I help B2B founders build go-to-market systems that hold up in investor due diligence.

Most startups don’t fail because of product or market, they fail because revenue is fragile, founder-led, or impossible to underwrite.

What investors usually find:

- Sales driven by one person or one channel
- No documented or repeatable GTM motion
- Poor visibility into forecasting and revenue quality
- Growth rented from agencies, not owned internally

That might generate pipeline.
It does not increase valuation.

At AdvancedClient.io, we work with B2B startups and scale-ups preparing to raise or exit.

Instead of running lead generation, we install investor-grade GTM infrastructure inside the business.

Our work focuses on:

- Removing founder dependency from sales
- Designing repeatable, internal GTM motions
- De-risking single-channel acquisition
- Building real revenue visibility and forecasting
- Creating systems the team owns long after we leave

Everything we do is designed by reverse-engineering how VCs and PE firms evaluate revenue, risk, and scalability during diligence.

When we’re done, founders are no longer the bottleneck and investors see a business that can scale without heroics.

If you’re raising or exiting in the next 6–18 months and want your GTM to increase valuation, not just pipeline, that’s the conversation we should be having.

Tom Grainger

GTM right now is being hijacked by nerds who’ve never carried a quota.

let me explain

Every other post I'm seeing at the moment is some ludicrous claude code workflow that requires 15 API's to send an email... 

But who actually needs this?

What real revenue problem does it solve?

And which serious sales org is going to rip out  infrastructure to install some vibe-coded science project that legal will shut down in 48 hours?

(this doesn't apply to new-wave startups)

A lot of these over-engineered workflows are built because they’re intellectually stimulating… not because they move the revenue needle.

The GTM space needs SIMPLICITY. 

Less complexity, less tool sprawl, less admin, less nonsense 

I think AI is going to be game changing for GTM but only when it's delivered in a way that increases simplicity and packaged into a compliant, secure safe UI that reps actually use. 

I wrote about what I think this could look like in post on monday. 

I know this will ruffle some feathers and maybe my gut feeling is wrong but the more I see the more I feel confident I'm right. 

Simplicity and allowing great reps to spend more time on revenue generating activity is the key. 

Someone solve that without claude code pls.

Founder at AdvancedClient.io | Scale your GTM with AI systems

The future of RevOps isn't more reps.

It's fewer, better reps with systems that actually work.

Here's what I'm seeing:

Old model: 15 reps all building their own lists, using different tools, getting wildly different results. No central control. Massive variance. Total chaos.

New model: 3-5 elite reps backed by a centralized AI system that does the heavy lifting.

The shift is simple:

Stop hiring more bodies to throw at the problem. Start building custom systems that let your best people operate at 10x capacity.

What this looks like in practice:

• One AI-enabled RevOps leader managing the entire system (or an agency building it for you in a weekend)
• Everything centralized and connected to your existing tools via Claude code
• Reps work from CRM, Slack, or Teams (wherever they live)
• Max 1-2 platform logins to do their job
• Everything optimized for conversation maxing

The cost to build this used to be insane. Required extreme technical knowledge. Now? Agencies can spin up these systems in weekends and connect them straight to enterprise tools.

The goal isn't complexity. It's simplicity at scale.

Your top reps shouldn't be building lists or wrestling with 8 different tools. They should be having conversations that close deals.

The companies that figure this out will run circles around bloated teams still doing everything manually.

Lean teams. Elite execution. Centralized systems.

That's the play.

Is this a buying signal or am I about to be palantir'd? 

Vector 👻 pls advise

150–300 demos a month. Two people. Zero outbound.

If you’re a sales leader reading that thinking, “Yeah but they must have a big team behind it”…

They don’t.

Three months ago, BirdDog kept popping up on my feed.

So I did what any curious operator would do.

I tried to book a call.

Two weeks booked out.

wtf...

On this week’s podcast, I sat down with Jack Porter to break down how BirdDog actually got here.

