Professional Speaking
CREATING A TEAM OF A-PLAYERS
How to Find, Hire, Lead, and Keep Rock-Star Employees
What are the steps that you as a business leader can take to get better results out of your team? That’s the question this program answers.
It describes a step-by-step process for ratcheting up the performance of any business and the people within it. Over the past eight years, I have worked with hundreds of executives who want to improve the results that their teams are achieving. Through this work, I have developed a simple but powerful program for leading, managing, and recruiting your way to better financial performance and team effectiveness.
Creating a Team of A-Players, delivered as either a one-hour keynote or multi-hour workshop, brings this process alive with real-life stories and practical takeaways that you can learn, tailor, and apply to your business right away. It incorporates key insights from my book "How to Hire A-Players" which is being published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2010.
I have found that business leaders who get the best results from their teams are great coaches – and great coaches know how to lead and recruit effectively.
Leading a great business team means knowing how to cast vision, clarify strategy, set goals, coach people, provide accountability, and motivate individuals to invest their hearts as well as their heads in their work. This program provides “how-to” advice on each of these steps.
Leading a great business team also means being a great recruiter. Do you have a favorite college athletic coach? The best college coaches know how to find, attract, and sign the best players in the nation, even the world, to their teams. Likewise, if you want to create a team of A-players in business, you have to be able to find, hire, and keep A-player employees.
This program pulls together practical leadership, management, and recruiting strategies into one simple system. These strategies require your commitment and energy but don’t require huge investments of dollars. If you are willing to do what it takes to create an A-player team, this program gives you the strategies and tools you need to be successful.
Speaker's Brochure
Click here to download Eric's Speaker's Brochure, which highlights Eric's background, client list, testimonials, and key presentation points.
What Clients Have To Say
“As chair of four groups of CEOs and Senior Executives for Vistage International, I have heard many excellent and well known speakers over the years. Eric Herrenkohl clearly belongs in the top tier of those who have been invited to address the CEO members of my Vistage Groups. His book 'How to Hire A-Players' should be required reading for ALL management teams (one of my CEOs stated the first 20 pages alone were worth the cost of the book). In his similarly titled presentation, Eric combines extensive experience, in-depth knowledge and masterful presentation skills to create a seminar that is practical, counter-intuitive and fun. Eric will give you a competitive edge in the war for talent. Not to be missed.”
Allen Hauge
Group Chairman
Vistage International
“Eric, thank you for your presentation to the IIDA - it was fantastic. I have received rave reviews from our members – many have said it was the best program we have ever done. I was particularly pleased because our membership is composed of both sales people and designers, and both took a lot of value away from your presentation. People loved receiving their own, personal assessment report as part of the program. It made the material more personal and more practical, and helped everyone stay engaged. Your delivery was entertaining and engaging. And the material was right on target. Thank you.”
Stacey A. Burns
International Interior Design Association - St. Louis
“I have always been an "inside" person when it comes to marketing and sales. Until I heard Eric's presentation on the Five Principles of Networking, I hesitated to "get out of my comfort zone" (the first networking principle Eric presented). Eric's clear and direct presentation helped to take the worry out of networking for me, and I am anxious to begin applying what I've learned at this workshop.”
Ginny Feeler
Horner & Shifrin
Program Chair, Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS)
“You did an excellent job of ‘learning rue21’ and weaving that knowledge into your presentation at our national meeting. You showed a sincere interest in listening and learning about our company. And your presentation style engaged the audience even at a difficult time segment in the day. After the program, people highlighted three take-aways they found most helpful:
#1 The “What, Why, How Method’ of communication: People liked this simple model of communication because it is easy to remember and applicable to every day challenges.
#2 ‘Slow Down to Speed Up.’ We must slow down and take the time to train our associates and in order to explain the what, why, and how of their jobs.
#3 ‘Buddy vs. Boss.’ Many of our District Managers are promoted from within. Your explanation of the difference between being a buddy and a boss was very useful for them.
Thank you for your contribution to our meeting – I look forward to working with you in the future.”
