Welcome to the Thrivewell Journey. We're a new podcast dedicated to empowering
entrepreneurs to uncover and embrace their purpose here on earth. As multi
faceted human beings, we strive to navigate our financial, mental, physical,
and spiritual well-being. And that's what this podcast is all about. We're here to
inspire, uplift, and equip you with the tools to thrive on your journey to
greatness. All we ask in return is your support. One, subscribe to our YouTube
channel or to download the podcast from your favorite platform. Your engagement,
it helps us grow and attract incredible guests who will enrich your life with
valuable insights and wisdom. Now in turn, we promise to keep bringing you
content that enlivens, edifies, and elevates your journey, not just as an
entrepreneur, but as a human being. And with that, I want to thank you for being
a part of the Thravo journey. I've seen anyone run for president and in all, I've
been, I've been watching the presidency since John F. Kennedy. I never saw
anyone do what they said they were going to do. So they have no commitment to the
future. And so I learned honesty is about the past, integrity is about the future.
And it's, and the best salespeople, unfortunately, are lying about the future.
They, they paint this picture that is that not only is not going to happen, but
they have no, no likelihood of, of, or, or commitment to make it. So you have to
be driven to achieve, to achieve more than common now, common things, average
things and growth and change is uncomfortable. You have to be willing to be
uncomfortable. If you're going to win, you have to do things that others don't
do and things that are, are difficult for you and your personality.
Welcome to another episode of the Thravo journey podcast. We've got an
incredible guest today, John Hewitt. If his name rings a bell, it's for good
reason. John Hewitt is a renowned American entrepreneur whose innovative ideas
and strategic brilliant brilliance have less a left, left a lasting impact on
the business world. He's best known for founding two of the largest tech
preparation companies in the U S Jackson Hewitt and Liberty Tech Services, both
of which rank among the top 100 largest retail organizations in North America.
Now, if you're still wondering why you should tune in, let me give you some
more reasons beyond founding and scaling these two retail giants, Liberty
Tech's group operate over 4,000 locations across North America. Meanwhile,
Jackson Hewitt earned its place as the second largest tax company in the
industry by 92 and was recognized as one of the fastest growing private
companies at the time in the country, which he sold for over 400 million.
But John's entrepreneurial journey didn't stop there. After selling his
stake in Liberty for nearly 500 million, he launched his latest venture,
loyalty brands with loyalty brand brands. John is on a mission to impart
entrepreneurs and franchisees to build successful businesses with purpose
through mentoring programs and franchise opportunities. Loyalty brands
offer a platform for people to become CEOs and build their empires. Now, from
2000 to 2012, John was named among the top 100 most influential people and has
become a bestselling author with his book, I compete. How my extraordinary
strategy for winning can be yours. His career has been a testament to success
through grit, strategy and leadership. And today we're fortunate to have him
on the Thrive Road journey. And let's give him a warm virtual welcome to John
Hewitt. And like I said before, I do appreciate you being here. So thank you.
It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. My producer, Vaughn, when
she found out who you were, she was really, really excited. Like I was excited
to have you here when I found out, but she was really excited because she knows
that world of finances and money. And I tell you, taxes make me sweat. I tell
you that. So she's really happy. She was really happy to have you here. So
you, I mean, you found it two wonderful companies. How was the mindset of principles
that one has to have to create not one, but two top franchise companies?
It's a never say die attitude. It's, you know, most, I brought in 53 other
franchisees in my career and almost all of them get complacent once they get to a
certain amount of income or the house they want, the boat they want, the car they
want, the education for the children they want. So they tend to get complacent.
I've never, I'm, I'm driven. And I, I like him myself in that way to
Sam Walton in his book, Made in America. He writes in the forward, he says,
people ask me what's different about me than anyone else. And he said, the only thing I can
think of is I'm so driven and competitive. And so I'm thus the name of my book I compete.
I'm driven and competitive and are my, I've learned in my 55 year career that the biggest
joy is improving lives. And I continue to do that every day. Yeah, I could, I could sense that from
listening to your book because I got it on audio. And I try to make the questions chronological
as we go from like, in the beginning years to as we get to a luxury brands. You were your
athlete growing up. Does that have anything to do with your competitive attitude? Does your
father, does he add to who you are as a competitive person?
Yeah, absolutely. I strive to compete every minute. So if sports is an ideal way to do that.
And so I played when I was growing up, I played in every major sport at that time,
which was basketball, baseball, football, not so much soccer, played a little soccer.
But yeah, that's the ideal way to compete. Now I compete as simple as playing cards, ping pong,
chess, I betting a dollar. I love betting a dollar. It looks like I'm going to lose a dollar in
the World Series. But I'm always looking for the next competition. So staying competitive.
I wanted to things that you say in your book, or as it reads in your book,
it says winners will do what loses unwilling to do. Can you unpack that? I mean, it's really
self explanatory, but in your mind, how does that how does that how does that read? One thing I don't
think most people think about, but there's no one that I've ever seen on earth that just got to
skate through and win and had this greatest life. Every single person faces it personally.
