Peter Sheahan

Peter Sheahan's Biography

Peter Sheahan has spent a decade teaching business how to flip their thinking and find opportunity where others cannot. He believes that the real money gets made in the cracks, and that the opportunity for mind-blowing success is all around us. The problem is we get conditioned by our experience, blinded by our business models and conned by the popular media to believe success is a product of the economic conditions.

Peter’s clients include Newscorp, Google, Hilton Hotels, GlaxoSmithKline, Harley Davidson, Cisco and Goldman Sachs. Many of which engage him on an ongoing basis to provoke their leaders to re-think their assumptions and challenge them to find innovative ways of doing business. He has been described by one of his clients as the “guy to call when you want your answers questioned”.
Peter’s success is driven by his ability to identify areas of untapped potential within organizations, develop the unique thought processes needed to profit from them, and then catalyze the key individuals to take the risks required to make it a reality. Clients consistently remark on the depth of his insight, the global nature of his business perspective and the comprehensive research he does into their industry, their organization, its model and the current threats and opportunities they face.
Peter’s fifth book Fl!p, an international best-seller available in 25 countries, emphasizes the need for leaders to have mindset flexibility. It explores the changing nature of leadership; evolving business models; and unpacks dozens of strategies for finding opportunity and making money in tough economic times. Peter walks his talks, and can speak from personal experience. A former General Manager of a $10 million hotel business, Peter has established himself as highly successful entrepreneur. In addition to his world renowned thought leadership practice, Peter is also the CEO of the Centre for Skills Development (CSD). The CSD specializes in large scale social change projects and now runs the largest face-to-face financial literacy program for teenagers in the world. In partnership with Apple, the CSD developed and continues to run the ground breaking Beyond Chalk program, working with educators to create 21st Century learning environments
More recently the CSD has taken on IBM as a client and is running development programs in large corporations and Government departments teaching staff how to use technology to foster collaboration and drive productivity in their organizations.
In January 2010, Peter’s sixth book is due for release - Making it Happen. This book will guide individuals through the 5 key strategies required to turn good ideas into great results. Or better said, turn opportunity into profit.
Peter’s outstanding achievements were first officially recognized in 2003 when Peter had the honor of being named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in his home state. He is best known though for his skills as a presenter and his ability to customize his expertise to meet the needs of the audience. He has delivered more than 2000 presentations to over 300,000 people in 15 different countries. In 2006, Peter was awarded the National Speakers Association Keynote Speaker of the Year, as voted by his peers.
Seen as a global thought leader, Peter’s insights into business trends and the changing needs of customers and staff make him a regular presenter on Fox Business, as well as appearing on ABC and the BBC as well. In 2008 Peter was a featured expert in a five-part global series on Innovation on CNBC, and he has been written up in the Washington Post and Fast Company Magazine.
Peter Sheahan is a unique and inspiring thought leader whose ideas and experiences are changing the face of the business world.

Speaking Topics Include

Insight into the generation differences in the workplace
Explore how the mindset of Generation Y is trending upwards and how it will redefine how you treat your staff and customers
Building an employer brand
How to market your brand in both the local and wider community
Increase your understanding of the changing nature of the workforce, and what you as a leader need to do to ensure your organisation remains agile, relevant and attractive in this increasingly competitive market.

MAKE IT HAPPEN
If the only way to get to Carnegie Hall is to practice, practice, practice, then the only way to make it happen is to execute, execute, execute. The world isn’t short of new ideas. It is short of people with ability to turn these good ideas into reality. It is as though we have lost our commercial savvy! Making it happen will bring it back and outline the 5 competencies we must all master if we are to execute on our new ideas and plans for change. Specifically it will:
Expose the #1 mistake we make when trying to execute on our ideas
Unpack the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience offering insight into how people buy and show you how to better position your offer to align with buyers needs
Influence a buyer to not only want what you sell, but to want it from YOU
Show you how to leverage personal brands for greater commercial success
Massively accelerate your impact through scale, leverage and brand platform

MINDS UNLEASHED –Interactive Experiences which drew the ideas out of you OWN people If everyone in your team knew what everyone else in your team knows you would be unstoppable! From time-to-time it is not a fresh injection of ideas that you need, but rather an experience which draws out the best new ideas from the people already in your world. In a structured facilitation your best and brightest talent will get the chance to share their thoughts and ideas on the business, the challenges it faces and the opportunities it is yet to exploit. These highly collaborative and culture-building experiences will:
Reveal innovative solutions to real challenges you face
Give you access to the experience and insight garnered from working with leadership teams around the world to kick start and provoke the thinking of your team
Create an opportunity to question the very assumptions which underpin your approach to business and to dig deeper and reveal new ways to find and extract value from your organization

NEXT GEN PROFITS – Attract,engage and profit from the next generation of customers and talent: Generation Y represents one the most lucrative opportunities open to business today. Whether you want to unleash their creativity at work, get your share of the $200bn plus they spend annually, or align yourself to profit from the $17.8 trillion they will inherit, you will need a fresh approach to branding, sales and leadership.
Human needs never change, but our definitions of whether those needs are being met change dramatically based on how we were brought up. If you are going to attract and retain the new generation as customers, members and staff you will need to understand their new perspectives and definitions.
This session will:
Give you insight into the REAL differences between generations
Outline specific strategies for attracting and engaging Gen Y as customers and/or staff
Present case studies from around the world of organizations who have profitably engaged this new generation
Move beyond “technology” hype and focus on opportunities which align with your desired culture and business model

FLIP!: FUTURE-PROOF YOUR OPERATION
Four forces of change have worked to completely redefine the global marketplace. Increasing expectations, accountability, complexity, and compression of time and space have created a business climate where competitive advantage is often intangible and quickly eroded, and the need to innovate product lines and processes is constant. Leaders today must recognise that “business as usual” is a redundant concept and the successful businesses of tomorrow will be built on a platform of courageous leadership, innovation and change. Flip is a proactive philosophy that will position you and your organisation as the force of change in the market and not just someone who responds to change.
The key concepts include:
How the four forces of change are impacting your industry and what it means for your organisation
The expectations and motivations of today’s customers and staff and an insight into where they will sit tomorrow
Why you no longer own your brand and how you can flip it to your advantage
Co-creation and the importance of collaborating with your clientele, competitors and the wider market
Why the superficial differentiators are becoming front and centre
Capturing market share, and creating new markets through innovation and a willingness to take risks in fringe and niche markets

BUILDING AN AWESOME EMPLOYER BRAND
The worsening skills shortage and a rapidly ageing population mean organizations must compete aggressively to attract and retain the best talent. Gone are the days when you simply placed an ad in your local paper and got bombarded by quality applicants who would be grateful for such an opportunity. Today, the quality candidate is more likely to interview YOU, as they decide whether you are the organisation (of the 4 or 5 they have offers from) that they want to work for. It IS possible to overcome the odds and make yourself a magnet for the best talent, but to do this and get ahead in these trying times you need to work on building a powerful employer brand that screams opportunity and prestige.
Peter’s informative and interactive session will:
Present the case for building an employer brand and offer a compelling series of inter-industry case studies to show just how powerful a strategically positioned employer brand can be
Provide you with a model so you can begin to discover your value proposition and start defining your employer brand
Give you ideas on how to market that brand in both the local and wider community, setting yourself on the path to becoming an employer of choice
Increase your understanding of the changing nature of the American workforce, and what you as a leader need to do to ensure your organisation remains agile, relevant and attractive in this increasingly competitive market.