Humor Detector System PPD Sprint
The Pain Point Detective Program

Make every high-stakes audience feel like you built your speech just for them.

A four-week sprint to find any audience's pain and turn it into custom humor that influences and converts.

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The system behind

The only customization program for speakers built by a coach who not only understands the speaker-audience persuasion dynamic, but is a late-night TV writer. Not another speaking consultant teaching you to read the room.

I run the Sprint whenever there's enough people ready to go. Email me with any questions.

The next sprint is scheduled for

PPD Sprint — Fall Cohort 2

  • AI Tools OnboardingThursday 10/22
  • Working Session 1Thursday 10/29
  • Working Session 2Thursday 11/5
  • Working Session 3Thursday 11/12
  • Working Session 4Thursday 11/19
  • Complimentary office hoursOne session after 11/19, date TBD

All sessions virtual, live on camera. Start 4pm PT / 7pm ET. Run 90 to 120 minutes depending on cohort size.

Who this is for

Two kinds of speakers walk in the door

You're already good

You've put in the reps. You can hold a room. But you walk into events surrounded by the names everyone knows: the NSA Hall of Famers, the bestselling authors, the speakers with TED talks in the millions. And you can feel the math working against you. Not because your material isn't strong. It is. Because in a room of strong speakers, strong isn't enough.

You want to be one of the two or three speakers people are still talking about at the cocktail hour. The one the audience texts their colleague about. The one a booker watches and thinks, we need to get this person in front of our group.

You want to walk offstage knowing you didn't just deliver a good talk. You delivered the talk that audience needed. And the room felt it. This is the unlock.

Or you have one talk. And it has to land.

Maybe you're not building a speaking career. You're building toward one stage. The TED talk. The keynote at your industry's biggest conference. The investor day. The internal all-hands where your story for the year gets locked in.

You don't get a second take. You don't get to workshop it on the road. The room either gets it or it doesn't.

The Pain Point Detective Sprint was built for both kinds of speakers: the ones who walk on a stage every month, and the ones who walk on once a year and need to land it.

What is it

Four weeks. One real audience. A methodology that outlasts it.

Weekly live, virtual coaching plus an onboarding session for the custom-designed AI tools. Built around one real, upcoming, high-stakes audience, and a methodology you'll use for every talk after it.

Each week is a group session with Chris: small cohort, live, on camera. You'll come in with one audience in mind, the keynote you're prepping, the conference you've just been booked for, the all-hands you can't sleep over. You'll leave a different speaker: the kind who can walk into any high-stakes room, any industry, any audience, any pain point, and know exactly how to build the moment that lands. Not because you got lucky. Because you ran the system.

Format

Live weekly cohort sessions, on camera, plus an onboarding session and AI-tool setup.

Built around

One real, upcoming, high-stakes audience you bring into Week 1.

What you'll master in four weeks

From "I get my audience" to "the room felt like they wrote this just for us"

Here's how it works, using live coaching and proven, proprietary AI-assisted tools.

Session What happens
Onboarding

Build your case file

Get set up with the AI tools and build a detailed workup of your one high-stakes audience, and exactly where you overlap with them. You come into Week 1 with a target, not a question.

Week 1

The Detective Work

We stress-test your case file to find what actually keeps your audience up at night, and how it throws a wrench in their Tuesdays. Then we build your interview plan, including the Columbo questions that quietly surface the humor hiding underneath the pain.

Week 2

The Evidence

You bring back your interview transcripts. We verify your pain map against what your audience actually said, then introduce the eight places humor reliably lives and the four humor plays: the moves that make a room feel seen from the jump and prime them for everything you say next.

Week 3

The Build

You pitch your humor plays for your specific audience and workshop them live with the cohort. You leave with a clear plan for the opening you're going to build.

Week 4

The Delivery

You perform your custom, scripted opening for the cohort and get specific, actionable feedback you can use right away.

And here's the deal: if you reach the end of the Sprint without a comedic bit for your audience, Chris will write one for you during the post-cohort office hours session.

