Tim Kilroy

TimKilroy.com - Build Your Agency Better™

🚀 Founder, WTF Agency Coaching – Helping Agencies Fix What’s Broken & Grow the Right Way

If you’ve ever looked at your agency and thought “WTF is happening?!”—you’re not alone.

I help marketing, SEO, PR, web dev, and creative agencies fix the chaos, build smarter growth strategies, and finally create a business that runs without them being in every damn meeting.

💡 More revenue & profit (without killing your margins or your sanity)
💡 Clients who actually stick around (and pay what you’re worth)
💡 A team that knows what the hell they’re doing (so you’re not babysitting)
💡 Growth that fits YOUR vision (whether that’s scaling, niching, or exiting)

This isn’t theory. Agencies I work with have:
✅ Scaled from $10K to $100K+ MRR in less than a year
✅ Hired (and kept) real salespeople so the founder could step out of biz dev
✅ Doubled their profit margins by fixing their pricing & positioning
✅ Built teams that actually deliver—without the founder being the bottleneck

If you want to build a happier, more profitable, and actually sustainable agency, let’s make it happen.

-----------------
How We Fix & Build Agencies the WTF Way

🔥 FIND & CLOSE BETTER CLIENTS → Stop chasing bad-fit leads. Bring in the right clients, the right way.
🔥 BUILD A TEAM THAT RUNS ITSELF → So you’re not in every client call or project fire drill.
🔥 FIX YOUR PRICING & PROFITS → More margin, less stress, better growth.
🔥 MAKE YOUR AGENCY MORE SELLABLE → Even if you never sell, let’s build a business someone would want to buy.

This isn’t “coaching for coaching’s sake.” This is real-world, high-impact work that gets results.

Wanna Chat? No Sales Pitch. Just Help.

🔗 Book a free WTF call → https://timkilroy.com/free-call
🚀 FREE WTF Agency Assessment → https://timkilroy.com/wtf-assessment
🔥 Agency Coaching for $299/mo → https://timkilroy.com/agency-kickoff

Founder & Instigator

Framingham State University

I work with the marketing leaders of tomorrow to help them learn about the latest developments in digital and performance advertising.

Adjunct Instructor - Digital Marketing

ecomALLIES

eComAllies is an agency that is 100% focused on growing D2C brands. With paid media as a core expertise, we also bring deep insight into customer journey mapping, conversion rate optimization & growth marketing. We serve emerging & establish brands.

We help our clients increase their advertising efficiency, increase the cohesiveness of their messaging and help them tie together data from multiple channels to increase the effectiveness, reach and impact of their marketing across social, search, content & email marketing.

Our Emerging Brand Accelerator is a scale-to-market program for brands that have hit at least $10K/mo on their growth journey and want to work with an experienced partner to help the to grow towards $50K/mo in sales over 6-12 months.

For intermediate brands ($50-$200K/mo in sales) our Success Scales approach will help you diversify your marketing, drive down your customer acquisition costs and focus on creating an acquisition to retention marketing program custom made for your brand.

For larger brands, we attack your growth by using your most successful channels to grow the impact of your emerging channels to find areas of rapid growth that will enhance not only the success of your best marking channels, but also widen your market presence to build your brand while focusing on improving your CAC & LTV

Learn more at https://ecomallies.com or book an intro call: https://klry.co/3tnhBYc

Chief Executive Officer - eComAllies

Retriever

Retriever is your LinkedIn lead generation, business development & recruiting laboratory. Using the power of LinkedIn, cold outreach, deep research and an unquenchable thirst for results, the team at Retriever finds, engages with & lands your target prospect.

We work hard to understand who you need to connect with...and why. 

