The Agents of Change Digital Marketing Podcast · Rich Brooks | Interviews with Marketing Experts | SEO | Social Media Market

The Secret Sauce That's Missing from Your Messaging with Jay Acunzo

October 22, 2025·33 min·3 clips

Jay Acunzo introduces his unsolicited response rate metric to measure if your ideas truly compel people.

Jay Acunzo, a keynote speaker and former marketing leader at Google and HubSpot, joins host Rich Brooks to discuss moving beyond generic content. Acunzo argues that true differentiation comes from developing a unique premise, not just sharing commodified expertise. He began his independent career as a paid professional speaker, building a "flywheel" of demand through his speeches before offering consulting services. Acunzo criticizes the common marketing approach of creating high-volume, tips-focused content, which he compares to being "a louder commodity" or "a brighter shade of beige." He asserts that expertise has been commodified, making it crucial to influence how people think before you can influence how they act or buy. The core shift involves crafting a "narrative argument" for your perspective, similar to how a lawyer builds a case. Acunzo introduces his "X, Y premise pitch" framework: "This is about X, unlike others about X, only we Y." He illustrates this with his own podcast, *How Stories Happen*, which argues that stories are crafted, not just experienced. A key insight is the need to measure "Unsolicited Response Rate" to gauge resonance, not just platform-driven reach metrics. He proposes scoring responses from 0 to 6 points, with the highest score given when people share personal stories. Acunzo advocates "aerating" your thinking publicly, like a comedian testing material, to sharpen your message before a major launch. He emphasizes that content creation is a learning and development tool for the creator, not just a distribution channel. For presentation structure, he recommends a "barbell" approach, focusing most energy on a signature opener and closer due to the primacy and recency effects. Acunzo dismisses advice focused solely on building online fame or stage theatrics, stressing instead the "posture" of the speaker and a sustainable practice. The conversation is highly educational and conversational, blending personal anecdotes with actionable frameworks. Marketing professionals and content creators tired of generic advice will find this episode invaluable. Listeners seeking quick, tactical social media tips might find the strategic focus less immediately applicable.

As heard by us

A clear case for making a message into a premise worth defending.

The episode treats messaging as more than a slogan and lands on a sturdier idea: a narrative argument. It keeps returning to the point that audiences need more than a promise; they need a reason to accept a point of view, and the X, Y premise pitch gives that idea a concrete…

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Why you'd press play

If your message sounds smart but forgettable, this episode helps you build a clearer narrative argument.

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