The Art of Online Business

100k A Year With Five Clients How To Scale Your Ad Agency With Brandi Mowles

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 852

Share episode

Brandi Mowles is back to share how to scale to 100k revenue years with just five clients. She did this in her first year working no more than 20 hours a week with only one person on her team. 

Brandi built her business initially to pay for her bankruptcy lawyer with a baby at home, turning what was a dire financial situation into a thriving business that has taught hundreds to do the same. 


Links Mentioned In This Episode:



Watch the previous episode ‘How Brandi Mowles Made $1M With A One Person Team.’



Please click here to give an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes! Thanks for your support!







Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:





Brandi’s Links:

Speaker 1:

Hey again and welcome back to the Art of Online Business podcast. If you're watching on YouTube right now, you can see that Brandy Miles is back, right next to me, and this episode is going to be even better than the last one, by the way, hi, brandy.

Speaker 2:

Hi Koitra, Thank you so much for having me back.

Speaker 1:

You are welcome. So you listener, as you're hearing, this might be like who is Brandy? Well, I'm going to tell you that after I tell you what she's going to share, which is, if you are a Facebook ad manager or you are thinking about becoming a Facebook ad manager, this episode, brandy is going to share exactly how to scale to 100k revenue years with just five clients, and I'll throw in a little bonus for you. She doesn't work more than 20 hours a week and she only has one person on her team and she does way more than that in revenue, like, whatever the multiplier is to get to over a million. But you're going to get the steps to get to your first 100K in this episode.

Speaker 1:

And who is Brandy? She's a wife, she's a mom, she's a podcast host, she's my business coach, she's a digital marketing genius, she's a taco snob, and I feel like what you need to understand most importantly is that she built her business from the beginning to pay for her bankruptcy lawyer when she had one kid at home. Wait, you had one kid at home, right, brandy?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she was five months old, a one-month-old child. At home you're staring down bankruptcy, trying to afford the lawyer fees and you built your business from this. And Brandy has taught is it to a thousand yet let's say high hundreds of ad managers or people who weren't ad managers yet, but we're just thinking about adding in a huge revenue stream to their family's income. I could say more, but I'm going to stop here. Brandy, thank you for being on this episode.

Speaker 2:

Thank you having me, and we have taught over 2,000 we're so proud of this over 2,000 freelancers on how to scale their business, and we've helped 700 ad managers, in particular, scale their business wow, I thought it was upper hundreds dang.

Speaker 1:

And so, okay, you're listening to this episode and you're hearing Brandy, or you're seeing her, because you clicked in the show notes below and you subscribed to the YouTube channel and you were watching us. But, like I have many good guests on this podcast, but it's rare that I have guests that I've been able to share the same room in a mastermind and have been coached by, and I can say that working with Brandy has been the best ROI on an investment that I've made this year, so you're in for a treat. If you're wanting to hear about how she did all of that stuff that I shared before, that link is in the show notes below. But now, brandy, where does one start on their way to 100K a year with only five clients?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think the big thing is that we have to debunk the myth that the more you do, the more money you'll make. The harder you work, the more you'll make, because we probably all know someone who we've watched work so hard, so many hours. They keep grinding and grinding and they're no better off. They were 10 years ago, and I think about my family. I saw my dad get up every single morning, go to work so hardworking, the hardest worker ever had to travel and do manual labor and work so freaking hard and he still was the same place year after year after year.

Speaker 2:

Hard work does not equal more money, and so as soon as we can break that belief that so many of us carry around and it's not any of our faults, it's literally ingrained in society from the time that we're small children go to school, go to more school, go to college, go get a master's, go get a PhD, so you'll make so much money. And where that's ended up and left so many of us is freaking drowning in student loans not any more better off than we would have been with just a high school degree. And so one thing that we have to do is break the belief that more, more, more equals more, because that's not how it works. So then once we break down those beliefs and it takes a lot of work to do that, I'm still a work in progress on that Then we can get into the tactical things. And so we hear a lot of the gurus out there say like you have to grow an agency, you have to create a course, you have to like work for free as an ad manager to get testimonials, so you'll get clients that pay you and all this stuff.