And then we make it happen. We help high ACV SaaS businesses, marketing & development agencies & fast growth tech companies fill their calendars with the right prospects, partners & future employees. Learn more at Retriever.co or jumpstart your pipeline growth by booking an intro call today: https://klry.co/33vpLCU

Chief Executive Officer

Iterate.ai

Innovation Founder In Residence

Splitzee

Advisor

Tinuiti

Vice President of Insight & Analytics

Adchemix

We focus on profit driven marketing. We know - kind of obvious, right? But we've found the vast majority of retail marketers do not understand which campaigns and creative drive the most profit, highest LTV and greatest frequency - all stuff that retailers want. Why don't they know that? Because data is hard. We let retailers be retailers - AdChemix handles the heavy data analysis and marketing insight - and we let our retailers source and sell great products. Our insights have helped our clients drop their CPCs by 40%, increase their transactional profitability by more than 25%, all while doubling their online revenue. Give us a try. www.adchemix.com/profitchemix

Selling To The C

Marketing & business development focused blog/consultancy that is laser-focused on data-driven creativity to help you grow your business as quickly as possible. Marketing advisory & fractional CMO services, done for your and/or done with you marketing campaigns, courses & more. Come check out the fun at https://sellingtothec.com

Marketing & Growth

Wayfair

I head up the acquisition of new partnerships with retailer and media companies. It's fun!

Business Development

WTF Happens.

The Question Is: Will You Fossilize — or Will You Break Free?

Every great agency hits a brutal WTF Moment.
	•	When the pipeline dries up.
	•	When the team cracks under pressure.
	•	When the market shifts and your offer suddenly sounds hollow.

It’s not failure.
It’s not bad luck.
It’s a survival checkpoint.

Your WTF Moment is the crack that demands your evolution.

I help agency founders turn their WTF Moment into a Wow, That’s Fantastic Agency — the next, better version of their vision.

I call it the WTF → WTF Roadmap.

From there, we build growth systems that fit you, not the fossilized playbooks of five years ago:
	•	GTM OS → Build a buyer-aligned lead development machine.
	•	FYFS → Fire yourself from founder-led sales chaos.
	•	GEN+ → Create visibility and authority before you ever pitch.

If you’re tired of duct-taping new hacks onto an old survival model,
If you’ve already felt the crack but don’t know what comes next,

You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Your agency isn’t over.
It’s about to become fantastic.

Ready to start?

➔ DM me “WTF” and let’s map your leap.

So, The Agency Inner Circle shipped out it's 100th issue last week. (This linkedin newsletter version is usually a condensed week old issue.) But this week, you get the whole deal. All 100 random thoughts on:
-> Marketing
-> Agency Growth
-> Client Management
-> Team Management
-> Self Management
-> Being An Unshitty Boss
-> Reminders To Have Fun

...and a bunch of other stuff - I hope you read it and get something good out of it.

Turn Your Brutal WTF Moment Into a Wow, That’s Fantastic Agency Through the WTF → WTF Roadmap. | Agency Growth Architect | GTM OS | FYFS | GEN+

Editor's Note: For those of you who don't know, this LinkedIn newsletter is a week-delayed & condensed version of my e-mail newsletter - The Agency In

Open article: 100 Issues of The Agency Inner Circle by Tim Kilroy • 11 min read

Yesterday I talked about DemandOS & visibility beats chasing “signals.”

Today, I looked at a bunch of amazing agencies with killer clients, rockstar teams… 

And nothing but a few company posts and the occasional founder update on LinkedIn.

You’ve got incredible people on your team - your paid media lead, your designer, your strategist, your web dev lead - all sitting on a mountain of credibility, insight, and authority.

And what do most agencies do with it?

Absolutely f’ng NOTHING.

You respect their skills. 

You trust their instincts. 

You pay them real money.

Why not help them build market respect too?

When your team struts their stuff and lets the market have a real peek at them…

They make your agency magnetic.

That’s the real demand engine.

Hey agency folks - Vineet Mehra has a super-sharp take on what agencies need to focus on:
1. Define & sell outcomes, not effort
2. Show how you are using tools to your advantage (don't hide from your AI thinking)
3. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS: Campaigns are culture engines -> its not "content", but rather it is "becoming part of the discourse" [This feels ambitious, but for most of your clients, the "discourse" is a really narrow slice of the population]
4. Together not DFY: This creates synergy & accountability for agency & client
5. Reporting that matters to the client -> impressions & CTR don't matter to many, but margin contribution & lead quality do...make sure that you report on shit that is meaningful & proves your value

If I were running an agency or holding company today (which I am not) , I wouldn’t be tweaking the old model — I’d be throwing out the playbook.

We’re in the middle of the biggest platform shift our industry has ever seen (AI), and the clients who sit in my seat — CMOs — are already recalibrating what “value” looks like. If agencies don’t move just as fast, they’ll get disintermediated by in-house teams, AI-native startups, or media platforms.

