The 60% Tax: How Small Marketing Teams Lose Their Week
Your marketing team has 40 hours per person per week.
According to research from Asana, only 16 of those hours go to actual marketing work. The other 24 hours? Meetings, status updates, tool switching, and chasing approvals.
That’s the 60% tax. And it’s killing small teams.
The Research
Asana’s Anatomy of Work study surveyed nearly 10,000 knowledge workers across industries. The finding was consistent: 60% of work time is spent on “work about work.”
That’s not marketing. That’s not strategy. That’s not creativity.
It’s coordination.
| Activity Type | % of Time |
|---|---|
| Skilled work (actual job) | 27% |
| Strategy and planning | 14% |
| Coordination and status | 29% |
| Searching for information | 14% |
| Communication overhead | 16% |
For a marketer, “skilled work” is writing copy, designing campaigns, analyzing data, building strategy. Everything else is overhead.
Where The Time Actually Goes
Let’s break down a typical week for a small marketing team.
Status Meetings: 6 hours/week
| Meeting | Frequency | Duration | Weekly Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team standup | Daily | 15 min | 1.25 hrs |
| Marketing sync | Weekly | 60 min | 1 hr |
| Cross-functional sync | Weekly | 45 min | 0.75 hrs |
| 1:1s | Weekly | 60 min | 1 hr |
| Campaign reviews | Weekly | 60 min | 1 hr |
| Ad hoc syncs | Daily | ~12 min | 1 hr |
Six hours of meetings. That’s 15% of your week just talking about work.
Searching for Information: 5 hours/week
- “Where’s the latest version of the brand guidelines?”
- “Who approved this copy?”
- “What’s the status of the landing page?”
- “Did anyone save the analytics from last campaign?”
This adds up fast. Estimates suggest knowledge workers spend 20% of their time searching for internal information.
Tool Switching: 4 hours/week
The average marketing team uses 10+ tools daily:
| Tool Type | Time Lost per Switch |
|---|---|
| Email to project management | 2 min |
| Project management to design | 3 min |
| Design to email platform | 4 min |
| Email platform to analytics | 2 min |
| Analytics to reporting | 3 min |
Each switch costs time and mental energy. Multiply by dozens of switches per day.
Chasing Approvals: 4 hours/week
“Hey, did you get a chance to review that email?”
“Just following up on the blog post feedback.”
“Can you approve this by EOD? We’re blocked.”
Approval delays create follow-up work. Follow-up work creates more coordination. The cycle compounds.
Updating Project Management: 3 hours/week
Moving cards in Asana. Updating status in Monday. Adding notes to Notion.
None of this is marketing. All of it feels necessary to keep the team aligned.
The Math Is Brutal
Let’s calculate the real cost for a 3-person marketing team.
| Person | Hours/Week | 60% Tax | Actual Marketing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing Manager | 45 hrs | 27 hrs lost | 18 hrs |
| Content Marketer | 40 hrs | 24 hrs lost | 16 hrs |
| Demand Gen | 40 hrs | 24 hrs lost | 16 hrs |
| Team Total | 125 hrs | 75 hrs lost | 50 hrs |
Your 3-person team produces the output of 1.25 people.
The Hidden Cost: Those 75 lost hours per week equal roughly $150,000/year in salary going to coordination instead of marketing (assuming $100K average salary).
Why Small Teams Get Hit Hardest
Large teams have specialists. Marketing ops people. Project managers. Coordinators whose job is to absorb the overhead.
Small teams don’t have that luxury.
| Team Size | Who Handles Coordination |
|---|---|
| 20+ people | Dedicated ops role |
| 10-20 | Part-time ops responsibility |
| 5-10 | Everyone, ad hoc |
| 1-5 | Everyone, constantly |
When everyone does coordination, no one does it well. And it eats into the actual work.
Where The Biggest Gains Are
Not all coordination is equal. Some is necessary. Some is fixable.