Speaker 2:

And I came in and I'm like bump that Like I'm not doing any of those things. I didn't sign up for a hobby, like you said, I needed to pay for a bankruptcy attorney plus formula and diapers, so I couldn't work for free, I had to get paid. I didn't have someone bankrolling my business, and so with that, there's three elements that we have to focus on, and if we can master those three elements, we'll see our business grow and, more importantly, we'll see our life chill out. We'll have more life, we'll be able to have more white space, we'll be able to have more time and memories with our family. And for me, my definition of success is not how much money I have in my bank account or how I get to say like Ooh, million dollar a year and things like that. It's how many memories I'm creating each and every single day, week, month and year with my little ones and my husband that is what success means to me.

Speaker 2:

But in order to create those memories, I do have to have money in my bank account. So I'm big on having profit in your pocket. So how do we get to 100K a year running on 80% profit margins? So you're taking home $80,000 plus per year and you're only working 20 hours or less a week. That's the big question I want to help your listeners get to today, and so there's three areas that we have to focus on and master. The first one is we have to master our marketing.

Speaker 2:

You've heard me say what are your marketing minutes looking like? And this isn't. This isn't posting and praying on Instagram. This is actively marketing your business and we teach 10 different ways and conversions for clients. But really it's how and what works for your schedule and who you want to work with. So maybe if you want to work with course creators, influencers, those people then you use Instagram. But we're not going to do a post and pray method. We're going to be a little bit more strategic. But maybe you want to work with contractors or people who are plumbers, hvac they're not checking emails, they're not on Instagram. You're going to have to pick up the phone and call them. Or maybe you want to work with attorneys or people like that they're in their email, realtors, they're in their email. Then maybe we're doing email outreach. Or maybe you want to work with people in your local community. It's about getting out and being local. You don't have to do all of them. You have to pick one that makes sense and you have to be consistent.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing we have to do is master our marketing, and once we do that, then we can look at our skillset and master our marketing doesn't just end at how we're directly outreaching. It's also like how are we converting them on the call? So that's what we call our client call converter. How, what is your conversion rate? Are you converting people, are you not? You have to get comfortable selling, because selling is serving, and if you're not willing to serve, then you shouldn't be a service provider. Like, end of the day, we all are serving, but you have to fall in love with selling in order to serve more people. And all of us are being sold to every single day. It's not a bad thing, it's the way you do it that matters. And then we, once we've mastered that, so we've mastered attracting the clients, we've mastered converting them, and we teach you ways that. I know we'll talk about this, but in our boot camp we teach you how to do it without working for free, landing your first or next client, so you don't have to work for free.

Speaker 2:

And then, once we've mastered client attraction and our marketing, then we can say where's our skill level, where are we at with our knowledge of ads? And I like to use a red light, green light system because there's no emotion. So a lot of times when we talk about what we're good at, what we're not good at, we get into this like headspace of like oh, I'm not good enough. But when we put colors or numbers to it, they don't really have the same emotion. And so right now, if you're thinking like, okay, where am I at when it comes to Facebook ads? Where's my knowledge? Maybe I'm at a red light. I don't know anything yet, I'm just getting started. Awesome, I've been there. That's exactly where I was. Wager's been there before he ever ran his first ad. We have all been in the red before and when I see someone in the red I'm like heck, yes, you only have to go up from here there's only growth potential.

Speaker 2:

And then maybe we're in yellow, and I think a lot of people fall in yellow even though they're actually green, because it's a confidence thing. So yellow is. I'm okay with ads, maybe I could get better, we could all get better, but you're in yellow. You know a little bit, but you don't feel like the pro, the expert, or maybe you just feel like you don't know enough about funnels or things like that. So we're in yellow Great, you have growth potential. And then there's the people who are in green you are a freaking expert. And that's where we want to get to. We want to get to that confidence, like I can confidently say I'm an expert. Are there days that I still doubt my ability? Heck, freaking, yes. Every time a new change comes out, I'm like, oh my gosh, do I still know what I'm talking about? And we get in there. And so if you're in that, you're a green there. And so if you're in that, you're a green. So right now, if you're listening, just self identify are you a red, yellow or green? And if you are a red and yellow, there's nothing wrong with that. That shows that you have places to grow and we can focus on that. So we do have to get results for our clients and that's where the expert knowledge comes in.

Speaker 2:

So we first focus on client attraction and some people want to focus on expert knowledge before they start looking at clients.

