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 12 years old and covers everything from starting a successful agency to selling your agency.

#1 Agency Leadership Podcast. Check Out Our Past Guests.

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.

The Secret to Running an Agency for 30 Years Without Ever Wanting to Walk Away with Arne Hurty | Ep #930
Jason Swenk Jason Swenk

The Secret to Running an Agency for 30 Years Without Ever Wanting to Walk Away with Arne Hurty | Ep #930

Arne Hurty is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of BayCreative, a San Francisco Bay Area B2B technology marketing agency he has been running for 30 years. What started as a $500 illustration job has grown into a full-service agency serving brands like Cisco and ServiceNow — with Arne's son and daughter now working alongside him. In this episode, Arne and Jason dig into what actually sustains an agency owner over three decades: two business partner buyouts, a full pivot to remote work, and a philosophy of building the agency around life rather than the other way around.

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Successful AI - Human Collaboration: Where Technology and Creativity Intersect with Marc Beckman | Ep #761
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

Successful AI - Human Collaboration: Where Technology and Creativity Intersect with Marc Beckman | Ep #761

Is artificial intelligence revolutionizing business operations or threatening the carefully crafted storytelling techniques developed over decades? As many businesses struggle with integrating AI while maintaining authentic connections, today's featured guest offers valuable insights from his perspective as both an agency leader and AI advocate as well as someone who can see some of the fatigue caused by the ever-growing demand for constant information that has been aided by AI and the availability to create content faster and efficiently. He shares the ways he is integrating AI technology into his own agency, and why he believes it won’t work when it comes to replacing the human touch. Learn about his vision for AI use in business, the trends he sees changing in consumer preferences in social media, and how agencies can adapt to AI.

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Are You Solving the Right Problem—or Just a Symptom? | Ep #691
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

Are You Solving the Right Problem—or Just a Symptom? | Ep #691

What would you do if you sold your agency tomorrow? Are you clear enough on your purpose that you could keep on creating value? Today’s guest is the founder or a beloved app that changed the way people drive nowadays. He eventually sold that company but hasn’t stopped looking for ways to improve people’s lives through his startups. He’ll share what he’s learned from failure, why he was out of the company as soon as he sold, and why you should always look to understand users to create real value. Tune in to learn valuable insights into building successful startups.

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Build the Confidence and Agency Team Needed to Succeed with Torey Azure | Ep #687
Motivation Jason Swenk Motivation Jason Swenk

Build the Confidence and Agency Team Needed to Succeed with Torey Azure | Ep #687

Do you trust yourself to lead your agency to success? Does your team follow your lead on the decisions you make to get there? Today’s agency owner has successfully grown his business over the years, gaining more and more trust in his decisions as he accumulated more experience. Although he doesn’t regret past decisions, he realizes he could have retained a majority stake in his company and made it on his own had he trusted himself like he does now. Tune in to learn about his experience in growing his agency and how he built the confidence to succeed.

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Unlocking the POWER OF AI for Creatives and Agencies with Carl Cleanthes | Ep #577
Scale Your Agency Stacey Green Scale Your Agency Stacey Green

Unlocking the POWER OF AI for Creatives and Agencies with Carl Cleanthes | Ep #577

Are you feeling threatened by AI? Are you worried that it could replace your agency's creative work? There are so many uses for artificial intelligence and it is here to stay. So it's time to embrace it and unlock the power of AI for your agency's growth. From creating meeting summaries to building websites, there are so many applications people aren’t talking about yet. Today’s guest has explored many of these tools at his agency and offers a few tips on the ones you should be testing to become more productive.

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