Swapping swag boxes for saunas sessions with Steve Armenti | People are People | Ep. 05

All right, hey, happy July everybody. Been on a little bit of a break, but welcome back to the People R People podcast type thing, the podcast where we talk to the people behind the account. And today I'm stoked cuz I got Steve Armenti. Steve, thanks for joining us. >> Yeah, of course, Doug. Thanks for having me here. >> Yeah, I've I've I've been in the ABM game, I think, for like 2 years now, which is not long compared to you and others, but like your name always popped up from like day one of me getting into this game. >> ABM, my branding's working, I guess. >> Yeah, why is that? Why you're the ABM you're the you're an ABM guy. >> True and true. >> Yeah, I mean, you know, for a long time I actually think I kind of fought it because I thought I'm growth, I'm demand gen. You know, and then GTM became a thing and unfortunately at that time in my career I was trying to like attach my corporate identity to some trend in the market, right? And then realized, man, I just

love ABM. Like why why not just be the ABM guy? And then eventually started an ABM agency and did all things ABM. I only talk about ABM and to ABMers and it's feels like a good place to be when you kind of figure out what you want and where you want to be. And so, yeah, I'm I'm happy to be the ABM guy. >> All right. Well, for >> Or one of them cuz there's some good ABM folks out there. >> Yeah, some great ones. And then well, for the folks that maybe don't know Steve, you're the founder and CEO of 12th agency, which is an ABM agency. Before that, good chunk of time at Google. So, you've been in the big tech world in-house. Um So, that's that's the primer. I don't want to just paint you in those two colors cuz there's much, much more. I mean, you have your aloha shirt and a cool background. I want to get into who you are, but you did say you love ABM. What about it do you love? >> Yeah, I So, a quick story about how I learned about ABM, pre-pre-Google, pre-corporate side, I

was at a content and demand gen agency in Boston for five years, and it was a pretty pivotal part of my career because I started, you know, pretty junior, like in my 20s, as an IC, grew with the company for five years, became a leader, eventually was a leader of a B2B division, and got to do all the things of hiring and firing and strategy and flying all over meeting with clients, and it was an awesome experience, but the the moment I remember most was I was on the client services side, and then I partnered with our internal marketing team on just trends and what's working and that sort of thing. And our VP of marketing came to an all-hands and said, "We're going to do this thing called ABM." And she started talking about it and used kind of the ITSMA definition of every account gets treated as a market of one, we're going to do custom ads, we're going to do landing pages and content, and sales is going to be

dedicated to these accounts. And this this was like 12, 13 years ago. There was no tech. We we literally hired an offshore developer who built a landing page for every single uh prospect. We put their logo on it manually, we wrote copy on it manually. And so, marketing was pushing this whole ABM agenda, and then some of that started trickling into the client work I was doing, and it made sense because I oversaw the B2B division, which was HP, IBM, Samsung, Verizon, Capital One, like big, huge um major brands, and and ABM fit there, right? Like it turns out that's that's how they were essentially going to market anyways, but marketing and other folks just figured out a term to put on top of it. >> ABM? So, you said that was 13 years ago. Can we put like is there a a dot we can put on the map to say this was when ABM started or you think it was always kind of happening and then we called it we gave it a name? >> I think it was always happening and then

we gave it a name because I I have some friends who are old school sales leaders and you know, they're like now run you know, like lead gen companies and sales rev ops companies and stuff and they will tell me cuz they're like hardcore sales and I'm hardcore marketing and we like butt heads a little bit and they're like you marketers always just come up with a name for everything like freaking ABM. It's so stupid. That's just good sales and and I and I think there's some truth to that because you know, and actually I started my career in sales when I was an SDR just cold calling but you know, at the end of the day my my like account rep who would go and visit people that's what he did. Like he just he learned about the person and he learned about the company. He went in and pitched that company as if they were the single most important client that day and he was good at at kind of personalizing that and so I feel like you know, to be honest sales people kind of knew this all along and then