God didn't put anyone here to skate. And the difference between winners, the greatest winners
never, never say die. They get up every time. The most people are not winners, and they stay down.
They get knocked down and stayed up or get beat up and change their direction. But winners just
keep on going. They set the goal and they're unstoppable. They're virtually unstoppable.
Yeah, that's that's the power in resilience. And I know, like from my personal story,
when health was an issue, you know, for almost a decade, I was like, you know, I mean, it happened,
right? But I got to get up and start moving and really creating the life that I want.
And which I think is really important to do. You have the saying that principles trump policies.
Yeah, let me get that. Yeah, the first of all, let me start with a long, a bit of a story about
about principles. And that is that I was sitting in church 30 years ago, and
the minister said every one of us sins every day. And my first thought was, wow, I get that I do.
But he's admitting that he does. It didn't occur to me till months later that we have in my companies,
I was with Jackson Ewood at the time, we had just like there were 10 commandments that we had 10
principles. And I said, he's done me. I had an epiphany that if we're not going to listen to God's
principles, his commandments, we're not going to listen to John Hewitt's. And so I said, we need,
we have a, we have to do a better job of explaining and emphasizing and adhering to our principles.
And people set up all these silly policies that are that are just policies and they're made to be
broken. One of the biggest, a simple example that I think is clearly understandable is I let my CFO
make a rule that our franchisees could only talk to his accounting staff from two to four each day.
And a call comes through at 415 and an accounting clerk, accounts payable clerk,
says, it's a franchisee. And she goes, Oh, I can't talk to you. It's after four o'clock.
And she hangs up the bone on the on the franchisee. And because of the policy, the principle is happy,
successful franchisees. And that's who's going to be happy. And who's going to be happy with that
policy or that that happening. So we wrote her up. We so we had these mission moments,
these paths that listed all the principles on a sheet of paper, and you tear them off and give
them to me. If they adhere to the principle, and then you would give them, give it to them. And
if you violate it, you would give it their name and, and people put them up on their walls. It was so
you walked around the office and you would see these mission moments up on people's walls. They
were the ones that they they did well. They, they were joyful in that. And some of them even put
up the negative ones like that in there as a as a learning lesson. But yeah, the you can't let
silly policies get in the way of doing the right thing, doing the right thing. And that kind of
takes me back to when before you were Jackson Hewitt, you were at H&R Block, right? Correct.
And there was a story where you had there was a CEO that didn't really have integrity.
Can you can you share that story? Well, I learned a valuable lesson in
from this CEO based on honesty versus integrity. I had never put any thought into it.
And then I, and then I saw this CEO greatest salesman ever, almost greatest salesman ever.
And he would, he would paint a picture of the future. This is this rosy future that's going to
happen. But he never had any commitment to it. He didn't, he didn't even believe his own words,
sort of like a politician. And I've never seen, I've never seen anyone run for president. And
in all, I've been, I've been watching the presidency since John F. Kennedy. I never
saw anyone do what they said they were going to do. So they have no commitment to the future.
And so I learned honesty is about the past, integrity is about the future. And it's,
and the best salespeople, unfortunately, are lying about the future. They, they paint this picture
that is that not only is not going to happen, but they have no, no likelihood of, of, or, or
commitment to make it happen. Yeah, like integrity is really honoring your word. And if you have
a word to create the future that you want, in whatever it may be, it's like, if you don't stick
with who you are as your word, then that future will never come to fruition. And 95% of the people
I met, do not have integrity. Yeah. And for people who are really trying to start a business or
become entrepreneur, that's one of the lessons I believe that, that, that they should know and
learn like beyond anything else is be integrity and be honest and honor your word as yourself.
Yeah, it used to be back 100 years ago or 50 years ago, used to be able to make handshake
deals with people. What you can't do that anymore. Right. It's a whole, it's a whole different world
now. You actually, when you started with, in the, just in the tax, tax, tax world,
you're talking about people who did taxes on paper, pen, pencil and paper.
And you switched the whole game because you created a, you and your father created a,
basically a system on the computer. How did that come about?
Yeah, you're not anywhere near old enough to remember a world without computers, but
a little bit. I was born in 77. So, okay. Well, that was about the day my dad bought
one of the first sample computers. And there weren't even 500,000 in the country.
And there was no such thing as desktops or, right, the mainframe that ran his,
his public company, he was a CFO of a public company was as big as a room. And it literally
had bells and whistles. And your, your iPhone today or your phone, whatever kind of phone you have,
has a hundred thousand times as much power as that huge machine did in, in 1977.
They're laser printers back then were a million dollars.
That's very, a million dollars. Today, what are they? $200?
Yeah.
Yeah. Or cheaper. There was no such thing as a desktop. And they were just being,
becoming into its system. So he got the idea. He was a visionary. And he got the idea that
computers were going to take over. And he saw a future where they would,
they would turn on your, your oven, they would turn on your TV there. They would drive your car,
they would do everything in life. And he, he was extremely visionary. So he decided that
he convinced me. And in 1981, we both quit our jobs and built the first tax software for an Apple
computer. That, you guys did that, but there was some things that happened before. So you went from
H&R block and then you went to Mel Jackson, correct? What happened is we left in 81,
built the software and no one wanted it. So I had just left H&R block. No one wanted it.
