Agency Bytes Podcast
Agency Bytes is a video podcast series that packs a ton of important agency information on one topic, from one expert into a 25-minute brief.
Why 25 minutes?
Because who has the attention span for much more these days, and you can squeeze in a listen between meetings with time for a bathroom break or coffee refill before your next meeting.
Easily find the episode you’re looking for with the Podcast Search feature - type in a guest name, topic, or episode number and voila!
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Ep 171 – How Agency Founders Escape the Founder Prison Without Burning the Business Down
George Rivera spent 31 years building businesses that generated more than $400 million in sales, and he nearly lost his family in the process. A few words from his father near the end of his life changed his direction. In episode 171, George and I talk about how founders build their own prisons without realizing it. We also get into the practical work of getting out of them.
Ep 170 – How Cass Bailey Protects Deal Value With M&A Communication Planning
Most agency acquisitions don't fall apart at the closing table. They fall apart in the days after the announcement, when employees and clients hear the news the wrong way. Cass Bailey has lived that from both sides of the deal, as a seller and as a buyer. This conversation is about protecting the value of a deal by planning every message, every room, and every messenger.
Ep 169 – How Taylor McMaster Built a Sellable Agency From Day One: Why Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Taylor McMaster built Dot and Co with one goal from day one: to sell it. Eight years later, she did. In this return conversation, we talk about saying no more often than yes, removing yourself from the business long before a deal, and why the right buyer is often someone you already know.
Ep 168 – Rachel Zorel, 7 Layer Studio – How a Small Agency Builds a Culture That Keeps Clients for a Decade
Rachel Zorel gave notice the day after a single coffee conversation and never looked back. Two decades later, Seven Layer Studio is a tight team of five with clients who stay for ten years. In this episode, we talk about culture, honesty, and why staying a generalist is a choice she makes on purpose.
Ep 167 – Albert Banks, Apertus – How Merging With a Peer Agency Can Break Your Growth Ceiling
What do you do when you keep hitting the same growth ceiling? Albert Banks merged with a peer agency, became a more mature business almost overnight, and later sold to a six-thousand-person global firm. In episode 167, he shares what that journey taught him about integration, partnership, and the life he actually wanted.
Ep 166 – Hope Is Not a Strategy: How Agencies Build Real Resilience with Audrey Kwan
Execution has never been cheaper, and that is exactly why so many agencies feel fragile right now. Audrey Joy Kwan joins me to talk about what separates a replaceable agency from a resilient one. We get into niching, real relationships, and why collaboration beats competition. If you have been putting off the hard positioning decisions, this conversation is a gentle push.
Ep 165 – How Melanie Balke Turns Email Into a Retention Engine for E-Commerce
Email marketing isn't dead — it's just gotten more competitive. Melanie Balke, founder and CEO of The Email Marketers, joins me to unpack the real difference between underutilizing email and underoptimizing it, and why SMS deserves a second look even if texting isn't your thing. We also get into how her team uses AI for deeper customer research, and the daily ritual she credits with helping her lead well.
Ep 164 – David J. Ebner, Content Workshop – Why AI Is Creating a Sea of Sameness in Content
David J. Ebner traces his storytelling career back to childhood dinners in a small Ohio town, stretching the truth just to get an emotional reaction out of his mom. Now, as president of Content Workshop, he helps B2B tech brands find the human story buried inside their most technical products. In this conversation, we get into why AI is flooding the market with sameness, why some clients leave for AI tools and come right back, and why the agencies winning right now are the ones willing to zag.
Ep 163 – James Kwon, Figmints – Boats, Not Moats - How AI Is Forcing Agencies to Build Products
James Kwon built Figmints into a fifteen-year, twenty-person agency by treating it as both a services shop and a product lab, and one of those internal products just sold for almost nine figures. In this episode, he opens up about the acquisition that shaped his approach to M&A, the AI-driven shift from moats to boats, and the day he had three hundred dollars left in the bank account. He also breaks down Slices, his own pay-for-performance model that turned a fifty-thousand-dollar hire into someone earning six figures. It's a conversation about building an agency that can grow, sell, or just work better for the people inside it.
Ep 162 – Megan Long, Second First – What Agency Owners Get Wrong About Delegating to Their Right-Hand Leader
Every founder has a blind spot when it comes to delegation, and it usually shows up as the same bad habit: pulling things back onto their own plate the moment they let go. In this episode, Megan Long of Second First joins me to talk about the role most agencies get wrong from day one, the second-in-command. We dig into why the "sexy resume" hire almost always fails, why the best partnerships look more like a shared Venn diagram than a pair of opposites, and what it actually takes for a founder to leave for a month and come back to a business that grew without them.
