The Signature Keynote

Profitable by Design

How to Build an Offer People Choose, Pay More For, and Recommend

A story-driven keynote for founders, owners, and leaders who have tried the tactics, hired the agencies, and still depend on their own effort to grow. It shows them why marketing keeps underdelivering and how to build an offer that buyers pick over every alternative, happily pay a premium for, and tell their friends about. Everyone leaves with a quick test they can run on their own offer that same day, so they know whether to fix the offer before they spend another dollar on marketing.

How the Talk Opens

$100,000
Spent on marketing
3
Meetings
0
Clients

"That's what Steve got for doing everything right."

Speaker Reel

See Forrest in action.

The Keynote

Three things every offer has to earn.

Most business audiences have heard a hundred talks about marketing tactics. This talk starts earlier, with the thing every tactic depends on: what you actually sell.

Profitable by Design follows the true story of a founder who spent six figures on marketing and got nothing, the strange case of a dying technology that sold itself without a single ad, and the day Forrest's own nine-year winning streak as a conversion expert came to a screeching halt. Each story points to the same pattern. Buyers choose a business, pay it more, and recommend it to others when its offer is built to stand apart from everything else in the market. By the end, the audience sees their business, their market, and their own buying decisions differently, and they leave with a practical framework for building that kind of offer.

Why buyers choose one business over another

What drives every buying decision, from a pack of gum to a six-figure engagement, and why it matters most for anyone who sells a service.

What gives buyers a reason to pay more

How the structure of an offer changes the price conversation, so buyers stop comparing you line by line with the cheaper option down the street.

What makes an offer easy to recommend

The story of a referral partnership that switched on and off like a light, and what it reveals about why people refer some businesses and stay quiet about others.

A two-part framework for building it

The Market Crux is the false belief your market holds about what stands between buyers and the result they want. The Differentiation Device is the part of your offer that solves the real problem in a way competitors can't easily copy.

Built on true stories: a $100,000 marketing failure, a product that grew with zero marketing, a seven-figure agency built on a fifty-dollar-a-month budget, and a referral partnership that switched on and off like a light.

The Fit

Who books this talk

Events and groups

  • Business associations and membership groups
  • Conferences and summits
  • Masterminds, peer groups, and retreats
  • Chambers of commerce and networking organizations
  • Private company and partner events

Audiences

  • Founders and owners of service businesses
  • Agencies, consultants, and professional firms
  • B2B leaders responsible for growth
  • Any room of people who sell something

The talk hits hardest for service businesses, where buyers can't touch or test-drive what they're purchasing. But the core idea applies to anyone selling anything, and mixed business audiences leave with the same shift.

One talk. Four formats.

Keynote

The Full Keynote

45 minutes plus optional Q&A. The complete story-driven experience, built for main stages, association meetings, and conference sessions.

Lunch & Learn

The Short Version

20 to 25 minutes. The same stories and framework, tightened for lunch meetings, chapter gatherings, and tight agendas.

Workshop

The Working Session

Half-day or full-day extension. Attendees apply the framework to their own businesses and leave with a diagnosis of where their offer stands. Best for smaller groups where real work can happen.

Podcast & Media

The Interview Version

The stories and the framework in conversation format. Strong fit for podcasts, video series, and panels on growth, marketing, and differentiation.

Forrest Dombrow

About the Speaker

Forrest Dombrow

Forrest has been in the marketing and sales trenches since 2004. He co-founded a digital agency in 2007 and grew it to seven figures on a fifty-dollar-a-month marketing budget, thanks to an offer nobody else had. He's the #1 best-selling author of Clone the Ace and the creator of Offer Design, the discipline of building structural differentiation into what a business sells before a dollar is spent telling anyone about it.

After two decades of watching good companies waste money on marketing that was never going to work, he noticed the firms that grow with the least hustle tend to have one thing in common. They sell an offer people choose, pay more for, and recommend. This keynote shows audiences how to build one.

More about Forrest

Easy to promote

Title, description, promo copy, headshots, and social blurbs provided ready to paste into your emails and event pages.

Easy to run

Simple AV needs: a screen, a clicker, and a microphone. Forrest arrives early, sound-checks fast, and stays after to talk with attendees.

Easy to say yes to

A full speaker packet with talk overview, bio, and photos is available on request. Send the inquiry below and it's in your inbox.

Booking

Bring Profitable by Design to your stage

Tell us about your event: the audience, the date, and the format you have in mind. You'll get a response within one business day, along with the full speaker packet.

Also available for podcast interviews and private events. If you're not sure which format fits, just ask.

Inquire About Speaking