Changing Narratives: Brent Archie's Entrepreneurial Impact and the Archie Supply Phenomenon

Hey everybody.

All right, well greetings everybody. My name is Brent Archie. I am a US Coast Guard veteran and a proud steward of this country. Originally, I got into my business. I’m the CEO of Archie Supply. We’re an office medical and janitorial supply company that has been in business going on in our eighth year. Our anniversary is right around the corner, February 23rd.

But I just say, lifetime entrepreneur. I was always that kid that was in class selling chips, chips, and soda, the backpack. even in college, I was selling cars and clothes to other kids on campus. So I just loved the journey and just seeing the impact that you can have on the community as an entrepreneur. I see how you can change the social landscape that you might be in. And I really, enjoy entrepreneurship overall just because it allows you to turn, I mean, people say proverbial lemons are lemonade, but, there are so many opportunities that, you can monetize and take that money and turn it into other solutions for things. And that’s why I think I really enjoy it, I mean, the money’s nice too, don’t get me wrong, but like, I just think the impact, the impact is the big part.

Right. Absolutely. So like I said, CEO of Archie Supply, we’re an office medical and janitorial supply company with 49 warehouses throughout the United States. And yes, and then we also have overseas manufacturing sites as well. And we can ship to pretty much anywhere in the contiguous United States and Puerto Rico as well as Canada if somebody in Alaska or Hawaii needs something, we can, we can work that out. But, yeah, that’s, that’s our main bread and butter right now. And, we’ve been doing it, like I said, for about going on eight years.we’ve had some major successes in the past, over the past four years. We broke over the multimillion-dollar landscape, doing this and it’s just been a wonderful journey. ,

A little bit before I got into this realm, again, like I said, I’ve been a serial entrepreneur and I’ve had a couple of tax offices and things like that. And before I got into doing this, the tax offices were doing well. I was in the military and everything like that. But once I got out, I had the tax offices going and then one of my managers ended up taking, stealing some computers and I tell everybody this, at the end of the day, you can rob a lot of people, but you’re not gonna rob the IRS,? And I think that’s the thing. They found her trying to run away and stuff, but it’s always that goofy stuff where you kind of see where greed leads people. And I like to try to think I’m a good judge of character, but at the end of the day, people are gonna be people. And that’s one of the things I like to share with a lot of entrepreneurs. Even if you’re doing everything right, there can always be something that derails you and it’s kind of how you handle that impact. And I said, say like, I bring that story up because at the time I was about 26 years old and my tax offices, I lost about after that whole situation happening, I lost about half a million dollars. So I was 26. I had my first child. He’s about two at the time, two or three. And, bills are due.

It’s one of those situations where you think you’re up here you think you got everything handled everything’s good. It just kind of derails you but I’m not saying I’m the most spiritual person in the world or anything like that But I do believe that God has a plan for a lot of people and when he takes stuff away He’s gonna bring it back to you in a higher through the fold and that’s what’s been able to bless me with my current company now and the number of people that have been able to help like currently we’re employing about 14 people through contractors and also our standard core of employees. But just being able to help people achieve their hopes and dreams and get closer to reaching their goals is truly what gets me out of bed every day and being able to help disservice communities and even some people that like I’ve gone to high school with helping them get their businesses off the ground and start some of their opportunities and just show them like, hey, there’s other ways to do this. You don’t have to be on a small scale. You can achieve what you want to do. So I think the impact of again, just this company and how much we’re able to help the community has been just insightful and very enlightening.

Thank you. So originally we were me and my business partner, and we kind of started a different pass. We met in the military, but it was funny. We were doing like e-commerce like way back in like, oh, seven or eight, like just, selling old video games and stuff like that on Amazon and everything like that. And while we were in the military, it kind of changed things for us because you kind of see how government contracts work And you realize how they’re running all on their government platforms, their e-commerce platforms with the government. And so with it, we kind of just combined the two and started connecting the dots and started doing e-commerce work for the government and selling items on the government platforms to the government,? And then from there, we’ve gone and started doing commercial sales as well like I said, we’ve just kind of snowballing and growing and a lot of opportunities have been coming up like with Courtney, corporate partnerships, and other opportunities just off our e-commerce platform that we built.