Because the story didn’t start as a sales tool.

It started as something completely different.

We unpack:

- The original version of BirdDog and why it had to pivot
- The painful middle stage most startups don’t talk about
- The moment they doubled down on content
- How social ABM became a real acquisition channel.

Their growth wasn’t about posting more but rather attracting the right audience.

Jack Porter talks about why quality of audience on LinkedIn matters more than raw reach, and how one content decision tripled their impressions.

We also went deep on:

- Why they shifted from outbound-heavy to inbound-led
- How they think about signal-based selling
- Where AI and automation actually fit inside a sales org
- The human layer that AI can’t replace
- The volume vs depth debate in outbound

If you’re running GTM right now, this is a real look at what modern pipeline can look like when content, signals, and sales are aligned.

Episode’s live now.

Links in the comments...

Clay just launched Clay Ads and it's a game-changer for syncing revops, ads, and sales.

Here's why this matters:

You start with proper ad structure on LinkedIn. Top, middle, and bottom funnel. 

Then you bring in elite revops to build the engine:

• Build killer tables in Clay
• Get high match rates on your target audiences
• Pull the best emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles

Now here's where Clay Ads changes everything:

You can push enriched lookalike audiences directly to LinkedIn and Meta. Dynamic exclusion lists that sync with your CRM so you're not wasting budget on existing customers or closed deals.

Retargeting based on actual product usage data and lead scores. Not just "visited the website." Real behavioral triggers.

Clay's own results are mental:

• Up to 95% match rate on LinkedIn and 65% on Meta by enriching contacts with personal emails, job titles, and location data.

• Dynamic exclusion alone prevents wasting 50% of your ad budget. Auto-exclude customers and employees. Keep lists synced as channels expand.

• Target based on real behavioral triggers like job changes, social mentions, pricing page visits, and product usage data from high-intent accounts.

Push everything to landing pages where your sales team can act immediately.

But here's where it gets powerful:

Your cold leads are getting hit by ads while your reps are calling them. Your pipeline deals are being absolutely swarmed by ads. Your reps close deals 2-3 weeks faster because prospects have already seen your brand 8+ times.

Even your customers are seeing ads post-close to prevent churn and drive upsells.

And you can compound all of this by posting organic content on LinkedIn. Your founder voice + paid ads = even more touchpoints.

Your sales team isn't working alone anymore. They're backed by ads hitting prospects at every stage.

This is how you scale without burning out your reps or betting everything on one channel.

Most companies are doing ads OR sales. The winners are doing both in sync.

BirdDog kept showing up in my feed.

Every post getting serious engagement.

So I tried to book a call with Jack Porter.

2 weeks booked out.

That's when I knew something was working.

Here's what caught my attention:

They've nailed PMF and paired it with a social ABM strategy that actually works.

It's the perfect combo for a small, lean, profitable team.

No massive sales org. No bloated tech stack. Just a tight motion that converts.

I wanted to understand how they built it, so I got Jack on the pod.

We talked about:

• How they use social to create pipeline
• Why their booking calendar stays full
• The GTM motion behind their growth
• What this means for B2B teams trying to scale lean

This is one of the better conversations I've had about modern GTM.

Watch the teaser.

Full episode link in the comments.

So I might have been wrong about claude code.

Last week I posted about GTM being hijacked by nerds who've never carried quota. 25k impressions, 268 likes, 97 comments, proper marmite reaction. Some loved it, some hated it. 

Then I spent the weekend actually trying it.

Built a slack bot in a few hours that acts as a knowledge base for reps. They can ask questions about product, pricing, objection handling, whatever without bugging their manager or feeling stupid.

It was... surprisingly easy?

New reps ramp faster. Managers spend less time answering the same questions. Reps get answers at 11pm when they're prepping for tomorrow's call.

Here's what I got wrong: I lumped all AI workflows into the same bucket of over-engineered nonsense.