H&R block was a Fortune 500 company. And in their annual report in 1983, they said,
people asked us why we don't computerize. And we say, why should we? We tried it,
doesn't save us any money. Our customers don't care. We're never going to computerize.
So that's how visionary H&R blocked us. So we took our software and found a look where,
where, what we could do with it. We found a company here in Virginia Beach called Mel Jackson Tax
Service and bought that from his widow and merged the computer company with Mel Jackson Tax Service.
So we did the, we did the software first. Okay. And then, so you bought Mel Jackson and at some
point you were, you, you were leaving Mel Jackson or Jackson, Mel Jackson turned to Jackson Hewitt.
What was in that space? How, what was happening there with the software and you transitioning?
Yeah. Well, 15 years later, the, we had grown the company, public company, and we had a horrific,
the worst year ever in the history of tax preparation. It would take me half hour to
explain it, but the IRS almost destroyed the industry. It was so bad that Tom Block in,
he resigned for the last, the last block, Henry blocks the H, the block is Henry, Henry blocks
son, who was CEO resigned on April 9th in 1995. And we almost went bankrupt. And so ended up having
a fight with my venture capitalists who wanted to take over the company and leaving. So I ended
up leaving and the company was sold for $483 million, public company. So the, he tried to
take it over for $20 million. So the next year was sold for $483 million. So the, in looking around
for something to do, I had a three or not compete, but it didn't cover Canada because Jackson Hill had
never gone to Canada and haven't grown up in Buffalo. I knew Canadian texts. So we opened
Liberty tax in Canada. And then when my not competing ended in 2000, brought Liberty tax into the
United States. That's, that's pretty interesting. So there was a lot of adversity and resilience
that you had to bring about to maneuver through all of that. Yes. Oh, yeah. You know, in my book,
that you're that you alluded to, I think there's one thing different. I've been told
from readers that I talk about the mistakes that I made and the obstacles I had to overcome. And
apparently I didn't realize this when I was writing it that most autobiographies are people
talking about just their successes. But I talk about difficulties, problems and how I over how
I thought about it and how I overcame them. So yeah, the end, and, you know, mistakes are part
of the game. They say they say that people who are the most successful have made the most mistakes.
And I've been incredibly successful. I mean, I founded a half a billion dollar public company
and a billion dollar public company. And so I've been more mistakes than anyone you've ever met
probably. And I've had to face more adversity than virtually every or in quantity than than almost
everyone you've met. That's interesting. So going through all those failures, what what words would
you give to a beginner entrepreneur who who, you know, they don't know the world, they're trying
to navigate themselves through the world of entrepreneurship or business. What would you
say to them? Well, I did a I have a webinar that I do every week of mentoring webinar. And one of
the questions I I that was one of the questions I addressed a few a few weeks ago, and it took me
an hour. So I would recommend anyone going to my loyalty brand site and you can download that
you get a free copy, my readers can get it or or your listeners and viewers can get a
pre copy of my book, you can see that. And I talk about being an entrepreneur. And one thing
that that is incredibly important is that two thirds of the public, two thirds of the Americans
want to be an entrepreneur. But in bringing in 5300 of them, I learned that that a third of them
can't be an entrepreneur, they just don't, they don't have the risk taking or the financial acumen
or the get up and go the drive. They don't have and but and they don't have which is the most
important thing we talked about earlier. They don't have perseverance. So I talk about things to
consider before you make that leap, you burn your bridges and leap into being an entrepreneur,
that it's not for everyone. Yes, that is definitely not for everyone. What is how do you how do you
how do you connect with over 5300 people as for a franchisees? That's a I'm a very hands on CEO.
And you do a lot of you do it by national national communication. So what I learned is that
then one of the difficulties of managing being a founder CEO of a huge organization with 4000
locations that when I give an instruction, it gets to the next level. And not even all them get it
right. And then they have to go to another level. And then another level in the franchisees. It's
so distorted by the time it's it's widespread. So you have to have a national message. So not
only do we have a national newsletter. So make sure that everyone got it. But we have during the
tax season, we had over 50 calls, national calls. And I'm on calls with making sure that that people
understand my vision, because I'm the most experienced person ever in this industry. As I said,
there hasn't been a block family member with them since 1995. And you know, even that neither Henry
block or the father or the son had had even 30 years of experience, I've 55 years. And I have
12 years with block 15 years with Jackson Ewitt 20 years with with Liberty and now
five years with ATAC. So I'm the most experienced person ever. I want you to know hear it from
from the horse's mouth. This is this is the system. And this is what you need to do because
my job and our job is to give you the best system in the industry. But it can't be
diluted as you pass it down. You know, they people people put their own, their own twist and bias
on the policies, the policies that and procedures. So you have to be careful that you have a message
that is that is disseminated properly to everyone in the organization.