Here’s the 5-point strategic plan I’d run as an agency CEO — from a CMO’s angle 👇

1️⃣ From selling hours → to selling outcomes
Stop leading with retainers, headcount, and time sheets. CMOs are under board-level pressure for pipeline, revenue, CAC, LTV. Productize offers around growth outcomes (launch → adoption, acquisition → activation, brand → demand). AI makes your delivery cheaper — don’t pass that value away as a discount; repackage it as speed + outcomes.

2️⃣ From “AI as a tool” → to “AI as the operating system”
This isn’t about using ChatGPT to write copy. It’s about rebuilding the agency stack so briefs, insights, production, content versioning, governance, and measurement are AI-orchestrated. Think agent-to-agent workflows with the client’s stack. The agencies that hardwire into the client’s marketing OS win the next decade.

3️⃣ From campaign factories → to culture engines
CMOs still need breakthrough work — but not twice a year. They need culturally aware, fast-twitch content that travels across platforms, creators, and communities. Build teams that can listen, make, and ship in days, not quarters. AI gives you the permutations; your differentiator is taste.

4️⃣ From “we’ll do it for you” → to “we’ll build it with you”
In-house isn’t going away. So partner with it. Offer co-pilots, playbooks, and embedded pods that help brands become AI-native marketers. Teach my team how to prompt, govern, and scale content. If you make me stronger, you become un-fireable.

5️⃣ From opaque reporting → to CFO-grade transparency
Marketing is getting more financial. Give CMOs dashboards that tie creative and media to business results, not vanity metrics. If your AI-enabled ops lowered cycle time by 40% and content costs by 30%, show it. Make your client look smart and astute through actual delivery, and they will grow your scope.

🔚 Bottom line: agencies that cling to the “people + hours” model will get squeezed. Agencies that use AI to increase leverage — and then price the value not the effort — will become the most strategic partners CMOs have.

There are GTM signals flying in every freakin’ direction...

... & 12 zillion platforms promising to help you “find the right ones.”

Here’s the straight skinny → most of those signals are crap.

Buyers don’t start by solving problems by racing to G2 or doing deep google searches - they start looking for a solution they think fits their problem amongst the people they already know & trust.

So, you know what’s better than reacting to a signal?

Being visible, helpful, authoritative, and smart AF in public...where your market can actually see you.

When a buyer does give off a signal, you aren't the only one who sees it.

That signal kicks off a mad dash of DMs, emails, and “quick intros.”

Better, IMHO, to already be in the places where they live & learn:

• Their LinkedIn & social feeds
• The conferences they go to
• The podcasts they listen to
• The newsletters they read

Being there is how you get the front-row seat to the real signals...you know, the ones that start with:

“Hey, we’ve got a problem you might be able to help with…”

We’ve been building a framework to help teams do exactly that.

It’s called DemandOS →  part system, part mindset, all focused on building trust & team-wide visibility at scale.

Finally ready to talk about it - our beta clients are making big leaps ahead.

Curious? 

Let’s chat. 👀

Are you unintentionally emptying the trust tank?

During the sales process, you build trust & authority. 

Contract gets signed.

Next, the client is thrown into onboarding that is way different than the sales process.

That burns some of that trust & authority you built

When your team asks the client onboarding questions about info that they need in order to give the best possible results - stuff like budgets, timelines, goals, etc.

Your brand new client is thinking: 
“WTF - didn’t I already tell them this? Don’t they even talk to each other?”

POOF - more trust & authority gone.

By the time kickoff is over, the tank is below E.

Want a better way?

Feed all of that trust & authority into a Sales → Delivery machine that arms your team with all of the sales insight - goals, concerns, limitations, opportunities & more. They can start building more trust & authority (and results) from the jump.

That’s exactly what my friends Copper and I  (the CRM for agencies) and I built:
A Sales → Delivery workflow that increases trust, authority & client happiness.
Want it?

Comment “TRUST” & we will get it over to you.

In this issue of The Agency Inner Circle we learn:
1. Why Tim should never say "what's the tea, fr, fr"
2. That zen batting is a thing.
3. WTF is content design?
4. Who is cooler: Family Guy's Peter Griffin or ageless wonder Keith Richards?

Enjoy!

