Great Stores Are Built One Shift At A Time.
Retail association conventions, store manager meetings, district and regional sessions, seasonal kickoffs, and recognition events.
Retail is the purest version of the people business. Whatever your brand promises, the customer meets one person on one shift, and that person decides the impression. Stores that lead well keep staff longer, sell better, and feel different the moment somebody walks in. Chris Sund has spent two decades leading service teams where the everyday interaction is the entire product.
Every shift is a chance to build the store people come back to.
My KC Live, KCTV5 Kansas City →Let your team watch him first.
Store teams switch off fast when a speaker sounds like corporate. Send a clip around before you commit and let people judge for themselves. Chris has been on morning television in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, all collected in the media hub.
Five things a store uses on the next shift.
No merchandising, no loss prevention, no shrink strategy, no POS training. Your operations team owns all of that. This is the people layer that decides whether any of it gets executed well.
On what the retail session is about
- Turnover is a manager problem before it is a market problem. Two stores in the same town paying the same wage keep people at completely different rates. The variable is who is running the floor.
- Young employees are not unmotivated. They are usually under-led. First jobs are where people decide what work is going to feel like, and a store manager has more influence over that than they realise.
- The interaction is the brand. Nobody remembers your window display. They remember the person who helped or the person who did not look up. See the customer service session.
- Store managers promoted off the register. Almost all of them, and almost none were trained to lead. One usable skill changes what a whole store feels like. See manager development.
- One move, not a program. Every session closes on a single specific action, sized for people who open the doors tomorrow morning.
Eight ways retail organizations book him.
Associations usually add a breakout to the general session. Chains usually pair a store manager session with a repeatable all-team session.
Retail Association Convention
General session for a state retail federation, grocers association, or trade group annual meeting.Store Manager Meeting
The highest-leverage room in retail. Promoted off the floor, handed a store, rarely trained to lead it.District & Regional Session
Multi-unit leaders responsible for stores they are not standing in. Leading through other managers.Seasonal Kickoff
Before the holiday or peak season, when you are onboarding temporary staff and the veterans are already tired.All-Team Session
Repeatable across shifts and locations so part-time staff hear it live rather than secondhand.Recognition Event
Store of the year and appreciation nights. Sized to sit alongside the awards. Recognition events.Take Back Your Time With AI
A live working session. Managers bring the scheduling, ordering, and admin eating their floor time. Full details.Conference Breakouts
Repeatable concurrent sessions alongside a general session at an association convention.Built for anyone who opens a door daily.
The framework holds across all of them. What changes is who is in the room and what opens tomorrow.
Retail Associations
State retail federations, chambers of retail, and trade group conventions. See association speaking.Grocery & Convenience
Grocers associations, independent grocers, and convenience store chains running high-turnover teams.Specialty & Chain Retail
Apparel, home, sporting goods, and specialty chains with district and regional structures.Hardware & Farm Supply
Independent hardware, farm and ranch stores, and buying groups. See agriculture speaking.Franchise Retail
Franchised store networks and multi-unit operators. See franchise speaking.Shopping Centers
Mall and center management organizations and their tenant and staff programs.Pharmacy & Health Retail
Independent pharmacies and health retail with clinical and retail staff in one building.Distribution & Supply
The warehouses and DCs behind the stores. See manufacturing speaking.Retail HR & Training
The teams building manager capability across a chain. See HR conference speaking.Four movements. Ten principles.
Every session runs the same architecture as the book, which is what lets an all-team session and a manager meeting land as one message rather than two.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What is inside your control when the traffic, the weather, and the schedule are not.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. Why people in a first job decide early what they are capable of.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. What a team does when somebody finally says the real thing out loud.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. The close, and why a first job matters more than anybody tells you.A copy for every person on the schedule.
A keynote gives a team an hour. A copy gives a whole chain the same ten principles and the same language, which is how a message survives past the week the posters go up.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements, written plainly and short enough that somebody working shifts around school will actually finish it. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide sized for a pre-shift huddle, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge. Nothing is gated behind an email address.
The feedback speaks for itself.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
Events already on your calendar.
He led the people at the counter.
Chris Sund is the bestselling author of You Are Capable of More, a keynote speaker, and an executive leader.
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare, and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in revenue in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, based in Nebraska, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. He has not run a store and will say so from the front. What he knows is how a leader keeps and develops frontline people in a business where one interaction is the whole impression, which is the same job a store manager has every morning.
Details your team will ask for.
Retail leaders ask these.
He has not run a store. Why does that work?
How much does a retail keynote speaker cost?
Our turnover is brutal. Can a keynote really help?
Will it land with part-time and younger staff?
What about our store managers specifically?
Can you do it before peak season?
Can you repeat it across stores or shifts?
Can we get books for the team?
How do we start?
Other ways organizations book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.