Rick Tate Speaker, Consultant, Trainer, Author Rick Tate is an internationally recognized expert on service quality, leadership development and organizational excellence. Rick is co-founder of Innovative Thinking, Inc., an international consulting firm, a founding faculty member of the Center for Innovative Leadership, and a faculty member for the Institute of Management Studies.

For over 15 years, Rick has been consulting, speaking, training, writing and developing state of the art concepts that challenge people’s mind-sets and develop new ways of thinking. His expertise is backed by over 12 years of successful line management experience.

Rick has authored many books, articles and training programs including the best-seller, Leadership and the Customer Revolution, Legendary Service, Frontline Service, World Class Customer Service and The Service Monkey. His acclaimed training programs have been translated into over eleven languages and distributed all over the world.

Rick is a captivating and motivating speaker whose use of stories, examples, anecdotes and metaphors provides a unique learning experience for audiences. He speaks to literally thousands of people a year from groups of ten senior executives to thousands of front line employees.

His client list is extensive and reads like a “who’s who” of business. It includes such notable organizations as Disney, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, American Honda, Brinker, Xerox, IBM, Perrier, National Park Service, Norwest, Publix, Norstan, Manpower, Bank-One, Nortel and J.C. Penney. Rick holds graduate degrees from the University of San Francisco and California American University and has served as a faculty member at many institutions of higher education.

PRESENTATION TOPICS

Leadership and the Customer Revolution

Rick will work with you to build custom programs from the issues covered in this “best-selling” book which has been touted by Service and Leadership gurus such as Dr. Stephen Covey (“7 Habits…”) and Jan Carlson (“Moments of Truth”) as ”...absolutely cutting edge… Worth reading again and again.” From the complementary copy of this book, your organization can pick the issues that best fit your needs and goals. Popular issues include: Revolutionary Leadership, Revolutionary Service, The Leader as a Customer Advocate, and The Leader as a System Architect.

No Theory—No Learning: A Prerequisite for Change

This presentation is perfect for the group who is challenged to change the way they do business in the future. In an entertaining and humorous way, Rick demonstrates how our assumptions and ways of thinking can block new learning. This presentation was voted as, “One of the most profound presentations in years.” by members of the Institute of Management Studies. By learning to rethink their thinking, participants will build a foundation for systematic improvement. They will leave this presentation with a thirst for knowledge and a liberation to see and hear things in new ways.

Service Leadership: The 10 Fundamentals

There is a reason that these concepts have been among the most widely used all over the world for the past six years. Having been translated into over 11 languages, hundreds of organizations such as Disney, Appleton Paper and Johnson & Johnson have credited these Fundamentals as having a direct impact on their business success. This keynote will give participants an overview of core competencies that have been tied to the successful use of Service as a competitive advantage. Optional designs can come from selecting one or some of the Fundamentals that are of particular importance to your group.

Frontline Service

There is nothing more important than the superior execution of the delivery of service at the point of contact with the customer… the front line! All the strategies, knowledge, systems and data bases are of no consequences if they cannot be translated into improved performance at the front line. This presentation will entertain and energize front line personnel with humorous stories and anecdotes. They will receive an overview of the key elements in the superior execution of service delivery. This overview will raise their awareness and understanding of the importance of service and their critical role. Targeted presentations can be designed to provide participants with strategies and skills that will help them make the most of their day-to-day interactions with people who receive their services.

Employee Retention

The recruiting and retention of quality people is a high priority for most organizations in today’s marketplace. We must cast aside past notions of what attracts people to an organization and what influences them to stay. The models of the past economy are outdated. For the employee today the prevailing value is in the experience! In this session you will learn the importance of employee development and retention, what attracts people to an organization and what influences them to stay, why leadership is key to finding and keeping good employees and how to get a high return on investment from your recruiting and retention efforts.

Customer-Centered Communications (C3)TM

In order to effectively compete in a global environment today’s organizations must focus their efforts on creating value for the customer. Simple enough, until you take a good look at how most organizations try to accomplish this using the typical communications model. With the old model, information about customers typically enters the organization through one or two sources, generally Sales and Marketing. That information is then analyzed, spun, watered down, filtered and passed along in the organization in a linear format until it reaches the support functions, most often in the form of “nice-to-know” tidbits. In this session, you will learn about the C3TM model that is based on the principle that every employee in your organization has an intimate knowledge of your customers’ wants, needs and expectations through the distribution of information. Learn how to use this new model of communication to help employees make effective decisions, solve problems more quickly, and develop objectives which focus on serving the end-user customer.

TESTIMONIALS

Rick was the highest rated speaker at our conference. -Sheri Brown, Arizona Council of Human Service Providers Excellent… could not have been better received. Thank you for all your help and please pass on my appreciation and thanks to Rick. I plan to send him a note myself but feel free to tell him about the rave reviews you heard from Norwest. He was very entertaining as well as enlightening! Thank you again.

Donna Miller, Norwest

Thank you Rick for doing a great job in Columbus and Dallas! -Beth, Jon and Mark, IMS The feedback I have received has been overwhelming. You constructively challenged the operation of every level of our organization. What left the greatest impression was the concept that organizations who are experiencing success cannot rely on old systems of operation. The methods that proved successful in the past may well have to be changed to be effective in the future…

Glen D. Alexander, Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Wow!! Your presentation at Business Expo ‘98 was outstanding. Our guests were buzzing all day, and compliments and kudos have continued to roll in. The success of a major event like Business Expo, where thousands visit during a short period of time, cannot be made possible without the draw of a seriously valuable like yourself. We cannot thank you enough for your contributions, nor can we relay accurately the impact that they had on our show.

Julie Mohr, Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce

Your involvement in the general session and breakout session proved to be one of the key factors that contributed to the overall success of the conference. We truly appreciate the time you spent with us prior to the conference and during our event. Thank you for helping us making the 1998 conference, our most successful event ever!

Carol Skinner, New Horizons

Many thanks for staying with us and presenting to a mixed audience at Cambelback Inn which included members from other hotels in sales and operations for Marriotts. We all enjoyed your presentation very much, and we appreciate your flexibility (and initiative) in responding to this expanded audience and demonstrating a “shocking recovery”, to shift your speech to meet your audience. Sandy Staples Trudel, Cambelback Inn Marriott

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