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.
#1 Agency Leadership Podcast. Check Out Our Past Guests.
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Seth Godin
Best selling Author of Purple Cow, This is Marketing, Linchpin, Permission Marketing
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Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and former Apple chief evangelist
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Gino Wickman
The creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and author of Traction.
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Neil Patel
Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and other multimillion dollar companies
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![Uri Levine]()
Uri Levine
Co-founder of Waze
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Joey Coleman
Recognized for his expertise in customer retention & enhancing client loyalty
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Mike Michaelowicz
Best-selling author of Profit First and Clock Work
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Amy Porterfield
Renowned online marketing expert and educator
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Pat Flynn
The leaders in the podcast space
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Jay Baer
Best Selling author of Talk Triggers, Hug Your Haters, and one of the best speakers
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Todd Herman
Coach to Elite pro athletes, leaders, and public figures
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Dan Martell
Author of Buy Back Your Time. Influential coach in SaaS startups.
The Truth About Agency Growth: Why It Gets Harder Before It Gets Easier with Elyse Lupin | Ep #859
What if growth doesn’t make things easier but actually just raises the stakes? Agency life looks glamorous from the outside, but the real growth usually starts in the messy middle. Today’s featured guest just wanted to build something of her own, but quickly learned that growth means the challenges get harder, instead of easier, and that your client and team retention will always be the best measures of success, since it means you’ve managed to build a business that has a real impact on clients and a culture people never want to leave.
She’ll share the pressure she felt as the agency got bigger, how she learned to celebrate the little wins, and how she built a culture that has truly worked as a strategic advantage.
How to Build the Leadership Layer Your Agency Needs to Scale with Brandon Rost | Ep #855
Is your agency growing fast but still running without the right structure or leadership team to sustain that growth? If too many people are reporting directly to you, it’s a clear sign you’ve outgrown your current setup. But building that next layer of leadership isn’t as simple as promoting your top performers. Without a clear strategy, those well-intentioned promotions can backfire, causing confusion, turnover, and setbacks that stall your agency’s momentum.
Retaining Young Talent and Building Future Agency Leaders with McKay Salisbury | Ep #854
How do you ensure the highest possible retention levels at your agency? Which reasons do you give employees to stay and develop their careers at your agency? Today’s featured guest has chosen to hire mostly fresh talent right out of college that his team can train into the sort o worker that can grow at his agency. However, young talent tends to be ambitious and are likely to move on quickly onto the next company. To boost retention, he has created a growth path for employees that are a right fit with the agency. He’ll break down how he has learned to hire intentionally, and create a culture that grows people as fast as profits.
Scaling Isn’t About Doing More — It’s About Doing Less (The Right Way) with Joaby Parker | Ep #798
If you’re the visionary still stuck doing the work, you’re not scaling—you’re surviving. Joaby Parker knows that loop well. From launching his agency straight out of college to nearly burning out and walking away, his story is a masterclass in doing too much, too long.
In this episode, you’ll hear how Joaby broke free from the grind, stopped bottlenecking his team, and built a business that scales without him.
He shares his journey from founding his first agency right out of college to walking away and returning to agency life with a new approach and mindset. He reveals what caused his early plateau, why he left to work client-side, and how returning to the agency world taught him how to lead, grow, and eventually let go of the creative and account management roles that were holding him back.
3 Moves Your Agency Must Make in an Economic Downturn with Dan Kahn |Ep #790
How are you adapting to the many changes in the industry and society overall? For many, including today's featured guest, this is a golden era for agency business. Of course, not everyone will thrive—success depends largely on your ability to adapt. Our guest has mastered adaptation through several economic downturns over the years and we’ll discuss how he navigated each crisis, and why he firmly believes there has never been a better time to be in the agency business.
Leveraging Fractional Support to Scale Your Agency with Sydney Mulligan & Lauren Aquilino | Ep #788
Have you ever turned to freelancers to grow your agency’s capabilities? What about using fractional support once you realized you couldn’t do everything as the founder and face of the agency? What if the key to sustainable growth isn’t building a massive in-house team, but leveraging the right fractional support at the right time?
Today’s guests are two agency owners who turned a modest freelance setup into a thriving multimillion-dollar business—largely through referrals and the strength of their personal networks. They share how a flexible team of contractors became their secret weapon, offering the agility to scale without the overhead of a traditional agency structure. Tune in to learn how former competitors found a way to build a successful collaboration and why fractional support was a big part of their operation from the start.
Growing the Right Agency Team to Win Back Your Time with Jacob Baadsgaard | Ep #782
Do you have the right team in place to remove yourself from fulfillment and sales? What about a partner that may no longer be aligned with the agency’s vision or culture? Today’s featured guest figured out a perfect niche for his abilities in data analytics and went on to create his agency. Along the road, he was met with unexpected challenges, like finding out the right employees are not necessarily the ones with the most expertise, ending partnerships that turned out to be fundamentally misaligned, and the best way to ensure he’s always working with his ideal audience. Learn about the lessons he’s learned with each bump on the road, and the most important lesson about losing clients to a price increase.
Build Your Agency’s Dream Team and Land Dream Clients with Jon Rivers | Ep #779
What significant challenges have you encountered while growing your agency? Do you have the right team that aligns with your vision and goals? Are you in a situation where you have dream clients that can pay what you’re worth? Today's featured guest brings valuable perspective from five years of growth with his recent venture in SaaS and a previous social media agency venture. Having navigated the common hurdlesagency owners face, he shares the enduring lessons and effective solutions that have propelled his agency forward. Join us to gain practical insights into overcoming these universal agency challenges with proven strategies that deliver results.
Make Better Decisions for Your Agency with George Arabian | Ep #776
Does your emotional attachment to your agency makes it difficult to make growth decisions? When you remove emotion from the mix and make decisions objectively, your realize more growth. After 21 years of running his business, today’s guest realized he needed emotional distance and accomplished this by creating an alter ego who could assess the agency from an impartial point of view. This experiment proved remarkably successful. He’s come to realize his true role in the agency and that much of it means working for his team, rather than the other way around.
Maintaining a Small Client Roster for Big Agency Success with Nick Francis | Ep #769
How do you measure your agency’s success? Awards and accolade? Top-line revenue and big name clients? What if we told you a more focused and lean approach could be the best path. Today’s featured guest realized the importance of finding a "sweet spot" in the agency world, so he moved to focusing on quality over quantity. He talks about the challenges of maintaining a small client roster and the benefits it brings. In his business model, his agency is providing consistent, high-quality work and building strong partnerships. Learn valuable insights on leadership, innovation, and the importance of a good relationship building.
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.
YOUR HOST
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.
