Every good story has a few plot twists
Here’s how I ended up here.
Yes, I actually plotted my About page. I’m a novelist. What did you expect?
Chapter 01 · Setup
For 25 years, I was the marketing person behind the scenes.
Plot point: The world before everything changed
I built brands, led teams, developed strategies, and eventually made it to VP. And I loved the work, especially the puzzles. The campaign nobody could figure out. The brand that wasn’t connecting. The problem everyone was convinced they understood.
I was usually the person asking, “But why?” Sometimes the answer was obvious. Other times, the interesting stuff was hiding three layers underneath.
Cliffhanger
Little did anyone know, I was spending my evenings creating an entirely different set of problems.
INT. MARKETING OFFICE – DAY
Character establishes a suspiciously strong interest in how things work.
Cut to:
Chapter 02 · Setup
Meanwhile, I was writing novels.
Plot point: Another world was developing
Three published novels, actually. I’d spend my days solving marketing problems and my evenings inventing fictional people and finding increasingly terrible things to do to them. You know. Relaxing. 😂
And I started noticing something. A perfectly good character can still be boring. A beautifully written scene can go nowhere. Sometimes all the right pieces are there, but the story still doesn’t give anyone a reason to care.
Marketing has that problem, too. I was getting increasingly curious about the similarities.
Cliffhanger
Meanwhile, an entirely different idea was starting to cause trouble.
INT. HOME OFFICE – NIGHT
Two seemingly unrelated storylines begin behaving suspiciously alike.
Cut to:
Chapter 03 · Human response
Then I started wondering what would happen if I built something of my own.
Plot point: The inciting incident
I’d spent 25 years building a career I genuinely enjoyed. But I kept wondering what it would look like to build a business around the work I wanted to do, with more room for the life I wanted to live.
Leaving a VP career at 52 came with plenty of questions, including whether I’d completely lost my mind. But in 2025, I took the leap and started The Content Motive.
And suddenly, I had a business of my own. My rules, my ideas, my decisions. Which sounded wonderful.
Cliffhanger
There was just one small detail I’d overlooked. Guess who was now responsible for the marketing department?
INT. THE VP OFFICE – DECISION DAY
Protagonist leaves a perfectly respectable career. Family and friends may have questions.
Cut to:
Chapter 04 · Human response
Suddenly, I was the expert who needed marketing.
Plot point: Things get interesting
After 25 years of building marketing for other businesses, I was now building it around my own expertise. The ideas were mine. The opinions were definitely mine. And somehow, every page, post, and decision needed me. Including the actual running of the business.
I could see the same problem showing up for other experts. They had years of knowledge, experience, and perspective, but every piece of marketing kept sending them back to the beginning. Meanwhile, the advice kept piling on. Fix the website. Improve the positioning. Post more consistently.
I started wondering whether we were all looking at the wrong part of the problem.
Cliffhanger
And then a new character entered the story, promising to make everything easier. Naturally, I had questions.
INT. HOME OFFICE – DAY ONE
The marketing expert discovers she is now experiencing the marketing problem. Naturally.
Cut to:
Chapter 05 · Warrior response
Then AI entered the story.
Plot point: The question changes
Naturally, I was fascinated. Here was something that could help me research, write, plan, and get more done. I had approximately 47 ideas for what to do with it before I’d finished my coffee.
There was one rather annoying problem. I kept explaining my business, my decisions, and what I wanted. Sometimes to an AI I’d already had that exact conversation with. I’d spent decades building marketing systems so people wouldn’t have to keep starting over, and here I was doing exactly that with a robot.
So I started experimenting. What if I stopped teaching AI what to write and started teaching it how I think? The reasoning, the decisions, even my ridiculous little reactions. Turns out, “Buuuttt…” contains a surprising amount of information.
Cliffhanger
And that’s when I realized my novelist brain had been involved in this whole thing.
INT. LAPTOP – CONTINUOUS
The protagonist builds a system so she can stop starting over. Nobody is surprised.
Cut to:
Chapter 06 · Resolution
Turns out, these weren’t separate careers after all.
Plot point: The storylines converge
The novelist in me looks for what’s missing from the story. The marketer knows how to turn what matters into decisions and direction. And the systems nerd wants to make sure we don’t have to figure out the same things again tomorrow.
It’s a combination that’s served me surprisingly well. Today, I help experts find what makes their businesses worth choosing and build marketing that knows how to put that thinking to work.
Which brings me to another unexpected development. After spending 25 years happily working behind the scenes, I’ve discovered I absolutely love getting onstage and teaching people.
Apparently, this character is still developing. 😂
Final story beat
And there’s still a whole lot of story left to tell.
EXT. EVERYWHERE – FINALLY
Character discovers that the apparently unrelated subplots were connected all along.
Fade out.
The person behind the plot
A few things that probably belong in my character profile.
Because nobody is just their résumé. And if we’re going to work together, you should probably know a little more about the person whose brain you’re inviting into your business.
Natural habitat
A coffee shop. Give me a latte (yup, that’s the order) and an hour to people-watch, and I’m happy.
Personality type
Introvert. Except I also love karaoke, musical theater and teaching on stage. Still figuring that one out.
Recurring character flaw
I can turn a five-minute question into a three-hour research project. Usually with diagrams.
Unfinished business
Another thriller is waiting to be finished. The characters might make me the next victim at this point.
Unexpected plot development
Spent 25 years behind the scenes. Now actively looking for reasons to get onstage. Make it make sense.
Current obsession
Teaching AI how I think. It’s learning that “Buuuttt…” is rarely a good sign.
I also laugh a lot, have strong opinions about marketing advice, and believe almost every interesting problem deserves a good conversation over coffee.
To be continued…
Enough about my story. What about yours?
You’ve probably got a few plot twists of your own. And I’d love to hear about them, especially the parts of your business that haven’t quite made it into your marketing yet.