Biography

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt University, Jeff has quickly become one of the most in-demand presenters in North America.  His truly unprecedented ability to deliver high-quality education in an undeniably entertaining way has earned him dozens of repeat clients, all of whom appreciate Jeff’s insistence that education is the only way that we improve at anything and that we’ll all improve better and faster if we enjoy the learning process.  By combining the content of the traditional presentation with the entertainment value of a comedy show, Jeff has found enthusiastic audiences in government, academia, small businesses and several Fortune 50 companies, all while still being one of the youngest members of the professional speaking circuit.

The Jeff Havens Company exists because of Jeff’s firm belief that making learning fun is the quickest, cheapest, and most effective way to create a culture where people are eager to continually improve.  Whether you want to improve your leadership or change management strategies, whether you want a plug-and-play solution or something more perfectly tailored to your particular needs – if it’s important to you, we’ll make it fun.  Because here at The Jeff Havens Company, we know that improving your business doesn’t have to be boring.

Speech Topics

NEW!

Conquering Tomorrow

Change Management for People Who Occasionally think Changes Are Dumb

If there’s one thing that’s true for everybody, it’s that things are constantly changing. And sometimes that’s great, like when we win the lottery or land an important account. These are the easy changes to deal with, and nobody really needs help figuring out what to do about them.

But sometimes change is not so great, like when we get divorced or our company goes through a restructuring or there’s a worldwide pandemic that comes out of nowhere and shuts the entire planet down – that happened once, remember? And when these changes hit us, we have a tendency to run and hide and kick and scream and basically deal very poorly with them. Unfortunately, deciding that we don’t like a particular change won’t make it go away. If only there were a way to see “negative” changes in a more positive light…

And that’s where Conquering Tomorrow comes in. Designed for anyone who has ever approached an upcoming change with hesitation or dread (which is everyone, by the way), Conquering Tomorrow takes audiences on a journey through some of life’s most common “bad” changes – some personal, some professional – to reveal a profound and important

truth: that while the process of going through difficult changes may not always be fun, the end result of those changes is usually far better than we’re afraid it will be.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is funny? Delivered with Jeff’s trademark wit and infectious enthusiasm, Conquering Tomorrow is a highly personalized approach to the one of the thorniest challenges facing modern businesses – getting employees to buy into the changes that will inevitably come. Part motivational speech, part change management seminar, and all hilarious, Conquering Tomorrow will leave your people feeling like they can handle anything the world throws at them – even if they weren’t looking for it.

Partial List of Takeaways:

• Recognizing the four main reasons we most commonly fear or resist unplanned, unexpected, or unasked-for changes
• Learning to distinguish between the process of change (which is sometimes frustrating) to the result of change (which is usually positive)
• Developing a long-term attitude toward change management to help reduce short- term frustrations and put temporary setbacks into proper context
• How to use current successes as a guide for how future changes are likely to resolve themselves

Decoding Your Customers!

Perfecting the Customer Experience In Four Simple Steps

Ah, the customer experience.

It used to be that you just had to provide customers with good service, right? But that somehow became synonymous with dealing with problems and putting out fires, and so now you have to provide your customers with an experience that is so positive, happy, seamless, and nauseatingly joyful that they will happily wait in lines for hours just for the privilege of giving you money. You’d be forgiven if creating a great customer experience sounds exhausting. If only there were a fun, funny, high-energy, deeply researched keynote to help you figure out how to make this process a little easier.

Well now there is. Decoding Your Customers: Perfecting the Customer Experience in Four Simple Steps will provide you with a comprehensive, straightforward, and entertaining explanation for how to win hearts and minds like never before.

Now there are plenty of other customer experience keynotes. But the overwhelming majority of them either tell you how important it is to make your customers feel special (which you already knew) or share stories of businesses who have loyal customers (which you’ve already heard). And if you want to hear what you’ve already heard before, then hire somebody else.

Decoding Your Customers takes a vastly different approach. As hilarious as it is informative, this keynote concentrates on the human behaviors that have brought the customer experience to where it is today, then synthesizes those behaviors into four simple realities that provide a clear vision for how to move forward. Decoding Your Customers will answer why customers behave the way they do and how you can meet their needs – not only today, but into the foreseeable future as well.

And last but certainly not least, this isn’t going to be a dry talk. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of customer psychology and how to adjust your business accordingly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t laugh as hard as you ever have at a corporate keynote.

Because with Jeff Havens, you get serious solutions in a seriously funny way. It turns out that crafting a winning customer experience strategy isn’t as scary or unpredictable as others may have made it seem.

Partial List of Takeaways:

• How the drive for convenience has changed in the past 30 years, and what that means for how you design and sell new products and services
• The effect of constant connection on customer behavior, and how smart businesses have learned to think smaller in order to grow
• How most businesses vastly underestimate the importance of marketing their products, services, and ideas, along with two essential types of marketing every business should engage in
• How the universal desire for meaning can inform your interactions with customers and drive greater sales
• Absolutely no That’s right, you will not hear ‘advocate,’ ‘tribe,’ ‘brand ambassador,’ or ‘rabid fan’ once in this keynote. How’s that for a refreshing change of pace?

