Franchise Business Real Talk

YouTube and Franchise Success with The Franchise Coach, Tariq Johnson

• Guy Coffey • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In this episode I sit down with special guest Tariq Johnson of Franchise Empire.

Tariq transitioned from a struggling entrepreneur to a successful franchise consultant and YouTube personality with over 42,000 subscribers.

We discuss the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, the importance of personal development and branding, and the critical role of perseverance in business success. 

Tariq highlights his own experiences with both thriving and failing franchises, and offers invaluable advice for current and aspiring franchise owners. 

Grab a coffee and join us for an engaging conversation packed with real-world insights and motivational stories.

You can find Tariq on his YouTube Channel:

@TariqJohnson

Connect with Guy Coffey:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/guycoffey
Website: www.guycoffey.com
Instagram: @guycoffey
YouTube: @guycoffey

 Welcome to Conversations With Coffee With me Guy Coffey. I've owned independent businesses. I've been a franchisee of a global brand for over 17 years, and I co-founded and successfully exited our own franchise brand. This podcast is dedicated to growing the lives and businesses of entrepreneurs everywhere.

By sharing conversations with successful owners and some of my own experiences and insights. So please grab a cup of coffee and let's just dive right into today's episode. Today's special guest is Tariq Johnson of Franchise Empire, and we're super excited to hear him. Tell us about franchising from his perspective as he was a franchisee.

Now he helps people get into franchising and he's got a whole big story behind that. That's really interesting. I had the pleasure of speaking with Tariq a couple times in the last month and just, it's one of those, those conversations you walk away from and like, man, I'm, I'm glad he's in franchising and I'm glad he is helping people out.

'cause it, they're in good hands. That's, that's the sense that I got. And, and obviously with your big following and all the people that you've helped, that's. That's the case. So without further ado, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here. Could you just tell people a little bit about your background?

Guy, yeah. Thanks for having me, man. I'm pumped. And yeah, third time in a few weeks. We're on a, we're on a roll here. Yeah, 

we're best buds. 

Exactly. Yeah. My background, I mean, there's a short, uh, and a long version. What I would say is that, you know, I think from an early age, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I knew that I wanted something more out of life. I was always very ambitious and I wanted everything. We'd go to the store and I'd ask my parents for everything. Can I get, can we buy that? Can we buy that? Can we buy that? And you know, it was always like, we can't afford it. Money doesn't grow on trees. And I think those experiences and, and we grew up in a middle class family, so it wasn't like I was like lacking for, you know, food or anything.

But that just, I think, sparked a fire in me that, you know, man, one day I want to be able to. Do what I want to do, buy what I wanna buy. And I remember mowing my lawn one day. I was probably like, I don't know, 14 years old at the time, and thinking one day when I have kids, if I tell them, no, it won't be because we can't afford it.

It'll just be no, because it's no. Crazy that, that I remember that. So that, you know, I went down the world of like personal development and all that stuff, and basically from the ages of 18 to 26, I had nine failed businesses. I, I kept trying to start businesses and I just either would get stuck in confusion, I would get overwhelmed, I would get discouraged, depressed.

And it was, it was hard. I was in financial services. I got my investment licenses at the age of 19, so that was pretty cool. So I, I was seeing success in the corporate world, but man in my heart, I really wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I almost gave up on it there. I mean, there was a moment right before we bought our first franchise, my wife and I, where I literally, I, I just thought, you know, maybe, maybe this isn't for me, maybe this, maybe like, I'm just not meant to be an entrepreneur and I, and I almost.

I almost succumbeded to that fate. 

Uh, all right. God had a plan though. God had a plan. 

God had a 

plan 

man. 

For sure. That is awesome. And you know, it's such a, uh, a very common trait for people that are successful in entrepreneurship. I. To talk about, like, I did this and this and this, and you know, some of them didn't work out and that led me to this.

And so anybody that's listening that's on the younger side of things is you're, you're, if you've failed recently, but you learn something from it, it's, it's a part of the process and it's an iteration and maybe it'll point you in the right direction. So that's huge. And I think. What you're, I've already shared is it's very common.

