Unlock growth with awareness and careness 😉

What’s up everyone, and welcome to the Local Marketing Lab. Today, I am personally super excited about our guest. He’s got about 20 years owning, operating, and advising within the restaurant space. He started out as an independent owner and now has sold over a thousand franchise units. He’s an entrepreneur, franchise owner, meme machine, dad joke dispenser, and one of my personal marketing heroes. Our guest today, the VP of franchise development at Roll-Em-Up Taquitos, Paul Tran. Thanks for joining us in the lab, my friend.

Paul Tran
Thank you, Justin. Thanks for hyping me up, man. You make me sound way cool. You should follow me along all of my events.

Justin Ulrich
That’s right. As a fellow dad, it’s like we have to do everything we can to make ourselves look cool, if anything, just to our kids. That’s why I got this blue microphone. It still didn’t work.

Paul Tran
So I’m glad you’re focused on being cool. For some reason, ever since I got kids, I have this urge to want to say something to actually ruin their lives. I don’t know, there’s just something magical about making them cringe. But that’s another topic for another time.

Justin Ulrich
I am absolutely in the same camp. It is a daily goal of mine to make my kids either cringe or be like “ug”, but anyways, well, that’s great. So I’ll kind of start things off just real quick by saying when I first discovered you and your content online, Paul, I stumbled upon through a post, maybe it was a mutual post that you commented on, and I stumbled upon your page. 

The content was so funny, I was literally laughing out loud. Look, the memes, I couldn’t compose myself and I told my team, I’m like, let’s everyone jump on this call right now. We want to run through this feed and check out how funny these memes are. And they were great. They aligned perfectly to the brand and they were super engaging.

Paul Tran
I’m glad to hear that, man. I’m like a sucker for memes. One of my favorite things in life is just to laugh. And it’s funny because LinkedIn can get kind of dry, can get kind of boring, and also the franchise industry can get kind of antiquated and boring, too. 

I felt like just making people laugh and disarming them for a bit is number one already differentiating myself, but also, it’s also naturally personally, like, it’s naturally me, who I am. So I’m able to kind of still share insight and value, but after I’ve already disarmed them with some laughter, so, yeah, thank you, man. Thanks for noticing.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. If you wouldn’t mind, I guess, why don’t we just kick things off with you telling us a little bit about your background and kind of what got you to where you are?

Paul Tran
Yeah. So I’ve been in the restaurant and the franchise world since 2005. I was still in college. I had this ridiculous idea to start a restaurant because in my mind, the story I told myself was, how hard can it be? And there was this restaurant that was in Southern California called The Boiling Crab at the time, that was, like, the only Louisiana-style cajun crawfish restaurant here in California. I know it’s common in the south, but it was nothing like it in California. 

And because they were the only game in know, people were waiting two, 3 hours for a table, no matter what time of day. There’s no such thing as, like, slow Taco Tuesdays for them. And so in my head, I had this idea, like, man, I should just open a restaurant just to serve people unwilling to wait for two, 3 hours. I’m pretty sure there’s enough business to just sustain my store. 

And so I was just having dinner there with a couple of buddies, like childhood friends. One of my friends is an incredible cook, not by culinary training, but he just had this amazing knack for eating things, and he can actually deconstruct and tell you what was in it. And so he decided to just like, hey, let’s steal this recipe and let’s actually make our own concept. And so that was my last semester of college. I still had some student loans to blow on this. This is education, right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Paul Tran
And then I also asked some family friends for some money as well. And, yeah, we decided to just go in on a space, and we found a spot that was like old, torn down, left alone. 

Cool story. That was a noodle shop that was actually owned by three guys who bought a lottery ticket at the same shopping center and won 55 million. And so, yeah, they’re just like, screw this we’re out. And so they left the store there, thank goodness, because that’s like conversion. We’re able to take over old ventilations, hoods, all the equipment, and turn it into a store within a few months. There’s a lot of crazy stories in that. 