Here's what I still think I'm right about: most of what I see on LinkedIn is still intellectual masturbation that doesn't move revenue.

The difference? This bot increases simplicity. It removes friction. It lets reps spend more time selling.

I built this in a weekend. It works. But now I'm wondering... would any serious org actually adopt something like this? If it's this easy, why would they pay for a solution instead of just building it themselves?

Full transparency: I'm not a coder or software designer. I don't know shit about compliance, security, or what it actually takes to deploy this at scale.

Maybe that's the real opportunity.

Proper orgs still need that compliance layer, the security infrastructure, the support when things break. They're not running their sales org on a weekend project.

But for small teams, solo operators, entrepreneurs? This stuff is game changing. You can solve real problems without waiting for procurement or budgets or vendor approvals.

Sales admin was eating my week.

So I spent half a day building 3 flows in Claude co-work. No code. Just simple natural language automations.

Here's what they do:

1. Post-discovery call
- Pulls transcript from Attio
- Drafts follow-up email directly in Gmail
- Updates deal stage from discovery to book demo
- Fills out prospect and company fields from the call
- Adds specific follow-up tasks
- Books the demo in Google Calendar and sends the invite

2. Pre-demo
- Extracts the transcript
- Builds a custom deck in Gamma
- Flags it for my approval before anything goes out

3. Post-demo
- Creates a shareable deck link
- Drafts the follow-up email with it included
- Moves deal stage to decision
- Adds tasks based on what we actually discussed
- Runs a risk analysis and confidence score
- Updates every relevant deal field and drops a note in the CRM

All the stuff reps hate doing. Done automatically.

The specificity is what makes it work. It's not generic automation. It's pulling from real conversations and building outputs that are actually useful.

And I built all of this without writing a single line of code.

If you're still doing this stuff manually after every call, you're burning time you don't have.

I’ve audited hundreds of Linkedin ad accounts so far this year

70% of marketing teams aren’t running this crucial ad type 

Thought leader ads…

Here's why you should be using them...

1) People trust faces more than logos

Most people scroll past corporate ads.

But they’ll stop for a person.

A real name with a face

It feels like content (which it is) and not advertising.

That trust changes everything - especially in B2B sales


2) You can test content for free

Post organically first.

See what actually resonates.

- Which posts get comments.
- Which ones get saves.
- Which ones start conversations.

Then boost the winners.

You’re putting spend behind proven content.

It’s creative testing for FREE


3) You can act directly on engagement

- Someone comments.
- Someone likes the post.
- Someone views the profile.

All of that is a signal. (IF they are ICP fit)

Track with Trigify.io - push to Clay for qualification and ICP check

Then push to sales

Your team can engage immediately.

—-

If your team already posts content,

Start boosting the posts that take off.

If not,

Start posting today.

I just recorded a podcast with Ajinkya from Trellus (YC W22)

And he said something that made me stop the recording.

"Most B2B SaaS companies are building the wrong way."

Ajinkya has been running Trellus (YC W22) for 4+ years without taking a single dollar of VC money.

While everyone else is burning cash chasing vanity metrics and praying for an exit that'll never come, he's been quietly building a profitable dialing platform that integrates directly into tools like Outreach, HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio etc

The VC playbook is broken.

Raise millions. Hire fast. Scale faster. Burn harder.

Then watch 90% of funded companies flame out because they optimized for the next funding round instead of actual customers.

Ajinkya did the opposite and built something people actually pay for.

Here's what we covered:

• Why he spent 8 months with no product idea (and why that was crucial)
• The platform risk strategy that VCs hate but customers love
• Why profitability beats hypergrowth in B2B SaaS
• How embedding with users revealed what they actually need
• The cyclical nature of cold calling (and what's coming next)

This isn't your typical founder story.

No investor telling him what to build. No scrambling for runway. No throwing out the roadmap because funding dried up.

Just a founder who ignored Silicon Valley's bullshit and won because of it.

The SaaS world worships growth at all costs.

