How Kendra Replaced Her Teacher Salary in Under a Year As a Freelance Ad Manager

What happens when a 14-year teacher gets fired and decides to bet on herself instead of going back to the classroom? She builds a $7K/month freelance ad management business in under a year while homeschooling her kids and working 25 hours a week. That's exactly what today's guest, Kendra, did.

In this student spotlight, Kendra shares how she went from zero marketing experience to five clients, all in the educator niche, using nothing but Instagram cold DMs and daily consistency. We're talking real numbers, real strategy, and real talk about what's been hard too.

In this episode, we cover:

• How Kendra discovered her niche organically and why you don't have to have it figured out before you start
• The simple cold DM approach she uses to land clients without ever leading with a sales pitch
• How she manages five clients while homeschooling two kids in about 25 hours a week
• Why working more hours is NOT the path to more revenue (and what to focus on instead)
• The Conversions for Clients resource that helped her most when she was starting out
• Her goal of hitting $20K months this year

If you've been wondering whether this is actually possible for someone starting from scratch, this episode is your proof.

Links and Resources Mentioned:

• Conversions for Clients - for service providers ready to land their first clients
• Strategist Society - for service providers scaling past $10K/month
• Follow Brandi on Instagram: @brandimowles

Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serve-scale-soar/id1477998650

Follow Brandi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandimowles

Follow Brandi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brandiandcompany

Transcript

How Kendra Replaced Her Teacher Salary in Under a Year As A Freelance Ad Manager

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[00:00:00] 

Brandi: Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of the Serve Scale Soar podcast. I am your host Brandi Mowles, and today we have a student spotlight and I am just so stinking excited to share with you. You're gonna meet Kendra. A former teacher of 14 years who got fired from her job, decided to go all in on herself, and in less than a year, has replaced her entire teaching salary.

Running Facebook and Instagram ads for educators. Yeah, y'all, this is a pretty fun story to share. What I love about Kendra's story is that she had zero marketing background, zero ads experience, and zero clients when she started. But she was coachable. She was consistent, and she did the dang thing. And now she's sitting at seven K months while working around 25 hours a week and homeschooling her kids.

If you've ever wondered whether this is actually possible for someone starting from scratch that has no marketing background and still has kids at home, then this episode is for you. So let's dive on in.

Kendra, [00:01:00] I'm so excited to have you today and just chat about where your business is now and where you got started.

So tell my audience about who you are as a person and then tell us about your business. 

Kendra: Yeah, so 

I am a, I live in California. I was a teacher for 14 years. I have two little kids married. I, last year I got fired from my teaching job very suddenly, and I knew that. I could always go back to the classroom, like the classroom's always there, but I was like, you know what, maybe this is my chance to try something different.

And when I thought about what I could do I don't know how I found you or you found me. Probably maybe an ad, but I wanted to, I wanted to work from home. I wanted to homeschool. I wanted to not work on anybody else's time. I wanted to pick who I worked with so ad management kind of checked all the boxes, right?

And so I was like, okay, I have nothing to lose. Let me just do it. So I dove in to C, F, C. I knew nothing. I have zero marketing background. [00:02:00] Zero ads background. I had no background in any of that, but I am a very like, driven person. If I say I'm gonna do something and I commit to something, I do it. And so yeah, I dove in.

I started just marketing minutes every day. And, kind of the turning point, I guess was about summertime. I met with a educator from the UK and she was running ads and I just worked with her on a done with you kind of style. Like she was running her own ads and she just needed a little bit of help and she literally on this call was like, Kendra, you need to help teacher.

You need to help teachers with this. Do not go after other businesses. You need to help teachers with this. And so I was like, okay. So then I started just doing marketing minutes towards educational accounts on Instagram, and it just snowballed from there. I just got a lot of responses and engagement and traction, and then landed a client in November, landed a client in.

