The Sweeney Agency

About Phillip Van Hooser - Expert on Leadership and Customer Service:

Phillip Van Hooser has spoken, written and consulted on leadership development worldwide since 1988. As founder and concept director for Leaders Ought To Know®, a comprehensive leadership development initiative, Phillip leads the creative direction of multi-faceted learning systems and strategies that help leaders maximize their performance so they can achieve their organization’s goals.

Phillip’s popular books, We Need to Talk: Building Trust When Communicating Gets Critical and Willie’s Way: 6 Secrets for Wooing, Wowing and Winning Customers and Their Loyalty along with his leadership development initiative Leaders Ought To Know® help organizations lower turnover rates, increase productivity, improve management/employee relations and manage change effectively.

Companies around the globe have trusted Phillip and his expertise to achieve their leadership development goals. His 800-plus clients include such recognized brands as Allstate Insurance, Reebok, P&G Pharmaceuticals, BlueCross BlueShield, Lockheed Martin, KPMG, Verizon, Wells Fargo and El Nacional.

Phillip’s clients and their unique organizational circumstances have afforded him a diverse array of leadership case studies from which to learn. He wraps this multi-layer experience into customized leadership keynote presentations, training courses and leadership development initiatives for his clients.

In 2011, Phillip was awarded the prestigious Top5 Speaker designation by Speakers Platform, one of the United States most prominent speakers bureaus Out of hundreds of nominees, Phillip Van Hooser has risen to become one of the world’s most respected and compelling speakers in leadership.

What Phillip Van Hooser Talks About:

Leaders Ought To Know
As recruiting and retaining quality talent becomes more competitive, keeping an organization's internal pipeline full of competent, capable leaders is increasingly critical. The assumption that promoting a candidate into a leadership position will, by osmosis, make them a competent leader is a common, short-sighted practice in organizations today. While many organizations have not defined what is expected of their organizational leaders, this presentation will examine the critical issues that successful leaders ought to know.

Content areas:

• Honesty, Respect & Restraint
• Motivation or Manipulation?
• Learning to Listen
• Team Building Green Beret Style

Transformational Leadership
Competitive, growth-oriented businesses require multi-faceted leaders who generate profits while improving employee performance and retention. Through real-life examples and cutting edge discussions, Phil offers executives and managers practical strategies that will transform the way they solve complex leadership issues.

Content areas:

• Equipping leaders to empower their people
• Managing change and maximizing the opportunities change brings
• Making and communicating difficult decisions
• Motivating today's new breed of employee
• Managing conflict and confrontation with positive results

Commandments for Leaders
In a nationwide survey, employees were asked one question: What one practical concept does your manager need to know about leading people? Hundreds of responses yielded these critical concepts every executive and manager who wants to be taken seriously as a leader should understand and practice.

Content areas:

• The critical link between relationship-building with employees and leadership success
• The correlation between emotional self-control and leadership effectiveness
• Two facts about employee motivation
• Finding opportunities to reward employee behavior, encourage risk and invite dissent
• Three step formula for earning respect as a leader

We Need to Talk: Building Trust When Communicating Gets Critical
All facets of organizational operations are impacted, positively or negatively, by the ability to communicate. Customers are won or lost --- employees are encouraged or de-motivated – personal networks are expanded or extinguished – all by how well one communicates.

In this high energy, content rich presentation, professionals will be equipped with communications strategies that show how to earn trust when communicating, rein in brutal honesty and the damage it causes, listen actively to improve communications connections, rebuild the believability quotient when truthfulness has not always been practiced, deliver difficult messages with honesty and sensitivity, eliminate barriers that impede communications and deliver the message even when others aren’t cooperating.

Content areas:

• Behaviors that negatively impact communications success
• Six step process for improving communications outcomes inside or outside the organization
• Truthfulness -- why it is the most important element of successful communications

Building Work Teams that Work
Finding, evaluating and directing talented individuals is one thing; getting them all to work together is tougher still. This presentation helps executives and maangers understand the process of building and leading effective teams.

Content areas:

• Understanding the impact of authority on team building
• Groups, mobs, teams: understanding the differences
• Six levels of empowerment
• Overcoming the barrier of confrontation
• Indications that team problems exist
• Anticipating and resolving team building concerns

6 Secrets of Service Professionalism
Successful business leaders recognize the critical connection between service performance and bottom line profitability. When these six service techniques are applied to their own enterprises, executives, managers and frontline staff find performance and profitability are boosted while loyal customer relationships are built.

Content areas:

• The critical difference between service provider and service professional
• Characteristics of customer-focused professionals
• Six strategies for immediate customer service improvement
• Strategies for building your professional image