Why Every Business Should Become a Franchise (Or Grow Like One!) With John P. Hayes |TNE078

Think the only business you can franchise is a fast food restaurant? Think again! In this week’s episode, I am joined by none other than Dr. John P. Hayes, who has authored several bestselling books throughout his career and is currently the Titus Chair for Franchise Leadership. Dr. John Hayes has definitely lived a very storied life. Tune in as he takes us for a stroll down memory lane, all the way back to the time when he started writing to supplement his insufficient income as the head of the magazine writing program at Temple until he became an authority about franchising.

In this episode, Dr. John P. Hayes shares how meeting James Michener changed the course of his life. He also talks about how he almost passed up the opportunity to write Franchise, the book that not only changed his life, but the marketing game entirely! The writer-turned-franchisee-and-franchisor offers plenty of valuable advice that will not only enrich you as a business owner but as a person as well!

Timestamps:

[6:19]How meeting James Michener opened doors for John

[10:53]This is what sets Dr. John Hayes apart from other professors

[18:00]The story behind ‘Franchising’

[29:15]What John learned from Michael Gerber

[38:02]Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid To Ask To Be Paid Upfront

[50:57] What Zig Ziglar taught John about franchising

Links:

Get in touch with Dr. John P. Hayes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohnhayes 

Omar's (Host) Social Media:

Instagram - @nomadables

TikTok - @nomadables

Facebook Group - NOMADABLES - Accountability & Growth Community for Remote Workers- Perfect to meet fellow online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads.

YouTube - Omar Mo

LinkedIn - Omar Mo Nomads Cast

Twitter - @nomadables

Pintrest - @nomadables

Clubhouse - @pods

WEBSITE: https://www.nomadables.com/

Transcript

The Nomadic Executive Episode 78: Why Every Business Should Become A Franchise (Or Grow Like One!) With John P. Hayes

Omar Mo 

On today’s episode, we have a true American icon. A man who worked with Zig Ziglar himself, writing his online newsletters for 10 years. A man who took over home investors best known for the slogan, “We buy ugly houses.” from 2004 to 2008. A man who is known as one of the main figureheads of franchising in the US: John Hayes. 

Now, you’re probably listening to this podcast thinking, ‘What does franchising have to do with travel or online business?’. Well, a lesson you’ll learn inevitably, if you’ve been in business long enough, is that you’ve got to run your business like a franchise. Why?

Because otherwise, at some point, you won’t be able to scale it further and you’ll be tied to your desk working 16 hour days. Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, does it? 

Franchising your business is making it turnkey. And if you ever really want to get that freedom, you’re going for a way away from the confines of a 9-to-5, you’ll want to listen to this episode. Besides, John is one hell of a storyteller. 

Just a heads up, this episode is full of stories and I had the pleasure of meeting John in person and really get to know him and his story. I hope you find joy from it the same way that I did. 

Intro  

You're listening to The Nomadic Executive hosted by Omar from nomadables.com. 

Join Omar as he sits down and speaks with leading online entrepreneurs, remote workers and digital nomads about everything from business strategy to travel and lifestyle design. 

Together, we're here to help you achieve a life of happiness, health and freedom. And now here's your host, Omar Mo.

Omar

All right, Dr. Hayes, AKA John Hayes, AKA King of Franchising, the TItus Center for Franchising Leadership Board you said? Chair - Chairman.

John Hayes

I’m the Titus Chair, yes.

Omar Mo

Titus - It’s such a mouthful. I want to remember that.

John Hayes  

King of franchising sounds good, it's not exactly accurate. But it's, you know, that's, that's okay. A

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

I’m the Titus Chair  for Franchise Leadership. So I'm a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University. And anything related to franchising, I'm touching it in one way or another.

Omar Mo 

Absolutely. And don't let Mr. John Hayes here humble you, he humble himself too much, because he has been the original author for one of the most original books out there on franchising. And that has landed in the Smithsonian Museum out of all places.

John Hayes

That's great. Means I'm old!

Omar Mo

Which is insane. And tons of value coming from you today, I'm sure. But just to, like, start it off, what I like to do is get a small elevator pitch for those of my audience that haven't heard of you before, just have like who you are in what you do.

John Hayes  

I'm all about franchising. I'm all about helping people transform their lives, so that the work that they do is meaningful, and the work that they do is also profitable. Franchising is a way for people to build their personal wealth. And there are 75 plus major industries, offering franchises. 

People think it's just fast food. It's not, if you want to get on an exciting path, a journey for your personal wealth and for your satisfaction in work, work related opportunities, then you want to know about franchising. 

Omar Mo 

Makes a lot of sense. So why don't we go ahead and start at the beginning, then I think you've got one hell of a story. When you first started off, like, from what I remember, you weren't fully entrepreneurial at first. 

John Hayes

Yeah. 

Omar Mo

Yeah, you started off as a writer. So, what... How old were you when this all began?

John Hayes  

Late 20s. Yeah, late 20s. Forty something years ago, actually. And I was a young college professor, assistant professor of Communications at Temple University in Philadelphia, making absolutely no money. I had a nine month contract, I was the head of the magazine writing program at Temple. And I think my salary was 12,000 something like that. 

Omar Mo

Jeez.

John Hayes

$12,000. So it meant that I had to teach year round, I didn't have summers off, so that I could make some extra money teaching in the summer. It meant that I had to be somewhat entrepreneurial, as a freelancer, which allowed me to double my teaching income. But I was hustling all the time. 

I found an opportunity with Writer's Digest magazine, out of Ohio. It's monthly... It's still a monthly magazine that helps writers know what's going on in the marketplace, including which editors are buying what from freelancers. And I would go to New York every month, and I would interview half a dozen to 10 editors about what they were looking for in their magazine or their publishing house. 

And oftentimes, because my article had a delay of about three months, so I would go to New York in January, and maybe the March issue of the magazine would have my article in it. And lots of times I would be able to interview editors, who would tell me, “We really need this particular article. And we hope we can get it within the next 90 days.” 

Well, if that was something I could write, I would certainly try to get that assignment. Some cases I could. Some, you know, I didn’t.

Omar Mo 

Well, when you first started that, like, when you first even decided that, hey, I want to do some freelancing work to kind of complement the salary that I was getting as a professor, you found an opportunity, like how did you go about finding that opportunity and then capitalizing on it in the first place?

John Hayes  

Yeah, so I had been doing some work for Writer's Digest. And, you know, there's much about my life, that I have nothing to do with. And that's hard to explain to people because they don't either. If you're not spiritual, you don't understand that or maybe accept that. I have no problem saying I teach at a Christian university.

Omar Mo

Oh, please do.

John Hayes

I have no trouble saying that God opens doors and sometimes God closes doors. Certainly has been the case. It's having the knowledge to know when to go through the door and when to stop trying to get through the door because God has closed the door. So, you know you still I did my homework, I paid my dues, I went to college, I got degrees, I got turned down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, by editors.

I was told that I didn't have talent, that I was told that by the nuns in high school that I would be lucky to amount to anything, actually. So there was a lot I didn't like school. Wasn't my thing until I got into college. And then I excelled. And I'm you know, I'm not a fantastic writer. I'm a craftsman. I understand, you know how to put a sentence together in a paragraph together, how to tell a story. I wish I could do that better. But I paid my dues. 

