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Meet Christien Bouc

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Christien Bouc.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I got started with Social Media Marketing (SMMA) back in 2017 after being hit with a Tai Lopez ad. Like many college students, I incurred debt in order to pursue a higher education. I wanted to escape the rat race but I had never considered starting a business without a “degree”.

The more I thought about the sales pitch, the more I was sold on his offer—I was SO gullible! I threw my money into Tai’s course, told my girlfriend I was quitting school, my job, and that I would help business owners with social media. She broke up with me shortly thereafter… 😅

Sad, alone, broke; I moved into my Mom’s house to get on my feet and build my business. I was very fortunate to have one parent who believed in me and supported my decision while most of my friends and family said I was making a huge mistake. These were some of the most difficult times of my life but very important for my self-education and self-development. During this time, I experimented with multiple online business models and I had my largest success selling a trending Ecommerce product on Amazon which did ~ $5-6k revenue a month while it was selling.

This was a great income, but I knew it would soon expire because the product was based around an upcoming date/event, so I focused more on pitching social media marketing clients. I went to Palm Canyon, the main street with all the businesses, to go door-to-door and sell my services in a suit. It was 110 degrees in summer. I was covered in sweat. I was rejected A LOT. But, I learned an important lesson: these business owners mainly acquired customers because of the location on Palm Canyon Drive. They did not believe in social media marketing, and I could not change their minds. I needed to find prospective businesses already generating revenue with social media that were looking to hire someone. And I turned to Craigslist…

Not long after, I landed my first real client, an author, at $15/hr. Then, I ended up doing some work for a Medical Marijuana Dispensary. Then, a restaurant. However, my first big break was in San Francisco when I worked with an Educational Toy startup. This completely changed the game for me as it was the first high ticket client I procured for multiple thousands of dollars a month. That month alone I had managed over $70,000 that month in adspend for that client. I ended up working with that company for ~ eight months until they were acquired.

While I ran paid ads & managed content, I really wanted to transition to Instagram marketing/consulting with brands, influencers, and other agency owners. I had purchased a few courses, grew accounts via the Follow/Unfollow method, and I had even started a YouTube channel & FB group centered around Instagram growth. I documented my results growing an Instagram account to 100k followers in 83 days organically (@christienvirals), (@viralinstamarketing) 60k followers in three months, (@mariabellatastic) 100k followers in 30 days, and more. Then, people started reaching out and asking if I could grow their accounts for a fee. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with many clients across various niches from a basketball startup to a spiritual jewelry store to a 1.5M follower model, but I discovered this—the people I helped most were—Instagram Marketing Agencies.

Nowadays, I exclusively sell Instagram growth-related services and work primarily with marketing agencies. Some of our clients have over 100+ Instagram clients, and we help them earn more revenue by reselling our done-for-you growth services. This allows them to focus more on the sales process than the fulfillment. We also do hourly zoom consultation to demonstrate how to actually fulfill the services if they want training. In the past year, I’ve also shifted to building a couple of softwares to help marketing agencies get their clients more followers and engagement as well.

Between my agency and software, I generated $15,462 revenue in the past 30 days. I feel so blessed and grateful to wake up everyday and grind on my online business. It’s allowed me to generate more income than I thought possible and to travel to countries abroad like Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Thailand, Bali, and live the “laptop lifestyle”. To this day, I am living out of an Airbnb in the USA due to the COVID situation. I’m 26 years old and looking to purchase a home.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No, it has been anything but a smooth road. I’ve had many challenges and setbacks.

– In 2017, I had to work three part-time jobs at one point while doing my marketing agency to make ends meet.
– In 2018, I had landed three high ticket clients but when I lost a client, my income literally went in half.
– In 2019, I had a Facebook group I spent one year growing. It was called Insta Hackers and got disabled at 15.9k group members. I used the group in the past to sell an online course, and my first launch sold out and generated me $6k in 2-3 hours. The group was deactivated after 2nd launch of the course. I tried to appeal but Facebook never messaged me back, so I lost my list and had to restart over.
– In 2019, I invested a large sum of money (about what I paid for my car) into a software project. It ended up being a money pit and my partner and I lost a lot of money, time, and effort.
– In 2020, I invested about ~ $3,000 into a software to run links that open in-app inside the ads manager. ~ 1 week after completion the links started getting flagged. Our competitor’s links also get flagged and there doesn’t seem to be a fix.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My agency is called www.boucmedia.com and we specialize in Instagram growth services. I’m known a lot for telling people EXACTLY what big agencies are doing to grow accounts—No BS. Many people come to me for advice on the newest, most cutting edge growth strategies, but I also have a good amount of personal experience building social media softwares. I do not know how to code, but I am able to describe what I need done to the developers and have them do the technical part.

I’m most proud of the connections and friendships I’ve made with my marketing agency clients. We regularly talk and I go out of my way to make sure they are happy with the service. I genuinely consider them my friends, and I want them to win. Because of this, they trust me. I recently had a consulting client who purchased a $600/hr consulting call. During the call, I told him who I hired for a service so he could get a cheaper rate than what I charge. However, he decided to purchase the service from me even though it was $200 more because he said he trusts me and he got so much value from the call. This makes me so proud! He could have easily gone with the same service for less, but wanted to cut me in because he values our business relationship and interested in other services I have 🙂

What sets us apart? In my opinion, it’s mainly that our ideal customer is a marketing agency—not a brand, business, or influencer. My agency charges much lower pricing than most of the competition because I’m targeting marketing agencies. I understand that too high of pricing eats into their profit margins so I focus getting clients with volume so I can keep their keeping pricing low. Another thing that distinguishes us from a lot of other marketing agencies is we do guaranteed growth on some services. We are confident in our ability to perform and if we can guarantee followers on specific services like influencer marketing we will.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Yes, I did have many people who influenced me but it wouldn’t call them a mentor. The support from friends and family has been essential in my success, although I experienced a lot of friction from them at first. The people who inspired me the most were members of tight-knit communities who ran marketing agencies. While I found myself paying many experts for information, I also noticed that as I shared information to others for free, they started sharing knowledge back. The connections I’ve made with these people has been invaluable.

Just some thoughts:
– Tai Lopez got me started.
– My mom supported my decision to start my business.
– My friend Nicholas urged me to apply for the first startup company I worked with.
– Adam, a guy on Telegram, who taught me a lot about the Instagram Algorithm and how it works.
– My buddy Tad who had over 500+ clients when we first met. He taught me a lot about getting better results for clients and learning about softwares as he has a degree in coding.
– My best friend Henrick who listened to me talk about Instagram social media marketing non-stop, haha!

I’ve been so lucky to network and connect with all these people!

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