marketers got it and said okay, let's turn this ABM into a thing and you know, for for good or bad you know, here here we are. I think ABM comes with some drama but it's it's the right way to go to market I think if you have a an expensive product and you know, complexity in the in the purchasing process and in the personas of people that buy it like ABM makes sense. >> Yeah, and makes sense to me on the sales side of things if they're like listen, we've always been doing this. You want to give it a name? Great. >> Yeah. >> But here we are. Um so tell me a little about 12. So you you left the corporate world and went out on your own. Uh that sounds kind of scary. What was What was the reason behind it? >> Yeah, I Well, two things. One, I I've always had a bit of a entrepreneurial bug in me. Um when I actually when I was in sales, the very first job out of college, I was a

sales rep like I was saying, and I was bored with that. I wanted to do marketing, and so I started at that time. I'll say I started a company, but I I just put myself out there as a consultant, basically. In California, and I lived on 12th Street, uh 12th and Olive. So, I said, "Oh, I I called it 12th Street Digital." And I went out and said, "I can do social media, I can do content, I can do website SEO, that type of stuff." Landed a client, and it was I mean, I just got that bug right then and there, right? And so, for the next 16, 17 years, I think I was energized and slightly distracted by my my corporate career, and and pursued that pretty heavily. But, I got to a point where I thought, "Man, there's got to be something else to this." And so, that that feeling started coming back, and I was I left Google, went to Digital Ocean for a short stint. I was part of a riff, and so got let go and was like,

"I've got I've got this you know, the universe is telling me something. Like, now is the only time you're maybe going to get to do this." And so, I went all in on it, didn't didn't look back. There's some hard hard moments, but I was like, "This is what I'm doing. I'm I'm pursuing it." And yeah, that was That was October of 2024. So, that's 2024. Okay, so you're um I mean, it's interesting when you get to this point in your life where you're like, "I think this is the only shot I have to do this." Or not the only shot, but you're like, "The window's open, and I got to go through it. Like was there hesitation or were you like were you excited about it? You're like here's the opportunity or like oh my god, I I have to do it regardless of what could happen or go wrong? >> Yeah, I I'm you know, this is sort of a a blessing and a curse of my personality. I I'm I'm very much a dreamer. I I am an optimist.

I think anything is possible and so I sat there in that moment and said, "Yeah, absolutely. You can do this. Why wouldn't we do this? Like let's go." And that honestly has I think been a key driving factor through the hard times where last year like there's there's there's no clients. There's no inbound. There's no revenue for like 3 months and you're figuring out can I withstand this? Can I handle this? You know, and uh I think you do have to have a healthy bit of that that dreaming and a and a little bit of uh you know, carelessness kind of like you have to ignore logic in some sense. >> Yeah. >> And so I I lean very much into that, but there was, you know, I I did in the beginning I I sort of laid out a plan, you know, I was talking to my wife. She's she's the polar opposite. She's an accountant by trade. Uh she's very analytical and so I was like, "Listen, let's give me 4 months and if I can't get to you know, close to what I was

earning from friend of my corporate salary within 4 months, I'll reconsider. You know, I'll go back to W-2 and get a job." And so I did have some of a plan, but also some pressure and I I I like pressure, so it was like, "All right, we got to go. We got to figure this out. Let's do it." >> Yeah, there's always that pressure when you're like I like how you said W-2 where you just used to you know, some money hitting your bank account once or twice a month and you know it and then you got to get used to even if you have clients, you're like, well, there's a sometimes a 60-day uh you know, payout, and you're sort of just waiting you know, the money's coming. You just almost have to talk to yourself and say it's going to be fine. Like there's money coming in, but it's not as consistent. And I think that's like a a mindset thing. I don't know if you felt that way. >> Yeah, a little bit. I it's you know, I I because I'm such an optimist, I always just thought, oh, this client's going to renew, this prospect's going to close, this program's going to be great, right? And

