“Which way should I go?” That question, or some variation of it, is one more and more leaders are asking every day.

Life is a twisting, turning road, and whether you’re trying to decide for yourself, your family, your business, or your community, there is always some element of uncertainty regarding the best direction in which to head. When Robert Frost saw that two roads diverged in a yellow wood, he was sorry he couldn't travel both. None of us can.

But which road to take? Which turn to make? Those are questions that have bedeviled poets and philosophers from time immemorial.

Turns represent moments of redirection. Of opportunity. Of change. Since nothing can move in a straight line forever, turns, by nature, are about limits. But they’re also about overcoming limits. Finding new roads. Discovering new directions. In every human turn there is decision and there is destiny.

Steve demonstrates that one way to think about life itself is that it’s about knowing when, where and how to turn—turning questions into answers, problems into solutions, and people, circumstances, and situations around.

One of the toughest lessons every leader learns is how hard it is to remain healthy over the long term. At some point in a company’s life cycle, losing momentum is the rule, not the exception—even for the best-managed firms.

More than twenty years of groundbreaking research among thousands of corporations, many of which have been among the country’s fastest-growing companies, reveal the secrets as to why this happens.

Sluggishness is generally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering, but by natural market forces and internal cultural dynamics that often go unrecognized. Steve has identified seven characteristics that commonly correlate with stalled growth. Some are external forces to which countless companies have fallen victim; others are internal and easily addressed.

Steve offers compelling insights about how companies lose their way, and offers clear advice about how they can avoid--or overcome--common pitfalls.

Regardless of what’s going on outside of an enterprise, it’s what’s inside that counts.

Every one of the most successful companies in the world was once a mere startup. Why do the best continue to grow and prosper, while others stumble along, running but never winning the race? What do they know that others don’t?

In a dynamic keynote, workshop, or seminar series, Steve shares the hidden-in-plain-sight secrets of the world’s greatest brands.

High-performing brands aren’t slaves to conventional sales and marketing wisdom—they understand not only the irrefutable value of a strong identity, but the keys to enhancing its value over time. That gives them a competitive edge that, until now, has been difficult to come by for the vast majority of their counterparts.

Via a series of thought-provoking, often counterintuitive observations tailored to each specific industry or audience, Steve helps marketing professionals and non-professionals alike understand how to better evaluate, plan, implement and enhance their own growth strategies.

There are brands, and there are Power Brands. Steve will help you make your company ever more of the latter.

After nearly a decade working at some of the most notable advertising agencies in the world, in 1997 Steve co-founded McKee Wallwork, a nationally recognized marketing advisory firm that helps stalled, stuck, and stale organizations generate new momentum.

The company was blessed to make the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America its first year of eligibility and twice win the prestigious EFFIE Award for marketing effectiveness from the American Marketing Association. It was also twice recognized by Advertising Age as Southwest Small Agency of the Year and one of the nation’s Best Places to Work, and also won the publication’s National B2B Campaign of the Year award.

Along the way, Steve has helped hundreds of companies in dozens of industries thrive, and co-founded a successful tech startup based on his innovative research.

Steve is delighted to see an incredible group of young leaders take his company to new heights as he now pursues his passion of sharing with the world what he’s learned.

Steve's first book, When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck and What to Do About It, is based on groundbreaking research that reveals the four destructive internal dynamics that bedevil every company. It set his professional life on an entirely new course and changed the direction of his firm. The book was honored with an Axiom Award and is now published in four languages.

Power Branding: Leveraging the Success of the World's Best Brands features 75 bite-sized principles any company can follow to take its marketing and communications efforts to new heights. It was described by one New York Times bestselling author as “the definitive book on modern branding” that “should be mandatory reading in every business school in America.”

Turns: Where Business Is Won and Lost, is Steve’s newest release. It takes a deep dive into the physical, historical, and metaphorical nature of turns through the lenses of science, history, music, politics, war, religion, sports, philosophy and more. Steve reveals how they overlap and intersect, and draws out valuable principles that can help readers better know which way to go when they come to a fork in the road.

Steve has been published or quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, Forbes.com, Investor's Business Daily and The Los Angeles Times, among others, and has appeared on CNBC, ESPN2, CNNfn, Bloomberg, and network television affiliates across America.

He frequently serves as a guest lecturer in college classes and is a sought-after expert witness in the areas of branding, brand valuation, and consumer marketing.