S2 E10: Amazing Athletes: Why Building Healthy Communities Can Equate to Financial Success
Jared Taylor owns six Amazing Athletes franchises. Find out how this former collegiate baseball player found his way into franchise ownership via real estate.
The Wolf and Jared get into why the recession forced Jared to make a decision about his future, why making a positive impact on kids was a real draw to the Amazing Athletes franchise, and why following your passion is always a good thing.
You’ll also hear why Jared believes there’s a correlation between owners who think in the long-term and owners who prioritize their employees’ well-being, and why optimizing for community impact over profits can still lead to a ton of financial success.
And If you work in franchises, your most precious resource is time. BELAY exists to help you regain control of your time and your focus. They will match you with highly-qualified US-based virtual assistant, accounting, social media, and website contractors. In fact, only about 3% of those who apply to support roles with BELAY are actually accepted. Text WOLF to 55123 to get started.
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Episode Transcription
Jared Taylor:
So tracking back to the partnership, I started running the show from day one from January 1st, 2014. By about summer, I’d kind of decided, you know what? I think this is a trip I want to take along. And so I started talking to my partner. It wasn’t something that he was really interested in doing. It was something that he had bought and had different plans for it, so it wasn’t something he wanted to work himself. And so I just went to when I went to our conference, I talked to the founders of the company and said, Hey, look, I’m interested in buying him out. Are you guys interested in having me buy him out? And they were like, yep, we’d love for you to buy him out. And so we started that ball. And so in August of 2014 is when I bought the first franchise. And then I think July of 2016 was when I bought the second franchise.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Welcome to Franchise Empires. We’re aspiring entrepreneurs learn exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond. I’m the wolf of franchises. Hey everyone, this is The Wolf. And today on the show we have an interesting franchise concept owned by Jared Taylor. He owns six Territories of amazing athletes, a franchise that helps kids connect with youth sports programs. And I think you’re really going to enjoy learning about this business model. And Jared’s focus on impact over profitability and other metrics that we typically cover on the show. Hope You Enjoy.
Narrator:
The Wolf of Franchises is the CEO of Wolf Pack Franchising, as well as a creator at Workweek Media. All opinions expressed by the Wolf and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Pack franchising or workweek. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf Workweek and Wolf Pack franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Kind of start at the beginning of the journey, I guess, for you. So I know you bought your first franchise in 2014. What were you doing professionally before that though?
Jared Taylor:
So as soon as I got out of college, went to play baseball four years in college, and then 2004 got out of college and jumped right into residential real estate. I had done a internship with a commercial real estate firm and thought that was the route I was going to go, but for whatever reason, it didn’t work out with that firm. And so I jumped into residential real estate started selling, and about nine months into that, had an opportunity to go to a smaller private company. I was working with a national company, went to a smaller private company who kind of had a niche market with foreclosure listings. And so I got into that. The foreclosure listings were pros and cons. It was good that we weren’t having to go out and really get the business. They were just sending it to us every month.
But the bad part was that we had to go sometimes and let people know they had to move out of their house. And so it was good that it eliminated the emotional aspect because we’re dealing with banks. And so for about almost 10 years, I did that all through the Great recession. It was going really great. We were doing really well. But then of course the market recovered and I started to see around 2013, I kind of started to see that well starting to run dry. So I had to make a decision, do you want to continue to go this route with real estate? Do you want to be knocking on for sale by owner doors? Do you want to be showing 15 houses on a Saturday? And I had two young kids at the time and just decided that wasn’t the route that I wanted to go. I didn’t want to continue with that and then ride it out to the well completely drive. So I just started looking into making a change.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Okay. Yeah. And so did you initially think, just lemme go buy a franchise? Or did you explore any other options before settling on the idea of looking at franchises?
Jared Taylor:
I didn’t necessarily look for franchises. I just was looking at businesses for sale. It actually began with one that I saw. And when you look at those websites, it doesn’t give you a ton of information, but sometimes they give you just enough information that you can figure out what you’re looking at. And so I had determined that there was a Subway franchise that was for sale.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Ooh, wow, okay.