I think that helped me quite a bit in the in the beginning. And and now I'm much more of a realist, I'd say. I'm more at the point where I'm trying to, you know, create a sustainable business versus uh you know, in the early days it was just kind of a founder-led, you know, me doing 90% of the work, and it took some time to get to a place where I could hire some folks, bring in you know, some contract help, and then, you know, found some more senior folks who could take on more of the work and free me up to do more marketing and sales and thinking about the systems and the structures and, you know, getting things to a place where it's it's more of a business than a a um kind of a consultancy, I guess you could say, you know. But I I think if anybody's listening wants to go that journey, I I I would I would recommend starting that way, too. Like like do all the work yourself. Figure it all out, do all the hard stuff, be stressed out, experience the hardest parts of it, because you'll overcome that stuff and you'll learn so much through it. And

then, you know, one mistake I made was not documenting it all at the time. I kind of did it retroactively, and I think that would have been an interesting you know, kind of diary of information to look through of like all those challenges. What were they? What did you do? How did you overcome? What did you learn? Uh what does the process look like now? Like what what would be better? >> Yeah, what's one thing that it's it's like a certain that you would tell people to say like, "Oh, you're going to start an agency? Okay, no matter what, this will happen to you. Don't freak out." >> Ooh, uh if I had to pick just one, I would say I think for me the biggest freak out was when I got through the initial call it referral led growth, right? In the very beginning, I put it out there. I said, "I'm going fractional. I'm doing this thing. I'm I'm open for hire." And I'm I was grateful that I have a pretty active LinkedIn following, so I got some good inbound of people wanting to work

with me. And that was great, and it got me to that goal in 4 months and kept me afloat for a little while, but at a certain point that runs out, right? Unless unless your your network is a million people, right? But eventually that runs dry, and then you realize, "Oh, I've got to actually go and convince people. I have to I have to do the things I'm selling. I have to go and market. I have to I have to sell. I've got to, you know, deal with contracts and proposals and all that stuff." And so, that was a that was a scary moment because you're you're thinking, "I should have never done this. This is going to fail." Like you can be pretty hard on yourself in that moment, or some people can. I was, and I think it's In hindsight, it's like, "Man, all that negativity didn't help at all." You know, flip the script and be like, "Yep, we've got something hard to deal with. Let's Let's pull up our pants and and figure it out." >> Yeah. That's cool. Um

all right, so you said you spent time in California. You're not in California anymore though, right? This is >> No, no, I'm in Colorado now. >> Okay. >> Yeah, yeah. But I lived in I lived in Huntington Beach in in Orange County for several years. That was during the sales like early part of post college and then went back east. I grew up in New Hampshire, lived around Boston for a couple years. Went back to California, northern California. Like we were talking about, lived in in Mountain View for a little bit when I was at Google. And then actually I transferred here to Boulder, Colorado area through Google. I was on the cloud team. There was some restructuring. I found another role and like an incubation team which was super fun and uh went out to Colorado, met the product team and engineering and some go-to-market folks and thankfully got got a new role and it and it you know, Google moved me out here and it's never looked back. >> Now it's home. How long ago was that? >> Yeah, that was

it'll be 8 years in November. >> Okay, so you're a Boulder guy through and through. >> Yeah, becoming becoming. >> outdoorsy? >> Yeah, not as not not as much as it used to be. I mean, when we first moved here, I used to hike like three times a week. Just hit like all the peaks in Boulder. It was awesome. We we camped a lot as a family. But you know, now I'm outside all the time. I love being outside. I walk and love exercise. Um you know, we hike, we bike. I'm probably mountain biking now is more my thing. >> Yeah, I bet. >> Yeah, Colorado's great cuz like we get a lot of sunshine and it's like usually the weather's pretty pleasant. So you want to do something outside, you've got you've got a lot of adventure nearby. >> Totally. >> So it's it's great. >> Is that is that important to break up your day? Like tell me a little about like I'll I'll sit here. This is you know, we work here, my wife and I split this little studio space, but like if I don't go outside and see other people or just

like crush like a 5K really quick, I'm just a worse worker. I'm like my slacks get a little shorter, you know, if I get a little if I burn some energy, yeah, you can tell you're like, oh, he must have done something fun. Is that Is that part of your day? Is that routine? >> It is, yeah. I mean, I think it's it's nice that you you say that and do that, right? And like I think we we should talk about that more. Whereas, remember during COVID? Well, I so I was at a big company during COVID at Google and there was tons of focus on well-being and resilience and hey, we're all trapped inside, get outside, get some fresh air, see sunlight, move your body. And now, there's no more COVID, but yet we're all still trapped inside. Like we're all trapped in these little boxes looking at these screens and I I feel I feel pretty terrible sometimes for like folks I'll talk to that are junior in their careers and they're like, yeah, I'm just in like back-to-back meetings all day, I have no time. Maybe they have a commute into an

