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name: Mark Levy
about: Mark Levy is the founder of Levy Innovation LLC, a positioning and branding firm that helps consultants and other thought leaders increase their fees by up to 2,000%.His clients include: a former department head in the White House a speaker to the United Nations CEOs of major organizations a former head of the Strategy Unit of the Harvard Business School performers on network TV and from the New York and Las Vegas stages New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling authors TED and TEDx speakersBefore devoting his work fulltime to Levy Innovation, Mark served as Chief Marketing Officer at an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Bank of America, Gap, Samsung, Time Warner, Tivo, and Harvard and Stanford Uni Mark Levy is the founder of Levy Innovation LLC, a positioning and branding firm that helps consultants and other thought leaders increase their fees by up to 2,000%.His clients include: a former department head in the White House a speaker to the United Nations CEOs of major organizations a former head of the Strategy Unit of the Harvard Business School performers on network TV and from the New York and Las Vegas stages New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling authors TED and TEDx speakersBefore devoting his work fulltime to Levy Innovation, Mark served as Chief Marketing Officer at an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Bank of America, Gap, Samsung, Time Warner, Tivo, and Harvard and Stanford Universities.Mark has written for the New York Times, and has written or co-created five books. His last book, “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content,” has been published in ten languages.Mark has also taught research writing at Rutgers University.In addition to being a positioning consultant, Mark creates magic tricks and shows. His work has been performed in Carnegie Hall and Las Vegas, and on all the major TV networks. He also co-created the off-Broadway show, “Chamber Magic,” which has played for 16 years, and is the longest-running one-person show in New York City. Mark Levy’s Biography #2Mark Levy was born in Flushing, Queens in 1962, and lived in spitting distance of Shea Stadium. He was frightened of public school, loved playing baseball and football, ran home to watch ape films on the 4:30 Movie, listened to The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and read magic trick books.At 18, he went to Queens College –- a school whose most notable scholar is Jerry Seinfeld. Mark enjoyed college, because he got to pick his own subjects. Instead of Math, he took a course in which he analyzed monster pictures. Not surprisingly, Mark received excellent grades, and graduated with a Magna Cum Laude writing degree in 1985.Outside of college, no one cared that he could analyze monster pictures, so he became a bookstore clerk. That started his long affiliation with the book industry. He moved from retail to publishing, and from publishing to wholesaling.Along the way, he was steadily promoted, and became a sales manager, a director of special projects, and helped his companies sell over one billion dollars worth of books. He was nominated three times for The Publishers Weekly Rep of the Year Award.Why was Mark so successful at selling? One of his colleagues said it best (and she didn’t mean it as a compliment): “When you think a particular book is important, you’re messianic about it. You won’t stop.”In 1997, Mark was having dinner with his friend David Pogue, author of “Macs for Dummies,” when David said it might be fun to work on a book together. Since Mark knew nothing about computers, they settled on writing a book about the only subject they had in common: magic. Both Mark and David were amateur magicians. They created “Magic for Dummies,” and Mark got the bug for bookwriting.Mark’s next effort was solo: “Accidental Genius: Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing.” Lots of luminaries loved it: Tom Peters, Ray Bradbury, Al Ries, Jay Conrad Levinson, and Ace Greenberg. Mark did a publicity stunt for the book (freewriting for the public for four consecutive hours in the window of America’s largest bookstore), which did wonders for its sales. To date, it’s been translated into ten languages.(By the way, did you know that certain American phrases don’t translate well into other languages? It’s true. None of the translators could make sense of the phrase “Accidental Genius.” The Spanish changed the book’s title to “Writing and Creativity.” The Germans called it “Genius Moments.” But the Japanese version is Mark’s favorite: “Everything Will Go Well As You Write And Thi ...more