A small, vetted group program where professional speakers grow our platforms and bookings together. We aren’t here to “get booked and paid to speak.” We are here to build sustainable speaking *businesses—*in order to have a real impact on the world.
Grow your speaking business by owning ideas and delivering keynotes that deeply excite you and genuinely serve others. For us, idea impact & revenue growth are one and the same.
https://mshowrunners.wistia.com/s/t3iupd4m2pde2pz
Created and hosted by Jay Acunzo.
“Like a creative workshop meets a business incubator.”
—Joe Lazer (global keynote speaker; author of The Storytelling Edge and Super Skill: Why Storytelling Is the Superpower of the AI Age*; former CMO and Editor in Chief)*
“Jay’s a practitioner, not a consultant. He’s got frameworks and lessons from years of speaking professionally and helping some of the best in the business, but his advice is not one-size-fits-all. Whether you’re prepping for your first keynote or you’ve given hundreds, Jay will make you better.”
—Simone Stolzoff (TED main stage speaker, bestselling author of The Good Enough Job and How to Not Know; writer for The Atlantic + The New York Times*)*
⚠️ The next small group is forming now. Apply at the bottom of the page.
Revenue-centric by design: The right work in the right order to drive results
In this industry, there are lots of misconceptions and even some bad actors which can pull your focus (and dollars) towards things that don’t actually move the needle. In the Green Room, we work on what actually matters to driving leads and bookings and actually matters for our ideas to have a greater impact in the world.
We stay close to how clients actually book speakers [here’s the research…]
We work “inside-out” to prioritize how revenue actually happens [click for more]
Shared language to simplify the work: Remember “TPNS”
Because of the sheer volume of stuff we could discuss and do as speakers (in general and in the Green Room), we make things easier to understand and navigate: we categorize the work into 4 pillars of a successful speaker business.
While YOU will focus on the specific things under a given pillar based on your own specifics, ALL of us are consistently working on all 4 of these pillars:
A chance to pause to address deeper strategy and creative needs with others supporting you.
A lot of coaches and organizations tell you what to do, but they don’t understand what it’s like.
⬇️ This is what it’s like. What it’s REALLY like. (Prologue from Jay’s upcoming book, Bag Full of Dongles: Adventures in the Weird, Wonderful World of Professional Speaking*)*
what professional speaking is like.mp3
This is an invite- and application-only group. It’s small by design, and Jay personally vets every member. Everyone admitted has a clear point of view, a real body of work, and an emerging or refined signature idea—as well as the kind of career history that makes them interesting and useful to others in the room.
What we share isn't a topic or an industry. It's a standard.
Everyone in The Green Room…
That’s what we have in common. What differs person to person — and what makes the room even more valuable — is everything else, like business models, industries, life experiences, personal perspectives, and the specific shapes of our speeches and speaking journeys.
We are diverse enough to challenge each other, aligned enough to trust each other.
“It’s the best kind of speaking mastermind, where you’re helping one another become better speakers and build more sustainable speaking businesses.”—Melanie Deziel, ex-New York Times and TIME Inc // 2x author // global keynote speaker
Your annual membership includes:
About our retreats [2 per year]
https://mshowrunners.wistia.com/s/h5lc5jaqjuwvnbh
Join us in-person to do the work that’s hardest to do alone and most powerful to do together: strengthening your signature talk from the stage, capturing video you can use, and getting clarity on foundational business needs and next steps.
📹 A videographer is covered by the Green Room, present to film your stage time + more.
👉 Attendance is encouraged but not required. That said, it’s a rare chance for deeper discussions with each other and strategic work on our businesses.
🥃 Meals and bar tabs are covered by us, and while we arrive to retreats ready to work hard, we also want to enjoy ourselves!