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Episode

Jennifer Fortney on PR, LLMs, and Why Most Campaigns Start Wrong

With Jennifer Fortney/May 28, 2026/33:21 listen/Hosted by Jordan Lally

Jennifer Fortney founded Cascade Communications in 2001 as a PR agency and has since expanded it to include website design, branding, and content work. The firm works with clients ranging from startups to small enterprises, and recently added a practice focused on companies in transition, including family businesses passing to a new generation and brands that have been acquired but still carry decades-old identities.

The conversation covers how PR actually builds credibility, why backlinks and earned media placements matter for search and discovery, and how Fortney ran a campaign for Jim Beam that turned the Appletini into a national trend through a single exclusive call to a Chicago Sun-Times journalist. She also describes getting a small inspirational t-shirt brand called Beology into Oprah, which produced more than 400 orders the first night Shape Magazine covered it.

Fortney argues that most marketing campaigns are built backwards because agencies skip real discovery and jump straight to tactics. She separates discovery into its own phase before any strategy is built. She also talks about how Cascade has started appearing in LLM results, recently receiving an inquiry from a large corporation, and what that means for B2B businesses trying to build expert authority in a world where younger buyers are discovering products on Instagram and through AI tools rather than Google.


What You Will Take Away


About the Guest

Founder, Cascade Communications
Jennifer Fortney

Jennifer Fortney founded Cascade Communications in 2001. The firm handles PR, branding, website content, and search visibility for clients ranging from startups to established enterprises, and recently launched a practice focused on businesses going through ownership or brand transitions. Fortney is also the author of Be a Media Magnet, a PR guide available on Amazon.


In This Episode


Full Transcript

Full transcript of the conversation, published verbatim. Speaker labels come from the recording itself, not from an automated guess.

0:00 · Intro

Jordan:0:00
like Courtney.

Jennifer Fortney:0:03
Next up with an F.

Jordan:0:05
We can definitely edit this part out. Welcome back to the [High Ticket AI Systems] Podcast. Everyone, please welcome the winner, this is Jennifer Forby. Jennifer, how are you doing today?

Jennifer Fortney:0:07
you

Jennifer Fortney:0:17
I'm doing pretty good, Jordan, and you.

Jordan:0:19
Fantastic. You and I were just talking in the green room here about Think and Go Rich, Earl Nightingale, The Master Key System, all the metaphysical business books out there, which is right up my alley. Maybe we can't explore it on today's podcast. Maybe we won't. I don't know yet. We'll see. But the first question I have for you is, can you please tell us exactly what you do and who you dress for at a very high

Jennifer Fortney:0:33
What's it?

Jennifer Fortney:0:44
Yeah, so Cascade started in 2001 as a PR agency and then it morphed more into website design and branding content specifically to meet the needs of clients, but also consumer behavior has changed, right? Towards the media, how they search and discover clients. So I've really felt like we needed to address that for our clients to make sure that before we do a PR campaign, that that full customer journey story, brand story is addressed.

And we work with clients from startups to, I've worked with huge enterprises as well, mostly startups to small business, small enterprise, and recently launched a new arm of our business focusing on companies in transition. So either the next generation is taking over or they've been acquired and maybe their branding is, you know, from 1982 and they need a facelift. So we're really enjoying that. that new practice.

0:45 · What Jennifer Does and Who She Works With

Jordan:1:46
That's a very interesting niche to go into. I think it makes a lot of sense to actually tackle that niche for, of course, several reasons. You know, there's new ownership within the company, so why not put a new face on one, I'd say. I like that.

Jennifer Fortney:1:57
Yeah, yeah. Well, and also we're right now we have the largest amount of people, baby boomers who started businesses and they are retiring or trying to retire. So they're opting if they don't have a second generation to take over, they opt to sell. So we can help them address also their internal communications as they go through that transition.

2:20 · What PR Actually Is (And Why Nobody Understands It)

Jordan:2:20
For sure. I really wish I had a better understanding of PR firms and like exactly what they do, what their secret sauce is. So my questions are probably going to be not the best for one of you, but I'm hoping you can share with me some insights and of course the audience as well as to what makes a successful PR campaign. Ultimately, what is the end goal of

Jennifer Fortney:2:47
So this is not an unfamiliar question. I get asked it all the time. I taught a class at score for five years, educating people on PR. It seems like this sort of mystical thing. Nobody can actually put a figure or a face, you know, they just can't figure it out. But you know, the easiest answer to that is it builds credibility and reputation, but also in that, and it can still.