You they're kind of connects with what you say in the book, which is you talk about communication,
communication, communication, communication, which is essential. And people
here, but not us, not necessarily want to give the knowledge that they have. And this
this is what seems like what you're doing now, because you really don't have to like, you know,
be on a podcast and think or even have to work. It seems like why do you continue to do what you
do for entrepreneurs or even for yourself? So you sort of ask me two questions. There one is
about communication and why the others why I keep going. Yep. So let me talk about communication
that that you can't ever solve communication. I mean, no matter what you can, I mean, if you've
ever played the telephone game and told someone a story and they told a story and they told us
that I mean, it's so convoluted by the time it ends up gets distorted. Yeah. You can never have
great you can never have 100% accurate communication, no matter what. And even if people heard you
clearly, they think maybe there's some innuendo in it or some something I missed or he really meant
this. So so it's a constant channel. And so what we're committed is just to improve it.
That we we try to get better and better at communication knowing we can never solve it.
As far as what keeps me going. When I was a kid, when I was in high school, I was cocky.
And I was poor. I knew I was going to get rich somehow. I didn't know how I didn't.
I didn't know what I wanted to be until I took an hr block course when I was in college and
fell in love with the tax industry. I didn't know what I how I was going to get there. I thought
I just retire. I was naive and immature and I'll just retire. I'll make a few million. I was a retire.
And then I realized what would I do? I mean, there's nothing fun. There's nothing fun that that I
enjoy better than helping people. And our mission statement is very, very simple. It's having fun
improving lives. There's nothing more joyful in this world than improving lives. And I couldn't
I couldn't go fishing or golfing or or I mean, I'm a chess player and a bridge player and a
play cards or do any there's nothing more rewarding and more fun. The journey is the joy.
I'm here to improve lives. Yeah, that's my view of podcasts. That's my view of franchising is
and is to improve lives. What's up Theravu journey listeners and watchers. Look, if you're someone
with big dreams of entrepreneurship, but need a flexible way to earn income while building your
business, let me tell you about the Orians group. Through our partnership with arise virtual solutions,
you can become a customer support professional, aka CSP and start earning from home when your own
terms arise offers a streamlined certification process getting you trained and ready to work
with well known brands all across America. You can sit your own hours to the clients you want to
work with and create a work life balance that fits your entrepreneurial goals. The best part,
you don't have to choose between your side gig and your business dreams. Being a CSP with the
Orians group means you can bring an extra income while have the flexibility to focus on growing
your own venture, much like I did. Whether you're looking to supplement your income or need a bridge
while building your empire. This is the opportunity for you. You interested? If so, head over to
www.theroiansgroup.com to learn more about becoming a CSP with the Orians group. Look here,
support your entrepreneurial journey while supporting the Theravu journey podcast at the
same time. All right, one more time www.theroiansgroup.com. All right, we're doing the spot. Let's get
back to the podcast and prove lives. There's how do you connect your purpose with being in business?
Yeah, you know, my favorite story in the Bible is the the tale of the story and where
without going into the story, it emphasizes that God wants you to use God wants you to use your
talents and He gives you all these talents and He wants you to use those talents and we all have
different talents. When I first would sit in church for the first 30 years of my life,
it almost sounded like they wanted all of us to be preachers and go and preach the gospel.
And then I realized that no, we can't all be preachers. We can't all be firefighters or policemen
or teachers or we all have a purpose. And God wants you to use your talents to the fullest.
And my and my talents are business. I've I've created, as I said, I brought in 5300 franchisees
and created a thousand manors and they had hundreds of thousands of employees and thousands of
children and grandchildren. So I've changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives in a
in a positive way. Well, that's the overarching theme of this podcast is really about purpose.
And you can find your purpose in many different ways, you know, and we talk about the well-being of,
you know, your physical well-being, your spiritual well-being, your mental health, well-being,
and your financial well-being. And you've created from my research, you've created over 800 millionaires.
Is that correct? In the book, it was 800. But that was that was published 10 years ago. Over a thousand.
Over a thousand. Well, it seems like it's good to be connected with you, especially in business.
I have thousands of people references. Thousands of references. Well, that's a good thing for,
you know, when you're really when people are trying to create their own empire.
It's really important that you're living your purpose. Because again, like I say that you don't
have to, you know, continue to do this. But it's part of this is you fulfilling your purpose.
Right? Yeah, I I don't think badly of people that retire or go relax somewhere.
But for that's not for me. I could never do that. Yeah. They have to kill me to stop.
They got to stop you. They have to kill me to stop. Yeah, you sound like my dad. My dad was he was
forever going. He's older now. He's like 85. So he's but he's he's relaxed now. He's good to go.
He's moving at his own pace. So, you know, but he had to stop him. So especially at that age.
So you went from, you know, h and r block to then it was Mel Jackson to Jackson Hewitt and Liberty
tax services. But you moved on to create loyalty brands. Can you talk about that a little bit?
And loyalty brands, unlike Jackson Hewitt and Liberty, where I just had one brand,
I've eight different brands and we have eight. They're all franchise doors.
