Meet Samuel Phanor of Archer Ward Media in Margate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Phanor.

Samuel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in New York and raised in South Florida, where I currently reside. I currently serve in the United States Army as a Reservist since 2004, and during my time have served two tours in Iraq. I am currently a Police Officer working with the Margate Police Department. I currently work the day shift in the Community Service Division, where I am tasked with various jobs within the community. Myself and my partner, Rachel Druzbik coordinate and setup charitable initiatives, work with our city schools, manage the police department’s social media among other safety related community outreach programs. This past summer, I graduated with my MBA in Entrepreneurship from Nova Southeastern University.

However, this little snippet is not my whole story, it is just the starting point, like right before I met Morpheus from the Matrix and was offered the red pill or the blue pill. As you can tell, I decided to take the red pill, but if you’re not familiar with the movie, this may be somewhat confusing. What this means is that I have taken the leap and have left Wonderland to see what life truly has to offer me. This of course, is all hypothetically speaking, but in the moment, I became more self-aware, realizing that what I needed to do for myself and the distance that I needed to go in order to reach my goals in life!

Some might say it’s in my DNA, some might say its faith, and others might say it’s understanding oneself however, I believe it is a mixture of them all. For me, I woke up one day and had such a strong feeling to just do something, not just get a job at a local Publix, but do something, really do something that I could take great pride in.

I was 14 years old and I had absolutely no skillset besides my determination and my yearning desire to do something amazing. I had no idea where it came from, but at that moment, I began feeding into my desires. I started out by assisting my neighbor, who had a shoe business, and I started by labeling shoelaces he sold to all different shoe stores nationwide.

Eventually, he trusted me to go and assist him in selling shoes in the shoe store he owned in Jacksonville, Florida. While I was there, I assisted him in attracting an older audience to his store front, I began by crafting different types of handwritten and typed signs, one of which became an instant hit. This was an unexpected occurrence because the only reason it happened was because I misspelled a key word in the sign. Who would’ve thought such an error would attract so many people, but many people took notice and thought it was a unique play on words and came to the store to check out the shoes.

The sign read “Cum and see the padded wonders that we have” with a rough sketch of a shoe. That very day, I was overcome with a huge appreciation for marketing, and wondering how words on a piece of paper, coupled with a good product, moved people to do what you wanted them to do. I wanted to harness it, harvest it, and control it to do bid my own doing.

Unfortunately, a short time later my neighbor closed down his operation and moved to England, leaving me jobless. Shortly after that, I stumbled on an ad in the newspaper that was advertising for an entry-level position as a Junior Sales Associate with Vector Marketing. After what felt like an intense hiring process I landed the job, I was now a Junior Sales Representative selling Cutco knifes that didn’t dull! How cool right? I thought I was the most amazing thing since sliced bread, my job was to basically make appointments and demo my knife set to all of my neighbors, family members, and my parents friends, for $16 dollars an hour! I would get paid no matter if they purchased the knife set or not.

If you knew me at that time, you would know that I was an extremely shy teenager, but for some odd reason I really loved talking and showing off my demo knife kit to prospective clients. The overall experience of getting to know new people was really exhilarating for me. The most troublesome task I had to overcome when starting out was the sales process and learning how to make phone calls to prospective clients and set up appointments. It’s not easy to be a teenager selling knifes over the phone, but I learned a lot while working for Cutco. They taught me how important a good pitch is and how difficult it is to craft up a working sales pitch, but once one has mastered that pitch, whoa how lethal it can be. Cutco really prepared me to understand how important it is to present both a product and myself in a professional way. The opportunity also assisted me in learning how to deal with rejection, and how to effectively communicate with people while building a rapport. Even though my gig with Cutco only lasted about 3 months, I made well over $3,000.00 and was awarded a Certificate for Top Sales in a 2-day period!

This experience helped me to understand the heartbeat of sales and the psychological impact of a bad pitch vs a good pitch! Sadly, I grew bored of selling knifes, and quit Cutco once again finding myself unemployed. What can I say, I was a teenager!

However, one day I ran across an old lawnmower my dad had in the garage and a light bulb flickered off in my head. I quickly cleaned it up and began posting ads around my neighborhood trying to get jobs cutting grass. Fast forward about a year or so later, I was 17 years old and I enlisted the help of my good friend, Thomas, he and I began passing out flyers and we were able to acquire about 17 -20 active accounts that needed our services ranging from weekly to biweekly appointments cutting their lawns. That experience taught me once again that a decent marketing plan coupled with sound values, and amazing customer service, equals a successful relationship with consumers. This experience also taught me something about personal branding, even though I was just a 17-year-old kid, my brand was important and I was viewed as a trusted individual that people could rely on. Throughout my life, I have learned many important lessons as I have continued to grow and chase continual improvement, and all of these lessons have had an immensely large impact on my viewpoint and how I’ve moved forward in both my personal and professional life.

After my two tours to Iraq, my first tour being from 2006 to 2007, and my second tour from 2010 to 2011, I attempted to take my stab at the business world.

