Speaking and media

I am not a motivational speaker. I am an operator who has run large retail networks, led a national workplace business, owned a dealership, sat on boards and rebuilt personally after losing almost everything. Audiences get specifics: what the numbers looked like, what the decision cost, and what I would do differently.

Sessions work best when there is room for real questions. The most useful twenty minutes of any event I do is usually the unscripted part, when an owner in the room describes the problem they came with.

Loyalty is a posture, not a program. What the Petro-Points launch taught about rewarding behaviour, treating data as the dividend, and why simplicity survives while clever programs die.

Four decades, six hard rules. Cash is a fact and profit is an opinion. The number you are afraid to look at is running the business. Culture is set by the worst behaviour you tolerate. Strategy has to fit on one page. Succession is a decade, not an event. Experience matters, execution matters more.

Narrative Intelligence: the value gap in your business. Why most companies are undersold by their own story, how AI changes the research but not the decision, and what a leadership team must be willing to discard to get positioning right.

Resilience without the poster. The 1982 collapse when a $145,000 home sold for $45,000 at 21 per cent rates, September 11 with US$600,000 of inventory sitting still, and the personal rebuild of 2022. What actually helps, and what merely sounds good from a stage.

The hero's journey for owners. The guide's role in a founder's story, and why most owners cast themselves in the wrong part.

Keynote of thirty to fifty minutes with question time. Fireside conversation or moderated interview. Half day leadership workshop built around your one-page strategy. Board or executive retreat session on governance, succession and transformation readiness. Podcast and broadcast interviews.

Workshops are capped deliberately. Above roughly twenty five people the session becomes a talk, which is fine, but it should be booked as one.

I am available to comment on retail and loyalty trends, energy retail, member-owned and community retail, business transformation and turnarounds, board governance, and the practical reality of AI adoption in mid-market companies.

For journalists working to deadline, the fastest route is email with your outlet, angle and time constraint. A one-page press kit with biography, roles and photographs is available on this site.

Write to joecorepurposesolutions@gmail.com with the date, audience, format and the outcome you want the room to leave with. I will tell you honestly if I am the wrong speaker for it.

Based in Calgary, Alberta, and available across Canada, the United States and remotely.