So therefore… If you don't pay your dues, I don't think you know, the doors open. Whether you believe God's opening those doors or not, I don't think the doors are going to open. It's just you know, you are in control. Good luck. 

Because, you know, when a pandemic comes along, let's see how well you fare through that on your own, by your own power. You know, and, but we're not here to talk about spirituality. We're, we're, you know, how did this happen? And how did I think about it? 

Well, I was doing, I happened to be at Kent State University in Ohio. And Omar, you're you're going to say “What's he talking about, man?”. 

May 4, 1970. You know, before you knew there was a world. There were four students killed and nine wounded on the Kent State University campus as a result of demonstrations related to the war in Vietnam. 

And I, by the grace of God, wasn't shot. I was an eyewitness to what happened on May for Reader's Digest magazine, again, has an... I had no control over any of this sends one of their top roaming authors James Michener, the author of Hawaii, Iberia, The Source, etc, etc, etc. Tales of the South Pacific. They send their Ace reporter to Kent, Ohio, to find out what happened at Kent State for an article and the Reader's Digest. 

And when I read in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Michener was in Kent. I went, there's only one place to stay in Kent at the time. And I went to the front desk and said, “Is James Michener here?” And they said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, I need to see him.” Okay, he’s in room 126. 

You know, so I walked back to 126 knocked on the door. Michener was in shorts and a T-shirt. I had no clue who the heck is this guy, and introduced myself and said, I was an eyewitness. And he said, I'll give you $100 if you'll write everything you saw. And if you're any good, I'll hire you.

Michener hired me, make sure and I became friends. Michener said when I was graduating in May 4, I was a junior in college, and when I graduated, the next year, he said, any place you want to go, I have contacts throughout the world. You want to go to New York City, and he did set up for me, I met his agent, I met the people at Reader's Digest. I met the people at Random Houses Publishing Company, I met friends, I met New York Post, New York Times. And I... you know, he just, again why? I mean, this, this was just a door that God opened for me and I went throught it.

So Writer's Digest after I interviewed Michener and worked with him Writer's Digest that, okay? They every month, Writer's Digest would do a profile of a famous writer. And I said, “How about Michener?” And they said, “Great.” 

And it was supposed to be 2500 words, and mine was 5000 words. And they said, it's going to be part one and part two, back to back two months in a row. I had the cover of Writer's Digest magazine, so they knew who I was.

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

And at one point, it just so happened that the guy who was writing the New York markets letter for Writer's Digest, left, and they said, “Hayes, aren't you in New York?” 

I said, “No, but I'm a train ride away in Philadelphia.” And they said, “How would you like to have this assignment? It pays like $75 a month, maybe $25, towards your train ride.” Which, you know, I lost money doing it, except I had to go sell an article to an editor in New York in order to make a profit off writing my column. But that column was my entry to meet six to 10 editorial people every month in New York City. And I built those relationships up over time. Make so

Omar Mo 

Makes sense.

John Hayes

So…

Omar Mo

Back then didn't have zoom and things like that, so you were actually -

John Hayes  

No, no, no. You got on... You got on a train or a plane or you got in your car and you know, I had to stay over in New York. And that would really blow my budget. If I had to stay over someplace a couple of times, I had a friend at New York University who let me stay with him. I had former students who were in New York. 

But sometimes I remember going to the O.Henry Hotel. Roaches were everywhere. But it was only like 19 bucks for the night. 

Omar Mo 

But at that point, like you innately understood that the network that you're going to have is going to help for years on after?

John Hayes  

Yeah. 

Omar Mo

What made you come to that realization in the first place, because we're in a generation of entrepreneurs, especially online entrepreneurs, that think that they can kind of do everything themselves and maybe delegate it to a team, but not really build a network around them, right? 

John Hayes

Not building a network, yeah. So and that, that is hard for me to get used to. Because I'm really good in the classroom, it's where I belong. So when I teach, and I connect with my students, 10 of them, or 30 of them, like I have this semester, I connect at a really deep level. If they want to connect with me, and I can help them. 

And I bring in 15 to 20 speakers per semester, people like you or people like the founder of this company, the founder of that company, or a multi unit franchisee or a multi concept franchisee, who's done really well. And I introduce, I build, I helped them build the network. 

But it's more difficult for me to connect this more. I can't see the students necessarily I mean, I can see them on zoom. Most of the time, but it's not the same, making those connections. 

Knowing that okay, Omar, you're my student, I see you twice a week in the classroom, you drop into my office, every once in a while you tell me you're from Colombia, your father does this, your mother has this interest. You hope to do this in the future. I just happen to know a guy who wants to open his franchise brand in Colombia who needs this and needs that. And you know, I that's the magic of what I do. It's harder to do that online. For me anyway.

Omar Mo 

We wish like more professors. I mean, me being someone that went to college myself, I kind of wish more professors did that for their students, right?

John Hayes  

I don't know what professors are doing. Otherwise, they're not doing that. I don't know what good they're serving, you know. And if I'm a parent, I'm asking the question. What, what? I don't want them. Yeah, textbooks. I don't use textbooks. 

But you know, I'm sort of the walking textbook. And my book that's in the Smithsonian is not by any means a textbook. It's all about, it's the inside story of franchising first book about how to buy a franchise. And it talks about I think, a hundred people who I interviewed for that book, this is back when I knew nothing about franchising. 

But the point is, you know, I don't know what Yeah, you can teach principles. You can teach equations, you can teach formulas. That that's not what I do, you know, I..

Omar Mo 

You can guarantee success.

John Hayes  

Yeah, but I want to teach you along the way. In my case, I'm going to teach you about franchising. So when you come out of college, you not only have a degree in marketing or management finance, or, or global studies, you've got a very practical education. 

You know more about franchising when you work with me than 99% of the people in the world. And maybe most people say, Well, I don't really need to know about franchising, and you don't, unless you're involved in it, but even then, you're spending your money in franchises, whether you know it or not. So..

Omar Mo 

What made you get into franchising in the first place?

John Hayes  

Well, that's another crazy door opening by God's story.

Omar Mo 

So, before we even get into that, do you think just like these culmination of events that have happened over and over again, that just kind of like a domino effect, you found an opportunity and went for it? The door was open, and you went in and you got the opportunity? Do you think that's really the main factor to your success today? those doors opening and just,

John Hayes  

Yeah, I don't have any super special talent or power. Or, you know, I wish, you know, and Michener, he would get a million dollar advance on anything he wanted to run. Random House said to him, Michener, Mr. Michener. 

And Reader's Digest said whatever you want to write, you go write it. If we don't want it, we won't publish it. But you could sell it to Look or Life or Saturday Evening Post, or Colliers or wherever. But you know, they pretty much wanted everything. And Michener would say, you know, I don't have any…  

Well Michener was a spectacular storyteller. Most of my students have no clue who that is. But and even if I say, Well, he wrote Hawaii. Okay, who read that? How about The Source? How about Iberia? No. How about you've heard of Tales of the South Pacific. Well, Michener wrote Tales of the South which became the musical South Pacific. He also wrote Centennial, that is a great book you want to know about the United States and, and at the time of the Bicentennial, go read Centennial. Fabulous story. 

Anyway, you know, I don't have any special talent in that regard. And so I think without the doors opening and me stepping through, nothing was going to happen. I mean, it was, it was all work.

