Podcast

S1 E10: Jamie Weeks – The Most Successful Franchise Owner You’ll Ever Meet?

Meet Jamie Weeks, owner of more than 100 Orange Theory franchises and about to launch his own brand. The secret to his success? Risk-taking.

Jamie is a big personality and a phenomenal success. With 140 Orange Theory boutique fitness studios in his portfolio and in the process of building 60 Dogtopia franchises, he’s also launching his own, Sweathouz.

The Wolf and Jamie talk about building an incredible culture despite having hundreds of businesses, how a private equity deal launched him from 12 to 140 locations, and why taking risks is at the heart of his approach to building a vastly successful business.

As well as hearing the wisdom behind owning multi-unit franchises, there’ll be a lot of laughs and you’ll get to listen to Jamie putting The Wolf through his patented interview process.

This is one you won’t want to miss.

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jamie-weeks-712543221

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Stay up-to-date on all things Franchise Empires by following The Wolf on Twitter: https://twitter.com/franchisewolf

Episode Transcript:

Jamie Weeks:

And he’s like, no, no, no. Jamie, Jamie, think about it. You live through 2008, 2009, 2010; who are the guys that made the most money? And I said, the guys that went and bought a shit ton of real estate in 2008, 2009, that leveraged it up. He said rates are low. You’re an amazing operator. Your story’s good. You can do this. Let’s go raise 25 or 30 million bucks, and let’s go buy some studios. And I said I got to think about it for a night. So, I woke up the next day, and I was like, all right. I mean, dude, if we’re going to, if we’re going to lose everything, let’s just go lose everything. Let’s lose everything.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Welcome to franchise empires where aspiring entrepreneurs learning exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond I’m the Wolf of franchises.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Hey everyone. Today I have Jamie weeks on the podcast. Jamie might be the most successful franchise owner I ever speak to in my life. He owns 140 orange theories. He’s building 60 Dogtopia franchises and is launching his own franchise this May called Sweat House. Our conversation covers everything you could imagine from how he’s built an incredible culture in his organization. Despite having hundreds of businesses all over the country, how a private equity deal catapulted him from 12 locations to 140 and the risks he took that have paid off for him over time. And so much more after spending just an hour with Jamie, it’s obvious he has a massive personality. So, in addition to what you’re going to learn from him, I think you’ll have a few laughs and you’ll even get to hear him put me through his interview process, give this a listen from start to finish. I promise it’s worth it. Hope you enjoy.

Narrator:

The Wolf of franchises is the CEO of Wolf pack franchising as well as a creator at workweek media, all opinions expressed by the Wolf and podcast. Guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Wolf pack franchising or work week. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf work week and Wolf pack franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.

The Wolf of Franchises:

But yeah, man, look, I mean, I guess it with you, I mean, I’m stoked to have you, like, I know at least from what I’ve read you, I think got into orange theory in 2014, but like what were you doing before then and what kind of got you interested?

Jamie Weeks:

I was in global asset management and, and working as a family wealth director for Morgan Stanley and had been in finance and investments for, for 20 years. I mean, that was pretty much all I had done from age 22 until probably 37 38. And I always had an entrepreneur mind, but never really had a plan or a path. Right. And I think that’s all, I think that’s probably really similar to a lot of people. I mean, I, I know I would be a good business owner. I know this is what I would do differently. This is what I would do the same. Always really appreciate and respect a well-run business and look at it in kind of like an awe like, man, that’s so cool how they do that. And so, when we really saw this kind of rise of group fitness, and I think it was for me in, in, I think it was 2012, flywheel had opened in Atlanta and I had started going to a bunch of flywheel classes.

Jamie Weeks:

And so, I was 37 years old, 36 years old. And I was just like, this is insane. I mean, there’s 50 people in 10 classes a day paying, you know, 20, $25 class, the, the math just, it was just, it didn’t even make sense. And so, I started doing some more research and then CrossFit started getting bigger and bigger, right. And so, then I started doing the math on that and I was like, okay, well this is the opposite of flywheel. And they’re getting 50 people in a class and these are really expensive and this is this and that. And so, I just started doing the research and, and, and orange theory had opened and where I live in Atlanta in east Cobb. And I went and took a class. The thing I loved about flywheel is that it was dimly lit and the music was insane.

Jamie Weeks:

The thing I loved about CrossFit was this sense of community and everyone there to help you and everyone encouraging you in that, the things I didn’t love about flywheel was I was just on a bike and it was a five-pound weight for one song. And there was no way that was going to make a difference for a 37-year-old guy who was racing to dad, bod as fast as I could race to dad bod. Right. Yeah. And the things I didn’t love about CrossFit were, it was some of the stuff was really intimidating, right. As encouraging as they can be, hey, Jamie, I need you to deadlift these 150 pounds. I was just like, bro, I don’t know how to spell deadlift much less pick this thing up cause I’m going to die. And so orange theory kind of was a mix of everything.

Jamie Weeks:

It was, it was really well lit. It was not intimidating. I could walk, I could run. The rower was new and I hated it, but I loved it at the same time, the TRX and the free weights. And I could choose my weights and it was encouraging. The music was great and I just showed up and I didn’t have do anything. I didn’t have to think about it. I just showed up. I didn’t have to go over to the workout of the day and read it and figure out what these three things meant. I didn’t even know what they meant. Right. Yeah. And I really, I really appreciated that. And so, I said, you know, maybe I could buy three of these and hire someone to run them. I mean, this seems like it could do pretty well. And that’s exactly what I did. Okay.

Jamie Weeks:

Is I bought three licenses while I was still at Morgan Stanley. I had a friend that had worked in the fitness industry that I had met at CrossFit. And I went to him and said, I got no clue what I’m doing, which I say at least twice a week, I got no clue what I’m doing. I think this thing’s going to work. Can we just get together and figure this thing out? So, he took a class and came back to me. He is like, this thing is amazing. I said, I think so too. And he is like, is it just for women? I said, I don’t think it is. I said, I really don’t think it is. I don’t think that’s the way they’re going to, I don’t think that’s the goal. Talk to the orange theory team bought three licenses opened one. So, I, I created a, an Excel sheet that went to 600 members and we opened a studio on December 23rd, 2014. I don’t think you could pick a worst day to

The Wolf of Franchises:

Open.

