Smart Agency Masterclass Podcast with Jason Swenk

Bi-weekly interviews, strategy, and advice for building your marketing agency the smart way.

The popular agency podcast has just turned 10 years old and covers everything from starting a successful agency to selling your agency.

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Should You Buy Another Marketing Agency? Lessons from 5 Acquisition Deals with Kimberly Eberl | Ep #866
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Should You Buy Another Marketing Agency? Lessons from 5 Acquisition Deals with Kimberly Eberl | Ep #866

Are you thinking about expanding your agency through acquisitions? Buying another firm can be one of the fastest ways to scale, but only if you choose the right partners and nail the cultural fit. Otherwise, growth can quickly turn into chaos.

Today’s featured guest has been through five acquisitions, each one teaching her a different (and sometimes painful) lesson about what truly makes a merger succeed. In this episode, she opens up about her biggest acquisition missteps, the cultural mismatches that nearly derailed integrations, forecasting errors she didn’t see coming, and the identity challenges that arise when two teams collide.

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When an Agency Merger Falls Apart: Lessons on Reinvention with Tom Snyder | Ep #864
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

When an Agency Merger Falls Apart: Lessons on Reinvention with Tom Snyder | Ep #864

What would you do if the merger you believed would change everything suddenly collapsed? Agency owners often dream of the big exit: the acquisition, the payday, the validation. But if you’ve been in this industry long enough, you know the story rarely goes as planned. Today’s guest lived through the dot-com boom, a merger gone sideways, a rare “un-merger,” and multiple reinventions across three decades.

Today’s featured guest is an agency owner who lived through the dot com boom, a merger gone sideways, an unmerger (a rare event), and multiple reinventions over three decades. He’ll talk about his journey and the lessons he’s gained in resilience, clarity, and what it means to build a business that lasts.

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How Do You Sell (or Buy) an Agency Without Killing Culture? With Alyssa Ash | Ep #840
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

How Do You Sell (or Buy) an Agency Without Killing Culture? With Alyssa Ash | Ep #840

What does it really look like when employees step up to buy the agency they’ve helped run for years? Today's featured guest will share how she and her partners carried forward the 30-year legacy of an agency founded in the print-and-stamp days, a business that has not only survived but thrived through three different ownership handoffs. If you’ve ever thought about selling your agency, or buying one, this conversation is packed with lessons on culture, succession, and keeping an agency alive for the long haul.

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Agency M&A: Client Retention, Financing, and AI’s Role. The Inside Scoop with Zander Barth | Ep #839
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Agency M&A: Client Retention, Financing, and AI’s Role. The Inside Scoop with Zander Barth | Ep #839

Most agency owners stumble into their first business almost by accident, learning as they go. But have you ever considered buying your first agency as a way to enter the industry with a head start? The right acquisition can give you an established team eager to keep growing, a base of engaged clients, and strong positioning in the market.

Today’s featured guest took this path and is now the proud owner of a thriving agency. He always knew he wanted to run his own business, and when it came time to choose an industry, the agency model was the perfect fit for his love of project management and tech.

He shares how he chose and purchased his agency, why he was fortunate to instantly click with the previous owner, the kind of deal structure he recommends for these situations, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

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Thinking of Selling Your Agency? Cash Out for Max Value (and Avoid the Biggest Mistakes) With Sean Hakes | Ep #827
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Thinking of Selling Your Agency? Cash Out for Max Value (and Avoid the Biggest Mistakes) With Sean Hakes | Ep #827

Are you growing your agency with the goal of selling it one day? More importantly — are you taking the right steps now to ensure it’s actually worth what you think it is?

Today’s featured guest has built and sold multiple agencies over the years, gaining hard-earned insights into the process. He shares what you need to know to prepare your agency for sale, the potential pitfalls and opportunities with non-competes and earnouts, and whether hiring a broker is really worth it.

