Most service businesses don’t stall because of a lack of talent or ambition. They stall because the business quietly outgrows the systems it was built on.
In this episode of The Handbook, Harv Nagra sits down with Jason Swenk – agency founder turned advisor who’s spent two decades helping agencies and consultancies scale with more confidence and less chaos.
After building and selling his own eight-figure agency, Jason codified the patterns he kept seeing into an eight-system framework for predictable growth.
We unpack why so many leadership teams feel stuck, what actually breaks as businesses scale, and how operators can help reset the foundations before things start to crack.
Here’s what we get into:
- Why clarity, positioning, and offering are the foundations everything else depends on
- How to move from reactive growth to a more deliberate, scalable operating model
- The difference between prospecting and sales – and why skipping steps causes pain later
- How delivery, ops, and leadership systems protect margins and give leaders time back
- What it really means to transition from founder mode to CEO mode
Whether you’re an Ops Director, COO, or part of a leadership team trying to break through a growth ceiling, this conversation is a strong reminder that maturity isn’t about working harder – it’s about building the right systems at the right time.
Additional Resources:
👉🏽 Follow Jason on LinkedIn.
💰 Check out Jason’s website.
📺 Check out Jason’s Podcast, Smart Agency Masterclass.
👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn.
📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity
📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Harv Nagra: Hey all. Welcome back to the Handbook. Before we get into today’s episode, I’m doing a survey to get your feedback on this show. If you’re at your desk or you have your phone at hand, you can type it in now. It’s bit.ly/handbook25survey. Again, that’s bit.ly/handbook25survey, I’d love to get your thoughts.
Now onto today’s episode.
Most agencies and consultancies don’t hit a ceiling because of lack of talent or ambition. No, they hit a ceiling because the business outgrows the systems it was built on.
I felt that myself in past roles, the moment when referrals dry up, delivery gets messy, or the founder is in every decision and everyone realizes we can’t keep scaling like this, not without a more mature approach.
And that’s a conundrum that I know that a lot of professional services businesses face.
We’re great at what we do for our clients, but not always so good at investing in the structures that enable growth for the business. We fine tune processes, but don’t rethink the operating model. We chase big clients, but don’t build the commercial systems to support them. And eventually the cracks show.
Well, today’s guest has spent more than two decades helping businesses fix exactly that. Jason Swenk is an agency founder turned advisor who’s coached thousands of agencies and consulting firms on how to scale with confidence.
After growing and selling his own eight figure agency, he codified the patterns into a eight system framework for predictable growth .
Covering everything from clarity and positioning to delivery ops, sales and leadership.
He’s also recorded more than 850 podcast episodes on his show, Smart Agency Masterclass, which means he’s had a front row seat to every growth mistake and breakthrough our industry tends to repeat.
In this episode, we break down Jason’s framework and talk honestly about why so many service businesses get stuck and what operators, COOs and leadership teams can do to build a more scalable, resilient model.
If you’re thinking about the next stage of operational maturity, this is one worth settling in for.
Thanks for listening to The Handbook: The Operations Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Scoro.
If you’re running an agency or consulting firm, you might feel good about bringing in tools like Monday, clickup or Teamwork. They give you lots of modules and integrations. If you have the time to build out your own system. But they’re still not designed to run the business end to end, you end up plugging gaps with spreadsheets and extra tools for things like revenue forecasting, deeper utilization analysis, and board level reporting. Data is scattered and you still don’t have a single source of truth.
Scoro is different. It’s a modern PSA that combines the power of an all-in-one platform with a modern ux. From pipeline to projects, to billing to reporting. You get one place to plan, deliver, and track your business. Leaders get the dashboards they need. Delivery folks see the work and numbers that matter. And specialists just get a clean view of their tasks and time.
Go to scoro.com/demo to arrange a call and learn how Scoro can help take your business to the next level of maturity. And for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. Now let’s get to the podcast.
Jason, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being
[00:03:28] Jason Swenk: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
[00:03:30] Harv Nagra: It’s an absolute pleasure. First of all, shout out to you for having been podcasting for nearly 12 years, I think, with Smart Agency Masterclass, isn’t it? so I wanted to start there. Tell us a bit about your podcast and what’s kept you going for so.
[00:03:43] Jason Swenk: I kind of started by accident, right? Like 11 years ago. I, someone was asking me a question, I was like, man, this might be fun. Let’s do it over a Google Hangout. And I didn’t even know what a podcast was. And then someone told me, I was like, well, let’s convert all these Google Hangouts to a podcast.
[00:04:01] Harv Nagra: Right.
so we’ve been doing a podcast for 11 years. Never missed a week. I think maybe four years ago we switched to doing two a week and it’s,I don’t know, it just gives me a lot of energy talking to really cool people and hearing their story. A good learning opportunity as well, just to see what people are doing and all that kind of stuff,
[00:04:19] Jason Swenk: it’s, yeah, it’s crazy, right? 14 years ago to the day is when I sold the first agency. And at the time when I sold the agency, I was like, man, I wanna forget everything I ever knew about it. And it’s kind of fun when I do the podcast.
