Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrian Armenta.
Adrian, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I really grew up obsessed with Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce brands like Apple and Nike, just like most of us. I was really fascinated by not only their products but their branding as well.
It was because of this fascination that I really began to work in retail and even started out as a store associate for a couple of companies. Eventually, I was promoted to a corporate position at the Deckers Outdoor Corporation (formerly Ugg, Hoka One One, Teva, Sanuk). During my tenure there I earned a lot of recognition from the C-Suite which included a promotion, a financial bonus, a handwritten thank-you letter from our CTO, and a recommendation letter from our CEO for my prospective college & scholarship applications.
I went on to assist a local small business mower shop in my hometown during COVID and was able to accomplish an over thirty percent total revenue growth for them while creating new sales channels as well. Which included the Walmart Marketplace and an international Amazon presence too.
Later on, a mentor of mine from San Diego State University, Evan Kesner, was starting up a boutique Amazon advertising agency called “Straight Up Growth.” It was there I got to experience working in a startup and building an agency as really one of its first employees.
Currently, I work as a consultant for many brands in the eCommerce space helping both large and startup businesses grow their revenue using performance marketing. My core responsibilities being the management of their advertising strategy, implementing new search engine optimization plans, and leading the brand’s management through different growth tactics on the channel as well.
Due to this track record, I have been lucky enough to work with some of the largest and most beloved brands in my industry.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has not been a smooth road haha…
First off, it was honestly hard wanting to study entrepreneurship so badly and be a business owner when the major of entrepreneurship did not really exist at most colleges, let alone did any schools really have a program at all dedicated to educating and enabling students to be a part of startups.
Secondly, working in a retail store and waiting your turn to move up the corporate ladder can feel at times to be snail-like progress. I really encourage people to start something of their own, no matter how small it is because that is simply the best way to learn… through doing it every day, taking the lessons of failures and successes with them. Additionally, even as a store employee I really spoke my mind to upper management which paid dividends in terms of acknowledgment from senior leaders and also established a good rapport. Speaking up really displayed that I actually did care a lot about the business too and that I did not just see my job as a means to a paycheck.
Furthermore, I came into work one day at a certain business to find out the entire company’s technical infrastructure was down. Since we were hacked, every company computer was at risk with malware. Luckily, no customer information was taken since we had just migrated all our stored data onto offsite servers from AWS. With that being said, our IT Team and I chose to work the next month on retrieving every company computer that was onsite, replacing every hard drive, re-imaging every computer with new software, and documenting every serial number for each to bag & tag the evidence needed that we later handed down to the federal authorities. Alongside my fellow Retail IT team, we gave up weekends throughout this process until we were ready to redistribute the company computers back to all our employees. I was recognized for this work by not only my colleagues and boss but also the C-Suite as well.
I can go on, but I really believe overcoming struggles like these are common for most and it is a part of developing yourself into a more successful professional as well.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am really known for my Amazon expertise and my “superpower” within that industry is definitely in Amazon Advertising. This past year I have directly managed more than ten brands on Amazon, and I am averaging a sales account growth of ~200%+ over that time.
I think what really sets me apart from others are the simple principles I try to implement in my day of continuous learning, controlled experimentation of new strategies, and my competitive nature to be the best and at minimum to do my best every day.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Covid-19 really pushed most jobs including mine into fully remote roles, so some of the most interesting lessons I have learned while adapting to this unique working atmosphere is really just understanding how to stay motivated and focused while working from home. I am an extroverted person and there are really an unlimited amount of distractions working at home so personally, I sometimes like to mix up my working environment.
Most of my client meetings were always done remotely but in my opinion, having remote team meetings and training sessions can be much more challenging when its members are not all sitting next to each other while demonstrating their new experiences and learnings. I think navigating this newer remote working atmosphere is very personal to each person but that has again probably been one of the biggest lessons from the crisis for me.
On top of that, just networking in general with both other professionals in the industry and brands became much more difficult to do in a completely online environment. Especially during the pandemic because of all the macroeconomic and external factors, most people in the industry were facing as well. They had a lot less free time to network and much tighter budgets too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/adrianarmenta
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adrian_armenta3/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/81Adrian
- Other: https://business.sdsu.edu/about/news/articles/2021/06/fowler-class-of-2021-career-spotlight-adrian-armenta and https://shoutoutsocal.com/meet-adrian-armenta-marketplace-ecommerce-leader/
Image Credits
Rohan Tandon
https://www.lucidstarfield.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lucidstarfield/