Even when people do get into franchising, even if it's a great model and things, the market's good and everything like that, there's still gonna be all these things. Solo, not solo, but entrepreneurship that you feel that you wouldn't feel in a corporate setting. You know, like you hired that person and thought they were gonna be a rock star, and four weeks in they decide to like, I'm gonna go do something completely different.

Or, you know, my spouse is moving away or something. It's just like, oh, like they don't, they don't get like how much I've just put into you, but it's like there, there's all those challenges that come about. I'm curious because you've built a career on this and a really well-known name in franchising and, uh, on YouTube with your 42,000 subscribers.

I'm so jealous. It's very cool, and I know that's a labor of love and it's taken a lot of time and effort and money to do what you've done. It's a real investment and you got in on it early, so you're, you're also definitely like a, a pioneer kind of trailblazer probably why your business is still growing.

That. It's like, okay, what's next? Well, I wanna buy more stuff at the store. I just have to backtrack. I love that story about like, when you say no to your kids, you don't want it to be 'cause not 'cause we can't. It's just because it's not the best thing for you. Like you'll appreciate it more if you earn that or if you don't get everything you ask for.

You'll appreciate when you do get something you ask for. I, I love that. And that goes to our whole thing about entrepreneurship and franchising is when you're in it, your whole family's in it. You know, and that that can be a fantastic. Everyday living and breathing learning environment. And that's one of the reasons I love what you're doing, helping people make the wise decision, that's, that's the best for them.

And from what I'm doing is trying to get more businesses into franchising so that they can provide this model that provides the basis for other people to do the same thing. Because I think it makes the world a better place. I know that's a big grand statement, but you, you're playing a big part in that.

I love the story like you had a franchise in California. Your first unit, like so many people experience, not everybody, but so many people do is like, it's killing it. Like you're doing really good, you're like this, I should have done this five years ago. This is, I wouldn't say easy, but like you're getting a really good return on your investment and.

You decided to open one up, like in Florida. Bought 

a 

resale. Yeah. Not, not, not the town next door, not the state. Next door. Almost another country. 

Yeah. Right. I know. Literally, I mean 2,500 miles away. What happened was when we signed our franchise agreement, we signed our franchise agreement in in 2015, and we decided to sign a lease.

In a shopping center that was not built yet. So it took two and a half years, two and a half years for the shopping center to be built and for us to finally start our build out. By that time, my wife and I were working on, you know, starting a family, and we had decided we wanted to go back to the East coast because that's where all of our family was.

So we had already made the decision we were going to be moving to Florida. Now the challenging part was like, oh crap, we've got this store that's in the middle of build out or getting ready to be built out. Like, what, what do we do? How do we go about that? So the best decision was, well, I'll leave my job early and I'll, I'll go all in on the store to make sure it gets up and running.

Uh, because I, I don't, I, I don't feel confident we'll be able to find a buyer and who wants to buy a brand new business that has no. Earnings, I guess franchisees do because that's kind of how it works. But it's a little different when you've already got the location up. So anyways, yeah, we were, it just so happened that the fate, you know, God as, as you know, I would call it the area that we were moving to.

It just so happened that the one store that was in Northern and central Florida, there was like pretty much no stores in the market just so happened to be where we were moving to. And the owner was selling. 

And from a, from someone that's, I don't know how far you were in the construction phase at that point in time.

I know you're in the waiting phase for a long time while they waited to wait, break ground and, and all that kind of stuff. But as someone who's paid for build out and gone through the construction process to be able to step in and like buy something that's. Ready to go and, and make some cash. Oh yeah.

That'd be a deal, right? Yeah. It's a really enticing thing. Right. But you did find that in, in that market as great a brand as it was in California. It was unknown in Florida. And that points out to the, the, the thing that we talked about, you know, last time we got together is like as much as franchisors, and I've been one wanna say like, all the markets are the exact same.

It all depends on how well the franchisee executes. There are some markets that are gonna be tougher than others. And you experienced that in your, in your resale market in Florida because there was no brand name recognition and, and people were buying drinks from places that they knew the name, right?

Yeah. It was very different. There was a lot of things that kind of went into our favor, like the stars kind of aligned. With the first location, and I had actually put up a fight too initially in that first location. I remember the franchisor didn't want to approve the location that we had found because some of the demographic criteria didn't quite align with some of theirs.