Like I remember a lot of the stories, but I also learned so much, because I’ve done 850 episodes. So, you know, I learned from everybody. I have a interview with.
[00:04:44] Harv Nagra: I’m intrigued by what you just said there. why did you have the feeling that you wanted to forget everything that happened there?
[00:04:49] Jason Swenk: When I sold that agency, we grew it up to over eight figures, but I felt like at that time I was at the max. Like I, I was like the agency. I’m holding the agency back. And what I didn’t realize, especially years later. There’s, when you want to scale your agency, scale your business, there’s two who’s who do you need to hire to figure out the how?
You haven’t figured out and who do you need to become because you keep growing, right? I learned something every day and all the stuff I know now. I’m like, man, I could have grew that agency to nine figures or 10 figures, right? Like with all the stuff that we know. but at the time I was like, sell the damn thing.
[00:05:31] Harv Nagra: Fair enough. you’ve founded two agencies, before you decided to get into consulting. So d does that experience now influence the way you coach as well then all of those kind of learnings?
[00:05:41] Jason Swenk: Oh yeah. yeah, because I, and I always would joke with people, I’m like, there’s not one thing you can tell me that I haven’t gone through or haven’t heard. And so I would say that on the podcast all the time. And then one person told me, they’re like, but hey, my partner just left to join a cult. I was like, I’ve never heard that.
So then that was the story that I was like, only thing I’ve ever heard. And then it happened again and people were like, yeah, you remember that story? You said that happened to me too. I’m like, geez. Like what? Ha. So
[00:06:11] Harv Nagra: Patterns everywhere.
[00:06:12] Jason Swenk: right. That’s right.
[00:06:12] Harv Nagra: so I, what I wanted to focus on today is one of the tools that you’ve developed through your consultancy called The Eight Step Framework to p Predictable
[00:06:21] Jason Swenk: Yep.
[00:06:21] Harv Nagra: before I want to take, the listeners on a bit of a whirlwind tour of that. and as our listeners are Ops folks at agencies
[00:06:28] Jason Swenk: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:29] Harv Nagra: right? So we’re gonna go
[00:06:30] Jason Swenk: Yep.
[00:06:31] Harv Nagra: of a tour about each of those areas. But before that, I, if you could give us a bit of, just some context around this.
[00:06:37] Jason Swenk: So I start an agency by accident like most agency owners or like CEOs, right? Where. One of my best friends looked like Justin Timberlake from nsync, and this was in 1999. And so I created a fake band, fake website called In Shit. It got popular and then people started asking me to design websites for them.
So I was like, all right, cool, like 500 bucks. And quickly learned that, I have to charge way more than 500 bucks. Eventually wound up working with, brands like LegalZoom and Hitachi and AT&T and the, and some of the biggest brands in the world. So there was a big rollercoaster there.
But I tell you, the accidental agency owner, because like, I didn’t even know what an invoice was. Google wasn’t around back then. I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t figure that out. I was like, I had to ask my dad, and my dad was like, oh man, you’re gonna be, you know, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be fun in business.
So, um, and for all the operators listening, right, like. You know, I know your, your, visionaries or your CEOs, they’re always like constantly trying to go different directions. Chase this shiny red object. That was me. I was the chief disruptor. and I needed to hire the operators, like all of you guys listening to like throttle me back.
Get me focused.
[00:07:54] Harv Nagra: And so that’s where this has come from. So why don’t we then kick off by diving into each of
[00:07:59] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:08:00] Harv Nagra: Of systems, as you call it.
The first one is clarity. So tell us what that means in practice.
[00:08:04] Jason Swenk: Well, it goes back to what I was saying about the accidental, right? so for many years I had, I didn’t know who I wanted my clients to be. I was just taking on any business that was coming to me. our business was based on referrals, which just isn’t scalable. So, you know, the business I was getting, I kept getting more and more of those.
But the problem was, I could never upgrade those clients. I could never upgrade them to. You know, 500 couldn’t go up to 10,000 because that was just a different range. And I also was doing everything, like I was doing web design, I was doing SEO, I was doing pay per click, I was doing all this. And so at a time I got to about, probably about 2 million and I wanted to quit.
I hated what I was doing ’cause everything was coming to me. To make a decision and my team didn’t have the power to make a decision. And what I realized was, and I even took a job interview, that’s how bad it got. Like we were profitable, we were making lots of money, but like I was working 80 hours, 90 hours a week.
It was just nuts. And so took an interview. They asked me two questions that changed everything, and it’s a great exercise for everyone to listen to and do and make sure the CEOs do it as well. So it gives them clarity. but they asked me, what do you want to do every day? And what don’t you never want to do?
So the exercise is this. Get a sheet of paper, put your fist on that sheet of paper, draw a circle around it. Concentrate for about 30 minutes of all the things you hate doing. So I hated doing project management, account management, talking to clients,
[00:09:40] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:40] Jason Swenk: right, like, uh, TPS reports and office space, all the stupid, you know, mundane stuff.
I just couldn’t stand. So I wrote down all the stuff I hated. Then after that I started looking at going, what are all the things that I love doing? man, I love coaching my team, I love creating content, I love podcasting, I love all this kinda stuff. And what that did was that gave me the first glimpse at where we should go.