I think it was OC, maybe August, then another one September, and then my third [00:03:00] one in January. So most of my clients have now been with me since then, since August. I've had those two clients. I signed my third in January, and then I just signed two more last week. All educators.

Brandi: I love that so many people like think that they have to know what their niche is and a lot of times like it just falls into your lap.

Yeah. Like it just ends up working out that way. And so I love that you're doing, taking what you were doing before because you were an educator and now you're helping educators just in a completely different way, which is so beautiful. And Yeah, I'm sure an ad just popped up and was like, Hey. Don't be a stay-at-home mom.

Have this other way. Yeah. And the funny thing is, is we have so many homeschooling moms now, and we have a joke, Jansa and I, and I'm like, I bring all the homeschooling moms to the yard. Yeah, that is what I do. And I think it's such a flexible opportunity. For not only women, not only people staying at home, but as a [00:04:00] homeschooling mom, there's this whole other element of Hey, I can't really be on call all the time.

Yeah. Like I have to be working in the background. 'cause not only am I like managing a business, but also I have to educate my kids. But not only that, my kids are home 24 7. Yep. Yep. And so it adds a totally different dynamic. And the great thing about ad management. Is that works out so nicely because we don't have to be on call.

We don't have to be the face of a business. We don't have to be like their assistant or anything like that. We really gotta work on our own time. So you found all these clients and now you're working with five clients total, correct. Correct. Okay. Awesome. So let's talk about time and how you are managing your day.

'cause I have a feeling a lot of people wanna know, how the heck are you doing that and homeschooling and being a mom. So what does your days look like?

Kendra: So my kids actually are lucky enough to go to classes twice a week. So I actually do have two days a week where I have about six hours, and those are my like power days.

[00:05:00] I'm just, I pretty much work. All six hours, right? With breaks. And then the rest of the week is just within pockets of my day when I can, sometimes in the evenings, during dance or baseball, sometimes on the weekends when you know, dad will take them somewhere, things like that. So really the rest of it is just in pockets of my day that I find a couple hours here and a couple hours there.

My, my couple of my longstanding clients, their ad spends are a little more modest, so the upkeep and the management isn't, super time consuming. And so now that I feel like they're all settled into their, and I'm settled into managing them, I can now manage like the onboarding and the strategy and the planning and the building of these new clients.

So everything has happened. In the way that, it was meant to happen. Everything has happened in a way that's happened perfectly at a, at a good speed. But now I'm probably, now I'm probably pretty maxed out for the moment. So yeah

Brandi: and that's the thing. [00:06:00] We can talk about how to optimize that all day long.

Kendra: So yeah. How many hours a week do you think you are working? So definitely the, 10 hours, 12 hours on those two days, and then a couple of hours here and there, but probably no more than 25 hours a week.

Brandi: Okay. And that's what we see with our Strategist Society members is since we track all their time and everything, we know that the average member works 24.5 hours per week.

The crazy thing though, is it doesn't matter if they're making $10,000 a month. Or 30,000, it does not affect how much time they're working. So that shows where the opportunity is for you, where you can be making more. And still working the same amount, which is really beautiful that you can do that. It's not the more clients you take, the more hours you have to work.

There's ways that to optimize the business and that's probably your next growth stage. Where you're at going now is like you know how to land clients and that's like the first step. You've done that. Now it's how to we optimize, hit [00:07:00] all of our revenue goals. While still maintaining that 25 hour work week.

So what, five clients. That's incredible. You started last, we're not even a year into this. Yeah. So six months really to get those. So tell me, what have you been doing to land your clients?

Kendra: All Instagram and all pretty much just cold dms. And just really simple, not long drawn out messages, just either, Hey, a lot of the times I'm interacting with either ads of champagne clients, clients that look like I'd wanna work with, or accounts that I'd wanna work with.