Jamie Weeks:

It’s going to stop studio. Okay. It’s tough. But I do, I actually do have a worst day. We opened Dogtopia Portland on March 16th, 2020. Ooh, that, that was a worst day. That was the only worst day may have been March 6th, whatever it was, it was bad. So, we opened this orange theory on December 23rd, 2014. And by March my Excel sheet that I had put together was it was out of date. We were going to be way past 600 members. And that’s when I was like, okay, well this, yeah, this is a little different than what I thought. And so, I started buying licenses and I started really kind of diving deeper into the operations. Okay. And I became, I became an operator over the next three years and learned how to be an operator. I think one of the keys to our success, my success, but really our success was that at 37 38, I was the perfect age that was embracing technology of iPhones and everything that was happening with apps. And I was able to really communicate and relate to a 23- and 24-year-old on that. I think if I had been 45 or 50, that would’ve been difficult for me. And so, we were really able to build a pretty unique culture and build studios pretty quickly and took it to market in 2017 with 12 open and did obviously pretty well.

The Wolf of Franchises:

And I mean, when, when you’re looking at the brands, like, was it pretty much just an orange theory or did you have any other franchises that you were looking at? Cause there’s so many out there.

Jamie Weeks:

Well, there’s so many more out there now, back then, there wasn’t that many that were available. I mean, you know, cycle bar hadn’t started yet. I think burn bootcamp was around. And I thought the bootcamp thing was good, but just not as organized as it needed to be. It needed a little bit more substance kind of the similar, the way I feel a little bit about some other stuff that’s out there right now. That’s trying to compete with orange theory. It’s just, it’s not quite as organized. Doesn’t have quite the substance at OTFs, but I really wanted to be in the health, wellness, fitness and lifestyle game. And so, when you think about where I’m at now with Dogtopia orange theory and sweat house, you know, and we’re, we’re, we’re looking at some more brands now I’m really trying to, we’re really at LFC legacy franchise concepts.

Jamie Weeks:

We’re really trying to build this lifestyle, health, wellness, and fitness, kind of all modalities under one roof. That’s one investment, one thing, you know, my idol and I’ve never met him and I’ve never talked to him, but my idol is Greg Flynn of Flynn group. Yeah. I mean, that’s my idol. That’s the Michael Jordan of franchising. That’s the best of the best of the best of the best. That’s my idol. And if I could build something one 10th of his scale, maybe one fifth of his scale, maybe one fourth of his scale, but with maybe his scale. But, but with he’s in the restaurant business obviously, but if we could do that in lifestyle, health and wellness with a dogtopia, orange theory, maybe a big box gym, I’m on the board of an amazing crunch operator, fitness ventures down in Orlando who are just the best. And they’re part of prospect hill. So, if we could build something, what, like what, like Flynn has built at the Flynn group, but do it with health wellness and lifestyle. Boy, that would be pretty special, I think.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah. And they have what like 300 Wendy’s and I think pop,

Jamie Weeks:

I think it’s a lot more than that. Oh, okay. You know, I think it’s, it’s Panera, it’s Applebee’s it’s taco bell, taco bell. It’s thousands of restaurants. It’s, you know, I think a hundred thousand employees, maybe 70, 75,000 employees, an amazing culture, extremely, extremely, extremely smart person who has an amazing culture. And I can build a culture. I’m not smart, but I build a lot of smart people around me and I’ll do the culture part.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Okay. And, and so I it’s obvious that this is kind of your north star guiding you, right. Is, is to

Jamie Weeks:

Flynn group is my north star. Yeah. That’s true. Flynn group and Greg Flynn are 100% my north star.

The Wolf of Franchises:

And did, did

Jamie Weeks:

You jump into, I’ve never met him? No, no, no, no, no, no. I wasn’t familiar with Flinn group when I got into this.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Okay. I guess when did the light bulb go off that you’re like, I want to build this, this massive empire. Cause you started with three and obviously within a few, few months, that first location took off. But when were you, like, I’m going full time in this and I I’m going to make this big,

Jamie Weeks:

You know, you’ve done so many interviews and your knowledge with this, you you’ve, you have forgotten more about franchising than I’ll ever know. I will tell you that to go from three studios to 12 was a shit ton harder to go from 12 to 48, 3 to 12 is when you’re like at three, you’ve got, you know, let’s call it 36 employees. And you’re like, I can text 36 people. I can manage 36 and send a text and saying, Hey, are you okay? What do I got to do? Make things right. I want you to be happy. What’s up when you start talking 160, 170 employees, and now I’m pushing 2000. You’re like, I know now, now you’re like, I now try to text all one 60 once a week and just say, Hey, just want to check in with you. How you doing? What can I do?

Jamie Weeks:

Yada, Y yada. But that growth spurt from three to 12 was difficult and a lot of stress. But when I went to Brian Smith at Piper and Abe Thomas at Piper and said, Hey, I think I want to sell this. I think I can make this bigger. Because I had a pretty good bit of white space. I had, I had white space of another 24 studios or 30 studios. Maybe. I forget. That’s when, when they started telling me kind of the appeal for this and what was going to be out there. That’s when I said, okay, this could be a lot bigger. And here we are today with 140 orange theories. Yeah. It’s a big business. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been amazing. We went into the pandemic with 72 and in November of 20 Jeff Teskey our operating partner at prospect hill. Who’s turned into being one of my closest friends in Kyle Costilla.