But that’s for another episode if I don’t get kicked out and not invited back. But my hunch was right. We were so busy right off the gate, we ran it that successfully for three years. And then we just got bought out from a private investor who wanted to buy us out. 

So at the time, we were so young, my friends wanted to go to film school. The other one wanted to go to engineering school. So we decided to sell. And thank goodness, because we’re not brilliant. But right then was when the economy tanked in 2008.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, man.

Paul Tran
Yeah. The mortgage melt. But during that time, we just got so many franchise requests, which was kind of cool, but we didn’t know how to do it. So just all these inquiries led me on a path to just research more about how to franchise. 

And I found this company called Fransmart. They’re based in DC, and they were kind of like a franchise incubator. They take tiny brands and help them grow to large scale. They grew like the franchising program for Five Guys when five guys burgers when it was just five stores. 

And so, yeah, I wanted to learn the business. So I asked if they were hiring, and thankfully, they were on high growth and they needed people, so I jumped on and I worked for them for ten years, and I was one of their top salespeople and developers and helped a bunch of different brands grow. 

So my mentor and the CEO of the company, Dan, taught me everything about how to take small brands with little proof of concept, but put systems around it, taught me how to sell franchises and everything in between. And so worked for them for ten years. 

And then during that time, one of our clients was The Halal Guys, the famous New York street food cart in New York. At the time, they only had five carts. They didn’t even have a brick-and-mortar store. But we were hired on to help them build the actual blueprint for franchising. And during that time, I loved the brand so much, and I was missing the entrepreneurial itch. So I asked the owners if I could buy the franchise and bring it here to California, but still consult for them. So double dip. 

And they agreed, and I ended up buying the rights for Los Angeles and Orange County. And currently, today, I built a team. I raised a small fund and today, me and a couple of partners, we own nine stores here in Southern California. We do about anywhere from 15 to 20 million a year in annual sales. 

And then I still consult here and there, but I left Fransmart in 2017. Since then, I was trying to focus on just operating stores, but restaurant chains keep bugging me and asking for some help. And I wanted to make sure these small mom-and-pops also still had access for growth. And so I still took on a consulting gig. So that’s what led me here today, doing both things. 

And yeah, I’m enjoying doing both. I feel like I benefit from doing both at the same time. I kind of have a pulse on being an operator and also being a brand owner, too.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, very cool. Yeah, that serves you very well, not only for what you do with advising others, but obviously in growing your own business. One of the things that’s super interesting, I learned in your background that mentioned earlier that you’d sold over 1000 units through that experience and then also with Roll-Em-Up Taquitos right now is just growing so rapidly. 

What would you say is one of the most important aspects to local marketing?

Paul Tran
Yeah, local marketing is key. If people don’t know about you, you don’t exist. I think one of the most important things is just, I made this up and I like rhymes, so it’s awareness and careness. 

Awareness is, again, if people don’t know you exist, then you don’t exist. And also, a lot of times customers don’t even realize. Most of the customers that I’ve talked to that come into the store and are raving fans, most of the time they’re like, I didn’t even know you were here, or I didn’t know that you did catering, or I didn’t know that, whatever it is. 

And so in my stores, I usually train my staff to just be on “did you know mode”, which means if they’re a first-time customer and the stores know that, then the staff should say like, hey, is it your first time? Did you know that these are our best items and you’re able to curate an experience that they can enjoy, that they don’t feel overwhelmed, and they can enjoy and come back and appreciate the hospitality. 

If it is a return customer, our staff is like, oh, did you know? I don’t know. We have a secret menu and customers are delighted and they get to learn more about that. Or did you know that we also did catering? Or did you know that we also have a food truck that does off-site events? And so a lot of times customers are just like, it’s crazy how a lot of customers don’t. You assume customers know, but they don’t. 

And so if you’re able to get into that “did you know mode”, you’re able to allow customers to more conveniently support your store. And also you’re able to take, it’s like a battle reference where you have one more beachhead in the customer’s mind and another beachhead in the customer’s wallet, and so they think of you more. 

