Your room has heard the how-to talks. I speak on why the problem is still there.
Keynotes and workshops for owners, bankers, chambers, executives and alumni groups. I teach growth and opportunity, and I came up in broadcast.
Rooms that have heard it all still stall
Most rooms I speak to have sat through the talks on marketing, hiring, cash and leadership. People took notes, and the same problem was back on Monday. In my experience, that happens because the fix was aimed at the wrong phase of the business.
I am John “Jonyprofit” Whaley. I teach that order: Mission, then Market, then Method. I am part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program team, where I teach growth and opportunity to cohorts of business owners. I came up in radio and television, so I hold a room, keep to time and work a live conversation.
The talks
Each description starts with the problem the room has. Each talk ends with something people can use the next morning.
Read the Water First
Buyers are not showing up, and the marketing spend has not changed that. Marketing is a method. The market is the water the business sits in, and it has to be read before a heading is chosen, the way a pilot reads the conditions before takeoff. I show the room how to follow the money to the flagship in their region, name the gap that is open and ask the Money Question live. For owners, bankers, chambers and economic development rooms.
You're Not Stuck. You're Out of Order.
Cash is tight, or hiring is hard, or marketing is flat, and each fix costs money and does not hold. In my experience, many of these stalls sit one phase upstream of where they show. A checklist run out of order fails the same way for a skilled pilot. I walk the room through Mission, Market, Method and help each person find where their problem lives. For any room.
From Star Player to Owner
The founder is the best seller, the best operator and the last decision, and the business stops when the founder stops. The team can only pass the founder the ball. The star player, the coach, the general manager and the owner each have a different job. This talk helps the founder decide which seat comes next, and who takes the last shot.
Pilot, Not Mechanic
Owners spend years improving the business, with a new system, a new hire or a new campaign, and still cannot say where it is headed. Maintaining the aircraft matters. Choosing the destination and reading the conditions is a separate job. The talk gives a room the habit of looking out the window instead of down at the engine.
Type Rated
An executive leaves a large organization, and the plane feels heavier than it should. The staff, the budget and the title stayed behind, and some of the skills did not come along. A pilot does not fly a bigger aircraft by wanting to. For executives in transition, the talk covers how to get rated for the next one: the people to borrow, the instructors to find and the checkride many people skip.
The Bottom of the Top
A strong performer has outgrown the room they are in and has to decide whether to enter a larger one where they start near the bottom. It is better to be at the very bottom of the top than at the very top of the bottom. A first officer on a larger aircraft can learn more in a year than a captain flying the same short route. For alumni groups and employee resource groups, the talk covers choosing the room that stretches you and entering it from strength.
Why You Can't Find Good People
The posting goes up, the new hire starts strong and fades, and the owner ends up doing the work again. In my experience, the hire was made before the workflow was drawn. A crew is assigned to a flight plan, and the flight plan does not wait for the crew. Hire for will first, because ability and readiness can be built and will is much harder to install. I show a team how to draw the workflow before the roster and screen on Willing, Able, Ready.
The Chair You Came From
Your industry sees the business one way, and you see it another, or the finance seat reads every decision as a cost. The professional chair you rose through bends how you see a whole business. A pilot and a mechanic can look at the same aircraft and report different problems. The talk names the tendencies to watch in your chair before that lens writes your mission for you.
Growth Is Not Expansion
Revenue went up, and the owner has less to show for it: more trucks, more locations, more spend, thinner margin. Growth has four definitions: revenue, margin, equity and fans. A bigger aircraft burns more fuel and pays only when the seats are sold. Spend that is not tied to identified buyers is expansion, and the room learns to tell the two apart and name which of the four a plan moves.
Formats
Keynote
45 to 60 minutes. Any talk above, built for your audience.
Workshop
90 minutes, with the Money Question run live in the room.
Half-day and full-day
Deeper sessions with the workbook, so people leave with pages filled in as well as notes.
The program in-house
The Opportunity for Growth Assessment Program for a leadership team, a department or a group of companies. See Facilitation.
Emcee and moderated conversations
I keep the program on time and the conversation on the questions your audience came to ask.
Where I have taught and spoken
- Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, as part of the program team. In 2026, six cohorts on growth and opportunity: three in Houston (spring, summer and fall), two with the national online cohort (spring and fall), and one in Baltimore
- 2026 Gulf Coast Symposium on HR Issues, NRG Center, Houston, as co-presenter
- Project Management in the Field, for the Foundation First Leadership program
- Ten years with SCORE as a counselor and vice chair of the Houston chapter
- Judge for business-plan competitions run by banks, colleges and programs for young and underserved founders
What organizers get
- A call before the event to learn the room, the seats in it and what you want to happen afterward
- A talk built for that audience, with stories and examples that fit their market
- A speaker who starts and ends on time and takes questions
- The two-page system as a printable handout for the room
- A written quote, with fees on request
Not booking yet?
Join the EEThinkers for one idea a week and hear how I think before you decide. Connect with me on LinkedIn too, where I have more than 7,000 connections, many of them owners from the rooms I have taught. If you are an owner or an executive who wants a read on your own situation, the assessment at Start Here is the second step.
Request John
Tell me about the room: who sits in it, how long you have and what you want them to do on Monday. The form below comes to me, and I answer it myself.
Request John for your room
Name the room, the date and what you want people to leave with. Fees on request.
What formats do you offer?
A keynote of 45 to 60 minutes, a 90-minute workshop with the Money Question run live, a half-day or full-day session with the workbook, the program brought in-house for a leadership team, and emcee or moderated-conversation work. Tell me the room and the time you have, and we will pick the format together.
Do you tailor the talk to our group?
Yes. Before any event I ask who will be in the room, what seats they hold and what you want them doing the following week. The talk is built from that. The same idea lands differently with bankers, with founders and with an alumni group, so the stories and the examples change with the room.
How do fees work?
Fees are quoted on request, once I know the format, the date and the location. There is no price list on this site because the work varies too much for one number to be fair. Send the request below with the basics and you will get a quote in writing.
Can you bring a session inside our organization?
Yes. The Opportunity for Growth Assessment Program can run for a leadership team, a department, an association or a group of companies. The Facilitation page describes how it works in the room and in the thirty days after.
One idea a week. Five minutes. No noise.
A market read, a story, a line from the book, and one question to carry into the week. When you are ready for a read on your own business or career, the assessment is the next step.