🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast
Grant Simmons: The Incredible Switch — From Corporate to Freedom
35+ years of marketing experience, freelance SEO consulting, and what the leap from corporate to independent work actually teaches you about building something sustainable.
Grant is a freelance SEO consultant and strategist at Simmonet Marketing. Grant has over 35 years marketing experience with an emphasis on digital channels and a focus on collaborative SEO consulting, leadership, agency organization, and performance-based work.
“Simon Schnieders Reveals Hidden Truths About Running a Large SEO Agency” — Blue Array’s founder on what nobody tells you about scaling an SEO agency past 50 people, and the management decisions that make or break growth.
— Simon Schnieders, Blue Array | Listen: Simon Schnieders on Running a Large SEO Agency →
Key Takeaways
- 35 years of marketing teaches you that the fundamentals outlast every trend. Grant has seen the rise of SEO, social media, content marketing, and now AI — and the through-line is always the same: understand the audience, serve them well, measure what matters.
- The corporate-to-freelance transition is a skills inventory problem. Most corporate SEOs underestimate how many of their skills are transferable to independent work — and overestimate how hard it is to find clients. The hard part is building systems, not finding work.
- Collaborative SEO consulting beats siloed delivery. Grant’s model: work alongside client teams rather than replacing them. Build internal capability while delivering external expertise. Clients who learn SEO are better clients and longer-term relationships.
- Performance-based work aligns incentives in ways retainers don’t. When your compensation is tied to results, every decision is filtered through “does this actually move the business?” It’s a clarifying constraint that produces better strategic thinking.
Connect with Grant Simmons
- LinkedIn: Grant Simmons
The Unscripted SEO Podcast features candid, unscripted conversations with SEOs and digital marketers. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.
