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.
We Host Some of the Smartest Minds in Agency World…
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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 an 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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Mike Michalowicz
Best-selling author of Profit First and Clock Work
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Dan Martell
Author of Buy Back Your Time. Influential coach in SaaS startups.
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Neil Patel
Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and other multimillion dollar companies
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Amy Porterfield
Renowned online marketing expert and educator
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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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Pat Flynn
The leaders in the podcast space
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Joey Coleman
Recognized for his expertise in customer retention & enhancing client loyalty
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Todd Herman
Coach to Elite pro athletes, leaders, and public figures
The Myth About Niching Down and How to Be Solution-Focused with Daniel Lofaso | Ep #738
Has your agency reached a growth plateau? Have you thought about narrowing your focus to enhance your marketing efforts? In this interview, you'll hear from an agency owner who relied on referrals for years until the post-pandemic landscape shifted. While his business thrived during the early pandemic, it faced challenges as larger clients began consolidating. In response, he strategically pivoted to specialize in the biotech sector. Tune in to explore his initial hiring challenges, the transformative effects of niching down, and his ongoing refinement of the sales process to secure more clients.
What Do All Successful Agencies Have in Common? How to Separate from the Pack with Tim Condon | Ep #692
What sets high-performing agencies apart from their low-performing counterparts? How are you positioning your agency for success? Our guest today is a seasoned business executive with extensive experience in product marketing and sales leadership. In his current role, he collaborates with agencies and gains insights into what separates successful ones from the rest. Tune in to gain valuable perspectives on agency performance and growth strategies.
A Deep Dive Into The Power of Franchise-Focused Digital Marketing with Alex Porter | Ep #666
Are you looking for ways to differentiate your agency? Have you considered expanding your agency’s offering with proprietary technology? Today’s guest markets to franchise systems and offers a platform built for their specific marketing needs. It’s a great way to cater to clients’ specific pain points while increasing his agency’s value. He details the unique challenges and opportunities of marketing for franchise systems, the strategic decisions behind developing proprietary technology to better serve clients, and the challenge of getting most clients to adopt this solution.
Honing Your Ideal Niche and Having Confidence to Raise Agency Prices with Matt Banker | Ep #649
Have you nailed down your agency's ideal niche? Are you attracting clients that ignite your agency's growth? Could you be standing in the way of your ability to raise agency prices? After years as a generalist agency, today’s guest decided to turn his business into a dual agency launching a niche firm alongside his broad shop. This calculated risk revealed his true north while preserving the existing revenue streams. Now their work inside the niche outpaces the generalist division of the agency. He talks about the decision to create two agencies and his revelation to let go of limiting thinking in order to raise prices.
Surviving Failure & Retaining Top Talent in the Fast-Paced Agency Space with Shamit Khemka | Ep #648
Have you struggled with turnover post-pandemic? Looking for insights on adapting and fortifying your agency? What about outsourcing strategies that enable growth? The pandemic has had a profound impact on the IT industry, with one of its major consequences being the mass exodus of employees, resulting in the loss of experienced staff members who had been with companies for 15 to 20 years. This has posed a tremendous challenge for IT companies, compelling them to adapt and fortify their processes. Today’s guest is an Indian entrepreneur who managed to learn and adapt to these new challenges after previous experiences surviving failure and rising again in a new niche. Tune in to gain insights on scaling your agency and the benefits of outsourcing IT services.
The Secret to Gaining Agency Efficiency with Automated Reporting with Joe Kindness | Ep #634
Do you want to communicate results and build trust with clients? Need to streamline reporting without sacrificing quality to show the full value your agency offers? Effective client reports are the best way to communicate your results to clients and improve their trust in your services. However, putting together detailed reports can be time-consuming unless you're using a proven automated reporting tool. Today’s guest offers an integrated solution that helps agencies offer complete reporting without having to actually build the reports. Their services help agencies save time and reduce churn. Having built his software company from scratch, he’s intimate with challenges like hiring missteps, building leadership, and learning to let go, which he also shares in this interview.
Supercharged Agency Growth Over 250% with an Effective Hiring Structure with Samir Balwani | Ep #632
Have you hit a growth ceiling? Looking to supercharge your agency growth? Eager to learn from someone who grew over 250% in three years? In this episode, our guest shares his against-all-odds journey of growing his agency by over 250% for the past three years. He pulls back the curtain on how investing in personal growth, seeking support, and building a senior leadership dream team helped propel this growth. From perfecting their hiring structure to clearly defining each new role, you’ll learn their step-by-step blueprint for scaling successfully. He also stresses the importance of investing in communities, coaches, and your own development as an agency leader. Discover how to get urgent insights on shattering growth barriers from someone who’s been in the scaling trenches. It’s time to spark your agency's growth story.
Break Into a New Niche with a Strategic Agency Acquisition with David Hernandez | Ep #621
Have you thought about expanding into a new industry? Ever wonder about buying another agency for their expertise and book of business? Even for an established agency, it can be difficult to break into a new space. However, a strategic agency acquisition can save a lot of time and effort. Today's guest found an agency acquisition was the ideal way to break into another niche. In this conversation, he shares some of what he learned from his agency acquisition and some lessons learned along the way.
How One Agency Doubled Revenue Becoming Specialists in a Unique Niche with James Kaye | Ep #619
Are you resisting the advice to niche down and become a specialist? Do you think niching down means losing opportunities and turning down clients? It's normal to fear a change like this but when you understand your ideal audience, you can't lose. Your ideal prospects will notice that you speak their language and understand their challenges. That leads to building trust and authority as well as a pipeline full of prospects. For one agency, everything changed once they realized they already had tons of success in an uncommon niche. It took time but this agency doubled revenue when they went all in.
Choose The Best Niche For Your Digital Marketing Agency | Ep #608
Are you an overworked owner of a stagnant agency? Maybe you have grown your digital agency to seven figures but can’t figure out how to get beyond that and are feeling stuck. The door to growth can be unlocked with one key and that key is choosing a niche. But how do you choose the best niche for your agency? Will narrowing down your focus limit your agency's potential?
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.
