Agency Giants

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The Agency Giants Podcast - Episode 42 (Andy Nairn)
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They started an agency with zero clients. On purpose.

Then they turned down a huge account. No pitch needed.

A few years later, Amazon handed them the Super Bowl.

Lucky Generals became the first British agency ever to win the public vote for best ad at the Super Bowl.

I asked co-founder Andy Nairn how.

His answer wasn’t what I expected.

And the best new business move they ever made? It wasn’t outbound, or ads.

It was something most agency owners would never think of.

Andy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-nairn-0a03396
Lucky Generals: https://luckygenerals.com/
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdO5xp5occOyeEZ2GCD21gqDKLz8Z8-Ak
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🎧 Stream on your favorite audio platform:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-agency-podcast/id1755717870
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jmr989Mkl4EJQ6AyAzJfE
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/64e31809-88d4-43a3-b2e3-e59caf73aec4/the-agency-podcast
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00:00 How a Small London Agency Landed the Super Bowl
02:24 From Studying Law to Chief Strategy Officer: Andy’s Path
11:14 A Failed Merger & the Birth of Lucky Generals
17:34 Winning Clients Without Outbound: PR, Saying No & Writing a Book
27:05 Founder Partnerships & Selling a Stake to Omnicom
34:20 Scaling to 150 People Without Losing the Culture
41:14 Opening in New York & UK vs US Marketing Culture
47:06 Protecting Creativity at Scale & Where AI Fits In
52:31 Virgin Atlantic, Pitching With Conviction & Turning Clients Down

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The Agency Giants Podcast - Episode 41 (Gautam Khorana)
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Today's guest runs a web design agency with 100+ developers!

But if he started today? One man. No team. Just AI

Gautam Khorana, the co-founder of Seahawk Media, shares with us:

• The $60 a month AI tool he’d give any broke founder to start making money tomorrow

• Why “pinch and zoom” websites are the easiest clients you’ll ever find

• How he builds recurring revenue with maintenance plans from $49 to $600/mo

• Why he thinks AEO is massively overhyped (spicy one, this)

• Programmatic SEO, crawl budgets & why going slow wins

Trust me, if you run an agency & you’re not utilising a single AI tool we mention in this episode... this is your wake-up call!

Gautam's IG: https://www.instagram.com/gautamkhorana/
Seahawk Media: https://seahawkmedia.com/
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdO5xp5occOyeEZ2GCD21gqDKLz8Z8-Ak
__________________________________________
🎧 Stream on your favorite audio platform:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-agency-podcast/id1755717870
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jmr989Mkl4EJQ6AyAzJfE
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/64e31809-88d4-43a3-b2e3-e59caf73aec4/the-agency-podcast
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agencygiantspodcast/
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agencygiants
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00:00 From Family Jewellery Business to a 100-Dev WordPress Agency
05:33 Inbound Leads, Merging Agencies & Choosing a Co-Founder
09:09 Running a Global Remote Team: Hiring & Accountability
12:13 Host List: Fixing Hosting's Customer Acquisition Problem
20:00 Will AI Kill WordPress? Vercel, Netlify & Headless
24:38 How Seahawk Uses AI: WP Maintain & Headless WordPress
28:25 Why Developers Resist AI (And What It's Costing Them)
37:30 White Label Growth, AI Builders & the Maintenance Layer
41:21 AI Workflow Pro Tips: Audits, Planning & Design
45:18 Building MRR: Maintenance Plans & Automated Support
48:33 Investor Fallout, Self-Hosting & the Falling Cost of AI
54:20 Staying Focused on WordPress & the Long-Term Vision
1:00:48 Why WordPress Won & How the Web Will Evolve
1:11:12 Starting Today: The One-Man Web Agency
1:22:12 Quickfire: AEO Hype, Programmatic SEO & Crawl Budgets

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The Agency Giants Podcast - Episode 40 (Kelly Allison)
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This week on Agency Giants, I sat down with Kelly, founder of KVA.

She started the agency in the back bedroom of a tiny flat, on maternity leave, with £100 in the bank.

Over a decade later, KVA is one of the UK's top digital transformation agencies & one of the 50 Most Inspiring Places to Work in the UK.

But it's not been a smooth ride. Trust me.

Almost overnight, revenue dropped from £300K a month to £20K. She was losing £100K+ a month & had no choice but to pivot.

So she rebuilt the agency around a fully agentic AI workforce, trained by her senior team, & cut her prices in half.