Jamie Weeks:

Who’s also turned into being a really close friend of mine. I love those guys. Jeff was like, Hey, I think we need to go borrow some money and buy some studios. And I was like, dude, lemme tell you something. I said, Jeff, that is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard in my entire life. And he was like, no, no, no. Jamie, Jamie, think about it. You live through 2008, 2009, 2010, who are the guys that made the most money? And I said, the guys that went and bought a shit ton of real estate in 2008, 2009, that leveraged it up. He said, rates are low. You’re an amazing operator. Your story’s good. You can do this. Let’s go raise 25 or 30 million bucks and let’s go buy some studios. And I said, I got to think about it for a night. So, I woke up the next day and I was like, all right, I me, dude, if we’re going to, if we’re going to lose everything, let’s just go lose everything. Let’s lose everything.

The Wolf of Franchises:

So just, just a quick 24 hours to decide if you’re going to bet 25 million,

Jamie Weeks:

Guess what? Get ready. So, we call Brian Smith and we say, Hey, listen, we want to raise some capital. And we meet with two really, really big firms. And I did like four and five hour zooms with them. Amazing people, one firm that I just I’m in love with. I love them. I don’t want to say who, but okay. They’re just really good people. Actually. I will say who we had a call with Aries and I don’t think I’ve ever had as much respect outside of prospect hill for a private equity firm, as I do Aries and Rachel Lee and that team there, they are just and they’re the best, they’re the best. And we had some great calls and we met with a lot of different ones and the 25 turned into 50, the 50 turned into 75 and then at the end it was, Hey, we’re really big believers in Jamie and honors and what he can do.

Jamie Weeks:

And we can’t give him less than a hundred million dollars. And that was within a seven or 10 day period shit. And I said bro, this is not what I was signing up to do. Like, this is not, this is not, this is not. And, and we were all like, can you do it? And I was like, I think I can do it. And so, we took a hundred million dollars in March of 2021 and I spent 68 million in 60 days buying studios. And we went from 72 to one 20 in 90 days. And here we are today at 1 37 or 1 38. And it was the smartest thing we ever did.

The Wolf of Franchises:

That is insane. Just that the, it was speed that you were moving at. It was in such a time. Well, you think about,

Jamie Weeks:

Who’s going to go borrow a hundred million during a global pandemic when fitness is the worst thing you can possibly buy. Yeah. Sometimes stupidity like, like me, my stupidity lease to success because I’m just not smart enough to get myself in trouble. And so that’s a pretty good, that’s a pretty good example of it. Oh, I think the other thing, cause I’m, you know, I, I got no problem rolling up sleeves and getting in there and working and I got no problems. Sometimes you got to make bets and sometimes, you got to put it on the line and say, let’s do it. We can do this. And it may have been, yeah, I don’t know what it was, but it worked out great. We did that with KSL, by the way, they’ve been an amazing partner, this whole thing. They’re unbelievable. But they came in as a preferred partner. Okay. And they’ve been amazing. They’ve been amazing. Amazing. Another amazing firm.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Wait, so is S and KSL?

Jamie Weeks:

No, I mean, we talked to Aries, they were one that we spoke with. And again, I have tremendous respect for them, but we ended up doing the deal with KSL.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Just to jump back a bit. I do want to understand how did you finance, like your first few locations and then when does prospect hill get involved to secure these larger territories? Cause some people don’t even understand that like there are, there is a way to get, have the rights. So, you know, you’re talking like 24, 30 locations at a time,

Jamie Weeks:

I’d worked pretty hard for the first 20 years of, of kind of my working career and had done well. And I self-financed everything I took on some friends and family as investors. Okay. But I was still a, a major majority owner of honors. And, and even to this day, I’m, I’m still a significant shareholder obviously. And so, I had, self-financed a lot of it raised a little bit of capital. I’m a, I’m a believer. And I know that your podcasts are really intended of, of helping people get into franchising and things like that. Listen, I’m, I’m a big believer in, you know, my sweat equity is worth something. And so, let’s just say that, you know, you want to open three, I don’t know, ABC marts, whatever, whatever, it doesn’t matter what it is. I’d build out that business plan. And I would say, listen, this is the capital I need.

Jamie Weeks:

And then I would put a number on what my sweat equity’s going to be worth. And so, if I needed $2 million, I would say listen, my sweat equity is going to be worth 500,000 a million dollars of this. So, I would do the math, audit it and say, hey, I’d be willing to sell 25% of this for a half, a million bucks and go get that capital to open the first one and a half of them. And hopefully you’ve got some free cash flow from the first one that can get the second one open. And then you just kind of go from there and time it from there, retail is, is a little more difficult. I mean, listen, you get it and things like that. You’re going to have your personal guarantees and things like that. But but I self-financed the first 12 along with allowing some investors, I probably sold I probably sold 20% of honors, 25% of honors over the first three years, along the way. And when prospect hill came in, those people obviously made really good money.

The Wolf of Franchises:

And when you say self-finance is so you didn’t take on any debt or

Jamie Weeks:

There’s no debt, no debt

The Wolf of Franchises:

Impress.

Jamie Weeks:

I did that myself.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah. That’s another one of taking the risk reward and, and putting it on the line. I mean, I was 37 38 and had a wife still have a wife and our girls were two and four years old. And you know, we had our lump sum savings over there and Reagan, my wife would see a withdrawal and then another withdrawal and then another withdrawal. And she was just like, Hey, I love you. You’re my boy. I mean, I’m ride or die. Tell me we’re going to be okay. And I’m like, I think I got this. I think I got this. And the thing for me is just, was keep focusing on the culture, keep focusing on the people we can’t have turnover. Turnover is the death of a franchise turnover is the death of it. And I was hiring people that really knew operations and knew what they were doing.

Jamie Weeks:

And so, I would be leaning on them for their intelligence there. And then I would make the culture right for them. I would pay them. I would do whatever I had to do to make sure they were happy at all times. I just have that mentality that I work for my employees and they work for the members and the clients. And if they’re happy, then our members and clients are going to see that on their face and it’s going to make the members and clients happy and it’s just full circle. And you’ve just, you’ve got to have that mentality. I’ve had that mentality the entire time, but I was ultra-focused on it in the first 36 months of honors.

