The Digital Agency Growth Podcast

What actually drives agency growth when pipelines are noisy, buyers are skeptical, and everyone sounds the same?

In this episode, Dan Englander sits down with Alex Marshall, a longtime agency growth leader with two decades of experience across holding companies and independents, to unpack what really moves the needle. They explore why trust and relevance matter more than tactics, how storytelling shows up late in the sales cycle, an...

What if the agencies that crush Q1 aren't working harder in January, they're making one  or two critical decisions right now, in December?

In this solo episode, Dan reveals why Q1 consistently catches agencies off-guard and what separates those who stumble into the new year from those who hit the ground running. The secret isn't about working through the holidays or setting ambitious goals—it's about installing a...

If you’re planning your 2026 biz dev strategy without real market data, you’re guessing. In this episode, I talk with friend of the show Nicholas Petroski, founder of Promethean Research and creator of the Digital Agency Referral Playbook, about what the numbers actually say—and how top agencies are using referrals, account growth, and GTM clarity to build next year’s plan. This is the clearest look you’ll get at what’s really movi...

Most agencies try to fix pipeline by working harder, but not by working smarter.

This conversation digs into why outbound has gotten tougher, what’s changed in the last decade, and how agencies can build a healthier, more defensible acquisition motion. We cover the shift from brute-force outreach to signal-driven, trust-based systems, why TAM size changes everything, and how sales and marketing need to operate as a single unit for m...

In this episode, Dan Englander sits down with Garrett Jestice, former CMO and founder of Prelude, to unpack how to turn that randomness into a repeatable Go-To-Market (GTM) system that actually compounds.

Garrett helps B2B agencies and service businesses replace scattered marketing efforts with a focused GTM strategy built on customer proof — clarifying audience, offer, messaging, and channels so growth stops being a guessing game.

T...

👉 Want to build referrals systematically instead of relying on luck? Grab my book 📘 Relationship Sales at Scale: https://salesschema.com/book

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In this episode, Dan Englander talks with Brooke MacLean, CEO of Marketwake, one of the Southeast’s fastest-growing digital agencies and a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree. Brooke shares how she bootstrapped Marketwake from a solo consulting gig into an 80-person powerhouse servi...

In this solo episode, Dan Englander breaks down a truth most agency owners quietly suspect: the majority of sales and marketing advice out there was never written for firms like yours.

Most “agency growth” tactics are built for high-volume, productized services with large addressable markets—not for boutique, complex-service agencies selling trust, nuance, and strategy to a few hundred ideal clients.

Dan calls this dynamic “The Great...

Every few months, I like to pause and look back at the ideas that resonated most with agency owners on LinkedIn — the ones that got people talking, DM’ing, and quietly saying yeah, that’s been my experience too.

This episode isn’t about tactics. It’s a quick tour through the lessons that seem to keep coming up again and again in our world, the stuff we all wrestle with if we’ve been selling complex services for a long time. 

Stuff I ...

In this episode, Dan Englander welcomeed Carl Smith, community builder and leader of The Bureau, for a wide-ranging, no-BS conversation on where the agency world is headed.

🧭 What You’ll Learn

• The “Philosophical Futurist” Mindset
  How to face rapid change—especially around AI—without fear or cynicism.
• Inside The Bureau
  The story behind one of the most influential agency communities and how it evolved from a 24-person ret...

Most agencies don’t have a lead generation problem—they have a leverage problem. In this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander dives deep into how agencies can grow faster by amplifying what they already have: past clients, case studies, frameworks, and relationships. Forget chasing the latest marketing fad or new sales channels; sometimes the fastest path to growth is working smarter with the assets already i...

In this episode, I sat down with @Sharon Toerek from Innovative Agency to talk about the real shifts happening in agency business development — and the constant evolution that comes with them. We unpacked why 2025 is the year agencies need to get honest about their positioning, how trust — not information — has become the key currency, and why specialization isn’t just smart, it’s essential for survival.

⏱️ Timestamps

0:00 – Welcome ...

In this episode of the Digital Agency Growth Podcast, I’m joined by Brock Murray, co-founder of seoplus+, a digital marketing agency he launched back in 2012 that has grown into a 50+ person team serving clients across North America and beyond.

Brock shares the arc of his journey, from launching his first web hosting business at 14, to building seoplus+ with his partner Eddie, to scaling through multiple growth stages while navigati...

Most agencies live and die by referrals.

But here’s the catch:

• They usually happen randomly.
• When you do ask for intros, it feels like giving people homework.
• And even if you’re consistent, it’s hard to know where the real opportunities actually are.

In this solo episode, I share my journey from the “analog networking” days of wandering trade shows… to running hundreds of cold campaigns during the trust recession… to finally cr...

In this episode, I talk with @Audrey Kwan in the Small But Mighty Agency, to tackle one of the most misunderstood growth levers in agency land: referrals. Together, they unpack how trust is the new currency in a cold-lead-saturated market—and how smart agencies are building systems around referrals, not just hoping they happen.

⏱️ Timestamps

0:00 – Why cold outreach is failing and trust is everything

2:10 – The rise of trust-based sel...

In this episode of the Digital Agency Growth Podcast, I’m joined by Eric Baum, founder and CEO of Blue Leads—one of the top HubSpot Solutions Partners globally.

Eric shares the full arc of his journey, from accidentally starting an agency after hacking Yellow Pages spend for his plumbing business, to scaling a team of 40+, to building one of the most successful HubSpot implementations agencies in the world.

We dig into what it actual...

Proposals can make or break your agency’s Q4 pipeline. Too vague, and prospects don’t see the value. Too detailed, and they get stuck in analysis paralysis. In this episode, Dan is joined by Joe Ardeeser, founder of Smart Pricing Table, to talk about how agencies can strike the right balance, upsell strategically, and close deals faster as the year wraps up.

Whether you’re facing slow proposals, scope creep, or undercharging, this c...

As summer winds down, many agencies face the same problem: pipelines that dried up in July and August, and a mad dash to generate momentum before year-end. In this episode, Dan lays out a practical action plan for September outreach — how to reset your business development, stand out to brands, and build the right conversations that lead to Q4 results.

This is from Dan’s conversation with Stephen Woessner on the Sell With Authority ...

In this episode, I sit down with Roger Nairn, CEO of JAR Podcast Solutions, to talk about how he’s grown a top-tier production agency working with brands like Amazon, Lululemon, Amex, and Cirque du Soleil.

We get into the systems, sales strategies, and creative positioning that helped him go from “no name, no business plan” to building a client list most agencies dream about.

⏱ Timestamps

00:00 – From hobbyist to first client in four ...

In this episode, I sat down with the Happy Clients Podcast to talk about what’s working in agency sales right now, without the cringe, without the outdated playbooks, and without turning you into a full-time cold caller.

Most agencies can sell for their clients all day, but when it comes to their growth, things can get messy.

I’ve spent the better part of a decade helping agencies stop relying on “hope and referrals” and start buildi...