Jared Taylor:
So I actually went through that process with them and I actually got approved.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, well they approved everyone.
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, thanks. That makes me feel good.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No, it’s not a shot at you. If people follow me on Twitter, they’ve seen that’s the one brand, I’d never try to be a source of negativity. But Subway’s done some bad things to their franchise owners, so I usually call them out. And that’s kind of their thing is they accept everyone because they oversell locations and they’re, they’ve been boosting the royalty stream. But anyway, sorry, <laugh> could continue. Had to get my jabs in there.
Jared Taylor:
No, so I was looking into that. It was a local multi-unit owner who was looking to sell off one piece of his portfolio. It looked like something that I might can make happen financially. So I got approved through Subway, was going to start working on financing and whatnot, and then the broker came back to me and said, Hey, he’s decided not to sell this franchise. 10 minutes from you, he’s decided to sell this other franchise that’s an hour from you and it’s double the price, so it’s double the price. So he kind of priced me out of it. And so that was kind of my first foray into the franchise side of things then. So it was kind of, alright, let’s just step back and for a second and see what else is out there. So I actually reached out to an acquaintance that I had worked with through the real estate business.
He had started an insurance business from scratch and done some deals with him in real estate. And he had actually just sold his independent agency for what I felt was a nice sizeable chunk of money. And so I went to talk to him and just said, Hey look, I’m looking to get out of this. Just wanted to see what route you went and starting your own business. Did you have family money? Did you have to finance it? I just wanted to pick his brain and see what all I could figure out. And I’ll never forget in that conversation, he asked me a question. He said, well, what are you passionate about? I said, I’m passionate about sports. I love sports. Of course, I played football all through high school, played baseball all through college and was continuing even at that time, continued to play competitively on the weekends some.
And so that was where my passion was at that time, and this is digging into a different aspect of the story, but my wife and I had had our first child in 2009. Unfortunately, she was born 15 weeks premature, and she lived for 99 days. She never left the hospital and passed away. And so after that, we had started a ministry, two families at our local hospital who have babies in the nicu, the neonatal intensive care unit. So I have my own kids. I had this ministry that I was working on, and then I had this passion for sports. So as I got to talking to him about that, he presented an opportunity to me. He even asked me, he said, are you interested in the food? Is that something you want to go toward? I said, do you have any experience? I said, no, I don’t have any experience.
It was just something I saw I thought might be something I’d be interested in doing. So he presented something to me. He said, Hey, I’ve been looking at this idea, this concept of doing something different. And so he kind of presented this opportunity to me and it was a great idea. I still think it’s a good idea and I’m reluctant to talk too much about it because I want to keep the idea. But anyway, it was basically going to be starting something from scratch. And I just said, man, I just don’t know that we can scale this thing as quickly as I need to. So he said, okay. He said, well, listen, I’ve bought this franchise called Amazing Athletes and I’d be interested in bringing you on as a partner. I’ve got the financial investment in it. Your investment’s going to be your time, and I think that we can really make this thing go. He said, but what I’ve got going on with it right now is just not really working out, but I think you’d be a great asset to the team. So that’s kind of how I ended up in the franchise space.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Awesome. So and this partner I, so you obviously moved forward with Amazing athletes eventually. What was the process like as far as just whittling down the choices? Because obviously, I mean for people who have looked at franchises that are listening to this, I mean there’s 4,000 plus brands, it can be an overwhelming process to try and figure out.
Jared Taylor:
Absolutely. And some of the episodes listen to the amount of franchises that some of your guests have dug into is just overwhelming to me. I really only looked at these two when he presented that opportunity. To me it sounded like exactly like I said, the three passions that I mentioned a while ago, the ministry, the kids and the sports, and it just fit right in there. So I did a little bit of research. I won’t say that I did a ton of research. I went and observed some classes. I talked to him a little bit about what his vision was for it, what he felt like we could do. I knew there was a mentoring program that they had in place that was going to be helpful as well. So I did a little bit of research, but honestly I didn’t dig into 20 different franchise options.
