Pam R Barnes

Honestly? Stubbornness and good people.

I learned back in a Navy galley that success is not some big dramatic moment. It is showing up, doing the work, and taking care of the people right in front of you. Add a little curiosity, which is why I leaned into AI early instead of panicking, and that is most of it.

But my biggest wins were never about me. They came from clients who trusted me, the women who lift each other up in Go-Getter Gals, and a family that keeps me grounded. Success is not being the loudest one in the room. It is being someone others can count on, and never letting the woman next to you feel like she has to shrink to fit.

Follow your passion, and start before you feel ready."

Both of those live rent-free in my head, and honestly they are the whole reason Marketing Navii exists.

I started this business for the freedom of education. I did not want to sit in a classroom to learn marketing. I wanted to learn what I wanted, how I wanted, and as fast as I wanted, no permission slip required. I have always been an entrepreneur at heart. I grew up in homes my family built with their own hands, no formal training, just the belief that we could figure it out. So I did the exact same thing with marketing.

It also helped a little that people told me I could not do it. I am severely dyslexic, and I decided a long time ago that was not going to be the thing that stopped me.

What keeps me here is the creating. I love helping people take the vision that is stuck in their head and make it real, on paper and in digital form, somewhere they can finally see it. Turns out I am pretty good at it too. So follow the passion, start a little messy, and let the rest catch up.

Run toward the thing everyone else is too scared to touch.

Right now that thing is AI. A lot of this industry is treating it like a threat, and that hesitation is your opening. The women who lean into the brand-new, messy corner of this field, the AI search nobody has mastered yet, get to become the expert instead of spending years chasing one. You do not need a decade of experience to be first.

You also do not need a degree or anyone's permission to start. I taught myself this entire business, dyslexia and all, because I refused to wait for a classroom to hand me a career. If I can reverse engineer how Google works at midnight with two kids asleep down the hall, you can absolutely figure out your version.

Just do not do it alone. The right circle of women will send you clients, tell you when your pricing is too low, and talk you off the ledge at 2 a.m. Go find that circle, then be that for someone else.

The challenge and the opportunity are the same thing: AI is rewriting how people find businesses.

The old game was clicks and ranking on page one. Now people ask ChatGPT or Google's AI and get one answer back. If your business is not that answer, you might as well be invisible. That scares a lot of owners, and it should.

But most businesses have not caught up yet, which leaves the door wide open for the ones who move now. This is the rare moment a small local company can leapfrog the big spenders, not with a bigger budget, but by building content AI actually trusts and quotes. That window is open right now, and it will not stay open forever.

Growth through connection. That is my whole compass, in business and in life.

I do not compete with other people. The second a conversation turns into comparison, or who is beating who, I am out. It is a genuine turnoff for me. The only person I am interested in outdoing is who I was yesterday. That is the race I actually care about, becoming a little more myself today than I was, and building toward the person I want to be tomorrow.

The growth through connection piece is just as big. That is the heart of Go-Getter Gals, and it is my personal mission too. Personal growth, business growth, and a network of people who lift each other up. That is the whole thing for me.