The Wolf of Franchises:

I love that now. And that’s a, that’s a common thread amongst a lot of owners is a lot of people think, oh, you’re a business owner. You work for yourself. But a lot of the ones I speak to like, no, I work for everyone. I work for my family. I work for the customers. I work for my employees. So

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah, I also think there’s a common trait and I’ve talked to a lot of people that have much bigger operations than I do. And I just really enjoy work. Like I don’t know if it’s, if it was my parents and my grandparents that really instilled that in me, but I enjoy work. I enjoy accomplishing stuff. I enjoy waking up in the morning and going to work and being a part of that. I just, man, I just get so much out of it. And I think that’s a big deal. Just being happy in general is a big deal. That’s such a big deal. And I said this, I was just, I just got back from a fishing trip for two days. I, I did with some friends and I said to someone, I said, my favorite thing about happiness is that you get to define it yourself. You get to define your happiness and no one else defines it. And so, you get to say, well, this makes me happy. Therefore, I’m going to do this, but I’m the one that gets to define it. And when you figure out that, you know what your happiness is relying completely on you, boy, you get happy really quick.

The Wolf of Franchises:

I love that. Yeah. It’s something that gets lost sometimes is, is having that focus. Yeah.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah.

The Wolf of Franchises:

When prospect tale came in, how does that impact the structure of legacy? Right. Because I mean they,

Jamie Weeks:

So, let’s, let’s, let’s say let’s go with honors because they came in at honors place.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Oh, right, right.

Jamie Weeks:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so let me kind of lay that out for you. Cause it’ll be pretty interesting story for you. I think so prospect hill comes in, in, in December of two, December 22nd, 2017, three years to the day that we opened our first studio. And you know, it’s a life changing moment for me and my family obviously. And I’ve got bill Watts is our chairman of our board who was the CEO of mattress firm and GNC and took GNC from I think 2000 locations to 8,000 global. And Joe FARA today is the chairman of sprouts. And these are guys that have been doing it for, you know, 40 plus years. And then Jeff Tus and Kyle, and I’ll never forget, Joe Fordo saying to me, Jamie, you know, you’re 42 years old, you’re going to run honors. But like, this is a big deal.

Jamie Weeks:

What are you going to do? And I said, man, I’ll be honest with you. I got no clue. I said, I, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I just keep doing this. I don’t know what’s going to change. I mean, we still live in the same house we, we bought in 2006 and I said I thought about it for a weekend. And I went to Chesky and I said, Hey, listen, I think what I’m going to do is I’m going to start a family office. And I just want to have some side investments and some franchises that are just small things, nothing big. And he said, man, I’m, I’m totally fine with it. If you don’t mind, just, you know, will you just kind of go through us when you do something? Just so we have an idea. I said, absolutely full transparency. I would never, I would never do that.

Jamie Weeks:

It’s not who I am. And he said, you just, I can’t let this take away from honors. I said, I promise it won’t, you know, if it ever does tell me and I’ll fix it. He said we got it. So, we had a great respect by the way. My favorite thing about that is they allowed me to do it. And so, I formed legacy franchise partners LFP and I, the first thing I did is I went and bought 15 Dogtopia licenses and then invested in a business called hot box, which was infrared saunas. Didn’t work out with those owners. And so, I now own the rights to all the hot box and I changed the name of sweat house and oh, okay. That’s kind of, yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at now. And we’re about to franchise that obviously, and then we’ve got 10, we’ve got 10 open.

Jamie Weeks:

And so, as those two things grew and honors grew with it and those guys saw my work ethic and said, he’s not stopping. Like he’s a, we, we he’s going to keep going. That’s when Jeff was like, Hey, listen, this LFP thing that you’ve created, we think it’d be really cool to have inside prospect hill as kind of the multi-unit retail piece. And that’s where legacy franchise concepts came from. Okay. and that’s going to be kind of where we’re at going forward while honors are an amazing business and is going to be an amazing business for many, many years. There’s it’s got a team of executives now and a CEO and a CFO and a finance and accounting team. That’s amazing. We built a great culture there and I’ll, I’ll be executive chairman there for probably a, a pretty long time. But LFC long term is where we’re going to go.

Jamie Weeks:

So, your original question is when prospect hill came in, how did that change the structure let’s talk honors in 2017 first. Right? Cause I think that’s what you’d want to know. Yep. What’s interesting is, is people think that a private equity firm is going to come in and just kind of blow things up and start over. It’s actually the opposite of that. They’re buying your business because you’re doing something right. So that’s the last thing they want to do. But what they are going to do is they’re going to help you with your thought process, your efficiencies, your inefficiencies, helping you building out the team. And I owe a hundred percent of where honors is today and the structure of honors and the team. Maybe not the culture, but I owe that to Jeff Teskey and bill Watts and the board, but really those two, because I was able to call them and say, here’s what I’m thinking.

Jamie Weeks:

And they’re able to say, well, here’s what we’ve done at 65 other companies. What do you think? And I’m like, well, that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard. How did I not think of that? Right. And so, they are truly a partner. I’m not saying all private equity firms that way, but you probably, you know, you’ve known me now for 20 minutes and you could probably say, well, Jamie, Lee’s probably had a lot of choices, private equity firms. He can go work with. I would. And I’m telling you right now. Yeah. I’m telling you right now. I chose them because of the kind of partner they are. And man, there’s the saying, you don’t know who’s swimming naked till the tide rolls out. Right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, I’ll tell you right now, a global pandemic, that’s the tide rolling out. And you really discover what private equity firm you’re working with when you see how they react in a, in a, in a global pandemic. And when I said to them in March of 2020, we need to pay all of our employees for as long as possible. And every single person agreed. I was like, okay, well these are people I want to work with for the rest of my,

The Wolf of Franchises:

My life. That’s easy. Yeah,

Jamie Weeks:

That is so we paid, paid. We paid every employee, including part-time employees before PPP. We took the average comp of a part-time employee and paid everybody the entire time. Now you say, oh, but you’re in Atlanta. You guys rope in quite a bit. We’re not talking about Portland, Oregon. How about Boston, Massachusetts? How about New York city? I mean, how about, you know, Virginia, some other areas where it wasn’t open, but we, we paid every employee.