Omar Mo 

Yeah. So franchising was one of those doors, then.

John Hayes

Yeah.

Omar Mo

It wasn't something that you said, Hey, I'm gonna go out of my way and learn franchising. You saw an opportunity...

John Hayes  

I fought it. 1979, sitting in my office at Temple, and the professional development director at Temple calls and says, “Would you like to make $65 teaching on a Saturday morning for three hours?” Sure. I would. I mean, 65 bucks was a lot of money. All right. What do you want to teach? You could teach it in our professional development program.

Said, I want to teach how to write a book to promote your business. Okay, he said. Now, this all happened without any planning. He said, What do you want to teach? I said what I said, Have you ever taught that? No. But I knew it was right. I knew that if you want to promote your business, and you want media to get behind it, you got to produce the book, you got to be the expert. And a book, even if you're not an expert, if you write a book, the media will say you're an expert, fake media, fake news existed before Trump. 

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

It was in seven, it was around in the late 70s, early 80s. So he said, Okay, we'll promote that. And we'll get back to you about a week before and let you know. Okay, great week before he calls. Got good news. And I got bad news. He said, What would you like first? Oh, I always want the bad news. 

He said, Nobody signed up for your class. I said, so I'm not going to make $65 next. No, you're not. How can there be any good news? What's left to say? Let's just hang up. Oh, no. Three people called to say they really wanted to be in your class. But they got conflicts on Saturday morning. They gave their name, their phone number, they want you to call ‘em. That's not good news. I mean, that's... they’re shopping, you know?

But for whatever reason, I again, I don't know why I picked up the phone eventually. And I called all three of them. And I wrote a book with all three of them. Each of them paid me $10,000 to write their book. And the last one was called… was about franchising. The guy on the other end of the phone, deceased now, his name was John Kench. 

And I said, Well, you know, what, what do you what? What's your business? And he said, it's cooperative, direct mail advertising. I thought, What am I doing? Cooperative direct mail? I don't even know what that is, let alone write about it! I mean, come on. And he said, What's a franchise? Okay. Again, I don't know what that is. Isn't McDonald's, isn't that a franchise? I don't get it. 

And so he explained to me what he was doing. And everybody knows that you get an envelope at home via the US mail post office. And in that envelope, there are 20 coupons for the dry cleaner, the pizza shop, the car wash, etc. And some of those coupons you use and most of you throw away. That's cooperative direct mail advertising, right? Still nothing to write about there.

Omar Mo 

How do you write a book about that?

John Hayes  

And I told the guy, I mean, he was arguing with me and I said, Look, I... He said you're a writer, aren't you a young writer, you want to write a book? Yeah, I want to write a book. But there's nothing to write about cooperative direct mail advertising! And, and then later, and he asked me to have a personal meeting with him on his beach house in New Jersey, which I did. 

And it was a Sunday afternoon. In August, it was humid. I had no air conditioning in my car. I'm driving back from New Jersey up to Philadelphia, and feeling horrible, because I told this guy, there's nothing for me. There's no story here. Nothing for me to write. See, this wasn’t entrepreneurial at all. 

And then I'm driving and all of a sudden, it just... the thought came to me. I hit myself on the side of my head and said, You idiot. The story isn't cooperative direct mail advertising. The story is franchising, whatever that is, and this was a Sunday, so I had to wait till Monday. There's no Internet. I had to wait until Monday to go to the library to look up in the card catalog. Another one of those things that nobody knows what it is. There was no Google.

Omar Mo 

It went extinct like, 20 years ago.

John Hayes  

Exactly. Look, look under the Fs, spell franchising, which was not you know, is easy for me to do at that moment. Look up franchising. Viola. Nothing, no book about franchising! And I went to books in print, I look big books, you know, manuals, and I looked it up there. Wow, I call the guy back. And I say Mr. Kench, you know, I'm sorry, the story isn't about cooperative direct mail advertising. There's a story about franchising that I can write. 

And he said, Great, can you start right away? I said, Well, my fee is $10,000. As soon as you send me $5,000, I'll get started. He sent me the $5,000. And there I was off and running. First call to the International Franchise Association. Every industry has associations. I knew that already. I called the IFA, Washington, DC, told them what I was going to do. They weren't impressed at all.

But they said, Okay, well go to our website or not. They didn't say go to our website. They said, go... Give us your address, we'll send you our catalog at the time. And so I, you know, had to wait for the mail. Can you imagine how everything worked back then? It wasn't...

Omar Mo 

Super slow, super sluggish. 

John Hayes  

There was no such thing as a website. I, you know, they had to take my address. They had to send me a package to somebody. It was a week, you know, to you get… got stuff. And then I looked up, okay, okay. This is a franchise, that's a franchise. How do I do? So I started getting people's names and phone numbers. And I interviewed over I think 90 days.

Omar Mo

Right. 

John Hayes

I did research for that book, and another three months to write it. So about a six month commitment.

Omar Mo 

That's all over the phone, at that point?

John Hayes  

All of them. And I did have a franchise attorney in Philadelphia, who worked with Kinch, the guy who I was working with, he introduced me to his attorney. His attorney introduced me to an accountant who knew franchising. Kinch introduced me to his franchisees he had about, I don't know, 20 of them at the time. He had 50 of them, I think at the time. 

And he was selling a franchise for $10,000. And he said, ‘Look, I should have 500 franchisees and with a book, I know that I can, because instead of giving a brochure to people, I'm going to give them the book about franchising.’

And in that book, I want you to tell my story. He was the 14th of 16 kids, and it was a missionary family. And it was a great story. So that book, those three books came about. And usually the deal was I would write a book. And that was it. I mean, these were that... I think that was my, I wrote a book about A Biography Early in my career. Then I did Philadelphia In Color, which was Hastings House at the time they... I think they paid me $1500, no royalty. Became my best selling book that was dumb.But it's what they offered me. So I think this was my third, fourth and fifth book.

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

Franchising was the fifth. And all the other books, you know, they'd come out and essentially they would go away. Franchising would never go away. It just, because my idea was, okay, write a book, and be done with it, and move to the next book and the next $10,000. See if you can get 15,000 you know, for the next one.

Omar Mo 

At this point. Were you also teaching students too, at the same time?

John Hayes  

I had a full teaching load for classes, I would usually do an overload to make more money. Teach at night. Oh, yeah, I was. I had no holidays. I remember my wife saying back in those days that you never are not working. Even if we go on a family - go home to visit the parents in Ohio. You're still working but there was no computer. I mean, I had to have a typewriter, you know?

Omar Mo 

Carried that thing around to different places, huh?

John Hayes  

That was  love. The Osborne computer was portable. It was one of the first computers. But it was a huge suitcase. You carry it around. I had one of those. Yeah.

Omar Mo 

Yeah. I don't even know what that is. So I can imagine it was quite old. That's amazing, though. So like you were literally hustling to the bone just writing these books, teaching... 

John Hayes  

I had two kids and..

Omar Mo

Being a parent? 

John Hayes

I was also earning my PhD during this time. I was in my doctoral program.

Omar Mo 

And earning your PhD. That’s four things. That's nuts! How did you before we even dive into more of the franchising part, how did you balance it all?

John Hayes  

I don't think I did. I gained a tremendous amount of weight. 

Omar Mo

Right. 

