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.
-
![]()
Seth Godin
Best selling Author of Purple Cow, This is Marketing, Linchpin, Permission Marketing
-
![]()
Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and former Apple chief evangelist
-
![]()
Dan Martell
Author of Buy Back Your Time. Influential coach in SaaS startups.
-
![]()
Gino Wickman
The creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and author of Traction.
-
![]()
Neil Patel
Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and other multimillion dollar companies
-
![Uri Levine]()
Uri Levine
Co-founder of Waze
-
![]()
Joey Coleman
Recognized for his expertise in customer retention & enhancing client loyalty
-
![]()
Mike Michaelowicz
Best-selling author of Profit First and Clock Work
-
![]()
Amy Porterfield
Renowned online marketing expert and educator
-
![]()
Pat Flynn
The leaders in the podcast space
-
![]()
Jay Baer
Best Selling author of Talk Triggers, Hug Your Haters, and one of the best speakers
-
![]()
Todd Herman
Coach to Elite pro athletes, leaders, and public figures
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.
How One Bad Hire Turns a Marketing Agency Owner Into the Bottleneck with Scott Leff | Ep #903
What if hiring smart people and getting out of your way was not enough to build a self-managing agency? Today’s featured guest will talk through the decisions most agency owners get wrong: when to stay involved, when to let go, and how the absence of rigor compounds into structural problems you won't even notice until you're stuck.
He’ll talk about how bad hiring decisions led him to become the bottleneck, how he’s trying to fix that, as well as why your "number" for how much your agency is worth is probably based on nothing, and the one financial habit that gives you genuine optionality.
Surviving a 70% Loss In Agency Revenue. From Panic to Purpose with Melany Robinson | Ep #880
When Melanie Robinson lost 70% of her agency’s revenue overnight during COVID, she didn’t just “cut costs.” She rebuilt her team around trust, ownership, and shared sacrifice and learned why keeping C players is one of the most expensive mistakes agency owners make. This episode is a masterclass in leadership, culture, and making hard decisions without losing your soul.
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.
Insights on Agency Hiring: Finding the Right Fit and Knowing When It’s Not with Justin Hall | Ep #767
Have you defined the who in your agency’s growth journey? What are you using to guiding the type of team that will grow your agency to it's full potential? This guest quickly discovered that attracting the right talent—especially individuals excited to join a small, fledgling agency—was far more challenging than expected.
Learn the valuable lessons he’s learned about hiring, the qualities he looks for in candidates to drive his agency’s success, and why he emphasizes the importance of acting swiftly when a hire isn’t the right fit.
#1 Thing an Effective Head of Operations Does for an Agency CEO with Jhana Li | Ep #765
Have you hit the limit of the growth you can single-handedly bring to your agency? What steps are you taking to ensure you continue to be your organization's MVP? For many founders, reaching this ceiling signals the need to bring on a skilled operator who can help eliminate low-value tasks from their schedule. Today's featured guest specializes in operations hiring and has developed a systematic approach to identifying and delegating tasks that consume CEOs' time and energy.
Have you hit the limit of the growth you can single-handedly bring to your agency? What steps are you taking to ensure you continue to be your organization's MVP? For many agency owners, reaching hitting a glass ceiling on growth signals the need to bring on a skilled operator to help eliminate low-value tasks from their schedule.
Today's featured guest specializes in operations hiring and has developed a systematic approach to identifying and delegating low value tasks that consume CEOs' time and energy. As an expert in operational efficiency, she trains operators to create effective processes that free founders to focus on strategic growth. She shares her secret to a great hiring funnel, what results to expect from an operator’s first 90 days in your agency, and the #1 thing an operator does for their agency founder. Learn actionable insights on breaking through operational bottlenecks and building a strong operational foundation through strategic hiring and training.