How an Actor Built a $700K Speaking Business
Artists often find it challenging to build businesses, as trading their time or skills for money doesn't come naturally to many of them. They prefer to focus on perfecting their craft rather than worrying about its financial viability. Society can also undervalue or underestimate an artist's earning potential.
Yet, artists bring a wealth of entrepreneurial skills to the table. They naturally create content (marketing), constantly pitch their work to shows (selling), and possess a great deal of grit (as they face frequent rejections or critiques).
Eduardo Placer, the founder of Fearless Communicators, exemplifies this transition from artist to entrepreneur. With a 15-year acting career under his belt, Eduardo has successfully leveraged his skills, experiences, and unique story to build a public speaking coaching business that is distinctly his own.
Through Fearless Communicators, Eduardo has elevated people poised to make the biggest difference, all while building a business with over $700k in annual revenue.
Who said you couldn’t make good money by being an artist and a social entrepreneur?
Let's dive into how Eduardo built Fearless Communicators into the business it is today:
Before Fearless Communicators
Growing up in Miami, Florida, Eduardo and his identical twin brother couldn't have been more different. While his brother played war with G.I. Joe, Eduardo played war too—but as a musical.
Eduardo attended an all-male Catholic school, where he was an activist. He started an environmental club that even succeeded in banning styrofoam. He later found himself at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), studying English and actively participating in the arts. As President of the Glee Club and a Choir and Choral Society member, Eduardo's passion for the arts flourished.
After graduating from UPenn, Eduardo moved to NYC to pursue his acting career. However, entry-level acting jobs paid a mere $200 per week, which wasn't nearly enough to cover living expenses in NYC, pay off a $9,000 student loan, and make ends meet.
He made it work though. Eduardo took on multiple roles. He secured a job in human resources at Standard & Poor's to cover his living expenses and cleaned toilets at a dance studio in exchange for taking 10 classes a week. As Eduardo put it, "If you're willing to clean toilets for a dream, you can pretty much do anything."
From 2004 to 2007, Eduardo attended the University of California, San Diego, where he earned his Master’s in Fine Arts in Acting.
With his NYC experiences and new MFA, Eduardo became a full-time actor.
While in grad school though, he also picked up a couple of side hustles that would prove more beneficial than he initially anticipated.
Eduardo took photos at a friend’s wedding that impressed the newlyweds more than their official wedding photographers. This led to Eduardo launching a photography business alongside his acting career. Additionally, he began helping people with public speaking, a skill that came naturally to him as an actor with extensive training in the field.
By 2007, Eduardo had three income streams: his full-time acting jobs, photography business, and public speaking business. His acting career took him all across the United States, with shows in NYC, Boise, Cleveland, Chicago, and Ashland, Oregon.
While in Ashland, Eduardo had an eye-opening experience. As part of his acting gig, he was tasked with leading a fundraiser to end HIV and AIDS. Despite it being the 26th year of the fundraiser and expectations of it being a "dud," Eduardo brought fresh energy to the event. He increased the number of fundraising events from 6 to 10, resulting in a 40% increase in funds raised compared to previous years.
This is when Eduardo started shifting from actor to full-time entrepreneur.
In talking with Eduardo about this shift, there were two main points of how we got there:
First, Eduardo wanted to be in NYC, and NYC and wanting to be an actor is a “toxic relationship”. Eduardo described it as “it’s like being in a relationship with someone who's just not that into you. When they're into you, it's amazing. It's like, Oh my God, we kissed with tongue and you looked in my eyes and then you don't look at me for a year. We don't even touch each other. But that time we held hands was really magical”.
The text version of that quote doesn’t do it justice. Watch the YouTube video at the top of this blog post to see Eduardo say it. It’s way more entertaining that way.
Second, Eduardo started to see what life was like for elder actors and wanted to have a more significant impact on the world than what he could do with acting.
As a result, he retired from acting at the end of 2014 and fully committed to his public speaking business, Fearless Communicators.
The start of Fearless Communicators
There are many public speaking coaches out there. What Eduardo did to separate himself and his business is fascinating.
Eduardo mentioned that he used the concept of “Tikkun Olam,” which means “world repair” in Hebrew, as a guiding principle in developing Fearless Communicators.
For Eduardo and Fearless Communicators, that concept led them to this mission of “elevating people who are posed to make the biggest difference.”
That effectively set their target market. It wouldn’t be just anyone they would train to be a better public speaker.