Us Vs. Them!

The Funniest, Most Informative Generational Keynote Ever!

If you’ve listened to any other discussion about generational issues at work, then you’ve undoubtedly been told there are four distinct generations operating side-by-side in today’s working world. You’ve then been told the differences between those four generations, and then you’ve been told (although probably not in these exact words) that you need to just deal with all these different people, because they’re not going away and they’re not going to change how they operate. If that advice suits you, fantastic.

However, if you’ve ever been frustrated by how impossible it seems to employ four different strategies to manage four distinct generations, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who’s being asked to make any changes, then Us Vs. Them is exactly what you need.

Because it turns out that there really aren’t four generations. In this hysterical keynote,

you’ll learn a simpler way of looking at your own generational picture, and you’ll also learn how to understand, recognize, and resolve every generational issue facing today’s

workforce. That’s no exaggeration; by the end of Us Vs. Them, you and your colleagues will walk away with all of the knowledge you’ll need to address 100% of the generational issues you’ll face for the rest of your career. Other generational presentations focus on what people want, but Us Vs. Them will tell you why everyone wants the different things they do. It’s an important distinction, and it will make implementing new solutions easier than you ever thought possible.

So get ready to laugh more and learn more than you ever thought possible. Because improving your generational issues doesn’t have to be boring.

Partial List of Takeaways:

• Learn to replace the complicated four-generation model with a workable dichotomy between older, more experienced workers and their younger, less-experienced counterparts
• Understand the key cultural, technological, and social changes that have conspired to create a disconnect between team members from these two generations
• Walk away with several immediately applicable strategies to address and eliminate problems caused by the disconnect mentioned above
• Inspire a healthier, more robust work ethic in your younger employees (and your older ones, too)
• Inspire a healthier, more robust attitude toward change in your older employees (and your younger ones, too)

Uncrapify Your Future!

The Most Innovative Innovation Keynote In The History Of Ever

If you’ve listened to anyone talk about innovation recently, you’ve probably heard

something along these lines: “The world is changing at a crazy fast rate. Everything you’re doing now is about to become obsolete. If you don’t come up with some amazing, industry- changing ideas in the next 18 seconds, your business is basically going to disappear. Have a nice day.” And if that’s the kind of doomsayer message that you and your friends love hearing, then you can stop reading now.

But if you’d like to present innovation as a simple process that literally everyone is capable of performing, then you might want to listen to Uncrapify Your Future! Filled with the trademark wit that has made Jeff Havens one of the most in-demand speakers in North America, Uncrapify Your Future! will make the process of coming up with new ideas easier and more rewarding than you ever thought possible. Because it turns out that every innovation in every industry – from automobiles to streaming music, coffee cup holders to wartime treaties – follows the same straightforward pattern.

Your business is always changing, and so you will always need people to anticipate and capitalize on those changes. If you want them to think that being innovative is a daunting task that only a few elites can handle, listen to someone else. But if you want your audience walking away realizing that they’re all capable of greatness, then Uncrapify Your Future! is for you.

Oh, and did we mention that it’s also hilarious? Well it is. And imagine that – a keynote

that’s both educational and enjoyable. How innovative!

Partial List of Takeaways from Uncrapify Your Future:

• The three-step process which every innovation throughout all human history has inevitably followed
• The one and only barrier to innovative thought, and how to overcome it
• Case studies of various innovative products and ideas – which any one of your audience members could conceivably have come up with on their own
• Reframing the entire concept of innovation from “big ideas that change the world” to “small ideas that slowly become big ideas that eventually change the world”

Unleash Your Inner Tyrant!

The Most Original Leadership Keynote You’ll Ever See!

(management and leadership)

The first of its kind, Unleash Your Inner Tyrant! helps managers and executives become better leaders by showing them everything they should avoid – including how to create a culture of fear and mistrust, how to oppress and demoralize employees, and how to stand firm in the face of all change – before wrapping up with a serious conversation about the kind of leaders we should all strive to become.

Covering four main areas of leadership – creating a healthy corporate culture; management/employee relations; crisis management; and change management – Unleash Your Inner Tyrant! is every bit as content-rich and intensively researched as a more traditional leadership seminar but has the added benefit of an unparalleled delivery style that will have your audience laughing the entire time they’re learning how to become more effective leaders. Simply put, there is nothing else like this in the business world, and no better way to energize your management team while providing them with invaluable training they will remember for months and years to come.

Partial List of Takeaways:

• How to create a healthy, vibrant corporate culture through open communication and active accessibility
• How to inspire trust and loyalty in your employees by setting reasonable expectations and delivering truly constructive criticism when necessary
• How to approach change to achieve seamless integration of new product lines, marketing strategies, department mergers, and other new initiatives
• How to employ one simple technique to move employee from satisfaction to engagement

• How to become the kind of leader others are excited to follow

Testimonials

People like Jeff.  Some of them have liked him enough to hire him back multiple times.  A few of them were nice to enough to say so out loud – and we didn’t have to pay them or anything!  They were legitimately happy!  And you will be too.

Jeff has spoken to just about every kind of group you can imagine, so if you’d like to see testimonials specific to your industry, please contact us.