office and it's like, man, that is that just sounds terrible. And so, well, one of the benefits of working for yourself is like you know, I I I have freedom. There's obviously obligations and clients want stuff and team members need stuff, but I think restructuring my day around the things that give me the energy I need is is super important and I think I'd love to hear your your routine, but mine is kind of like there's a pre-work routine which is you know, like like exercise of some kind or a walk outside or or something active. And then I get into like a good flow, maybe two, two and a half hours of work. It's either it's either going to be a bunch of meetings that are important or like no meetings at all and I'm and I'm focused on something. And then there's like a midday break which is it's got to be something. It's got to be a short walk. I'm I'm a sauna guy. We have a sauna in

the garage, so that could be something just to pop in, but you know, when I'm doing that stuff, it's the phone stays in the office. Like, I'm I'm going on a walk. I'm the weirdo with no headphones, like looking at trees and saying hi to dogs and stuff. And you know, everybody else is like headphones in. They're like looking down at their phone. I'm like, man, you're you're missing out. >> Yeah, I feel like we're going to be the generation, well, I don't know how old you are, how old I am, that like other generations will look back on like they did with like people smoking indoors and like next to children. They're like, how could you do that? Like, how could you just walk your dog and look at your phone the whole time? Um >> Man, I hope so. I hope so. >> Yeah, I I try to limit it as much as possible. Even I have small kids and we're very um aware of technology and how much they're even using it if at all. Uh, so I I always act like my phone is the worst thing in the world. I'm like, ah, I wish I didn't have to have this thing. And then they're like, yeah, I I want that too. So um

Yeah, but my routine I get up pretty early, Steve. We're most of my um the the team, my co-workers that I collaborate with are in Europe, so I actually like it. I'm like I'm ready to go at like 6:30, 7:00 sometimes. But again, I've no commute, so and and no one minds if, you know, it looks like I just rolled out of bed because I kind of look like I rolled out of bed most of the time anyhow, so But yeah, we have I got I have early mornings and we have young kids, so like it's sort of like even before it's summer, but even before school drop off, like I can I can have some calls with people and set up the day and have, you know, clarity and get some answers and then know what I want to work on. And then it's sort of like if you're if you're working at like 6:30 or 7:00 and you go to like 9:30, you get this like, oh my god, like I just worked a whole day. And then you look and it's only it's only 9:30, so yeah, I'll I'll take a little break and I'll just go walk my dog around the block or like just walk around the block by myself, but um yeah, I I'm lucky. I can I have a pretty good running route and I'll I'll work in

runs um during the day like three times a week and I'm not >> Nice. >> you know, 25, 30 minutes. I'm not going, you know, far. I'm doing 5 >> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just just what you need. That's like >> Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, again, it's 25 minutes. I'll come back and I'll I'll hit the computer right away, sweaty mess. I'm not like necessarily, you know, taking more time, right? So, >> Right, right. >> Yeah, it's it's super important. That's, you know, I'm I like you can see I got boards if there's surf, we try to go surf, but that always takes longer. I'll always have friends who are like, "Oh, we go to a quick one." You're like, there's no such thing as a quick >> Yeah. Why would you want to rush that, too? >> Yeah, you can't rush it and then you just got to know like did you get enough of your stuff done because like to your point, you own your own business, it's it's on you, right? Like, hey, if you want to take the afternoon off and go for a surf or a long hike or whatever, all good. Just might mean you have to work later. For me, after the kids go to bed, you're like, I'm fine. >> Yeah, yeah. >> to get it before, you know, I'm just always chasing the sun. Like, I'm just