You know, I was that annoying franchisee who was like, I know best and this is how we want to do it. But I felt really, it, it felt really intuitive to me about that, that location. So anyways, there were a lot of things that went into our, our favor there. Yeah, the location of Florida was tough. That was a grind the, the entire time.

But it was, um, it was when I was running the store in Florida that I decided that I was gonna start making YouTube videos. 'cause that location, that second location, we, we basically, after so many years, we pretty much lost money on that location 'cause we never made money on that location. So, you know, you factor in all the time, put in over the couple years.

Right. And I had turned, I mean. Crazy story, but I turned around the sales after grinding in the, in the store for, you know, a year. I think I increased sales like 35% year over year. And then COVID hit. And then it, you know, and then things tanked. We were right by the beach and I was like, oh man, I, I, I, I don't have it in me to do it, to do this again.

Uh, so fortunately we were able to exit and, and sell that to location, but it just shows how everything happens for reason. If you choose to trust the plan, you know, trust the higher plan that is in play. Because if we weren't operating. And if I wasn't full-time in that store, working on turning it around, I would have not started a YouTube channel about franchising.

I didn't want to. I didn't care about franchising. Franchising to me, was just a means to an end. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, make money, and be able to provide for my family and live the life I wanted to live with my family. Franchising was just like, I'll do the franchise thing and eventually do what, you know, which is, I always wanted to have a YouTube channel that was like what I always wanted to do.

I wanted to help inspire and teach and educate, you know, millions of people. And I, I had always wanted, I had wanted to be on YouTube, uh, pretty much since I'd graduated high school and a couple years after that in like the 2006, 2008, uh, time period. So it's just crazy how sometimes you don't see. That the adversity you're facing is exactly what's setting you up for what it is that you want.

If you like this show, would you do me a huge favor and share it with one more person? It's super quick and easy to do, and it will help me impact more people in a positive way. Thanks. Now, back to the episode. Small Business Ownership Entrepreneurship. It is important to plan. You gotta have a plan. You know, like the, I think it was Eisenhower who said, your plan doesn't.

Doesn't survive the first contact with the enemy. I think Tyson said it even better, like you could have a plan, but as soon as you get punched in the face it might change, you know? But that is what small business ownership is like. There's all these stuff that that comes, that comes up out of the blue.

And at first when you're in small business, it's just like. Why are they picking on me? Like, what is wrong? Like, what did I do wrong? Or whatever. And then if you kind of make it through that, you get a little bit of a tougher skin. And you know, like some of the calmest people in the world, you know, are small business owners because they're like, oh yeah, I was expecting 19 problems today and this is one of 'em, so it's all right.

I'll, I'll handle this too, because. That's the beauty. I worked for a big company and then I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, and it's like, you just feel things more like, you just feel everything more the highs, the lows and all that kind of stuff. And you're not insulated because you know like, oh, you know, so what?

That part-time person of 15 hours a week quit that's gonna ruin your business? It's like, no, but you don't understand, like, I spent so much time and like I was hoping to grow them and I really liked them and now I gotta start with. Not even square one of having a good person on my team. I gotta go find someone and pick someone.

People just don't get it. But it's, it's all worth it, you know, like, and we've, we've talked about this as your kids three and six years old, right? Like they're growing up in this environment. They see mom and dad grinding, experiencing the benefits of what you're building. They see the challenges later on, they'll put two and two together.

Like, oh, you know, like, oh, okay, that's, that's interesting that that person did that to mom and dad or, or that person was, you know, like really good, you know? So it's this living and breathing environment that, that you've got. And I just wanted to go back to your, your YouTube. Um, so when did you really start that out?

Um, because I wanna go back to that because. A lot of the people that I'm hoping are listening are either interested in becoming franchisees or they're becoming franchisors. They have a small business and they wanna know about this, this kind of stuff. Even franchising it, it's all small business and it's all community business.

They, you can have the best marketing company in the world at your corporate office, but my, my sense and just seeing this is like, if the owner doesn't know. By first name basis, there are 10 business neighbors and everybody in the community and the Chamber of Commerce and everything, they're not doing everything they can to support their business and their team.

