Handpicked agency resources
A curated stack of books, podcasts, newsletters, articles, communities, directories, and tools that have actually helped agency owners build better businesses — vetted personally by me, Chris Bolton, after 15+ years running and advising agencies.
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Tools & Job Board · Books · Articles · Podcasts · Newsletters · Coaches & Consultants · Communities · Conferences
Tools & Job Board
Tools and the Agency Job Board now live at Great Work Guild, our agency directory and resource hub.
Agency Tools
CRMs, project management, time tracking, proposals, reporting — the working software stack for modern agencies.
Agency Job Board
Open roles at agencies of all sizes — from solo studios hiring their first PM to mid-size shops looking for leadership.
Agency Books
An opinionated list of the books that have actually shaped how agency owners think about their craft and their businesses — lightly grouped for navigation.
Strategy, positioning & pricing
- The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns — required reading on positioning, pricing, and walking away from bad-fit clients.
- Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns — the practical playbook companion to Win Without Pitching — most-cited pricing book in agency circles.
- The Business of Expertise by David C. Baker — how expert firms grow, written by someone who’s advised hundreds of them.
- The Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors by David C. Baker — Baker’s newest, sharper than Business of Expertise — aimed at solo and small expert firms.
- Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith — old but foundational. The book on marketing professional services.
- Hourly Billing Is Nuts by Jonathan Stark — short and free. A persuasive case against hourly billing in two evenings of reading.
Building & scaling the business
- The Boutique by Greg Alexander — how to start, scale, and sell a professional services firm.
- Built to Sell by John Warrillow — building a services firm that’s actually sellable — even if you’re not selling now, it forces the right structure.
- Profit First by Mike Michalowicz — cash management framework most agency owners eventually adopt or wish they had.
- Traction by Gino Wickman — not agency-specific, but EOS is one of the cleanest ways to actually run a small business.
- The Marketing Agency Blueprint by Paul Roetzer — a must if you offer digital marketing services. Core teachings still valuable despite the 2011 publication date.
Craft, culture & founder philosophy
- Agency: Starting a Creative Firm in the Age of Digital Marketing by Rick Webb — a great founder’s memoir from one of the people who built The Barbarian Group.
- Rework by Jason Fried & DHH — opinionated philosophy on running small, profitable, focused teams.
- Made to Lead by Karl Sakas — quick read with wise advice for creative agency leaders. Good to pull out when you need leadership inspiration.
- Design Is a Job by Mike Monteiro — opinionated, profane, true. You don’t need to be a designer to love it.
- Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug — the UX/UI bible. If your agency touches design in any way, read it.
Articles worth reading
The pieces I keep coming back to and recommending to agency owners.
Pick the right agency team structure: 5 options to scale
By Karl Sakas
Bad team structure can be debilitating; good scalable structure can mean steady growth for years.
7 magic words to kill scope creep
By Karl Sakas
Karl’s direct approach to one of the most universal agency problems.
How to delegate sales as an agency owner
By Karl Sakas
Chunk out the sales role to reduce founder dependence and stop being the bottleneck.
How we built a powerful $4M agency sales system — with only 2 people
By Jeff Archibald
Concrete, replicable sales pipeline mechanics from a founder who built it.
Behind the scenes with an agency with no employees
By Brooks Digital
A good reminder that agencies come in many shapes — including very small ones that print money.
Your creative firm is a single building with two rooms
By David C. Baker
I’m a sucker for good metaphors. This one will stick with you.
Putting the final nail in the timekeeping coffin
By David C. Baker
Hourly billing is a flawed tool, but knowing when to use it can still work to your benefit.
Rethinking the case study, again
By Newfangled
How’s your case-study game? This piece will probably make you rewrite a few.
12 ways to raise prices without ticking off your customers
By American Express
Practical pricing-conversation playbook. If you’re wondering whether to raise your prices — you probably should.
Why your agency needs to specialize (and how)
By Blair Enns
The Win Without Pitching essays remain the canonical case for positioning your firm narrowly.
