Allison MaslanCEO & Business Scaling Expert | WSJ Bestselling Author

There are 90,000 marketing agencies in the U.S. but 99% aren't worth your money.

15 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:00

In this monologue, the speaker highlights the broken state of the U.S. marketing‑agency market, noting that there are roughly 90,000 agencies and that 99% are low‑quality or quickly move up‑market to serve Fortune‑2000 clients once they gain credibility. This up‑market shift leaves smaller companies without effective partners, a problem the speaker finds absurd. To address this, they assembled a small, highly skilled "SWAT" team with a mission to remain easy to work with and to stay focused on serving non‑Fortune‑2000 businesses. Their positioning includes openly telling Fortune‑2000 firms they’re not built for them, which paradoxically makes those large firms more interested. Over time, the goal is to become the go‑to marketing team for all but the biggest corporations, offering high‑quality service without the typical agency abandonment.

Chapters

Show of hands, who here has had a bad experience with a marketer or an agency? I didn't see a hand down, but if I did, I'm like, you are a miracle because I have not heard one person tell me they don't have a bad experience. You know, there's 90,000 marketing agencies in the US, and the problem is 99% of them are full of shit, and the few that are good only want to work with the Fortune 2000, and they move upmarket the moment they get credibility. And this is being on the other side, being on the agency side. Every private equity firm, every banker, every acquirer is telling you, oh, you need to go upmarket because it's stickier, it's more profitable, etc. So basically, the moment you get a little bit of skill, you stop Stop working with the companies that need you most. And I just thought that was ridiculous. And not planning to build what we built, just honestly to like solve the problem right in front of me, I hired a little SWAT team and was like, we're going to be the best at what we do and we're going to stay easy to work with. And that became our mission statement. And then over time, wanted to be well known for it and become this go-to marketing team for everyone else, everyone other than the Fortune 2000. We do work with the Fortune 2000, but we literally tell them to their face, like, we're not built for you, we're not going for you. And go figure, that's when they want to work with you the most.