Agency Bytes is a podcast for owners of creative, marketing, and advertising agencies that packs a ton of important agency information on one topic, from one expert into a 25-minute brief. Why 25 minutes? Because who has the attention span for much more these days, and you can squeeze in a listen between meetings with time for a bathroom break or coffee refill before your next meeting. Agency Bytes is brought to you by Steve Guberman from Agency Outsight. Steve is a 20-year agency veteran who works as a business coach for agencies around the country. He coaches owners of branding, marketing, design, and PR agencies to conquer their goals and overcome their challenges. Learn more about Agency Outsight at www.agencyoutsight.com
Episodes
Thursday Jul 02, 2026
Thursday Jul 02, 2026
Featuring: Jessica Rhodes, Interview Connections
In episode 155, I sit down with Jessica Rhodes, founder of Interview Connections and the entrepreneur who launched the world's first podcast booking agency back in 2013—long before podcast guesting was on anyone's radar.
Jessica shares how a door-to-door canvassing job and a virtual assistant gig for her dad turned into a company that's booked more than 50,000 interviews for over a thousand coaches and business owners. We get into her recent return to the CEO seat, why she eliminated the sales role entirely, and the uncomfortable truth that not everything in your agency needs to be scalable.
For agency owners, this one is a practical look at guesting as a growth channel: how to pitch without sounding like AI spam, why being a guest beats launching your own show (at first), and how to turn a single interview into referrals, repurposed content, and the occasional short-cycle six-figure client.
Key Bytes
• The best pitches aren't scalable—AI blasts fill spots but burn bridges with the hosts worth knowing.
• Podcast guesting moves buyers past price-comparison paralysis by letting them hear your story and personality.
• Nobody else has your story, your values, or your personality—that's what makes you a category of one.
• Be a guest for a few months before launching your own show; they're two different strategies with different payoffs.
• The shortest sales cycle comes from listeners who show up already ready to hand over their money.
• Not everything has to be scalable—know your goal and your timeline before you optimize for growth.
• Get outside your own industry, and you'll be the only marketing agency on that HVAC or manufacturing podcast.
• People hire agencies they're referred to, and podcast hosts make powerful referral partners.
Chapters
00:00 Meet Jessica Rhodes and the first podcast booking agency
00:54 Right place, right time: from stay-at-home mom to founder
05:11 Stepping back into the CEO seat after eight years
07:34 Why she eliminated the sales role (and why not everything scales)
09:40 What makes a great podcast guest in the age of AI pitching
11:56 Turning guesting into education, authority, and new business
15:27 Own show vs. guesting: which to start with and why
19:32 Keeping a podcast fresh 12 years in
23:22 A final guesting strategy for agency owners
25:06 Rapid fire: ChatGPT, thriller novels, and "follow the money"
Jessica Rhodes founded Interview Connections, the world’s first and leading podcast booking agency in 2013, back when no other agencies like it existed. Since its founding, Interview Connections has booked over 50,000 podcast interviews for over 1000 coaches! Jessica is passionate about helping coaches who feel like the best-kept secret grow their business online through genuine, human-to-human connection. The podcast interviews Jessica and her team have booked have helped their clients generate millions of dollars in sales, sell thousands of books, and transform countless lives.
Thursday Jun 18, 2026
Thursday Jun 18, 2026
Featuring: Juliana Marulanda, Scaletime
In episode 153, I sit down with Juliana Marulanda, founder of ScaleTime, who's helped over 1,000 agencies turn themselves into lean, profitable businesses that don't depend on the owner being in every room.
We get into what "scale" actually means once you strip away the buzzword — her SCALE framework for seeing what's happening, building a baseline, amplifying with systems and AI, leading and delegating, and designing an exit on your own terms. Juliana shares why so many agencies stall at the same revenue marks, why managers without systems can't move the needle, and how to bookend AI with human strategy and human review.
If you've ever felt chained to a business you started because you loved the work, this one's about getting your choice back. Juliana makes a grounded case that freedom isn't a vague promise — it's the ability to decide what you do with your day, and to build a business that runs whether you're there or not.
Key Bytes
• Scale isn't a vanity word — it's the ability to choose what you do with your day instead of being chained to the work you started.
• Most owners stall around $1.2–1.3M because they overthink instead of just doing the sales and getting cash in the door.
• Crossing $3M takes managers, but managers can't manage without systems to run and performance to measure.
• Reaching eight figures takes leaders who can set direction without you — which means delegating strategy, the scariest handoff of all.
• AI isn't set-it-and-forget-it; it's create, manage, and iterate, with a human bookending both the strategy and the quality check.
• Build to sell even if you never sell — because the exit isn't always your choice, and a sellable business is a well-run one.
• Running on guesswork and gut catches up with you; visibility and metrics are what let managers manage and owners step back.