And what I should do, who I should hire, what I should say no to, what I should delegate, right? And then I told my team this. So then it gave them the power to make decisions. It’s like you’re in a boat and you’re driving for about 10 hours. And I go, alright man, I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. If the boat changes course come wake me up.
you’re gonna wake me up every five minutes. Unless I tell you where we’re going, I give you that North star. And, and so it just, that was the clarity. once you figure that out, like who’s your perfect client, what you should actually do for them?
And here’s another quick exercise and I’ll shut up. You can ask me anything else going forward. Think about it this way. What clients would you work with and what service would you do for them if you were gonna be paid on performance only?
[00:10:58] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:00] Jason Swenk: And that will give you clarity because we’re doing too much for everyone.
[00:11:04] Harv Nagra: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a really good point. So what happens if you start growing and you’re scaling and you haven’t got that clarity. we can understand that in the beginning stages, maybe you’re doing a bit of everything for everyone, and that’s a bit inefficient, but as you scale, I’m sure you’ve seen this.
[00:11:21] Jason Swenk: it’s like I said, you’ll get to a certain ceiling. Everyone’s ceiling’s a little different, and if you don’t have that clarity, you’re gonna be stuck there. And then you’re gonna be like, man, I just wanna go back to when it was fun
[00:11:32] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:33] Jason Swenk: it was fun. It’s way scaled down and it all depends on you.
So you’re more of a freelancer or a lifestyle business where it, it doesn’t have the ability to scale. Because you didn’t give the power to your teammates to make a decision because they have to come to you. So you’re the, you’re you have 12 different lanes in a toll booth,
[00:11:56] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:57] Jason Swenk: but 11 of them are closed.
[00:12:00] Harv Nagra: Makes sense. And,I guess that my other question is that exercise I would imagine should be done with some regularity, and I don’t mean every couple of months, but perhaps every couple of years you might outgrow the services or the clients and stuff like
[00:12:13] Jason Swenk: Well.
[00:12:14] Harv Nagra: that you
[00:12:14] Jason Swenk: Yeah, the kind of the eight systems of the agency playbook really are set for each, each time your agency scales up to a new level. You kind of
[00:12:25] Harv Nagra: Hmm.
[00:12:25] Jason Swenk: should look back at all of these. Because your agency is a different place. what got you to where you’re at now is not gonna get you to the place you know you want to go tomorrow.
So it’s kind of like these foundational systems, you just reset, communicate to the team and be like, yeah, because you can pivot. That’s the beauty about, business and you should pivot. Especially, I had to pivot through. the dot bomb, I had to pivot through nine 11. I had to pivot through COVID.
I had to pivot through ai, like you’re always, you always have to pivot.
[00:12:57] Harv Nagra: something. Yeah. And so in, in terms of those brackets,you said at every stage,what do we mean by that? Is that headcounts? Is that revenue?
[00:13:05] Jason Swenk: Yeah, so think about the first stage I described it, it’s getting clarity of where you’re going, right? The second stage is really like you’re doing, all the delivery work, right? Or you’re doing all the sales work. So there’s multiple stages and you can even look at it based on revenue, right?
let’s call the first stage, getting over 500,000 in revenue, and then the next stage maybe 1.5 – 2 million. And so on, right? and also too, the more layers you get in your business on management, right? Like, we had over a hundred people. So, you know, there’s the, there’s a lot of stages.
Like whatever you feel stuck look back and be like, all right, what systems do I need to reset?
[00:13:44] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm. Yep. Let’s move into the second system, which is positioning. So tell us about that.
[00:13:49] Jason Swenk: So a lot of agencies look like me too agencies. They talk about their people, process and portfolio. And I’m like, oh my gosh, if I hear the Ps again, I’m gonna pee on myself, right? Like, you know, like, like stop talking about that stuff.
And all these systems are set up in order as well.
So if you don’t have clarity of who you want your clients to be and what you actually do, you can’t understand what their biggest challenges are. So then you can position yourself as that strategic advisor, that person that’s going to challenge. Most agencies are set up as order takers.
Client comes in with something they want them to do, they go do it. I would like to reset it and say, you told me what you want. Why do you want it? What’s creating this? What’s the challenge? And then I can help them out. And so your positioning has to be that way. So for example, I had a member for our mastermind come to us and he was like, Hey, I do, nonprofit websites.
[00:14:49] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:49] Jason Swenk: Descriptive. I like that. But it’s not good, right? It’s not gonna be, makes them separate from everybody else that does websites.
[00:14:58] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:59] Jason Swenk: And I said, alright, let’s go through an exercise. Let’s figure out what your, these nonprofits biggest challenges are. What do they actually want? What do they actually need?
So what we determined was they, their problem is they wanted to reach more people. They wanted to spread their message. And they want to get more members, donors, and volunteers. So I said, okay, why don’t we position it on your website and all your marketing and your elevator pitch and saying, we help nonprofits get more members, donors and volunteers so they can spread their message and you can add on to it.
