What 2025 Taught Us: Top Agency Owner Interviews of the Year | Ep # 867
After sitting down with 100+ agency owners, a few themes became impossible to ignore: AI is reshaping delivery and pricing, real leadership beats hustle, relationships still close seven-figure deals, and innovation only works if clients can actually buy into it.
This episode breaks down the top interviews that most clearly showed us what’s working now and what will matter even more in 2026.
Guest Overview
This year-end special pulls highlights from conversations with:
- Manish Dudharejia – Leading voice on AI, agency efficiency, and future-ready delivery models
- Kriston Sellier – Built a scalable, human-centered agency by transitioning from operator to true CEO
- Chris Dreyer – Scaled his SEO agency from $1M to $40M by doubling down on relationships, not automation
- Colin Hetherington – Founder of Zoo, blending innovation, UX, and creativity to land enterprise clients
What You’ll Learn
- Why AI won’t replace agencies but will replace agencies that ignore it
- The real difference between a freelancer mindset and a CEO mindset
- How top agencies build unbreakable client relationships (and why it still involves planes and handshakes)
- Why innovation only works when clients understand the value
- How the best founders escaped client concentration, team chaos, and margin pressure
Key Takeaways
- AI compresses delivery time and why hourly pricing is officially broken
- Fractional expertise (like AI consultants) creates leverage without bloating payroll
- Coaching your team beats micromanaging them
- High-ticket clients remember who shows up in person
- Innovation is a long game but it earns trust, pride, and bigger opportunities
What a year. I sat down with over 100 incredible agency owners and the insights were unreal. From million-dollar breakthroughs to hard-earned lessons, these founders brought the real talk. In this special year-end episode, I’m sharing the top 5 interviews that stood out most.
To everyone who tuned in, shared an episode, or took action from something they heard—thank you. This show is for you, and because of you.
Here’s to a smarter, stronger, more scalable 2026. Let’s go.
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Sponsors and Resources
E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.
Using AI for Efficiency and the Future of Digital Agencies featuring Manish Dudharejia of E2M Solutions
The rise in the use of AI technologies in the industry does not mean this technology will replace agencies. However, agencies that integrate AI will replace those who don’t.
What AI can do in the agency world is not merely about automation or replacing human effort; rather, it is about enhancing capabilities and redefining the agency-client relationship.
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) presents a transformative opportunity for agencies to streamline their processes, reduce delivery times, and ultimately increase their bottom line. This reduction improves operational efficiency and contributes to increased profitability. However, this also means you should reevaluate how you’re charging and how you’re choosing to present the value you’re bringing to clients.
With AI's ability to streamline processes and enhance productivity, agencies can significantly reduce the time and resources required for project completion. For instance, if a website that once took 100 hours to develop can now be completed in just 10 hours, agencies risk losing substantial profit if they maintain an hourly billing model.
Bottom line, Manish sees huge opportunity for agencies that embrace AI:
Fractional AI consultants. Consultancy is becoming a crucial strategy to enhance their services, streamline operations, and ultimately drive revenue growth. By hiring fractional AI consultants, agencies can offer specialized guidance to their clients without the burden of full-time hires. This approach not only allows agencies to enhance their service offerings but also enables them to assist clients in integrating AI into their daily operations. As AI continues to evolve, the demand for expertise in this area will grow, making it a timely investment for agencies looking to differentiate themselves in a competitive market.
Responsive SOPs. Traditionally, SOPs serve as static documents that guide team members in their tasks. But how could AI improve this? For his part, Manish is testing dynamic SOPs powered by AI. By feeding existing SOPs into an AI agent, agencies can create a responsive system that provides real-time insights and recommendations. This approach enhances the relevance of SOPs and allows teams to ask specific questions and receive tailored guidance.
Building a Scalable, Human-Centered Agency featuring Kriston Sellier
Like many agency owners, Kriston spent the early years acting more like a freelancer than a CEO. That all changed in 2006 when one client made up 75% of her business. The sleepless nights and anxiety from being handcuffed to a single account forced her to rethink everything.
A colleague recommended working with a business consultant, so Kriston hired one and for four years, she worked with a full-time consultant who helped her transition from operator to CEO. That shift meant putting systems in place, committing to sales, and most importantly, diversifying her client base. Within the first year of working with her consultant, she added 25 new clients and broke free from the one-client trap.
In her role as CEO, Kriston sees herself as more of a coach than a manager. For her, leadership is about helping team members uncover the real issues behind their challenges and guiding them to their own solutions. Likewise, the best team members are those who show they’re coachable and open to feedback.
She doesn’t see failure as the end of the road but as a symptom of something deeper. Her job is to help her team ask the right questions, recognize the root cause, and take ownership of the fix. That shift from micromanaging tasks to coaching outcomes not only freed her up as a leader but also empowered her team to make better decisions without her constant oversight.
From $1M to $40M: Scaled an SEO Agency to 8-Figures and One Counterintuitive Strategy featuring Chris Dreyer of Rankings.io
Even with all the fancy dashboards, AI copilots, and mega forecasting tools, Chris and his president still jump on planes to shake hands with clients. They even budget for it.
When you’re running a high-ticket service where each client can be worth $125,000 or more over their lifetime, dropping a couple grand to show up in person is a no-brainer. It’s how you show you care more than the next guy who’s sending templated emails and hiding behind Slack.
Chris’s take is simple: Want to stand out? Do what you say you’re going to do. Show up. Make your clients look like heroes. When a big-name CEO flies out to see you — even if you didn’t sell them the deal — you remember that. Big relationships deserve the handshake treatment.
My favorite line from Chris was this: "You mean to tell me it's not worth $500 to go shake hands with a $125K client?"
This isn’t theory, it’s execution. It’s what the top 1% of agencies are actually doing and it’s probably what you’re NOT doing right now.
Leading with Innovation & Getting Clients On Board with New Ideas featuring Colin Hetherington
Colin’s agency, Zoo, launched in 2008, right before the Great Recession and right as businesses started pulling back and budgets evaporated. However, they were able to adapt by winning some solid clients and partnering quietly behind the scenes with agencies that couldn’t handle digital in-house. They found scrappy ways to deliver big ideas on smaller budgets, often using student illustrators or leaner production.
By 2015, they’d grown the team to fourteen people and were hitting their stride with their original formula of combining strategy, creative, and technology under one roof that led them to work with big names like Red Bull.
After bringing innovation to countless brand events, Colin’s agency started focusing on UX and got an important partnership with one of the largest banks in Ireland (financial service sector). While not every flashy innovation won new business immediately, it got them on pitch lists and made their team proud.
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