Six client interviews shaped the firm's position, and every opportunity got clear stages from first call to signed contract.
Sales forecast
Grew from $30K to $250K.
$30K
$250K
The agency's sales forecast increased 733% in 30 days.
You built a growth engine for every client but your own.
We work with founder-led agencies, professional services firms, and consulting firms where growth still depends too much on you.
Firms we are proud to work with
How we work with agencies.
Three engagement models, from twice-monthly counsel to fully run growth. Each is scoped to how much of the work SCG takes on.
Mentorship
Twice-monthly counsel for agency founders on pricing, hiring, clients, and direction, from an operator who ran a fifty-person agency.
Advisory
A weekly operating rhythm for growth: a written plan, one priority at a time, and a review of results every week.
Fractional Partner
Growth and marketing leadership inside your agency. SCG sets the direction and owns the result.
The five problems that stall agency growth
You can be great at the client work and still find the business hard to grow.
Agencies of all sizes, selling all kinds of work, run into the same five problems.
Referrals still land in your lap, and none of them came from a program or an incentive you built on purpose.
Every introduction, proposal and win still traces back to your own calendar.
You close the demos you run, and there are only one or two of them in a month.
Cold email keeps eating the budget without booking anything. One agency ran eighty thousand dollars through it and never landed a meeting.
You can already tell the way you have been growing has run out of road. What replaces it is not obvious yet.
All five of these cost margin long before anyone notices them in revenue.
Client result
A branding firm's buyers obsessed over their new positioning.
The pitch changed from one conversation to the next and open deals lived in notes and an email tool, so deals took longer to close. We rebuilt the position and the sales process around it.
What Clients Say
Thanks to Kurt's expertise, we transformed our agency by prioritizing client needs. With a rebrand and targeted messaging, our revenue doubled, and our team expanded within a year. His ongoing support has been invaluable, and I'm truly grateful for his impact.
){kind=small}
Alex Melton
Founder, Wyrmix
Kurt showed me the skills and practices I was missing. His advice tripled revenue from the low to high 6 figures in about a year. Everything he has shared is still in practice today and I am constantly improving and implementing the habits and practices that made my agency more sustainable.
){kind=small}
Dustin Rea
Founder and CEO, Red Hook
Working with Kurt Schmidt has truly supported our growth as a business. As our advisor, he took the time to understand how we work, even visiting us on-site to learn the ins and outs of our company and team members. Because of this and his depth of experience in our industry, his advice frequently pinpoints situations rather than being generic “consulting”. Kurt guided us as we added new services, navigated the challenges of growth, and built confidence in our decisions. What makes him different is his fresh perspective and his ability to make complicated things clear. He has a real talent for helping you find the way forward when things inevitably get tangled. I would recommend Kurt to any Operations Leader who wants a trusted, hands-on partner.
){kind=small}
Kat Murphy
Director of Operations, Orases
Read more client storiesShow fewer client stories
Our agency has used Kurt's development experience, knowledge, and digital strategy during our engagement with his consulting services. He helped us hone and reimagine our approach to our digital offering, software development, and opened the door to many new business opportunities. What really sets Kurt apart is his commitment to our success and the passion he brings to the role, while keeping his recommendations digestible, actionable, and results-focused.
){kind=small}
Donnie Potter
VP of Digital, DKY
I came to Kurt through a referral and he's guided me for close to a year. The experience has been incredibly positive. He's helped us boost client engagement, streamline processes, fine-tune project management, track work better in our CRM, and put tighter terms in place to prevent scope creep. He gets into the details that often get overlooked, and he works with both me and our Project Manager on execution. His focused guidance on AI and automation has been transformational to how I think about workflows, clients, and opportunities. If you're considering Kurt, come ready to accept new ideas and change. You'll have a great partner, even when you stumble.
){kind=small}
Alexander Acker
Founder, Adventure House
I reached out to Kurt needing dual help: One, casting a vision. Two, turning on more effective business development approaches. He was the decisive sounding board that my vision casting needed. And he also brought immense practical operational techniques to help spur me to action just when I needed the kick in the pants.
){kind=small}
Ken Byers
Co-Founder, Confidant
When I first booked a session with Kurt, I was completely lost on how to build a sales strategy for my business and how to navigate entrepreneurship as a first-time founder. But Kurt broke everything down into clear, actionable steps that completely shifted my approach. I ended up doing multiple sessions with him, and the experience was truly transformative. His guidance has had a massive impact on how I'm building my business. If you're looking for real, practical advice, I highly recommend him.
){kind=small}
Utsav Nagori
Co-Founder, DynaPro Global
Meet Kurt Schmidt
Kurt led Foundry through two Inc. 5000 appearances. He has spent more than 25 years building service businesses.
He has advised more than 150 agencies and written three books: The Attraction Agency, 10-10-10, and The Little Book of Networking.
Agency growth resources
Common questions
Founder-led agencies, professional services firms, and consulting firms, from small studios up to firms of about 120 people. They have usually grown on referrals and founder-led sales and want a pipeline they can count on.
We work on the sales and operating problems that make growth harder to repeat. Usually that is positioning, pricing, the pipeline, how delivery runs, or how much still depends on you.
It comes down to how much of the work we take on. Mentorship is counsel on pricing, hiring, clients and direction. Advisory adds a written plan, one priority a week, and someone asking how it went. Fractional Partner puts us in charge of the outcome inside your business.
The same senior person who reviews your business runs your sessions and sets the direction of the work. The SCG team handles production and systems work under that direction.
A first call is a working conversation about how your business runs and where growth is getting stuck. You leave with a straight read on what deserves attention first and whether SCG is the right fit.
Engagements are flat monthly retainers scoped to how much we take on, and defined-scope projects are priced separately. We don't publish prices, so you get yours on the intro call.
Find out where your firm actually stands.
A working conversation for founder-led agencies, professional services firms, and consulting firms.
Run a custom software firm billing by the hour? See The High-Margin Firm.