So currently it’s, honestly, our best clients are, state and city municipalities and, corporate supply officers that If any corporate supply officers, any diversity, size or anything like that, and as well as a quality product, of course, but, need to need any help, meeting their quotas or anything like that. I’d be more than happy to sit down and talk to them about that.

Yeah, we’re nationwide. So like I said, we can we can ship to anywhere in the contiguous United States and Puerto Rico as well as Canada as well. And again, like we’re we’re if an opportunity presents itself for Hawaii or Alaska, we can work through that. It’s just obvious shipping to Hawaii or Alaska is a subject.

So some of our best-selling products are laundry bags. Like I said, we do stuff in a multitude of ways. We can do mass-quantity branded items. We’ve sold stationery items like customized pins, and we’ve sold over 7 million of them at one point. Mass-branded or non-branded laundry bags that you would see at hotels do well for us. Toilet paper, everything like, yeah, those types of items, as well as furniture. Furniture is a very good space for us as well.

So our biggest difference here is that we put ourselves as we’re the supply company that cares. And we stand behind that because through our efforts like I was saying earlier, we’ve been able to help provide housing for homeless veterans. We’ve been able to partner with nonprofits for persons who were in domestic abuse situations to help them get back on their feet. We’ve also been able to help put together classes for financial fortitude and things like that for underserved communities as well and also take some profit and put it towards job creation. So again, like when you’re buying something for much you’re not just buying a dash. You’re not just buying a pencil. You’re you’re buying the impact into the community. And that’s what we that’s again what gets us out of bed every day.

Hey man, one day to take it public and then from there, just see how much more of an impact we can have and how many lives we can help change for the good. It’s, again, I wasn’t born with a large endowment or anything in my hand or anything like that. And I just, I wake up every day and I want to show people that, hey, there are other ways outside of either, entertainment or doing sports or something of that nature, that y ou can make a lot of money. And if people can understand that, I think it would be a better place. Because there are so many people that just get defeated on their day-to-day grind, if you will, just based on, hey, you start having two, three kids early in life, and you start thinking that’s a crutch, or maybe just because of how you were raised or things like that there are mental blocks that people have to overcome. And I just really want to show them that you can do this too. Like it doesn’t, you don’t have to have a thousand connections. You just have to have the willpower to want to do something and things will come to you.

Right. So we’ve currently, we’re just starting, we’re, we’re doing some unconventional things that we’re reaching out to do. Again, going on podcast tours, as well as starting newsletters to help more community awareness. we’re also, doing a bit more things with blogs and, and blogging on our fruition, just to show that, that community impact, because I think what we, When we originally started doing this stuff, we weren’t really, we’re not trying to be flashy. We’re not trying to show off like, Hey, this is the kind of money that we’re making by millions. But what we do want to show is, Hey, at the end of the day, once you put this effort out here, these are the lives that you can change? Like that’s, that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re going to continue to do. And so for promotion efforts, we’re looking at partnering with different sports teams in our areas doing giveaways, start giving like, like t-shirt giveaways, things of that nature, as well as a few more partnerships with nonprofits in our areas for fundraising and philanthropic efforts.

Greensboro, North Carolina. Yeah, so centre of the state.

Yeah, so just in closing and everything like that, as I said, we’re, we’re a veteran or a service-disabled veteran on small business, but we’re here to make a large impact. And like I said, anytime that you purchase from us, you’re making a change in your community. And at the end of the day, that’s all we can ask. You can visit us at archiesupply.com and like, share, and subscribe, some great things are coming forward.

Hey, thank you so much, Steven, and I look forward to continuing this relationship. So thank you so much.