How much time does it take to run a freelance ad management business?
That question comes at me from three different directions, and all three of them are exhausting in their own way.
Direction one: you already have the business, you are working your little booty off, and you open your bank account and think, “Holy bananas, I am not making enough money for how much I am working.”
Direction two: you have the business, you are making good money, and you feel weird because you are not working enough. So you start inventing work. Because surely it cannot be this simple.
Direction three: you have not started yet, and you are doing the math between school pickup and dinner trying to figure out if you even have the hours for this.
Same question, three different flavors of stress. And the answer is not “it depends.”
Today I am giving you actual numbers. Hours per week, hours per client, and exactly where every one of those hours should go, broken down by the three stages of a freelance ad management business: just starting, growing, and scaling.
Fair warning before we go: I am never going to underpromise you on time. I always overestimate, and then hopefully you do the dang thing in less time than I told you.
First, the Honest Truth About Where Your Time Actually Goes
We make time for the things that matter to us. If your kids need you, you make time for them. If your bank account needs you, this is how you make time for it.
But before we talk hours, we have to talk efficiency, because the numbers below assume focused time.
If you are “working” while you are scrolling your phone, folding a load of laundry, and half-listening to a training, it is going to take you longer. That is not a time problem. That is a context switching problem, and we have a whole episode on that one.
So when I say four hours a week, I mean four actual hours. Timer on. Phone face down. Real talk: most people do not have a time shortage, they have a focus leak.
These are conservative numbers. Some people are successful working less than this. Some people need more. Your job is to be honest about which one you are.
Stage 1: Just Starting Out (Four Hours a Week, Max)
You do not have clients yet. So where the heck does your time go, and do you even have enough of it to make this work?
Here is exactly what I tell our Conversions for Clients members when they come in from the bootcamp and ask me, “Brandi, what should my focus be?”
One Hour to 90 Minutes a Week on Education and Training
We hold weekly calls inside Conversions for Clients, and those run about 45 minutes to an hour. Make those a priority. If you watch the replay or listen on the private podcast, you can 2x me and be done in 30 minutes.
Then work through the modules, but do not binge them. Watch one 10 minute module, then go implement it. Watch the next one. Implement.
Learning is not the win. Implementing is the win. One hour to 90 minutes a week total, and that includes actually using what you learned.
40 to 60 Minutes on Monday Building Your List of 25
One day a week, usually Monday, you are going to sit down and build your list of 25 people you are going to reach out to.
Set a visual timer and give yourself one hour. Not two. Work expands to fill the time you give it, so give it less. You will get it done inside the hour when the timer is staring at you.
If you want me to walk you through exactly how to build that list, I cover it in videos two and four of my free live bootcamp. It is coming up in October, so go grab your spot at brandimowles.com/bootcamp.
30 Minutes a Day on Your Marketing Minutes
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 30 minutes each day on your marketing minutes. That is it.
If you want to go all in and do Monday through Friday, that is two full hours a week of nothing but marketing, and you will start landing clients.
Your marketing minutes are the single most important part of this business. Not your logo. Not your website. Not your Canva templates. Your marketing minutes.
What You Are Not Spending Time On Yet
I want to name this too, because this is where new ad managers lose entire months.
You are not spending this time perfecting a website. You are not spending it designing a logo, building a fancy funnel, or setting up seven tools you do not need yet. You are not spending it inside a course you already paid for, watching module after module so it feels like progress.
Not one of those things has ever landed anyone a client. Conversations land clients.
The Four Hour Question
Add it up and you are looking at three and a half to four hours per week when you are just starting a freelance ad management business. Education, training, implementation, list building, and marketing minutes. Four is the high end.
So ask yourself this one honestly:
If you could work four hours a week and within 12 months be making $10,000 a month, would that be worth it to you?
We all have to start somewhere. When you are getting started, the whole game is learning and implementing. Not learning and collecting. Learning and implementing.
Stage 2: Growing (Marketing Minutes Plus Four Hours Per Week Per Client)
Now you have a few clients. And this is where the two panicky questions show up: am I working too much, or am I not working enough?
Here is the deal. There is no such thing as working too little as long as you are serving your clients and getting your marketing minutes in. I do not care how few hours that takes you.
What actually happens to most growing ad managers is the opposite. We are working too many hours because we are dumping time into things that do not matter, and we are still not marketing.
Marketing Minutes Do Not Change. Ever.
Monday, one hour, list of 25 people. Then you start reaching out.
Then 30 minutes Monday, 30 minutes Tuesday, 30 minutes Wednesday, 30 minutes Thursday, 30 minutes Friday. You get your 25 contacts in every single week.
Your marketing minutes are always the most important part of your business, at every stage, forever. That does not change when you get clients. It does not change when you get busy. It does not change.
Keep 30 Minutes to One Hour of Education
We still have members who have been in the program five years, six years, and they still show up to our weekly calls or listen to the replays.
Why? Because ads change constantly, and continuing education is what keeps you the expert instead of the person Googling the new update at 11pm. Keep 30 minutes to an hour a week here.