And also careness. Part of the awareness, careness is you just need to care enough. You just need to give a damn enough to tell customers. When you go inside a restaurant, you see a lot of people who, they’re just there for a job. You can clearly tell they don’t enjoy their job. And it’s crazy because they could have easily just said, delighted the customer and educated the customer on another more convenient and enjoyable way to support your restaurant. 

You just got to care. That’s all it takes. It’s that one degree. So awareness and careness.

Justin Ulrich
No, I love that. The awareness piece, it’s really interesting. The secret menu thing, I hadn’t thought about that so much. But as you’re talking through it, it’s like it opens the door for you to connect with your customers in a really organic way where it’s like you’re giving them a secret piece of information that they want to share with their friends and that accelerates the word of mouth.

Paul Tran
You’re in marketing too. You know this more better than I do or anyone. People want to feel like if you are able to do something that helps with their status. Right. People care about the status. If you’re able to give them a secret menu that helps them look good in front of their friends and family and people, they want to do that. 

So the secret menu actually is pretty powerful. I don’t know. And there’s these communities online about In N Out Burger where people just talk about the secret ways that you can enjoy the food. Like it’s created its own culture, which is kind of crazy.

Justin Ulrich
Anyway, it’s very cool. Very cool. Yeah. The In N Out secret menu, I always love secret menus, and we could go deep on that because there’s some really cool stuff. But I did want to kind of shift a little bit into talking about some of the things that you’ve done. I mentioned earlier that your marketing, like, from a brand standpoint, I think is on point. I think you do a really good job. 

What are some things that you’ve done recently that you think have proven to be really successful from a local marketing standpoint? So tagging on to that brand awareness and the stuff that you’re doing on social, what else have you done at a local level?

Paul Tran
You talk about from selling franchises or actually operating as a franchise or as a store?

Justin Ulrich
A store, you could actually talk about both if you want.

Paul Tran
Yeah, it’s funny. Thank you for mentioning and noticing that. I think it’s successful because it’s authentic and true to yourself. Right. Because this is my personality. You can’t shut it off. And I think that people feel like they need to have some kind of persona or have to be super professional and held back. 

I think that the more authentic and real you sound like, the more you are yourself. At the end of the day, people want to support people. Yeah, they want to support businesses, but again, at the end of the day, they truly support people. Right. And so you need to have a personality to be a person. 

So I think it’s a lot better and it’s a lot more easy to differentiate from the competition if you actually continue to be yourself. It doesn’t have to be humor. For me, it’s just laughter all day long. And that’s what works for me. I think that’s what drives people. 

There’s other people who are like, for example, like Chick-Fil-A. It just have a heart of hospitality and they want to do whatever it takes to delight customers. That’s their personality and it shines, and that’s true to them. You just need to find out what your personality is like and be able to shine through and just double down on that. 

Another thing is. The other thing is just consistency. I mean, you’ve seen my content. I’m committed to posting two, three times a week because I guess in sales and in marketing, people will need to be touched on 20, 30, sometimes 100 times before they actually decide to engage with you. 

There’s no shortcuts to that, yeah, you can probably create one viral video or content, but that’s not a game you can play. The game you can play is just being consistent every day, reminding customers that, hey, I’m here. Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. That develops a sense of trust, and I can’t tell you there’s been a couple. I just recently signed a franchise deal for Roll-Em-Up, a five store deal in Houston. That guy following me since 2016. 

And it’s a really profitable deal. We’re really excited about it. But it took someone to see my content for that long. That’s more of an extreme thing. But the principle of just being consistent every day, reminding customers you’re there, reminding them that you’re there to help, constantly adding just one extra piece of insight. 

For example, every time I post something, yeah, there’s a meme and there’s a laughter part, but I try to also sprinkle a little bit of wisdom in there, too. By the way, I’m teaching them a little bit more about unit economics, or I’m teaching them a little bit more about, by the way, even though Roll-Em-Up is a tiny store, we do crazy sales because we do catering and we do offsite events. 