John Hayes

The The only saving grace of that was when they when the draft came around and my number was low. I mean, we used to have a number by your birthday. And my number was low. I think I was a junior in college, and they were drafting you knew you were going to Vietnam, and who my saving grace is I had gained so much weight. 

The doctor gave me a note. He said this will keep you out of the army. They're not going to draft you, you're a couple hundred pounds overweight. You got flat feet. Uncle Sam doesn't want you. I think it was an F-4, something like that. I forget what it’s called. 

Omar Mo 

That... it's another door, right? That's the way...

John Hayes  

Yeah, exactly. So you know, I don't think I managed it well. I don't think I was a great dad or a great husband. I was working, working, working, working. And one of my kids had mentioned to me at one time, you know, I don't want to be like you were when you were working all the time. I don't want to commit that much time to work. And yeah, that hurt my feelings because I thought I was doing it to support my kids. And I think that's partly true. 

But I was doing it for my own ego as well. Because, you know, I'd love to open a magazine and see my name in the magazine. And I love getting a check for I mean, it was never more than 500, 800, 1,000 dollars. But nonetheless, you know that it all worked and now I would look for things like I used to teach at the Cape Cod Writers Conference, third week of every August, right near Hyannisport. And I love that again, I probably got paid a couple $100. 

But they gave me lodging for a week. And all they gave me was enough for me. But then, because I bring my family, I could pay extra and get a bigger, you know, a two bedroom or something. So I'd have vacations like that. But while the kids were at the beach and my wife was at the beach, I was teaching at the Writer’s Conference. It was never…

Omar Mo 

To get a little bit just past the superficial here. If you don't feel comfortable answering, that's fine, too. But looking back at that time now to where you are right now, currently being at the Titus Center for Franchising. Like, do you think that period of your life was worth it?

John Hayes  

Yeah, it was worth it. It was worth it. I wish I could have done it differently. I wish I hadn't. I wish I knew. I wish, you know, there'd been mentors, or people who I would have listened to. Maybe there weren't I don't, you know, those were doors I didn't go through although i mitzner was a great mentor. And that was a door I did go through. 

But I think and I wish I had been a better student. And I wish that I had more talent, natural talent, or knew how to develop it. It was hard. This was all hard stuff. And I paid a price. And I think my family paid a price. And I can't tell you how to do it differently. I don't know.

Omar Mo 

Especially during that time when the resources weren't as abundant as they are today in today's day and age.

John Hayes  

No. I mean, you were pretty much that period of our history. It was all about hard work. I remember a guy saying to me one time when I first got into business, he was an insurance. And I was renting office space from him. And he'd go home like at six o'clock, seven o'clock at night, and I'd still be working. 

And one night he came by and said You know, I've been watching you for a couple of months. You keep working like this, you're going to be big someday. This is going to pay off for you. So in other words, work hard. 

Now whether I was working smart, I wasn't. That was, you know, until I read Michael Gerber's The E Myth, I was not working smart, you know? And then since that time, look how many other books like that have come out to guide people.

Omar Mo 

The E Myth’s the one that everyone still refers to even in this day and age, though.

John Hayes  

Yeah. Again, there's a door that I went through because not only did I read the book. And here's a good example of having a book to promote your business. And that's what The E Myth is. The very last page is a message from Michael Gerber. 

At the time, it was Gerber Business Development. And the message was: If I've described you in this book, and he had, I thought, Wow, he knows me to the tee. Then fill out this form and fax it to my office and we'll be in touch. I did it and I but again, I said well, I want to meet Gerber, and I want Gerber to coach me.

And of course, he wasn't doing that because he was working smart. He had people doing that for him. But Michael and I became friends and worked on projects together. And I, I've hired - when I was a CEO of a franchise company, I hired him as a mentor and speaker for my franchisees. And but again, you know, it's an example of two things there. 

Another door I went through. But in Gerber's case, a book that was intended to promote his business, nobody did it better than Gerber. I mean, he made millions, by developing that book, and then offering the readers of the book, who were in a lot of pain when you're finished reading the book, and out, offering them consulting.

Omar Mo 

Absolutely living example of what you've done so far at that point in your life. 

John Hayes

Yeah. 

Omar Mo

So what made the what was the pivotal moment for you to actually go full in into franchising after you wrote that fifth book?

John Hayes  

Yeah. I got a lot of phoners. Radio phoners. So rather than doing a Zoom, right, I would be on the phone. And I would be in Philadelphia, and I'm on radio at noon in Detroit. And they would say something like, okay, stand by, don't go away. ‘Up next, the world's authority on franchising, John Hayes is our guest.’ 

And I would laugh and say, Wow, does this prove my point, world authority? I had spent all of six months writing about fret, researching and writing revenue, never owned a franchise, never worked for a franchise company, could hardly spell the word franchise, I was no world authority. But the media said that I was because I had written a book, give my interview, and it was, you know, like this, lots of energy, lots of passion. I knew what I was talking about. 

And then the phone would ring for the next couple of days. Or maybe it would be a couple of days, phone would ring. And it would be Omar saying on the other end, “Hey, I got a small franchise company. We got an we have a meeting coming up. Could you come and speak to our franchisees about how great franchise?” Yeah, I'll be there. Well, what's your fee? I don't know. $200 and pay my plane ticket or whatever. 

So I was flying to Hawaii to speak. I started getting some assignments that were fabulous, including people would say, Can you write an operations manual? Well, I knew that an operations manual was important in franchising, because that's the tool that the franchisor uses, like it's in a three ring binder to teach the franchisees how to operate the franchise, the operations manual, I had never met one. 

But you know, first guy said, Can you write our operations manuals? Sure, I can write the operation manual. And I wrote lots of operation manuals. Can you write a monthly newsletter for me? Sure, I can do that. Could you do a video recording? I could do it all.

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

Because I needed the money. And I was still teaching well, then it just never stopped and wouldn't go away. I kept thinking this franchising thing will die. And I'll move on, you know, to another book, which I already had, I was doing other books, but nothing had life, like the Franchise book. 

And one night, it was about two o'clock in the morning. And friends were over four of my wife, two friends playing cards. And one of them said, Well, what's your week look like? Something like that. So I'm doing this, doing that traveling here. And they said, John, you gotta hire somebody, you can't. You can't do all this work. You've got a business. I don't have a business. I don't know. I don't know how to spell business. I don't know what a business is. I'm a writer. 

And they said, No, you you're gonna burn it and burn yourself out. You can't do this. And I got to thinking about it. Well, eventually, I hired a student, my first employee, and that was the beginning of business. 

Then the IFA international franchise association called and said, we have a trade mission that's going to Australia and then on to Japan. And we would like you to go on that speak to the 12. franchisors who are going to be on the mission, help us with the Department of Congress, in the in the cities that we visit, help us get media attention. 

Well, I started doing four of those trips a year. Now I couldn't teach anymore because I was gone for two weeks, at a time on trade missions. But that gave me again another door that I went through. 

So Omar, you're a franchisor. You're on the trade mission. You've got a franchise brand in the United States. You got 120 franchisees you want to open in Japan, and you're looking for a master franchisee of Japan to give you a million dollars to own your brand and develop it in Japan. 

And back in those days, you could get you don't get a million dollars anymore as an upfront fee, but back in those days you could. And so I would, I would end up meeting you on the airplane, never knew you. Then went we you'd say, what do you do? And I'd talk to you, and then we'd have breakfast, then maybe later in the week, we'd have lunch. 

