2019 ISSUE #2
BRAVE NEW WORLD
15
BRAVE NEW WORLD
GAIR MAXWELL IS INSPIRING LEADERS
TO BUILD LEGENDARY BRANDS
YOU’VE HEARD the expression “When one door slams in your
face, another door swings wide open”? That certainly rings true for
Gair Maxwell, a Canadian who had a thriving career as a broadcast
journalist, only to have those opportunities abruptly slam shut, leaving
Maxwell jobless, directionless and humiliated while standing in the
unemployment line.
International keynote speaker and author Gair Maxwell is a recognized
authority on helping organizations create iconic, “larger-than-life”
brands that attract legions of customers and top talent. Gair has
presented his business strategies in over 33 US states, 10 Canadian
provinces, the UK, Europe, Mexico and Latin America, revealing his
unconventional, yet compelling, business strategies.
His many accomplishments, rewards and accolades include the
following:
• “Speaker of the Year” Award by TEC Canada in 2012
• Over 400 presentations with Vistage International – the world’s
largest CEO Peer Advisory Group
• Author of Nuts, Bolts and a Few Loose Screws, available through
Amazon.com
• Associate Faculty at the world-famous Wizard Academy in
Austin, Texas
Delivering 80–90 presentations every year with global representation
from speaker bureaus in Canada, Mexico and Los Angeles, Gair has
worked with some of the world’s most dynamic organizations including
the Apple Specialist Marketing Group, Caterpillar, NAPA, Vistage,
TEC and Virginia Tech. Gair has shared conference stages with some
of the biggest business icons such as Sir Richard Branson and Gene
Simmons.
In December 2018, Gair kindly agreed to answer probing questions
posed by Tera Nester-Jenkins.
With helping organizations create iconic, “larger-than-life” brands,
who would you say is your ideal audience?
Well, my ideal audience is anyone who’s dead serious about punching
way above their weight class no matter what category they’re competing
in.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve worked with thousands and thousands
of business owners, small- to medium-sized companies, bigger
corporations, and even small mom-and-pop operations. If there is one
commonality, one driving force, it is this expressed intent to create
differentiation. My audience is anyone who actually recognizes the
value in creating differentiation but also sees there might be a process
involved in actually standing out and being separate and apart from
everyone else.
After someone has attended one of your keynote speaking events or
workshops, what is the one thing you hope they walk away with?
I hope they walk away with the idea that they can ditch six-plus decades
of product-focused, pitch-driven, boilerplate marketing. They don’t
have to do things the way things have been done before.
I always like to say the worst day in any business owner’s life in the 20th
century was the day the Yellow Pages guy showed up. Why? Because you
knew deep down, the Yellow Pages guy had you. He had you locked in a
corner. You were in the biggest headlock you can imagine. There was no
escape. And the only question from that meeting that happened every year
like clockwork wasn’t whether you were going to cut a cheque but the size
of your cheque that the Yellow Pages dude was walking away with.
We live in a whole new world now where there are no gatekeepers, there
are no king makers. We have platforms and technologies that allow us
to build brands and connect with whomever we want all over the world.
People who share similar interests and similar values, and that never was
possible in the 20th century. It was dominated by the media industrial
complex. I know this very well. I worked inside it for 20 years as a
broadcast journalist. And so what we have now is this unfettered freedom,
if you will, to be our own media and create a brand online and, off that,
defy what no one could have even dreamt about back in the last century.
What inspires you to inspire others?
There’s a story I can date back to May 21, 1999. Picture this terror.
I’ve got a two-decade career in a high-profile position as the guy on
the morning show. I’ve got my own TV show. I am a newscaster. I’m a
sportscaster. I did over a thousand games of pro hockey play-by-play. I
was known in my part of Eastern Canada as a prominent public figure. I
was the kind of guy who got phone calls returned and VIP country club
memberships for free. And then on May 20, that career is terminated in
two sentences on company letterhead: I had 15 minutes to gather my stuff
and leave the building.
Within a week, I was broke, busted, no severance, on the unemployment
line. News of the dismissal was plastered on the front page of the only
paper in town.
I share that because I think everyone’s got their rock bottom story—their
version of the rock bottom story. And to me, the rock bottom story is
universally applicable. But the bigger question is always: what happens
next? How do you bounce back? For me, I had no way of knowing it at
the time, but I fell into the world of soft skills, business training, and it
took several years before I met the one person (Jim), the one company, the
one CEO who was going to fundamentally alter the entire course of my
professional career and even a part of life. Because he was the guy who
was willing to engage in doing something that not everyone was going to
do. And it’s a real national success story—one of Canada’s greatest small
business success stories. It still continues to flourish, and so: right place,
right time.