thinking of the project that I'm working on and when my colleague wakes up, will she have what she needs from me, right? And so, like, as long as I get it done before uh they wake up, I'm good to go. >> Yeah, that's so great cuz you know, I wish I wish more you know, traditional corporations, startups, whatever, larger were were able to figure out that rhythm for people like you're talking about because for a long time everybody talked about it, right? And I think agencies did a pretty good job of this of like creating flexible work environments of we we work when we need to and, you know, some days you might put in a big huge day, but if that means you did that because you need some more flexibility tomorrow, then great, awesome. I mean, like, we're we're in marketing. Like, what really needs to be done that urgently? >> I think >> you know, and it's like that's what used to frustrate me the most is like just top-down leadership styles that were, you know, basically a a dumping of of

stress and anxiety onto their team of because their boss was like, "Where's that report?" And it's like, "Oh, I got to look good. So, let me just drop this on my team, stress them out, and then now they're trying to produce this report in 24 hours." And they do, and they send it along, and then they send it to the executive who's out of office for 2 days. And it's like, "Why did we just scramble to do this?" Like, the guy's not even in the office. He doesn't care. He's not going to look at this for a week. And I just hated that stuff. And I don't know. >> I wish people were more open about it. I was just I was on a flight uh recently. So, I was watching an episode of The Office, which I always do when I'm on a flight. >> It's one of my favorite shows. >> It's the best. Um and what was it? What Michael's boss, I'm going to forget his name, was asking him for something. He's like, "Can you get it to me by Monday?" He's like, "I'll do you one better. How about Sunday?" He goes, "Great. I'll read it on Monday." And I just thought that was good. He's like, "Go for it. I'm going to read it on Monday." So. >> Yeah. >> Um but hey, I wanted to get into one thing cuz you shared with me you've got

a new endeavor in the works, and it's called Howdy. I I got a sneak peek. I think it's cool, but tell us what's Howdy, how'd it come to be, um how do people learn more about it? >> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, if if anybody follows me on LinkedIn, they'll they'll probably see me you know, random randomly kind of talking about this. Um so, essentially what it is is a it's it's a managed AI workflow where we are we are executing really deep research on any list of of contacts. So, so actual people. And what we're looking for is personal signals. So, I I like to call them hobby signals. Like I'm trying to figure out what does this person care about outside of work? Like what are the things that give them joy? Like like some of the stuff we're talking about right now, right? And like if anyone was was marketing me, right? Like there's some nuggets here you can kind of know about me. And so we're we're looking for those signals. We We've got number of agents that can do

unstructured web search. We can look at social profiles, cross-connect social profiles, read transcripts, like all that good stuff. But we're looking for these personal signals. And then what we do, think about a kind of like a concierge experience service. And so, the team will actually go and pair a unique experience for that individual person, and then you use that as a way to wrap your sales process around it. And so, for example, like the easy ones are, you know, let's say, you know, we're researching you, Doug, and we find out, you know, that you you like golfing. And you know, instead of buying you a a new, you know, cover for your driver or something, which which anybody can do, any brand can do, we're going to think, we're going to see where you're located, we're going to look is there a premium course nearby? Is there a a pro at that course that maybe we can book a 1-hour session with, and then send you out on 18 holes? And we're going to try to design a short moment for you that

makes you feel seen. Like the whole goal of it is we want to deliver something that a friend would get you. And that's that's the idea. But of course, we're we're commercially motivated, and so the reason we're doing it for teams is trying to break into really tough accounts. We're trying to expand, uh, you know, into different areas of like really large accounts for businesses. Um, and help sales teams make a connection. It's a, you know, it's kind of like a nice icebreaker. Um, and then we then we execute the whole thing. So, you know, we we book the experience, we plan it, we handle all the logistics. Um we're behind the scenes of the sales team, so they look like the hero for the prospect and uh it's it's been wild. I uh I I came up with the idea, pitched it to some existing clients, and just kind of did the work for free, and uh we saw some really good results, and I thought, man, there's something here to this. So, about 2 months ago, soft launched it. Um it's done incredibly well, and it's uh