And when it comes to education, I know what I'm looking at and I know what you know has the potential to be successful. And when I look at their business, I know, whether they have the other systems set up to make them successful with ads. So then. The conversation part just comes easy. I'm just connecting with them as an educator and then Hey, I'm here to support you. And that's usually then when people are like, oh yeah, I am wearing a hundred hats around my business. We are running ads and yeah, I am [00:08:00] interested in this service. And so a lot of. At least in this niche, maybe like a lot of people are like, oh, I didn't even really realize that I could outsource this.

And so I'm they're really, interested in hearing like how I am joining their team essentially to support them with this growth mechanism, right?

Brandi: I know. It's so crazy. There's so many of these homeschooling resources. Oh, I wish y'all could see this. She pulls out her CFC certified mug.

Yes. Because only we had this on video. But there's all these homeschooling, pretty much teachers, educators, curriculum designers, and I reached out to one and she was like. Oh, I don't have a team. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. You're like one of the biggest like people in the homeschool space. And she was like, wait, people hire for this.

And I'm like, what world do we live in? And I think that's the thing that people don't understand. Like we're so in it. Like we think like everyone knows what an ad manager is, everyone knows this. And it comes up with the same thing with ai. Like we're so [00:09:00] in it that we feel like everyone knows this, but at the end of the day.

A lot of people don't know that there are ad managers out there that they can hire to run their own ads. A lot of people like don't even know how to run, open up their ad manager. So even if AI could run ads for 'em, they wouldn't even know how to log in, let alone set up an ad account. And so it's just, that's such a good way for us to realize hey, just because we know it.

Doesn't mean everyone else knows it. And it's our job to educate, to show people like, Hey, I'm here to support you and help you. You don't have to do this on your own. So you are on Instagram. I see your content all the time. I love it. So with that being said, what is the first message you're typically sending people?

What does that first message look like?

Kendra: It usually just looks Hey, your, your educational resources look great. I'm a homeschooling parent. Or maybe if they're classroom resources, I'll connect with them on I spent 14 years in the classroom. Honestly, a lot of these people that I'm messaging, I've probably downloaded their resources at one time or another.

Yeah. So I'll say I've literally use your [00:10:00] resources from teachers, pay teachers, and, and then I'll say, I noticed that you're either running ads. I'd love to know how they're going, what's working and share what's working in other accounts, and just that conversation. I usually don't ever head with, can I run your ads?

Or, do you need help running ads? I'll just ask those curious questions of who's supporting you with your ads right now? How are they doing? I'd love to help you use ads to grow and yeah. And a lot of these companies are really either small teams or like you said, single person teams and they just don't know that there's a better way and they're wearing all these hats and, when they realize that you know there is a better way and that this can be used to grow and profit, then they're more interested, right? Like they've already done all this work, they're so invested in their businesses, but that doesn't mean that they know all the ways that their businesses can grow, right?

And ads, and so is one of them.

Brandi: So I love this. So building [00:11:00] rapport, asking questions. That's what I talk about, getting people into the buyer zone. We don't lead with the sale, we lead with questions. And getting them into the buying zone and then sell them for a call. Not necessarily selling them in the dms, but a call.

So what do you think's been the hardest part of growing your business?

The hardest part of growing my business.

Kendra: Probably just consistency. Consistency. Some weeks I'm super consistent and some weeks I'm not. And I try not to be too hard on myself, just give myself grace if I do anything at all. Maybe I'm DMing like five people instead of 15.

And just trying to stay consistent. I know that content is not necessary at all for being an ad manager, but I would like that to be part of my business and I really struggle with that. So for me personally, the content is my biggest hurdle because I know that that's really what's gonna continue to drive people to me rather than me seeking them out.

Brandi: Yeah, and I think that's one of the big things is when we choose our [00:12:00] marketing method, we have to think about what goes into it and know if you're doing. In-person networking. If you're doing cold emailing, cold calling, you don't have to do content. If you wanna be on Instagram, you probably wanna get some content out.

