When your expertise sounds like everyone elseâs, youâre forced to compete on price instead of value. I help experts and leaders transform their thinking into IP: a distinctive premise, signature speeches, differentiated messaging, and a platform of storytelling impact. Letâs make your ideas clear, repeatable, powerful, yours.
YOUR unique voice, YOUR unique message, delivered so THEY deeply care.
Work with me 1:1 as your dedicated collaborator or invite me to speak to your group.
Move from scattered thinking â to a big idea
From "wall of smarts" talks â to life-changing speeches
From constantly chasing attention â to being highly sought
Obsessive perfectionism, deep expertise, lots of big ideas, but couldnât articulate âitâ
Mistrust in othersâ ability to understand him enough to help (no âsimple systems,â please)
After 25 years in the public eye as an author, speaker, experience designer, and musician, Mykel is no stranger to inspiring audiences or advising on their ideas, but when it came to his own, he says:
âSpending days, weeks, months of sleepless nights trying to figure out, âOh my God, who am I? What am I?â That has been the throughline of my entire life and career in business.
"I hired Jay because I knew he had this ability to translate big ideas into easily accessible, palatable ways for multiple different kinds of audiences to find a way into your IP. That's very, very hard to do, but he's just got a gift for it."
"He doesn't push you down any direction you don't want to go. He doesn't force his frameworks ... He adapts his process to get the best out of you, which for any mentor or expert or guide, that's the real genius."
"I needed to take my IP to where it could reach every kind of audience without losing the depth, without losing the magic and the mystery and the beauty of it all."
Every moment you spend sharing a generic message instead of owning your Big Idea leaves revenue on the table and creates frustration in you and others.
Itâs tempting to shout louder and hype harder, but instead, invest more in the substance, expertise, and creativity that got you here. No gimmicks required. Turn your thinking into your IP. Articulate your big ideas as a distinct premise.
Clarity creates connection. Resonance drives results.
âThe mark of a true expert is someone who can understand how to meld best practices with what is right for you. Thatâs who Jay is and what he delivered. Heâs just that good. He knows what will work and how to make it work for you. Hire Jay. He gets it, and heâs worth it.â
âMichelle Warner (business designer and strategist)
Just like an executive producer helping musicians or a director supporting actors, your strongest thinking and highest-impact projects deserve the idea collaborator to match your level of experience, taste, and vision.
My job is to extract your best thinking, then help you package it to resonate deeper.
We want to matter more, not market more. To achieve that, we need to think resonance over reach. Thereâs a huge difference between volume and power, followers and influence, awareness and affinity.
The most defensible thing you can do today is build a Platform of Impact around a distinct premise and surrounding IP. Youâre a leading voice with a distinct perspective and memorable delivery. Youâre not a commodity. But too often, we feel like one.
Instead, learn to compete on the impact of your thinking, not the volume of your marketing. Because when people make choices, they play favorites. Are you one of them?
My job is to extract FROM you, not impose ON you, which is the inverse of most coaches who press their âsimple systemsâ repeatedly onto all clients. Iâm more exec producer and peer-level advisor than client factory. My job is to ensure we get the best version of you out there, drilling down to the essence of who you are and what youâre saying.
Most of my peers start downstream of the real source of your communication power. Downstream things include messaging copy, storytelling and speeches, thought leadership content, and media training. While I work on all these things with my clients, we begin our process by developing a distinct premise for your work. A premise sounds like your insightful reframe on your chosen topic, i.e. the Big Idea you explore and own. This in turn informs your IP, and your premise plus your IP inform and strengthen your entire platform. We start at the source. We start with your premise, because if you canât articulate a clear, repeatable, ownable premise (and embody it yourself, everywhere you go), the rest will be lower-impact.
My parents (a preschool teacher and a software engineer) used to joke that my momâs wildly creative side and my dadâs extremely logical, organized side could often be seen battling in my brain when I played. Thankfully, both halves harmonize perfectly in our work together, as we develop big, creative ideas and projects while I help you stay organized, keep you accountable, and ensure things feel knowable and repeatable.
A lot of my peers have never built a career as a public voice and thought leader, and while I donât think you need to do that in order to coach it well, my career as a trusted marketing thinker and business storyteller across sectors and stages gives me a different kind of insight into and appreciation for the work we do together (and all the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it).
âSusan Boles (virtual CFO and business strategist)
You know you've got something bigger, bolder, more meaningful to sayâbut you can't quite capture it in words that make others care as much as you do. That's where I come in. Through my Matter More Method, we'll extract your perspective, craft your premise, and turn your scattered thinking into the Big Idea that becomes your competitive advantage.