And you'd say, and you would watch me because I would work with the Department of Commerce, I would bring in media, I might introduce media to you to do an interview, you didn't know me. I didn't owe you anything. I wasn't working for you. 

And somewhere along the way, you'd give me your card and say, can you help me do this in the United States? I like to get into Entrepreneur Magazine. I like to get on TV. Sure, Omar, I can help you do that. 

Omar Mo

Right. 

John Hayes

That's how my business developed.

Omar Mo 

Literally the people that you were getting business from, were just the people that you were naturally getting associations away just through serendipity and opportunity. 

John Hayes

Absolutely. I walked through doors.

Omar Mo

Which is insane. And you just kept taking every single opportunity that came across.

John Hayes  

At least that was that smart. I knew that was important. I knew these contacts were important. And I had, you know, an international Rolodex within a very short period of time related to franchising. And then I got my PhD. And the day I got the PhD, I also resigned from the university and they were shocked. 

They said, Hey, wait, you know, now you're going to be an associate professor. And you're going to make $15,000 a year. And I'd already been making $100,000 a year doing what I was doing as a freelancer. 

So I said, Well, I'll come back someday, because I love being in the classroom. I love changing lives. And I knew that's where I belong. But I couldn't make no money doing that. Had my kids in private school, I wanted to take a week off at least and have a real vacation and not have to worry. 

But you know, I couldn't. So I built... I said, I'm going to go build my business. I'm going to make my money. And I'll go back when I'm an old man to go back to the classroom. And here I am. Back in the classroom.

Omar Mo 

You kept taking opportunity after opportunity at that point, I'm guessing. I don't know what point you read The E Myth, or was this before? Or was it after? 

John Hayes  

I read it in 1990. Yeah, so I'd already been in business. Six years, seven years formerly in business, right? When I was in trouble, I had no clue. No clue what I was doing.

Omar Mo 

Yeah. So you kept taking the opportunity after opportunity? At what point did you start to hone in on something John, like? Because I guess is relating this back to myself and other entrepreneurs as well, whenever we first start out, we're focused on getting so many opportunities that we can get across the table. 

But then there comes a point where I'm like, Okay, I'm good at this. So I'm gonna double down on this and turn away other opportunities. Was there a similar moment for you in that time period, where you just decided, Hey, I'm gonna go all in on this one thing and turn away other opportunities? Or did you just…

John Hayes  

Well, to some extent, because I would do anything anybody asked me to do.

Omar Mo

Right. 

John Hayes

And I was only charging $10 an hour when I first got started with it, early 80s. And then Gerber said, Wait a minute, there's a, because people weren't paying me, you know, I would do. Maybe you were my public relations client. And you were supposed to pay me 1500 a month, and you haven't paid me for three months, but I'm still getting you into magazines and newspapers and getting your story out there. But you owe 4500 dollars or plus, you know, for expenses. And Gerber said, Are you Are you crazy? And I said no. You know why? Why are you insulting me?

Well, can you go into the men's store, and they give you a suit and you can take it and say okay, I'll pay you a night. Now you pay for it. He said exactly. And they should be paying you upfront. And I said, No, that doesn't work that way, in public relations, you know, they, and he said, well, then you need to get into a different business. But he said, I'm telling you, it does work that way, if you insist on it working now, I remember at the time, I had 25 clients on the PR side, and I had some other I had a newspaper that I owned and some other things going on. 

And he said, I want you to put all 25 of them on notice immediately that they need to pay you on the first day of the month for which services will be rendered. So if this is December 18, I want you to send him a message today. As of January one, you'll start you'll pay me for the month of January. It won't work for you. 

And I said Mike, I'm not going to do that. I'll have no business. He said you got 25 clients. And not only that, he said you give them a form and tell them to fill it out with their bank account information. Because you're going to zap the money on the first. You don't have to wait for them to send it you're going to zap it out of their account automatic payment, which is how he if you want to Gerber business development to mentor you, you had to pay on the first of the month. And it was an automatic withdrawal. I had no clue this could even be done. 

I said, No, no, no, no, I'll lose my clients. And he said, How many are you going to lose out of 25? How many will you lose? I said, Maybe I'll have 10. Left. He said, that's great. How can that be great? I have 25, I can hardly make it now at 25. Working myself to the bone. And I only have 10, I won't be able to pay the rent. He's Oh, yeah, yeah, well, because you can get rid of half your people, half of the space, cut everything back.

But look at this, the 10 you keep, if they each pay you 1500, you're gonna have $15,000 on the first of the month, every month to spend. And I didn't believe it. But I did it. I didn't do it. I took me 90 days, I gave people a notice. He wasn't for any of that. And I did not lose one client. 

And by… if you didn't pay on the first, on the third, you got a notice that you had two days to pay. And then on the fifth day, you got to fax that said stop work and big letters. And it's explained that we've stopped working for you, I had to send that only one time to one client and I never had to use it again. 

Now at the same time, we were good at what we were. I was good. I wasn't as good at developing the people. But our little business produced for those for those folks. Now there are still people who own me for three months. 

But as of January one that stopped, you know that they still owe me for the three months. And that might have been another six months until they would catch up. So, and Gerber taught me other things you know how to speak to. So Omar, you and I are sitting at a restaurant and you're thinking about hiring me. So.. 

Gerber just told me the questions to ask, and and how to handle myself that, you know, if I said, Well, my fee is 3000. And you said you wanted to pay 1500? Well, sorry, let me recommend you to a couple people I know. 

But you can't get named for that. But even before we would get to that point, he would say you don't go to lunch with Omar, you don't even pick up the phone and talk to Omar Mountil Omar Mofills out a little survey about his business. 

Find out if Omar Mo qualified for John Hayes to go to work for him. And the qualification was Omar, how long you been in business? What is your business? How many franchisees do you have? Because if you didn't have at least 30 to 40 franchisees, you didn't have any money. 

And it was going to be the same thing. If I said my fee was 1500, you'd say, Well, I can only afford like 700 a month, alright, well, I don't want to work for 700 a month, let somebody else do that. But if I knew you had 50 franchisees and I knew you were planning to sell 12 more in the next year. Okay, now you had some money, and I could help you do that. So he just gave me insights I had two kids and being a parent.

Yeah, and another guy like that David Sandler, founder of Sandler Training, which is a sales system, those franchisees are, are teaching people how to sell, and Sandler was the founder. And I wrote, you can't teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar for David Sandler. 

The whole point is, you're going to get on the bicycle, and you're going to fall off, and somebody needs to pick you up, put you back on the bike, and you and then you're going to run into a tree, then you're going to run into a car, then you know you but you got to keep getting back up and getting on. And somebody hopefully will hold the back of the bicycle seat and guide you for a while you need a mentor. And you need to practice every day over and over and over and over and over. And that was the Sandler, the seven steps of the Sandler Sales Submarine.

Omar Mo 

So to clarify your business was helping these franchisees either with consultation or writing or getting them PR?

John Hayes  

All of that.

Omar Mo

All of it.

John Hayes

I didn't really have a specialty to franchise.

Omar Mo

So franchise first.