And they're they all have a niche. One is in tax and accounting. One is in construction led by our
roofing division. And then the fastest growing is pets led by our mobile, our mobile grooming
service called zoom and grooming. So we have three different focuses and eight different companies
that are in each of those ditches. Now, let's talk about franchising a little bit. How would
somebody Okay, let's let's kind of be real here. There's people that want to be franchise or
in or entrepreneurs, right? They don't have the money to get into franchising or be a
you'll be a franchisee. What is one circum circum navigate that we're not even that circum
navigate, but really start to create a real possibility for themselves to become someone
who is interested in entrepreneurship and be a franchisee. Yeah, I as I said, I have a
hour on whether you should be self employed period. But I also did another hour on
whether you should be a franchisee or the 30 reasons you should be a franchisee versus
a mom and pop. And so that's available to my website. So that's an hour presentation.
But let me say that it's cheaper to get into a franchise often than it is to get into in terms
of cash. Because with franchisee or is you get not only do you get better financing, the because
most times it's it's not possible get financing until from a bank until you've been in business
two years. Well, with the franchisee or if you join us, then you can get franchising,
you can get financing from day one, not only from the banks or the small business administration,
but sometimes we will lend you money ourselves. What I found is that in to be successful in
business, you need two things. You need you need a management entrepreneurial skill,
and you need money. And it's a lot easier for me to find money than it is to find people,
the great people. So what would I in our system, if even if you've never been in the industry before,
then you come and work for us. And if you prove yourself, we'll find it 200%. You can get into
this for nothing. But you have but nothing but time and time is way, way more valuable than
money. Right. It's the only it's the only asset that is that's that's non retrievable. You can
retrieve money and you can retrieve diamonds and gold and but but your time is lost forever.
So it's irreplaceable. So you have to give your time. But we'll figure if you're the right person,
we'll figure a way to get to the bottom. Well, I say a question because there
there are tons of people that, you know, didn't go to college and didn't have the business.
They didn't go to business school or but they may have a business acumen. And there's there's a
difference there, the learning the theory in school, but actually having the experience
in the world to to really drive a business and be an entrepreneur. And you offer that.
Exactly. And and there's no school in this country
that teaches you to be an entrepreneur that teaches you to be a CEO. So all of my experience and
success in being a CEO came from the school of hard knocks. The beauty is that's the training we
give you as a franchisee. We teach you to be entrepreneurial if you haven't experienced it.
And we also teach you to be CEO of your business. And there an MBA or a business degree does not
teach you how to how to win in the arena, how to win in the in the real life. So we teach you that
we give you the ins and outs of that. What are some of those tools that can you drop a couple
tools that someone would need in order to be successful in that in that world?
Well, you have to have attitude. Attitude is critical. You know, Tom Watson senior, the
founder of IBM said, give me 100 people with great attitude or 100 great engineers. I'll take the
I'll take the people with attitude because you can teach engineer. You can't teach attitude.
So attitude is is critical. You have to have a ability to delegate. And delegation is so common.
It's a disease that that even most even today there are 30, there are 35 million businesses in
the country. And probably 30 of them are poor delegates. So you can learn, although you can
learn delegation, you can't learn after you have the attitude comes from within. So attitude,
delegation drive drive in part of drive is setting big Harry Audacious goals. When I started
Jackson Hewitt, we bought Mel Jackson, they had they had six locations. Each of our block had
9000. And from day one, I said, we're going to have 9001 locations. That's our goal. Now,
do you agree that that's crazy and and unrealistic that that you're going to add 8995
offices? You have to be total almost totally crazy to believe that. Well, we didn't get to we didn't
get to 9000. But we got to 6000 and a billion dollar company. So I'd rather I'd rather set my
goal at 9000 and get to 6000 than set it at 200 and get to 250. Right. So you have to be driven
to achieve to achieve more than common now common things, average things. And
growth and change is uncomfortable. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable. If you're going to
win, you have to do things that others don't and things that are are difficult for you and your
personality to put up with. So you have so those are some of the things that you need.
Being Audacious is a trace, I believe, being an entrepreneur. And one of the things that you say
is if you do what you're always done, you'll get what you always got. All right. So in the world of
uncomfortability, you know, you have to continue to move forward to become a great entrepreneur.
Yeah, that the my obsession is to win to win. I have to have the best system and have the best
system and has to be improved. So you can't if you're not one of the greatest things I've ever
heard is if you're not improving, your competitor is catching you. So you always have to be committed.
You have to be committed to improve it. And unfortunately, or fortunately,
improvement requires change. And again, unfortunately, for most people, that's uncomfortable. People
don't like to change. Everyone I know tells me they want to improve. But everyone I know virtually
says, Oh, but I don't don't ask me to change anything. Don't ask me to get up an hour earlier or
or do this or do that. I mean, everyone wants to says they want to improve. But no one wants to
go through the pain of change. There's a there's a true, like internal struggle and pain when it
when it comes to going from one level to the next. We're we as people, as human beings, we're
comfortable in one space. But we want to get to that next place where maybe we see a millionaire
a multimillionaire billionaire. They're they're at, but we're not willing to do the work we see it.
But to do the work means change. And with change comes uncomfortable, comfortable, just
uncomfortability within yourself. And it's really being able to conquer that in from moment to moment.
