
Episode #28
What Does A Marketing Agency Do? An Agency Founder Turned Consultant's Answer
What does a marketing agency do? A founder who sold two agencies and hired them as a CMO on what clients pay for and how to get ahead inside one. Tim Kilroy has spent more than 25 years in and around agencies. He started three, sold two, sat on the client side as CMO of Karmaloop, and now coaches agency owners. I asked him for the advice he would give at every stage of an agency career, and he did not hold back (heads up, the language is not clean). The first half is for anyone working at a marketing agency or trying to get into one. Make friends with the people hired when you were. Your boss is probably not your mentor, so find one sideways and ask for information, never for help. Tim explains why the jump from team lead to director has almost nothing to do with how good a marketer you are, and the one-line note that lets you act without waiting for permission. The second half answers the question in the title from the owner's chair and the client's chair. What big brands actually want from an agency, why optimizing to one metric makes every ad look the same, and the story from his CMO years where the agency kept handing him best practices when he needed them to understand his customer. His line on it: your job is to give the client what they need, which is rarely what they asked for. We close on AI. Knowing which button to push used to make you better at this job. Tim's take is that it no longer does, and that even the most junior person on the team has a mandate to bring a better idea. Subscribe for a new video every Friday: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyRzVW-NdwVH2heV7ES0JdA?sub_confirmation=1 Watch next: Jobs In Advertising, Explained: Every Seat And Where To Start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfz8t0r5-fQ CHAPTERS 0:00 What does a marketing agency do? Meet Tim Kilroy 0:30 What advice would an agency founder give at every career stage? 0:49 What should you do first in an entry level agency job? 1:34 Why is your boss not your mentor? 3:15 How do you ask someone senior for help without asking for help? 4:08 How do you get promoted from team lead to director? 6:37 What does Extreme Ownership look like inside an agency? 10:58 Why does the school habit fail at work? 13:28 Why do new hires freeze instead of acting? 14:00 How do you take initiative without waiting for permission? 16:06 Why does nobody want to work with a passive teammate? 17:30 Is client retention a junior person's job? 20:07 What does a marketing agency do once AI runs the platforms? 21:01 What do big brands want from a marketing agency? 23:32 Why does every ad look the same? 25:42 What did his agency get wrong when he was CMO of Karmaloop? 32:48 What does a marketing agency do for a client? 34:08 Why do junior people have a mandate to have a better idea? 37:55 Why do most bad decisions in advertising come from fear? 38:45 How do you defend a decision that went wrong? 42:04 Where can you find Tim Kilroy? Connect with Tim Kilroy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkilroy/ Tim's site: https://timkilroy.com Tim's newsletter, Agency Inner Circle: https://agencyinnercircle.com Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/broxten-davis Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebroxtendigitalshow Subscribe to get more actionable advice from the best in advertising & marketing. #WhatDoesAMarketingAgencyDo