Speaker 2:

But that's the wrong way to look at it, because you're never going to learn how to run ads without actually running ads. It's like a bike you can read all day, watch all the videos in the world on how to ride a bike, but until you actually get out there, put your butt on the seat, your legs on the pedal and start pedaling, you don't know how to ride a bike. But until you actually get out there, put your butt on the seat, your legs on the pedal and start pedaling, you don't know how to ride a bike. And it's the same thing with ads. You can read all day, you can go through my course, you can do all these things to learn how to run ads, but until you actually run an ad for a client, you have no freaking clue what you're doing. So we want to be looking for clients, because also the thing with clients is when you snap your finger and say, oh, I'm going to look for clients, you do not get a client that day Maybe somebody does, but it's momentum that has to be built.

Speaker 2:

So we want to start building that momentum of looking for clients, as we're also learning and becoming an expert. So then you have this knowledge that you've been absorbing, but now you have a client that you can implement. And will you make a mistake? Probably at some point you will make a mistake and it will be okay because you will never make that mistake again. But you don't know what you're doing until you run out.

Speaker 2:

So we have to look at client attraction and expert knowledge together. They do not come one before the other, they come together. It's not a chicken or egg situation. We got to be doing both. And then, once we've really dove into that, then it's time to look at our systems.

Speaker 2:

And here's another area red, yellow or green. Red is like you have no systems. You are a hot mess express all over the place, or maybe you're just getting started. I've been a hot mess express all over the place. I think we can all admit that before having systems, we were all probably like that Yellow is I have some systems, but they could definitely be optimized because I'm still spending way too much time doing certain tasks. And then green is like heck. No, my business runs like a well-oiled machine and I will tell you, we just went through a phase this year where it was a yellow and maybe close to red, because we were optimizing and changing some things. And I just had a meeting this morning with my right-hand gal, janessa, and I was like, oh my gosh, after this week we will be back to green, we will be a well-oiled machine Again. We go through these phases of needing to optimize, needing to like, do that.

Speaker 2:

But one thing I will say the biggest mistake a lot of people make is they like to stay busy in systems, even if they don't like systems, because systems are safe. You're behind the scenes, you're not putting yourself out there, so it's easy to waste a lot of time here. So we want to be mindful of that. Most of our time should be spent and if you're just getting started, 80% of your time should be in client attraction, 10% should be in expert knowledge and another 10 in systems. Now that will change as your business grows. The more clients you have, the more this changes. But we should never be in systems for more than 10% of our time, our majority of our time.

Speaker 2:

That 90% needs to be split between client attraction and expert knowledge. That means taking care of your clients or learning new skills and finding clients, and when we can do that you'll see your business shift One, you'll see it grow really fast because you're consistent with client attraction. Then you're getting clients really good results. So then they're referring you to other people, which makes getting clients easier. And then you have these systems that are kind of running in the background that you may need to tweak here and there, and of course we have reporting that we have to do, but we're going to do it in a very systematic way. And when we can master these three elements, what happens is we end up with this beautiful business that sets us up for a life of freedom, choices and flexibility, while still getting our clients amazing results, and you're making real money with real profit sweet, so talk to me more braille.

Speaker 1:

I mean like talk to the listener more the listener who has already started managing facebook ads but is spending lots of time in their system and hasn't seen the growth that they want and they're probably not seeing the growth they want because they're spending a lot of time in the system.

Speaker 2:

And so the first thing I'm going to recommend to everyone is, if you already have a business and you're not getting started, I want you to pull out a piece of paper and go through each of these and rate yourself on that red light, green light, yellow light system. Find out where is your red. And so, with red, maybe you haven't had a discovery call, a sales call, in the last 60 days, that's a red. If you haven't had a discovery call in the last 30 days and you're not completely booked out, that's a red. Like that's where I would focus.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you have a bunch of clients and you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off, but you're also not getting those clients results. Then I'm going to say we need to go to expert knowledge and we need to look at systems. Is this a systems failure thing or is this the expert knowledge issue? And then, in order to like really evaluate that, then we're going to do a time audit. That's the first place we start with. Systems is a time audit to see where are you spending your time. But a lot of times where I see the biggest mistake is we're undercharging and we're devaluating our services and what ends up happening is we end up with 15 clients at a thousand dollars or $1,500 or 2000. And you're running around with your head cut off because no system is going to fix that. We have to raise our prices Because, at the end of the day, what would you rather have? Would you rather have 20 clients at $1,000 or would you rather have four clients and making $20,000?