My “real” business start may be a bit of a cliché start up beginning, but I wanted to create a fun, cool company that would create a change. I believed that starting a business meant that I had some form of social responsibility, to not only protect the South Florida community that I grew up in with a trusted service, but to be able to provide my clientele with a solution. A solution that would be both personalized to their specific needs and one in which every last detail would be designed to become uniquely and deeply entwined within the businesses of the South Florida community.

So in early March of 2013, Security Concept Consultant’s Inc. was created. Why security, you must be thinking. Well, I had figured that since I have military experience, how else to provide a service that added both value and protection for the community that I loved so much.

Security Concept Consultant’s Inc. was designed to provide local businesses in the South Florida area with security guard services. In its first year, Security Concept Consultant’s experienced some difficulty selling its security services. Furthermore, Security Concepts Consultants brand was more associated as a consultant company versus a security guard servicing company. I decided it may be best to rethink my idea as it was becoming increasingly apparent that a re-launch of a wider brand was necessary in order to better represent the potential and future direction of the company.

January 1, 2014, Security Concept Consultant Inc. evolved into Archer Ward Inc.

Before I go any further let me explain where the name Archer Ward came from. I was a huge Dick Tracey fan growing up. I was obsessed with reading Private Investigator novels from the early 1960 – 1970’s. Ross McDonald created a fictional character by the name of Lew Archer, if you’ve never heard of him, unlike most private detectives at the time, Lew Archer, broke the clique mold that many private investigators at the time portrayed. He was different, he showed compassion, and did things that made him unique from his predecessors. I related to Lew Archer in more ways than one and instantaneously knew that a representation of him had to be a part of my company’s name. Now, the word “Ward” is derived from Old English, which means a guard and/or watchman, so while brainstorming for a new company name, Archer Ward just came naturally. The name continues to represent my passion and commitment to keep my clients safe, satisfied, and stress-free.

However, as with most companies, I fell short and suffered in marketing and sales. Like most companies, I sought help from so-called experts and a company that bragged about how many years they had been in marketing. Thousands of dollars later and countless hours spent toying with and trying to figure out how to properly market the company’s security services, ultimately resulted in absolutely ZERO success. In addition, having to deal with a “so-called” marketing company and marketing consultant, who bragged that they were results driven and all of their tactics were completely unsuccessful, leaving Archer Ward still unable to retain a single client. To add insult to injury, this all in one marketing company charged $8,000 dollars for a custom website that was supposed to be built from scratch and turned out to be a simple, $75.00 WordPress, template design. To this very day that website has not been completed.

During this time, I began to pursue a career in law enforcement as a Police Officer. I got hired with the Margate Police Department in September of 2014, and began Police Academy in October of 2014.

As you can tell, my newly developed company ended up in debt before even retaining its first client, and it became apparent to me that there was a real need for a local marketing company. I yearned for Archer Ward to become the company that was known for truly looking out for the welfare of its clients, focusing on quality over quantity, and being a company that didn’t over promise and under deliver. This led me to abandoning my original idea of creating a security company and spending the following two years investing in my marketing education. Studies encompassed everything from traditional education at Nova Southeastern University-Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, to a plethora of self-education, utilizing a variety of different educational sources. I invested in learning everything about marketing, with an overwhelming passion to create a company that solely cared for the success of its clients.

From then on I picked up a magnitude of clients performing freelance marketing jobs, from website design to SEO. In July of 2016, I decided not to take on freelance work, but instead pick up clients that I could retain on a month to month basis. During this time, I became fascinated with 3D technology and invested in a camera that was robust and allowed me to take 3D renderings of spaces, which I added to my marketing tools. Now I’m focused on helping companies that have unique spaces which allows me to leverage their businesses using my 3D technology to perform a new style of marketing that I’ve dubbed 3D engagement. I do all of this while still serving full time as a Police Officer with the wonderful city of Margate.

I am a strong believer in personal growth and getting your mind on the right track, in order to fulfill your dreams. I believe that all of my dreams will come to fruition and I am excited to embark on my own personal journey.

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?
It hasn’t been a smooth road for me at all. The battle/journey of trying to start my own business has had its up and downs, I’ve had at one point monthly retainers of up to $12,000 per month to losing everything and rebuilding from scratch. The rebuilding happened many times, then learning to understand myself and trying to establish the proper mindset while enduring this journey of starting my own business has been a mountain to climb in and of itself. I also have to consistently juggle between my full time job and my business which is a constant struggle. I am sure things in the near future will make it all worth it!

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My company is called Archer Ward Media, we focus on brand management through social media and other digital marketing avenues. What makes my company really different is the usage of 3D technology and leveraging that to really push a brand forward. What I’m most proud of, is the journey that my company and I have gone through. Every client has truly taught me a valuable lesson! I truly thank every business that entrusted me and could not be more appreciative of their business.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I loved video games and comic books. I also had a hell of an imagination, always dreaming of things that were impossible. In school I was known as the shy guy, which has carried on to my adult life which now I’m now currently trying to break through that mold.

Contact Info:

• Address: 8860 NW 1st street
• Website: samuelphanor.me
• Phone: 9546380748
• Email: samuel.phanor@archerward.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samphanor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samuelphanor1lyfe/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BigPhanor
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/ArcherWard/

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