Contact Bill Hickman at bill@billhickman.com or (770) 335-9119
Copyright 2008 Bill Hickman All rights reserved
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"Your energy should be bottled and sold!!!" "Engaging, entertaining!" "A mesmerizing speaker!" "Vibrant & Fast Moving!" " Best 90 minutes in a LONG time!" "A GREAT motivator!"
"I expected it to be good but I didn't expect it to be THAT good!! I got a LOT out of it." "Captivating!"
For information on programs and pricing click here or contact The Gyst Group by phone at (770) 335-9119.
On this page you will learn about Bill's Dynamic Speaking Programs
A passionate and much sought after speaker, Bill delivers keynotes and a wide range of customized seminars, workshop, and presentations, all with one core message:
Get Your Stuff Together!
Bill's Values
Act with integrity
Respect each person
Simplify the complex
Serve others
Bill's Keynotes and Customized Programs Include:
Click Here to see Bill's most recent speaking engagements!
By far one of the best seminars I've attended in 25 years. OUTSTANDING! John McGrew
Can't wait for a public program? Want to hear Bill's wildly popular ideas about Networking today? Click Here!
Bill knows his audience, he’s passionate, and he connects! I highly recommend him for any public speaking engagement you may have.
Jack Cowen
Click Here to read more quotes about Bill from seminar participants!
Bill Hickman breaks networking down into easy to understand steps that can enable anyone from a young professional like myself to the most seasoned and experienced leaders of business to maximize their personal connections for career and social development.
Ryan M. Lapine Ervin, Cohen & Jessup LLP
Want to understand how to Bridge the Credibility Gap?
The Balanced Scorecard: What the Heck is it - REALLY?
The Balanced Scorecard has been called the most important and influential business concept of the last fifty years. The vast majority of the Fortune 1000 and thousands of other companies around the world have implemented a Balanced Scorecard or used the concept to improve their business. There is a problem, though...a simple Internet search yields over 3000 books and articles along with over 1,000,000 individual listings and web sites. Just what the heck is this thing?
Bill has both done the research and built Balanced Scorecards for large and small organizations. He has distilled all of this into a simple, easy to understand explanation of the Balanced Scorecard. In this popular presentation he shares this knowledge and draws on his personal experience to pass along lessons on quick, effective implementation.
If you think a Balanced Scorecard is only for large companies - you could not be more wrong! Let Bill explain how easy it can be to get world class results!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Is there a credibility gap between your organization and its business partners? Aren't sure? To find out, check out the glaze factor. Watch the eyes of non-technical executives the next time you or your leaders speak. If they glaze over, you have a credibility gap.
The problem generating this gap is so basic that many leaders simply don't recognize it as an issue.
As a former S&P 500 executive Bill believes the gap is wholly the fault of the leadership with the gap. In this presentation he discusses the problem and suggests a way to bridge the gap using the language of strategy.
If you want to improve your company quickly, let Bill explain how you can do so right now - TODAY!
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The Balanced Scorecard: Six Simple Secrets of Success!
Is your organization measuring things that truly matter to the business? How do you know for sure?
One way is to implement a Balanced Scorecard that aligns all activity in your organization to business drivers and then measures its performance. But with all of the work going on in your organization, do you have the time for something that complicated? In this hands on program Bill will help you answer this question (along with a few others) for yourself:
Do you understand your company's strategy?
Do your subordinates understand your company's strategy?
Is your strategy aligned with the company's goals?
How do you know?
If these questions make you pause even a little, Bill can show you how to use the power of the Balanced Scorecard to easy can be to make things better!
If you think a Balanced Scorecard is too difficult - you could not be more wrong! Let Bill explain the Six Simple Secrets of Success!
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Get Your Stuff Together To Build Your Career:
21st Job Transition: Building a Cohesive Job Search!
How is your job search going? Are you getting interviews? Getting callbacks? Have you noticed that there seem to be a lot of really good folks out there who do the same thing you do?
If you are like most of us, you're probably finding that methods and techniques that worked well in the past seem to be less effective in the current marketplace. Given that, how do you uncover opportunities? More importantly, how do you maximize those opportunities? In this tough marketplace, how do you even start?
The key is to approach your job search the same way business approaches marketing – with a cohesive strategy based on your value.
In this session you will learn:
The Essential Foundation of Job Search
THE Great Question of Job Search
The Core of Effective Job Search
How to Develop a Cohesive Job Search, and
The Top Ten Ways to BLOW a Job Search!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Do you have all the contacts you could possibly want? Do you make the most of every networking opportunity? Do you know that the majority of business for small businesses and the vast majority of jobs are obtained through networking?