We'll map your current position on the Idea Impact Matrix, identify your path towards highly differentiated and resonant work, and create a custom plan for your premise development.
because premise development isnât a cheap hackâitâs the foundation of your entire platform & legacy
âJay doesnât really help people create a message or talk, though that is an outcome. He helps them better understand themselves and what they think. There's a lot of business power in that.â
âDevin Bramhall (agency growth advisor and fractional CMO)
Your premise, shared as a core narrative argument, is why others pick you, stick with you, and refer you.
Your premise is the big idea you explore and own. Itâs the perspective you defend, the change you ask others to embrace.
Your premise helps you clarify your choices and strengthen your reputation, making it easier toâŚ
differentiate your message
create consistently high-impact content
craft signature stories, frameworks, and even sellable offers
deliver memorable speeches, guest appearances, and thought leadership
In a world obsessed with empty reach, when you learn to resonate, you donât have to care about followers. You earn real influence, and reaching the right people gets easierâeven when youâre not in the room.
*Michelle and Tucker are clients, Sally and James are great examples, and please someone introduce me to John.
Different is better than better.
âSally Hogshead
Resonance over reach.
âJay Acunzo (oh hey, thatâs me!)
You donât rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
âJames Clear
You donât need a strategy. You need a sequence.
âMichelle Warner
The keys to innovation are held by poets.
âTucker Bryant
Creativity is not a talent. Itâs a way of operating.
âJohn Cleese
âIâve been delivering keynotes for 20 years. In a short period of time, he was able to dissect the message I was struggling with and taught me to actually deliver it concisely. It was waaaaaaay better than I could have done alone. In a few short conversations, he totally understood my voice and gave honest feedback throughout. He found a premise for me that worked and the flow to my new outstanding talk that I cannot wait to release out into the world.â
âShawn Shepheard (business coach, speaker, and podcaster)
Leaders and big thinkers, struggling with clarity
Established experts worried about feeling generic or hoping to charge a premium.
Soloists and service providers who want to be known for their ideas, not just their services
Business authors who want deeper connections with their audience, not just âmore followersâ
Like Justin Moore, business coach for creators and one of the best-known voices in the creator economy.
âSarah Stockdale (CEO of Growclass)
âJayâs commitment to craft is contagious. Even rarer, heâs skilled at breaking down and explaining how to assemble specific ingredients for achieving greater resonance in your work.â
âJenny Blake (globally touring speaker, 2x author, podcaster with 2m+ downloads)
A refreshing and inspiring look at the storytelling mastery of guests like Seth Godin (marketing legend with 22 bestselling business books), Ann Handley (WSJ bestselling author of Everybody Writes), Chase Jarvis (one of the most influential advocates for creativity in work and life), Laura Gassner Otting (2x WSJ bestseller; Good Morning America correspondent on work and career), Andrew Davis (globally touring keynote speaker), Rand Fishkin (CEO of SparkToro), and bestselling author Simone Stolzoff, who worked out a draft of his entire TED Talk!
Youâll walk away ready to compete on the impact of your ideas, not the volume of your marketing.
â â â â â
Together with Arbez Films, I created a four-part limited series taking you inside my process of developing and piloting my podcast the year it launched.
I partnered with the brand Help Scout to create a three-part docuseries about businesses who believe thereâs a better way to build than growth-at-all-costs.
With a diverse range of real-world stories, Break the Wheel offers a simple but powerful way to think for yourself when surrounded by endless advice and conventional wisdom. Say goodbye to average work and hello to doing your best.
âUsually business writing is for people who want to be led, not for people who want to think.
Jay challenges people to think instead, and to remember that we benefit from being whole people not divided into business pieces and not-business pieces. Iâve been reading his work for years.â
- Maggie, a happy reader and think-for-yourselfer
âFile this book under completely paradigm shifting.
This will change the way you think about what you need to do to be successful, and free you do do more of what is a unique expression of yourself. Itâs easy to get caught up thinking that success lies in best practices. But best practices arenât best for everyone. Question assumptions and unlock massive impact, revenue, and fulfillment.
-5 Star Amazon Reviewâ
âA rare great marketing book!
A terrific book with important advice for every marketer. Itâs not âbest practiceâ, itâs how to find whatâs best for your specific situation. Smart, well-written and super helpful.â
-5 Star Amazon Review