Hi, I'm Lou
I work with professional services, recruitment and HR tech businesses that want their marketing to drive consistent new business.
My work spans strategy, planning and hands-on support. From getting the brand foundations right through to marketing strategy and helping teams execute against it.
Lou Goodman Consulting exists so the money, time and effort you put into it delivers what you need it to.
My background
I started my career in marketing at recruitment marketing agencies learning the industry from the ground up.
Then nearly a decade at one of the world's leading media agencies, running major consumer and recruitment accounts simultaneously. Straddling both gave me access to the best brand thinking, applied across very different briefs.
After leaving agency life, I spent nearly seven years inside a major global job board during a significant period of change.
What I took from that experience sits alongside something I've observed throughout my career. The brand rigour that consumer disciplines take for granted – and makes marketing work harder – is systematically underinvested in across B2B and recruitment.
The businesses that stay relevant are the ones that keep revisiting the foundational questions – what problem are we solving, for whom, and why should they choose us?
I help them answer them and make sure those answers are reflected in how they go to market.
What I specialise in
I love problem solving and, yes, I know that's what everyone in strategy says.
What I love is the moment when someone is trying to describe their business and something else comes through in what they're saying.
Something more interesting, more real, more distinctive than what they've been leading with. I pick that up, I play it back, and they recognise themselves in a way they haven't before. That's the moment I'm working towards.
It's harder than it sounds. When you're close to something – and I've experienced this firsthand running my own consultancy – it's genuinely hard to see it clearly. I also know what it costs when the story isn't clear enough and the market is evolving.
Success isn't just about your ability to do a good job. It's about your ability to convince people you can do a good job for them when they don't know you.
Positioning is about making your value clear.
Marketing is about getting it in front of the right people before you're in the room.
That's what I help businesses do.