The Four Hours Per Week Per Client Breakdown
Four hours per week per client is a good general rule, and this is the high end. Here is where those four hours go:
- 1 hour on reporting
- 1 hour on creative
- 1 hour on copy
- 1 hour on campaign setup and monitoring
That is the ceiling, not the target. A lot of you should be able to do it in way less.
If you are working with a local business, way less. If your client has been with you a while, way less. Four hours per week per client is really onboarding math, because onboarding is the heaviest part of any client relationship.
And if you are doing monthly reports instead of weekly, that is not four hours a month of reporting, so your number drops again.
Now, a real talk moment. If reporting is taking you more than one hour, go watch my training inside Conversions for Clients on creating reports clients actually want. You are spending too long in there.
And if campaign setup and monitoring is averaging way more than an hour a week once the campaigns are live, you and I need to have a talk about why.
If You Do Not Know Your Numbers, Do a Time Audit
Most people cannot answer this, and that is the problem.
How long are you actually spending on reporting? On creative? On copy? On campaigns? You cannot fix a leak you have not found.
Run a time audit for one week and find out where you are dumping time. Then we fix it.
Top priority at this stage stays the same: 30 minutes a day on marketing, 25 touch points a week, and continued education. Whether that is Conversions for Clients calls, Strategist Society calls, voxing me, or listening to Hot Off The Press inside Certified, make it a priority.
Stage 3: Scaling to $15K, $20K, and $40K Months Without a 60 Hour Week
You have a bunch of clients. You want the next revenue goal. You do not want to work 60 hours a week to get it. This is where your time management becomes the whole ballgame.
Keep Clients as Long as Humanly Possible
Onboarding is the most time-consuming aspect of this business, so the fastest way to buy back your hours is to stop replacing clients.
When you keep a client month after month after month, you are not spending four hours per week on them. Everything is dialed in. You get quicker at your own work. There may be busy stretches during a launch, but your baseline drops.
Retention is a time strategy, not just a revenue strategy. Every client who stays another six months is a client you never have to onboard again, and every client who leaves quietly resets you to the most expensive hours in your calendar.
Your Marketing Minutes Still Do Not Change
I know. You were hoping. Still 30 minutes daily. Still non-negotiable.
You are also still educating yourself, because at this stage you are not just doing the work, you are becoming the go-to expert people seek out.
Where Your Time Actually Shifts at This Stage
Two things usually change when you are scaling:
- You bring in a VA. That means more time in training now with the long-term goal of working less later.
- You get visible. Podcasting, guesting on other people’s podcasts, speaking at events, becoming known.
Here is the part people miss. You are not adding these on top of everything else. You are trading. Something comes off the plate when something new goes on it. That is what saying no protects.
The Proof That This Math Works
We have someone in Strategist Society doing $40,000 per month working 30 to 35 hours a week. Not 60. Not 70.
And I run a million dollar a year business working less than 25 hours a week.
It is all about prioritizing efficiency and saying no more than you say yes.
My goal for you is 15, 20, 30, and $40,000 months while working under 25 hours a week. That is the whole point of building this business in the first place, and it is not a fantasy. It is a math problem with a known answer.
If you already have an ad management business and you want one-on-one support getting to those months without adding hours, head to thestrategistsociety.com and apply for a spot. We will hop on a call and find out exactly where you are stuck.
Your Homework This Week: Find Your Stage, Then Audit Your Time
Three things for you this week:
- Identify your stage. Are you just starting, growing, or scaling? Be honest, not aspirational.
- Do a time audit. Track a real week. Reporting, creative, copy, campaigns, marketing, admin. All of it.
- Find your biggest hole and plug it. If that hole is marketing, fix it now, not next month.
Because here is the hard truth I will always give you: without clients, you do not have a business. You have a hobby.
The good news is that the fix is almost never “work more hours.” The fix is putting the hours you already have in the right buckets. Four hours a week when you are starting. Marketing minutes daily, forever. Four hours per week per client at the very high end. Under 25 hours a week while you make big girl money.
You do not need more time, my friend. You need your time pointed at the right things.
Go run that time audit this week, then come tell me what you found. DM me the words TIME MANAGEMENT on Instagram @brandimowles and let me know if you want a whole series on time management, because I will absolutely do it if that is what y’all need.
And if you are just getting started and you want to learn how to start, grow, and scale an ad management business the simple way, register for my free live bootcamp at brandimowles.com/bootcamp.
Want the full breakdown in Brandi’s own words? Listen to this episode on the Serve Scale Soar podcast, and while you are there, go leave a quick review on Apple or drop some stars on Spotify. It is the kindest gift you can give a podcaster, and I truly appreciate every single one. Now go out, serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the success you deserve.
** This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you if you use one of the links to purchase. This helps keep the podcast going and I only share products I have used, tested, and love.”
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Meet Brandi
Brandi Mowles is the host of the Serve Scale Soar® podcast which is a podcast dedicated to helping service-based entrepreneurs scale their online business to five-figure months so they can soar into six-figure years. Brandi is a wife, mom and in less than one year, created a six-figure business. Now she is spilling all her secrets so you can too.