I think it's more important for credibility reputation now, but there used to be a time where through the media was the only place that you would learn about new products, new services, et cetera. And with the transition of media, now we really understand that the credibility comes into that even more so in the reputation. Because when people go to your website and they see as seen in, right? And they see a logo, they're like, They were in Oprah magazine. Maybe I should look at it. They may not see the story, but it's impressionable, right? But also we're in a day of search. So those backlinks back to a site are really important for search and discovery. It's content you can share on your social media. So it's all building that reputation with your customer's mind.

4:00 · How Social Proof Changes Buying Decisions

Jordan:4:00
Yeah, I think that social proof has such a massive impact on buying decisions, right? Especially when I'm browsing the web and I see a company has like X number of reviews and as as seen on TV or there's even a fricking clip of them on TV. I'm like, oh, this person is definitely legit. I'm obviously going to buy their stuff. So I definitely think what you're doing is vitally important in regards to like

Jennifer Fortney:4:20
Yeah.

Jordan:4:26
pricing models, not pricing specifics, but pricing models. How does your firm structure that?

Jennifer Fortney:4:32
Well, it really depends on our clientele and the project. So we have clients that are retainer and their needs are varied. They could be much more expansive. Some could be smaller. Some are just really hyper-focused. And so it really... depends on the level of service and the kind of service that we need to give to them. Most of our startups that typically come to us, maybe they need some brand identity help and website help, but mostly they just want the PR. And so that could be thought leadership in trades and industry. We really try to drive our clients to be first where their customers are. And so it's kind of, there's no package, right? I mean, Except for our discovery, there's no real package because every client's unique.

Jordan:5:24
Gotcha. Okay. I have a question for selfish interest here. I essentially am a B2B marketer specifically for Lee generation. Where would I go for publicity for my brand?

Jennifer Fortney:5:28
Mm-hmm.

5:40 · How PR Firms Price Their Services

Jennifer Fortney:5:41
So my best recommendation for you is, when you have a high competitive sector like you're in, right, it is really best to create content that is somewhat contrarian in thinking, right? So when you go to business magazines or business podcasts, sharing a different point of view that sort of rubs against what everybody else is talking about. presents something exciting and new that people, journalists, want to write about. Or maybe they'll take an article from you that is aligned with that sort of new contrarian thinking. And so we find that a lot dealing with B2B media, that everybody sort of has the same thinking and they all want an article or something written on them, but they're not bringing anything really new to the table. So my recommendation is contrarian. stepping out, being totally different in the crowd is your best bet.

Jordan:6:41
Well, I have no problem doing that. am basically covered in tattoos. So that definitely makes me stick like a sore thumb in the B2B world. But okay, well, thank you for your insight here. Let's see. Do you have any specific, I guess, case studies you would love to share with the crowd on like what you did for a specific company and the type of result that you got for them and the aftermath that happened? If of course you would love to share.

Jennifer Fortney:6:43
I can see that.

Jennifer Fortney:6:48
Yeah.

7:00 · The Jim Beam Campaign That Went Viral Nationwide

Jennifer Fortney:7:07
I a lot of years in the business, yeah, I've got some stories. mean, at the first one, I will actually share as an oldie but goodie, I was working for Jim Beam running their campaign by myself in some million dollar campaign. And along the road in 25 markets, we had come across a new trend happening in California. A venue was doing obnoxious amounts. of sales in Apple Pucker and Pucker Shnaps, I think in general. And we discovered that they had made a martini. And it was time everybody's going back to the cosmos and to the Sex and City and all of that. And so I called the journalists in the Chicago Sun-Times, I owed her a big favor and gave her an exclusive on the Appletini.

And it went viral across the city. mean, the next day they were they were drinking it and shaking it on every TV station set. They were talking about it on all the commercial radio stations. So you talk about going viral. That's the kind of viral you really, really want. And then the New York Times picked it up on Appetit. I made a few more phone calls, but before you knew it, it was the hottest trend in America. And.