And I try to tell people, if your customers don’t go into the store, you need to go out and get them. Don’t be so entitled or whatever to feel like customers need to go into your store. Don’t make that excuse, go out and get them. So I get a lot of comments that say, hey, by the way, you just changed my mind about how to do that. 

So you have to be consistent. I mean, more than anything, you can be clever, you can create a viral thing, you can pay like $200,000 on an amazing video, but if you only do it once, then you don’t build trust. You built entertainment, but you have no trust, no consistency. So I’m like rambling, but I hope that helps.

Justin Ulrich
Very good. No consistency, authenticity and trust. I think all those things go hand in hand. Especially you talk a little bit about it’s kind of a long tail play. If you’re trying to sell units, you got to stay top of mind for a longer term. But for your marketing, that’s customer facing, if you’re pushing out three posts a day, you may just be pushing out the post at the right time for that specific individual who happens to see your organic post. 

So I think that’s a great tip for folks. If they’re going to engage with your audience on a daily basis, be consistent and continually push out content because you never know when a specific individual is going to happen upon your post and your feed, when it’s relevant and recent.

Paul Tran
Yeah, you just have to do it. That’s it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. I think that kind of leads into the next segment. We typically talk about, like what are some things that you suggest an operator could do today? If they’re maybe struggling to get some momentum or to drive traffic into their stores today or this week, what is something that you’d suggest that they do just to get started with something?

Paul Tran
Yeah, great question. And this is where I get super preachy, but I think most people. Where’s my pastor gown? Customers. It’s funny. It’s the whole chasing bright shiny objects thing. I think most businesses are so focused on trying to buy Facebook ads and Google Ads and try to do new customer acquisition and I think there always needs to be a strategy for that. 

But a couple of things. Number one, it’s getting more costlier, competition is a lot more stronger now. The response rates are pretty bad. Like it’s 1% to 2% is considered success or standard. And it’s just not fun putting campaigns out and not getting a really big response. 

I would like to challenge operators to just like how people don’t use more than 10% of your smartphone’s capabilities. A lot of people don’t turn back around and look inside and think about how they can engage better with their existing customers. If you’re able to compile all the customer emails and phone numbers, people do want to get talked to. 

As long as you have something valuable to share with them. You should talk to your existing customers who have already tried your food. They love you, they trust you and you just need to. Again, did you know or like, by the way, here’s your reminder to place an order with us and be the most convenient choice. They already trust and know that you’re going to deliver a great product and service experience. Why aren’t you capitalizing on that? 

And so I think the easiest win to almost double your sales is just ask your customers to come in one extra time more than you normally would bug them to. They’re happy to support. They just need to know you want. What is it people want to help. They just need to know that you need help is pretty much one instantly profitable strategy. 

The other one is collaborations. I do some work with a coffee shop in LA called have you heard of Matte Black Coffee? So Matte Black Coffee, you should check it out. It’s the most aesthetically stimulating concept I’ve seen in a long time. But the owner came from the streetwear business. He used to develop cool streetwear for rappers like Kendrick Lamar and Jay Z and all that stuff. 

But anyway, he brought his streetwear mentality into the coffee shop by doing collaborations every quarter. He’s committed to doing one collaboration a quarter. So one day he would just create a collaboration with. He was able to get the attention of Disney. So they created all this merchandise and all this stuff that’s like Disney slash coffee shop stuff. 

And because of that like, their stores got flooded like it was a grand opening again. Next quarter…you know Harry’s Razors? So they did a collaboration with Harry’s where there’s, like, merchandise that looks like a really cool razor because morning coffee, morning razor, morning shave. Right. And they did another collab and the store got flooded again and they just reengineered a grand opening every quarter out of the same store. 

And the collaboration doesn’t have to be that massive and viral. You can just collaborate with your local business to host, like, luncheons. You can do collaborations with just a local business where you can find interesting ways to serve your customer differently. I think it’s a great way to just bring customers back into the store, build more loyalty and excitement. And it’s crazy because it’s also content too. Right. So collaborations is also the way to go. Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Very good suggestion.