Ep 161 – Lynn Juang, Frameworks Consulting – Agency Growth Without the Friction
Lynn Juang spent two decades climbing from client services to COO before deciding she'd rather help founders run their agencies than run one herself. In episode 161, she breaks down why agency growth doesn't have to come with friction, and what actually separates a business that looks successful from a company built to last.
Ep 160 – David Shriner-Cahn, Smashing the Plateau – You Are Your Own Bottleneck — Here's How to Get Out of Your Own Way
Every solopreneur hits a ceiling — the question is whether you know it's there. In episode 160, David Shriner-Cahn of Smashing the Plateau joins me to talk about why expertise-based businesses stall out, and how a trusted peer group can show you the blind spot you can't see for yourself. We get into pricing fear, the discipline of ninety-day objectives, and why a weekly cadence might be the most underrated growth lever you're not using.
Ep 159 – Courtney Spritzer, Entreprenista - How Courtney Spritzer Built and Sold a Marketing Agency, Then Built a 3,700-Member Community
Courtney Spritzer built SocialFly from a bootstrapped side hustle into an agency worth acquiring, then walked away from it entirely. In this episode, she breaks down what it actually takes to prepare an agency for a sale years before you're ready to sell, and why owner dependency kills more deals than anything else. She also shares how Entreprenista grew from a podcast into a 3,700-member community for women founders. It's a candid look at building a business that can run without you.
Ep 158 – How Matt Dean Built a Commercial Real Estate Branding Agency by Going All In on One Niche
Matt Dean set a goal at 19 to own an agency by 30. Five years after launching Dean & Co. with his wife Jackie, he's built one of the most in-demand branding studios in commercial real estate, working across seventeen states, by refusing to be a generalist and refusing to be called a vendor.
Ep 157 – How Sam Shepler Grew StorysSnap Through Acquisitions Instead of Retainers
Sam Shepler, founder and CEO of StorySnap, joins me to unpack why he's never chased retainers in the B2B video space and how gross margin, not billing structure, actually determines whether an agency can scale. We talk about why feast-or-famine is really a symptom of weak lead flow, not a billing problem, and why his best acquisitions add new capability instead of just new revenue. Sam also breaks down the gross margin mistake he sees in nearly every agency P&L he reviews, and why pulling revenue forward matters more than the comfort of predictable monthly billing.
Ep 156 – Zack Rosenberg, Qortex – What Your Audience Watches Reveals More Than What They Search
Zach Rosenberg, founder and CEO of Cortex, joins me to unpack why nearly 90% of video content is mis-categorized and how that skews the data brands rely on. We talk about why buying intent shows up in what people watch long before it hits a search bar, and why AI should support creative instincts rather than replace them.
Ep 155 – Jessica Rhodes, Interview Connections – How to Land Agency Clients Through Podcast Guesting (Without the Spam)
Jessica Rhodes launched the world's first podcast booking agency in 2013 and has since booked over 50,000 interviews. In this episode, she breaks down why relationship-driven guesting beats AI spam, when to start your own show, and how agency owners can turn a single interview into referrals, repurposed content, and clients who show up ready to buy.
Ep 154 – Mike Bodkin, Talent Scout – How to Build a Sellable Agency — and a Smarter Way to Hire
Mike Bodkin spent nearly a decade building Giant Propeller before a partnership unraveled and an unexpected offer pulled him into an exit he never planned. In this episode, he unpacks what made his agency sellable, why integration is never clean, and how a near-shore talent model became the business he runs today.
Ep 153 – Juliana Marulanda, Scaletime – You Can’t Scale Chaos
Scale gets thrown around like a vanity metric, but Juliana reframes it as something quieter and more powerful: the freedom to choose what you do with your day. Her SCALE framework walks owners from seeing what's actually happening in the business all the way to designing an exit — on their own terms, whether they ever sell or not.
Ep 152 – Michael Perry, Tavern – Why Relationships — Not Design — Actually Grow Your Agency
Mike Perry, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Tavern, joins Agency Bytes to unpack "modern heritage" — building timeless brands by mining the past instead of chasing trends. Steve and Mike dig into real niching, staying hands-on as a founder, launching your own product brand, and why this is fundamentally a relationship business above all else.
