A year ago, I was at the peak of my career—finally landing a C-suite role, leading elite digital ad teams, and putting up numbers that most marketers only talk about in hypotheticals. One of my proudest achievements? Scaling a client from $30 million to ~$100 million in just two years. Not projections. Not runway. Real revenue.
When I inherited their Google Ads account, it was bringing in $2 million annually. By the time I left, that number had ballooned to $40 million in non-branded revenue alone—powered by a custom-built integration I developed to connect ad spend to closed revenue. Their internal goal was $75 million. High on life after closing out the prior year going from $30m to $50m I said, and I quote; “Fuck that! Let’s do $100m!”. And that year we hit $98m. We built a formula that was surgical, not speculative.
But here’s what you don’t expect after a run like that: I was miserable. And other clients? Still skeptical. Still shopping. Still not satisfied. That dissonance—that tension between massive results and lingering distrust—is exactly why I walked away from the agency model. Because the problem wasn’t performance. It was the dynamic.
When Good Talent Gets Stuck in Bad Models
In my past life, I thought we were doing elite work—top-line growth, client wins, retention rates to brag about. But even with a 10-client cap meant to preserve quality, most of my week was spent in meetings: prepping decks, recapping calls, re-explaining strategy to account managers who weren’t implementers themselves.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault exactly. The shop was built that way. Account managers were just subsidized ushers of the agencies interests. Specialists were too busy explaining the work internally & externally to focus on improving it. The result? Talent wasted on repetition, strategy buried in optics. It wasn’t a lack of skill—it was a model of chaos that didn’t let the work breathe, and it’s far too common if you ask around.
Because when account managers are just project managers, and specialists are constantly having to justify rather than optimize, you get a marketing team that’s been optimized for showing enough activity to avoid getting fired, not achievement. You burn hours and talent on optics. Not outcomes.
Setting Money on Fire at $100 Per Minute
One client told me a story that they ran into their Scorpion rep at a trade show and they didn’t even recognize their face or know their name or business. Why? They were managing 100+ accounts. A former Scorpion employee I later interviewed confirmed it, status quo account load because they take on so many smaller advertisers. That’s less than 30 minutes per week per client—if they work a 40-hour week without meetings, emails or breaks.
Think a fractional CMO is expensive? Try paying $10,000 a month for 24 minutes a week of attention. At that scale, personalized strategy isn’t possible. You’re just another email. Just another bulk action budget increase. The result? Agencies that have massive scale, but don’t actually move the needle.
Uncovering the Real Disconnect
Most contractors don’t have the in-house marketing depth to know if what they’re getting is any good. They’ve been sold on resumes, not results. I’ve seen marketing leaders at PE-backed firms—people with executive titles and big brand pedigrees—who didn’t know the difference between paid and organic.
I once met a former VP of Marketing at Disney who didn’t know how Google actually worked. That’s not strategy. That’s insulation. And if you’ve ever wondered why marketing feels like a black hole, this is why. You’re trusting the wrong proxies.
The Intermediary Advantage
We’re not another agency. We’re not a vendor. We’re the strategic intermediary—built to sit between the business and the marketing machine, making sure the strategy is right, the partners are right, and the results speak for themselves.
Yes, there are great agencies out there. Boutique shops that cap their client loads and focus on outcomes. We work with them. And because of our relationships and volume, they give our clients dedicated resources. We control the account load. We enforce the standards. We eliminate the fluff.
The goal? 90% of time on execution. No more than 10% on explanation.
Sometimes, we even help rebuild trust. We’ve had clients fire agencies we knew were top-tier—not because the work was bad, but because there was no one objective in the middle to translate it. We’ve brought those relationships back. Aligned expectations. And helped both sides finally win.
Repairing the Foundation
After auditing over 1,000 ad accounts, the biggest thing missing wasn’t clicks or leads. It was safety. Contractors have been burned. Lied to. Locked out of their own data. So even when performance improves, they don’t believe it’s real. And frankly, they’ve got good reason.
What we’ve found is that trust isn’t rebuilt through prettier decks. It’s rebuilt through clarity, consistency, and control. By embedding ourselves in the business. By ensuring every vendor is accountable to performance—not just optics. By creating partnerships that are transparent, objective, and obsessively outcome-focused.
How We Operate
Our model is built on three immovable values:
No Contracts. We’re a subscription—cancel anytime. Our partners are M2M, too. If we’re not earning it, we’re out.
100% Owned Assets. You own everything. Always. We don’t tolerate hostage situations.
0% Kickbacks. We don’t take cuts from our recommendations. Instead, we negotiate partner discounts to offset our fee. In most cases, our cost pays for itself.
The 10x Our Fee Guarantee™
If we can’t map a clear, strategic path to 10x our cost in incremental value, we won’t take the engagement. Not because we can’t deliver—but because we only play games we know we can win.
We’re not a cost center. We’re a force multiplier. And if we’re not confident we can prove that, we’ll tell you upfront.
Redefining the Role of Real Marketers
We’re not here to justify our role by poking holes in everyone else’s work. We’re here to build value and unlock results your business has never seen before.
Too often, agencies resent CMOs because all they do is audit, overinflate issues, and move clients to vendors who pay them kickbacks. We’ve seen it firsthand. That’s not leadership—it’s opportunism disguised as oversight.
Because let’s be honest: most marketers aren’t the problem. The models are. Great talent gets stuck defending bad math, babysitting inflated processes, or navigating misaligned incentives. When marketers are forced to justify rather than optimize, everyone loses.
That’s why we exist—to bridge the disconnect between good marketers and the contractors they serve. To create an environment where strategy is clear, partners are accountable, and results are real.
For contractors who’ve been burned by inflated promises. For partners who deliver but get lost in translation. For businesses tired of spending more to get less.
This isn’t just a different model. It’s a better one. One where trust isn’t a leap of faith—it’s a proven outcome.