That being said, I'm like notorious for going and like doing great with content on Instagram and then going, am I for two months? So I, it's a problem with me too, like that is a hangup. But at the end of the day, if we do wanna bring new people into our world so we can communicate with them, which is how I DM people, as soon as they follow me, like comment, then I'm in the dms chatting with them like that is one of the biggest things we have to focus on, is getting content that leads to conversations.

Okay. What do you think has been the most surprising thing about your business?

Kendra: Surprising thing. Ooh. I think just that there's like that, there are so many businesses in my niche out there that. I didn't really know how many educators and that, that's, I think [00:13:00] also surprising is like I'm working with people globally.

Like I have a client in Australia. I had the client in the uk. That is just so crazy and wild banana pants to me that I'm now working with people all over the world. And just that. You have those self-limiting beliefs like, oh, people don't want this. Or maybe there's not, there's not enough champagne clients in this, and we talked about this on the, the last call, like me feeling I don't know if this niche is viable and there's, and you said no, there is.

And so that's been the most surprising thing, is discovering that, that no, there are plenty of clients out there that legitimately need and want support with ads.

Brandi: I love that. Okay, so if someone was listening to this and they're like, Kendra, I just lost my job, or maybe I don't wanna do what I'm doing, or maybe I'm a homeschooling mom and I don't know if conversions for clients is right for me, what would you say to them?

Kendra: I shopped, I did a lot of shopping on programs about freelancing, and your program is, [00:14:00] it's just so comprehensive. There's literally everything you need is in there. Every question I had is answered in there. Every wondering I had, every tool I may need, everything in there is, it's in there. You just have to do it.

You just have to, and you say that you just, you have to put the action. You can't just consume it. You have to. Do what is being, taught to do. And if you do those things it works.

Brandi: I thought you were gonna say, you gotta do the dang thing. I was just waiting for it.

Kendra: I can't think your tagline. Yeah, if you do the dang things, it works.

Absolutely. A hundred percent. I love that.

Brandi: What do you think's been the number one most helpful resource in conversions for clients? 

Kendra: Probably the like the wow factor onboarding, like knowing how to onboard a client. I had no idea how to onboard clients, how to off onboard clients, how to do that kind of backend type invoicing, contracting, that stuff.

And so that has been the biggest help for me.

Brandi: And what's your next goal? So we can cheer you [00:15:00] on. My next goal I'm working, I wanna get to 10 K months. Definitely 10 K months. And my next goal, I don't know, should it be a Monet monetary goal? Can be whatever you want. Yeah. It's your goal. I'm going for 20 K months this year.

I'm going for 20 K months. Love that.

Kendra: Do you mind sharing where you're at right now? I'm at seven k.

Brandi: That's amazing. So can you tell me like does that replace what you were making as a teacher?

Kendra: Oh yeah. I've already replaced my teacher salary for sure.

Brandi: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Kendra, thank you so much for sharing with my audience your story.

'cause I know it's gonna inspire others. And not only that, but like teachers who are thinking about switching careers, 'cause that is a big thing right now. But also those who are, have lost their job. That's also a thing right now. And us homeschooling mamas. We need to make money, and so thank you for sharing your story with us, Kendra.

Thank you, Brandy.

Y'all wasn't Kendra, just incredible. I hope her story reminds you that you don't need a marketing degree, a [00:16:00] massive following, or even a niche figured out before you start. You just need to commit and take action and follow your marketing minutes. If you're a service provider who's ready to land, your first

or your next five clients, I want you to check out conversions for clients.com. It's the program Kendra's in and it has everything you need to get started, even if you're brand spanking new and have no ads experience. This is my signature program where we teach you how to not only run ads for clients, but how to run a business, how to find clients, and how to create systems.

So you can make six figures a year working less than 25 hours a week. And so if you're like, yes, Brandy, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Head to conversions for clients.com for more information, and in until next week, my friends go out. Serve your clients. Scale your business and soar into the success you deserve.