The OptiReto software has allowed us to profitably grow our digital marketing agency while reducing the time needed to optimize accounts and increasing margins.

And now we’re releasing it to you.

Why did we create more than a dozen software tools to automate and 80/20 Digital Marketing Agencies?

When I was 19 and at my co-op job for mechanical engineering, I distinctly remember my friend asking me, “Why are you so happy all the time?” 

I laughed because though it was a bit of an odd question, she was right, I was happy all the time. 

“Why wouldn’t I be happy? 

I’m doing well at a top 5 engineering school, I have lots of great friends and family, the Lord loves me, and I drive a sweet Camaro. Life’s practically perfect for me.”

Of course, I lived in an apartment that’s only furnishings were a mattress and bean bag. We also didn’t really have any cooking utensils or much of anything else. But we had enough money for food, clothes, and the occasional trip to the drag strip or the Wooden “O” outside of Cleveland for Radiohead concerts.

Little did I know that as I spoke those words, the lump on my neck that I assumed was a “muscle pull” was actually cancer.

Hodgkins Lymphoma to be precise.

Within a couple of weeks of being diagnosed, a mutual friend introduced me to Lyndsey Popelas. She was a senior at a neighboring high school to where I attended in Charleroi, Pennsylvania and the most inspiring person I’ve ever met.

For years we hung out, stayed in touch and I even introduced her to the joy that is the “J” turn in the previously mentioned Camaro.

My hair fell out. 

I was nauseous after every treatment.

I couldn’t take the pain of the IV and so had to get a port in my chest which left a huge scar (that I still get asked about at the beach).

The hardest day of my life was attending Lyndsey’s funeral...

I had been cured, completely cancer free, and back to engineering school several years prior but Lyndsey didn’t make it to 23.

My eyes tear up every time I recall that day.

I just kept thinking “Why Me”? 

As in, “Why am I standing here and she lying there?” 

I didn’t do anything to deserve this and neither did she.

God, what do you want from me?!

While attending Kettering University, I went to a talk given by an alumni, Steve Dickerson, who told of his adventures in business working as a leader for various companies in the automotive industry.

It was amazing.

All of a sudden it all clicked for me - to help improve the most lives in my short time on earth, I didn’t want to be an engineer, I wanted to be a business leader!

So I began working for a software company that helped small businesses throughout the US and Canada. I got to travel North America and help these businesses streamline and improve their operations and it was a blast!

One day, while visiting one of these clients in Farmington, New Mexico, something strange happened.  

First, the client whom I’d never met before, invited me to stay at their home.

The stranger part was, though they were paying me a good amount of money to be there, the next morning, instead of heading into the office, we headed up to the mountains surrounding Durango, Colorado. 

Literally the opposite direction. 

But I was there to work and we weren’t working which left me wondering why are they wasting their money showing me the sights!?

Until the owner said, “So why don’t you move out here and run my business?” I laughed, “Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, I’ll make you an owner.”

The words rung around in my head.

They were almost magical.

Like gollum repeating, “the precious”, “an owner” kept echoing in my mind.

“Ok, keep talking.”

And so my entrepreneurial journey began.

In the first year, with me running this local, service-based business and my partner focusing almost entirely on sales, we doubled the profits. 

As part of that franchise I was required to hire an Ad Agency. So I jumped on my motorcycle, rode the 3 hours to Albuquerque and met with one of the top agencies in the system.

Before that, I’d read Perry Marshall’s book, the Definitive Guide to Adwords and so had a solid background in digital marketing.

After me asking a series of questions about their keyword strategy and use of negative keywords, the agency owner simply responded, “We’re still trying to figure it out.”

So in 2008 I took the reigns of our digital strategy for my small, local, New Mexico business.

Two years later I sold out my portion of ownership, was businessless, and unemployed. 

So I did the most logical thing I could think of - I took an epic 17-day, 5600 mile west coast motorcycle, camping adventure on a 2006 Yamaha FZ1.

Google it. It’s not a touring bike.

