The expertise behind the results

Lodestar combines deep agency operating experience with the industry's most referenced thinking on positioning, pricing, and business model design. We don't advise from the outside — we've built, run, and transformed agencies from the inside.

Brian Kessman

Founder & Principal Consultant

Lodestar Agency Consulting

Brian helps independent agencies, multinational networks, and holding companies redesign their value models — the commercial system that connects how they define, package, deliver, and price their expertise. His advisory work guides agency CEOs, CFOs, and leadership teams through the transformation required to anchor pricing in solutions and outcomes rather than effort.

✦ 4A's Expert Network ✦ Featured in Ad Age ✦ Published by VoxComm ✦ 25+ Years Agency Experience

Results With Agencies

2×

A 2× increase in ideal-client revenue through repositioning

50%

A 50% lift in retainer deal size from productizing around outcomes

85%

85% of projects moving faster through restructured teams

$600K–$1.5M

$600K–$1.5M in new annual revenue from pricing changes alone

Author of Redesigning The Agency Value Model, the definitive guide to agency business model transformation published by VoxComm — the global alliance of communications agency associations — featuring case studies from eight leading firms including VCCP, 72andSunny, FIG, and Monks. His diagnostic and pricing frameworks, the Agency Model Map and the Solution-Based Monetization System, are at the center of his advisory work.

A frequent presenter for the 4A's, Mirren, AMIN Worldwide, PR Council, Worldcom, MAGNET, and TAAN, and a regular guest on industry podcasts and panels. Before founding Lodestar, Brian held leadership roles at independent agencies and within global networks in New York and Los Angeles.

Tim Williams

Founding Partner, Ignition Consulting Group

Lodestar Business Partner

Tim is an industry authority on positioning, pricing strategy, and business models for agencies and professional services firms. His work with hundreds of firms — from mid-size independents to multinational networks — has shaped how the industry thinks about the relationship between differentiation and profitability.

✦ Author, 3 Books on Agency Strategy ✦ Published by 4A's ✦ VeraSage Institute Senior Fellow ✦ LinkedIn Global Influencer ✦ Quoted in NYT, WSJ, The Economist

Author of Positioning for Professionals: How Professional Knowledge Firms Can Differentiate Their Way to Success and Take a Stand for Your Brand, ranked by Amazon as one of the top ten books on brand building. His 4A's booklet Defining the Agency Brand is regarded as the standard reference in agency business strategy. Tim is also a Senior Fellow of the VeraSage Institute, a think tank devoted to revolutionizing the business models and pricing strategies of professional services firms.

Interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, National Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, Advertising Age, and other major business publications covering professional services. Selected by LinkedIn as a global LinkedIn Influencer, and his firm's presentations rank in the top 1% on Slideshare in global viewership.

Tim's seminars and keynotes span North and South America, Europe, Asia, India, and Australia/New Zealand. Before forming Ignition, he led independent agencies and worked for global agencies in New York and other major markets.

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