Open article: Content, Zen Koans & Clarity by Tim Kilroy • 4 min read

I have a particular way that I like to research folks before I message them.

It is:
1. I find them via firmographics & title and put them on a list in Apollo.io
2. Industry research - what are the trends? Good times, bad times, issues that they might be facing.
3. Company research - what can I find out about their company, clients, target audience, blogs, case studies, press mentions, etc.
4. Person research - what is their role, their experience, what do they post about, have they been on a podcast recently, or shown up in a publication.
5. Then I create a connection between the problems that I know how to solve & their likely needs.
6. Then I write a killer email.
7. I also collect data around tone, length, angle and see what works.

I tried building this on popular agent builders...but it was slow and clunky and not smart enough (eg, agents didn't know who on a list I had already sent to, the builder inside of Apollo has very limited, etc) and I basically made a prompt that worked in ChatGPT or Claude - but it after 3 or 4 research requests, AI gets tired and lazy.

So, I tried building it in Loveable, but couldn't make it work. Then I tried Claude Code.

Guess what I have now?
1. Get list from apollo
2. Do numbers 2-6
3. Send back to apollo for sequencing

And steps 2-6 are almost EXACTLY what I do manually.

And by monday, I will have something that says "this angle works better than that angle" on people with "this title" at "this size company" OR "this problem" gets more opens than "that problem" and the responses come from "this tone" +"this length" or "that subject line" + "that tone" regardless of length.

And all I did was give claude an outline of what I wanted, answer some questions, be willing to cut & paste errors/code from the terminal window on my mac (which I think I have only opened 2x in the 30+ years I have been using a computer...).

I don't know python.
I don't know HTML
I don't know the difference between a webhook & an API.

Fucking CRAZY!

Open article: AI Sales Platform | Apollo.io - Outbound, Inbound & Automation by apollo.io

AI Sales Platform | Apollo.io - Outbound, Inbound & Automation

Inside DemandOS, we build around four Vs:

Vibes. 
Vision. 
Values. 
Visibility.

But the part that always trips folks up?

“What kind of content should we actually make?”

Simple question with a simple answer…it’s the 4 E’s:
	1.	Educate: Teach what you do. Break things down. Make it obvious that you know how this stuff works.
	2.	Evidence: Prove it works. Share results, impact, outcomes
	3.	Express: Show why you do it. The ideas behind your approach. The moments that shaped it & what it means.
	4.	Evolve: Share what’s next. How the market’s shifting, what you are learning, what you are testing, what you think is happening next…

If you’re ever stuck on what to create - for LinkedIn, TikTok, your newsletter, your blog, or what you talk about on a blog post just pick one of the 4 E’s.

You literally can’t go wrong.

Seriously, how often is that statement true? Well, at least once…right now.

Lostwave

Lostwave explores how emerging music markets are reshaping culture and business.

Publisher

The Beam

• Cultivate strong relationships with artists, managers, and record labels to develop The Beam's audience so we can change the artist-earning paradigm together.

• Educate artists on The Beam's value proposition, absorbing feedback to enhance product and UX.

• Automate repetitive tasks to enhance the team's operational efficiency.

• Maintain communication with stakeholders, report successes and challenges, propose solutions.

Head of Artist Relations

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)

I'm a songwriter, publisher, and BMI affiliate.

Songwriter

Country Music Association (CMA)

As a member of the Country Music Association (CMA) I play an influential role in shaping the future of country music by participating in the voting for the annual CMA Awards, engaging in industry advocacy, and contributing to the genre’s professional community.

Member

Association For Electronic Music

AFEM is the not-for-profit International trade body for the entire ecosystem of
Electronic Music. As an AFEM member, I work with other music professionals to set codes of conduct, advocate for artist rights, royalty transparency, and fair treatment in contracts and licensing.

Associate

Mast-Jägermeister US, Inc.

At Mast-Jägermeister US, I helped shape the brand’s cultural footprint by developing innovative marketing initiatives and strategic partnerships rooted in music, nightlife, and creative communities.

Highlights include:
	•	Collaborating with artists, venues, and agencies to produce branded content, live activations, and digital campaigns.
	•	Spearheading partnerships that extended the brand’s reach across music festivals, nightlife, and streetwear.
	•	Managing cross-functional teams to ensure creative execution matched strategic objectives.
	•	Playing a key role in positioning Jägermeister as a patron of independent culture and emerging talent in New York and Los Angeles markets.