It was interesting because doing PR for them in market and these events, it's really hard to know what moves the needle. So is it the on child promotion that's going on while you're doing the campaign? Is it couponing? What is it? Is it the ads that right? You just you couldn't tell back then. Now we have a lot more data so we can really understand and centralize exactly what tactic is winning the share of voice or the action and the engagement.

So that's one story. I stumbled across a really unique fashion brand, is like before anybody else was doing it. It was called Beology. It was an inspirational t-shirt company and it was very simple. Be kind, be dot kind, be dot loving, be dot happy, be dot you can go on forever, right?

9:20 · How a Simple T-Shirt Brand Got Into Oprah

Jennifer Fortney:9:21
And I discovered, I loved it, saw the story right away as a journalist. I'm like, I love that. And so we started doing PR for them. The first night that Shape Magazine came out with it, they had more than 400 orders. They're calling me going, did something happen today that we don't know about? And I couldn't get them on the phone for the next five months. They were in Oprah. Oprah picked them up as a favorite thing and it just went crazy.

And that's an example of a really great, thoughtful product that's simple, that became an inspirational home line as well. Unfortunately, the company, I think that they were overwhelmed by their success or maybe they didn't believe that they were gonna have the amount of success. I'm not really sure, but they, I mean, they reached millions in dollars in revenue and then closed doors. So that's a little heartbreaking.

Another story recently, going back to generational transformation, we had a company come to us and they had their logo, I mean, it's burned in my retinas. It was so terrible. was so from literally like the eighties and it was so bad. And their website was designed around the logo and the person who'd done it just did a horrible job. So they called us in, we updated their logo tremendously.

And then redid the website as well, the content, making it searchable, findable. Yeah. And, and really telling that brand story that they have, which is like historic. It's it's this massive legacy brand and, and making sure that people are also getting an experience when they come to the website. I think that's really something important. Like a lot of businesses don't think about what their brand story is, but also people want an experience, right? They want to, everybody has this expectation when they go to websites. So you want to make sure that that is cleaned up. And boy, I mean, as soon as we launched that site, like their numbers are through the roof. So we've had a lot of great stories, very diverse and a lot of great successes and a lot of fun along the way. Oh, let me tell you. So that one was the longest kiss challenge. We did it in 25 markets. I

Jordan:11:29
It sounds like a bunch of fun, especially the Jim B campaign and the...

11:30 · The Longest Kiss Challenge A PR Story You Won't Forget

Jennifer Fortney:11:39
could not, by the time that was over, I couldn't even go out with my friends and see anyone kissing anyone. I just, couldn't stand it. You know, people make noises when they, it was just, oh, I was scarred. It scarred me for life, but I had a blast, but it was really, mean, yeah, there was a little too much into people's intimate business for me.

Jordan:12:02
No, for sure. I could imagine so. Hence the name of the podcast, Systems. Can you give us like a framework or a possible system you have in place whenever you onboard a new client and when it comes to the deliverable that you are helping them with? Does that kind of make sense? Do you have a framework or process that you'd like to stick to?

12:10 · Jennifer's Onboarding Framework for New Clients

Jennifer Fortney:12:22
Yeah, so we used to bake into our, I guess our fees, right? Discovery. And what I decided was discovery is so important that we need to, unless they specifically want it baked into the retainer, we need to separate that out. And we can't build a strategy if we don't know what the challenges are and the opportunities are and figuring out what that roadmap looks like, and then you build a strategy and then you execute it afterwards. So our primary process obviously calls, but that discovery is super important, understanding competitive analysis, the market, interviewing leadership, talking to key stakeholders, serving key stakeholders, whatever it means. And it depends on the business that can take a month or it can take...

You know two to three months just depending on how large the organization is, but it's really really super critical. That's the number one thing and we I prefer to sell in as in phases if I can Because sometimes that means when we come back the budget might have to be bigger Great for us

Jordan:13:38
No, right. Right. Absolutely. I think it's interesting. Not interesting. I think it's a great thing that you diagnose first before prescribing. see a lot of companies out there. They kind of have like a cookie cutter approach where they have 10 different businesses that they can possibly work with. They all have different problems, different ABCs. Okay. And when they come to you and you basically feed them into a semi cookie cutter approach, well, maybe only two of those companies actually succeed because that approach worked for those two companies. But the other eight, they don't really get that great results because it wasn't really meant for them. However, I'm not saying that the prescriber or the company delivering deliverables. cannot still help them get results. It's just that they have to really diagnose and understand the constraint or diagnose and understand the problem fully before providing their solution. Because after understanding the full picture, you might have to change your deliverables in the backend, right? So I'm just happy that you do that.

