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.

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How to Make Clients Choose You and Stay: Lessons You Can Steal from Caitlin Copple & Holly Conti | Ep #811
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

How to Make Clients Choose You and Stay: Lessons You Can Steal from Caitlin Copple & Holly Conti | Ep #811

How are you positioning your services as essential rather than optional, and accurately measuring growth and profitability to sustain long-term success? How are you measuring your agency’s growth and profitability? Today’s featured guests unpack how they scaled their PR shop past the million-dollar mark in under four years — and their journey offers valuable insights that any agency owner can apply immediately. Learn why they prefer growing the agency as partners, as opposed to sticking to being solopreneurs, how they’ve been tracking their growth, and how to over-communicate with clients openly so that choosing you is the easiest decision.

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Why Going ‘Niche or Die’ Paid Off Big for Daniel Moscovitch | Ep #810
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

Why Going ‘Niche or Die’ Paid Off Big for Daniel Moscovitch | Ep #810

Ever thought about niching down, then bailed because it sounded too painful? Or maybe you tried, but ditched it when things got awkward? Today’s guest proves why sticking it out is worth the initial pain — not just to find your niche, but to find the perfect business partner too.

Meet Daniel Moscovitch, founder of Flooring Pros Marketing, a digital marketing agency focused on helping established flooring businesses throughout the US & Canada cement their position as the best in their market. He started as a generalist - doing SEO for pretty much anyone with a website and a pulse. However, unsatisfied staying just another “me too” shop competing on price and freebies he doubled down on a single, very specific industry.

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Building a $30M Agency with the Right KPIs, AI Hacks & Client Moves with Chris Dreyer | Ep #808
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

Building a $30M Agency with the Right KPIs, AI Hacks & Client Moves with Chris Dreyer | Ep #808

Ever wonder what separates a $1M agency from a $30M agency? It’s not just better SEO or more employees. It’s how you run the business behind the scenes. We sat down with today’s featured guest to dig into what’s powered his insane growth from barely crossing seven figures back when we first met… to now staring down $35–40 million in pure service revenue and got some great advice on the evolution of his role as CEO, his new-found love for podcasting, and all kind of golden nuggets for agency urrently in the “no man’s land”.

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How to Create a Digital Brain for Your Agency and Scale Smarter with Shawn Johnston | Ep #807
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

How to Create a Digital Brain for Your Agency and Scale Smarter with Shawn Johnston | Ep #807

How does a print designer become the founder of a thriving strategic web agency? Spoiler: It wasn’t all smooth sailing. But this agency founder figured out how to stop being the bottleneck, leverage systems and AI, and make his agency way more profitable along the way. It all began by creating a digital brain for his agency.

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When Growth Isn’t the Goal: Rebuilding for Freedom, Not Burnout with Blake Denman | Ep #806
Jason Swenk Jason Swenk

When Growth Isn’t the Goal: Rebuilding for Freedom, Not Burnout with Blake Denman | Ep #806

Have you ever found yourself grinding endlessly, only to pause and think, “Is this really what I signed up for?” Maybe you started your business chasing freedom—only to end up feeling trapped by the very thing you built. It’s a common trap: the belief that working harder and enduring more pressure will eventually earn you the right to enjoy life after a big exit.

But as today’s guest discovered, you don’t need to wait 10 more years to start living. What you really need is a clearer why, a stronger structure, and the right people around you—people who understand your vision and support your growth.

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What Happened After Brent Weaver Sold UGURUS? The Truth About Life Post-Exit | Ep #805
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

What Happened After Brent Weaver Sold UGURUS? The Truth About Life Post-Exit | Ep #805

What really happens after you sell your agency? Brent Weaver, founder of UGURUS, knows firsthand — and it wasn’t the beach-and-cocktails story most agency owners imagine. In this second half of our conversation, Brent opens up about what really happens after you sell a business, why his team stuck around (when they had every reason to bolt), navigating the shift from entrepreneur to executive within a corporate machine. He also lays down a fresh perspective on where agencies are headed in the AI era — and why human advantage is still your biggest asset.