Some people do and that’s great doing your due diligence. But I kind of felt like early on, this is something that I want to do. This is, I think that we can take this thing and run with it. And so that’s what I did. We have a biannual conference and so that summer, well, let me backtrack. So I kind of started that process in October of 2013, just kind of checking in on what they were doing, how much business they had, and observing his coaches, coaching some classes and different things like that. And then just January of 2014, I kind of kicked it off running, steering that ship, just him and I at that point and just kind of went from there.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Cool. Yeah, and so amazing athletes. I would classify it within the children’s businesses category of franchises. So can you just give a primer on exactly what is it, because it is a little bit different. It’s not your typical, it’s not a brick and mortar brand. It’s a little bit of a different brand which I think is cool that you’re able to make a living out of it. So do you mind just giving a primer on exactly what you do?
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, so it’s definitely not in the broad sense of the term. It’s not a brick and mortar. There are some franchisees who have retail locations. It’s kind of just almost a pilot type thing right now. But the best way to describe it, our tagline is educational sports programs. If I’m describing it in the simplest terms, I call it PE for preschoolers. And so it’s just a sports base, physical education program. We have three different programs. We have a Tots program, which is 18 months to two and a half. The athletes program is two and a half to six. And then the school age kids are the amazing Athletes PE program. But the bread and butter for the whole program is that preschool program, that two and a half to six age range. And that’s really the bread and butter of the whole program. We’ll go out and do classes at the daycare locations, preschools, community centers. There’s some community programs maybe at parks. It’s just really dependent on what the franchisee decides that they want to focus on. Some focus on the Tops program more than others. Some focus on the PE program more than others. Some focus on community programs a lot and some just focus on that main Amazing Athletes program.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And it’s an interesting model, right, because you’re kind of just using the resources of a school and a town, I believe. So let’s say, you know, land, I guess a client and can you walk through, how does it work? You got to pitch someone who’s kind of maybe ahead of activities at a school and you’d be able to come in and the kids get to leave class for 30 minutes to an hour and you just use their fields to run whatever sports-based practice that you have in mind for them.
Jared Taylor:
So most of the programs are going to be right there at the daycare center. So there’s kind of this outside sales and then an inside sales type aspect to it. So the outside sale is you’ve got to get in the door and speak to the daycare director or whoever the decision maker is. Sometimes there’s a director but the owner is the final decision maker. And so you’ve got to find that decision maker, tell them about your program, tell ’em how it’s going to benefit their kids and then how it’s going to be of value for their location. And then once they agree to let you come in, normally you’re going to go out and do a free demo class to let all the kids kind of experience what you’re doing. Then the next aspect of it is to try to reach the parents because obviously the kids can love it, but if the parents don’t sign ’em up, it doesn’t really matter.
So you’ve got to reach the parents in some way. So a lot of times we’ll do meet and greets or any open house events and things like that that the locations have. So we’ll go out there and try any way that we can to get in touch with the parents. Obviously you’re going to send graphics and things like that home just to let them know, Hey, we’re starting this program, here’s when we’re starting it. Here’s all the different things that we do. And so there’s this outside sales and then inside sales, and then you just utilize whatever space they’ll allow you to utilize. Here in the south we get hot, we get cold, we get rain, we get snow sometimes. So it’s great if you’ve got an indoor space, so maybe a church or something like that with a gym or even a daycare that has their own gym space or multipurpose space.
But then there’s a lot of ’em that don’t have that space and you just have to do it outside and you just have to work around those things. And that’s different for every part of the country. So the Northeast is dealing with something different than we’re dealing with. Florida’s dealing with something different than we’re dealing with Texas. Parts of Texas are dealing with extreme heat. And then obviously you’ve got Phoenix and those guys out there and those summer temperatures. And so it can tend to be seasonal sometimes, just depending on what each facility has space-wise for you to utilize.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. And for most of my guests that come on, let’s say it’s the Wing stop owner, we had the Orange Theor owner or whatever for Wing Stop. I mean there’s quick service restaurants, fast food restaurants, dime a Dozen, orange Theory, there’s tons of boutique fitness competitors. But when I look at something like this, I mean if you’re getting in front of the director of a daycare center, are they used to people coming in and pitching them? And I, I’m sure it varies from local market to markets, but I’d love to hear your experience. They have you come in and they’re like, ah, come on man, you’re like the fifth guy this week to try to pitch me on some sports program for the kids. Cause I have no idea. And I’m sure people listening to this probably don’t either. Is this a common thing? Are there mom and pop competitors? I know there’s like a couple other franchises, like soccer shots is the one that comes to mind for me, which only focuses on soccer type practices for little kids, but it’s a similar enough model. But yeah, I mean just from a competitive standpoint, what have you seen out there?