And all it is is used to make someone curious, tell me more, or read more. and so that’s what everyone, that’s what all these agencies need to do is lead with the challenge or the solution
of how
they can actually help someone.
[00:15:48] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm. I think you’re right. we sometimes forget about the, talking about the solution and talk about just what we do, and if you really want people to understand that you’re solving a problem, you have to speak to them at that level,
[00:15:58] Jason Swenk: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:16:01] Harv Nagra: Excellent. Okay, so let’s move into system three, which is offering, and by the way, before we get into that, you did say something else that,caught my attention is that these, systems need to be gone through in order to nail it and get it
[00:16:13] Jason Swenk: Yes.
Yeah, you, you really can’t skip a round, especially the first time you go through it because they all build upon each other.
[00:16:21] Harv Nagra: Yep. So system three was offering, so tell us about that.
[00:16:25] Jason Swenk: So most agencies are like, um, Harv, are you married?
[00:16:31] Harv Nagra: I’m single.
[00:16:32] Jason Swenk: Still? Still single. All right? But when you, do find your significant other, you’re not gonna go up to them probably the first time you see them and say, you marry me. Can we agree on that? Okay,
[00:16:42] Harv Nagra: Yes.
[00:16:43] Jason Swenk: cool. All. So that’s what a lot of agencies are doing when they sell their retainer.
[00:16:48] Harv Nagra: Hmm.
[00:16:49] Jason Swenk: And they’re all trying to get predictable revenue, but when they sell a retainer, a lot of times they sell a retainer at month to month. I’m like, oh, that’s not really a retainer. That’s just selling a project that they can cancel at any time.
[00:17:01] Harv Nagra: Yeah.
[00:17:02] Jason Swenk: so you have to figure out what’s the right offering and what’s the offering ladder.
And so what I always tell people is we have to start with a foot in the door. Something easy, something that provides value. Something you can actually build with them that builds trust and closes faster, closes more often, right? Which can lead to higher things. So for example. I was just speaking at a conference yesterday or two days ago, and I walked them through this kind of, case story.
This one agency came to me. They were selling SEO retainer for 5,000 a month, right? Month to month. They basically hold on their clients for six months.
Which is not very good, right? I think at the end of the day, what’s, 5,000 times 6? 42, is that right? 42,000. average price.
[00:17:56] Harv Nagra: 30,000.
[00:17:56] Jason Swenk: 30, there you go.
See, I’m horrible with math. I am a colors person. Draw with colors, right?
[00:18:02] Harv Nagra: okay. I pulled out a
[00:18:03] Jason Swenk: There you go. All right. Thanks for making me feel better. Alright, so then I told them, I said, let’s change it up a little bit. Let’s sell them like a 90 minute session with you. So we’re gonna charge a thousand dollars or whatever it is.
It doesn’t matter what we charge. Because if you can get someone to pay you and they have a good experience, they’re gonna 20 times more likely to pay you later on. So we did that in that session we would position a particular challenge that they’re having. Maybe on this one is let’s rank for this one keyword.
And I said, how long would it take for them to get ranked? Two months? Oh, okay, cool. So let’s do a three month project and we’ll charge 5,000 for that, or each month. So it’s 15,000, but in two months when you actually get them ranked, now we’re gonna position the retainer. Right then that retainer’s gonna be at 9,000 because we already shared, we showed them value, and we’re gonna position that at 12 months because now they trust you.
So now they’re making well over six figures on that same client. They’re closing faster. They built trust. They’re charging more. They’re making more profit. So it’s about figuring out that right offering, like figuring out your pricing, figuring out what you actually need to charge, what’s that one thing that we can close on a client really quick.
So that’s offering.
[00:19:27] Harv Nagra: Really interesting. I have one question about that. Like I, I don’t know the data on the mix in different markets or anywhere really, in terms of, uh, retainer and just non retainer work, what are you seeing? Has there been a shift in growth in one or the other with your clients or. or not?
[00:19:44] Jason Swenk: so all of our members that go through this offering ladder, I walked you through
95%
of their business is retainers. For over 12 months. But now they’re predictable. I mean, that’s why a lot of our members are able to sell or have the ability to sell because they have predictable revenue. They have predictable profit, right?
They’re charging enough, they built trust. it’s, it makes a huge difference versus, selling a retainer and then they can cancel at any time.
[00:20:13] Harv Nagra: Yep. and before we move into the next system, I wanted to get your opinion on kind of productization as well, what is your take on productization?
[00:20:22] Jason Swenk: I think you should productize internal, but make it look customized external.
[00:20:29] Harv Nagra: Interesting.
[00:20:30] Jason Swenk: Okay.
[00:20:30] Harv Nagra: Okay.
[00:20:31] Jason Swenk: Because everyone thinks they’re unique, so make them feel unique. But you have everything productized so you know exactly how long something takes. Unless you’re doing,for example, there’s always gonna be scenarios like we built LegalZoom, like programmed it, all that kind of stuff.
Mm-hmm.
we were building something new at the time that no one ever, no one else has done. So you, there’s gonna be a lot of gotchas there, right? you can’t really productize that, that’s customization. But if I’m doing a website for, the public facing website of Aflac, I know exactly how long that’s going to take.
