A look inside my business: 3 years of reinventing to align entrepreneurship and parenting
The image in my head is always the same. It's like an action movie. The camera chases me from behind, bouncing as I sprint out my front door. Then it swings up, following my gaze as I watch the sky burning, asteroids pelting the earth around me. It all burns down.
Okay, okay, that's a little dramatic as a metaphor for my business collapsing, but (A) being dramatic sure is useful as a speaker and storyteller, and (B) it's genuinely how the start of the pandemic felt for me. I'd spent five years building my speaking business full-time.
I lost it all in five days.
My livelihood was built around travel and large groups. Few things are more perfect for a pandemic to destroy. (Maybe if you're in the face-licking business?) The thing is, when the world reopened and my peers went back on the road, I did not. That wasn't the plan even before COVID.
I knew once we started having kids, I'd need to be less of a road warrior, so the plan was to wean off my travel-heavy work and build up a services business I could operate from home. Then the universe decided there would be no weaning to be had. In an instant, everything crashed down around me. I didn't have the option of slowly winding down one income stream and slowly building another. I needed to replace everything. Fast.
Of course, I didn't. I spent a few years lurching around. In that time, I benefitted from great friends and mentors, cognitive behavioral therapy, two loving and supportive parents, and maybe a scoop or two of extra delusion that comes with being a creative entrepreneur.
Which brings me to this moment and this update to you.
***
For the last three years, I’ve rebuilt my business from my road-heavy speaking business (the largest thing I’d ever built—until recently) to a high-end advisory business. It's gotten so much bigger than I can handle alone that I'm starting to think about hiring (already working with a fantastic ops manager, Emily Cresswell) and planning to string up a basic website under a brand name which isn't my own. This will likely launch in the fall.
This advisory business centers on two things: IP development and public speaking excellence. I work with my clients and cohorts to help them articulate their expertise in the most compelling ways possible. They arrive with expertise and a mountain of ideas, and we turn that into 1 signature, influential idea (their premise) and the IP built on top of it which allows them to distribute, own, and monetize their expertise in more memorable, scalable ways. For some clients, we also work on their signature talk and their speaker success systems.
About half my clients are paid speakers. The other half uses speaking as marketing. In both cases, they're typically in the business of expertise, selling some kind of service(s) or educational product(s).
Thought leadership, public speaking, and business storytelling are direct lines to revenue, and my work with them makes it easier to win more and better clients at higher prices and with less friction.
BUSINESS BREAKDOWN
For the curious, here is a more detailed look at my business...
REVENUE STREAMS (YTD % OF BOOKINGS)
One-on-one clients (48%)
Group programs (25.5%)
Brand deals (17.5%)
Speaker fees (9%)
Last year, I had my second-biggest year in terms of gross revenue since I was a full-time speaker and basically broke myself in that year. It was all brute-force. I remember one week in particular, I was crushed to be leaving my then-18-month-old daughter for a full week as I traveled to Nashville, Whistler, and Atlanta in the same week. (I lived outside NYC at the time, though we've been back in Boston since 2019.) Last year was the second-highest grossing compared to that year, but it felt far more sustainable.
To start this year, I set an aggressive revenue target, higher than last year's, and reader, I still can't believe the sentence I'm about to type: as of last week, my bookings for the year have passed my revenue target. That means before the end of April, I've booked more revenue than my entire 2026 goal. I am gobsmacked, but as my friend and business mentor Michelle Warner told me, "Welcome to product/market/founder fit. When the alignment snaps in, the universe tends to follow."
As of this writing, my next opening for 1:1 clients is in August. Learn about my services here.
My years of lurching around searching for a focus are over. I feel like collapsing and, honestly, crying. I can neither confirm nor deny that I've done both over the last month. (It helps that I went on a long overdue vacation with my oldest friends in the world last week, some of whom I've known since I was two years old, all of whom I've known for at least 26 years! The sunshine, the deep breaths, the laughs, and the long road to get here since 2020—it all hit me at once.)
REVENUE ANALYSIS
The rise of group (The Green Room):
I maxed out my 1:1 time to start the year, meaning I can't book any more advisory clients until August, which is a strange, wonderful, yet stressful thing to acknowledge to others.
That means I've re-thought my group program. Previously, I ran something for $2,250 called Design My Signature Talk. This was an eight-week virtual accelerator to build your talk, and it appealed to a smattering of folks at all stages. But my 1:1 engagements are more expensive (minimum $5k/month for 3- or 6-months). Over time, my existing 1:1 clients started asking about group, while some 1:1-caliber prospects wanted to start with a group program. I had nothing for them. Complicating things, your success as a public speaker unfolds over the long arc of time, not 3- or 6-months.
As of now, I've sold 8 of 10 seats into the new iteration of my group program. These are authors, speakers, former execs, and emerging thought leaders ready to go from one-off keynotes to sustainable revenue from the stage.
