How to Whip Inflation, Get Beyond Recession, and Build Long-Term Sales and Profits. Inflation is a cold reality - everything costs more, and there is very little a retailer can do about that. Recession is equally present in our lives; whether or not we're actually in one, many people think and act like we are. All of which is having an enormous impact on retailers, who are trying to find ways to be relevant and accessible for their customers while covering their increased expenses in a hot competitive marketplace.

Kevin Coupe, the "Content Guy" for MorningNewsBeat.com, who has been writing about retailing for some four decades, believes that the best way to meet these challenges is to aggressively differentiate one's value proposition, be surgically innovative, and focus to a greater extent than ever on being more customer centric. Tough economic times are nothing new, but the timing, coming after a pandemic, creates new complexities.  In this example-filled and provocative presentation, Kevin illustrates how this can be a moment in which savvy retailers can propel themselves beyond the threats of the moment and into a new and productive relationship with shoppers.

“40 Years, 20 Stories: Lessons from a Business Journalism Career Not Yet Done.” Kevin Coupe has been writing about business and retail for four decades, and in the process has absorbed a wealth of insights into what customers want and need, executive leadership and front-line empowerment, effective implementation of technology that matters, and how to create sensory and experiential appeal while being both relevant and resonant. During that time, Kevin has met and interviewed innovative and influential businesspeople while covering companies located in 49 of the 50 states and on six out of seven continents. (He hasn't been to Antarctica. Yet.)

In this entertaining and provocative presentation, Kevin spins a tale that takes him from newspaper reporter to video producer to online blogger, offering big-picture lessons that will give audiences a greater sense of context about a fast-changing business environment and a clear sense of how to differentiate, compete, and succeed. He'll talk about the companies that have successfully done it in the past and will prescribe what businesses will need to do in the future. In the end, he says, the most important thing a business can do is tell its own story with clarity and purpose.

Building A Business Around The Workforce Of The Future. If the pandemic taught us anything, it is the essential nature of front line employees who make businesses work, forge connections with customers, and form the heart and soul of a company's culture.  We're in a unique moment, however - economic challenges compel many business leaders to look for ways to reduce investment in human resources, technology offers alternatives to human capital, and even the seemingly most progressive of companies are facing calls for unionization.  Kevin Coupe, "Content Guy" with MorningNewsBeat.com, calls on more than three decades of experience, relationships, insights and analysis to offer a unique and provocative perspective on how to engage with the workforce of the future and create a workplace of the future that will define businesses as employers of choice.

How To Turn Supply Chain Problems Into Competitive Advantages. Geo-politics, inflation and the residue of the pandemic have combined to create continuing supply chain issues for many suppliers and retailers.  But Kevin Coupe, "Content Guy" with MorningNewsBeat.com, argues that this actually is an opportunity:  This is an ideal time to rethink traditional approaches to marketing and merchandising.  It almost certainly is a time to get in greater synch with customers, providing them with products and services both relevant and resonant in their lives.  Based on Kevin's decades of work as a journalist and pundit, traveling the world and speaking with the best and brightest retail minds, this provocative and illuminating presentation is designed to challenge assumptions and maybe even kill a few sacred cows.

Redefining “Essential” for a Complex World. Recent events have redefined what "essential" means to shoppers, in terms of products, services and human capital. As the business community and culture look toward the future, MorningNewsBeat "Content Guy" Kevin Coupe offers a provocative look at how the retail industry needs to adjust its priorities and procedures, posing questions that will help businesses navigate treacherous waters that remain uncertain: Has a quest for efficiency gotten in the way of customer-centric effectiveness? Has the business correctly balanced values with value? How are we incubating and nurturing new ideas and innovations? What have recent events revealed about our business that we can use to build a better and more strategic model for the future. Coupe's answers to these questions – and the answers he elicits from his audiences in this highly interactive session – will help managers become leaders and businesses become differentiated and positioned for the future. (Be prepared to participate! This session is not a lecture, but a conversation designed to inspire actionable ideas.) 

Reimagining the Store for the “New Normal”. The stores of the past and present almost certainly are not up to the task of serving the consumers of the future – a future that has been existentially changed by the recent events. Kevin Coupe uses his MorningNewsBeat website – which has been chronicling the retail business for almost two decades – to track the day-to-day developments that have affected business. Now, he has crafted an insightful and nuanced shopping list of 12 elements and ideas that can help a retailer see the future more clearly, deal with the present more effectively, and establish innovative and shopper-centric approaches that are rooted in reality and yet dare to challenge traditions and orthodoxies that Coupe believes prevent retailers from differentiating themselves. He starts with one basic premise:  "There will be nothing normal about the 'new normal.’ In fact, let’s not even talk about ’normal.' Rather, let’s focus on embracing our new reality.” 

The Bigger Picture: Business Lessons from the Movies, TV & Popular Culture. Now, more than ever, successful businesses need to have compelling stories that they can share with their customers, employees and business partners.  A strong narrative gives a business a backbone upon which to frame its value proposition and differential advantages … without which, in a time of cutthroat competition, no business can thrive.

In this presentation, based on his book The Bigger Picture: Business Lessons from the Movies, TV & Popular Culture (a sequel to the successful The Big Picture: Essential Lessons from the Movies), co-authored with Michael Sansolo, Kevin Coupe cites examples ranging from movies such as The Princess Bride, The Post and The Big Sick, plus TV shows ranging from “Downton Abbey” to “Billions,” plus the novels of Ace Atkins and Michael Connelly - all to illustrate how to create and tell an effective and create metaphors that can help drive your business forward.  Entertaining and engaging, this presentation is designed to change the way people think about the way they approach branding, customer service, and the nature of leadership.

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