This role strengthened my ability to blend brand strategy with cultural intuition,  aligning business goals with authentic, high-impact creative storytelling.

Culture & Lifestyle Marketing Manager, Music

VICE Media

At VICE, I worked at the intersection of storytelling, culture, and CPG commerce. I developed branded content campaigns, events, and field marketing strategies for AB-InBev's VICE co-brand beer, Old Blue Last. I partnered with forward-thinking brands, musicians, venues, and influencers to create work that lived natively across VICE channels and platforms.

Key contributions included:
	•	Leading cross-platform content campaigns for major clients in music, fashion, and tech.
	•	Translating brand goals into authentic stories with VICE’s distinct voice and cultural relevance.
	•	Collaborating with editors, creatives, and producers to bring campaigns to life — from ideation to distribution.
	•	Building relationships with artists, influencers, and talent that anchored campaigns in the NYC community and subcultures.

Culture Marketing Manager

SpinMedia Group, Inc.

At SPIN, I bridged editorial credibility with brand innovation. By helping evolve the legacy music magazine into a platform for emerging voices, artist-first storytelling, and culturally relevant brand collaborations, I played an integral role in positioning SPIN for their later acquisition. I worked across content strategy, talent relations, and branded partnerships to ensure SPIN stayed influential in a rapidly shifting music landscape.

Key contributions included:
	•	Interviewing and profiling breakout and established artists across genres and scenes.
	•	Curating editorial calendars aligned with music release cycles, cultural moments, and brand campaigns.
	•	Developing and executing branded content initiatives with sponsors seeking authentic ties to music and youth culture.
	•	Building relationships with brands, media agencies, labels, publicists, and artists to secure access, exclusives, and talent-driven collaborations.
	•	Supporting SPIN’s transition into digital-first publishing with campaigns that performed across social, video, and editorial platforms.

Account Executive

Primary Wave

As a Marketing Intern at Primary Wave Music, I supported the marketing and brand strategy initiatives for the company’s diverse roster of artists, songwriters, and legacy catalogs. 

My responsibilities included:
	•	Content Creation & Social Media – Assisted in developing, scheduling, and publishing engaging content across artist and brand channels, ensuring alignment with campaign strategies.
	•	Market Research & Analytics – Conducted research on industry trends, competitive releases, and audience engagement to inform campaign strategies; compiled analytics reports to evaluate campaign performance.
	•	Asset Management – Assisted in organizing and distributing creative assets, promotional materials, and press kits for internal teams, partners, and media outlets.
	•	Cross-Department Collaboration – Coordinated with digital marketing, publicity, sync, and A&R teams to ensure cohesive messaging and brand representation across all platforms.

Music Marketing Intern

Copycats Media

At CopyCats Media, I worked closely with artists, managers, and independent labels to produce physical music products, including CDs, vinyl, and merchandise. I supported the sales team by managing client communication, delivering quotes, coordinating artwork and approvals, and ensuring every order met deadlines—especially those tied to tour dates or album releases.

Clients included: Lizzo, The Black Crowes, 3OH3!, Anna Nalick, Kosha Dillz, Rhymesayers Ent, et al.

Sales Assistant

I like myself and I love my work.

I’m the Head of Artist Relations for The Beam, a music chart platform built for emerging artists (and the only one that pays them when they chart). We elevate the next wave of talent by measuring fan engagement in real-time, and reward artists with pay and career-lifting resources from brands.

My career has always sat at the intersection of culture and commerce. I’ve led artist relations, branded content strategy, and experiential marketing for brands including Jägermeister, VICE, and Fuse TV. I’ve built merch businesses for Grammy-award-winning touring artists Tom Morello and Snarky Puppy, sourced talent like Post Malone for cross-platform global media campaigns, and negotiated partnerships that helped developing artists turn their music into income (without compromising their rights).

At The Beam, I’m continuing that work at scale: building tools and programs that treat artists like entrepreneurs, not just entertainers. We’re part music chart, part tech startup, part A&R intelligence tool, and all-in on helping artists grow their fans (not followers), monetize their moment, and get recognized for their measurable influence.

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Engagements

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