Dan Gingiss

Remarkable by Design: From Forgotten to Unforgettable
We’ve been taught for decades that the way to win in business is simple: lower your price, add new features, or outspend the competition on marketing. But what we’ve been taught is wrong.

In today’s marketplace, price wars are a race to the bottom, and product innovation gets copied almost instantly. The truth is, nearly every company is now selling a commodity – whether they admit it or not.

So why do some brands still rise above the noise while others fade into irrelevance?
Because customers don’t talk about transactions. They talk about experiences.

This keynote reveals why the last true differentiator left in business is the one your competitors can’t copy: how you make people feel. And it will leave you WISE to the power of customer experience.

You’ll hear about the state that ranked 50th as a vacation destination and how they turned it around by being Witty. The entertainment powerhouse that used an Immersive experience to create generations of lifelong fans. A restaurant that made its food utterly Shareable without changing the recipe. And why a sparkler is always more Extraordinary than a candle.

It’s not about spending more, adding complexity, or launching massive technology projects. It’s about intentionally designing experiences that are remarkable – worthy of talking about. The result? Your customers become your most powerful marketers. So get ready to see your business through a new lens: the WISE framework for turning every interaction into an opportunity to stand out, inspire conversations, and earn loyalty that money can’t buy.

Are you ready to compete where it actually matters?

Dan’s Audiences Will…
Learn the types of experiences people share most often and why.
Apply an easy, 5-step framework for creating remarkable, shareable experiences.
Leverage examples from many other companies across industries that have been successful with these simple, practical, and inexpensive ideas.

Collective Lift: Why the Future of Performance Is About Multiplying Others
We set our quarterly goals, create a bunch of projects and tasks to complete them, and dutifully measure… everything. We’ve got meetings to plan our meetings and spreadsheets to track our dashboards. And at the end of the year, we fill out our performance reviews, calibrate them across the department, and reward the lucky few with the highest scores.

But here’s the thing: we’re stuck in The Optics Trap. It’s a century-old system designed for visibility, control, and compliance – optimized for what’s easy to see and count, not what actually drives performance today. Organizations say they want innovation and collaboration. But what they reward is speed, task completion, and most of all – visibility.

The truth is that no performance review, assessment, or ratings system captures the one thing that actually transforms a business: each employee’s ability to create Collective Lift. Collective Lift is about multiplication. It asks: What becomes possible because you exist? When people practice Collective Lift, they make everyone around them better. And they don’t need a title to do it.

In this transformative keynote, Dan Gingiss reveals what organizations should be measuring to identify their Collective Lifters. You’ll discover how the Chicago Cubs used Collective Lift principles to end a 108-year championship drought. You’ll meet a theme park employee who proved you don’t need a title to transform an entire department to be the best performing in the entire chain. And you’ll learn how Dan’s own unique management style made him the “boss everyone wanted to work for”, even before he had a name for it.

You’ll leave with concrete actions you can take immediately – regardless of your title – to practice Collective Lift. Whether you’re a frontline employee, manager, senior leader, or executive, you’ll see exactly how to start measuring what actually matters. This includes the three signals that separate true leaders from those who just look the part: Individual Trajectory (Are people more capable after working with you?), Team Multiplication (Does your team’s capability increase when you’re around?), and Organizational Impact (Do your ideas spread beyond your immediate sphere?).

Because at the end of the day, your legacy won’t be your title or what you achieved alone. It will be who achieved more because you existed. That’s Collective Lift.

Why Every Employee is in the Customer Experience Business
We all know that support staff are at the forefront of driving great customer experiences. But the one thing that customer-centric companies understand well is that great CX is not the job of customer-facing teams alone – everyone has an equal role to play.

This session will explore how all teams in your organization are in the “customer experience business,” and how driving such a culture forward is key to organizational success.

Your customers don’t care about your organizational chart or which department handles what. They look at your company as a single entity, and expect that everyone — from the front-line customer service agent to the legal department to the custodial staff — is focused on making their experience remarkable.

Dan’s audiences:

– Learn how different teams such as marketing, finance, and legal shape the customer experience.
– Discover real-life examples of the impact of non-customer facing teams on the end customer.
– Realize how a company-wide commitment to CX improves customer loyalty.

Your Franchise’s Success Depends on Both Customer AND Employee Experience

Today’s franchise organizations face critical challenges that traditional solutions aren’t solving:

Marketing campaigns might bring customers in, but service inconsistencies drive them away. Training programs create initial excitement but struggle to maintain momentum. And in today’s competitive market, you can’t afford to lose a single customer to a poor experience.

The key lies in the relationship between employee experience and customer experience – think of it as an infinity symbol (∞):

When employees are engaged and empowered, they create remarkable experiences that keep customers coming back
When customers are happy and loyal, it makes employees’ jobs more rewarding, increasing retention
This continuous cycle builds on itself, creating a culture of excellence across all locations

Leading franchises are discovering that the solution isn’t just about training – it’s about creating a customer-centric culture that:

Maintains consistency while preserving each location’s unique personality
Empowers employees to be both proactive and reactive in serving customers
Converts first-time visitors into loyal brand advocates
Drives measurable business results through increased visits, spending, and referrals

Through practical, easy-to-implement solutions, your franchisees will learn how to eliminate pain points and create memorable experiences for both customers and employees. Dan doesn’t just talk about experience; he creates one for your audience while teaching them to do the same for their customers.

The result? More customers who spend more, stay loyal longer, and tell others about you – creating sustainable growth across your franchise network.

Workshops that Create Experience Makers
Remarkable customer experiences don’t happen by accident. In Dan’s workshops, your team rolls up their sleeves and learns how to spot customer pain points, inject moments of delight, and apply the WISER framework to your real business challenges. The result? Employees who are energized, aligned, and ready to make every interaction remarkable.

Getting WISER to the Power of Customer Experience : Want your team to stop talking about customer experience and start creating it? In this hands-on session, participants put Dan’s WISE framework — Witty, Immersive, Shareable, and Extraordinary — into action. They are also introduced to a bonus letter — “R” for Responsive — that will make them WISER than the competition.

Built on two decades of real-world experience leading CX at brands like McDonald’s, Discover, and Humana, this workshop is an idea-generating engine where your people roll up their sleeves and brainstorm simple, practical, and inexpensive CX improvements you can implement right away.

By the end, you’ll have a long list of customer-focused ideas — created by your own team, plus a room full of energized Experience Makers ready to bring them to life.