High-Value Targets (Fix These First)
| Activity | Time Lost | Difficulty to Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Approval delays | 4 hrs/week | Medium |
| Tool switching | 4 hrs/week | Medium |
| Status meetings | 3 hrs/week | Easy |
| Searching for info | 3 hrs/week | Medium |
Lower-Value Targets (Fix Later)
| Activity | Time Lost | Difficulty to Fix |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 meetings | 1 hr/week | Keep these |
| Planning sessions | 2 hrs/week | Keep these |
| Team building | 1 hr/week | Keep these |
Some coordination is valuable. The goal isn’t zero overhead. It’s eliminating the waste.
Three Ways to Cut the Tax
1. Consolidate Tools
Every tool boundary is a coordination cost.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Separate email + landing page tools | Unified marketing platform |
| Docs in Google + Notion + Slack | Single source of truth |
| Manual tracking in spreadsheets | Automated dashboards |
Fewer tools = fewer handoffs = less coordination.
2. Templatize Workflows
If you run the same type of campaign more than twice, templatize it.
| What to Templatize | Time Saved |
|---|---|
| Campaign briefs | 2 hrs each |
| Review processes | 1 hr each |
| Reporting formats | 1 hr each |
| Email sequences | 2 hrs each |
Stop reinventing the process every time.
3. Automate Handoffs
The biggest time sink is manual coordination between steps.
| Manual Handoff | Automated Alternative |
|---|---|
| ”Hey, this is ready for review” | Auto-notify when draft completes |
| ”What’s the status?” | Real-time status dashboard |
| ”Can you approve?” | Approval workflow with SLAs |
| ”Where’s the final version?” | Automated versioning |
When handoffs happen automatically, coordination overhead drops.
The Goal: 40% to 60%
You won’t eliminate coordination entirely. And you shouldn’t. Some communication is valuable.
But moving from 40% productive time to 60% is achievable. For a 3-person team, that’s an extra 25 hours of actual marketing work per week.
| Scenario | Hours on Marketing | Equivalent Team Size |
|---|---|---|
| Current (40%) | 50 hrs/week | 1.25 FTEs |
| Target (60%) | 75 hrs/week | 1.9 FTEs |
| Improvement | +25 hrs/week | +50% capacity |
Same team. Same salary. 50% more output.
Key Takeaways
| Problem | Action |
|---|---|
| 60% time on coordination | Audit where time actually goes |
| Too many tools | Consolidate to reduce switching |
| Repeated process work | Templatize common workflows |
| Manual handoffs | Automate status and approvals |
The Bottom Line
The 60% tax is real. And it’s invisible until you measure it.
Your team isn’t slow because they’re not working hard. They’re slow because most of their work isn’t marketing. It’s coordination.
The fix isn’t working longer hours. It’s cutting the overhead so the hours you have go further.
Ready to Cut Your Coordination Tax?
Marqeable builds AI agents that handle marketing workflow coordination automatically, so your team can focus on the work that matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 60% tax on marketing teams?
The 60% tax refers to research showing that 60% of knowledge worker time is spent on coordination and administrative tasks rather than skilled work. For marketing teams, this means only 40% of time goes to actual marketing.
Where does marketing coordination time go?
The biggest time sinks are: status meetings (15%), searching for information (12%), switching between tools (10%), chasing approvals (10%), and updating project management tools (8%).
How can marketing teams reduce coordination overhead?
Three approaches: consolidate tools to reduce context switching, templatize workflows to eliminate reinvention, and automate handoffs so coordination happens without manual effort.
Related Resources
Why Your 3-Person Marketing Team Feels Like 0.5
The coordination tax explained.
Why AI Marketing Tools Are Not Saving You Time
Why generation tools don’t fix workflow problems.
AI Marketing for Early-Stage Startups
Practical guide for small teams.
About Marqeable
Marqeable builds AI marketing agents that autonomously execute content workflows while you focus on strategy and creativity.