Speaker 1:

Of course you're to pay for a client.

Speaker 2:

Why wouldn't you? And it's 100% possible. One of our students in the strategist society, she just told me last year she was doing a lot of white labeling because she thought that's the only way she could get clients and she was definitely devaluating her services. She was charging by the hour and all of last year she only made $20,000. Now she's signing contracts for $21,000 for less than five months. Like big difference. And now she just closed on her first house as a single mom.

Speaker 2:

So, sometimes it's just one little tweak, like changing your prices or getting rid of the clients that are sucking the life out of you and making room for new ones. But until we do this evaluation of traffic light, we don't even know where to start. We just start like messing up our business without making a strategic decision of where we need to focus. So when we take that red light, green light system, then we are like okay, I have a red light here, a yellow light, a yellow light. I'm going to focus on the red light first.

Speaker 1:

I want to give a bit of time to the person who's thinking shoot, I need to bring in some revenue. This whole Facebook ad manager sounds cool, kwejo, you do it. Brandy, you do it. But what about the uncertainties around meta and advertising in the future? And is it going to go away? And will AI take this away? Can you speak to that after you share about the Confident Ad Manager Bootcamp? It would be a disservice I'm talking to you, listener right now I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't give time for you to hear about this bootcamp right now, because, brandy, I mean, she's a pro. She has taught hundreds above a thousand people how to be successful ad managers and so, brandy, I'll let you talk about the competent ad manager bootcamp quick, right now, if you will.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Okay. So we have been doing this for four years. Putting this bootcamp on on this is and we usually only do it one or two times a year. So this will be our last time of the year that we do this boot camp and it is four days jam-packed of so much gold, like I'm about to fire, hose you with so much actionable tips.

Speaker 2:

I'm a no fluff type of gal, and so when I say you do not want to miss this, you don't, because day one, I'm going to teach you exactly how to identify the clients that are most profitable that you can get in touch with today. Then day two, we dive into actually how to get calls set up, land clients, even if you've never had a client for free. And then day three, we dive into really the three big elements that I'm talking about today to show you big picture how this all comes together. And then we just added the last time, the fourth day, which is all about AI and how to use chat GPT to actually land more clients and systematize the process. So I'm showing you and it's funny that you ask about that because I use a prompt and chat GPT says as an ad strategist, you will not lose your job. There are things that I cannot do.

Speaker 2:

So, even knows that you are not losing your job, but I definitely want to see so many faces there. It is freaking incredible. It is definitely one of our biggest events and one of the most raved about. Like I said, it's not just a bunch of fluff, it's tactical steps and we've had people land clients during those four days just by implementing what we teach.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, that link meta going to disappear? Is AI going to take this job away? And everything else that the negative voice says to somebody's brain before they start this route. Like, I just have to say it works. And somebody may be like oh Quasar, you have a podcast, you've been an ads manager forever.

Speaker 1:

I need to remind maybe the listener who doesn't know my story but I was doing a completely different online business when I first met Brandy in a mastermind and then I got stuck outside of China and everything I was working toward teaching people Chinese and partnering with education, you know, bureaus and the Chinese government and all this kind of cultural learning stopped right when the pandemic started, you know, and I had zero to go off of.

Speaker 1:

And then I started managing Facebook ads and so I can say that like that was one of the best decisions in my life. It definitely helped me get back on my feet when I was like smacked down by the pandemic. But then also my wife started doing it. And before you're like, oh yeah, you helped your wife get started because you already have tons of clients in a podcast, nope, she still does what you teach Brandy. She does her marketing minutes more consistently and better than I do, and she has two clients now. So it's, it's, it's. It's changed my life, and so that's my plug to the listener too, If you're thinking about starting down this route. It's been quite a blessing and, as you've heard, especially if you've listened to Brandy's first episode it has been so in her life too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and people ask me all the time. They're like that's great. You started your ad management business five years ago. Was it easier to get clients? And I would actually make the argument it was harder than to get clients, because the thing is not everyone was running ads then and now in like they had no. If they were running ads, they had no clue what they were doing. But Facebook has made it really easy. Now, once you're in there and you know what buttons to press, they made it really easy for you to run ads. However, since it's changing, clients are like oh my God, I don't want to run my own ads. And because it's always changing, it becomes a full-time job to stay up to date with what's going on. So now more people are turning to ad managers because of that.

