Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training

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.

Subscribe

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio

Sponsors and Resources

This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you’re leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That’s why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio to get started.

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 people, delivering great work, and staying crazy responsive.

Two big levers driving their growth:

Kevin attributes his agency’s success with client to two main elements:

Rapid response times: Emails, texts, Slack messages… they don’t sit idle.
Obsession with client results: Deliver, retain, and let referrals do the work.

Additionally, he knows it’s not all about attracting new business. Churn is a killer. Retention isn’t sexy, but it’s the secret to compounding revenue.

Inside the Org Chart: A 5-Level Machine

In terms of the deals the agency is closing with clients, Kevin is a big believer that there’s little room to do great work on a monthly basis, which is why he prefers offering six-month contracts that will later get renewed for another six months.

He’s also put a lot of thought into the agency’s organizational structure, which he breaks down into five levels:

Executive Team
VPs
Associate VPs / Directors (each running a service line)
Campaign Managers
Contractors & Specialists

As to him, his role as CEO is divided into three categories:

Coach – Recruiting and leveling up 10x talent across the top team.
Closer – Still active in sales, he sets expectations and closes high-value clients.
Visionary – Driving innovation like launching new services (radio is next!) and adopting tools like ChatGPT for smarter, faster workflows.

You’ll Be Needed Less & Less as a CEO – and That’s Okay

Being a CEO won’t necessarily come naturally to everyone, which is why Kevin has a coach that has taught him how to conduct himself and cast the vision for the agency. He’s also embraced the fact that putting together a capable team will mean getting told they don’t need you to pitch in on every meeting.

“If someone doesn’t need me in a meeting, I’m relieved. It means we’ve built something scalable.”

A true leader should be helpful and keep the company moving forward, which is why Kevin sees his role more as someone who works for everyone at the company, as opposed to the old model where bosses were tyrants that barked orders all day. It’s not easy to lead 200+ employees, and leaders nowadays recognize that the way to do so is not just having a very strong team but also being able to keep them by building a great culture.

From Hustle Mentality to Smart Leadership

Kevin and Jason both admit they had to unlearn the “first one in, last one out” badge of honor.

Many leaders tend to think they have to outwork everyone. Kevin admits he still wrestles with showing up early to prove value—even though the company runs better when he focuses on vision, not presence.

The truth is agency CEOs don’t need to be grinding to be effective. They need to be accessible, and they need to build teams that run without them.

“If I’m on a mountain or a golf course, and I get a call, I’ll answer. But if the team doesn’t need me? Even better,” Jason shares.

This shift, from being the engine to being the guide rail, is one most agency owners struggle with. But letting go (and training others to step up) is the only way you get out of the weeds.

Delegation Isn’t Optional—It’s Leadership 101

Early on, Kevin believed only he could do the work “right.” But that mindset capped his growth—and created unnecessary pressure.

Effective delegation and believing in your team is what makes a great CEO. As he says now, “you have to pass the ball and trust they’ll show up.”

If you're asking, “How should we do this?” you're already in the weeds. The better question is, “Who on my team should own this?”

If you need ideas, start with Jason’s 1 3 1 method to train team decision-making is a killer takeaway:

1: What’s the problem?

3: What are three ways to solve it?

1: What do you recommend?

It’s a simple leadership tool that trains independence—so you’re not the bottleneck every time something needs approval.

You Can’t Build Big if You Can’t Let Go

If you want to make sure you have people on your team who’ll step up after applying the 1 3 1 method, hire people who can manage themselves. Kevin and Jason both agree they’re not built to manage micro-tasks—or people who need micromanaging.

“If I’m going to manage someone, I’ll expect them to do it like me, at my pace, with my level of commitment. And that’s not fair,” Kevin admits.

As owners, your growth is capped by how much you think you have to do. Build a team of leaders—not followers. Give direction, not checklists. And accept that mistakes are part of the process.

In the mastermind, Jason and the members celebrate even the failures—because sharing missteps keeps others from repeating them. That’s how real learning happens.

Client Acquisition That Doesn’t Feel Like Sales

Now let’s talk lead gen.

How did Kevin’s agency bring in over 200 clients? It wasn’t ads. It wasn’t cold emails. It was strategic referrals—and they engineered that pipeline from the ground up.

In Kevin’s view, cold acquisition just doesn’t work well with the amount of competition in his space. Instead, he built a network of warm referrals of ~25 trusted partners.

Each partner gets 10% of the monthly revenue from any referred client.

But more importantly, they only recruit partners who already know Kevin and trust his team to deliver.

“I’m not reaching out cold saying ‘hey, I’ll pay you 10%.’ I’m building real relationships with people who already trust me.”

This warm referral engine is the opposite of passive referrals. It’s intentional, proactive, and mutually beneficial. It scales because Kevin didn’t wait—he built the network years before launching GR0.

Most of the time referrals aren’t scalable. However, when you do it this way—proactively recruiting the right partners—it becomes a one-to-many strategy.

This is a model more agency owners should be thinking about. It’s lower friction, higher trust, and most importantly: it cuts through the noise in a saturated market.

Pricing, Positioning, and Playing the Long Game

One thing Kevin admits he should be raising prices more often.

GR0 started with $3,000/month clients and now charges $8K–$10K for the same package. But that evolution took five years.

Still, their market positioning is clear:

“We’re expensive but fair. Not overpriced, not low-budget. Right in the sweet spot.”

This ties back to the trust built with clients and referral partners alike. If the value is real and the results are consistent, the relationships last.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

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

Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

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