What happens when raw hustle stops being enough?

In this episode, Nick Avaria sits down with Shane from Voyager Group, a retail and media agency helping consumer brands scale on Amazon, Target, and beyond, to unpack one of the most dramatic agency turnarounds you'll hear.

In just one year, Voyager went from 2.5% profit margins and a burned-out team to nearly 23% profitability in Q1 2026, a literal 10X, while still growing revenue by 50%.

Shane shares the mindset shifts, operational systems, and hard-won lessons that made it possible: why heroics only get you so far, how decoupling operational data from financial data changed everything, and what it actually feels like to go from whack-a-mole management to running a business that practically runs itself.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

Follow Nick:

YouTube (watch the podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

Your agency is doing millions in revenue, your team is "busy," and yet nothing seems to move forward. Sound familiar? In this episode, Nick Avaria and Win Nguyen break down the profitable growth paradox — the invisible wall agencies hit when strategy and execution stop connecting.

Using a real client case study, they expose the management gap that's silently draining profitability and keeping founders trapped in the day-to-day. If you're a founder, CEO, or agency leader wondering why your initiatives aren't sticking, this one's for you.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

Follow Nick:

YouTube (watch the podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

Most agency owners say they want a self-managing team, but many get stuck because they're managing managers the same way they manage frontline staff.

In this episode, Nick breaks down one of the biggest scaling challenges agency owners face: the transition from managing employees to managing managers. He explains why promoting a top performer into a management role often fails, why hiring a manager won't magically solve operational problems, and why most agencies lack the systems needed to support effective middle management.

The conversation explores the frameworks required to create accountability, alignment, and autonomy throughout an organization. Nick shares practical approaches for defining clear objectives, metrics, and KPIs, as well as a management accountability system that helps owners determine whether performance issues stem from employees or from management itself.

Key takeaways:

• Why managing managers requires a completely different skill set
• The real reason most agency owners stay stuck in the day-to-day
• How to use Objectives, Metrics, and KPIs to create accountability
• Why dashboards and data are essential for building self-managing teams
• The three performance gaps every manager must address: knowledge, importance, and action
• How to determine whether underperformance is a management problem or an employee problem

If you're tired of being the bottleneck in your agency and want a team that can operate effectively without constant oversight, this episode provides a practical framework for building accountability and leadership at every level of your organization.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

Follow Nick:

YouTube (watch the podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

Many agency owners can improve profitability quickly, but keeping it that way is the real challenge.

In this episode, Nick breaks down why agencies often see profits jump from 10% to 30%+ after implementing new systems, only to watch those gains disappear a few months later. The problem isn't usually the systems themselves, it's what happens after the initial success.

The conversation explores the two phases of sustainable agency growth: implementing the right operational systems and training leaders and teams to understand, maintain, and improve them over time. Through a real-world case study, Nick explains how agencies fall back into old habits like over-hiring, losing focus on client retention, and abandoning the disciplines that created profitability in the first place.

Key takeaways:

• Why systems alone don't create lasting change
• The hidden connection between profitability, discipline, and communication
• How agency owners accidentally become the bottleneck
• Why SOPs and documentation aren't enough
• The importance of teaching people how to think, not just what to do

If you've ever improved performance only to see your agency slide backward months later, this episode explains why and what it takes to make growth stick.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

Follow Nick:

YouTube (watch the podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

If you want to scale your agency to $1M or $10M with a high level of profit, this episode is for you.

There are three metrics and KPIs that every single agency who scales, tracks, and tracks well.

In this episode we walk through a real life client example of how we helped them get to 35% profit and what they had to change.

Here are the 3 things that I review for every single agency are:

#1 Client retention

#2 Life time value vs. Client Acquisition Cost

#3: Productivity (hours billed) for agencies with time tracking.

Find out how we did it for this agency.

How are agencies scaling faster in 2026? Take a listen to this week's episode now.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

Follow Nick:

YouTube (watch the podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

What if you wanted to double your profit in the next 6 months, without spending more money (or spending as little as possible).

Would it be possible?

Yes.

But only if you do these 3 things.

• Looking at the % of what you're spending and see what needs to be cut.
• Drive better client experience so that you can generate more upsells. This is faster than closing new business.
• Amend your business model, so that new clients can close at a higher LTV.

Most agencies don't need tons of new clients.

They need better clients, where you can charge more, and have those clients stay for longer.

How are agencies scaling faster in 2026? Take a listen to this week's episode now.

Follow Nick:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AgencyAcquisitions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickavaria/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_avaria/

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/

What does it take to turn your business around from losing money to having close to $400K in the bank?

Let's dive in, in this week's episode of Scaling with Profit.

Nick is a 3-time agency owner who has bought and scaled agencies to 7 & 8-figures.

Today Nick helps other agencies make more money, and get their time back.

How Nick helped this agency:

• Build dashboards that showed where the agency was bleeding money
• Fixing the scoping problem they had with their clients
• Reviewing actual productivity with their team, and finding better ways to track it

Listen to the full episode to get the full story.

Get Nick's top downloads here:

10M+ Agency Executive Dashboard: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-executive-dashboard-opt-in/

$800K/month agency COO: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/800k-per-month-agency-coo/

5 Killers of Profit: https://www.agencyacquisitions.io/agency-economics-scaling-method/