John Hayes

I became... It didn't take long. I think what people said about me Well, I know this is what people said about me. If John tells you he'll do it, he'll do it. Even if he has to stay up all night. John will deliver it right. That's my reputation to this day, I'll deliver I you know, and sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. I used to do that a whole lot more than I have to anymore. 

But if I tell you I'm going to do it. You can count on me. I and I won't make you promise. says like, Okay, I'm going to make you famous, or I'm going to get you a book contract or whatever, you know, I don't make those kind of promises, I know what I can do, and I'll go to work to get it done for you. 

So I built my reputation, though, I mean, I didn't do crazy things. But you know, once I went on a few trade missions, I was able to conduct trade missions under my name, my own type, I could take you as my client, and go take you to London, and take you to Paris and introduce you to my network and both of those cities, and that would be the Department of Commerce, and they would get you tend to 15 prospects in London, 10 to 15, in Paris, and I'd be there with you for a week and, and help you find a master franchisee for for France and for England.

Omar Mo 

That, that it's really going the extra mile, if you think about it, compared to even what people offer these days, to be honest.

John Hayes  

Yeah, definitely. But you know, the relationships that I've developed with people, that's why jumping way ahead to about three years ago, when the Titus Center was launched. And the President of the University said, you need to have like eight to 10 people on your advisory board, and they need to pay you money every year for the pleasure of serving on your advisory board.

Now, that's going to be a tough sale. Well, so I knew to get eight to 10 people, and I decided that they need to make a two year commitment, and pay me all of $5,000 over the two years, $2500 a year to get eight to 10. I said, Well, I'm gonna have to send 30 letters to people who I know. 

I sent 30 letters, no one said no. I overnight, had a 30. And some of them said, Hey, can you can we include I had a 40 member board overnight. Just last week, I had my board on campus. And I added 19 members since the pandemic started. So I now have a board of about 60 and 53 companies I think are involved

Omar Mo 

When you were thinking it was a hard sale. What made it into something as easy as that?

John Hayes  

Well, it's not a hard sale, you know, instead of I should have at least asked for $5,000 a year. I think that's one of my, that's one of the mistakes that I made undervaluing things. You know, I think that when I was working for $10 an hour, it should have been $20 an hour. But I didn't believe in myself enough. or believe that I could do that. I remember the entrepreneur, the president of the CEO clubs, where a membership was $5,000 a year. 

And he wanted me to do the franchise CEO club, where people would pay $5,000 a year and go to a monthly meeting in Dallas or wherever it would be based. And he had like 20 chapters across the country. And I said to him, Joe, I don't think I can get $5,000 for a membership fee said that's all I need to know John. No sense talking about it. If you don't think you can do it, you won't do it. See you later. See you at the next meeting. And he hung up on me. That was the end of our conversation about that. 

So I think I've I think that's lack of self esteem, lack of knowing what the value of a services or something that I write or I was writing these books for 10,000. Now think about that for a moment. I write a book for David now what David Sandler paid me 35,000 I did up my fees. I learned a little bit. But even at that David sound was gonna pay me 35,000 to write a book, which by the way, Dutton picked up and published and paid him back that gave him a maybe a $50,000 advance for that book that I wrote, and it is

Omar Mo 

He really profited there.

John Hayes  

So David would use the book to go sell up first of all, he would go use it to sell a franchise I think his franchise fee was $25 or $30,000 to become a franchisee and then that franchisee some of those franchisees are with them 30 years later, paying him $1000, $2000, $3,000 a month in royalties. Well I got none of that, you know, I got the $35,000 and was happy to have it.

In my relationship with David Sandler and other people like him who I met along the way the founder of Dunkin Donuts, the founder... of the co-founder of Subway who I wrote Start Small Finish Big with Fred DeLuca. And for that book I got we had a $100,000 advance on that book which we split. So the relationships, the opportunities, the people. 

Don Dwyer, founder of the Dwyer group in Waco, Texas, is that company called neighborly? They've got 25, 35 brands that provide Home Services at the time. Dwyer was my client. 

He had three or four brands, carpet cleaning, being one of them, plumbing being another one of them. But I got on his board, became a public company. The company was sold, my stock options became very valuable. I wrote a book with Dwyer called target success. 

You know, you Wow, thank God that, you know, I was I went through the doors I went through because my life has been enriched by this network of people. And yeah, I could have paid, you know, many more millions of dollars. But it's not all about money. It's about relationships and networking, knowledge.

And I worked with Zig Ziglar. I was one of Zig Ziglar's signature speakers. And I wrote Network Marketing for Dummies with Zig Ziglar. And Zig Zigler would say in every speech, you can have everything in life you want, if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. 

That's what teaching is all about. That's what franchising is all about. And I'm at the heart of both of those. So I've had the, you know, the greatest opportunities, very rewarding career.

Today, I work with young people who are at the beginning of a career, who really are confused, they don't know what to do, where to go. You know, it seemed like during the pandemic, that the world was coming to an end, you know, you couldn't even leave your house. But we're getting past all that and through all that, I was able to influence students and help them.

Omar Mo 

With your franchising, then there was a moment that you shifted into real estate franchising yourself, right?

John Hayes  

Yeah. I don't know anything about real estate. Everybody saw billboards that say ‘We buy ugly houses’, right? You know, everybody remembers those billboards. They're still around. That business was based in Dallas, and I had moved to Dallas by this time. 

And a friend in my network, who I had helped who was in the panhandle of Florida. And I had helped him with a business opportunity called one day, he was selling franchises. And he said, I have a client who needs your help. And he's in Dallas. It's called Home Investors of America. 

And as you've seen the billboards he told me, we buy ugly, hot, I say, yeah, I've seen those all over. I didn't know that's a franchise? A real estate deal as a franchise, even I was surprised, right? 

And I met Kenny Angelo, now deceased. He and I became like brothers. And it was one of these deals, where he said, ‘You know, I need this, and I need this and I need it.’ And I, we went to steak house one night, what she loved. And I said, Ken, what you're asking for is about $75,000 worth of work over maybe a year. He said, I don't have 75,000.

His franchise fee was, I don't know 20, 25 thousand he had something like 25 franchisees at the time. He was a realtor. And you know, he, he made more money when he some lady begged him to take to list her house and he said, the house was so ugly I couldn't do I would be embarrassed to sell it. Finally, he felt so bad for her. He bought her house, and he fixed it up. And he flipped it all within 90 days and said I made more money with that one house than I made in months of working with. He was a broker. He said these realtors drive me nuts. He got out of that business. 

And he got into buying houses. And so he was the funniest man, the kindest man money meant nothing to him. He was so genuinely kind. And if you became his franchisee, that first of all that you gave him 20, 20 thousand was like he couldn't believe it. And he would pledge himself to make sure you were successful. And no matter where you were, if you were having trouble and you called him he'd say, Omar, where will you be Tuesday morning? 

So I'm gonna be right here. I'm trying to figure out you know how to sell a house or how to get a listing. Okay. I'll call you back. Hey, call back and say pick me up at the airport at 10 o'clock, Tuesday and Omar, get get some houses lined up. Some people lined up who who want you to buy their house and then he'd go out on those calls. And if you had four, he'd buy two houses for you. 

And he would then he started taking me along. Because he said, You know, I said, I have no magic powers. There's nothing, you know, he, you know that I'm not anything. He was something special, you know, in the way he thought I was special, but we both thought we were just average Joe's. 