Rather than eight weeks virtually, it's a full-year program, guided by a light curriculum, with two in-person retreats. It's meant for experts, authors, and speakers to build their paid speaking flywheels together -- the talk, the proof, the network, the systems.
I'm finalizing those last two spots this week. Reply if you want to see the sales page with all details.
This group program will eventually become my signature offering, while the 1:1 advisory services become a premium-level secondary offering. Both are aligned with each other, serving the same audience in different ways, rather than splitting me across two different audiences. My previous group program showed me just how exhausting it can be to have up- and down-market offerings (or maybe up- and mid-market, given my prices).
The Green Room will also allow me to remain application-based, instead of pay-to-join, which I prefer and existing members like better. I can also run multiple small groups and bring on other coaches to lead a group or two, scaling my revenue beyond what 1:1 engagements allow for.
All in all, it's snapping into place with 1:1 and group being so aligned.
Current roster of 1:1 clients:
Here is an anonymized list of clients who have hired me to develop their premise, IP, and signature talks, as well as their audience growth and speaking success systems:
A repeat founder launching a new company helping creators who are at scale stay safe despite how visible they've become. [Repeat client]
A former sales exec in the banking sector who now works with innovative fintech leaders to help them sell into financial institutions. [Also joining the Green Room.]
A former HR executive at global brands who now writes, speaks, podcasts, and consults about the future of HR. [Also joining the Green Room.]
An executive coach previously specializing in neurodivergent leaders expanding to include all kinds of execs and high-performers as a coach, drawing on her knowledge of systems and the brain. [Repeat client. Also joining the Green Room.]
A veteran brand marketer and strategist building her own agency and helping her clients rethink the power of actual brand strategy.
The CEO of a scaling startup empowering professionals through exam prep tools.
The EVP of a midsized software-and-services firm becoming the known, trusted voice for his organization.
A veteran podcast producer building his own agency, serving enterprise brands, learning to step into the spotlight to grow the business.
Speaker fees:
Looking at my numbers, a few things jump out. Let's start with speaker fees, since that's what started this whole entrepreneurial journey for me back in 2016. My kids are 7 and 4, which means my wife and I can take turns traveling solo without the other feeling totally crushed at home. But it's still pretty exhausting—and not at all my preferred way of working. You can promise me a big bag of cash and a thousand people's laughter and applause, and that still doesn't come close to the feeling of simply being at home with my kids. As a result, speaker fees are where I want them to be. I should end the year with those right around 10-12%. They were 80% pre-pandemic. This year's totals are exactly aligned with the target I set for my speaker revenue when I began to reinvent things three years ago.
Finally.
The next five years will mean growing those slightly, but I have no plans to return to the full road-warrior mode. Much respect to my favorite humans who are doing that. I'm here to support you from behind-the-scenes!
Where speaking fits now:
Today, while I can maintain some direct revenue from speaking, most of my speaking is the best possible marketing for my services—and most of those talks happen quietly, privately, to densities of my ideal audience (niche media groups, community groups, and collaborative webinars with complementary service providers, delivered as free sessions).
This is a real advantage I've worked hard to earn, but only recently have I realized just how differentiating and powerful it can be for any of us who sell services. If building a keynote speaking business is like playing basketball on a 10-foot rim, defended by NBA players, then giving webinars feels to me like dunking on a Fisher Price hoop, completely alone in the driveway. The bar is SO low that if you can leap over them, some really impressive people want to hire you after a guest webinar. It helps that I can showcase the very same things I help others develop: my premise, my IP, and my storytelling and speaking abilities.
(All this to say, if YOU run a media company or community of established entrepreneurs or executives, invite me to speak. I'll probably say yes 😊)
Again, I'm still speaking regularly, just at lower volumes, but I'll do as many guest sessions virtually as the world will allow!
Upcoming talks:
To give you a sense for precisely how speaking fits in my world today, here's a look at a selection of talks I'll be delivering:
PAID GIGS: Two private clients hired me to speak virtually to their marketing teams to set the tone at their off-sites. One is a media and entertainment conglomerate whose characters, properties, and parks help you wish upon a star. The other is an incredible team of marketers building at a leading agency specializing in TV advertising for its clients. For both, I'm giving my signature talk, Resonance Over Reach: How to Compete on the Influence of Your Ideas, Not the Volume of Your Marketing.
FREE SESSIONS: A few friends also graciously opened the doors to their communities of creators, where I'll be giving free sessions about the business of speaking, including Jay Clouse (he runs The Lab) and Justin Moore (he owns Creator Wizard, coaching creators on all things brand deals).
BOSTON STRONG: I'm also speaking at a couple events local to me (woo!), including BookThinkers LIVE and B2B Forum.
DANCING IN DENMARK: Lastly, I'm honored to be the opening speaker at a brand-new event for content marketers, launched this fall by a successful events organization in Denmark. I'll be traveling to Odense in October to give my signature keynote, plus a breakout about public speaking.
WHAT'S WORKING?