You know, it's, it's a local business kind of deal, and I. Having that brand awareness, meaning like, oh, people know who you are. People know what you stand for. They hear your take on things, you know, through social media. Um, whether that's entertaining things or educational things or inspirational things or coaching.

Like they get a sense of who you are and do they wanna do business with you, and some people won't. And it's great that they're not gonna come into your business. Right. And some people will be like, that's. That's my Guy or that's my Gail. Like I wanna support them. You know, one of the things that you've been really successful at is personal branding.

I mean, you have a, a really big YouTube channel. You have a lot of following. I see you on Instagram all the time and you're giving out so much information and I'm always interested because, you know, we're, we're all numbers nerds at a certain point. And like how is that making that, remember I even questioned you on the Anytime Fitness one 'cause I know Anytime Fitness a little bit.

But tell me about like how that's. I know there's an investment. I don't wanna know the investment amount or anything like that, but in just terms of time and attention, like a percentage of your week or something like that. And what do you think the return has been and how has that shown up in your, in your, in your daily life?

Well, I think you were asking even before that, like, when did I start? And, and then we can kind of pivot to that. What happened was in, when I was running the store. In late 2018, early 2019, I hired a, a coach, kind of like a business coach slash life coach. She had built. She actually, I used to follow her back in like around 2008, 2009 when I'm watching these YouTubers and talk about personal development and law of attraction and manifesting and bettering yourself.

And I'm like, that's what I want to do. Like I just, you know, I was getting so much value out of it and just. It felt so good for my soul to learn this information, have access to it, and I thought that's what I wanna do with my life. I wanna be a YouTuber. I want to help people and I wanna be able to make money from helping people.

And so, uh, what's crazy is eventually I wound up hiring one of those individuals that I followed who had built a very successful business for YouTube. And you know, we're going through a process, whatever, and it's like, okay, what's your niche going to be? Right. And that's like one of the core things when you're building a brand, what's your niche?

Who's your target audience? What is the lane that you are gonna play in? And it's like, oh man, that's really, uh, that's really hard to choose. What is the lane that I'm gonna play in? At the time I was like, well, I want to talk about manifesting. I want to talk about like money and investments. Had a background in financial planning, but I just thought at that point.

And I could have been more resourceful, but I thought, I'm not at the level yet in terms of results that I want to be in to lead with that. Right? I haven't, I haven't achieved the results that I, that I wanted to yet to be like, Hey, you know, look at me. And so I just thought, well, I'm running my franchise every day, so it just makes sense.

The low hanging fruit. It's to talk about franchising. So at first I made a couple videos here and there, like, one was like a day in the life, and I was working on a Saturday and I took a couple of videos and, uh, I think that was, uh, some point in, uh, in the latter part of maybe 2019. But then there was a pretty big hiatus of me not doing anything.

Um, and really when, uh, when I, I started getting serious, I bought a course. I'm a big believer in buying courses. Some people are like, ah, every person's slinging their course. I love courses. I love being able to shortcut pay to get someone's information and like the details. So I bought this Guy Graham Steffen, who's a huge YouTuber, finance YouTuber.

He is like three and a half million subscribers on YouTube today. Back then maybe had 700, 800,000, maybe a million. He had a course for like 300 bucks, and it was the exact system on how to buy, how to build a YouTube channel. Thumbnails titles, how to record the videos, equipment, everything. And so I bought it.

I consumed it all like a good student and, and started to get to work on it. I made a couple of videos and they got like 10 views, 12 views. I. And it was just like so discouraging, you know? It was like, oh man, I put all this time into researching the keywords and crafting like pretty much every sentence of the video.

And, and so I made a couple, and then like my typical pattern of what had happened years ago, I stopped, made a couple vid, like I think I made three, four, maybe five videos and just consistency dropped. But what happened was few months later, COVID happened. And so I wind up going back to work to get a full-time job.

COVID happened. Both of our store sales tanked 50%. I'm thinking, are we gonna lose the businesses? Like, what, what's, what's gonna happen? I have no idea. So I go get a job and back in financial services, and so I'm working just for, I'm, I'm back commuting. The, the, the company that I work for is a smaller financial firm.

The owner did not believe in remote work. So we're all going, or I'm going into the office. It's 40 minutes from my house. I'm leaving the house at seven o'clock every morning, getting home at six o'clock. And so, you know, I'm tired, but occasionally I'm looking at the YouTube stats and I'm seeing that those videos that had 12, 15 views all of a sudden are starting to take off.