But growth without profit is just expensive failure in slow motion.

If you're tired of the venture-backed circus and want to see how real builders operate, this conversation will hit different.

Link to the full episode in the comments.

Google+Meta Ads Expert | Top 1% Growth Marketer | DTC+Amazon growth advisor

I have experience growing multiple companies with Google and Meta Ads. I have a pretty diverse portfolio that includes: -Making brands millions of dollars with paid ads. Worked with niches including education, health &amp; wellness, startups, law, ecommerce, home services and more.-I have experience building paid media &amp; content based funnels that have grown multiple companies.-Scaling ad budgets profitably. Working on a wide range of projects ranging from funnel building to managing ad budgets up to $1M/month.-Helping multiple emerging brands/startups with over $200M in funding to build their growth engines. I’m always open to connect with people and explore opportunities. Most recently I've partnered with service brands, ecom brands and ad agencies as a white label paid media strategist.Feel free to set up a call here if you'd like to connect.https://calendly.com/feras-3/meeting2

Feras Khalbuss

Ad agencies looking for paid media support 👇

I’m exploring joining the right mission-driven team in a fractional capacity. 

Most recently I’ve been working on engagements with ad agencies as a fractional paid media director, account manager and creative strategist. 

I am available for projects including:
-Google and Meta Ads management for lead gen and ecommerce.
-Profitably scaling ad budgets.
-Troubleshooting lead quality or flatlining results.
-Getting a fresh pair of eyes on your accounts.
-Account management (front end), consulting or media buying

I’ve spent the last 12+ years managing, optimizing and scaling Google and Meta Ads accounts - from brand-new builds to 7, 8, and 9-figure programs across niches including home services, law, ecom, B2B, SaaS and high-ticket consumer. 

I’ve managed ad budgets ranging from $2K per month to $1M/month - working both on funnel-building projects and also managing ad accounts for big name brands. I’ve also managed and built high performing teams. 

I bring a lot of enthusiasm, passion, expertise and grit to any project I take on. 

The reason I like ad agency projects is the high sophistication and I always liked the community aspect working with bright people.

I have one slot open.

P.S. This is a song I wrote on guitar a couple years ago.

Google+ Meta Ads Expert | Available for hire to brands & agencies | Ask me about our quiz+growth funnels

You pushed more budget into your Google Ads account.

And somehow... leads got more expensive and worse quality.

And it feels like you took 3 steps backwards.

You're not imagining it. This happens to almost every lead gen account when they try to scale ad spend.

Here's why:

-Google's algorithm finds a sweet spot - a tight pool of high-intent users who convert well. 
-The moment you open up, it has to reach beyond that pool. 
-Into people who look similar, but aren't ready to buy.
-Google Ads strategy can change pretty quickly when the directive becomes scaling while keeping the same efficiency.

And what ends up happening is a lot of structural and infrastructure issues come up:
-Lack of transparency of what keywords actually lead to closed sales.
-Not understanding which campaigns have the most potential to actually scale.
-Understanding what is and is not a rabbit hole in the age of AI.

A lot of times ad agencies will have a lot of experience with managing ad accounts with a consistent ad budget.

But when it comes time to do a heavier lift like come up with a scaling strategy to 3x ad spend profitably.

They show the same patterns. Great at pitch decks and showmanship but bad at execution.

This exposes flaws in THEIR thinking and ability to pivot.

Many ad agencies have an incentive to have a volume type of model.

Sign as many clients as possible with their fancy logos.

And upsell - without having to go that extra mile.

While delegating your account to junior employees without that strategic acumen.

If you’re not impressed with your current ad agency.

And they seem to be a bit well checked out.

I have capacity for auditing 2 extra Google Ads accounts for service+ecom brands.

Up to 85% of ad agencies are struggling to hire the right paid media strategists.

For smaller teams, one wrong hire doesn't just sting - it can create a ripple effect.
Salary, recruiter fees, lost performance, client churn. 

