Or robot, or occasionally sentient algorithm. All are welcome here. I'm Simon Golding: digital marketing strategist, four-time Salesperson of the Year, lifelong musician, and the founder of Golden Consulting. Also the strategist, the closer, and the entire org chart.
Most marketing consultants have lived one seat. I've cycled through all three: buying marketing services and feeling the frustration of vague reports, delivering them inside agencies and seeing what actually drives results versus what merely renews contracts, and selling them at a level that earned Salesperson of the Year four times across two different agencies. That last part matters less as a trophy and more as evidence: it means I can take complicated things and make them make sense to busy people with money on the line.
The consequence of that seat-hopping is unusually broad range. Fifteen years across sales and marketing, more than ten deep in digital, spanning SEO, paid media, content, digital PR, CRO, email, and the newer frontier of AI search. I know what a CMO is actually asking when they push back on a proposal, because I've been the one pushing back.
Before any of that: psychology and market research at Monash University in Melbourne, including a stint in neuromarketing, wiring people to EEGs to watch their brains react to ads. Which is to say, my interest in why people buy things predates my interest in selling them anything.
My most recent chapter was building GEO strategy: getting businesses cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews, not just ranked in traditional search. I built the methodology, the narrative, and the sales enablement from scratch, then handed it to a team to run. My first month as the strategy architect was the first month every single salesperson on that team closed a deal. That had never happened before, and I have a reference who'll confirm it if you'd like one. Watching something you built work in other people's hands is a different kind of win, and I got hooked on it.
As the proverb goes: "when the winds of change are blowing, some build houses while others build windmills."
I build windmills. The AI shift in marketing isn't weather to shelter from, it's the most useful energy source this industry has seen in a decade.That's the thinking behind Golden Consulting: an independent practice where the strategy layer, the honest advice, and the accountability all come from one person who has seen this industry from every angle it has.
"Simon gave a comprehensive presentation across all aspects of digital marketing to over 565 attendees... The audience feedback was phenomenal."
Andrew Smart · 4x Founder and CEO, Slator · via LinkedIn
Born in the US, raised in Australia, now calling Colorado home(ish). Dual citizen, which explains the accent drifting mid-sentence. Lifelong musician and one-time drum teacher. Certified in Mental Health First Aid, because the humans matter more than the funnels.
For a genuinely interesting conversation, ask me about the eerie and non-coincidental similarities between how large language models work and how the human mind does. Bring coffee. It's a long one.
My favorite color is purple. This is the objectively correct answer. I will not be taking questions.
Tell me what you're building and what's in the way. The first conversation costs nothing and comes with free opinions.
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