Reinventing things was a slog. It got bleak for awhile, and I considered giving up and looking for a corporate job multiple times. That all ended about two and a half years ago when things started to click. I started to feel a kind of momentum I NEVER had, and this year, I'm holding something in my hand that's bigger and better than I ever imagined, just trying not to screw it up.
So what’s working? Hard to say. A million little things, but a few thoughts:
1) Getting clear on my offerings.
Crazy to say, but as I've suggested above, I couldn't really tell folks what I sold in my post-pandemic business until the last couple years. They could be huge fans and holding up wads of cash asking to hire me. I'd shrug and say, "You can hire me for ... things. Yep. Definitely things. Also stuff. Plenty of stuff. Mostly stuff having to do with things I write and speak about."
Oof.
When you sell high-ticket offerings, it's not about the cleverness of the offering. It's about the clarity.
2) Years of refusing to compromise my values and play the gimmicky social media game finally align with my offerings and market.
The tactics to get “bigger” mainly repel serious clients capable of paying five figure fees. HAVING a big audience can help. GETTING to a big audience mostly means appealing to not very strategic or discerning people. Hard to sell premium things to premium people when you signal you aren’t.
Some folks have approached me over the years to say something that sounds like, "I appreciate how you don't compromise, Jay. I can't wait until I have the results I need so I can stop playing this soul-sucking game."
I tell them the same thing: Pick your clients, pick your future. If you know and respect me, it's only because I've always been this way. You don't play the gimmicky-game, then switch it off. You resist in order to rise. To the extent that I have or am a "personal brand" named Jay Acunzo, I feel like saying to these people: how do you think I became Jay Acunzo? My style, my vibe, my voice, my work's alignment with my values—that's not the byproduct of success. That's the cause.
(Be right back. I need to take a shower after writing about myself that way...)
3) Leaning into my speaking and my IP away from physical stages is paying serious dividends and turning sales calls into formalities.
Webinars, podcast guesting, networking 1:1 and 1:few—relationship marketing 101. I mentioned this before, so I won't belabor it here, but a guest talk to 20 qualified people in a mastermind is much more valuable to me than social posts garnering 10k Likes or 1M views.
The full embrace of relationship marketing has meant slower follower growth on social media and virtually no email list growth, but about 3x more leads from a much more valuable audience. It's not that my audience isn't growing. It's that I'm shedding folks who aren't relevant and aren't interested in my current focus while adding people who are. The result is an increase in value but not totals, as well as many more qualified people booking calls with me than previous years.
This also means I spend more time on networking calls than carefully crafting social content. I still post to social media, but only because it's fun for me to express, poke the bear, and create. I also love to teach and field questions in my comments. I never had and still don't have a strategy for LinkedIn. Maybe that's a mistake. All I know is, the folks who have painstakingly scoped out their content strategy on these channels are constantly reacting, constantly stressed, and currently telling me how the algorithm is reducing their results. Meanwhile, my LinkedIn impressions are up 40% quarter over quarter. Engagements are up 34%. And that's the only time you'll catch me checking these numbers.
Lastly, my relationship-focus (versus traffic-focus) has meant exceptional conversion rates. In fact, 70% of all prospects who schedule a sales call with me have hired me. By putting in the work earlier to meet folks as a speaker, writer, and trusted voice, someone booking a call with me is asking questions about timeline and specific work we'd do and how I'd tailor my ideas to their precise situations. The call is a sample of our work together and a means to check availability and alignment. It's not really a "sales" call. They're mostly convinced.
4) A return to my roots.
Before the pandemic, I would freely organize groups to talk shop and chat with people 1:1 virtually and in-person. I was here to help. As my network grew and also as things got hard, I tensed up. I stopped focusing on being useful and uplifting and focused narrowly on trying to generate some kind of business result, which mainly looked like "survive." But now, I feel the joy in simply being helpful again. I've been organizing virtual meetups of keynote speakers (let me know if you want to join the next one). I've offered folks my time to talk shop a bit more freely. I've shared more advice and results from my own work and traction, not just big-think concepts.
It feels good.
If there's anything I wanted to say to you today, it's that. I've felt pretty bad for many years building my business. But today, the sun is shining, the people are kind, and I can see my kids tossing the frisbee with my wife just outside my window as I write this. And nothing is pulling me away from them.
I understand today's world is uncertain and stressful.
I know what I just shared might make me the exception. But I promise you, there is a future where things run smoother and get better. I don't say this because I'm in the business of self-help. I say this because I'm the beneficiary of others' help. I say this because I have scars I can point to and stories I can share.
I'm here, telling you to keep going, because a little delusion is what you might need. I'm here to say it's possible to align your values and your business, to serve people you adore, and to not chain yourself to the feeds and the terrible decisions made by faraway tech executives who don't care about you or anything but themselves.
I'm here to share a message from your future, spoken not as someone who skipped lightly around the world but the guy who sprinted out his front door to watch a sky on fire, convinced it was over. But as we know, that's not where the story ends.
Keep going.