Right? Yeah, there there are. There are times where you're not going to be able to go golfing or
or go out and have a two week vacation or things that would be fun that you're watching others do
it. But in order to meet your goals and to win, you have to you have to outwork the competitor.
You know, the greatest superstars, the Michael Jordan's of the world, they outworked everyone.
They didn't they didn't just get lucky. They worked tens of thousands of hours in their lives,
perfecting their their their career. And it's hard work that wins the and preparation, not the
actual event. It's the preparation for the event for that. Yeah, I totally agree with that.
The experiences that you've that you've had throughout throughout your time.
What has that what has those experience taught you and what could you share about those experiences
right now? Well, it's taught me everything. So I would I could go on for for days and days about
I know about that. So but but one of the lessons I learned is is that
that a couple things about you, you as a successful, if you're going to be wildly successful.
And I think you have to agree with I've been incredibly blessed with success.
And it didn't it starts with God given talent, God given opportunity and talent. And then you
have to seize that. And one thing to be careful of is that in your life, everyone will try to
bring you back to normal. They'll try to bring you back to their level. No one likes I mean,
in a way they like to see you succeed in a way, but they're jealous and that makes them look
bad. So if someone in a factory is outperforming everyone else, he's hated by everyone else
because that makes them all look bad. So they say, man, you're doing you're working to our
art, you're doing this or doing that. And you got to take it easy. Everyone in your life will try
to make you normal and average and fit in with our so it takes a you have to be a maverick to be great.
You have to be an uncomfortable and you you you never try to please everyone. My favorite
Shakespeare is this above all to thine own self be true. You have to do with best. You're going to
never never make everyone happy. And that is a curse trying to make everyone happy. You can't
you could never come up with something that would make everyone happy. So the example I use is when
I had 2000 franchisees at my peak existing franchisees at Liberty. If I said, well, I'm going
to send you all $10,000. Now, how would you think how could anyone complain about that? Well, what
would happen is the guy that's the biggest franchisee that's doing $20 million of revenue and paying
royalties of two and a half million to the company. He says, you know, you got new people that are
only paying royalties of $5,000. I'm paying you two and a half million. Yeah, you give them $10,000.
You should be paying giving me 10 million. And so he'd combine. And then you have the people that
only paying $5,000 that aren't making money yet or they're breaking even or they're only making
this guy's make 20 million. He's making $6 million profit a year, putting $6 million in the bank.
They're making 60 cents a year. And they say, he doesn't need the money. You should give me more
part of his $10,000. So you can never do anything to make everyone happy. That and you have to stay
away from listening to the masses. You know, Rich Dad Portad, he said that 90% of people in life
will give you advice. He said, but only 5% are wealthy. So why are you listening? Right. That
is pretty great to be said because there are people, well, first of all, as you're
raising in the ranks of your life or whatever, whatever that looks like, you have to be surrounding
yourself with people who are doing the things that you're doing or even greater because that circle
will inform you of who you're being. Right. And as you're growing, like there's certain people
that you have to kind of let go. And that's that attitude of growth. Absolutely. I have
three friends that I've had for over 50 years, but only three. And so I don't have anyone from
high school that I met them all in college. But I don't have friends that I've known for 48 years
or 45 or 35. I mean, yes. And my belief is you only get a handful of truly great friends in your
life. I've never seen anyone with, I mean, you get a lot of acquaintances and a lot of people
that claim to be your friend. But when times get tough, you know, there's, rubber meets the road.
They're not there. So you only have, we're only given about five people in our lives that you can
depend on. And so you have to put them out of pedestal. Yeah. Take care of those around you
that take care of you. Exactly. Yeah. As far as the advice, right, that you get advice from all
these other people that are trying to give you advice, but they're not doing the same thing.
What would you, what would you say to those people? Well, first of all, I kind of laugh when people
try to give me advice, especially my own people that when I've been doing something for 55 years,
and I hire a new person and they come in and they try to give me advice. Oh, really? It's odd. And I,
I had one person that was trying to give me advice on franchise development, selling,
bringing in new franchises. And the person that never brought in a franchise in their life.
And I, she was, she got really annoyed with me. She said, I felt you were demeaning me when I said,
how many franchises have you sold in your life? I brought in 300. How can you come in without
any facts, without any experience and tell me, and I'm in, and throughout that period, in, for
example, at Liberty, out of 4,000 franchisors for 10 straight years, 4,000, we're in the top 10,
not 10%, top 10 every year out of 4,000. I'm the best of the best, right? You can't get any better
than that. And this person's coming in with no experience and has a theory. Well, save your
theory. I mean, I mean, I'm, I, and so it's, it's, can be aggravating when I get advice
from people that are, that have, don't have the experience I am. And yes, I can, I will say this,
there are, there are lots of stuff I'm not good at, and lots of stuff that you've been
criticized. And, but if, if we're, if we're bringing in 250 new franchises a year, which is like
incredible numbers, most people, the average franchisor brings in five, we bring in 250.