Jared Taylor:
There’s more than I realized maybe initially we’ve had soccer shots is like you said, one of the main competitors. There’s several soccer programs. Actually soccer shots is probably more nationwide and more well known than some of the others. There are some mom and pops, there were some other programs some mom and pop soccer programs. You’ve got karate programs, you’ve got gymnastics programs. I would say in our area we’ve got maybe five that we compete with, but I don’t really consider them. There’s similar programs in structure as to how we’re competing for the same space. But all the programs are different. We’re really the main multi-sport program out there. Our sister company Jump Bunch does some different sports things but then a lot of ’em are just going to be one thing, whether that be soccer or karate or gymnastics or just a straight fitness program. So I have it run into a lot. I’ve not run into mom and pop programs that do similar to what we do but there’s definitely some mom and pops out there that try to go in the multi-sport space as
The Wolf of Franchises:
Well. Gotcha. So yeah, it sounds like there are competitors, but you’ve carved out a niche within what Amazing Athletes does. And today, so you own six territories. You started initially with that first. What’s that journey been like? And I guess to really just start out what comprises a territory, and this is important for anyone who goes into a franchise that isn’t brick and mortar based, is understanding the territory model. Is it based on population? Is it based on zip codes or counties? How do you define a territory within amazing athletes?
Jared Taylor:
So it is based on zip codes. They pull data, so you give them a general area of what you’re looking for and the zip codes that you’re interested in bringing on. They pull the data of how many locations are in that area, what they consider to be a qualifying location, and they will pull that data. And then based on the allotted number of qualifying locations, you kind of have to shape that zip code area to fit in the number of qualifying locations that you’re allowed to get. So you really give them the area that you’re looking for and then they give you the demographics and you’ve got to make a decision as to how you want to shape that area.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Okay. And H how long was it before you went from one territory to two
Jared Taylor:
Years? So tracking back to the partnership, I started running the show from day one from January 1st, 2014. By about summer I kind of decided, you know what, I think this is a trip I want to take along. And so I started talking to my partner. It wasn’t something that he was really interested in doing. It was something that he had bought and had different plans for it, so it wasn’t something he wanted to work himself. And so just went, when I went to our conference, I talked to the founders of the company and said, Hey look, I’m interested in buying him out. Are you guys interested in having me buy him out? And they were like, yep, we’d love for you to buy him out. And so we started that ball. And so in August of 2014 is when I bought the first franchise. And then I think July of 2016 was when I bought the second franchise. So if you’re familiar with the upper part of South Carolina, kind of the northwest side of the state, near the Georgia line, you’ve got Anderson and then Greenville and then Spartanburg, and that’s running along that I 85 corridor there. So my first area was basically the Spartanburg area and then Greenville is kind of split in half. So the second area was the eastern half of Greenville, and then the third area was the western half, and then the fourth area was the Anderson area. And I’ve since expanded and bought two more and the South Charlotte market.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Wow. Yeah, so that’s pretty comprehensive. You’re becoming pretty much the only franchisee in South Carolina. When you looked at, and when I hear you tell your story, there’s obviously a major component of this. Is it the passion play? You’re doing something you love between having something that revolves around sports, but also with helping kids, but from an economic perspective, right. Did you look at this in a way where you, did you say that you needed to expand to multi territory for this to be something that you can make a living out of or because I’m sure the economics are obviously it’s a lower investment franchise for people who don’t know, it’s about 33 K to 65 k initial investment. So obviously a lot lower than again your wing stops and orange theories of the world. But yeah, I kind of, I guess we were joking before we started recording about Jamie Weeks and he owns 140 orange theories. Can you get remotely close to that kind of scale with a business like this? Or is there limitations to the scalability of it?
