Speaking and workshops
Sessions where the room builds something.
Every session produces work product during the session rather than a reading list afterward. Attendees leave holding the thing they came for, which is usually a decision they have been avoiding.
Check availabilityThe premise
Growth and protection, taught in the same breath.
Most sessions on growth treat protection as somebody else's topic, and most sessions on risk treat growth as the enemy. That split is what puts capable operators in trouble. They build the crew, the talent, and the systems with real care, and then run for years with no instruments and no guardrails.
These sessions are built by someone who did exactly that, watched it come apart in public, and spent three years working out which parts were load-bearing. The material is not inspirational. It is what he would have paid a great deal of money to hear four years earlier.
Workshop first
Participants build real work product during the session. Nothing is assigned as homework, because homework does not get done.
Operator credibility
He built it, scaled it, lost it, and rebuilt. The failure is documented in a published book rather than hinted at from a stage.
Stage calibrated
Frameworks adapt to where the room actually is, from single site through multi-location through enterprise track.
Both sides of the ledger
Every session addresses how to grow and what has to hold while you do it. Ambition and protection are not opposites.
Session menu
Four talks, drawn from the book.
Each runs as a 45 to 60 minute keynote or a 60 to 90 minute workshop. Content is tailored to the audience before the event, at no additional cost.
Performance Without ProtectionWhy the fastest-growing operation in the room is often the most fragile one.
The Five PartsCrew, drivers, the machine, instruments, and guardrails. A shared language for what is actually holding your organization up.
Your Brain on CrisisWhy capable people make indefensible decisions during a bad stretch, and what to build before you are in one.
The First Seventy-Two HoursWhat to do, in order, when something is actually breaking. The most practical session on any agenda.
In 45 minutes
Every attendee leaves with
- One or two decision frameworks they can apply immediately.
- A scorecard starter, meaning the handful of numbers that actually tell them how things are going.
- A next-steps worksheet with specific actions to take inside seven days.
- Clarity on what to fix first, before the next hire, the next location, or the next service line.
In 60 to 90 minutes
The workshop format adds
- A ninety-day priorities map with an accountability structure, built in the room.
- A weekly operating cadence they can run starting Monday.
- Table-level peer work, so people leave having heard from operators at their own stage.
- A guardrail audit scored against their own operation rather than a hypothetical one.
What rooms tend to say
The four reactions that come back most often.
Finally, clarity on what matters most right now.
A framework I can actually use to make faster decisions.
Practical things I can do without adding headcount.
I understand how to grow without losing control of it.
Engagement and logistics
What an organizer needs to know before the call.
| Speaking fees | Available for paid engagements. Conference and association keynotes are considered case by case. Contact for rates and availability. |
| Ideal audiences | Founder and owner groups at any stage, multi-site and multi-location operators, professional services and healthcare groups, associations, leadership teams, and anyone preparing for ownership. Written in and around dentistry, though the material is not industry specific. |
| Formats | Keynote at 45 to 60 minutes. Workshop at 60 to 90 minutes. Half-day and full-day intensives by arrangement. |
| Room setup | Workshop sessions require tables rather than theater seating. This one matters more than anything else on this list, because the work does not happen without a surface to do it on. |
| A/V | Microphone, projector and screen, and a clicker. A whiteboard or flip chart is optional and useful. |
| Travel | Hotel accommodation covered by the host when the event requires an overnight stay. |
| Books | Bulk copies for attendees can be arranged directly. Signing sessions are welcome and work best immediately after the talk. |
The speaker
Eric J. Nuss, MBA
More than two decades in dentistry and business, leading practices, advising owners, and building single locations into multi-site organizations.
He has also lived the other side of it. A business collapse led to court-supervised proceedings and, eventually, personal bankruptcy. He wrote about it in The Broke(n) Part(s), published in July 2026, because the version of that story he needed did not exist when he needed it.
That combination is the reason these sessions work. He can teach expansion and protection in the same hour, and he has paid for both halves of the lesson.
Check availabilityThe Broke(n) Part(s)
A field guide for founders building fast, breaking quietly, or starting over.By Eric J. Nuss, MBA. Published July 2026. ISBN 979-8-9972078-0-9.