and Service That Rocks: Create Unforgettable Experiences and Turn Customers into Fans were amazon #1 Best Sellers.
Along with his business partner, Brant Menswar, Jim hosts a weekly "How To" leadership podcast called,
Thoughts That Rock, which helps address society's issues and includes a rock star guest to present three actionable pieces of advice in 30 minutes. Jim and Brant also offer a leadership & cultural training program called, Certified Rock Star, as an edu-taining experience for leaders looking to amp up their business in a variety of areas. Finally, Jim & Brant are the founders of Booky Call, an innovative book discovery platform disguised as a dating app.
A portion of Jim's book sales, podcast revenue, speaking fees and training program proceeds goes to No Kid Hungry to eliminate childhood hunger in the U.S. and Cannonball Kids' cancer, which funds innovative, accessible research for children fighting cancer with better treatments, quality of life, and options for those told they have run out of options.
Podcast
Have you ever been given a piece of advice so incredible that it rocked your world? Brant Menswar and Jim Knight, two of the country's most sought after speakers, discuss bite-sized, specific, and compelling thoughts (shared with a rockstar guest) that have changed the course of people’s lives.
Whether you’re searching for inspiration, long for change, or just enjoy powerful conversation, this weekly, edu-taining podcast will be music to your ears.
Training
CERTIFIED ROCK STAR
TARGET AUDIENCE:
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Half-Day & Full Day Workshops: Business Leaders (all levels)
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Multi-Day Masterminds: Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, C-Suite Executives
Certified Rock Star is a highly-engaging, interactive workshop focused on helping you become the rock star leader you are meant to be. Presented by Jim Knight and Brant Menswar and using the spirit of Rock 'n Roll as a backdrop, this leadership training delivers specific insights and actionable takeaways to help move the needle within your organization.
With a healthy mix of life-changing inspiration and practical learnings, this hands-on program identifies the unique challenges of the Business Professional and provides specific strategies to becoming a more effective and impactful leader. It's edu-tainment at its best! Available in half-day, full-day and multi-day experiences, the workshop is jam-packed with powerful visuals, out of the box thinking, compelling videos, personal stories, validating statistics, enlightening case studies, creative handouts, swag bags and a few personalized music moments along the way.
UNIQUE CONCEPTS
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Finding and Retaining Top Talent
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Maximizing the Employee Life Cycle
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Building an Iconic Team of Promotable Giants
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Finding Your Voice
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Discovering Core Values
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Choosing Your Purpose
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Aligning Organizational and Employee Values
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Sustaining Powerful Motivation
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Understanding the Challenge of Change
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Amping Up Customer Service
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Understanding the Decision Supply Chain
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Making Your Brand Tattoo-Worthy
ADDITIONAL TRAINING
As a former Training & Development executive and now culture catalyst, Jim offers specific employee, manager, and organizational services, many of which can be delivered virtually or in an in-person workshop.
Training programs offered:
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Performance Management - 2-3 hours (includes group work)
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Resiliency & Dealing with Change - 2-3 hours (includes group work)
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Harassment & Discrimination Training - 3-4 hours (includes group work)
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Interviewing Potential Employees - 4 hours (includes roleplay)
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Handling Customer/Guest Complaints - 4 hours (includes roleplay)
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Coaching & Counseling Employees - 4 hours (includes roleplay)
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(Award-Winning) Training & Development Concepts - 3 hours
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New Leader Transition - 4-5 hours (with new boss & existing team)
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New Team Transition - 4-5 hours (early assembly of new team)
Partners
Merch
CULTURE THAT ROCKS
Featured in Entrepreneur Magazine in 2015 as one of the "Top 5 Books That Will Transform Your Business", this how-to business book addresses many major categories of an organization’s culture, including hiring the right talent, creating a differentiated service approach, understanding today’s workforce, enhancing internal collateral, utilizing technology, increasing enterprise wide communication, engaging in authentic philanthropic initiatives and highlighting the importance of leadership.
Using a blended approach of business acumen and music orientation,
Culture That Rocks: How to Revolutionize Your Company's Culture
strategically walks the line between a formalized professional blueprint to overhaul a company’s culture and a more relaxed narrative for the casual reader seeking common sense approaches to keep their company relevant.
Readers will experience a personalized, 1st-person delivery, dozens of rock star brand examples and case studies, detailed call-to-action chapter wrap ups and unique out-of-the-box analogies throughout—including icebergs, chocolate ice cream, Star Trek, comic books, Peter Pan, flying fish, cartoon classics and legendary Rock ‘n Roll icons. Buy the book now and check out what all the buzz is about.
Culture That Rocks is available in print, as an eBook (Kindle) and an Audio USB (narrated by the author).
Limited Edition
USB Audio Book
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LEADERSHIP THAT ROCKS
Up-and-coming leaders have a challenge: How do you enhance your company’s culture in your current role? How do you establish yourself as a leader who takes your organization’s brand to eleven? You may not be an executive, and you may or may not have direct reports, but you still have the power to be a major influencer of your organization’s culture, lighting it up and making it rock, from the inside out.
Leadership That Rocks: Take Your Brand's Culture to Eleven and Amp Up Results teaches new and up-and-coming leaders how to bring the attitude, aptitude and work ethic to create an iconic culture with rock star business results.
Part of the “Culture That Rocks” series, Leadership That Rocks uses examples from some of the most influential and recognizable figures to show you how to become culture-driven, a versatile manager, and a catalyst for change within your organization. You will learn how to develop your own leadership and to powerfully grow your brand’s culture from within your sphere of influence.
Full of practical advice and actionable tips, this leadership blueprint gives you the goods to stand out as a rock star leader who knows how to amp up business results.
SERVICE THAT ROCKS
How do you turn customers into raving fans? You start by giving them experiences they will never forget.
Whether you sell products or services, the only way to stand out is by treating your customers like rock’n’roll royalty—every single time they interact with your company. Service That Rocks: Create Unforgettable Experiences and Turn Customers into Fans shows you how to begin by hiring people especially suited to your business, then giving them the training and permission they need to make your brand iconic.
Part of the "Culture That Rocks" series, Service That Rocks draws on examples from some of the world’s most recognizable big businesses, along with lesser-known but equally potent single-location entities, to reveal how, when exemplary service permeates your organization’s culture, it will transcend simply being transactional.
With edu-training practical advice and actionable tips, Service That Rocks gives you the ultimate set list to avoid mediocrity and create service so memorable that it will transform your customers into devoted fans of the brand.
ROCK 'N' ROLL FORK NECKLACE
Combining music and food {the ingredients of my success} this custom antique nickel "fork necklace" brings out the rock star in anyone.
*Swagger not included.
Rock On!