And because one strategist touches multiple accounts, the ripple moves fast and quietly until it doesn't.

Here are the most common speedbumps smaller agencies hit - and why they don't have to be yours.

1. Senior full-time talent at a junior price point - it doesn't exist:
-You need someone who can own strategy and manage real spend. 
-But that budget doesn't fit a 10-person shop. So agencies settle, performance flatlines, and often the founder has to still manage the media buyer and accounts.
-With fractional, you get the senior thinking without the senior salary. It's handled.

2. The best people aren't waiting for your job posting:
-A-players have options, including going out on their own. 
-They're freelancing, building their own thing, unbothered. 
-If your opportunity doesn't genuinely excite them, they'll stay independent — and honestly, good for them.
-Fractional is the compelling option. Senior talent, your terms, no convincing required. It's handled.

3. Building campaigns and strategizing them are not the same skill:
-Most agencies hire strong builders and quietly call them strategists. 
-They're not the same thing. Knowing how to set up a campaign is not the same as knowing why it should exist, how it should grow, or what it actually means for the business.
Fractional brings real strategic ownership — not just tidy execution. It's handled.

4. The role has quietly become five roles in one:
-Paid media in 2026 is analytics, creative strategy, attribution, testing frameworks, and client communication — all in one seat, all at once. 
-Finding that full-time A-player, at a price a small agency can actually afford, is a lot to ask.

Fractional is built for exactly this. One engagement, full capability. It's handled.

Stop gambling on full-time hires.

Instead invest in senior thinking, real ownership, cross-discipline experience - without the permanent headcount. 

It's handled.

I've managed over $20M in ad spend and multiple successful agency teams.

Somewhere in all of that I discovered a hidden X factor - it has nothing to do with SOPs, strategy, or platforms.

It's the difference between chaos and ease.

This surprised me as an analytical nerd. I live in ad interfaces, love solving problems, built complex SOPs, and spent north of $15K on Upwork hiring bright people.

But I was cocky. Short-sighted. Unshakable self-belief is a double-edged sword - it's enough to get in your own way.

I've been humbled a lot. Ego, know-it-all energy, preventable mistakes.

It almost always came down to ignoring my gut.
Every time I ignored that feeling, it showed up in my team.

Alignment and trusting your gut are the most overlooked skills in the age of AI.

If someone checks every box but something feels off - that feeling is a computer system built on thousands of years of evolution. Claude and ChatGPT can't see it no matter what you feed them.

Always trust your gut. At least enough to dig in.

In 2026 people crave more than a paycheck - they want mission and purpose. A team of mercenaries is a fundamental value mismatch.

Ask yourself: how do you feel when someone brings up your team or a specific team member? Stress is a signal. Alignment is usually the hidden cause.

Teams in alignment communicate cleanly, own their lanes, and move together. It's not something you can optimize for analytically - it requires intuition built over years.

It's the feel of the room. Every time.

Made a few hiring gaffes? Forgive yourself. Own it. Pivot.
These 3 words can set you free:
"I was wrong."

P.S. Credit to Bobby Bazini for the song "Turn Blue."

He hasn't taken a proper vacation in years.

One of my clients - an ad agency founder works 80 hour weeks.

The truth is that in many ad agencies in growth mode the founder has to be heavily embedded in day to day operations to keep things afloat.

But there are 2 layers to growth mode. Sales and fulfillment+operations. 

Which means there is no shortage of speed bumps:
	-Checking the work of team members.
	-Responding to weekend client slack pings.
	-Firefighting to keep things afloat.
	-Hiring new team members due to bad fit hires.

They have a world-class service and are getting a ton of new business+leads but they don’t have the margins for another full time hire.

Larger ad agencies budget a 6-month net loss on every inexperienced hire. They can absorb it. 

You can't.

You’re running an execution based business not a coaching program for media buyers.

Small/medium agencies don’t have that luxury.