I know exactly the milestones of all the things we know. So in the backend, it’s all productized.
[00:21:12] Harv Nagra: Hmm. Makes sense. Jason, let’s move into system four.
[00:21:16] Jason Swenk: Yep.
[00:21:17] Harv Nagra: Prospecting.
[00:21:17] Jason Swenk: Most people start there, right? And they don’t have the first three systems, which are the foundational systems. So that’s why a lot of people fail, or a lot of people get that, you know, that BS email,here’s how to close all these businesses and I can generate 20 leads.
Like, I wish that person was like, you know, removed from the internet, because.
[00:21:36] Harv Nagra: You know what, Jason, sorry for interrupting you, but actually prospecting is distinct from sales, which is actually system five. So I would love for you to
help
me understand what prospecting you even mean.
[00:21:46] Jason Swenk: Yes. So most people, and it goes back to what I was saying before, like the referrals, right?
[00:21:51] Harv Nagra: Most people get to a certain point based on referrals. But I think I treat prospecting like a three-legged stool.
it should be inbound, outbound, and strategic partnerships. So if any two go down or one goes down, you still are at least balancing, right?
[00:22:07] Jason Swenk: You’re not, your business doesn’t go over. So you have to figure out like, what’s a good way to, to reach, and start a conversation with someone. Do I have to knock on their door? Do I have a LinkedIn outreach strategy? Please don’t automate it. please don’t use automation and send these dumb videos to me that are totally automated.
And you said there were customization, like we start off with a lie. I’m not going to trust you and people are, not gonna do that either. Like in outbound, I always tell people, make a hit list of the top 20 companies you wanna work with. Figure out how you can help them out.
Research who do you know that knows the decision maker? Ask for connections, right? Do a lot of research and you’ll be able to reach them. You know, my fourth interview, I still remember it. You go to jason swank.com/four, that will take you to it. It’s a real, I probably look like an Oompa Loompa on the video, right?
Like the video quality’s really bad. But I interviewed, Del Ross of IHG, like International Hotel Group and he was the CMO of them at the time. And I was like, how can a agency work with a big company? It’s like, call me up and offer me something I haven’t heard of.
And we’ll do a test project, like he would like tens of thousands of dollars for test projects.
And that’s the foot in the door, right? and get you in there. So make a hit list for the outbound inbound. You should be creating content, right? Create a podcast. I tell agencies, please create a podcast. They’re like, ah, I don’t know. I don’t know. And then once they do, it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.
[00:23:38] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:38] Jason Swenk: takes a long time. It doesn’t take 11 years, it takes a couple years to get momentum, you’re doing this for the long term. And then the strategic partners, who else are going after your clients? Technology companies, publications, associations, all these. And once you build the systems around each three, man, you have so much momentum.
[00:23:58] Harv Nagra: But it’s not the instant gratification everybody wants. that’s the issue, Yeah. That is, that’s all super interesting because I think you’re right. We do bypass this step and start thinking about sales directly without activating or putting the thinking behind these kinds of systems.
[00:24:12] Jason Swenk: Yep. Exactly.
[00:24:13] Harv Nagra: totally appreciate that. That’s really interesting.
Alright, so from there we get into system five, which is sales.
[00:24:20] Jason Swenk: So it’s about like most people don’t have a sales system. Most people have the owner doing the sales. They have their own process, but when the owner’s doing the sales, think about like we just had our event for our members last week. It’s week long. And if the owner’s doing the sales, that means a week of no sales.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
and think about how much time you get back. I remember when I hired a salesperson and they were, they did a great job. It freed up maybe 30 hours of my time.
[00:24:56] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:57] Jason Swenk: Holy
[00:24:57] Harv Nagra: a
[00:24:58] Jason Swenk: cow. We all want, we started an agency to have freedom. There you go. Get rid of that. And then if you can get rid of the delivery and pass that to the team, you get your freedom.
So you gotta think about what’s the sales system? So we think about the qualification. Like I always, when I’m talking to a prospect, I’m gonna go through what I call end B, need, budget, authority, and timing.
[00:25:22] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:23] Jason Swenk: do they need what I offer? If they don’t pass ’em on to someone else. Give a referral to a referral partner.
Keep score of that. and then hopefully they give you ones back. So you’re making deposits before you make withdrawal. So it goes back to the prospecting, budget: ask the damn budget. Like I was speaking two days ago and I asked the room, I go, how many people ask for the budget? Half the hands go up.
How many people actually keep your hands up? How many people actually get the budget? Half the hands went down. So that means 25% of agencies don’t know what a budget of a prospect is. So then they’re wasting tons of time with the wrong prospect or, and this happened to me. They pitch a deal that’s a good price for the agency, but way under what that brand, what wanted, and you lose the deal because you were too low.
[00:26:16] Harv Nagra: I’ve seen this happening as well.
[00:26:19] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:26:19] Harv Nagra: terrible, isn’t
[00:26:20] Jason Swenk: Yeah. So I’m gonna tell you the budget buster really quick. So I’d always be, what’s a budget? I don’t have a budget. I don’t know. You tell me. So I’m like, oh, you know, oh, you don’t have a budget. This has to fit your personality too. Okay. On the first one. The second one will work for everybody.