Kelly's IG: https://www.instagram.com/the.culturequeen/
KVA: https://www.kvadigital.co.uk/
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdO5xp5occOyeEZ2GCD21gqDKLz8Z8-Ak
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🎧 Stream on your favorite audio platform:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-agency-podcast/id1755717870
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jmr989Mkl4EJQ6AyAzJfE
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/64e31809-88d4-43a3-b2e3-e59caf73aec4/the-agency-podcast
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Follow us on all platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agencygiantspodcast/
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agencygiants
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00:00 Intro
01:11 What an In-House Agentic AI Workforce Actually Looks Like
03:11 From Junior Designer to Starting an Agency on Maternity Leave
10:44 Why Headcount Is the Wrong Measure of Success & Sacking a £1M Client
14:53 People Problems, Burnout, Divorce & Learning to Live in the Present
19:33 From Healthcare Niche to Humanising AI Adoption for Clients
25:12 Building the Internal AI System: Training Agents on Your Senior Team's Thinking
29:36 "The Agency Model Is Dead": Halving Prices & Losing 90% of Revenue in Two Weeks
38:53 Using AI in Regulated Industries: Guardrails & Human Quality Control
43:03 Essential AI Tools, Model Choices & Licensing Your System to Other Agencies
50:14 Culture Queen: Unlimited Holiday, Team Trips to Saint Lucia & Richard Branson
57:31 Women-Owned Businesses, LinkedIn Algorithm Bias & Hiring for Balance
1:11:28 The Five-Year Plan, Four-Day Week & Commission for Every Employee
1:18:01 Starting From Scratch Today & Quick-Fire Questions

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The Agency Giants Podcast - Episode 39 (Ben Foster)
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This week on Agency Giants, I sit down with Ben from The SEO Works, one of the UK's leading SEO agencies.

When Ben joined the business, it was doing just under £1M in turnover & making zero profit.

Fast forward to today, they've grown to £6M+, a team of 65, & over 20,000 top-three Google rankings for their clients.

Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benfoster99
The SEO Works: https://www.seoworks.co.uk/
FREE Agency Owners Community: https://www.skool.com/agencyowners
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdO5xp5occOyeEZ2GCD21gqDKLz8Z8-Ak
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🎧 Stream on your favorite audio platform:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-agency-podcast/id1755717870
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jmr989Mkl4EJQ6AyAzJfE
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/64e31809-88d4-43a3-b2e3-e59caf73aec4/the-agency-podcast
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Follow us on all platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agencygiantspodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencygiantspodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agencygiants
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00:00 Introduction
01:09 Joining an Existing Agency: Ben's Path to Managing Director
10:05 Restructuring for Scale: Pods, Going National & New Services
12:36 Marketing an SEO Agency: LinkedIn, Paid Search & EGC
19:03 Hiring Lessons & Promoting Leaders from Within
24:23 Inside the Pod Structure at 60+ Staff
31:06 The Secret Behind 20,000 Top-Three Google Rankings
36:18 ChatGPT, AI Overviews & Optimising for AI Search
51:02 Employee Ownership: Selling the Agency to Its Staff
56:42 The Future of Agencies in an AI World
1:03:59 Quickfire Questions

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The Agency Giants Podcast - Episode 38 (Sam Olsson)
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Websites went from 150 million to 2 billion once Shopify & simple website builders made them easier to build. 

Apps are about to do the same thing, because AI has made building one effortless.

That's a projected 13x wave of new apps, & every one of them needs an agency to grow it.

Sam Olsson saw it coming. He pivoted Kurve into app growth when most agencies wouldn't touch it, & built the go-to, award-winning agency in the market.

Sam's LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/niall-ratcliffe
Kurve: https://kurve.co.uk/
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Work With Me 👉 https://www.affluent.academy/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=agencypod&utm_term=interview&utm_content=563d
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FREE Agency Owners Community: https://www.skool.com/agencyowners
__________________________________________
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdO5xp5occOyeEZ2GCD21gqDKLz8Z8-Ak
__________________________________________
🎧 Stream on your favorite audio platform:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-agency-podcast/id1755717870
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jmr989Mkl4EJQ6AyAzJfE
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/64e31809-88d4-43a3-b2e3-e59caf73aec4/the-agency-podcast
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Follow us on all platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agencygiantspodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencygiantspodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agencygiants
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00:00 Intro
01:10 Curiosity, Failure & the Road from Potatoes to Digital
10:43 How Kurve Became an Agency & Won Its First Clients
16:10 Inbound Strategy: Creating Content to Rank in LLM Search
19:08 Creative-Led Growth: Why Targeting Died & What Replaced It
23:31 App Marketing vs B2C: Living in the Apple & Google Duopoly
29:04 When Ads Don't Work: Telling Founders the Hard Truth
37:05 Niche Specialisation & Building an App Ecosystem
49:13 AI's Impact on Agencies & the Future of Software
58:27 What's Next for Kurve & the Rise of Operator Agencies
1:00:29 Will AI Drive Prices Down? Where Agency Value Really Lies
1:09:22 Advice for New Starters & Building Toward an Exit
1:13:25 Rapid Fire: Stop Doing This, Dream Clients & Must-Reads
1:18:37 The Biggest Lesson in Managing Managers