Eduardo wanted to support those who would have a tangible impact on the world, including those from marginalized communities. Especially since most of the training for public speaking was developed in the 1980s and was built for one particular demographic: intellectual straight white men.
Eduardo, as a cis-gay Latine man, grandchild, and child of Cuban refugees, knew that a lot of people didn’t feel represented in most public speaking training sessions.
It’s a big reason why Eduardo and Fearless Communicators teach public speaking not as an intellectual exercise or performance but more of a “physical, spiritual, and emotional exercise” so you can bring your whole self to public speaking.
Since going full time on Fearless Communicators in 2015, this different approach to public speaking has resonated with many people.
Within 2 years, Fearless Communicators reached $100,000 in annual revenue and in 2024, they reached $700,000 in annual revenue.
Growth Strategies of Fearless Communicators
When my conversation with Eduardo shifted to these growth strategies, Eduardo put it pretty simply: “With anything, you go to your network.”
Eduardo’s growth strategy for Fearless Communicators has been all about his network, but there are a few strategic ways he’s used and grown his network.
Relationships from Past and Current Opportunities
Eduardo has always been part of different organizations and opportunities. He went to an Ivy League school, has been part of all sorts of social impact organizations (like the HIV/AIDs fundraiser talked about above), and is part of boards of organizations like The OUT Foundation and the Cuban American Alliance for Leadership and Education.
By being active in all of these organizations, Eduardo has access to various networks at all times.
It’s a big reason why if you look at Eduardo’s Linkedin or Instagram profiles, he has photos with all these different people.
Eduardo is a super-connector and I loved his response when I called him that as he said, “I do not have an abundance of money, but I do have an abundance of love.”
Eduardo loves on people in his network and that’s made finding people to work with much easier. It’s not a transactional relationship; it’s a spirit of generosity (more on that in the next growth strategy).
Networking Groups
This growth strategy was fascinating. If you read Erin Rollenhagen’s deep dive, she mentioned that networking groups didn’t work very well. No one would necessarily refer a $100,000 project to her without having a lot of trust in Erin and Entrepreneurial Technologies.
For Eduardo, these networking groups have been powerful.
First, they’ve given Eduardo a community to work with so it’s not this lonely journey as a founder.
Second, by having a spirit of generosity, Eduardo has given to many people in these networking groups and, naturally, received a lot of value back.
Eduardo mentioned one group in particular that was helpful: Business Network International (BNI).
A big reason this works is that the motto of BNI is “Givers Gain”.
This effectively sets the tone for the groups not just to be transactional.
One example of what Eduardo shared with me about how this works is when Eduardo was in a group with an IT consultant. Eduardo spent 30 minutes with him for free on his presentation. His standard presentation was just the plain, kind of boring IT presentation. Eduardo knew he loved Greek mythology, so Eduardo worked with him to incorporate that into his presentation.
Suddenly, an IT guy had a sales presentation about how the stories would have been different if specific Greek mythology stories had an IT guy. It’s pretty darn clever.
It makes the presentation more lively, and because it’s a topic that energizes the IT guy, the energy he brings to the presentation will be much greater. What a smart hack for public speaking.
I love this approach by Eduardo and BNI because it turns networking groups that can turn transactional fast into relationships. It sets the expectation that if you give (and love) to others, you’ll receive value back over time.
If you’re building relationships in these networking groups, they effectively enhance your network for the long term and become more like the Industry Network referrals mentioned in the Erin Rollenhagen deep dive.
Events
Eduardo teaches others how to speak better publicly and practices what he teaches.
Eduardo and his team will train others to become better public speakers, but Eduardo also emcees and leads events. He’s incredible at it. You can look at some of Eduardo’s past speaking engagements here.
This growth strategy creates a flywheel. It’s essentially the same one I talked about with Terry Rice when he talked about teaching.
Eduardo will emcee an event that shows his expertise and builds trust. People will find out he trains people to become better public speakers, and then people in the audience can sign up for his public speaking training or ask him to be an emcee for their own events.
Events are a small but clever way to grow a consulting business.
If you’ve only read this deep dive, I highly recommend watching the video of this deep dive or checking out some of the past speaking engagements Eduardo has done. His energy is contagious; as someone said, Eduardo is a “molecule shifter” when he walks into a room.
He’s built a fantastic business and has shown others that you can build a business by bringing your whole personality to work.
You can learn more about Eduardo on LinkedIn or check out Fearless Communicators here.