So when the people would say, I don’t have a budget, I’d be like, cool, man. I love working with people that don’t have a budget. then we don’t have to worry about money. We could try out all kinds of cool things. I kind of smile, right? And they’re like, Ooh. Then I go into what I call the reverse auctioneer, because most people start off small.
So they’ll be like, Hey, Harv, are you trying to stay around a thousand dollars, $5,000, 10,000? What are you trying to stay around? what you’re going to remember Harv is the thousand dollars. So I price anchored very low. So I do the reverse auctioneer. I go, Harvard, are you trying to stay around a billion dollars?
Million dollars, $10,000? What are you trying to stay around? I’m gonna get the budget every single time.
[00:27:13] Harv Nagra: interesting. Whoever’s listening, please try that and share your feedback. I’d love that. That’s
[00:27:18] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:27:19] Harv Nagra: Both of those
[00:27:19] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:27:19] Harv Nagra: think really helpful. ’cause I’ve been in those situations where the clients don’t want to admit what they’re paying, and then you feel trapped
[00:27:25] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:27:26] Harv Nagra: can I give you a shopping list of a hundred things you could do?
And you’re probably not gonna go for any of it.
[00:27:30] Jason Swenk: Exactly Then. Then the A is the authority. Easy way to tell if they’re the authority is not by their title. You have to ask ’em this question, everything that you told me that you want, how does this align with your overall business objective?
If they go, I don’t know. Who the hell knows, Bob knows. Cool. Can we get Bob on the call?
It’s a nice way of saying
[00:27:51] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:52] Jason Swenk: out of my damn way. And then the T is for timing. Make sure there’s no such thing as a bad agency client. There’s only a bad prospect or a bad process. And if they want something tomorrow and you know it’s gonna take six months, dude, don’t set yourself up for failure.
[00:28:08] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:09] Jason Swenk: Like, move, pivot, get our way. so that’s just part of it, like the qualification. Then you have, like, how do I position to sell the foot in the door? How do I run those foot in the door? How do I train my sales team? Why does the owner always sell better than the sales team?
because they know all the stories. So can you build a, so what we’ve always trained people to do is we build a case story tackle box. So at Agency Mastery, our methodology is this attract, convert, scale. So you have the opportu opportunity to sell. So we create a Trello board. So when I hire, salespeople, I create a Trello board and I have all these success stories for attract.
All these success stories for Convert for selling agencies and all this kind of stuff. So then I share that with them. Then they can reference that based on the challenge. Oh, you’re struggling with leads? Oh, you’re struggling with, you’re doing all the sales. Oh, you’re struggling with all the delivery.
Let me tell you about Philip. Let me tell you about Justin. And before you know it, they have their own stories. They can reference that stories, and they’re way better than you.
[00:29:11] Harv Nagra: Really good advice. Alright, let’s move into system six, which is delivery.
[00:29:15] Jason Swenk: Yeah. So it’s all about, how are you onboarding your clients? How are you setting your team up for success,
[00:29:22] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:23] Jason Swenk: I would always go look, especially if I did the selling or the salesperson would do the selling. They’d be like, look, I know we have a relationship, but you don’t want me managing your project like I have ADD.
I’m hard to reach, right? My team over here is amazing. So you set them up for success and you do a successful handoff. You set those expectations. Like I would always tell people I go, alright, if it’s a nine one one, call me. If it’s a four one one, call your project manager or your account manager.
[00:29:56] Harv Nagra: Yeah.
[00:29:56] Jason Swenk: right?
So clear set expectations, go back over, figure out a process for scope creep. Which always happens, clients will always ask for stuff that was not included, but you have to educate them on it. one thing I’ll tell you in this system, $0 change order. So when someone comes to you for something small, I’d say, cool, Harv, I can do that for you.
It’s outta scope. Like if it was under an hour, he outta scope. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna do it for free. I’m gonna, I’m gonna send you a $0 change order. It’s gonna show you what I would actually charge for it. I just want you to sign it, send it back to me. So you’re training them so when they ask for something big, you can do that.
So you can control the scope creep.
[00:30:38] Harv Nagra: Yep. And you’re dropping that kind of reinforcement that there’s value to this and it’s just not an endless kind of, inbox for changes forever.
Yep, exactly. On, on that point around delivery, Jason, that I really appreciate what you’ve said there, but what can you tell us about kind of profitability or profit leaks? Obviously scope creep is something you have to be on top of. What else do you see happen that we should be looking out for?
[00:31:01] Jason Swenk: what I realized was, before I started time tracking, even if I don’t charge hourly.
[00:31:08] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:09] Jason Swenk: I wasn’t tracking time. And when we started tracking time, what I realized was we were losing money on 60% of our projects and our engagements.
I was lucky
enough that 40% were highly profitable. So we were still in the, in, in the black, green or whatever it is. Like we’re still making money. and so. It all comes down to pricing and really kind of measuring and also having approvals throughout the process.
