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 business…
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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 evangleist
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Gino Wickman
The creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and author of Traction.
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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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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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Neil Patel
Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and other multimillion dollar companies
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Dan Martell
Author of Buy Back Your Time. Influential coach in SaaS startups.
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Todd Herman
Coach to Elite pro athletes, leaders, and public figures
Boost Your Agency's Success with the Power of BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE with Shirin Oreizy | Ep #576
Did you know that applying behavioral science to your agency's work will result in better outcomes for your clients? By utilizing research-backed methodologies, you'll gain a competitive advantage. With extensive research on how to decipher customer thought processes, behavioral science is an incredibly useful tool for influencing and predicting their behavior.
SURVIVING A MERGER: How to Safeguard Your Digital Agency & Team with Gus Wagner | Ep #575
Do you have trusted referral partners? Every considered merging with an agency partner? A merger can be a good way to expand your service offering, but surviving a merger is a whole other thing. The right partner gives you access to highly skilled professionals, more creative ideas, and proven methods to maximize success. Today's guest found a great, longtime partnership. However, when it came time to merge their agencies, both opted to maintain ownership of their individual entities. He explains the thought process behind this decision and the road that led to his eventual acquisition.
Dan Martell on How to Calculate Your BUYBACK RATE & Maximize Time and Revenue | Ep #574
Are you running your agency, or is your agency running you? Are you lacking the freedom you thought you'd have in your agency? Many owners start growing their agency, getting more clients, and hiring more people and quickly find they’ve built a prison for themselves. Today’s guest went through this and came up with a method to regain freedom and buy back your time. He now helps clients set up systems to identify their buyback rates and delegate tasks so they can maximize time and revenue.
Maximizing Employee Happiness & Productivity with People Management with Samir Balwani | Ep #573
What are you doing to keep your team happy? Do you have an amazing culture? Is your team passionate about the agency's vision? Do they understand their growth plan beyond their current role? Your employees are your most valuable asset. That's why one agency owner shares his strategy for maximizing employee happiness and how that's led to massive productivity for his e-commerce media agency.
HIRING TIPS FOR AGENCIES in the Growth and Scaling Phases with Manish Dudharejia | Ep #572
Are you in the growth phase or the scale phase of your agency journey? Do you need generalists, specialists, or both? Knowing where you're at is the key to knowing who to hire to get where you're going. Today’s guest is in the scaling phase and believes this is when an agency needs to hire specialists. Before that, it’s all about hiring generalists that can handle multiple tasks and get the business to the next stage.
How an Owner's UNCONVENTIONAL EXIT STRATEGY Boosted Agency Success with Leeann Leahy | Ep #571
Do you want your eventual exit to benefit many instead of a few? Want to motivate and empower the team by making them personally invested in the agency’s success? Have you thought about employee shares or stock options? Learn what you should do and what to avoid in this situation from the CEO of an employee-owned agency. It was an unconventional exit strategy by its owner. However, it the new ownership structure offers many benefits for all involved and is a very interesting way to positively ensure that everyone at the agency has skin in the game.
Why Acquisitions Aren't an Impossible Growth Strategy for Your Agency with Todd Nienkerk | Ep #570
Do you want to grow your agency through an acquisition? Would what it would look like to merge with an agency offering complementary services? What if you could expand your team by acquiring another agency's talent? An acquisition might feel impossible, but done right can be an amazing growth strategy. Today’s guest never thought he would acquire not one but two agencies. He saw acquisitions as an impossible growth strategy that required enormous amounts of cash. In the end, it was just about finding the right partners. He is on the show to share his experiences buying out his partners and eventually making two acquisitions.
How to Charge More by Increasing Confidence & Implementing the LUXURY MODEL with Kathryn Porrit | Ep #569
Do you have the confidence to charge what you're worth? Do your clients understand your agency's value? Understanding your value is an important part of growing your agency. It requires strategy and attracting the right clients. Most of all it requires a lot of confidence. If you truly believe in yourself and your pricing, the right clients won't think twice about paying it. Today’s guest specializes in taking her clients to the very highest levels in the market. She believes agency owners need to stop charging mainstream prices and start charging luxury prices in order to scale faster.
How to Create WORK-LIFE BALANCE With Anti-Hustle Culture at Your Agency with Jeanna Barrett | Ep #568
What do you think about hustle culture? Do you have a healthy work-life balance with your agency? Does your team? As the owner, you set the tone for the agency's culture. And what is important to you by extension becomes important to the team. Today’s guest owns a boutique agency she started after quitting her job in the tech space after feeling exhausted from 80-hour work weeks. She started fresh in Belize with a new mindset about the type of work-life balance she wanted and the culture she’d create for her agency.
How to Break Through No Man's Land & GROW BEYOND a 7-FIGURE Agency Revenue with Ruth Bernstein | Ep #567
Do you feel like you're in no man's land? Growing beyond the $1 Million mark and beyond 7 figures can be a very gray area where the agency is making more money but the owner is working more than ever. This is no man’s land and it's a sign you need a strong leadership team to get the agency to the next level. Today’s guest is an accidental agency owner, like most, who found the transition to Agency CEO reignited her interest in the business. She now runs an agency that serves its clients and aims to have an impact on the community.
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.
