Martin Newman founded The Customer First Group in 2019 to support businesses and brands to become customer centric and thrive in a multichannel world.

Customer centricity goes beyond merely providing a good customer experience; it involves placing the customer at the core of everything a business does. This approach impacts every aspect of the organisation and requires everyone, from the CEO to the frontline staff. Embracing customer centricity is the sole strategy capable of driving sustainable growth in Customer Lifetime Value and retention, while also future-proofing a business.

Martin Newman | Accolades

Martin has received many accolades and featured in many industry leader lists, including Retail Week’s top 50 eTail Power List for the past five years. He has also been named consecutively in the Retail Insiders top 100 Retail Movers and Shakers list and the British Vogue Online Fashion 100 and Top 50 Retail Influencers 2022 and 2023.

Martin Newman | Books

Martin is the author of two best-selling books. His first book, 100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience, is seen as definitive within the sector and was shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Award 2019. His most recent book, The Power of Customer Experience, is a must-have book on using Customer-centricity to drive sales and profitability.

Martin Newman | Keynote Speaker

As a highly sought-after keynote speaker, Martin leverages over 40 years of experience in retail and consumer-facing brands. His expertise is grounded in practical knowledge, enriched by real-world examples and success stories that are both engaging and inspiring. With a profound understanding of the ever-evolving landscape of customer expectations, Martin crafts engaging and impactful keynotes that resonate with diverse audiences.

Martin Newman | Keynote Speaking Topics

Every keynote Martin delivers is a masterclass, combining thought leadership with actionable strategies. Martin doesn’t simply speak; he ignites conversations, sparks innovative ideas, and creates a lasting impact. His keynotes are tailored to meet the specific needs of an organisation, but these are some core themes:

Customer Centricity: The Building Blocks of Future Success

We all talk a good game when it comes to ‘being customer centric’ or ‘putting the customer at the heart of all we do.’ But what does that mean? To be truly customer centric you must think about all you do and not just the experience the customer sees.

How you treat your colleagues, your culture, your approach to diversity and inclusion and the environment, your values and purpose as an organisation, how you use technology to empower both your colleagues and your customers, how you move from transacting to building relationships and how you measure what good looks like. These are all building blocks to being a customer centric business. Martin brings case studies from around the world of brands that do all of this well and what the outcome is.

Turning Customers into Fans: How to Achieve an Emotional Connection With Your Brand

99% of businesses have customers; they don’t have fans. That is because we still consider customers a cost centre rather than a profit centre. Often, they are great at bringing them in the door through acquisition marketing but have little to no focus on retaining them and building their lifetime value.

Martin will demonstrate how the most successful companies have created an emotional connection with their customers to the point where they are fans of their brand rather than seeing themselves as customers.

The 10 New ROIs: Guarantee Sustainable Commercial Success

In this engaging presentation, Martin challenges the conventional ROI model and introduces ten fresh metrics that truly matter to consumers and foster lasting value for businesses. Martin helps organisations align with customer values, build trust, and embrace social responsibility in order to guarantee commercial success. He uncovers practical strategies and real-life examples from successful brands as he delves into each of the 10 New ROIs.

Martin teaches how to reshape business mindset and practices, from personalised customer engagement to leveraging actionable insights for performance improvement. 

Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Both Colleagues and Customers

An organisation can have the best-looking strategy on paper, but if you have a poor culture, it won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. Martin will bring practical examples of businesses with great cultures to help you plan how to improve yours. With your active participation, you can drive engagement with your employees and customers and build a more sustainably successful business.

The New Retail Playbook: Getting Ready for the Next Phase of Digital Evolution and the Metaverse

Martin has a track record of predicting what’s coming down the line and how we should plan for it now. We bring a realistic view of how consumers will adopt digital, omnichannel, the metaverse, and more to help you plan your roadmap for transforming your business to meet customer needs now and in the future.

Measuring What Really Matters: Turning Data Into Actionable Insight and Customers Into Fans

In this talk, Martin Newman will bring insight into all the inputs and ways to capture the insight that can help to transform your businesses. Most KPIs measured tell organisations little about how to improve their business. They are outputs and measures, not inputs, that drive actionable insight. Conversion rates, average order values, units per transaction, dwell time, abandonment rates, unique visitors, returning visitors, returns rates and so on.

These are the ‘how’, not the ‘why’.  From NPS and CSAT to the voice of the customer and the voice of our colleagues, demonstrating how the most successful brands and paying attention to the insight that really matters.

Martin also educates and empowers businesses worldwide through his online Mini MBA in Customer Centricity and MBA in a Day workshop.

Why Book Martin Newman?

Martin brings his experience and wealth of knowledge to life, drawing on his 40 years of experience working with consumer-facing brands. He educates his audience with real-life examples, facts and frameworks so that they leave with practical ways to implement what they have learnt.

In a rapidly changing market, Martin has his finger on the pulse of consumers’ behaviours, wants and needs, offering up-to-date, actionable insight. He delivers repeatedly, inspiring and empowering his audiences to create positive change for their consumers, employees and the environment.

Martin Newman | The MBA in a Day

Full day workshop on end-to-end customer centricity.

Below: How to successfully become a customer centric business: Martin’s Mini-MBA

Martin has partnered with the Oxford College of Leadership and Management and Oxford College of Marketing to create the first-ever Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity.

This is the must-have course for business owners and senior management across consumer-facing sectors who want to ensure the future success of their business. Or anyone who wants to fast track their career by improving their knowledge and customer experience.

This MBA will help you future-proof your business and be ready for the next generation of consumers. Customer Centricity is far broader than most businesses understand it to be, so much more than what happens when someone walks into a store. It touches every aspect of an organisation, from what you stand for and your culture to supply chain and diversity.

You will learn how to drive customer-led change within the business and the KPIs and measures that will give you a far greater view and insight of what’s working well and what’s not and what needs to change to maximise the sales and profitability of the business.

Made up of 10 on-demand modules plus four live online sessions, the course takes approximately 13 weeks to complete. You will be required to complete all ten modules and a practical assessment project to achieve the ‘Mini MBA in Customer Centricity’.

Find out more details on Martin’s MBA in a day on its own dedicated page HERE

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to book consumer champion and leading expert in customer centricity Martin Newman your next event.

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