Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sara Deacon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

When most people think about an event or conference emcee, they think about someone who gets up on stage, tells a few jokes, asks people to take their seats and reads a scripted introduction for the keynote and other speakers. I’ve adopted the moniker “360° Emcee” because I take a “full circle” approach to event management.

Sure, sometimes I’m hired to “show up and read the script,” and that’s find when there are bills to pay, but it’s not where I truly shine. What I love most is when I can collaborate before, during and after a conference or event to walk alongside the host or hosting organization and offer new perspectives and ideas based on my experience and insight. In addition, once I do take the stage, I’m able to fully be present with the experience, read the room and direct the energy wherever it needs to go to fit the host’s vision, mission and values. Hosts who work with me find that they are able to take a step back, appreciate and enjoy experiencing their own events in ways they had never been able to do before.

I go out of my way to pay attention to the speakers, workshops and themes throughout an event, not only to keep things moving on time, but to “connect the dots” for the audience so that they leave the event feeling like they have played a key role in a powerful experience instead of just passively absorbing knowledge.

I encourage engagement, I hold space, and I invest a significant amount of time and energy to ensure that the clients who trust me to facilitate on their behalf wonder what they ever did without me! I have taken events that were barely breaking even and helped hosts turn a profit that increases year after year without them having to put in more of their own time, energy and money to do so!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Sara Deacon, the 360° Emcee. I help event hosts create fun, focused and fabulous experiences that connect audiences, organizations and sponsors so that everyone wins. I partner with hosts/organizations from prep to post, ensuring that the whole process is engaging and activating.

My first book, Welcome to the Stage: The 360° Approach to Hosting Events Like a Pro (welcometothestagebook.com), takes a deep dive into all of the many aspects of emceeing that take place both on and off the stage to teach any host how to elevate their own events for a pro-level production that leaves their audiences wanting more.

Before I became an emcee, I was a life coach working with a variety of clients, including teens and young adults. To promote my coaching business, I began speaking on stage. In 2023, I missed an opportunity to speak at an event I really wanted to be involved with. Instead of getting discouraged, I came up with the idea to offer my services to the host as the emcee. The host said, “yes,” and the rest is history! I quickly learned not only how much I love this work, but how aligned it was with my natural strengths and talents. Coaching was (and still is) a passion and great strength of mine, but emceeing is truly my zone of genius!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The main thing that I think helped me build my reputation has been consistency. I haven’t always done the same thing in my business. My first venture into entrepreneurship was as a postpartum doula before the pandemic. Post-pandemic, I shifted to life coaching. I talked a lot about balance, serving some business owners, parents, professionals, retirees, job seekers and anyone who needed some support. I showed up messy, created videos, put myself out there, posted regularly. Even though the topics changed and my brand evolved from “life coach” to “life balance coach” to “adulting coach” and now to speaker and emcee, I’ve built a loyal following over the years by staying true to myself, living my values and being honest and transparent about each shift and pivot in my business. I promote others and genuinely want to see more success from the folks in my network of creative entrepreneurs who have become some of my closest friends. Showing up consistently, giving generously and being open about the messiness of real life has brought me deep connections and credibility over the course of several years.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As much as I try to stay open and transparent online and in real life, there’s a personal journey I’ve been on which I’ve intentionally kept fairly quiet on my most public facing channels. In early 2024, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cancer. I had to face some hard truths about everything during the months that followed, including and especially my future as an entrepreneur. I’m not sharing this reality here to gain sympathy. My healing is going well. My intention is to answer the question.

At the time of my diagnosis, I was kind of all over the place. I’ve always been very creative and passionate about many ideas all at once. When faced with the reality that my health would need to take top priority, I needed to let go of a variety of different projects I was building to take my business to the next level. I had a coach and mentor ask me point blank: “If you had to choose between teaching parents about preparing their kids for the real world or emcee a three-day conference, what would you choose?” With zero hesitation, I knew that emceeing was my future. So I focused my time and energy on connecting with event hosts, building my speaking portfolio and eventually, writing my first book to help others learn the skills that have helped me and my clients create successful events.

At that time, I also had to come to terms that my business couldn’t be my only source of income. In the three years I’d been trying to find my identity as a business owner, I hadn’t yet built enough momentum to pay myself consistently from my revenue. So I had to swallow my pride, sit with a feeling of failure and get myself a full-time job. When that happened, it felt like a huge setback. It felt like defeat, like I was giving up on myself, on my dreams. As it turned out, getting that job helped support my healing and took so much pressure off my business that it began to grow and expand almost effortlessly.

I’ll be sharing more of my story, including the many lessons I’ve been learning along the way, in my next book, which I plan to release in the spring of 2026, called, Business Interrupted: Keeping the Dream Alive when Life Hits the Fan (businessinterrupted.com).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://saradeacon.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/saradeacon360
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/saradeacon360
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/saradeacon
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@saradeacon360

Image Credits

Abigail Schaefer