it's pro- probably probably the future of of where I'm you know, spending my time in in the next uh couple months. >> Is it different than 12th? Is it a separate entity? Like, you wouldn't have to go through 12th to um use Howdy? You could be It's it's different? >> Yeah, it's Well, so so like, you know, technically speaking, you know, clients contract with with 12th LLC, but it's it's a completely different business unit. And so so think of 12th as like, this is a an execution partner for one-to-few, one-to-many ABM campaigns. Um you know, there's a there's a there's strategists, there's media planners, there's GTM engineers, content, operations folks that are at those clients' disposal to stand up ABM programs. This is, you know, mostly large companies that are missing that expertise, and they need execution speed and velocity. So, it's kind of like your traditional agency model, whereas whereas Howdy right now is a different

unit, a different team, totally different process, um and it's it's more of Think of it as a you know, a managed service um as a part of your ABM toolkit, right? Like, most ABM teams are kind of running one-to-one, one-to-few, one-to-many. This is purely a tactic at the one-to-one level. If you have strategic accounts, if sales is, you know, banging on your door and saying, "Marketing, I need to get into these 25, these 50 accounts." And you know exactly the contacts you need to reach out to. You just need a better mouse trap to get them to reply. That's where it fits. >> Who What is the skill set of the team that's supporting Howdy? Cuz I'd imagine they need to be almost in the hospitality event space like something like that experiential >> skills. Like I you know, I don't know if I throw a good party. >> Actually, I'm I'm so glad I know now you're spot-on and I love that you asked that question because I had an an early thought when when hiring to look for

folks outside of the world of SaaS. Like I don't need I don't need a SaaS marketer. I don't need a growth marketer. This isn't that. This is a person that has a background in experiential marketing, field marketing, um you know, private events, like that that world. They understand the idea people together in real life and then being like super robust on the logistics. Cuz at the end of the day this this process is, you know, for us it's pretty rinse and repeat. Like agents are doing the research, there's QA agents, there's human in the loop. Agents are then going and sourcing and recommending experiences, another human in the loop, you know, we're writing sequences for clients. And so it's pretty it's pretty programmatic on our side, but the piece I didn't want to overlook was the human element because as good as AI is, sometimes we find a signal that a human looks at and is

like, "That's a little cringe. Like we can't do that." Or like, "That's That's actually more of a professional signal." And so So you need some judgment. And you know, same thing on the experiences. Like AI comes up with all of these wild ideas for experiences and we're constantly we're reining it in and being like, "Okay, that's uh that's a little bit extreme. Like, we can't really expect that person to do this. It sounds really cool." Um and sometimes we do plan the really wild ones. So, so it's fun and I needed I needed a um skill set that like could use AI and could use could use tools in their day-to-day, but also not forget that at the end of the day what we're doing is connecting people to people and that's that's kind of my mission um for the company. >> That's awesome. And it plays perfectly into kind of what we talk about on this this podcast and these conversations. So, I want to end it with this, Steve, cuz I think Howdy's awesome. If someone was to um try to market to Steve, what would the ultimate experience be without

having to go through AI agents? Like, just what would you want someone to maybe we'll get you some. >> I Yeah, yeah, I will tell Let me think about that. Like, right now uh I think right now So, so my my hobbies are, you know, like fitness and sports and outdoors. I uh I took up golf uh earlier late last year and gotten a little bit better. But, I think, you know, if I had to if I had to break away from work and family for 3-4 hours, I'd probably want some wellness-oriented meditative break, you know? Like, that's that's where I'm at these days is if I'm going to if I'm going to break away from the things that I really like doing, I want it to I want it to recharge me. Uh so, maybe maybe like a maybe a float station and a massage or something. That that'd be pretty good. >> That's cool. Steve, thanks so much, man. I Howdy's cool. Thanks for sharing it with us. Thanks for joining uh the

podcast. Um yeah, check it out. How do people get real before we officially end this, how do people find out more about Howdy? >> I I just uh look me up on LinkedIn. Uh you'll see in my profile there's a link over to the page and you can learn more. There's an overview story there. It's It's pretty simple to find, but yeah, talk to me, too. I'm I'm I am me on LinkedIn. There's There's no automation or bots or anything, so hit me up. I'll reply and we can we can chat. >> That's nice to hear. Well, thanks, Steve. Appreciate it, man. >> Yeah, likewise, Doug. This was fun. >> Talk to you later.