To hear insights on your most important problems and goals. Quite simply, Mark won’t take a speaking gig unless he’s asked to talk about a subject that his audience finds blisteringly important. He doesn’t want to spend time winning people over. He wants them walking in obsessed with a special problem, which Mark will start to help them solve, then and there.

To hear ideas you’ve never heard before. If you only tell people what they’ve already heard, they have no reason to listen to you. Mark, then, plans all his talks around these twin questions: 1. “What  subject would this audience find most important?” 2. “What do I know about the subject that 80% of them don’t know?” Mark seeds his presentation with his answers, so that the audience is surprised and fascinated throughout. With him, you won’t hear the same-old, same-old.

To learn strategies he himself has tested. As a positioning consultant, he’s worked with CEOs of major companies, the former head of Strategy at the Harvard Business School, Simon Sinek of “Start With Why” fame, and several top futurists. He’s also served as CMO of an Inc. 5000 company, as well as Director of Sales for an organization that sold over a billion dollars worth of product. Mark has had to plot strategy, pitch multi-million dollar projects, pioneer sales territories, and lead project teams. He only teaches what he knows works.

To be entertained. These days, audiences don’t want to sit still listening to a talking head. That’s why Mark’s talks are “workshops from the stage,” where he tells stories, asks the audience questions, has people team up for provocative exercises, and brainstorms with them in the moment. He gets them laughing, too. Besides his work in magic, Mark has done standup comedy, and has consulted to and written for the legendary Netfix comedy series, “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” So his audiences don’t just learn. They also leave smiling.

You, me, and everyone we know walk down the street all day long, making snap judgments about everything we see – oftentimes based on almost no information. We think, “That man there? He looks like a nice guy. And that woman there? She looks like a genius. But that woman next to her? She seems like a moron.”

Now you can say we shouldn’t make these kinds of judgments; that they’re specious and wrong-headed. Yet we still make them all the time, and likely always will.

The funny thing? The marketplace is making similar judgments about you and your business. They’re looking at your tagline or product or service, and they’re forming a conclusion, for better or for worse, without much deliberation.

How do you deal with the market’s propensity for instantaneous pigeonholing? You don’t fight it. You work with it.

You use what Mark Levy calls a big sexy idea.

A big sexy idea is your signature idea — your point of differentiation. When you put it at the fore of your business – in your sales pitches, elevator speeches, website headlines, news releases, books, and talks — people will still make snap judgments about you; only this time they’ll be making their judgment based on one of your best ideas.

The result? You’re more likely to get on base with them. They’re more likely to say, “This business sounds like it can really help me. I need to learn more.”

In this presentation, Mark will show you how grab and hold the market’s attention by coming up with your own differentiating big sexy idea. He’ll show you, not only how to create it, but how to use it to win business, and make a marketplace splash for you, your company, or your cause.

Audiences: This presentation is ideal for people who have an active hand in the company’s strategy and differentiation, such as senior executives or entrepreneurs. It’s also for people who are looking to elevate their own personal brand and thought leadership platform.

Let’s face it, most businesspeople don’t know how to talk about what they do for a living and how it can help others. Instead, as they discuss their work, listeners grow bored or confused, and try to end the conversation ASAP. The unfortunate result? Potential sales are lost, opportunities are blown, reputations are damaged, and the businessperson’s self-confidence is (justifiably) shaken.

Not knowing how to talk about one’s business – during formal pitches and company meetings, with stockholders and the press, from the stage and in casual conversation – stunts growth for both the individual and the organization.

In this presentation, Mark teaches audience members how to talk about their businesses clearly and engagingly, so that others will sit up and take notice. They’ll get hands-on training in Mark’s unconventional approach to the elevator speech and back story as ways of making one’s description of their business memorable, emotional, and easy to share.

They’ll also understand how to use these persuasive tools in presentations, meetings, speeches, and casual conversation, and they’ll be able to share their learning with others in their organization.

Audiences: This presentation is ideal for general business audiences. It can be given from the main stage during a leadership event, entrepreneur event, innovation event, or sales event. It’s also for people who are looking to elevate their own personal brand and thought leadership platform.

When it comes to innovating, we hold ourselves back. Why? That’s the way our minds are wired to work.

Inside each of us is an internal editor that does an important job: it edits what we think, say, and write, as we think, say, and write it, so we sound smart and consistent to other people.

Our internal editor helps us fit into society. We say and do what’s expected. Most of the time, there’s nothing wrong with having an editor; it’s gotten us far in life.

Problems arises, though, when we have to think through a situation that doesn’t call for our usual ways. Maybe we have a strategy problem that’s boxed us in for months, or we’re stumped at how to triple our team’s productivity so we can dive through a fast-closing window of opportunity. How, then, do we come up with solutions for problems like these — when our customary answers have failed us?

Enter Mark’s “Innovation On Demand” talk and workshop, which teaches participants a series of liberating thinking and writing techniques that push internal editors into the background temporarily, so the participants can reach a level of thinking that’s more original and resourceful than can be reached through normal means.

While using these techniques, the innovative ideas will come fast and furious, and will rank with the most inventive work the participants have ever done. The new problem-solving skills the participants learn can be used to solve challenges affecting any part of the organization.

In fact, the leaders attending the presentation will likely come up with solutions to some of their most difficult and pressing problems before the presentation itself ends.

Audiences: This presentation is ideal for general business audiences. It can be given from the main stage during a leadership event, entrepreneur event, or innovation event. It’s also for people who are looking to elevate their own personal brand and thought leadership platform.

Mark has consulted to some of the world’s most prominent individuals, including:

• a former department head in the White House
• thought leaders, such as Simon Sinek of “Start with Why” fame
• CEOS of major brands, like Popeye’s
• the former head of Strategy at the Harvard Business School
• anchors for network and cable news programs
• New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling authors
• TED and TEDx speakers
• a former member of Major League Baseball

Mark has also consulted to a TV special on the History Channel, as well as to the iconic Netflix series, “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

Before devoting his work fulltime to Levy Innovation, Mark served as Chief Marketing Officer of an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization with clients such as Bank of America, Nordstrom, Samsung, Time Warner, and Stanford University.

He has written for the New York Times, and has written or co-created five books, including “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content,” which has been translated into ten languages.