Growing through COVID and pivoting

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What if growth doesn't make things easier but actually just raises the stakes? Agency life looks glamorous from the outside, but the real growth usually starts in the messy middle. Today's featured guest just wanted to build something of her own, but quickly learned that growth means the challenges get harder, instead of easier, and that your client and team retention will always be the best measures of success, since it means you've managed to build a business that has a real impact on clients and a culture people never want to leave.

She'll share the pressure she felt as the agency got bigger, how she learned to celebrate the little wins, and how she built a culture that has truly worked as a strategic advantage.

Elyse Lupin is the president and founder of Elysium Marketing Group, a full-service agency specializing in food and franchise marketing. With more than a decade of running the business, she has scaled from a new mom charging a thousand bucks for her first client to leading a well known, franchise-focused marketing team recognized for expertise, execution, and a culture clients genuinely enjoy working with.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Why growth gets harder as your agency scales.

• 2 metrics that actually predict agency success.

• How culture became her agency's competitive advantage.

• The importance of letting go instead of babysitting tasks.

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

How Mentoring Can Be the Push You Need

Elyse started her agency during what most people would consider the absolute worst time to make a career change. She had a newborn, a mortgage, and a job that drained her every morning as she left her child in daycare. That friction reached a breaking point.

A mentor tossed out traditional job options, but Elyse surprised even herself when she said, "I just want to start my own thing." Instead of talking her out of it, that mentor became her first client. It's one of those decisions you look back on and realize how thin the line is between staying stuck and building something you love.

In the early days, she charged way too little, as nearly all agency owners do for those first engagements. But like she said, ignorance can be a gift. When you are early and scrappy, you move fast and celebrate every small win because you have no idea what's coming next.

Why Growth Gets Harder, Not Easier

After eleven years, Elyse said she was shocked by how the difficulty of running an agency evolves. Things do get easier in some ways, but each stage comes with a new complexity level.

As the agency grew, so did the pressure to hire better people, keep up quality, retain clients, and juggle new demands that never existed in the early days. You go from hands-on fulfillment to team building to culture shaping to visionary leadership. Each level is a different skill set and none of it is simple.

Scaling is not a victory lap. It is a longer, more strategic version of the same game you started with: solve the next problem without losing momentum.

For Elyse, it's all about stopping to celebrate the little wins and let herself enjoy watching her team crush new challenges.

2 Metrics That Predict Agency Success: Client and Team Retention

A lot of agency owners fall into the trap of measuring success by employee count or top line revenue. Elyse prefers to track retention. She considers it far more meaningful.

Clients only stick around if they are getting results and some of her clients have been with her agency since the beginning. Employee retention matters just as much, because no amount of growth means anything if the team delivering the work is burning out or bailing.

Even during COVID, when most of their food clients disappeared overnight, Elyse's agency found a way to pivot into B2B, protect the team, and still grow. Not at the same pace, but still upward. That speaks to culture, resilience, and leadership.

In the end, what really matters is how happy you are in the business, whether or not your team is happy, and how profitable the business actually is. These are the things that will guarantee you stay in business and not start to resent it.

How Culture Becomes an Agency's Competitive Advantage

Elyse's agency has a spirit week. costume day. concert tshirt day. team jersey day. They joke about team members hearing her excitement through the office walls. But behind the fun is something serious. A happy team performs better, stays longer, and delivers higher quality work.

She also implemented rituals that reinforce positivity and growth. Every Friday on remote days, they kick off with Wins of the Week. Team members spotlight others who went above and beyond, which forces everyone to pause and recognize progress.

Then there is Elysium Advancement, a bi-weekly internal training where someone teaches a new AI tool or system. It keeps the whole agency sharp without overwhelming everyone with the nonstop flood of new tech.

Finding the Balance Between a Remote and In-Person Team

Elyse's agency is in office Monday through Thursday and remote on Fridays. She believes their productivity is higher together, especially since half the business is design focused. Instead of 15 email threads, they solve problems in 30 second conversations.

Some teams thrive remote. Others thrive together. The important thing is knowing which one your agency needs. For them, an in-person environment helps them move faster and design better.

Letting Go: Building Leaders Instead of Babysitting Tasks

Most agency founders struggle with this. Elyse has built three strong department heads who now own their areas. Sure, she still has a hand in more than she probably should, but the structure is finally allowing her to think bigger instead of babysitting tasks.

She also knows what her team would tell her to stop doing. Being too loud in the office. Which, as problems go, is one of the funnier ones.

The Power of Picking a Niche

Years ago, Elyse heard this very podcast's advice about niching down and resisted it. Like most agency owners, she felt her client base was too broad to narrow down.

After COVID, she finally made the leap and put a stake in the ground around franchise marketing. She got her Certified Franchise Executive credential, doubled down on franchising events, and made franchise marketing a core part of the brand.

And the decision paid off immediately. Franchise systems want a partner who understands their world, their FDDs, their local store marketing needs, and their complexity. Her agency became that partner. And with that clarity came authority, opportunity, and recognition.

Niching did not reduce her client pool. It strengthened her position and made her easier to hire.

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