Paul Tran
Peaching done.

Justin Ulrich
Harry’s. When you said Harry’s in the coffee, I was drinking like a late with a shaker of, like, looked like beard hair sprinkled on the top of that.

Paul Tran
That’s one of those manly man type of scenarios, but yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, man. It’s like Chuck Norris’s whiskers that you’re drinking.

Paul Tran
Did you grow up on those Chuck Norris jokes at all?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Paul Tran
Okay. There’s one that was told me recently, I hope you don’t mind. It says, Jesus may walk on water, but Chuck Norris swims on land or something like that. Anyway.

Justin Ulrich
They’re so ridiculous but so funny. I mean, I feel like that was like, the start of memes was like, Chuck Norris jokes.

Paul Tran
For sure. I loved it.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, man. So, speaking of memes, you mentioned to me that you like the laser eye meme every time. Yes. Which I thought is hilarious because it’s like if you look up just laser eye memes, they’re all over the board.

But you also let me know that you’re a big war machine fan.

Paul Tran
I love the Avengers in general, but I felt like War Machine is, like, the most stacked hero.

Justin Ulrich
And he’s underrated. He doesn’t get as much airtime historically as other heroes do, which I think is a really cool hero as well. All right, so real quick, I just wanted to throw this information to AI and try to get an image of Paul as war machine.

Paul Tran
Nice. Oh, my gosh. I wish I looked like that. Oh, my gosh.

Justin Ulrich
It’s pretty close. What’s funny is AI, speaking of war machine, being just undersold. It did not know what war machine was, but it knew what Iron man was. So I just had to crank out an Iron Man type image and take down the saturation.

Paul Tran
Well, that’s proof that AI still has a long way to go. If they don’t know who war machine is.

Justin Ulrich
It does. Well, it’s funny is I had another guest that I recently spoke with. They were all about crossfit. It would not generate, like, a crossfit game. Like, come on, guys, crossfit. But it made me angry. It made me look like this version with the laser eyes.

Paul Tran
Oh, my gosh. This must have been so much fun for you, man. This is so fun to look at.

Justin Ulrich
Look at, literally, this one was a late night one where I was laughing. I’m like, man, this is so good. And my son came in, he’s like, oh, this is so cool. And then I was like, well, how can I tie this back to his business? I thought maybe heating up a plate of taquitos with some laser eyes might do the trick.

Paul Tran
Oh, my gosh. This is so incredible, man. Thank you for giving me some attention on this one. This one’s so cool. Can I use this for my own stuff?

Justin Ulrich
100%. I was hoping that I might see this in a meme one day with the funny caption. We’ll see what happens.

Paul Tran
It is happening. It is happening. Awesome. Thank you so much, Justin.

Justin Ulrich
You bet. Well, hey, before we sign off, know who’s someone that you’d like to shout out that you think is doing something really, and it can’t be yourself because you’re crushing it in the local marketing arena, but who’s someone else who you think is doing some really cool stuff or really interesting things out there?

Paul Tran
Can I talk about Roll-Em-Up?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, you can talk about Roll-Em-Up.

Paul Tran
So a person I want to shout out to is the entire leadership team is incredible. It’s hard to not mention everyone, but when it comes to marketing, I’d like to give a shout out to Christal Miller. Christal Miller is our VP of Marketing, and the moment she came into our company earlier this year, she brought in three catering clients ready to order, like, 200 to 300 taquitos. Immediately. She brought instant value. 

But anyway, her background is really interesting. She came from Raising Canes, so Raising Canes, I think, is world-class when it comes to marketing and building local community engagement. And so Raising Canes is always good about all the football games and all the sports events and stuff like that. So she brought that playbook with her to Roll-Em-Up. 

And since she’s joined, we’ve given away a ton of food to football camps. If you’re a football fan. Kenny Clark from the Green Bay Packers did, like, a sports camp here in Riverside County and gave away a bunch of food. And guess what? That weekend, all the stores with five stores within that sports camp area jumped up anywhere from 20% to 40%. 