Jared Taylor:
I think depending on the person, you can just about do whatever you want to do. But I have no desire to become an owner of 140 <laugh> amazing athletes franchise. And honestly, when I first started this, I had no idea that I would end up owning six. My wife would tell you it’s an addiction. And I’m on this two year plan of every two years I buy a new franchise. But the last few, honestly, I bought the first two, actually I bought the first one and you can make a decent living there. The plan for me all along was kind of to expand and be the entire, what we call the upstate of South Carolina. And that’s basically what I have there, Anderson over to Spartanburg. That was kind of the plan when I first started. I really didn’t have any idea how many franchise areas that would be, but I named it amazing Athletes of the Upstate for that reason.
And so as I bought the second one, that’s really when I saw the business take off. Now with that said though, Spartanburg’s a small market, Spartanburg’s a small market, so some of these guys that are in the larger markets out San Francisco or the DFW market, some of those guys, they can take one franchise and just run with it. For me, I felt like the second one was where I really needed to be comfortable. The third one there was someone else interested in purchasing that one and I knew about it. And so I didn’t want to create confusion in that Greenville market because I just didn’t think that that made sense. And then the last three were just good opportunities and I always say I don’t want to pass up an opportunity until I know if it’s a good opportunity or tapping into my faith background. Is it a God opportunity? Is this something that you just feel like God just dumps it in your lap and it’s just too good to pass up? And the last three have kind of felt like that.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I see six territories regardless of the franchise is an awesome accomplishment. So it sounds more like if the circumstances, I guess if you didn’t have the kind of good fortune, let’s call it, to get those opportunities, especially those last three in another world, maybe you’re happy with stopping at two or three. Is that fair to say?
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, I think so. And it was, as I said, I the fourth one which was an opportunity, I eventually kind of had that as part of the plan, but the third and fourth franchises, I kind of expedited that plan was expedited by varying factors. I really had not fully marketed that third area when the opportunity for the fourth area came up. And then I hadn’t market fully marketed the third or fourth area before the fifth and sixth areas popped up. So that’s one of the things I keep saying is when I brought on these other areas, man, I don’t know if I’m blessed if I’m crazy or a little bit of both, but they were good opportunities and I feel like that definitely short term we can do some good things and then long term we can do some great things. So they were just opportunities that I just didn’t want to pass up.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Then what does the org chart look for an organization like yours that’s multi territory? I, I’ve found the common hierarchy of a multi-unit operation, at least in the brick and mortar space is like every store. And let’s just use Wingstop again isn’t the example. Every Wing stop has a restaurant manager and then the franchise owner as they scale to multi-units, will eventually assign, let’s call an area director, where then maybe we had Michael Horowitz on who owns 20, I think he has an area director that manages five stores each. So then there’s four area directors managing 20 store managers, and then Michael’s at the top of that organization. So yeah, is there a version of it that you’ve figured out as you’ve grown that works for amazing athletes?
Jared Taylor:
And I think you’re constantly figuring out and constantly evolving that plan. So in the beginning it’s just you, right? So you’re the marketing guy, you’re the sales guy, you’re the accounting guy, you’re the designer, you’re everything. So as you get these locations on board, you kind of go through this process of building your schedule. So you’re in all those management things. You’re also the coach. So unless you go from a different perspective, but in my story it was coach build the schedule out. And then once you get to a certain point to where you’re spending more time in the classroom and you don’t have much time to do the management side of things, then you go and hire another coach. So then you plug them into your schedule and then you go get new locations and you plug them into your schedule and then you just keep building that way.
And eventually for me, it was five coaches before I hired a regional manager to kind of help me take on some of those things. Now that was in the upstate once I went to Charlotte, that’s a little bit further drive for me. So I spent about the first six months kind of managing that role myself while my manager of the upstate kind of ran that. And then I hired two coaches in the Charlotte market. I managed it until I could find what I felt was a good fit for a manager. And then I brought him on board over there to take some of that boots on the ground stuff over that way off of my plate. But I’ve since taken it to another level where I feel like you almost need two managers when you get to this scale because there’s certain things that those back burner items, making sure that someone’s checking on the coaches, making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, making sure they have what they need.