Speaker 2:

Also, if you're in the U S like, people are getting laid off, marketing teams are getting laid off and what these companies are doing is they're moving to freelancers. Up work, which is a freelancing website, said 2024, the highest paid freelancing gig you can offer a social media advertiser. They're making an average of $110,000 per year. That is incredible and such a fun stat to know that, as a social media advertiser, you are the number one paid freelancing gig you can get, and you get paid high dollars right off the bat. 1500 per month per client is the starting rate for a brand new ad manager. That is unbelievable. And so I always tell people they're like, well, what if meta goes away? Okay, what if you get laid off from your job? All these people have been, you know, like I teach ad managers and so many people right now this year are coming because they've been laid off from their job. We saw the same thing in 2020. Like, okay, yeah, maybe it does go away, but the skills you learn as an advertiser, they don't go away. There will always be another platform and I will say that actually, I feel more comfortable with Meta staying around than any other platform. And I will say that actually, I feel more comfortable with Meta staying around than any other platform.

Speaker 2:

We don't know what's going on with TikTok. Its fate in the US is very sketchy right now and more advertisers are actually pulling out and coming back to Meta because of that. They're unsure. It's a like very sordid history and we have to think about at this point. Facebook, instagram, have been around for so long. It's literally like utilities to us at this point where we have to use it. Even people who complain about Facebook, they complain on Facebook about it, and so I don't have any fear that Facebook's going away. But, just like if you have a traditional 9 to 5 and you probably have no fear about being laid off, it can happen. But I'm prepared because I can take my advertising skills and put them to another platform. There will always be another platform.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent. If you know how to think about advertising, if you know all the things that go into it, then the rest is just clicking buttons. It doesn't matter what platform it's on. And yet here we are as meta ad managers, and I just want to thank you for letting people know what's possible, but also outlining those three areas. I wrote down the three areas. They were client attraction expert knowledge and systems right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cool. So I just want to thank you for sharing that with the listener and outlining those three areas that somebody has to focus on to get to their first 100K with five clients the client attraction, the expert knowledge and the systems, and especially that part where don't stay safe by just spending tons and tons and tons of time on systems but, how you so encouragingly said, get out there and work on your marketing minutes and finding clients and the different ways that somebody could do so. Brandy, is there any one last thing that you want to share before we end this episode?

Speaker 2:

I would just say the hardest. And one thing is I know we labeled this as like to your first hundred K I still follow these three principles. Running a million dollar a year business, this doesn't change. This is when you follow this. This will keep your business simple. It will keep it where you don't have to work a ton, but you can make a ton and still have a lot of profit.

Speaker 2:

So, even if you're listening and you're like I'm past the 100,000, I don't need this, I need a different framework.

Speaker 2:

No, you just keep always coming back to the basics, iterating, and that will create success instead of chaos and overwhelm. And so the last thing I guess I would have to say is the hardest part is just getting started. I would have to say, is the hardest part is just getting started, like taking that leap of faith and I love that you brought up Jamie, because she is someone who has just taken that leap of faith and ran with it. And when you have the step-by-step plan, don't try to go off and like make up your own and go down Google university and YouTube university. Just follow the proven plan that works. And once you do that and you find your success, then it's time to iterate, and so I think it was Legos, the founder of Legos. I'm pretty sure that he said imitate and then iterate, and that's what I encourage you to do. Take what I taught you today, go, imitate that and then, once you find your success, make iterations to it.

Speaker 1:

Boom. There it is. The link to join or sign up for the Confident Ad Manager Bootcamp is theartofonlinebusinesscom. Forward slash 100K, that's 1-0-0-K. That's in the show notes below, brandy, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Every time we meet up, you just drop such fire. Applicable advice. Thank you so much for being on this podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely welcome. It's my pleasure and for you, the listener. Until you see me again or hear from me again, be blessed, take care, and we'll see you in the next one.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie

Host