And playing “Indeed or Upwork roulette” is simply not tentable in 2026:
	-There is no time to “test “people and partnerships where 50%+ of tests fail.
	-One bad egg hire can stain the entire team dynamic and cause duplicate work.
	-Many A-players would rather work for a larger headcount agency with benefits.
	-Many people are great at being charming in interviews but subpar at execution.

There’s another way.

Instead of trying to work more - just give up control.

Picture yourself at the beach drinking your favorite beverage and unwinding.

Because you gave up control and hired operators who will “handle it”.

And hired a fractional account manager+ paid media strategist.

You get the value of a full-time hire but without the hand holding.

Most of my engagements start out as 1-2 simple test projects and evolve from there.

We were working harder than ever.
And it felt like nothing was working...

If you've launched or relaunched paid ads and the growth isn't matching the effort you're putting in.

this can be one of the most stressful experiences - especially in lead gen, where a single metric shift can be the difference between bleeding money and turning a profit.

My advice: trust the process and your gut.

I've worked on more GTM and ad funnel rebuild projects than I can count. 
And too many people gloss over the ugly duckling phase.

It can take a crazy amount of patience, and it can feel like nothing is happening.

It can happen to anyone - even mature brands with strong product-market fit.

Here are 5 tips to get to the other side:

1. Approach problem-solving with neutrality:
-Positive thinking helps sometimes - but it can also become a blind spot if you're putting your head in the sand.
-If you're only focusing on the upside, you might miss what's actually in front of you.
-Detach from the outcome and look at the data like a stranger would.

2. Be open to pivoting:
-Sometimes one copy change or adjustment separates the ugly duckling phase from profitability.
-If you've been swimming upstream for months, ask whether the issue is execution or something more basic like your offer’s clarity.

3. Growth can be a mental and internal game too:
-You have to embrace the journey.
-Sometimes you'll be tested and filled with self-doubt: “What if the product isn’t good enough?”
-Usually you begin to embody a new version of yourself who can face any challenge.

4. Raise your standards:
-In life we get what we accept, and that ties directly to our standards.
-Benchmark your performance against your industry, not just yourself.
-Sometimes zooming out reveals the real problem isn't the ads - it's something higher up the chain.
-Sometimes this involves hard decisions like pivoting teams.

5. Own your bottlenecks:
-There is almost always a quantifiable constraint that, if solved, will make your ads print money.
-Conversion rate, CPMs, or CPCs at the top of funnel?
-Lead quality downstream?
-Messaging that's creating confusion instead of clarity?


Stepping back - even briefly can help you return with fresh eyes and spot something you missed.

The closer you are to the problem, the harder it is to see it clearly.

At the end of the day, if you can build the problem you can build the solution.

You got this.

P.S. This is a song I recorded with a friend on guitar years ago.

P.P.S. If you’re a service brand spending $10K/month or more on Meta or Google Ads but the ads aren't quite working - feel free to shoot me a DM.

I looked at the Google Ads change history and almost had a panic attack.. 👇

What happens when your Google Ads account hasn't been touched in weeks?

This happened back in my in office agency days in NYC. I was working with a big name brand.

And a junior employee was managing the UK campaigns. 

Evidently he was checked out.

I checked the change logs since he was a newer hire and my stomach dropped to the ground.

Zero changes in weeks. No tests no basic budget changes.

He ended up overspending for the month and the agency had to cover those costs.

I've seen this happen many times:
-A lack of strategy, proactive testing and TLC for Google Ads accounts.
-Someone is a good presenter but actually has a shoddy growth strategy.
-Google Ads accounts that are just run largely on autopilot.

AI is here not as a replacement to strategy but as 1 of hundreds of tools in a toolkit.

If you're a service brand spending $50K to $300K/month on Google Ads and not impressed with your agency - or worse yet being burned by an ad agency or flaky freelancer.