The two-list strategy for managing your time
By Warren Buffett (via James Clear)
Not agency-specific, but the discipline of saying no to good ideas is the single most useful skill an agency owner can build.
…or browse the full articles page.
Best agency podcasts
Shows I actually listen to. None of these are prescriptive ‘here’s the one true way’ podcasts.
The Creative Agency Podcast
Hosted by Chris Bolton · 45-55 min per episode
My own show. Long-form interviews with founders and leaders of creative agencies on what actually worked (and what didn’t).
Build a Better Agency
Hosted by Drew McLellan · 35-45 min per episode
Drew has a casual, thoughtful interview style. No prescriptive ‘do this or you suck’ energy — just useful conversations.
2Bobs: Conversations on the Art of Creative Entrepreneurship
Hosted by David C. Baker & Blair Enns · 45-60 min per episode
Two of the sharpest minds in agency advisory talking positioning, pricing, and client relationships. Dense, opinionated, essential.
Smart Agency Masterclass
Hosted by Jason Swenk · 25-40 min per episode
Tactical interviews with agency owners, focused on growth, sales, and ops. High episode volume so there’s always something fresh.
The Digital Agency Show
Hosted by UGURUS · 20-35 min per episode
Succinct interviews, great guests. Some tasteful self-promo for UGURUS, but the content is solid.
The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast
Hosted by Rob Kischuk · 30-40 min per episode
Conversations with marketing-agency leaders on their journeys and the playbooks that got them there.
Bureau Briefing
Hosted by Bureau of Digital · 30-50 min per episode
From the Bureau of Digital crowd. Honest conversations with digital-agency operators on the unglamorous reality of running the business.
More details on the full podcasts page.
Newsletters worth your inbox
Subscribing to the right two or three of these will sharpen your thinking faster than any course.
Karl Sakas — Agency Advisor
Weekly emails from one of the most-quoted agency advisors working today. Practical, no fluff, often built around real client questions.
Drew McLellan — Agency Management Institute
Long-running weekly newsletter from the AMI ecosystem. Practical agency management advice with a distinct US-mid-size-shop bent.
Blair Enns — Win Without Pitching
Less frequent, more dense. When Blair sends something, you read it — on positioning, pricing power, and saying no.
David C. Baker — Punctuation
Sharp, sometimes-uncomfortable essays on expertise firms. He’s advised more agencies than almost anyone alive.
Jonathan Stark — Daily List
Short, daily emails on value-based pricing and consulting business mechanics. Skim a week of them; you’ll be sold.
Pia Silva — No BS Newsletter
Hard-edged advice for solo branding studios and small creative shops. Anti-fluff, anti-hourly, anti-being-busy.
Brent Weaver — UGURUS
Practical sales and growth playbooks aimed at digital agencies in the $250K–$2M range.
Jeff Archibald — Smart Like How
Less frequent but always worth reading. Jeff writes about agency sales, scaling, and the systems that actually compound.
Grow Your Agency — from me
My own occasional dispatches on what’s changing for agencies, what clients are asking for, and what’s working in the community.
Coaches & Consultants
When you’re stuck on a specific problem, the right outside perspective is usually faster than another course. The directory below lists vetted agency coaches, consultants, and service providers.
Communities
Beyond Grow Your Agency, a handful of communities are worth a serious look depending on your size, region, and focus — Bureau of Digital, Online Geniuses, Agency Mavericks, AMI’s mastermind, and others. Full breakdown with pricing and focus areas on the deep-dive post.
Agency Conferences
Digital Agency Summit
A free online conference (I’ve been invited to speak). Strong speaker lineup. Founded by an agency owner in Singapore.
Owner Summit (Bureau of Digital)
I’ve heard consistently great things from the agency owners I’ve interviewed. Strong real-talk culture, smaller and more intimate than the big trade shows.
Build a Better Agency Summit (AMI)
Drew McLellan’s yearly summit. Strong programming on agency operations, leadership, and sales — the audience skews mid-size US agencies.
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