But Ken was just so good at things. And he'd say, watch what I do. And tell me. Is there any magic? I said, don't get. I'm surprised that, you know, they can't do what you're showing them how to do. And he said, okay, build that into the training program, get that into our video education. We got to show these people that there's no science here. It doesn't take a brain to go out and buy a house and half price. You can do it. And so when I told him it was 75,000. He said I don't have any money.

He said, I'll give you a franchise. I said Ken I don't want a franchise. I'm not a franchisee. I don't know anything about real estate, don't want to know anything about real estate. He said, Okay, I'll get you a partner. I'll give you the franchise, that's 25,000. I'll get you a partner. He'll run the franchise for you. And then to be a franchisee at that time to afford the billboards, you had to pay $5,000 a month and a marketing fee. 

I said I'm not $5,000 a month. And also, even if I had it, Home Investors? Real estate? This is not for me. I didn't know anything about this. So he paid $5,000 a month from my billboards for I don't know, something like six months. Got me a great partner. That little franchise was one of my most valuable assets. 

Ken and I traveled all over the United States selling franchises. And then one day, he called and said, what does it mean when your skin turns yellow? And I laugh because that always Ken. I was at breakfast a Saturday morning? And he calls with a crazy question. I don't know. It's jaundice, I guess why are you young? He said, Yeah, I'm yellow. I thought okay, well, that's not good. Can you need to go to a doctor? 

He said, Well, I can't get to the doctor until Monday afternoon. And on Monday morning, I have a life insurance guy coming to the office. And I want a million dollar policy in case something happens. He didn't know he was sick. 

And he said, Do you think if I don't turn the lights on in my office, he won't see that I'm yellow? And you know, I can get this life insurance? I don't know. Try it. But more importantly, get to the doctor. 

Well, Ken had bile duct cancer, no cure. Within 90 days, Ken was dead. And in the process of that, and here's a big door, the biggest door. I went to see him one night in the hospital. When the doctors had told him you're not going to survive. You might make it a month, you might make it a year. But you're you're you're sick. And this is a deadly, painful cancer. We don't know anything about it. 

And so he said to me,first when I arrived, his wife was in the room, his top franchisee - his top two franchisees husband and wife. They were in the room, some other people. When I arrived, he said, okay, everybody's got to go. I need to talk to John. That was just the way Ken was. And they probably all thought What's so important about John? But they knew we were close, including his wife who left? 

And he said, I'm not going to make it. I said Yes, you are. You're going to make it we're you're going to go to Mayo Clinic, and we're going to get an answer there. And he did no answer. He said, I'm not gonna make it and even if I can make it for a year. I'm not going back to work. I'm done. Betty and I will buy a mobile home and we're going to travel around.

I've never been a franchise or I'm hardly a franchisee. I've never been... No, no, no, no, you. You're like my brother. You do know the business. You've watched me for the last couple of years. You've been successful with your partner. And finally, I mean, I got this sense that look, you don't argue with a dying man. 

And he had this pain for someone to say to him, Ken it's going to be okay. I'm going to and that's what I said. I said, Ken, all right, tomorrow, I'll go into the office. And I'll tell them what we talked about. And, you know, I'll be the president of the company. But you'll be the chairman of the board. As long as you're alive. You're the chairman of the board. We'll have you on the phone for meetings. And he said, Okay, fair enough but you know, don't count on it. 

He was dead within no time and I became president, CEO, Chairman of the Board of HomeVesters. 200 and some franchisees at that time. And this was before the Great Recession. We continue to our franchise fee was $50,000. And we were just doing great things in... 

Omar Mo 

The 2008 Great Recession is what you’re talking about? 

John Hayes  

Yes. So in 2007, in the Summer of 2007, the government removed SubPrime from the marketplace. And back in those days, housing, the housing market was so strong, that the banks would give you a hundred-fifteen, a hundred-twenty-five thousand dollars for a house that only cost 100,000. They'd give you an extra 20,000, because you said, you're going to put on a new roof and you're going to put on a back porch and you're going to expand a bedroom. Sure, you're adding value. 

And in truth you did none of that. You went... instead you bought a boat, you went to Hawaii. And again, the bank didn't care, because the values of houses and you could buy a house with bad credit, subprime lending, you could buy $100,000 house with very little qualification. 

And all that blew up when subprime stocks are so our franchisee, let's say it's $100,000 house in good condition, we would buy that house for maybe 60,000, we might put nothing in it, we might put 10, we might put 15,000 in it. Then we would put it on the market when it was fixed up for 99. Nine, and it would sell like that, because there were first time homebuyers, many of whom paid cash, in some cases.

Omar Mo 

It would be like a 90 day process too, it would seem.

John Hayes  

And we had people buying 100 houses a year and making a ton of money. We also the way we made money is we loaned you the money to buy the house. And we had a $50 million credit line that we loaned three and a half, we turned out three and a half times a year at 14 to 17% interest short term hard money loans. 

Well, if you were a franchisee, and you had an inventory of 10 houses or more, and we loaned you the money for three or four of those houses. Well, once SubPrime left, nobody was buying houses, and you couldn't you couldn't pay the note. And we couldn't collect. And suddenly we were in default with our lender, that that we couldn't sell franchises under federal law. Everything started come tumbling down. And we were headed for a bankruptcy. 

We put the business up for sale. And it was a fire sale. But my colleague and friend at the time, who had already invested in the business to get about 6 million invested in the good times, Fred DeLuca, co-founder of Subway, he bought the business at a huge discount. And that business Homevestors is still around today. 

And so when he bought it in June of 2008, and I left in January of 2009. And I said this is this is my another door opening for me. Time for me to go back to university. I always said I would do this when I could afford to go back to a university. Now the kids were grown. Now I had a lot more money than if I remained a college professor making no money. I'm going back to the university.

Omar Mo 

It's all great optimistic about it the entire time, whether it was a negative or a positive in your life. It was always another door opening which I think is an awesome way to look at it.

John Hayes  

And you know, when that door opened back to a university it was in Kuwait in the Middle East.

Omar Mo 

Right, how did you end up there?

John Hayes  

I went there in 2010. 

Omar

Right.

John Hayes

August of 2010. It was Ramadan. When my wife and I arrived, had never been to Kuwait in my life. And the deal was so good. Tax-free. The university paid for round trip airfare every year for my wife and I. They paid most of my housing. Gave me a transportation allowance. A communications allowance. 

I could travel out of the Middle East so easily and inexpensively. went to Jerusalem five times. Traveled all over the middle east parts of Europe, went to Russia, went to Morocco. Wow. 

And I was there seven years and loved it and intended to stay 10 because the best payout at the time was stay 10 years and you go home with 15 months’ pay. But my wife died, unfortunately. 47 years of marriage and she died in the sixth year. And I just couldn't stay there. 

I had given the university, I said I would give a nine month notice before I went home, so I had to stay that next academic year and teach but in the six years she died. Within a month, Palm Beach Atlantic University contacted me and said, somebody has given us a million and a half dollars to establish a center for franchising. And we're told you're the guy who needs to come and run it in West Palm Beach. Door opened, and another door I walked through.

Omar Mo 

Right, and that's why you are where you are now.

John Hayes  

That's how I got here. Because Florida was not... I don't like humidity. I didn’t think I’d like Florida. 

Omar Mo

Is Kuwait dry?

