How Do You Scale Your Agency Without Being the Bottleneck? With Kevin Miller | Ep #823

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Are you a CEO still caught in the weeds of day-to-day operations? If so, you're not building a truly scalable business. Today’s episode is here to help you shift that mindset. Our featured guest is a CEO who has grown his agency by focusing on smart leadership—prioritizing culture, developing strong management structures, and intentionally making himself less essential to every meeting.

Like many agency owners, he once believed he had to outwork everyone to prove his worth. But over time, he discovered that the agency performs better when he leads with vision instead of constant presence and that CEOs don’t need to be grinding to be effective. In this conversation, he shares how he came to that realization, what it’s meant for his agency’s growth and client success, how he built a trusted A-team, and more.

Kevin Miller is the co-founder and CEO of Gr0, a performance marketing agency that’s exploded from startup to 200+ clients and over 80 full-time staff in just five years. Before launching GR0 in 2020, Kevin cut his teeth at Google, served as Director of Growth at OpenDoor, and was inspired to jump into the agency world by a friend who built and sold one of the first Facebook-focused DTC agencies.

His background in SEO and paid media, combined with experience at both bootstrapped and venture-backed companies, gives him a rare, well-rounded perspective. Today his mission is clear: build a high-performance team that wins together.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Two levers to driving growth.

• Why CEOs are more effective when they’re not grinding.

• Understanding that delegation is not optional.

• Client acquisition that doesn’t feel like sales.

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Sponsors and Resources

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Getting to See the Possibilities of the Agency Space

Watching a friend grow and sell a Facebook-focused DTC agency helped Kevin clearly see the differences between growing a bootstrap business versus a venture-capital backed business. His friend ended up selling the business for over $100 million, which Kevin hadn’t think it was possible to do in the agency space.

It was an inspiring moment that led to the realization that he too could build and scale his own business, which he chose to do in the SEO niche.

From Zero to 200 Clients: The Growth Playbook

With just half a decade in the agency business, Kevin can see most people just can’t handle it. “Every day is a different game of guacamole with all sorts of people problems.” After all, in this business our product so the best way to guarantee you’re creating a safe environment where people want to stay is to over index on culture.

This is how a young agency can go from scrappy startup to 8-figure beast in half a decade. It’s all about building a culture that attracts and retains A-players.

If your account manager leaves, that client feels like they have to start over. It can be the worst experience for a client and the best way to avoid is to create an environment where everyone feels like part of a team. Kevin runs GR0 like an NBA franchise where everyone’s expected to perform at a high level, without being a burnout factory. He’s also very strict about behavior. No matter how talented you are, you can never be rude to a client or other employees.

It’s a team-first culture with high accountability and even higher standards that has grown fast by keeping