And I had a video with, I think it was like one of them had like a couple thousand views. One maybe had like four or 5,000. And that got me like re-inspired and re like, motivated. Uh, and the fact that I was commuting to work every day was enough of a pain to be like, all right, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta get, uh, we gotta get on the ball here.

We gotta figure something out.

In the beginning it was me doing pretty much, uh, everything, but, uh, yeah, over the last, I don't know, five. Years or so. Uh, I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars probably in people and in help for the channel. I mean, there was a point where we had, I had both stores still one in, one in Florida, one in California at this point.

We moved to Orlando, by the way, the other store was in, uh, Jacksonville. So one store was 2,500 miles away. One store was 250 miles away. Then I'm working a full-time job. We have a 1-year-old perfect time to pull the trigger on becoming a YouTuber, and, and I'm, I'm starting this YouTube channel and editing my own videos, researching the content, writing the scripts.

So I was, I mean, I was up until I was waking up at five o'clock in the morning and I'm going to bed at midnight, one o'clock in the morning, and I'm just grinding. But I was just so hungry, so hungry, and so afraid of failing. You know, and that was what was fueling and driving me and the fact that we had this 1-year-old and like, I gotta make this happen for him, for him, you know?

Yeah. Well it's interesting, a lot of people that start out with personal branding, you know, they, they're either hesitant about it because they think it's really self-centered or they're worried about it 'cause they don't sound good or look good, or they don't have the right start. They don't have the right.

Equipment or whatever, and then you see it. Now, I, I love the fact that the, the playing field has leveled. Obviously there's an expectation when somebody's been in it for a longer period of time, that there's gonna be better audio and better video and you know, and all that kind of stuff. But there's also a huge amount of like.

I don't care. Like if you're educating me on something that I get to listen to for free, you know, like, like all the videos that you do on each individual franchise system, I always find fascinating. You know, like anybody in franchising does, you know, so it's, it's nice to hear it from that standpoint. And all the other education that you give away, it's just a huge calling card, you know, um, helping people out before you're asking for anything.

And, you know, I think someone said it, you give away all the, the information and then you sell down the line. You sell the personal relationship where like you're gonna really take 'em under your arm and be like, 

you sell the implementation. 

Yeah. Like you're gonna, you're gonna invest a lot of money. I know how important this is gonna be for your family, like the franchise you choose that it's a good one, that it's a right fit for you.

I got a charge for that, but it's gonna, the value of choosing the right one, not overpaying, not going in too big or too small or anything like that, is gonna pay dividends. For at least 10 years while you own it. Maybe 20. You know, like we've been in one system for 18 years now and it's changed the life of our family.

So it's, it's really cool. I, I, that's one of the things that I like about personal branding and, and one of, it's one of the good aspects of social media is people understand like. You get to give away stuff, you know, but when someone wants to apply it and implement it, I love the way you said that is like, you really want someone there like, hold your hand.

Like this is how we're gonna do it. And they feel like they know you already. And that almost there's a, you know, the, the psychological effect of reciprocity. Like they wanna pay you back somehow, right. Yeah, I've been listening to you for like the last two years for free, and I've learned what systems that I have no interest in, and I've learned about systems that have an interest, and now you get to know me and my family and what we're trying to do, like what's the best one for me, you know?

And, and it's all on the back of you. In the beginning, I'm sure having an iPhone and a bad microphone and just being like, I'm putting it on YouTube, got five views. 

One of the fir funny story, one of the very first videos that, that I recorded. And it has a decent amount of, of views now, like five years later.

I don't know. I think it has somewhere between 50 and a hundred thousand views. I had a lapel mic, but I guess the adapter that I had it plugged into into the iPhone didn't work. So the whole time I'm wearing it and it's just the crappy audio just coming directly out of the phone. Uh, and that, that was the video.

I posted it anyways, everything that I watched or, and there was, I get obsessed about things. When, when I have a a, a target in mind, I just get completely and utterly obsessed. So when I was running Spartan races, like I just, I would literally at night. Had to be smoking a cigar, just watching these recordings of the professional Spartan Race Guys.