She’s also been instrumental at pitching to USC athletics, and now we are, like, the official food partner for USC Athletics, and we just needed to bust through their doors and just give them taquitos and sell them that way. And since then, we’ve been doing all their sports events. 

And not only that, every weekend, we get more orders for catering from the athletic department and from the academic departments as well. And so she’s just a killer at just putting us out there. And it’s nothing too secretive. It’s just like, she’s just like, again, she just gives a damn. She cares, and she just knows. 

Just like Costco, you just need to put a free sample in their hands and the rest able to sell itself. You just need to give a damn. You just need to try. And so she’s just been incredible at that. Not only that, not only the sports stuff, but she also, recently, she noticed we got, like, an 800-person catering order for a wedding. They actually want to serve taquitos. 

I don’t know if you saw my meme about the wedding, and I’ll send it to you, but that one was hilarious. But, yeah, ever since that, she’s just like, why don’t we show up at the wedding expo? So Roll-Em-Up had a table at the wedding expo, which is the wildest thing. And guess what? We got, like, a ton of wedding contacts. But even though we didn’t get more wedding orders, but guess what? We got two birthdays, and we are now catering to the city of Riverside, the government. And they’re ordering food from us every week now. 

Justin Ulrich
Wow. Great for you guys.

Paul Tran
Yeah, we just need to put ourselves out there. I think a lot of owners are afraid or they don’t have time, but you need to make the time. She’s awesome. So, anyway, I can speak about forever, but she’s a killer.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Yeah. Showing up at unconventional conventions or events, that’s a really good example of why you should do it. I would have never thought to go to taquitos to the wedding event, but yeah.

Paul Tran
Right? Makes sense. Yeah. She’s amazing so.

Justin Ulrich
It’s crazy enough it just might work.

Paul Tran
Yeah. You’re the only one there that’s willing to try it. Of course she’ll stand out. And I think the food is good enough to where, I mean, the food had to be good, but you just need to put it out there so.

Justin Ulrich
And people at the event are hungry and you’re giving out samples. They’re going to try it.

Paul Tran
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. So how can listeners follow you, follow your brand?

Paul Tran
I’d say that the best way to follow is through my website. It’s paulTtran.com. I think that is the gateway to all my social stuff, including the LinkedIn account where you and I are connected and engaged and laughing together. And yeah, you’ll also find out everything else that I do, too. But, yeah, that would probably be the best starting point.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, there’s a lot of cool stuff. It’s actually really funny. I love your website. I’m gushing about Paul. I’m like, I’m in. I’m all in on Paul Tran.

Paul Tran
You’re too kind, man. Thank you.

Justin Ulrich
You have some really cool creative stuff. You have a podcast, you have a newsletter, like Eff Around and Find Out, like literally e-f-f around and with a graph on there that show the direct correlation between eff around and finding out.

Paul Tran
Well, okay. I have to tell everyone, encourage everyone. None of these ideas are original. It’s stolen and repurposed. What is it? R and D, research and development. It’s rip off and duplicate is how to do it. So, yeah, I steal that from all over the place, but I make it work for what I do.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. You’re doing a great job. Great job.

Paul Tran
Thank you, man.

Justin Ulrich
You bet. That about does it for today. We’ll make sure that you follow and subscribe to Paul and to Roll-Em-Up Taquitos on social, check out his website. If you’re in southern California, Texas, Arizona, Vegas, stop to Roll-Em-Up, check them out. It looks delicious. 

I’m not in any one of those areas, so let me know when you’re coming to Charlotte. But if you’re looking into owning a successful franchise, maybe in Charlotte, check these guys out because they’re growing really quickly. Paul, ton of fun having you in the lab today. Thanks again for joining us.

Paul Tran
Oh, thanks for having me, man. Hopefully I was helpful. And yeah, it’s just fun laughing with you at the very least. So thank you, man.

Justin Ulrich
You bet. 

As always, thanks for joining us in the local marketing lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook at evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.