If you want to bring in a separate niche of the market with community programs or something like that, you need somebody to take over and run that. And then the biggest reason why I’ve tried to create this two manager hierarchy is because each time, and Craig Rochelle has said this on his podcast as well, and I know a lot of other management gurus and guys have writers have said it, but as you grow, for me, every time I step back into the classroom, that’s a sales call I’m not going on. And so as I keep stepping into the classroom, I end up becoming the lid on the organization and I stunt the growth of the organization. So I’m trying to create in the upstate this two manager buffer and in Charlotte, this two manager buffer. And then if a staff member leaves those guys don’t have classes.
So manager number two steps in for the coach that leaves. And along the same lines, we continue that initial process that I talked about in getting new locations. So we go and get 10 new locations in Charlotte, we plug ’em all into manager number two schedule until we can hire a coach to fill that schedule and then we pour them back out. So it’s kind of become this two buffer system for me, and I think that’s really what’s going to change the game. And we’ve just finally figured that out and gotten to that point. And that was actually a conversation with our C E O John at Amazing Athletes that kind of led me to go that route. And so we’re kind of getting to the point now to where we’re trying to figure out just exactly how to work that model.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, okay. And so it sounds like, you know, started out as the coach were back on day one, and then as you scaled up the territory and had enough clients that eventually you start plugging coaches in to take over for the overflow for the ones that you can’t do. But as you got have gotten bigger and bigger, then you start adding more coaches and then eventually a manager to oversee the coaches probably what work on things like scheduling and if one cancels and you need to replacement, maybe it’s the manager, maybe it’s you who jumps in and that’s kind of been the model as you’ve gained territories.
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, I’m almost a putty now. So this morning we had a scheduled open house at one of our daycare locations and all of our other coaches, well we’ve got one on vacation. And then all of our other coaches had classes this morning and both of my managers were having to do some of the free demo classes. And so there was really nobody to do the open house. So Jared gets to go do the open house, which is fun cause I like talking to people anyway and nobody’s going to sell my program like me, right? Yeah. So it’s always fun to go out and do those things as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I’m hearing your story and I’m looking at what you’ve been doing, I guess what are you optimized for? And what I mean by that is I probably take more of a capitalistic approach to franchise ownership and a lot of the guests I have on, but that’s why I was excited to have you on because it feels like you’re more just focused on the impact on the community and all that. So yeah, I guess how do you think about and balance your work in the sense of how much money you’re trying to make versus the impact you’re trying to make on the community, but then while also factoring in your own personal lifestyle. That’s one of the cool things I’ve seen with franchise ownership is some owners get to a point and they can kind of pull themselves out of the business when they’re happy with their cash flows and everything else. And then they’re not working even 40 hours a week anymore. Some I’ve met are working 15 ish hours a week. How do you think about that on a long-term timeline? Do you care about the lifestyle? Do you care less about the money and is it more about the impact? Yeah, I’m just curious to hear just your whole approach.
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, I’m glad you asked that because I had actually been thinking about that. Some of our franchisees, I talked to a lot of our franchisees about different things about how we’re doing things, how do you do this, how you do that, and some of them are blown away by some of the things that I do. And what I think I finally figured out, and one of the things maybe that we’re lacking a lot of times in society is contentment. So I pay myself what I need to be happy and content and everything else. Right now I’m investing in my people. So there’s some different things that I do with my team that other franchisees are like, you do what? And they just think it’s just kind of crazy, but I want to make sure that I take care of my people because if you don’t take care of your people, so many people look at money, what’s the motivating factor?
Is it money? Is it this? Is it that? I think a lot of people, and for some it is money, but for a lot of people they just want to feel appreciated sometimes. And so I do a lot of different things like maybe we buy ’em some gas cards when the gas prices are really high or maybe we are getting back to it. We stopped during COVID for a while, but we do monthly meetings. I take my whole team, we just brainstorm some different things and I treat ’em to lunch. And then once every month or two, we may go to top golf and just enjoy a Friday afternoon together whacking at some golf balls. And so there’s some different things that I do that cost me money and probably is money out of my pocket because I’m the business owner. So do I want to make money?