Meet your instructor

Chris McGuire

Chris McGuire, creator of the Pain Point Detective methodology

The Pain Point Detective

Chris isn't a speaker coach who dabbles in comedy. He's the writer and executive producer behind Emmy-nominated late-night shows, who has built programs for live audiences, late-night television, and high-stakes events for decades.

  • Ran the writers room at the Arsenio Hall Show, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party, and the Comedy Central Roasts
  • Produced Howie Mandel and Hunter March on Netflix's Best Guess Live
  • 800+ episodes of late-night comedy-variety television
  • Creator of the Humor Detector System and the Pain Point Detective methodology

Chris has coached and ghostwritten for hundreds of speakers: Silicon Valley executives, military leaders, World Champions of Public Speaking, TEDx speakers, and Moth competition winners.

In April 2026, he was invited to deliver a keynote at Game Changers, a conference for professional speakers. He built the entire talk using the Pain Point Detective method: a custom intro video for that exact room, a humorous bit aimed straight at the audience's deepest frustrations, and a framework taught live as he was using it.

After his talk, NSA Legendary speaker Patricia Fripp set aside the speech she'd prepared and reorganized her remarks around what Chris had just demonstrated. That's what this program trains you to do.

What people say about Chris

"In a few minutes of conversation with Chris, my presentation, which I had honed over years of delivery to thousands of people, was immediately taken to the next level."

Richard Bliss · Author and International Speaker

"Chris is one of the best out there. A master of his craft, a true gentleman, and outstanding at helping people apply what he knows in their work. I always love working with Chris, and truly wish he were a full-time member of my team."

Robert "Cujo" Teschner · F-15C Weapons School Instructor, Author, Speaker, Lt Col, USAF (ret)

"Chris changed everything. I now consistently get more laughs in my speeches because I strategically place humorous lines that I know work."

Michael Davis · SpeakingCPR

"Chris is the hardest working person I know in the industry, and you will not go wrong if you invest in him."

Darren LaCroix · World Champion of Public Speaking, CSP

"Chris showed me that you don't have to choose between being taken seriously and using humor. The audience laughed throughout my keynote, and afterward I was invited to speak at another conference."

Rosanne Callens · PPD Alum, Keynoter "Electric Leadership"

Pricing

Reserve your seat

$799For the 4-week sprint

Includes access to custom AI tools during the program.

  • Video replays when you can't make a call live
  • Office hours when you need a second set of eyes
  • Member discounts on future coaching and programs as part of the Humor Detector community
Worth knowing

This is the same system Chris uses 1:1 with his keynote and executive clients, who pay $5,000 to $10,000 for a single engagement with him. The Sprint is the only way to learn it at cohort pricing, and the only way to learn it from Chris himself.

Reserve Your Seat Email Chris with a question
Frequently asked questions

Questions

Is four weeks really enough? +

Four weeks is the sprint format on purpose. This isn't a slow-build course on humor theory, it's a focused build of one opening for one real audience, using a methodology you'll carry into every audience after. The compression is the value. Speakers who want ongoing coaching after the Sprint can continue into the Alumni program at alumni pricing. Many do.

How is this different from the Humor Detector Story Program? +

HDSP teaches you to build funnier stories across your whole talk. PPD teaches you to customize your material for a specific audience using their specific frustrations. They're complementary. Many alumni come into PPD with strong stories and leave with the ability to retarget them for any room.

What if I miss a session? +

All sessions are recorded. You'll have access to replays for the duration of the cohort. Office hours give you a place to catch up live with Chris if you fall behind, and the cohort size is small enough that you won't get lost.

What happens after the Sprint? +

You can continue into the HDSP Alumni program: ongoing monthly coaching at alumni pricing, with no new program to buy. Many graduates use this option to keep workshopping for upcoming gigs and to stay sharp between high-stakes engagements.

Can I run this on an audience I'm not booked for yet? +

Yes. The system works equally well on hypothetical audiences and confirmed upcoming gigs. Most clients bring a real one. The stakes sharpen the work.

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