That's just how nerdy I was. I'd sit there and watch 'em for hours. How am I gonna do this transition? Right? Yeah, exactly. Yep. But, um, so I, you know, I'm watching all these videos on how to create a YouTube channel and all this stuff, and everyone was just like, just hit the record button and post it. No matter how ugly, it looks bad, it looks bad, it sounds all that stuff.

Yeah, you can get all the equipment and stuff like that, but just get started. And I think that's a huge lesson. And you know, whoever winds up listening to this, whether they wind up buying a franchise, whether they wind up becoming a franchisor, one of the best things that you can do is to document your journey.

That was the original kind of intention. It didn't play out that way. Uh, it kind of became more like how to and educational, but you could just start documenting your journey, what you're doing, what you're building, what you're learning, and just building that personal relationship with your audience because yes, to your point, we've had, I mean, at, at, at this point, I mean, we've just, we've worked with hundreds, if not over a thousand people now, and we've had.

Tens of thousands of people give us their contact information, you know, uh, on our different opt-in forums for our, our freebies and stuff like that. And people will come to us and they're like, I've watched, I've been wa I've been binge watched all of your videos. I know your entire life story. They'll say crazy things, like, it feels so weird to be talking to you.

I feel like I'm talking to celebrity, which is like, it makes me cringe when people say that, you know? 

But they know you better than you know them. So that's. Almost the definition of celebrity, right? 

Yeah. And so it's, it's for any entrepreneur out there, it is, it will create an unfair advantage, uh, because we've had people where it's like, well, who else are you talking to?

What other competitors? Or they're like, no one, I. Yeah, no. We're like, we wanna work with you and your team, which is pretty cool. 

If you are interested in learning more or from our guest today, please check out the links in the show notes. If you wanna learn more about me, please check out my LinkedIn at Guy coffee.

That's G-U-Y-C-O-F-F-E-Y-I. Or for more personal and behind the scenes info, check me out on Instagram, which is at the same handle at Guy, coffee. Now let's get back to the episode. It's huge and I love that recommendation to document the journey, like the ups, the downs. The stuff that you'll laugh about later if you come out the other side and it's, it's all successful.

My, uh, wife and son were on a, basically a sales call yesterday and, um, they were telling me the story of this. They were doing a home visit for this business that we're doing, and they were telling me about this character of a person. And what they had and, and, and, and everything. And I'm like, tell me you got some of this on, on video.

'cause it's too good of a story to just have to like replicate verbally. And they're like, well we've got some pictures and you know, like hopefully we can turn this around for her and have a really good story at the end. You know? I'm like, yeah, you gotta get the beginning too. And um, I have a business coach that I listen to and he is work with and he's always like, record yourself working sometimes.

Just capture the stuff that you're doing, and then you don't have to create content. Like sometimes it's just capturing what you're doing, you know? And so that people can kind of see behind the scenes and like, oh, this is how they work, or what they do, or anything like that. People like to see behind the curtain all the time, you know?

So I think that's a, a really good recommendation, um, that you, that you gave is to document the journey. 'cause hopefully at the end, like the, you know, the things that you always talk about later on when the business. You've had multiple locations and businesses that have gone, and it's like, that wasn't always like that.

And some of the funniest stories are in the beginning when you're like, I don't know, like, you know, we opened one of our, our gyms on the absolute worst day of the year, you can open a gym, which is June 1st. Like, it's the middle of summer. You know, like no one's thinking about it, but like, all right, so we did that.

You know, and like all this stuff, there's so many good stories that come out of it. And, you know, you share your stories with other people and it, and it really creates that connection. It's like this, it's not, it's all relatable. 'cause we all kind of trudge, not trudge. We, we always, you know, all of us stumble at some point in time.

And if you're big enough to be like, yeah, that, that was me. You're good. So thanks for sharing your story, like all the pivot points that you've done and, and your, your quest to. To, to make something great for you and your family and all the lives that you're helping out by getting into entrepreneurship.

I really, really salute you and and appreciate what you're doing and thanks so much for spending time with me and, uh, the listeners here. And with that I think we'll wrap it up. But thank you so much. 

Yeah, thanks for having me. Guy, this was awesome. Yeah. Take care.