14:30 · Why Most Marketing Is Built Backwards

Jennifer Fortney:14:38
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, listen, I just did a LinkedIn post about how most marketing campaigns are built backwards. You know, a lot of us who've been in the business for a long time, we kind of walk into conversations with clients with already some tactical stuff in our mind that we've done before and it worked before. And yeah, sure. You know, there are a lot of tactics.

And they're going to repeat themselves, but maybe you need to do it differently, but you're not going to know that until you go through that discovery process.

Jordan:15:14
100%. In regards to more systems, do you have any systems in place right now for client acquisition?

15:20 · How Jennifer Gets New Clients (Her Actual System)

Jennifer Fortney:15:23
Yeah, so that's been interesting. I went through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program in 2022. I actually, yeah, so here's what's interesting. I was actually quite happy being a sole proprietor, bringing in my team whenever I needed them. But I didn't think about growth. during and right before COVID, I had massive growth and my team was busy. We have clients all over the world and I hadn't really thought about ever growing. So it worked out really well. Went through the Golden Sex 10,000 Small Business Program and ultimately came out of that with a lot of processes, right? And the beauty is I've just gone back to redo a lot of them as my business model has changed.

And AI has been remarkably helpful in doing that and speeding up the time because it takes a lot of time to do those processes. But once you already have them established and I can just throw them into AI, refresh them, give some prompts and share the website and maybe attach some other processes, then it really helps bring it together for me. yeah, business development has been the one that I've been working on the most recently. because it's shifted in some respects. I believe networking is always gonna be your number one. Referrals is the number one source of business for Cascade. But we have been showing up in LLMs. yep, and recently got an email from a large corporation. So, you know, we're gonna see what happens there.

17:00 · Why B2B Businesses Are Invisible on AI Search Right Now

Jordan:17:04
No way!

Jennifer Fortney:17:18
But now I have to understand that business development is the LinkedIn when you're B2B, but it's also your content strategy, your expertise and how you show up and are you showing up in LLMs. It's like a whole new world out there when it comes to that.

Jordan:17:34
It is, and I think if you are a business that sells to other businesses, so B2B, I think it's really important to actually start the process on showing up in these search engines or these LLM search engines, because just like you and I, where are we majority of the day? Well, for me specifically, I am inside cloud code a lot, a lot. I'm not in Google. I don't use Google to be honest with you. I just don't use it. Like I use cloud, right?

And I have purchased, I don't know, half a dozen softwares or half a dozen services because Claude said, Hey Jordan, here's, here's exactly what you need. Like here's everything you need to know. Just purchase it. Okay, cool. I trust you Claude. You know, so I guess that's my one advice out there for B2B businesses is

Jennifer Fortney:18:20
Yeah, well, I mean, but when you're talking about search and discovery, maybe your LLM doesn't, your whatever platform you're using doesn't know you as well. Right. I mean, certainly from a consumer standpoint, you know, we're seeing a lot of our clients, their appearance in LLMs is like gone like crazy, even in the last six months or even three months, it's gone crazy. So we track all of that.

But from the B2B standpoint, if you're just, you don't know what you're looking for until you find it. I'm not really sure I haven't figured out how I'm showing it. Cause if I do the search, right? Like the results may be different. So I don't know, I have to rely on somebody else to do it for me and see how it comes up. But yeah, it's really interesting right now.

Jordan:19:08
That's it.

Because I was going to ask, what did you do to show up in the LLM? But I don't think you actually.

19:10 · How Consumer Behavior Has Changed and What It Means for You

Jennifer Fortney:19:17
Well, I mean, honestly, I have a lot of content. I've done a lot of interviews over the years, especially for books that I put out, my latest one that I put out as well. so, and then I think LinkedIn also is really helpful in pulling out people who are talking about content that's interesting to you.

Jordan:19:44
100%. And I don't know a lot. I know a little. Here's what I know. That basically how earned media is far better for your brand awareness and brand authority, opposed to like paid placements. But you have books out there. You have a bunch of LinkedIn content. You have your domain has probably been there for, you know, over a decade, right? You have a lot of authority on the internet.