Everywhere I stopped from Yellowstone to Sequoia National Park, middle aged men walked over to me, looked at the bike and said, “Do it while you’re young.”

About the time I returned home, I received a call from a friend in Amarillo, Texas asking if I could help them do to their business what I did to mine in 2 short years.

Uh, sure.

So I did a bit of consulting to help pay the bills however, once again sitting on the top of the world, I decided I needed to buy another business. 

And so I jumped in with both feet and bought a business brokerage in Raleigh, NC and began the long move back to the east coast. 

Bill Gates once said that, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

He was talking to me, I just didn’t know it yet.

In 2011, I racked up $5k on my credit card for living expenses. My total taxable income was $17k and I regularly worked 60+ hours/week. Assuming 2 weeks of vacation that year, that works out to about $5.67/hour. Not bad for a highly educated mechanical engineer and entrepreneurial genius, right?

Darn you, Bill Gates. 

Regardless of how I felt a year earlier riding through Grand Teton National Park marveling at my brilliant business sense, reality had now set in, and I was indeed fallible.

I don’t recall having the good sense to cry. I probably should have.

So as I was working on my exit plan from that failed acquisition, I did a funny thing.

I took my list of colleagues and business owners from the industry of the business I’d bought in Farmington and emailed all of them a survey asking about their sales and marketing. 

It wasn’t a particularly great survey but I promised if you filled it out, I’d share the results from all your colleagues so you could benchmark yourself.

To my suprise 35 people filled it out. 

At this point, I had no business to speak of except a few consulting clients.

Yet, because I asked people about their marketing strategies, a few assumed I must have the answers.

One called me up and asked me to stop by their office only a couple of miles from me in Cary, NC and so I jumped on my motorcycle and rode over.

My plan was to sell them on Google Adwords marketing and they loved the idea. 

Just one little problem.

They didn’t have a website and, when I had arrived at their office, I wasn’t in the website building business.

So they asked me if I could do a website for them.

I said, I don’t do websites but if I did… And I laid out my vision.

“That sounds great. How much?”

“Uh, $2,000.”

“Ok, we’ll have a check for you on Monday.”

What did I just do!? 

So all weekend I sat on my air mattress (it was the only furniture I had and I couldn’t afford Starbucks) researching how to build a website. (Yes, I had a motorcycle but no furniture. When you can’t have everything you learn to prioritize.)

Monday, I jumped on my motorcycle and, much to my surprise, they indeed had a check waiting for me.

I decided I wouldn’t cash it until I had their site ready to launch.

Think about that for a second...

I had never met these people before.

We had no contract to sign.

I rode over to their office on a crotch rocket.

They had literally no testimonials, case studies, or guarantees that I could help them.

Yet they happily cut me a check for more than 10% of my income that year and committed to a monthly service fee (which they have paid faithfully ever since).

About 5 years later I got some more insight into why they gave me a shot. The owner who had cut me the check told the new owner, “Look, all the agencies and marketers I’ve ever met are just there to make money off of you. Bryan is different. He’s the only one I’d trust.”

I practically tear up every time I talk about that, too since I think Lyndsey would be proud of me.

In 2015 my team was rated the Happiest in the World out of over 760 organizations. The dream that I had back at college of being a business leader to help the most people was coming true.

Though it took 3 years before I could take a salary or distribution from my new digital marketing agency, the business was starting to succeed, and hit 7-figures in recurring revenue in less than 5 years. 

For context, less than 4% of businesses in America ever hit 7 figures.

Before I started chemo treatments, I recall the doctor telling me the treatments may result in me never being able to have kids. He even asked if I wanted to freeze my sperm.

At 19, I didn’t think much of it and said, “No.”

In 2018, my wife and I welcomed our second child, a beautiful baby girl into the world on March 3rd. For a week, I turned email notifications on my phone completely off and I attended to my family.

My team took the reigns and the business kept running smoothly.

Which was an interesting insight for me.

Without any phone calls or email notifications on my phone, everything kept running smoothly.

So I never turned email notifications back on.

My digital agency kept growing and margins keep getting better because:

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