Right? So maybe you could get me to go to, maybe let's say you came up with a piece of advice
that could get me to go from 250 to 254. I mean, that's an only 1% improvement, right? That's,
that's, but learn, learn the basics first, experience it before you criticize.
Yeah. You talk about that in your books, you like be, get the fundamentals right, become a master
of the fundamentals. And I think a lot of people, the team that went through World Series,
unfortunately, it's not going to be the Yankees. And they're just batting better and pitching
better and catching better. And you know, the Yankees lost the first game probably because
a guy didn't back up second base and it allowed the, the, the tying run to go in next training
to get to third and then score in a sacrifice line. Now, I mean, backing up second base,
I mean, where's the first baseman and the catcher and where's the people that are, what were they
doing? And this is, I mean, it's basics and the team that wins a Super Bowl and I'm a Bill's fan,
because I grew up in Buffalo. Hopefully it's a Buffalo Bill's, but they're just going to block
best and tackle best and catch best and run best. There's not going to be a, there isn't a Super Bowl
won by a trick point. It's run by, it's won by blocking and tackling and catching and passing
and running without, without getting tired. Yeah. What's the saying that they used to say,
offense wins games, defensive wins championships. I love that. That's great. You know, I mean, you've
encountered so much through, through your years. And we're now in a really, talk about our compete.
We talk, we're in a competitive digital age. What do you think about that with franchising
just in the, in the, in the era that we're in right now? Yeah, I have a whole nother hour on that too.
Okay. It's very important because most people that have never been in franchise, think of it as a
successful style of business. And it is, it can be when you get a, a Jackson Hewitt, when you get a
zoom in Grumman, when you get a subway or McDonald's, it can be incredibly successful,
but 80% of franchises are fail. And we're really didn't know that. Yeah. So most people don't know
that they think, Oh, it's automatic. It's easy. But 80% of the ones that have started in the 21st
century have failed. And that's a long story. It takes me an hour to go through it. But so you
got to be really careful. And it, it comes down to one simple thing that you would think is automatic
and every franchisor would know and strive for. It comes down to having, creating happy, a system
with happy, successful franchises. And they don't do that. They, they want a happy, successful
franchisor. They want the headquarters to be happy. And they don't understand that if the
franchises are happy and successful, you can't stop growing. You're going to grow like Wauper.
If they're not, you can't win. And so they set up these system to make sure the franchise
has to pay all this money, follow all these rules. And it just chokes them into, into non
success and causes the franchise sort of. So this is what I thought on franchise. Be very
careful. Check to make sure that they are happy, successful franchises. Yeah. And you, that's one
of the things that you seem to live by, which is you can have all this, you know, the business and
then, you can possibly grow and make you financially successful. But are you happy? And I think
what you talk about is being a happy, happy, successful person. What makes the difference?
What makes the difference? I mean, how do you, how do you create that or how do you,
how do you have that happy world if, you know, in the world of entrepreneurship?
It's a, somewhere, it's a cross between family and team. You treat, you treat your franchisee
there as, as a customer, as a partner, as a family member, as a team member. It's a,
it's a convoluted relationship because they're not employees. And most people that haven't,
haven't been a operator, a CEO or a leader in a franchise organization don't understand. It's
not like managing employees because employees, you have, you have some more control over and
they have to do what you say. Franchisees don't. And so, and by definition, entrepreneurs are
more maverick than employees and more independent. And they, they will talk back to you and they
will present you and they will do everything you can imagine. It's, it takes a special skill
to be able to get the respect of fellow entrepreneurs versus, versus employees. And so,
again, that's why they, they fail. They don't realize that it's a different skill set than just
being a CEO or a vice president or some other kind of executive in a normal employee type
relationship. I understand that. I understand that. That's, that's good. There is, there's a,
again, with the, the, the, what's happening now in the world as far as, you know, election and
election and things like that. Where do you see business in the, in this, this new era, 2024?
I, I've been disappointed by business in the United States for 60 years, 50 years.
It's, we've gotten so far away from, from great service. I mean, I mean,
can you answer this question for me? No one's been able to answer this question for
a while. I went into a restaurant yesterday and we had a reservation for six and I went in and
asked to go to the table. No, we can't seat you until three people are here.
So, I mean, why do people, why do restaurants do that?
I've had that experience myself and it doesn't make sense. Then I, if you, if you
have a table of six waiting because you've reserved the table of six, it doesn't make sense for
half the party being, or not having the, having the party there because it's already reserved.
And that kind of messes up the, the emotion of, you know, getting ready to go sit down and eat
and enjoy each other. So I don't know why that. Is it better for the customer or is it better for
the restaurant? It's better for the restaurant. Exactly. So they, they're not concerned with
happy successful customers. They're concerned with happy successful restaurant, but they don't
understand at the end of the day without happy successful customer, then they're not going to
have a happy successful restaurant. So one time, I mean, I'm going to have this problem that I
meet people all the time wherever I go. I go, I travel out every, every, every month or every week
and next, next week I'll be in, in Baltimore and on Thursday and I have three different groups
coming in and me and there's eight people and someone might become in Baltimore, DC and Columbia.
