Scaling Leadership: From Owner to Visionary

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Agency owners often stay stuck in delivery because they fear stepping back will tank what’s working. Brent Weaver shares how he transitioned from being the “product” to leading a 300-person agency without burning it all down—and why you need to step up if you want to scale.

What You’ll Learn

• Why staying “in delivery” caps your growth
• How to stop being the product and build leaders around you
• How to set a real “North Star” so your team stops bugging you
• Why you need to know your numbers and stop blaming seasonality
• The mindset shift from VFR (gut decisions) to IFR (data-driven scale)

Key Takeaways

• Your agency won’t scale if you’re stuck in delivery. You must step back and coach leaders if you want freedom and growth.
• Clarity kills chaos. Set a clear vision so your team can act without needing you in every decision.
• Use the 1-3-1 method (1 problem, 3 options, 1 recommendation) to build leaders and stop being the fixer.
• Know your numbers. Seasonality is often a scapegoat for pipeline problems you can fix.
• Every change costs churn. If your change won’t grow you by at least 20%, it’s not worth the churn.
• Stop flying VFR. Use data to run your agency if you want to scale without chaos.

Are you still viewed as a ‘product’ of your agency? Maybe you’ve considered stepping back from the day-to-day but are terrified you’ll break what’s working. Our featured guest is the newly appointed CEO of E2M Solutions and he shares what it’s been like going from being the main “product” at an agency he built and grew, to stepping in to run a 300-person white-label agency.

From losing the fear of breaking what already worked to accepting it’s better if he’s usually not in client call, he explains how he’s grown comfortable in his new role: coaching the core leadership team, amplifying culture, and making sure hundreds of projects and thousands of tasks get executed well. Brent’s journey is packed with lessons on what real leadership looks like when you’re ready to grow.

Brent Weaver is the CEO of E2M Solutions, a 300-person white-label agency helping digital agencies scale through web, digital marketing, and AI services. Before E2M, Brent founded and grew UGURUS, supporting agencies to niche, price, and position better. Now, instead of talking about scaling, he’s deep in the trenches doing it.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Stop being the product and build leaders around you

• How to set a real “North Star” so your team stops bugging you

• Why you need to know your numbers and stop blaming seasonality 

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From “Gainfully Unemployed” to Leading 300 People

A few months before stepping in at E2M, Brent was living the dream: building a halfpipe in his barn and enjoying long walks on his property. Then, he jumped back in, this time not to build a new business, but to lead a 300-person agency that already had a killer product, a strong culture, and a commitment to service.

Brent’s move is the dream scenario for many agency owners who’ve spent years in the grind. He joined a team that’s already winning and is in the process of figuring out how to take it to the next level without screwing it up.

However, running an operation that serves hundreds of clients and handles hundreds of projects every month, the stakes are bigger, the team is bigger, and the impact is bigger. It’s a different kind of pressure.

When You’re No Longer “The Product”

If you’re running a 5–20 person agency, you might feel like stepping up to a 300-person team would just mean 300 people interrupting you all day with Slack pings.

But Brent that’s not how it works at that level. If you want to scale, you have to stop being the product.

At UGURUS, Brent was often the one jumping on client calls to “fix it.” At E2M, he’s focused on coaching the core leadership team, amplifying culture, and making sure hundreds of projects and thousands of tasks get executed well without him being the bottleneck. As he explains, even though he loves speaking to clients, there probably shouldn’t be a situation where he HAS to jump on a call with them.

Brent believes agency owners should begin stepping back from daily agency operations once the team team grows to around 20 people. At this point, you should start to think about your business’s leadership structure, management structure, and spend more time thinking about the “middle” of the business vs. just the vision.

Take note: If you’re stuck in delivery and putting out fires, your agency won’t scale.

Vision: Your Agency’s North Star

If you’ve heard agency owners talk about the business “North Star,” you know how critical it is to set a clear vision your team can rally around.

Your vision doesn’t need to be some sappy paragraph you read before standups. It needs to be clear enough that everyone on your team can make decisions aligned with where you’re going without bugging you every five minutes.

At E2M, Brent and his team know exactly where they’re headed over the next three to five years—and every decision flows from that. This is true freedom to Brent. His vision of freedom is not one where he has lots of time off, but rather one where he can do his job as CEO without being micromanaged and can choose his path towards the agreed strategic objectives.

If you want to stop being the product at your agency and you still don’t have this clarity, your team will constantly come to you, expecting you to make every call. If you want to get out of that cycle, set your North Star. Then, overcommunicate it.

The 1-3-1 Method to Building Leaders

If you’re still solving every problem in your agency, try the 1-3-1 method Jason used:

• What’s the 1 problem you’re facing?

• What are 3 options you’ve considered?

• What’s the 1 you recommend?

Teach your team to think critically and solve their own problems, and you’ll stop being the default fixer. This is how you build leaders inside your agency instead of becoming the only adult in an adult daycare.

Don’t Let “Do No Harm” Paralyze You

For Brent, being a good leader means getting down to why things are working or not working at the agency, with the same level of detail whether things are working or not. As a leader, if you don’t have a firm grip on the business and why it’s going up, down, or staying the same, you can’t get a clear idea of how to improve the company or not damage what’s working.

New CEO’s often come in with the idea of “doing no harm” by changing things too much as they start. Think about it like this: Any meaningful change will cause about 20% churn. If the upside of your change isn’t at least 20% growth, it’s not worth it.

Don’t be afraid of making changes. Just remember that if you decide to change the pricing, pivot your offer, or build a new division, it better be worth the churn it will inevitably create.

This mindset frees you to take the swings that actually move your agency forward.

The Seasonality Cop-Out

If you truly have a firm grip on the business, you’ll also avoid the seasonality cop-out..

“Summer’s slow.” “Everyone’s on vacation.” “Budget freezes in Q4.”

We’ve all heard it, but as Brent learned at Digital Ocean (where you either knew your numbers or got roasted), seasonality isn’t causality.

If you see lead flow drop in the summer, don’t blame the weather.

Look deeper: Are you running events that drive leads earlier in the year but have no Q3 pipeline activity? Do your ad campaigns pause when the kids get out of school?

You don’t fix “seasonality” with wishful thinking. You fix it by identifying the root cause, putting numbers to the impact, and designing campaigns or partnerships to fill the gap.

If you want next June to be different, start planning now. Clarity over confusion wins every time.

Flying VFR vs. IFR: How Agency Owners Get Stuck

With both the interviewer and interviewee being licensed pilots, we of course got this banger analogy when talking about decision-making for agency owners:

• Visual Flight Rules (VFR): You fly by looking out the window, adjusting based on what you see.

• Instrument Flight Rules (IFR): You fly by instruments, allowing you to go further, faster, and more safely.

Most agencies operate under VFR, making gut decisions with limited data. This approach works when you’re small, but to scale, you need to fly IFR, building a data system that tells you what’s working, what’s not, and what needs fixing.

At E2M, Brent is shifting the company to operate on data, allowing them to scale smarter and make big moves (like building out their AI and Go High Level divisions) with confidence.

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