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When Entrepreneur, Ryan Horst, began to think about what he wanted to dedicate his life to, he knew one thing was for sure, he wanted to impact the lives of others in a positive way. He set out to find a career that would allow him to do so, while providing a positive environment for him to grow in. This is what led him to start his own marketing agency (The Bot Doc Agency).
“Go to school, get good grades, get a stable job.” Those were the words that were preached to Ryan his entire life, despite growing up in an entrepreneurial family. “They only wanted the best for me. They experienced both the risk and reward of being entrepreneurs and just felt that a more stable predictable lifestyle might be less stress for me” he said. So he went with their advice, and enrolled in The University of South Florida for college to study Biomedical Sciences with the intent to go off to medical school, and live a happy life of being a doctor. After some time spent shadowing surgeons and volunteering in hospitals, Ryan began to second guess himself. He quickly learned that the hospital life wasn’t for him.
“I just felt like hospitals were predominantly negative environments. No one really ‘wants’ to go to the hospital. People typically only go there if they are medically forced to or if they’re visiting a loved one that was medically forced to. Neither of which are positive situations,” he states.
So after graduation, Ryan knew that he wanted two things out of his future career. He wanted to impact the lives of others in a positive way, and he wanted to work in a positive environment. He also realized that it was important to him to be able to have control of his schedule, and not be enslaved to a job. This led Ryan to a personal training job that offered him the flexibility to be able to travel and have control over his time. It also provided him with plenty of time to study different industries.
“I learned all about finances, the stock market, cryptocurrencies, marketing, e-commerce, and of course health & fitness. While all my friends were either still in college or working a 9 to 5 making far more money than me, I was working on developing as an individual and discovering what I want my future to look like,” he shares.
After much consideration, Ryan found his way into the marketing industry. He now owns a marketing agency that specializes in helping gyms, apartments, e-commerce, restaurants, food trucks, and AirBnB hosts. They focus on Chat and Social Media Marketing, which is arguably the newest form of marketing.
Messenger/Chat Marketing is “the new way to do business,” according to Forbes. Chat Marketing uses Facebook Messenger to target individuals, it’s a similar concept as email marketing, but when put into action, yields up to 1000% better results with open rates as high as 95%. Facebook’s vast collection of data makes Chat/Messenger Marketing the most powerful tool for any business. “It’s as easy as one click to gain a Messenger Subscriber, one click to gain an email address, and one click to gain a phone number. So now we’ve gained 3 points of contact for a lead with only 3 clicks…that’s powerful. It doesn’t stop there, we can then begin to learn even more about our customers via quiz funnels. When is your birthday? Do you prefer X or Y? Have you made your purchase yet? Can you leave a review?” says Ryan.
Businesses are able to place a Messenger Bot with Live Chat capabilities directly onto their websites. A Messenger Bot can help your site visitors find the right product for them, answer frequently asked questions, pre-qualify leads before a phone call can be scheduled, and so much more.
“You wouldn’t leave your brick and mortar store unstaffed…so why is your website?” he says.
What inspired Ryan to get into the Chat Marketing industry, in specific, was realizing how much time/money it could save companies. “You can have a Messenger bot speak with thousands of customers at the same exact time. It’s the secret sauce for scaling any business. I actually created a Messenger Bot aimed to go through the exact calculations required to determine what amount of each macronutrient they should be eating each day. My client was able to sit back and watch Netflix while his new Messenger Bot personalized everyone’s macronutrients,” Ryan said. Because of his expertise in Chat Marketing, Ryan is able to improve his own work-life balance and assist other business owners in doing the same.
“I come from a long line of entrepreneurs that all have one thing in common. They all worked countless hours their whole lives to grow their businesses to provide for their families. I witnessed this first hand by watching my parents work their tails off to give me and my two older sisters the best childhood possible,” he shares.
Becoming an expert in Chat Marketing allowed Ryan to differentiate himself from his competition. With digital marketing being as competitive of an industry as it is, it was important for him to find an unsaturated area of the market. He is constantly staying on top of his game by educating himself and offering full transparency to his clients.
“When I create a sales funnel for a client I will create a full flow chart that maps out how the funnel works so that they can have a top down view of what the funnel looks like. My agency also offers many other services such as web design, virtual billboards, SEO, Loyalty program creation, social media marketing, and much more,” Ryan says.
His plans for the future are to continue to expand his agency, and after, he plans on creating a paid course on Chat Marketing. This course would have to be updated frequently as Chat Marketing is an ever-changing ecosystem.
“The rules of Messenger Marketing constantly changing is one of the big reasons why it is important to hire out to a Messenger Marketing specialist,” he emphasizes.
Ryan understands the rules and is able to keep his clients’ businesses safe from being banned by Facebook. He is currently offering a free course that is 100% built in Messenger, where he teaches people about the different ways Messenger Marketing can be used to benefit their business.
What future entrepreneurs can take away from Ryan’s story is that no one truly knows that they want for themselves, until they take the time to figure it out. After searching for the best possible career that would allow him to live the life he wanted for himself, Ryan was able to find his success in the marketing world. Helping anywhere from start-ups to 8 figure businesses find success in the fast paced environment of online marketing.
His goal, always being to positively impact the lives of others, he strives to help other people and businesses by improving their work balance, so in turn they are able to spend more time with their loved ones while creating a more scalable business plan.
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