If selling your agency is on your horizon, or even just a long-term possibility, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you maximize your valuation and avoid costly mistakes.

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What Happened After Brent Weaver Sold UGURUS? The Truth About Life Post-Exit | Ep #805
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

What Happened After Brent Weaver Sold UGURUS? The Truth About Life Post-Exit | Ep #805

What really happens after you sell your agency? Brent Weaver, founder of UGURUS, knows firsthand — and it wasn’t the beach-and-cocktails story most agency owners imagine. In this second half of our conversation, Brent opens up about what really happens after you sell a business, why his team stuck around (when they had every reason to bolt), navigating the shift from entrepreneur to executive within a corporate machine. He also lays down a fresh perspective on where agencies are headed in the AI era — and why human advantage is still your biggest asset.

If you missed Part One, go back — it sets the emotional stage. This one dives into the raw aftermath.

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What Happened to UGURUS? Straight from the Founder Brent Weaver | Ep #803
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

What Happened to UGURUS? Straight from the Founder Brent Weaver | Ep #803

How do you turn a $99 course, launched before it was even fully built, into a 7-figure coaching business? Today’s guest did just that. And he’s here to share why scrappier beats slick every time. If you’ve ever second-guessed launching messy, this episode will feel like validation.

Brent Weaver is on the show talking about his start with UGURUS, the valuable learning that can come from starting before everything’s in place, and why what came after selling his business wasn’t exactly what he had expected.

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Sell Your Agency & Get the Best Deal By Checking Your Ego at the Door with Jordan Choo | Ep #771
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Sell Your Agency & Get the Best Deal By Checking Your Ego at the Door with Jordan Choo | Ep #771

Are you prepared to sell your agency if the right opportunity presents itself? Making your business sale-ready requires more than just financial preparation—it demands emotional readiness and the ability to set ego aside.

With pleasure, we are featuring a long time mastermind member on the show who, after recently selling his agency, now describes himself as a “recovering agency owner”. It was an unexpected opportunity that turned into an amazing deal for the seller and buyer. Jordan discusses the way he took control of his agency’s future by pursuing the sale, what he’d change about the process, and the importance of having a plan for post-sale integration.

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Selling to an Employee: A Unique Approach to an Agency Exit with Eric Holter | Ep #770
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Selling to an Employee: A Unique Approach to an Agency Exit with Eric Holter | Ep #770

Could an internal succession be the right choice for your eventual agency exit? What could that sort of deal structure look like in order to ensure you’re leaving the agency in the best hands possible? As one agency owner transitioned to out of the agency day-to-day, an unexpected result was an organic exit from the business with an employee buyout.

A shining-star employee with the potential to be a great owner was the buyer in mind. Now the challenge was helping him get to a place where he could make the purchase. Listen to the inspiring story of adaptability and structuring the right deal to sell your agency to the right person.

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Growing 5x in Four Years: Selling and Reclaiming the Agency with Alex Polamero | Ep #766
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Growing 5x in Four Years: Selling and Reclaiming the Agency with Alex Polamero | Ep #766

Have overwhelm or frustration ever made you want to sell your agency? When you’re burned out, the grass might look greener — but one agency owner learned that it’s not. Discover why he sold after just two years plus why the acquisition was dissolved and he grew his original business back to 5X within the next four years.

Learn more about his reflections on why his initial burnout came to be, the reasons that partnership failed, and how he managed to rebuild his agency even stronger by surrounding himself with the right people.

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About the Show

The popular agency podcast has been around since 2014 and covers everything from starting a successful agency to selling your agency. What makes this podcast a must-listen is Swenk’s background as the founder and CEO of an agency for over a decade. Swenk brings his own experience to the table, besides the expertise of his guests. He mostly covers topics that help growing agencies scale to the next level.

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JASON SWENK

Smart Agency Masterclass

Jason is a family man who also happens to have created a couple big marketing agencies, helped thousands of agency owners, and had a big agency exit too.