The Wolf of Franchises:

That’s incredible now. I mean, E even regardless of the geography in the us, I mean, for at least a few months, everyone seemed to be impacted that’s right. Especially right.

Jamie Weeks:

Did the same thing at sweat house and did the same thing at Dogtopia. And that was me because they weren’t a part of it, but that’s the kind of culture that I want to be a part of. And if I can do that kind of stuff from 47 to 87, then that’s what we’re going to do. Right. It’s just man, the culture’s the key, culture’s the key, the culture’s the key to leadership.

The Wolf of Franchises:

And when they came in, you said it was a life changing day for you and your family.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Cause people want to know a people want to know, but people are curious and a lot of people don’t know necessarily what it means is prospect tail and just PE in general, from what you’ve seen. Cause I’m sure you have friends in orange theory and other franchises who have had similar successes, where is it a big payday, you know, are they taking, are they buying the equity and you’re you transferred like over to like a salary? Like kind of what, what does it actually mean for you?

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah. I mean, obviously I’m not going to get into the details of it. Right. But it’s a little bit of everything for us. It’s it was a big payday and, and I never had a salary before them. And honestly, I, I didn’t have much of a salary after I have a good salary now, but for me, the reason you would part with private equity partially is the liquidity event. That’s going to happen day one. Okay. I mean, at some point you want to monetize what you’ve built now, whether you monetize a hundred percent of it or 40% of it, you want to take some chips off the table. I mean, that’s just, that’s just, you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t run forever. And so, you you’re going to build this and monetize it. I have a philosophy of the way I monetize it. That’s proprietary to me and my years of working with some really smart people in the investment banking world and, and asset management world.

Jamie Weeks:

And that’s kind of my philosophy. And, you know, that’s probably a different show, a different conversation, a different everything. And so, for me and for that transaction, it was, it was a monetization along with, but the most important thing is the second bite that’s going to happen at some point. Right? So, think about, you know, I sold honors with 12 studios in 24 white space and 2017. At the end of this year, honors will have 150 open with 150 or more white space on top of it. Well, that’s obviously going to be a significant business. That’s going to be for sale one day. That’s a big deal. Could I have done that without pro prospect hill? Absolutely not, not even close, not even, not being a fraction of what they have helped me get to a hundred percent is on them. And so that’s why you want to take a private equity investment.

Jamie Weeks:

Now, there are certain businesses where that monetization for that founder may happen and the founders out completely. And because they’re rolling it into something else, they have and they have the team and whatever it is, those are, those are different situations for us. It wasn’t like that for us, it was much more organic to say, Hey Jamie, what is your vision over the next five years? Can we take this to a hundred studios? And I said, I think we can. I just, I’m just going to need help. I’ve never done it. And they said, we got it. We can, we can help you. And so that was the conversation.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Okay. Love it. So, you’re thinking a PE comes in, helps you take some chips off the table, but then beyond that, you’re going to get a second bite at the apple. If you, you and the PE firm can successfully build what you’re setting out to build.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean you may get two or three or four bites of the apple. You may recap it and have some dividends. You may take on a, a preferred investor and say, hey we’re going to make part of this money, a dividend to give us money back that we had in a pandemic, whatever it is. I’m not saying that happened. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of ways to, to slice that apple, right. There are options. There’s a lot of things to do, but the key to it is you, I’m not just sitting around <laugh>, you know, letting the business grow. It doesn’t work that way. I mean, this is, I work seven days a week. I mean, I’m in the office seven days a week. I travel and, and have great vacations and spend a ton of time with my family in the summers. My girls are teenagers. And so now we just, you know, Reagan and I want to be with them as much as possible right now, but I mean I’m 24 7 dude. I mean I’m 24, 7 I’m

The Wolf of Franchises:

20 <laugh>. And what are they doing? Because for some people and honestly, even myself at times I hear, oh, private equity, you know, invested in this multi franchisee. But obviously it’s not just like, they’re not coming and just giving you a big fat pile of money and saying, all right, go build a hundred more locations. Like what, what are they tan? Not, I’m not asking for the proprietary stuff. Like how are they tangibly helping you like actually own a location that is a plane right away, right. That you can’t drive to it’s out of market.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah. But you have to remember when I before, so I may be unique to this, but before I sold, I had, I was living in Atlanta. I had all the orange theories in Oregon and Portland. I had orange theories in South Carolina and Charleston. And so, I was already spread out and I was already finding a way to do it. And the thing is Patrick, when you have the right culture and you hire the right people, guess what? You don’t have to travel as much because you got the right people in place and you’re paying them what they deserve, if not more. And they can help you run that business. It’s when you’re underpaying and under hiring where you’re struggling and you’re all over the place. So, a private equity firm is not going to help you as much in the day-to-day operations of running that business.

Jamie Weeks:

They may have recommendations of what can make you more efficient and do some things. But they’re really looking for a turnkey of someone. Who’s an operator to say, Hey, I need your capital to go take this to the next level. Very similar to what I said with sweat house, with prospect. I, I said, listen, I’m going to have 10 or 15 of these open. And we’re making really good money. And we’re having a lot of fun. And we’re seeing all the things that we saw in the early days of Warren’s theory. And I’m a big fan of this. And at some point, I need an investor. I need a sponsor. Who’s going to let me go to sell four, 500 licenses, open 50 more ourselves and take this thing to the moon. And we have the structure in place. We have the team in place. We have the FTD in place.

