Marketer of the Day with Robert Plank: Business Growth & Entrepreneur Stories

Sereda Fowlkes shows how women can navigate perimenopause and menopause with practical, faith-anchored lifestyle changes that restore energy and clarity. She notes symptoms can start in the 30s as food, soil, and environment shift, so brain fog or mood changes deserve attention. Her framework begins with awareness, tracking what is new, and using annual checkups to catch problems before hospitals do. Next she targets root causes like nutrient deficiency, pointing to common calcium and magnesium gaps that can weaken bones over time. She recommends real food over processed meals, watching sugars, avoiding seed oils, limiting excess caffeine, and adding daily movement and protein. For menopause relief, she explains HRT is not one-size-fits-all, suggests targeted supplements, and urges a DEXA scan after 50. The most useful takeaway is simple: listen early, feed the body what it needs, and prevention becomes your best medicine.

Jason Criddle explains how entrepreneurs escape hustle mode by building scalable infrastructure and measuring what matters. He defines the scoreboard as customers and cash, then asks you to pick a few KPIs and review them weekly. If an activity yields zero traction, like a year of free massages that produced no clients, pivot instead of persisting blindly. For service businesses, he recommends capturing sessions, publishing free content, and moving premium insights behind a $10 to $20 monthly paywall with clear policies. To prove authority, he gave away his first 200 books for Amazon reviews, which helped later titles sell and supported a catalog of 19 books. He says discipline is built through repetition and boundaries, even while recovering from 75 days in the hospital with a laptop on his lap. The takeaway: commit, measure, adjust fast, and celebrate small wins so momentum compounds.

Mark Donnigan shows how AI can help lean B2B marketing teams ship faster and still hit what buyers care about. Instead of only using AI as an editor, he pushes marketers to use tools like Perplexity to research markets via earnings reports and papers. He steers the model with domain context, then verifies facts and cross-checks with a second LLM when stakes are high. He refreshes pre-2022 content by adding new data and letting AI tighten structure without losing voice. On enterprise deals from $500,000 to millions, a pod of three to five experts can go deep in digital, PR, or events on demand. To avoid "AI slop", he insists on buyer immersion: listen to Gong calls and sit in on three sales calls a week. The takeaway: let AI accelerate execution, but let buyer insight and verification determine the message.

Heather Atherton shows how to turn a mission driven story into media coverage that moves people to act. Her core method is packaging a narrative into a clear newsworthy angle then tailoring the pitch to a specific niche audience. She prioritizes human interest proof points like donor stories for YouCaring to give reporters a real person not a slogan. For films she warns that calling two weeks before release is too late and recommends building PR and social assets six to 12 months out. She leans on visual hooks that cameras love such as a Guinness attempt with thousands of glow necklaces to promote Tron in 3D. On her Baron 52 project she uses op-eds, investigative partners, and FOIA requests that have been pending for four years to keep pressure on agencies. The takeaway: start early, think visually, and make the story easy for media to say yes.

Joseph S. Kahn explains how to get referenced by AI search by treating SEO like musical harmony. He anchors the method in Google E-E-A-T, because models reward trusted authority more than clever phrasing. First, find the shared directory citations of competitors showing up in ChatGPT or Perplexity, and get listed there. He says adding question headings to content alone will not win if you are not seen as authoritative. Next, build breadth with 50 pieces of work indexed in Google, not just posted on social feeds. To trigger indexing signals, he emails a broadcast and looks for 10+ clicks plus likes and comments. The takeaway is to combine the right citations, indexed assets, and third-party reviews so visibility can rise fast.

Pharice Brown shows how authors turn lived experience into a book that expands influence and opportunity. She uses quick, pointed questions to choose a lane: memoir, or expertise that supports coaching and speaking. Her rule is start marketing before the manuscript is done, picking one channel and posting consistently. Self publishing means you handle everything, but with her team the timeline is usually six to nine months, up to 12 for technical books. She insists on quality and asks writers to accept edits without clinging to every word. To sell, she says do something fun and visible, from podcast interviews to a shirt with a scannable barcode, and she cites a novelette finished in 13 weeks. The takeaway is simple: write the book, stay open, and keep showing up.

Melih Oztalay explains how B2B firms stay visible as search shifts from rankings to AI references. His 4-A's begin with Anticipate by parking 15% of the marketing budget for inevitable platform change. Accept means dropping the panic when Google or LinkedIn algorithms cut reach and leads. Next, Adapt by revising processes within a week to 30 days, then Adopt the new plan before competitors surge ahead. He points to Google's 2013 Hummingbird update, when SEO became continuous and expanded into answer engine optimization (AEO). Today he adds generative engine optimization (GEO): run an LLM query for vendors, read why you were omitted, and add schema JSON-LD to key pages. The takeaway is to treat marketing as measurable problem-solving and move fast.

Edward H. Munoz shows how an engineering career can become a legacy, turning adversity into decades of impact and meaning. Living with Parkinson's, he keeps moving through yoga, morning basketball, and speech therapy while he tells the story. He joined Celanese in 1967 after UT Austin, helping shift the firm from polyester into polyacetal materials that challenged DuPont. By tapping an overlooked PhD's expertise, he helped build customer credibility and market share for the product. In 1984 he led a German joint venture where Celanese owned 45% and learned to earn trust across hard cultural lines. He is candid about the cost of ambition, including divorce, and later rebuilding family while writing for his kids and grandkids. His most useful lesson is to lead with integrity and keep asking for the next assignment when life forces a new direction.

Thuy Reed shares how war in Vietnam and a new life in the US led her to fight for freedom and reconciliation. At 21 she landed at LAX and was stunned that the streets held no checkpoints, soldiers, or war posters. After marrying a Kansan and moving inland, Saigon fell three months later, ending any plan to return quickly. She describes losing her brother to a sniper on his 21st birthday and how that grief echoed through her family. Channeling pain into policy, she worked 12 years, from Reagan to Bill Clinton, to help lift the US trade embargo on Vietnam. January 6 pushed her to write her book as a letter to America about democracy, civic responsibility, and staying pro science and education. Her takeaway is simple: keep working the system peacefully, because steady effort can turn tragedy into real change.

Jill Lublin explains how to earn free publicity that brings clients without paid ads. Start with a clear message, spot timely angles, and say yes before you overthink. Keep a simple weekly cadence: spend 30 minutes a week on visibility building, not endless scrolling. Set Google Alerts for your name plus one keyword like "publicity" to catch relevant media mentions. Answer journalist requests on feature.com and use Pod Match to book two to four podcasts a month. Lead with a standout personal story, use everything you've got, and climb from local outlets that bigger producers watch. Do these steps consistently and persistently, and your credibility compounds into steady publicity momentum.