You want to ask yourself these questions.
-Is there a clear written plan of what is being tested in our accounts?
-Are there clear action items to address common bottlenecks like lead quality?
-Is the current strategy in line with your 2026 business goals?

I'm offering a free audit to brands that are looking to identify low hanging fruit and are keen to grow in 2026.

Feel free to shoot me a DM.

Paid Media+Funnels Expert | Available for hire to brands & agencies | Ask me about our quiz+growth funnels

Being ghosted, rejected, or watching a deal fall through is painful. 

Especially when you're stepping out of your comfort zone. But in sales and job hunting, there's a second side to the equation.

Most of prospecting is about impulse control. Detaching from expectations. 

Recognizing that sometimes when something doesn't work out it's for the best.

When you zoom out, rejection can actually be a GOOD thing. Here's why:

1. The right people respond when they're ready. A DM that gets left on read today is a pipeline opportunity tomorrow. Many services are only relevant when someone is in-market. Timing isn't rejection.

2. Your best clients or ideal job don't need to be chased. Your real ICP is someone where conversation happens naturally. There are dozens of ideal clients or jobs looking for YOU. 

3. Success is on the other side of fear. All it takes is one yes. If you believe in your product or service, you don't need external validation - you know you will ultimately succeed.

4. Not everyone is going to like you. You're not for everyone. The sooner you accept that, the faster you find the people you actually are for. You can't get rejected if you don't reject yourself.

5. Your "dream" client or job may not be the right fit. What looks perfect from the outside often isn't. The door that just closed might be saving you from something that would've cost you far more than it was worth.

If you're putting yourself out there and hearing silence. Keep going. 

You might even want to throw in the towel.

Don't. There are an infinite number of ways to win.

You got this.

"He just needs more time to ramp up." 
-Ad agency owner w/ a new inexperienced hire

You wouldn't hire a head chef and then stand over their shoulder telling them how to season every dish…..

But what if the output of the food was consistently subpar and customers were complaining?

I used to binge hours of Gordon Ramsay watching him give valid criticisms to restaurants that were looking to level up.

And watch chefs get defensive on feedback they got directly from customers.
“I just call it as I see it” is what he’d say.

And it reminded me a bit of the ad agency model. You promise clients the moon but reality kicks in.
	-Lackluster results from unmotivated media buyers.
	-Lack of strategic acumen and a proactive plan.
	-Having to pay back clients for preventable ad spend mistakes.
	-Ad accounts that haven’t been touched in weeks or worse.

That's exactly what agency owners do with the wrong media buyer.
-You hired them to get GREAT results, run campaigns. Instead you're reviewing every audience. 
-Rewriting their ad copy. Double-checking their bid strategy. Explaining why ROAS matters.
-You didn't hire a strategist. You hired a VA who needs a strategy.

In the agency space how you show up the first 60 days determines everything in a client relationship. 

That's it. 60 days is all it takes for them to decide to go to a bigger agency with a more robust team.

The client is watching everything. Are results trending? Is communication sharp? Does this feel like the right agency?

And if your media buyer is still "ramping up" during that window - you're not developing talent. 

You're burning trust with a client who's already shopping for your replacement.

I've been there. I made excuses for a hire who couldn't perform without me holding his hand on every decision.
-"He just needs more time to ramp up." 
-"He's got potential." 
-"Every new hire has a learning curve."

Meanwhile my clients didn't care about his learning curve. They cared about getting world class results - more leads and revenue.

By the time I admitted it wasn't working, the damage was done and I was burned out.

That experience changed how I think about fulfillment entirely.

Instead of hiring someone who needs to be spoonfed strategy and trained on your playbook - partner with someone who's already written their own.

Fractional media strategists with 10+ years in the agency model. No ramp-up. No hand-holding. No praying they figure it out before your client walks.

Your clients gave you 60 days. Don't spend them babysitting.

Why fractional paid media hires sometimes just makes sense. 👇

Agencies with lean teams have to be ruthlessly selective about who they bring on. Especially if they're making their first few full-time hires.