John Hayes

Yeah, Kuwait was dry. Kuwait was 120. It only gets about 90 in West Palm Beach. Well, it's much more humid. But in Kuwait, you just knew, don't go outside until the sun is down. 

Omar

Right. 

John Hayes

Um, and you know, I had a driver, everything was air conditioned. Life was great. Life is great in Kuwait. Oh, my goodness, prices were so much lower. And you know, I was saving 30-35% not paying tax. 

Omar Mo

Now, how much? 

John Hayes

It was a great life.

Omar Mo 

And then you came back. I mean, you've pretty much started the whole year, the foundation of the Titus Center for Franchising, essentially. And you're in Palm Beach, Atlantic, and you're at West Palm Beach, like what's going to happen for you from here on? 

I mean, I know you're still doing speaking gigs. And I know you're trying to grow the franchise center as a whole. And you've got 60 board members. So like, what's the plan from here on?

John Hayes  

I'm the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Palm Beach Atlantic. And this is just a preliminary saying, but last week, I had a meeting with him and he said, john, you know, I've grown from zero to 50 students in a three year time span. So I have 50 students studying franchising, earning a concentration of franchise is how many you think you could have? I said probably 300. 

He said, okay, we need a school of franchising, not a center. So I want a new proposal. I want you to build a school of franchising. Okay, but I don't really like to raise money. He said, Don't worry about raising money. You put the plan together, we’ll raise the money. So that this has just happened in the last several days. 

In fact, since that meeting I had with you this is all new. So, you know, my, I had a little smaller goal. You know, I took a wall. And the university in the office in the tightest center, took this big wall. And I put a logo on it that says Titus Center for Franchising Scholarships. 

And I started selling $100,000 endowed scholarship. And I said, and then I would, if you Omar, gave me that scholarship, I'd put your picture on a plaque and put the plaque on the wall. There's room for 10 plaques on that wall. 

So I said to the university, when I have the 10th plaque, that's a million dollars in scholarships endowed. We never touched the principal, it stays in doubt. million dollars. I'm done. So um, I will retire at that point.

Omar Mo 

Retire from teaching?

John Hayes  

Oh, I'm retiring. I'm going to write and speak. And that's it, do what I want to do. Go see my grandkids. So I figured, okay, that's gonna take 10 years, you know, one a year I'll.. so I've been at it for about 18 months. And about a month, I'll put my fifth plaque on the wall.

Omar Mo 

A lot quicker than you thought there.

John Hayes  

Well, and I'm not ready to retire in a few months. So the chairman said, you know, you need a bigger goal. You're not seeing the big picture. We want a million dollars in scholarships. Thank you, but that's not your legacy. We want a school for franchising, so get busy on that. So..

Omar Mo 

So that's what you're building now.

John Hayes  

Well, that's we had we haven't even written word one of the proposal. Because this just really happened in the last week or so. So we're putting together plans for that. But you know, meanwhile, I've got students to educate. I introduced them to my board because I've got six of them graduating this Saturday. 

They want to buy franchises eventually, but they need some experience. So they want to go to work for a franchise or franchisee. My board was just in town. I took those six graduating seniors and said, Give me your resume, I'm going to put them in the hands of my board. They've all got already appointments, to talk to people about opportunities where they can, you know, get hired by June.

Omar Mo

Right.

John Hayes

That's not hard to do today when in, in this environment, people are looking for employees, but getting, you know, an entry level position that might pay 75,000 plus commissions or bonuses, put you in a really good franchise company gets you started. And those aren't easy to come by. But my board has those kinds of...

Omar Mo 

You have the network to be able to supply your students with that too, which is awesome.

John Hayes  

Not my kind of student, you know, what are your colleagues Michael Gardner's, my student, and Mike was a franchisor. He's the only one I've got, who is a franchisor. But I never, I don't know if I'll ever get another franchisor, or I mean that that guy took an idea took it to one of my board members, and they created a franchise company, and I think they've sold six to 10 franchises already. 

Omar Mo

That's right. 

John Hayes

That's amazing. And where's Michael Michaels not showing up to work every day in that franchise company. And you know, my students today, they don't necessarily want to be tied down by a job necessarily. They want that freedom. And Michael's not even living in the country most of the time, but he's a franchise or an American based franchise system. 

And I've got three or four that our franchisees already, we're helping one of them who bought a franchise, even before he graduated, an after school education franchise, he and his sister. Well, now he's buying a senior care franchise, but he was he needed $130,000. 

By the grace of God, I have a... he's not a board member, even he's an associate who came to the campus saw the Titus Center for Franchising sign said, I want to give you $300,000 that you can use the loan to your students who buy franchises, and I'll mentor them. 

So we did the first last week we did a the first $130,000 loan to this graduate who's going to who's buying the senior care franchise? And there are amazing things. You can't. This doesn't happen anyplace else in the world, as far as I know, the things that we're doing at the Titus  Center, right? All because I said yes. And walked through a door when it opened.

Omar Mo 

So for anyone in my audience that's listening to this, then if you're ever interested in franchising, do be sure to check out this site. I think it's titus center dot com, is that right? 

John Hayes

That’s right. Right in my background: tituscenter.com.

Omar Mo

Yeah, you mean we're talking here to essentially the foundational member of franchising in the US, even though it kind of fell into it accidentally. It's incredible that we're talking to him, so be sure to check that out.

John Hayes  

When I tell the story to you, I can't you know, I'm not making this up. This is the way this all happened. It’s kind of amazing to me, you know, well, it is amazing. It's not kind of amazing. You know, that I ended up with anybody who who knew me back then. I would say, you do what you're, you're you're an authority on what? Because that that wasn't what was expected of me. By the grace of God here, here I am, yeah.

Omar Mo 

So what's the legacy that you want to leave them?

John Hayes  

You know, I love what Zig Ziglar said, you can have everything in life you want, if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. I want that's my, that's the legacy I want to leave. I want people to say, Wow, he was instrumental in helping me change my life. That's what I'm looking for.

Omar Mo 

That's awesome. And I love that, you know, I that's what I'm always all about moving the collective human conscious forward on this podcast, and anything that doesn't do that. Even something as small as like, being optimistic versus pessimistic, right, moves a collective human conscious forward. We're all about that on here. And I think that really falls in line perfectly with what we're about. So thank you for sharing that, John. 

I wanted to end the podcast here with one final question, right. So this is a question that I asked everybody that comes on this podcast, Michael's been asked that, Deborah’s has been asked that and everyone in between from multimillionaires to travelers that live off their backpack, right?

And that question is, if you had a billboard in space, and there was a universal language written on that billboard so that everyone on planet Earth could read it. And every time the sun rose, everyone on planet Earth could see the Billboard and every time the sunset that billboard went away, what would you write on it?

John Hayes  

Love people. You know, I think that that is what we're missing today. We have lost the art of loving people. Be about love. Honor God, honor your neighbor, honor the clerk at the grocery store, the hardware store.

Let's just get back to loving life and people and somebody wrote a song, what? Love Sweet Love. That's why we don't have enough of so that'd be off the top of my head. That's my story.

Omar Mo 

That and that is an incredible story and an incredible piece of advice. Thank you so much for sharing it today, John. 

John Hayes

You’re welcome, Omar. Thanks for having me on. 

Omar Mo

Absolutely. It was an absolute pleasure of mine.