Jennifer Fortney:20:10
Right.

Jordan:20:13
So when people look up similar, I don't know, search terms to whatever it is that you sell, that's why you have a lot of domain authority on the LLMs because you have books or meetings, et cetera.

Jennifer Fortney:20:21
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And you know, and I think that there's something really important when you're working with somebody who has a B2B business, that that thought leadership really is crucial to that discovery process. You know, it's highly, it's far more competitive for consumers, right? Because you've got LLMs, as you're saying, right? Get to know you and now they're giving you your own preferences. But when you're B2B, you've got to build that expert. authority and credibility.

Jordan:20:52
100%. 100%. Let's see here. You and I, like we were saying before in the green room, we were talking a little bit about thinking, go rich and whatnot. You said you taught a 16 week course on that. Can you tell us how that went, how that transpired? Oh, okay. My mistake. My mistake. My mistake.

21:00 · Think and Grow Rich — The 16-Week Course That Changed Her Life

Jennifer Fortney:21:01
Yeah.

Jennifer Fortney:21:08
I didn't teach it, I took it.

Huge difference. Huge difference. Yeah, so the person I knew, I'd met him through the startup world actually in Chicago. yes, and he had taken courses. He'd taken courses with Bob Proctor, you know, we were talking about. He had studied and he'd gotten his certification through the Think and Grow Rich. I think it's a foundation now, maybe.

Jordan:21:22
Over your

Jennifer Fortney:21:42
And it was really incredible. think that journey, no, I don't think that journey of going through that book over 16 weeks and really dissecting each chapter changed my life. Honestly, it helped the conversations that everybody in the room were having. You have to be vulnerable. As you go through this, you have to be self-introspective.

Jordan:21:56
this.

Jennifer Fortney:22:08
And there were plenty of evenings after, and afterwards, everybody's like, let's go get a drink. I'm like, yes, please. I mean, it can be kind of intense. And then you wake up the next morning, you look in your mirror, and you look at yourself and think, OK, this has changed me. My thinking has changed. How about you?

Jordan:22:17
It is.

Jordan:22:27
No, 100%. So mind, mind itself is just static energy. Thought.

Um, a frequency behind it, right? And this frequency has a weight. Okay. And if I think positive thoughts, that means I think positive vibrations, like that is an internal thing, which means my body will now have a positive vibration. And because I feel good, because I feel positive, I can have positive actions, right? On the flip side of that, when you are habitually, you know, when your habitable thought process is negative, it's literally the exact opposite, right? It's like, okay,

Jennifer Fortney:22:42
Yes.

23:00 · How Your Mindset Directly Affects Your Results in Business

Jordan:23:03
Again, mind is static. think negative things today is going to suck. I'm not good at this. Whatever the hell negative thoughts you want to think that has weight to it. It's truly going to you down. And because you feel bad, you're not going to stay disciplined. You're not going to take the proper actions. You're just not going to live life to your fullest. Getting back to how it completely flipped my mindset. I, I as a kid kind of already knew that

Jennifer Fortney:23:12
Yeah.

Jordan:23:31
Like attitude is everything, 100%. Cause I played sports at a very elite level, not to go into depth with that, but baseball, pay a lot of respect to baseball and what it taught me. And, I couldn't articulate why, you know, positive thinking was so good in the sports that I played. But thinking go rich really like kind of laid it out for me. Not, not on the, on the step-by-step plan, but laid out why thinking is so important and how our mind.

Actually works and like the science behind our mind, you know, like I'm not gonna go into like well let's journey thing I'm not the most religious guy. So just learning this book and really like Grasping the the principles and the concepts within this book. I'm like this fucking makes sense

Jennifer Fortney:24:16
I mean, it's really, it's crazy. And you know what, to go back to what you were saying, when you're negative, it's really easy to just keep going down that rabbit hole, right? And it is when you are joyful and you are in that good frame of mind and you're feeling good and you're just feeling happy, there's an openness. There's a closure to the other one, right? You're cut off, you're cutting yourself off from, and you're not open to receive.

And so that energy, mean, I had some other things. You know, we all have stuff that happens in life that's unexpected. And I could have gotten down that rabbit hole. I think I did go down that rabbit hole for about two days. And then, you know, I flipped myself around. But you're totally right. And the power of the mind is really fascinating. That's why I recommend we were talking about when you brought up the master key system, right?