If you missed Part One, go back — it sets the emotional stage. This one dives into the raw aftermath.

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What Happened to UGURUS? Straight from the Founder Brent Weaver | Ep #803
Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk Selling Your Agency Jason Swenk

What Happened to UGURUS? Straight from the Founder Brent Weaver | Ep #803

How do you turn a $99 course, launched before it was even fully built, into a 7-figure coaching business? Today’s guest did just that. And he’s here to share why scrappier beats slick every time. If you’ve ever second-guessed launching messy, this episode will feel like validation.

Brent Weaver is on the show talking about his start with UGURUS, the valuable learning that can come from starting before everything’s in place, and why what came after selling his business wasn’t exactly what he had expected.

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Hiring Red Flags That Cost Agencies Thousands (and How to Avoid Them) with Collin Slattery | Ep #802
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

Hiring Red Flags That Cost Agencies Thousands (and How to Avoid Them) with Collin Slattery | Ep #802

What if one bad hire wrecked your agency? What if the red flag you're dismissing tanked your margins? Most agency owners learn these lessons the hard way. But you don’t have to.

In this episode, Collin Slattery shares the red flags, hiring mistakes, and leadership shifts that helped him build an agency that’s not just growing—but growing sane. He’s here to share stories that can help you shortcut the pain and build smarter, sooner. From pricing hesitations to over-hiring juniors to waiting too long to fire a bad hire, he brings great insights about what not to do—and what to fix fast. At the end of the day, the goal isn’t just growth—it’s sane growth.

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Why Delegating AI Could Be the Fastest Way to Kill Your Agency with Brandon Na | Ep #801
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Why Delegating AI Could Be the Fastest Way to Kill Your Agency with Brandon Na | Ep #801

Is your agency falling behind in the AI revolution—while competitors pull ahead? If you’ve handed off AI adaptation to your team and progress still feels sluggish, you’re not alone.

The uncomfortable truth? Delegating AI could be the biggest threat to your agency’s future.

Today’s guest, Brandon Na, has seen firsthand how agencies rise—or fall—in the face of disruption. From early SEO days to the AI era, he’s learned what it really takes to lead through change. And it starts with not outsourcing the future.

Many employees feel more fear than excitement about AI—worried it could signal the end of their careers. Instead, agency owners should be very involved in this process and actively try to identify team members who are excited to learn about AI and already experiment with it on their own time. The agencies that will thrive aren't the ones that delegate AI innovation down the chain of command but the ones that build transformation strategies around those natural innovators.   

Brandon Na is the founder of Seattle Organic SEO, as well as a venture capital pro and acting CMO. His path into agency life started with a simple desire to never have to do cold sales. So instead, he hacked his way into visibility through SEO. This path took Brandon to South Korea, where he helped scale an education company by 1,400%. He eventually returned to the U.S., launched his agency, and dominated the search rankings in a matter of months—all from a handshake mentorship deal with a guy exiting the space.

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How Client Caps and Community Made this Agency a Category of One with Oli Luke | Ep #800
Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk Scale Your Agency Jason Swenk

How Client Caps and Community Made this Agency a Category of One with Oli Luke | Ep #800

What if scaling your agency wasn’t about adding clients—but building a community that fuels growth from within? During Covid lockdowns, today’s featured guest felt the need to turn his clients into a community, hosting events where they could get to know each other and build relationships. To this day, it remains one of the best changes he’s introduced at his agency.

With a dedicated community, a focused niche, and a cap on the amount of clients the agency takes, he created a sense of exclusivity that turned his agency into a “category of one” business that continues to thrive. Join us as he unpacks how his agency journey began, how he accidentally ran into his exclusive niche, and the ways he found to turn clients into members.

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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.