And now everyone has, let's say that too many of them are laid and they get caught in traffic.
And so the rest of us were sitting around uncomfortable because I just don't, I just don't,
I don't, that, that's the kind of thinking that makes franchisee worth a film that puts themselves
first versus the customer and, and a franchisee is a customer and a partner. And again, a family
member, team member, I think of my, I think of my franchisees as my children. Okay.
So that's, that's, that's definitely family. If you think of them that way.
So that eludes to the fact that you really take care of them just as if you were, if it was,
they were your actual blood family. Yes. Now, in, in just like with my blood family,
I have part of my family. I don't want. I don't know how big your family is, but, but I have,
I have, you, I have to love my family, but I don't have to like them. You don't have to like them.
Yeah. So I love them, but I don't always like them. Yeah, I understand that.
I just had a big time. That's, that's funny. As, as a weapon up here, you know, I definitely
believe that your heart is, is really for people who are becoming entrepreneurs and really want
to take their life to another level and, you know, continue your, your growth as, as a French
Rizor and the owner of loyalty brand company. And I really think that people that can get connected
with you really, they really, they, they really thrive in, in their lives. I can introduce you
to the thousands of them. Yeah. Yeah. No, you can't. Where do you see the future going with,
with loyalty? We're good in each of our brands. Each are eight different companies. Our goals
to be number one. Now we're not going to make it, but we're going to set big, hairy, audacious goals.
We're going to have the best system in each of our industries and we're going to improve.
Okay. You say you're, you're, you're sitting on your to become number one, but you're not
going to make it. What's the, what's the difference there? We're not going to make it in each, every
one. We've already made it, for example, in, we're already number one in, in mobile pet room.
So there are some industries where I'll be able to make number one, but I've been competing with
H&R Block for 42 years and they have 9,000 offices. I got Jackson, who got to 6,000 and Liberty got
to 4,000. Between the two of them, I got more than 9,000, but neither one of them got to number one.
So it's unlikely and, and it's all dependent on people. It's all dependent on ourselves.
And even John Hewitt, his CEO, couldn't get bigger than H&R Block yet. So I have eight
different CEOs that are, so we're going to, we're going to continue to improve. We're going to drive
to be number one. And in some of the industries, at least a few of them, we're going to be number
one in category. We're going to have the number one, there's no brand name in roofing, national
roofing companies. So we're going to, we're going to drive and be number one in, within about three
years in, in roofing. And just like it took three years to get number one in mobile grooming, there's,
there was no national name. Within five years, there'll be 3,000 Zoom and grooming bands around
the country. And it'll be a household name just like Jackson knew it or Liberty.
So being audacious, there's space and possibility in those different areas to actually become number
one. Exactly. Got it. And I'm just not going to live long enough to be number one in every category.
But there in leaves your legacy, you have a legacy that people can attach with. What is the legacy
that you want to leave? I want to pay it forward. That take, take what you've, that you've learned
from me and benefit from me and pay it forward. And part of that is part of that paying it forward
is we've learned to give back that that's one of our principles is you need to give back. So I am,
I am making the world a better place. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that's pretty good.
One of the things I like to end with is you, we, you said all this wonderful stuff that people
can go back and listen to. But for if this is the last thing you want to say to somebody,
what would you say? It could be a story, whatever it is, what would be your, what are your last
words in this, in this moment? Well, I think I can affect the most people by saying this that.
And, and I had a great dinner the other night with a woman in Orlando, who's an attorney,
makes good money. 50, she just turned 50. And she's unhappy. She's, and, but yes, she's afraid,
afraid to do something different. And she was looking at zoom and grooming, but she's,
and the beauty of zoom and grooming is you can, you can do that and keep your day job.
Because we don't, our owners are groomers, they hire groomers. So most people that joined us
at zoom and grooming have kept their day job. So, but she was timid. She was, she was scared
to step out and boy, life is so short and you know, that it's just so short. And I understand that
most Americans go to work and don't look forward to. And therefore, most Americans believe in the
phrase, thank God it's Friday. Well, I invented thank God it's Monday. And what I would say to all of
you is a Monday morning, if you're pulling out of your driveway and, and driving to work or,
or taking a train or a subway or Uber, if you're not looking forward to where you're going, you're
going to a wrong place. So find something you love to do. Life is way too short.
Think just if a live a life of thank God it's Monday.
Live a life to say thank God it's Monday. And one of the things I always talk about within purposes,
purpose drops you, it gets you up in the morning and ready to start the day. And
John, I appreciate you being here. For anybody that want to be a franchise, franchisee,
where they, where can they connect with you?
www.willardtbrands.com
www.willardtbrands.com I appreciate you being here, sharing your wisdom, your insight,
the resilience that you've, that you've had throughout the years. And just to be here,
especially on this podcast, I really, truly appreciate you.
Thank you. Have a wonderful day. It's my, my pleasure.
It's my pleasure. And for everyone else, I want you to go to Facebook or Instagram.
Look us up the Thriveau journey where you can get more of this conversation
or snippets from this conversation. And as I always say, make thriving your new normal. Take care.
Thank you.