Yes. But for me, it’s not all about that. And as I build a good team, my philosophy is as I build a good team, as I continue to reinvest in my team, then what I’m able to pay myself right now is just going to keep climbing and it’s going to be even better at just because I’ve invested back into business and back into the team. I mean, that’s just how I look at it. I’ll get there, I’ll get to that point to where I’m paying myself even more comfortably, but right now I’m just content and doing that. And then eventually all the investments in the people and the business are going to pay greater dividends for me personally. At least that’s the hope.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I love that. And I think you’re dead riot stuffy theme I’ve noticed is the big multi-unit owners, the successful ones invest a lot in their team. And people who maybe aren’t as I guess generous and don’t necessarily maybe appreciate their team, whether that’s in the form of just the things they say or the compensation they offer and the benefits that they offer, which you touched on a bit, they may save some money in the short term, but it seems like in the long term, if you’re trying to build a bigger organization that it will cost you if you don’t value your team appropriately. So I think you’re on the right path there.
Jared Taylor:
Absolutely. I agree. And as far as going back to what you had mentioned about the kids and that sort of thing, look, I’ve got this ministry background, and so if you look at this as a ministry, if you think about these kids because I want to touch on this because I think it’s so important, but if you think about these kids, and I tell my coaches this, you look at these kids and every child’s situation is different. I came from a divorced home, so fortunately my dad plugged into me with sports and we got out in the yard and played ball all the time, but some of these situations are not that great. And so we may be the only opportunity that week that child gets to play ball. Our coach may be the only person in their life that actually plays ball with them. And so if you look at it from that ministry aspect, then it’s just a great thing.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And it really it’s empowering what you’re able to do through the franchise and make that kind of impact. So that’s awesome to hear. I think just final question, what are your plans? Do you expect to just keep expanding amazing athletes or is it more just you’ll see what opportunities, what are your thoughts for the next few years?
Jared Taylor:
Well, the philosophy stays the same, right? I’m not going to pass up an opportunity until I know if it’s a good opportunity or not. But I don’t have, my wife may argue this point, but I don’t have any other plans of expansion right now. I feel like between that Anderson area and even part of the Western Greenville area, and then of course the Charlotte area, I just don’t know that we’ve even scratched the surface over there yet. So I got to try to get caught up with what I got right now before I start thinking about anything else. But it’s been a fun ride. If you’d asked me day one, are you going to own six franchises and expand it to Charlotte I would’ve said, no, I’m going to stay here in the upstate and just do my thing. But it just happens that way. And sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways and just drops some things in our lap sometimes that you just can’t pass up. So
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely, no it’s great, man. You’ve done a killer job and I’m excited to follow along your journey. So yeah, speaking of that, where can folks find you who may want to follow along, maybe they’re interested in amazing athletes. Is there any place online that people can get in touch?
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, so our corporate team pretty much is on every single social media at amazing athletes. Ours personally we’re on Instagram and Facebook is where we put a lot of stuff. We like posting pictures of the kids and that sort of thing. And those are amazing athletes. Upstate sc it’s the same handle for Facebook and Instagram. And then the Charlotte one is amazing athletes, Charlotte, and it’s the same for Instagram and Facebook. And so come on over and check us out. We’ll post some different things on there, kids having a good time in our program, and we love doing that. We’ll do some spotlight features of some of our locations where we post pictures of the kids and the parents get to go in there and see their kids having fun. And so they always enjoy seeing that as well. So yeah, check us out, Instagram and Facebook.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Excellent. Yeah, we’ll plug those into show notes so you guys can take a look, follow ’em along. But yeah, Jared, hey, thanks for coming on. This was super cool. Love having the different type of franchise operator and owner on. So appreciate the time and yeah, we’ll talk soon.
Jared Taylor:
Yeah, appreciate you having me.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Thanks for listening to Franchise Empires. We’re coming to you soon with actionable insights to take the next step on your franchise journey. So make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.