[00:31:39] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:39] Jason Swenk: So we did a lot of websites and so we would say, here’s the approval for this part, and then if they changed anything out of that, we could go back and do a change order. And having people on your team that are educated enough. And will stand up to the client to say no, or say we can do this, but it’s gonna change the timeline.
It’s gonna change the price. do you wanna do this and make the client say no? that’s one of the easy ways to fix profit leaks.
[00:32:14] Harv Nagra: I don’t think there’s enough training that we do around that piece: upskilling our teams to have those conversations. Perhaps wanting them to have those conversations but not supporting them in understanding how to have those.
[00:32:26] Jason Swenk: People are yes men, right? it comes back to the people that you hire. You gotta say look man, like you’re not telling them no. think about how I just framed that. I’m not saying if you ask for something outta scope, I’m not gonna say, no, we’re not doing that.
[00:32:40] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:40] Jason Swenk: said, what did I say? I said, yes, we can do that.
[00:32:43] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:44] Jason Swenk: It’s going to change this, and this. Do you want us to do that?
[00:32:47] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:48] Jason Swenk: So the client’s saying no, or the client says yes, and then I send them a change order.
[00:32:53] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:54] Jason Swenk: So it’s just easy mind shift things that train your team that, I mean, that’s part of the CEO and leadership is they’re supposed to be coaching and making those people better in your organization.
[00:33:07] Harv Nagra: Yeah, there’s this fear, especially in times where, pipelines are a bit shallower and budgets are a bit tighter, that we’re gonna lose a client if we push back. So there’s like too much elas–, I can’t even say that word right now. Too tired.
too much sway or freedom given to that kind of
[00:33:22] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:33:23] Harv Nagra: But I think it, it’s so important to, to get that right.
[00:33:26] Jason Swenk: you have to, or you’re gonna. You’re gonna lose money and then you’re not gonna be able to pay the right people to save you time. we’re doing this,
[00:33:35] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:35] Jason Swenk: honestly, like to save time. Agencies exist to save brands time because brands could figure all this stuff out.
[00:33:44] Harv Nagra: Yeah. Absolutely. All right, we’re gonna breeze into system seven, which is operations. So talk us through that.
[00:33:51] Jason Swenk: Yeah. it’s really about going back to, who do you need to hire? to, like from finding that right COO. A great operator is going to come into your agency and they’re not gonna create more systems, okay? If you hire an operator. They come in and they look at everything you have and they just start adding on without taking away.
Like I’d be like, oh my gosh. Like a great operator should save that visionary, that CEO, that owner a lot of time, and it should be constantly saying no to them.
[00:34:30] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:31] Jason Swenk: It’s no, dude. Like dude, you’re all over the damn place. You wanna do what? let’s get focused, right? Because we’re not focused.
A great operator comes in. Looks at a system and goes, man, how do I take three systems and make it into one? How do I save my boss time, right? And really looking at the operations and how do I make it more efficient.
[00:34:56] Harv Nagra: the goal is never to create more complexity and difficulty. Right? It’s to unlock and make things more efficient. So, absolutely with you there. what size do you see people start bringing in ops role?
Or do you recommend at least, if you’re at that size, you should have this person in place?
[00:35:14] Jason Swenk: Yeah. Probably right around the million mark or when they have at least Five to 10, and I’m not talking about hiring a COO, right? You’re not at that level yet, at that size. It’s more of hiring, a director of operations to really help you, get to the next part. because if you hire the right person,
[00:35:35] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:37] Jason Swenk: It takes off a lot of pressure ’cause you’re not making all those decisions that you’ve never gone through before.
[00:35:43] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:44] Jason Swenk: and you’re not. Also too, here’s the other thing. You don’t wanna bring in an operator that’s used to working with the biggest agencies in the world.
[00:35:52] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:53] Jason Swenk: Because they’re gonna assume that they had all those resources that they had, with you, which
[00:35:59] Harv Nagra: Yep.
[00:35:59] Jason Swenk: as a smaller agency, you’re scrappy or more resourceful.
[00:36:03] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:03] Jason Swenk: want someone scrappy and resourceful that can pick up the pieces and, I don’t know, take out the garbage where, figure all these little things out that…
They’re not gonna
be like, oh, I used to have a huge team to do this and
at the end of the day, the leaders at the biggest agencies, they were really good at leading, but they were really bad at doing, ’cause they didn’t have to do it anymore and sometimes they didn’t even understand how to do stuff.
[00:36:26] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s fair. you said million in turnover. I think wa was the mark or five to 10?
[00:36:33] Jason Swenk: Mm-hmm. Five to 10 employees? Yes.
[00:36:36] Harv Nagra: Yeah, that’s really interesting. ’cause that is perhaps, smaller than I, I would’ve even thought, which I’d love to hear actually. ’cause we’re all about operations here and I think I completely agree that it unlocks a lot the sooner you bring in those profiles and this kind of internal facing roles, rather than seeing it as a cost and kind of a liability
’cause they’re not billable.
[00:36:56] Jason Swenk: because
[00:36:56] Harv Nagra: it just.