Jamie Weeks:

We have the franchise agreements in place. We have the marketing in place. We have all these things in place. And then that private equity firm looks at it and says, there’s not much to lift here. You need capital and a little advice. That’s all I need. I’ll run. Got it. Now I’m pretty type a OCD. And I’m going to I’m. I like, you know, it’s, I’ve never not liked my opinion <laugh> it hasn’t happened yet. I have not yet said an opinion of mine that I didn’t like. I like them all. I’ve definitely become more humble with a private equity firm over the last, you know, five years and learned that man, dude, I am always the dumbest guy in the room. I mean, they are some smart, smart people. And so, I can’t get enough advice from them. But when a private equity firm comes in, they are not going to go put a manager in that studio and run it. That’s not happening. They’re sitting at 30,000 feet they’re analyst and their associates. They’re going to dig down in 5,000 feet and they’re going to dig into NetSuite. They’re going to dig into NBO and they’re going to help me with all the analytics. And they’re going to help me make decisions, looking at things that I may have never looked at before. That’s invaluable.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Gotcha.

Jamie Weeks:

They’re going to slice and dice things that I never thought about.

The Wolf of Franchises:

And, and so it’s still you, right? Like, like you said, they’re not coming in hiring a manager to store that’s on you still,

Jamie Weeks:

Still on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re going to help me with my CFO. They’re going to help me find a CFO that we all agree on. Are they going to help me with an HR executive? Probably not. Are they going to help me with a marketing executive? They may interview and, and, and lean in on an, on an opinion and stuff like that. But, and again, I’m only worked with one private equity firm. So, it’s unique. There, there, you may have a hundred people after you tweet this, that say Jamie’s a complete idiot. All these private equity firms do this. And I’ll be like, dude, I know, I don’t want to tell you I’m an idiot. Like I’ve only worked with one. I don’t want to tell you, but the one I I’m just giving you the experiences of the one I’ve worked with. And, and, and it’s why I think they’re the best.

The Wolf of Franchises:

You’ve talked a lot about culture and building a culture, but you’ve started from day one, basically living in, in the Atlanta area and all your orange theories are elsewhere. I mean,

Jamie Weeks:

Well, we’ve got, we’ve got 40 in Atlanta.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Okay.

Jamie Weeks:

Okay. Or 36 or 38. And so when I started opening them in Atlanta, but they’re all over the place. But I mean, you can have a great culture all over the place. I mean, you know, I think,

The Wolf of Franchises:

Well, this is a thing I, I see this a lot. This is a common pushback is, oh, like, if, if you can’t be in your store every day, your employees are never going to respect you or, or things are going to get out of control. So, what do you say to that, to that fear and that, yeah, just, just back year,

Jamie Weeks:

I got, let’s just talk about honors for a second. At honors, we have 20 something regional managers that have been with us, an average tenure of probably four and a half, five years that all make six figures that all have equity in the business. An average age of

The Wolf of Franchises:

Their average age of the regional managers, 30

Jamie Weeks:

Years, I’ll be oh, 30, 29 or 30, 31

The Wolf of Franchises:

All make six figures. All of it. That’s great. Yeah. And, and all that. And

Jamie Weeks:

So, when you, when you take my head of coaching for all of our coaches, which we have, I think probably we probably have 500, 600 coaches. My head of coaching is 30 years old and started as an essay in Charleston at $10 an hour.

The Wolf of Franchises:

What’s an essay? And he’s

Jamie Weeks:

Now a sales associate making $10 an hour. He then got into coaching and he has elevated himself now to the head of coaching at honors holdings, the largest franchisee at orange theory, making six figures with equity in the business. My head of national sales started as a part-time coach in Woodstock, Georgia being paid $38 a class in 2015. And she’s now the head of sales for one of the largest privately health fitness companies in the us, probably

The Wolf of Franchises:

Damn.

Jamie Weeks:

And so, it honors, I don’t give a shit how old you are. And if you’ve got common sense and you’re working your ass off and you’re a good human being, dude, you’re going to fucking crush it with us. You’re going to crush it.

The Wolf of Franchises:

I love that.

Jamie Weeks:

It’s not that hard. And you know, it’s so much easier to be a good human it’s so much easier and you’re so much happier. And if you have listened, common sense, isn’t so common, right? And so like, I’ve got a 15-year-old, who’s the happiest person you’ve ever met in your life ever. She is she’s sunshine. She walks in a room and she’s sunshine her common sense though. Like we are really working on it. Like we are really, really, really working on it. My 13-year-old she’s got common sense. She’s got Jamie Lee’s common sense. My 15-year-old is going to be the happiest person to ever live life. The funniest person to ever live life. We’re just missing one step of that common sense. And she’s going to watch this and laugh and then probably be mad at me. But when she finds that extra step of common sense done. So, I need you to have a work ethic. I need you to have common sense. I need you to be a good human being. It’s I don’t need your, I don’t need a fucking resume. I don’t give a fuck where you went. I don’t give a shit what you did in your sporty. I don’t care. I don’t care. Are you a good human? Yeah. Then we’re going to, then we’re going to have fun, man.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Beautiful man. Yeah. I mean, it it’s, I guess it’s simple in theory, but I don’t think too many people actually implement it because it it’s sort of, did you agree that it’s a short term? Like you pay people well in the short term sure. Like maybe you could skate by, by paying someone less, but you’re not going to build that culture with that retention and the buy-in that it sounds like you get,

Jamie Weeks:

You know, I’ve always had a rule, Patrick, that it’s rare that I hire someone that I wouldn’t have lunch with. Like I, I was five minutes into this conversation with you. And I was like, well, that’s a guy. I would definitely have lunch with like, we reach that 30 minutes ago. I was like, yeah, that’s a guy I would have lunch with. I’d hang out with a guy. That’s cool. But we all meet someone. We’re like, man, there is no way I could sit down at an hour lunch with this person. And it’s nothing, it’s them. I’m sure it’s me. You know, I’m a big personality with that. Just wants to hear stories and talk about events and things. Right. And that’s a, that turns a lot of people off. I’ve always said I’m a 50, 50 guy, man. Half the people love me, half the people hate me. But hey, once you embrace that, dude, you just try to find the half that you love, because guess what? They love you. And you love them. You’re going to have a lot of fun together. Yeah. I can’t go try to please everybody. If you have that same mentality, when you’re hiring people, I ask three questions. When I hire people three questions. You ready?