Jordan:25:12
Yes.

Jennifer Fortney:25:12
So they go into the whole science of it. Fascinating.

Jordan:25:15
Dude. Yeah. So if you're listening out there and you love thinking go rich, you're going to freak out. going to knock your socks off with the master key system. Okay. That is like the OG version of thinking grow rich. and there's like a newer, I don't want to say newer, but sure. A newer version out there that brings up Apple in modern day companies. Do you know exactly what that might be called called to the audience after listening?

Jennifer Fortney:25:35
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Fortney:25:41
What do you mean the master key system.

Jordan:25:43
Yeah, but like the modern version title.

Jennifer Fortney:25:47
It's called the Master Key System. There you go.

Jordan:25:51
Hey, it's that goes Evan this let's see here.

26:00 · The Science Behind Gratitude and Why It Actually Works

Jordan:26:04
I'm a firm believer on this topic here. I'm a firm believer of like our inner world shapes our outer world and you're bringing up how when we're in a positive vibration that we are more open and receptive to the world that it's blessings, right? And I find this to be so freaking true, Jennifer, when I, and I made this a habit. Like I drilled this into my, my being before I, before I actually go to sleep, when I'm about to sleep, I always repeat to myself like, I'm so happy and grateful for X, Y, Z. Okay. And I put myself in that vibration. Like I really am grateful for all the blessings. And I promise you, I freaking promise you the more grateful and reset or like happy and grounded I am, like the more blessings I receive, you know what I mean? It's so freaking weird, dude.

Jennifer Fortney:26:49
That's right.

It's great. know, when they say, you know, people who worry about things, as soon as they start putting themselves into gratitude for what they do have, the whole world just changes. The whole idea of gratitude is super special.

Jordan:26:57
track.

Jordan:27:08
It's interesting because I later in life later in life, like I'm I'm freaking late 20s and I say like I'm not in my late 20s. You know what I mean? I feel like I'm an old solo for all the things that have happened. Nonetheless, I discovered Think and Go Rich in my early 20s, like 2021.

Jennifer Fortney:27:16
you

Jennifer Fortney:27:28
I'm so jealous. wish I had had. I really do. I really do. I wish I'd found it sooner. So good for you.

Jordan:27:29
Hahaha

Jordan:27:36
Thank you. And I bring this up because, you know, you always hear this question. What would you do if you didn't get paid for it? But yeah, you still love what you do. And to get really candid and like open with you, like I feel like I have a responsibility to teach this and to teach these principles to the world. It changed my life. Like it's helped me get sober and like stop drinking. You know what I mean? Which a lot of people struggle with millions and millions of people struggle with.

And I honestly feel the calling to teach these principles to help other beings, whether on the business side or just on the personal life side with the fundamentals that I've learned from, they can go rich. Basically, can share that, but that's how much of an impact those teachings have had on me. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Fortney:28:19
Yeah.

28:20 · How These Principles Helped Jordan Get Sober

Jennifer Fortney:28:25
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it can be a little groovy for some people, right? And so when I see someone who I can tell they're there, then I can have that conversation with them. But they're open to it. And some people aren't. And you just have to accept that too. But yeah, in fact, I think my friend who taught the class here in Chicago, he was doing some work in prisons.

Jordan:28:56
That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. Those, the people that you bring up is like my dad is one of those guys, you know, God bless him. God love him. But he was just like, Jordan, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, man, but just don't bring that. Don't bring that BS over here. I'm like, all right, I love you. love you. But anyways, back to business. Okay. We have like less than minutes left. So looking forward over the next 12 to 24 months, what is the biggest thing that the company wants to achieve?

29:20 · What Jennifer Is Building Over the Next 12–24 Months

Jennifer Fortney:29:23
wow. mean, well, growth is always a number one, right? Growth is always. And then if you want to go back to that whole thing in law of attraction, I'm attracting really good people into the company. I've been very, like even just in the past few months, I've attracted some really great people. So as I grow and they're interested, I can actually hire them full time. They're doing my project work now, but So those are the big priorities. But also it's just keeping up with everything that's happening and how search is changing, how consumer behavior is changing. And that's a lot of work on its own. I I probably sit in three webinars a week. I'm always reading content at night instead of reading a fun book. I have this Wayne Dwyer book I've been trying to read for months and I always get caught up in something else. yeah, growth is always the thing, right?