• Freedom of choice beats "freedom" as a slogan — design the business around the life you want, not the other way around.
Chapters
00:00 The ScaleTime origin story
01:13 From Wall Street to running million-dollar event ops
04:30 Why nobody wants to manage
05:43 The trends reshaping agencies right now
10:23 The four levels of AI adoption
13:00 Bookending AI with human strategy and review
14:02 Defining scale and the SCALE framework
19:09 Optionality and designing freedom of choice
22:18 The inflection points where agencies get stuck
28:30 Rapid-fire questions and closing thoughts
With over 20 years of experience across Wall Street, the nonprofit sector, technology startups, and family-owned businesses, Juliana Marulanda, founder at ScaleTime, has served over1k+ digital agencies. Featured by Forbes and Entrepreneur, Juliana helps uplevel businesses into lean, mean, profitable machines. On average, she and her team create ways to free up at least 30 hours per week for her clients so they can have successful agencies that run without them. Founders can find themselves saying “I do what I want, how I want, whenever I want” - Now that is freedom. Juliana is passionate about providing audiences with invaluable tools that they can use instantly to start improving their business. Her wealth of agency growth secrets and expertise in growth management will put agency owners and marketers on the path to scaling a business.
Connect with Juliana on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, her website, or get her Scale Map here.
Tuesday May 12, 2026
Tuesday May 12, 2026
Featuring Guest Host: Todd Giannattasio, Tresnic Media
In episode 150, I flipped the mic. To kick off Season 4, I handed the host chair to my friend Todd Giannattasio of Tresnic Media — a returning guest from episode 10, and the guy who helped me name Agency Outsight in the first place.
This one's more personal than most. Todd walks me through my journey from screw-off art kid to graphic designer to accidental agency owner, the acquisition that should have been the first of many, selling my agency, and the grief that ultimately reshaped how I think about purpose, work, and what a business is really for. We get into the asset mindset, programmatic M&A as a growth lever, why most founders pay themselves last (and shouldn't), and the copycat goals that keep agency owners chasing someone else's dream.
If you've ever wondered what's actually on the other side of an exit — or whether you're building a business or just a really demanding job — this is the conversation.
Key Bytes
• Most agency founders accidentally build a job, not an asset — and the difference shows up the day you try to sell.
• Programmatic M&A unlocks exponential growth that organic effort simply can't match.
• Buying talent is faster, safer, and more predictable than hiring it.
• You don't need a truckload of cash to acquire — SBA loans, earnouts, and seller financing make deals possible at almost any size.
• Paying yourself last isn't noble — it's a habit that quietly devalues the business you built.
• Copycat revenue goals pull founders into chasing numbers that mean nothing to their actual life.
• Grief, burnout, and life events have a way of forcing the clarity most founders avoid.
• Creative empathy — not tactics — is still the most underrated edge agency owners have.
Chapters
00:00 Flipping the mic: why Todd is interviewing me
02:47 From screw-off art kid to graphic designer
05:30 Starting the agency with ego and no business plan
08:25 The acquisition I should have repeated four times
11:00 Selling the agency and what came after
14:30 Grief, COVID, and finding purpose in the garden
17:10 Launching Agency Outsight and pricing it on instinct
21:40 The asset mindset: building enterprise value
26:00 Programmatic M&A as the real growth lever
30:15 Why founders pay themselves last (and shouldn't)
33:00 Copycat goals and chasing someone else's dream
36:00 Rapid-fire questions and closing thoughts
Steve Guberman is the founder of Agency Outsight and the host of Agency Bytes, the podcast for agency owners who want real conversations about building, growing, and eventually selling the business they've worked so hard to create. A former agency founder who successfully exited his own firm, Steve now coaches creative, marketing, and digital leaders through the challenges of growth, positioning, and the complex decisions that come with scaling or selling an agency. As both a coach and M&A advisor, he helps owners see what truly drives long-term value — financially and personally — and through Agency Bytes, he brings that same lens to every conversation, pulling honest stories and hard-won lessons from the agency world's most respected leaders.
Todd Giannattasio is the founder of Tresnic Media, where he helps brands grow online through systems built on what he calls Helpful and Humanized marketing — a combination of fundamental principles and modern strategy that's earned him features in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Huffington Post. A veteran marketer with more than two decades in digital communications, Todd has worked with brands ranging from Universal Records and BASF to growing startups and small businesses, giving him a rare perspective on what actually moves the needle at every stage of growth. Certified through DigitalMarketer, HubSpot, and the Jordan Belfort Straight Line Sales and Persuasion System, he's also a sought-after speaker at top events for entrepreneurs and innovators across the country — and a longtime friend of the show, returning to Agency Bytes to flip the mic and interview Steve for this Season 4 kickoff.