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.
#1 Agency Leadership Podcast. Check Out Our Past Guests.
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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 and 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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Neil Patel
Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and other multimillion dollar companies
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![Uri Levine]()
Uri Levine
Co-founder of Waze
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Joey Coleman
Recognized for his expertise in customer retention & enhancing client loyalty
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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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Pat Flynn
The leaders in the podcast space
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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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Todd Herman
Coach to Elite pro athletes, leaders, and public figures
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Dan Martell
Author of Buy Back Your Time. Influential coach in SaaS startups.
From Burnout to Boundaries. Designing an Agency That Energizes You with Ingrid Schneider | Ep #876
Do you feel you’re giving everything to your agency and only getting exhaustion as a result? Agencies grow best when they’re built around clarity, empathy, and self-awareness. Whether it’s pricing, boundaries, team management, or AI, the common thread is intention. Today’s featured guest understands that you don’t need to hustle harder. You need to design smarter, around who you are, how you work best, and what kind of business you actually want to run.
She’ll share her perspective on agency growth, self-awareness, leadership, and how AI should actually be used inside a modern agency and provide a real look at what it takes to build an agency that’s profitable, human, and sustainable without losing yourself in the process.
Can You Trust AI With Your Marketing Data or Is It Lying to You? With Scott Desgrosseilliers | Ep #875
Are you feeding your data into AI and assuming the insights it gives you are accurate? What if those confident-sounding answers are quietly steering you in the wrong direction?
More agency owners are turning to AI to analyze and interpret performance data, and for good reason. Used correctly, it can save massive amounts of time and move teams beyond using AI to crank out blog posts, ads, or emails faster. But when it comes to attribution, performance analysis, and real decision-making, AI has a dangerous flaw: it’s often wrong with absolute confidence.
Today’s featured guest understands where most agencies go wrong with AI-driven data analysis. He’ll break down why large language models frequently misinterpret marketing data, how flawed inputs and assumptions lead to misleading insights, and what it actually takes to get reliable answers from AI without burning budget or making bad strategic calls.
Why Most Agencies Sound the Same and How Yours Can Be Different with David Brier | Ep #874
Most agencies don’t have a marketing problem. They have a sameness problem.
Their websites, their services, their “award-winning team” language. It’s all the same. They even have the same promises that sound impressive but mean absolutely nothing to a prospect who’s heard it 50 times this week.
Today’s featured guest has a pretty good idea of why agencies are blending into the background and how the ones that win are doing the opposite. He’ll get into differentiation, AI, pricing confidence, RFPs, and why playing it safe is the fastest way to disappear.
David Brier is the the branding expert CEOs call when their marketing hits a wall. He calls himself “rehab for brands” to help get them profitable.
From Broken Agency Partnerships to Bulletproof Self-Belief with Cliff Skelliter | Ep #873
Have you ever questioned whether you’re actually built for the hard seasons of agency life? When things get messy, unpredictable, or overwhelming, do you wonder if you have what it takes to keep going or if everyone else somehow got a playbook you missed? Most agency owners don’t wake up one day and decide, “I’m going to build an agency.” They trip into it. One project turns into two, side work turns into real revenue, and suddenly you’re invoicing clients without knowing what an invoice number is supposed to look like.
Today’s featured guest unpacks what it really looks like to build an agency without a roadmap. Through failed partnerships, stalled careers, and moments where quitting felt easier than continuing, he developed the resilience and mindset required to keep moving.
Cliff Skelliter is a serial entrepreneur and owner of Launchpad Creative, a design-thinking agency, working across brand identity, video production, and strategy. They blend artistry, functionality, and brand communication to create captivating digital and physical spaces that not only engage and inspire but also reflect the essence and values of the organizations they work with.
How to Adapt When Your Agency Niche Stops Working with Laryssa Wirstiuk | Ep #872
Running an agency today looks nothing like it did even a few years ago. What used to work: SEO-driven inbound leads, tight vertical niches, and predictable platforms, has shifted fast.
Today’s featured guest has learned to adapt to these changes and went from having a clear and defined niche to letting clients’ needs guide the next steps for her business. She’ll talk about navigating those changes, evolving your positioning, and deciding whether you’re actually willing to do what adaptation requires.
Laryssa Wirstiuk is the owner of Joy Joya, a boutique email and SMS marketing agency that serves women-focused, product-based e-commerce brands. With more than 15 years in marketing and over a decade running her own agency, Laryssa has lived through multiple shifts in platforms, buyer behavior, and agency models.
If AI Can Do the Work Faster, What Should Agencies Be Selling? With Eric Weidner | Ep #871
If AI can now write, design, and build faster than your team, what does a profitable agency actually sell next? Most agency owners have experienced a weird mix of excitement and anxiety about AI. On the surface, it feels like everything is changing overnight, including websites, content, search, development, and even how clients perceive value. Underneath that panic, though, there’s a calmer truth: the fundamentals of running a great agency haven’t changed at all. The tools have.
Today’s featured guest talks candidly about where AI actually helps agencies, where it’s wildly overhyped, and why agency owners who focus on systems, relationships, and leverage will win while everyone else burns out chasing shiny tools.
What It Takes to Scale a 700-Person Agency Without Losing Your Mind (or Margin) with Nital Shah | Ep #870
How big do you actually want your agency to become? Does the idea of running a massive team sound exciting or completely exhausting? For many agency owners, scaling feels less like growth and more like trading freedom for complexity.
Scaling an agency isn’t about hustle. It’s about surviving the moments that almost break you, building systems that actually work, and accepting that what got you here won’t get you there. Today’s featured guest understands that running a big agency is about structure and leadership. He’s grown a global agency to 700 people without losing profitability, sanity, or culture and now he’ll unpack the hard-earned lessons that most agency owners don’t think about until it’s too late.
How to Survive Google Updates, AI Disruption, and Scale a Local SEO Agency with Joy Hawkins | Ep #869
Do you feel constantly worried about shrinking organic visibility, heavier ad pressure, and constant change? Running an agency has never been a straight line. Platforms change, algorithms shift, and what worked five years ago can quietly stop working overnight. Today’s featured guest knows that reality and will share her journey from agency employee to founder of a 43-person local SEO agency, along with her honest perspective on Google, AI, remote teams, and why growing bigger can actually create more freedom and impact when done for the right reasons.
How to Choose the Right Agency Niche and Stick With It Through Uncertainty with Filip Lugovic | Ep #868
Starting with a clearly defined niche can make all the difference when you’re landing your first clients and deeply understanding that niche can carry you through the toughest seasons of agency life. Today’s featured guest built his agency on exactly that foundation.
Before launching his firm, he spent years working as a consultant for governments, UN agencies, and the European Commission. Along the way, he identified a clear gap in the market.
That expertise proved invaluable during the pandemic. While uncertainty hit many agencies hard, he trusted his understanding of the space and chose to weather the slow months, confident the work would return. His patience paid off as demand surged later in the year.
He’ll share the lessons learned from more than 20 years of building and running a thriving niche agency in one of the most political and complex markets in the world—and why focus, patience, and deep domain knowledge remain his greatest competitive advantages.
What 2025 Taught Us: Top Agency Owner Interviews of the Year | Ep # 867
What a year. I sat down with over 100 incredible agency owners and the insights were unreal. From million-dollar breakthroughs to hard-earned lessons, these founders brought the real talk. In this special year-end episode, I’m sharing the top 5 interviews that stood out most.
To everyone who tuned in, shared an episode, or took action from something they heard—thank you. This show is for you, and because of you.
Here’s to a smarter, stronger, more scalable 2026.
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.