[00:36:56] Jason Swenk: think about a lot of owners of agencies at that size. They’re doing the sales. They’re really good at sales,
[00:37:05] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:06] Jason Swenk: but they’re really bad at managing a team. Like I suck as a manager.
[00:37:12] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:12] Jason Swenk: I’m a good leader, but there’s a totally different, it’s a huge difference. I don’t hire anybody I have to manage, they should manage the themself.
My whole team now, they manage themself and the people that can’t, they have people on my team that manages them because I can’t manage ’em. Like I get frustrated. I’m like, shit, it should have been done already, right? But if it allows me to get more time to focus on sales, I can take that $500,000 agency or a million dollar agency to two,
[00:37:44] Harv Nagra: right?
[00:37:44] Jason Swenk: And then the operator can make it more efficient, more profitable, so then I can bring on more people, eventually hire sales, build up a sales team, and then I can become something different in that organization.
[00:37:56] Harv Nagra: Mm-hmm. Which takes us really nicely into system eight, which is leadership.
[00:38:02] Jason Swenk: so I look at it this way. There’s five roles, right? For an agency, CEO one set, the vision of the company goes back to the first part and communicate it to the team all the time. So now they can make decisions without coming to you.
[00:38:16] Harv Nagra: Yep.
[00:38:16] Jason Swenk: two, be the face of the organization, right? do podcasts, speak on stage, get out there, right?
Like, bring people in because people don’t buy from brands. They buy from people that they like, know and trust, right? Number three, coach and mentor your leadership team and show them how to do that for the team,under them. Number four, understand the KPIs or the financials, understand it.
Don’t be a spreadsheet nerd, right? like I, I showed you my great math skills a little while ago, right? I need, I need to understand like what are the KPIs that I need to be really looking at? And then the last part, build the relationships that only really owners can really build true relationships.
That’s it. And then I always tell people, when you achieve that, congratulations, you’re gonna be completely and utterly depressed. Because the agency doesn’t need you for what you used to do. It needs you for these new roles, and that’s what will take you to wherever you want to go.
[00:39:16] Harv Nagra: I love that there’s something else you talk about, like making the transition from founder to CEO,and what is the difference there?
[00:39:23] Jason Swenk: it’s those five roles, right? A founder is doing anything and everything. They’re in delivery, they’re in sales. They’re, they’re taking out the garbage. They’re doing everything, and they’re trying to, if their team doesn’t do something fast enough, like I was just chatting with a member at our agency experience last week, she’s I had them do this exercise, I said to your team, I want you to send just to the people that report to you. What do you want, me to start doing, stop doing and continue doing. And it’s funny, owners get all these things back. And with Michelle, they were like, stop doing my work because I didn’t do it fast enough.
I said it was gonna be done on this date, but then you did it. And in her mind she was like, I’m helping them out. In their mind, they’re like, they don’t have confidence in me.
So
[00:40:12] Harv Nagra: Yeah.
[00:40:12] Jason Swenk: the difference between an owner and a CEO.
[00:40:16] Harv Nagra: Love that. so those were the eight systems. really quickly, I’m just gonna mention them again. So it was clarity, positioning, offering prospecting, sales, delivery, operations, and leadership. So really appreciate you taking us through that. Out of these eight, do you see some that are underestimated the most or most in need of attention?
[00:40:38] Jason Swenk: three,
[00:40:39] Harv Nagra: First
[00:40:40] Jason Swenk: the foundation. If you don’t have those three dialed in, everything else will crumble.
[00:40:45] Harv Nagra: Okay. Clarity, positioning, offering are the biggest challenges in your
view.
Excellent. So Jason, where can people go and connect with you?
[00:40:52] Jason Swenk: Yeah, go to agencymastery.io. we give out all of our stuff really for free. check out the Smart Agency Masterclass. Have over 800 episodes. so a lot of, a lot of catching up. Had amazing guests on like yourself. so make sure we’ll link to you,on that. and other amazing guests like Seth Godin, the founder of Waze, Guy Kawasaki, but a lot of agency owners you probably never heard of that are amazing as well.
[00:41:18] Harv Nagra: Excellent. That sounds fantastic. We’re gonna put links to all of that in the episode notes so people can go and find that. And yeah, definitely do go check out, smart Agency Masterclass. 12 years, 11 years of content to catch up on, like you said.
[00:41:30] Jason Swenk: Yeah.
[00:41:31] Harv Nagra: it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast.
really enjoyed today’s conversation. Thank you.
[00:41:35] Jason Swenk: Perfect. Thanks for having me.
[00:41:37] Harv Nagra: What I love about Jason’s framework is how universal it is. Whether you’re an agency or a consultancy, the pattern is the same. You can’t scale on talent and hustle alone.
You need clarity, so the team can make decisions without you. You need positioning that speaks to real client challenges. You need an offer that builds trust and leads to predictable revenue. And you need delivery, ops, and leadership systems that protect your margins and give you back time.
If there’s someone in your world who’s grappling with growth ceilings, a COO, a CFO, a founder, please share this episode with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear.
And if you didn’t do this earlier, please take a moment to take the handbook listener survey. It’s bit.ly/handbook25survey.
That’s it for me this week. Thanks very much for joining us.
