Navigating Agency Life vs. Corporate Stability

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RJ Huebert went from corporate comfort to agency chaos—and nearly lost himself in the process. In this episode, he shares what it really takes to balance speed-to-lead sales with sanity, and how he’s redesigning his agency life for more freedom, better clients, and real personal wellbeing.

Guest Overview

RJ Huebert is the founder of HBT Digital, a Pittsburgh-based lead gen agency helping clients capture high-quality leads through digital ads that convert. Former corporate marketer turned agency founder, RJ knows both sides of the game—and why it’s harder than it looks.

What You’ll Learn

• Why corporate escapees struggle more than expected in agency life
• The underrated power of speed in lead gen (and what most teams screw up)
• How to nurture not-yet-ready leads without annoying them
• What happens when your business always comes before your health and family
• How RJ is reclaiming time and rebuilding systems

Key Takeaways

• Speed wins deals: If your sales team isn’t responding within minutes, you’re losing leads.
• Nurture with value: Use short, high-impact videos instead of stale PDFs.
• Even Meta is doing email wrong: Don’t copy the big guys—build trust instead.
• Agency life means 20 clients, not one boss: And that requires stronger boundaries.
• Health > Hustle: RJ’s learning that health, family, and freedom must come first.
• The solution? Systems: You can’t scale or shut your brain off without them.

Are you working harder than ever, but still can’t turn your brain off—even on weekends? Today’s featured guest is one of the many agency owners who has found it hard to find the right balance to take care of himself as well as the business. Like many agency owners, he made the leap from building someone else’s business to finally building his own. But trading a cozy corporate job for the chaos of running an agency with dozens of clients wasn’t as easy as it looked.

He shares the real challenges of sales, why speed is still the secret to winning leads, and how he’s figuring out how to convert prospects who aren’t quite ready to buy. Most importantly, he opens up about the ongoing struggle to find the right balance between health, family, and keeping the agency growing.

RJ Huebert is the founder of HBT Digital, a Pittsburgh-based lead generation agency helping clients pull in quality leads using online ads that actually convert. After 11 years of climbing the corporate marketing ladder, RJ got tired of building someone else’s dream and decided to bet on himself—and it’s paying off.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Why he stopped building someone else’s dream.

• How speed wins in lead generation. Always be first to respond.

• Ways to nurture leads that are not ready to buy.

• Why boundaries and self care are more important now than ever.

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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.

Building Someone Else’s Empire? Here’s the Wake-Up Call

Like many agency owners before starting their own business, RJ was the corporate marketing guy building someone else’s business, getting them rich, while rising through the ranks and learning how to actually drive results with digital marketing. Also like many others, he hit a moment of questioning whether it was worth it after eleven years.

Sound familiar?

That’s when he decided it was time to test if people would actually pay him for these skills. He got some clients on the side, launched a 5K race company, and eventually opened his own digital marketing agency, proving that you can take your skills and build your own agency if you’re willing to start.

The Attribution Struggle He Faced as an Agency Client

From his experience hiring agencies on the corporate side, one of the biggest frustrations RJ encountered was the attribution nightmare. It wasn’t always easy to see where the lead came from and where they were at in the pipeline. This was some ten years ago, so every agency was siloed: SEO, PPC, outdoor, TV—and each claimed leads but no one could prove it.

And even today, with GA4, HighLevel, UTMs, and tag managers, the truth is:

“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

We’re bombarded with data, but turning it into actionable insight is another story. RJ prefers to establish a baseline, track what matters, and avoid drowning in vanity metrics - like open rates—that don’t impact the client’s bottom line.

Why Speed to Lead Still Wins

Both RJ and Jason agree that speed to lead wins deals.

If you’re not calling leads while they’re still on your website you are likely losing opportunities. Just like you probably click on the first result in a Google search, whoever calls back first is going to win.

If your sales team is still waiting hours (or days) to follow up, you’re leaving money on the table.

Rethinking Nurture Sequences Without Being “That Guy”

Even if you’re not converting them right away, how are you nurturing those leads in a way that doesn’t feel like overkill? First of all, replace boring white papers with short, actionable videos that deliver instant value.

For example, Jason’s Budget Buster video helps prospects get budgets 99% of the time, creating immediate ROI and building trust. Follow that with another bite-sized value piece a few days later. Once leads warm up, move them to your newsletter list.

Have some lead magnets ready, like useful videos you can send each week to warm up that client. After that, you can move that client from the “warm-up” list to a newsletter list, so you can send them valuable content on a daily basis.

Sending daily value-packed emails to engaged subscribers actually increased their domain authority and engagement.

It’s about quality frequency, not spam. Think about what you’d want to receive yourself, not just what you want to send.

The Meta & Google Frustration We’re All Tired Of

Not even Meta is getting emails right, as they send multiple emails a day that don’t really add much value for clients. On top of that, their reps hardly ever provide the right solutions and are mainly focused on “spend more” strategies.

It’s a universal frustration for agency owners, who see Meta is calling clients directly trying to cut their agency out.

It’s one more reason why agencies need to protect their positioning, control client conversations, and not let the platforms dictate strategy.

From One Client to Twenty: The Real Agency Rollercoaster

What’s the hardest shift going from corporate to owning your agency? For RJ, it was going from one clear client you’re focusing on at one moment to having even 20 clients, plus “trying to get clients to pay you, to keep paying you, while finding new ones, and keeping them happy.”

Running an agency turned out to be way harder than he expected. Corporate can be robotic and boring, but on the bright side, you have one client: your boss. Lose that, and you’re done.

In the agency world, a client can fire you, but you’ve got 5, 10, or 20 others paying the bills. The flip side? You’re always on. Even when you’re “off,” your mind is stuck on proposals, scope creep, and that client’s weird Slack message at 10 pm. That’s one of the biggest challenges for RJ at the moment.

Setting Your Priorities Straight with The Right Systems

When it comes to taking care of yourself, your priorities should always be: Health, Family, Agency—In That Order.

However, too often agency owners get their priorities backwards. You have a zillion things you can and should be doing and choosing the priority is the challenge.

That balancing act gets easier once you build the right leadership team and put systems in place that pull you out of the weeds.

But agency owners often struggle to shut their brains off, leading to constant stress, scattered priorities, and burnout cycles that can wreck family time, health, and even your love for the business.

If you’re stuck in the chaos, it’s time to step back and prioritize what actually moves the needle in your agency.

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