A fractional CMO and a PR firm founder explain what marketing and PR actually mean today, and how founders in the middle of a pivot can get the market to see who they are now.
--
Everywhere you look, accomplished people are starting over. Corporate leaders are becoming founders, executives are going fractional, and founders are stepping into a whole new stage of their business. They all run into the same truth: nobody knows this version of you yet.

In the first of a recurring series, Matt sits down with two people who explain marketing and PR plainly. Gokce Sezgin is a fractional CMO with Chief Outsiders and has spent 25 years building growth in healthcare, health tech, and consumer products. Ryan Walker left corporate PR in 2018 to start RJ Walker & Co., which helps small and early-stage companies in tech, fintech, and financial services tell their stories.

They start with their own leaps. Gokce left a global giant for a much smaller company, while her husband asked whether they could even pay her salary. Ryan went out on his own the same year he bought his first house and had his first kid. Then they get practical: what marketing and PR really are, why AI has made earned media matter more, how to know you’re ready for outside help, and why the story behind your company matters more than the tools you use to tell it.

Plus, the story of how Ryan’s team brought a cowboy to Wall Street to lasso the Charging Bull.

In this episode:

• Why marketing is more than advertising, and why clarity and consistency are the hard part
• PR as the art of getting other people to talk about you
• Why old-school long-form SEO is dead, and what AI search rewards now
• Signs you’re ready for a fractional marketer or a PR firm
• Personal narrative and the founder’s “why”
• Why your own team is your first audience
• Three questions to ask before your next phase of growth

Got a question for Gokce and Ryan? They’re coming back to answer questions from founders. Send yours to matt@mattstone.co.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3bfHlFyPIVc

Connect with the guests

• Gokce Sezgin, Chief Outsiders: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokcesezgin/
• Ryan Walker, RJ Walker & Co.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-walker-a80348a/