Lori Gillin
Director – Store Operations
rue21
"Eric has good presentation skills and is a lively speaker. He delivered powerful examples…and I would recommend Eric to businesses or associations for their professional speaking engagements."
Rae Lynn Haliday
Director of Programs
St. Louis Chapter of ARMA
"Our bankers are always looking for strategies and tactics they can use to bring the Edward Jones' message to the marketplace. I thought your program on marketing and sales strategy for our bankers was excellent. You painted a picture of the connection between tactical marketing and face-to-face selling that made a lot of sense. You gave us practical ideas that our bankers could begin using right away. And you delivered it in a way that was both motivational and refreshing. Thanks, and we look forward to working with you in the future."
Bret Kimes
General Partner – Investment Banking
Edward Jones
“Eric, your presentation was motivating! I heard great feedback from our members such as "We need more presentations like Eric's at our monthly meetings". We will keep you in mind for future events. Thanks for everything!”
Michael McCormick
President
American Society of Safety Engineers
“Eric, thank you for your participation in the Milhouse & Neal Breakfast briefings. Your presentations on leadership were very strong. Our clients appreciated the fact that you combine cutting-edge knowledge about the field of leadership development with practical lessons and anecdotes from your work with clients. In addition, the use of the on-line Leadership and Management assessment added a lot of value to the seminar. Everyone clearly enjoyed learning more about themselves! And, each person walked out of the session knowing how to apply the material to his or her own immediate business challenges. So, thank you again, and we look forward to doing more work together in the future.”
Mark O. Neal
Partner
Milhouse & Neal Certified Public Accountants and Consultants
“Eric, I have received positive feedback on your presentation. I thank you for taking the time to speak to our organization. It was a pleasure meeting with you and I have referred you to other regions. Thank you again for your support for the NKBA.”
Christy Plant
1st VP-Programs
National Kitchen & Bath Association (NKBA) Minnesota
"I've known Eric for many years and whether in formal training settings or informal coaching sessions, he always seems to boil things down to a something that is easy to remember and actionable. Eric provides concise, clear practical advice that can be implemented immediately. I like that he takes the times to learn about my business so that he can condense all the theory into easy-to-follow best practices and good professional habits."
Richard Ryffel
Managing Director -Investment Banking
Edward Jones
“I would like to take a moment and thank you for your presentation last week on Hiring Winners. Your presentation was very effective and we got a positive response from our members. In fact, I had a number of people come up to me right after the presentation and say how much they liked it . . . Most of the people who attended were specifically interested in this topic and got what they were looking for and more by coming that evening. Thanks again for a job well done. We look forward to working with you and your company in the future.”
Jim Shertz
VP Programming
National Kitchen & Bath Association (NKBA) North Jersey Chapter
“Thanks for speaking to the Home-Based Women Entrepreneurs. I received lots of positive feedback on your presentation. Your use of stories, humor, and quotes all combined to make an outstanding program with a good take-away message.”
June Van Klaveren
President
Compelling Communications, Inc.
“Everyone who participated in the weekend truly enjoyed your presentation. We had 44 people complete surveys for the weekend and of the responses we had for your presentation the average response was a 4.71 overall rating based on a 1 out of 5 scale with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. Additionally only one of the respondents indicated they would not recommend your program to others while 43 said yes they would. He or she must have been too cold and therefore didn’t like anything!”
Troy Williams
VP-Programs, NKBA Rocky Mountain Chapter
Project Designer
Kitchen Distributors, Inc.
Program Formats
Every program can be delivered as a:
• One-hour keynote presentation with question & answer time.
• Two-hour session with expanded material, discussion, and application.
• Three-hour workshop with a personalized assessment report for each participant that becomes a roadmap for implementing insights from the program.
• Customized program that include different elements from above.
Additional Program Enhancements
Clients often ask me to add additional value to programs through:
1. Interviews held prior to the program.
2. Additional break-out sessions and executive briefings conducted during a conference.
3. Coaching & accountability sessions facilitated after a program.