The Wolf of Franchises:

Ah, I’m ready. I’m pumped for this. Yeah. <laugh>

Jamie Weeks:

What was your first car? Let’s do this with you. What was your first car?

The Wolf of Franchises:

Oof. Shitty Toyota Corolla.

Jamie Weeks:

Right. And how happy were you to get that Toyota Corolla? Like you were so happy. Oh,

The Wolf of Franchises:

I got wheels. Yeah. Yeah. I had a, a car man. I

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I had an 85 Chevy cavalier that my dad was like it. Third gear didn’t work. I had to go first, second, fourth. Like it just, it just wouldn’t go into third gear. We don’t know where it went. I never used third gear <laugh> and we paid $800 for it. And then I had to work for a couple weeks to afford it needed new, new rear tires. I mean just shit like that. So, when I ask someone what their first car was, and I hear someone like you say a shitty to or Corolla, by the way, I can see that car, by the way. I, I know exactly that car, what you were driving to. And it was a piece of shit. Yes. But when someone, but, but when someone says to me, oh, for my 16th birthday, my parents bought me a new BMW. I’m not saying I don’t hire that person, but I’m immediately saying, I don’t know that this person and I are going to have a lot in common hear. Right. So, I need, I, I need to hear more. Right. My second question is what was your first concert? What was the first concert you went to where you, you like, this is always a great story by the way.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah. you two fifth grade. Oh

Jamie Weeks:

My God, dude. You two is your first concert.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah. It was epic man. Yeah. It was amazing. It’s insane. Yeah. It was the vertical album. Yeah, dude, dude was, it was, I was in fifth grade. I was jumping up and down the whole time. I loved it.

Jamie Weeks:

That may that, by the way, that’s one of the greatest, first concert of all time. <Laugh> but you know, I can’t, I can’t ask someone old. They are. And so, I’m like, what was your first time?

The Wolf of Franchises:

They’re like, oh,

Jamie Weeks:

That’s smart. And they’re like, all my first concert was I saw post Malone two 16. I’m like, you’re a baby. <Laugh> you’re a baby. Your team’s. So baby, my first concert was Lisa, Lisa cult jam at the Fox theater. Now you’re too young to know who that is. Yeah. I don’t

The Wolf of Franchises:

Know that is,

Jamie Weeks:

But when we get off this, I’m going to need you to go on Spotify and download head to toe by Lisa cult jam. Okay. And if it’s not stuck in your head for the next day, you’re going to have a problem. <Laugh> and then my third question I always ask is and this is a good one, by the way, this is how I learn these three questions. How I learn about who you are and your story. Because once I hear your story, man, I’m going to know a lot more. I’m going to know so much more about you. And my third question is if you had one movie for the rest of your life, what is it? Ooh, what’s your one movie for the rest of your life. You got one movie. What is it?

The Wolf of Franchises:

That is, that is it you’re sneaking in with some easy questions and then you drop that. That’s

Jamie Weeks:

Not easy. Yeah. Yeah.

The Wolf of Franchises:

That’s not easy. That’s a tough one. And

Jamie Weeks:

So, right, right. But think about the three questions I’ve asked you. What’s your first car? What was your first concert? What’s your favorite movie? We have gone past an interview now and now we’re just telling each

The Wolf of Franchises:

Other. Yeah, it’s a conversation.

Jamie Weeks:

It’s a conversation. So, one movie rest of your life. What you got? You want me to tell you mine first

The Wolf of Franchises:

Chance? Think about it. Yeah, sure, sure.

Jamie Weeks:

Good fellows.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Oh, that’s a good one. That’s a good one man. But yeah, that’s for, I mean, it’s a great movie, you know? I like all the, the mob movies that, that are out there. Yeah. But that’s, that’s it for the rest. I don’t know if I can do that. Like

Jamie Weeks:

One movie rest of your life. You got to answer it. What are you going with?

The Wolf of Franchises:

Don’t judge me. But or audience don’t judge me old school.

Jamie Weeks:

Listen, that’s a top 10 for sure. It’s a classic. Every time it’s on. I can’t

The Wolf of Franchises:

Go back. I need a comedy. If it’s one for the rest of my life, it’s got to be light. It can’t like Shan. Redemption’s great. But that’s too heavy.

Jamie Weeks:

I totally agree. I totally agree. So, I had a girl tell me one time and, and I, by the way I did judge her, she said the notebook and I was just like, I was just like, you’re going to go with the notebook. That’s your one movie, the rest of your life. That’s

The Wolf of Franchises:

A soft story. And

Jamie Weeks:

I was like, stop, like, come on, dude. That can’t be that can’t be your best. But by the way, the other part of that is I’ve heard movies I’ve never heard of before. And they’re like, you have to watch this and I go watch it. And I’m like, this is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life. <Laugh> so, you know,

The Wolf of Franchises:

So

Jamie Weeks:

When we start talking about it’s a win-win right. So, when we start talking about culture and what we’ve hired and what we do, listen, you’re, you’re hearing it, man. It’s, everyone’s got a story and I want to know your story to see if our stories intertwine and we can continue a story together.

The Wolf of Franchises:

That’s amazing. Did you, did you, did that develop over time or is that just something you came up with like early on?