Jordan:30:26
I think it's important, the simple fact of you, know, impressing the mind with new knowledge, whether it's a book you want to read or like content about business, think nonetheless, we're both impressing our mind. Really quick, if you can, Jennifer, what is the number one thing that sticks out to you about our recent change of behavior with consumer decision-making?

Jennifer Fortney:30:47
Hmm. Well, yeah. Well, also we have to look at this from a generational standpoint as well. So majority, we find the majority of users who that still use Google tend to sometimes be oftentimes be older, but you have a younger generation of a client right now. Most of all of their discovery happens on Instagram.

Jordan:31:10
No way.

Jennifer Fortney:31:10
Yeah, and they're more likely to build a list of the best such and such in LLMs. So we both, even though it's changed, we still have to address both sides of that. And the traditionalists who are still trying to get their information through traditional sources. it's kind of, it can't be one way, you know, it has to be always depending on the client. But I would say, know, consumer behavior, shorter attention spans, they don't want to do the research, they don't want to wait long. We go back to the instant gratification. And AI is definitely, you know, helping to drive that.

Jordan:31:53
It is. Just because I'm that type of person that kind of likes Instagramification and I, chat or LLMs, they definitely provide that to me. Moving on, Jennifer, what is the single best piece of advice you have ever received ever in your life?

32:10 · The Best Piece of Advice She's Ever Received

Jennifer Fortney:32:10
can actually read it from here. When you're when you find yourself down on the ground on your back, look and you're looking up, you can still get up.

That's pretty rough. I'm I'm I'm snob seeing it, but you get the idea when you're. Right when you're down and you're on the back and you're on the ground, but if you're looking up, you can still get up. There's still hope.

Jordan:32:34
You're fine, don't beat yourself up, yes I...

Jordan:32:43
There's still hope. You can see the sky. No, for sure. You see up.

Jennifer Fortney:32:47
Yeah, yeah. And my second piece would be to follow up that as, you know, just a reminder that everything works out for you. And even if you feel like you're being taken away from something, you might be being led to something greater.

Jordan:33:04
Now that I can get behind for sure. I can get behind that one for sure, Jennifer. I really do wish we had more time. That is my mistake. You're a freaking rock star. Love the energy. Love the glasses. Where can they find you?

Jennifer Fortney:33:16
You can find me on LinkedIn, Jennifer Fortney, and Cascade Communications, otherwise, Cascadecoms.com. You can just Google search me. help me drive up my search ranking. That'd be great. If you're looking for information on PR, I have a book on the Amazon called Be a Media Magnet. It's a very easy how-to with a workbook. You'll love it. You'll have a good plan in like three days over a weekend.

Jordan:33:28
Exactly. Look around my fellow lambs, boys. Okay, cool.

Jordan:33:45
like that. Okay, so thank you again Jennifer. You rock. Thanks so much for hopping on. Audience, we'll talk to you soon.


Questions This Episode Answers

What does a PR firm actually do for a business?
According to Fortney, PR builds credibility and reputation by placing a business in media that potential customers already trust. Those placements create backlinks that support search discovery, provide social proof on the company's own site, and generate content that can be shared across other channels.
How do you get your business to show up in AI search results like ChatGPT or Claude?
Fortney says Cascade's LLM visibility came from years of published content, interviews, books, and consistent LinkedIn activity rather than any single tactic. She notes that thought leadership and earned media both contribute to the kind of authority that AI tools draw on when answering queries.
Why do so many marketing campaigns fail?
Fortney says the most common reason is that campaigns are built backwards. Agencies come in with tactics that worked before and apply them before fully understanding the client's challenges and opportunities. She treats discovery as a separate, billable phase that must happen before any strategy is written.
What is 'companies in transition' as a PR and branding niche?
Fortney uses the term to describe businesses where ownership or identity is shifting, such as a second generation taking over, a recent acquisition, or a founder retiring and selling. These companies often have strong legacy stories but outdated branding that does not reflect who they are today.
How should a B2B business approach getting press coverage?
Fortney recommends leading with a contrarian point of view. In competitive B2B sectors, journalists and editors are more likely to write about or accept a piece from someone who challenges the prevailing thinking than from someone repeating what everyone else is already saying.

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