In this most popular of all Bill's presentations you will hear the simple, practical, and useful tips on networking he has shared with thousands! You will also learn how to generate contacts and how to make networking meaningful. This program can change the way you think!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Interviewing: How to Talk Your Way Into The Job You Want!
You've finally got that interview you've been after! Great, but....now what? Do you know how to effectively prepare for the interview?Do you know what to say and what NOT to say? Are you ready to WOW the interviewer?
Even if you're just a little unsure of yourself, this program is for you! In this program Bill will give you simple, practical, and useful tips on what to do before, during, and after the interview. He will even cover the top ten ways to blow an interview and how to avoid them!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Do you consider yourself to be a poor negotiator? Most of us do, but in reality we are merely untrained. It may come as a surprise, but whether you are dealing with a difficult client or simply figuring out where to have lunch, you negotiate every day.
In this unique program you will learn how to avoid the only uniformly fatal trap of negotiation! Bill will help you understand how to move two opposing sides to agreeable middle ground.
In either presentation or hands on workshop format, Bill will outline the five steps of effective negotiation as well as the critical mistakes to avoid. Learn negotiation strategies and tips to help you build relationships while dealing effectively with difficult clients.
If conflict is your stumbling block, this program is for you!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Get Your Stuff Together to Manage More Effectively:
Project Management: It's More Than Just A Gantt Chart!
Are you happy with your project managers? If not, are they managing projects or managing process? If yours is like most organizations, you would probably intuitively say you manage both, but do you really? No matter what how hard you may wish it, managing projects and managing process are not the same things. The difference is short term versus long-term results
As uncomfortable as this realization may be, there is even more important questions that must be addressed:
If your PMs focus solely on short term results do they even care about process?
If they don’t care about process, what does that mean for your long-term results?
In this dynamic presentation, Bill helps you understand how to deal effectively with these questions by implementing an effective program of process management.
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Staying Alive! Time Management for the Overworked!
It’s going to be a great day. You only have 3 things you need to get done for that project and plenty of time to do them.
Just as you are about to start, your boss calls an emergency meeting that sucks up most of the morning. When you come back from that (with new tasks from your boss) you get a call from a customer. When she gets off the phone you are ready to start back up on your project, but find 24 new emails and voice mails.
ARRGH! How in the world can you get it all done?
In this informative seminar you will learn:
The key to effective time management
How to organize your time to allow for interruptions
A technique for dealing with interruptions
The difference between tasks and projects
How to schedule what you need to do so it gets done and
How to get things you don’t need to do off your list!
Guidelines for creating the most effective tool for time management
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
No Snoring! The Secrets of Running Effective Meetings!
You’ve been there. You are just about to make the central point of the meeting you called, but when you look around the room you see people staring off into space, doodling, or half asleep! Great! What do you do now? It may be too late for this meeting, but there are proven ways to make your next meeting much more effective.
In this informative seminar Bill will share with you:
The top ten characteristics of a bad meeting
What people want in meetings
How to personally prepare for meetings
How to facilitate effective meetings
How to deal with disruptive behavior in meetings
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Want to understand the Balanced Scorecard? Click Here!
Thriving in Chaos - It's Child's Play!
It's your first day. You have finally achieved the role as top dog you have been seeking for years! Your office is exactly like you thought it would be. Your new assistant waits patiently just outside the door. The entire organization is poised to follow your leadership. Life is GREAT!
Great, that is, until you figure out that the organization is in chaos. Though it was well hidden you discover it is not meeting commitments, the physical plant is broken, the staff operates unsafely, those who are supposed to be leaders are untrained, and YOU are now in charge. THIS is what you waited years for?
Bill Hickman chased his dream job for 33 years. When he took command of a guided-missile frigate in the US Navy, though, he got a whole lot more than he bargained for. While trying to live through the day to day chaos he found that a simple lesson from childhood not only enabled him to survive, but to thrive in that chaotic environment. Since he discovered that chaos is not restricted to the Navy, he has applied the technique with astounding success. In this presentation he shares how you can as well.
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Get Your Stuff Together To Be A Better Leader:
The Greatest Leadership Secret Of Them All
When Times Get Tough, What Kind Of A Leader Will You Be?
Will you try to emulate the skills of the great military leaders of history such as Robert E. Lee, George Patton, Napoleon, or Ghengis Khan?