When I made my first full-time hire it was one of the most stressful times in my life.

And even though I did everything right on paper - called references, asked detailed questions, trusted my intuition - I got burned.
A few months in, the feedback and data started coming in.

The employee made a ton of mistakes on accounts. My team and I spent hours fixing errors. The chemistry just wasn't there. And it was Q4 with things ramping up so replacing them wasn't an option.

I was horrified.
What saved me was that I already had a white label ad agency as a second operator on my team. That's why I believe in this model.

One wrong hire can derail an entire year's growth plan - especially if you have to part ways on month 5 or 6.

Hiring is no walk in the park even AFTER the offer is made:
-You can afford a junior salary but you need someone who can hit the ground running. 
-The ones who can do the job want $80K+. 
-The ones in your budget need to be trained from scratch.
 -The best candidates are fielding offers from bigger agencies with higher salaries.

With media buyers you either have a great fit and operator or you don't. And you won't know which one you got until they're on payroll managing real client money.

Wrong fit? It's not just their salary. It's months of training, hours reviewing their work, and client results suffering while they ramp up. And having to start the process over again with the same risks.

That takes 3+ months. If they ever get there. 

A fractional partner fixes that overnight.
-Senior-level execution without the full-time overhead.
-New capabilities - like Google Ads when you've only run Meta.
-Better results so you can increase your client retention rates and hit your growth goals.

If you’re an ad agency founder and sales is outpacing your capacity for fulfillment. 

Or you’re not impressed with your current paid media team - I have 3 slots for:
	-White label ad account management for Google Ads+Meta Ads. 
	-Account management roles (front end)
	-Consulting/auditing ad accounts that are struggling or helping build systems.

One wrong decision can cost agency owners their freedom, joy and peace of mind.

All of your peers’ agencys are thriving and growing. 

While you are sitting there cancelling dates with your wife so you can fix coordinator errors caused by a new hire that was supposed to be thriving.

Actually it can cost a lot more than that:
	-Hours spent doing duplicate work for multipel team members.
	-Team morale and dynamic.
	-Your entire 2026 growth goals.
	-Client retention rate.

All because you hired an inexperienced strategist that spends 3 hours a day on TikTok instead of making optimizations to client accounts while you work 60 hour weeks.

If you’re in a small to medium headcount agency the wrong hire can be the difference between success and failure.

Between you having 2026 in the palm of your hands - and things being utter chaos.

I know because I was in that same position. And I had my head in the sand when I realized I made the wrong paid media hire.
	-”He just needs time and training to ramp up.”
	-”He’s got a great attitude it will work out.”
	-”It’s standard that it takes 4-5 months for people to hit their stride.”

Only thing is that he was making coordinator mistakes in an ad agency that wasn’t built for that model.

It was built on everyone being a self-sufficient operator that checked their own work.

And his performance got worse not better.

I felt run down, disappointed and like a failure at the time.

Knowing I would have to run that exhausting hiring process all over again.

And the risk was the same: You find someone who is great at talking but bad at executing.

If you’re an ad agency owner sometimes humble pie will set you free.

If you’re sick and tired of working with full-time hires who need to be spoon-fed strategy.

While your clients complain about results and leave to work with BIGGER ad agencies with a larger headcount.

There’s another way.
-You hire fractional paid media strategists that know strategy like the back of their hand.
-They know the ad agency model based on over a decade of experience.
-All parties are incentivized to go above and beyond to get stellar results.
-Instead of having to be a dignified babysitter you can finally take a step back and focus on sales.
-Your clients LOVE their results and actually talk to their friends and send you referrals. 

If you’re sick and tired of babysitting media buyers - we have 3 spots open for fractional paid media strategists.

P.S. Credit to Definition and Natascha Polke for the song “After Rain Comes Sun.”

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The Battle

Tom Grainger

Feras Khalbuss

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tom Grainger's LinkedIn Performance

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