Will you try to use the secrets of great political leaders such as the simple wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, the persistence of Winston Churchill, or the patience of Ghandi?
We would all like to say that we will do something like this, to rely on the wisdom of the great. In truth, however, even if we are exposed to their thinking, most of us cannot do what they did because we aren’t them!
What we CAN do is to learn from life and experience. We can always be on the lookout for that pearl of wisdom; the key that will help us when we need it most.
Bill Hickman knows, because he found the pearl, The Greatest Leadership Secret of Them All,when he least expected it,and it sustained him when he needed it the most.
As a young boy Bill’s fondest dream was to attend the US Naval Academy and to command a ship in the Navy. Lacking the necessary math skills, he enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17 and worked his way up from the Deck Force to the bridge.
Along the way he not only learned the math, but also the art of leadership in one of the oldest training crucibles known to man – the sea. By the time he achieved his dream 23 years later he was a very different man. The day he assumed command of his very own ship USS John A Moore (FFG 19) he thought he had it all. Then he learned what leadership really was.
What happened along the way is a compelling story, one that he gladly shares with those who want to learn…
The Greatest Leadership Secret Of Them All!
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Your talk was bold, entertaining, factual, hard hitting, and a wake-up call to many in the audience. The timing was perfect and you connected with everyone in the audience.
Roger Blackstock, Parkway Business Association
Can't wait to hear this presentation from Bill? Now you don't have to!
In his latest CD Bill shares the secrets of childhood
In our business life we ask questions every day, but are they the right questions? Consider:
Are they questions to which we really want answers?
Are they questions to which there are no safe answers?
Are they questions to which we already know the answers?
Are they questions to which we demand answers – RIGHT NOW?
When you ask these questions, what kind of answers do you get…informed, thoughtful, helpful, or useless? What we often forget is that while the questions we ask MAY give us the information we seek, they WILL have a direct impact on our relationships, our organizations, and our bottom lines.
In the fast paced technological world of modern business it is more important than ever to recognize that our success or failure depends not on our skill or technical knowledge, but on our ability to get the job done. Doing so requires us to interact successfully with people – our subordinates, our peers, our leaders, and our customers. What are you communicating to them? Are you asking the right questions?
Bill Hickman knows because he learned the skill of asking the right question when he least expected it and it sustained him when he needed it the most.
As a young boy Bill’s fondest dream was to command a ship in the US Navy. As he pursued his dream he harbored a deep secret. He was a non-technical person navigating through a highly technical world.
How he used the skill to navigate to his dream is a compelling story. How he later used the skill to navigate as a successful Chief Information Officer is relevant to everyone in business.
If a non-technical person can do that, ask yourself…Are YOU Asking The RIGHT Questions?
Additional questions? Want to book Bill? Click Here.
Have you finished that business plan yet? You really have been meaning to…and you know it’s important… and you should…but you just can’t bring yourself to do it….now can you?
You might think, so what? It’s no big deal…a business plan isn’t all that important. After all a business plan is too complex, too stuffy, too corporate, and too much work, so you’ll continue to muddle along without one.
If this is true for you consider that without a business plan:
Your business has only a 44% chance of survival!*
With the greatest of respect…this is crazy!
You do NOT have your stuff together!
What you don’t know is that writing a business plan is not hard. All it takes is focus, a template, and a little time, which is what you get in this lively session.
Bill Hickman has taken the fear out of business planning. He has simplified the business planning process so effectively that you will know precisely what little you need to do and why you need to do it. More importantly, you will have the knowledge and confidence to create a customized business plan for your small business.
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You NEED A Marketing Plan!
How’s your business going? Got all the customers you need? Better question is do you have all the customers you WANT? Like many small business owners, do you have a very fuzzy concept of marketing and what you can expect from it? Is your marketing sporadic and ineffective? Better question…
Are you doing any marketing at all?
Let’s be frank, shall we? Unless you market your products and services how in the world do you expect to sell anything?
With the greatest of respect…this is crazy!
You do NOT have your stuff together!
No matter what you sell, be it ties or tax services, you need a coordinated strategy for your products and services. In other words, you need a marketing plan.
Bill Hickman has taken the fear out of small business marketing. Using tools from the Harvard Business School he has simplified the process so effectively that you will know precisely what little you need to do and why you need to do it. More importantly, you will have the confidence of both a template and the knowledge to create a customized marketing plan for your small business.
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