Jamie Weeks:

I think that’s been a thought of mine for probably the last and we could get really deep, but we don’t we’ll save that for another time. But yeah, I’d say over the last 12 years I’ve really started focusing a lot more on other people. I had a life event happen 12 years ago with a death. And I realized what a selfish, selfish, greedy asshole I had been for 35 years of my life, not the human that I wanted to be. And I think it was that moment when I said I’m going to make my life about other people. And our mantra at honors is, is when you care more about other people, people care about you and when you care about yourself, no one gives a fuck about you. And so, you got to make every day caring about other people.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Damn. That’s powerful, man. Yeah. I just not to get too sidetrack, but I tweeted about Shaq, because Shaq’s big into franchises recently. Yeah. a lot of people are commenting just like, yeah. And Shaq’s also just an amazing human and like he does a lot stuff for other people, too.

Jamie Weeks:

Amazing human, amazing human. And what I’ve learned is the more that I invest in other people, the more other people invest in me. So like in, in, in 45, 45 minutes with you. And so I’m thinking, you know, who he really needs to talk to Jeff Teskey and Kyle Costilla who are private equity guys that invest in franchises that invested in us and let’s get their perspective. Let’s get a PE guy’s perspective of investing in franchises. Because let me tell you what that would be. The information that a F a future franchisee would want to hear.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah, no, that’d be incredibly invaluable. Right,

Jamie Weeks:

Right.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Dude. I love it. What do you, so just kind of wrapping up here. I mean, yeah. As far as legacy, you know, I know it involves Dogtopia and sweat house and you know, sweat house, you’re the franchisor there. So it’s a bit of, bit of a different angle.

Jamie Weeks:

Sweat house is going to be a monster. It’s going to be a monster.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Do you want to just kind of, you know, not give us the pitch, but just what’s it all about why you bullish on it, all, all that kind of stuff.

Jamie Weeks:

So we’ve got 10 open and all corporate own, all corporate owned. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All me all well now all me and prospect hill, right? I really took my time with this one. Everything I did wrong with honors and orange theory, I corrected here, the teams in place we’ve over hired the team were all in on the marketing and the influencers we’ve just hired a, an outside firm to just take it next level, which will start pretty soon. I’m excited about that. We have in one studio, let’s say a studio is 1500 square feet. You’ll have eight infrared sauna rooms. Each room has its own vitamin C infused shower, towel service, all the lotions, the Dyson hair dryers. My girls have long, crazy blonde hair that shits all over the house. <Laugh> and they’re just like, daddy, you got to get the Dyson hair dryers, daddy, you got to get the Dyson wraps.

Jamie Weeks:

And I’m like, yeah, yeah, we’ll get those. And then I saw the prices and I was like, what the hell are we doing? It’s just, it’s amazing. So then we’ve added coal plunge. So we, we have renew coal plunge stubs in there. Yeah. Yeah. And so, for members it’s free, it’s low cost for package holders and non-members, and now we’re, we’re in the process of doing a deal with hydro massage where we’re going to have hydro massage beds as well that people can lay on. And while they’re doing it, they’ll have red light therapy if they choose on their face. And so you can do 15 minutes on a hydro massage bed with red light therapy right there. And so we’re, we’re taking, what is that?

Jamie Weeks:

So, the red-light therapy stuff, let’s just for simple terms, it’s going to regenerate cells on your face. Okay. And reduce aging help with just about, just about everything. Right? a lot of people do the red light therapy inside the sauna, but we, we kind of kind of separated a little bit and make them different rooms and different stuff. So you can go in your sauna and you can sweat for 45 minutes and get all the toxins out. We have iPads in there. So you’re watching Netflix, Hulu, whatever you’re using the column app to meditate. You then get out, you have all your towels in your private suite. You then turn on your vitamin C infuse shower that has a citrus smell to it. Vitamin C is the best thing for your pores. When they’re open and empty after sweating, you take your shower and then if you want to go cold plunge for two or three minutes, you can do that.

Jamie Weeks:

If you want to do a hydro massage bed, lay on the hydro massage bed and get this massage for 15 minutes, while you’re doing red light therapy, you can do that. There’s two memberships, it’s an unlimited and a four times a month in packages. And we’re creating that culture all over again, where we’re making it about everyone that’s coming in and the numbers are really good. We’ve done really, really well. I’m really excited about it. And so we’ll have the FTD. Yeah. We’ll have the FTD done. It looks like in may where we have drafts of everything now, and we’ll start selling licenses in June, and we’ve got about 600 leads of people that want franchising. And so, we’re going to, we’re going to, we’re going to do this a little bit different again, I’ve worked with two of the best franchisors in the industry with orange theory and Dogtopia.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah. And Dave, long’s a really close friend of mine and Neil at, at Dogtopia the CEO. There is, I think, one of the best CEOs in franchising by far the guy’s amazing. Doesn’t get anywhere near the credit he deserves. Maybe he does, but he’s really, he’s really, really good. And I’ve asked them a lot of questions, probably more on the Dave side, what would you do different? And he’s given me his four-hour list of, well here, Jamie, this which got to do different. And so, we’re going to do some pretty unique things. This, what we build out will be the most franchisee friendly franchise business. That’s my goal to make it the most. And if you heard me the last 45 minutes, and you’re saying, yeah, this is a guy that’s going to support his franchisees. This is a guy that you’re going to want to be a franchise.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Definitely, man. Yeah. I mean, I’m just thinking, you’re talking, you you’ve talked so much about culture and supporting your employees well, like yeah. Franchisees and I, I mean, I’ve seen this from being in development and representing five to seven brands when a franchisor gets it wrong. It’s, it’s, they’re not prioritizing the success of their franchisees, man. So

Jamie Weeks:

This will be all about the franchisees. My focus will be franchisees and franchisees only, and we’re going to, we’re going to make this. Right. But we’re also going to have that rule. If we wouldn’t have lunch with you, you’re probably not going to be a franchisee. <Laugh> right.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Yeah.

Jamie Weeks:

We’re going to hold this thing to a pretty high standard, a high human being standard.

The Wolf of Franchises:

That’s amazing. I’m pumped to watch it. This is going to be cool. I’ll be looking out for that FTD. Yeah,

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah, absolutely.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Sweet man. So look, thanks for coming on the podcast. And you know, if people want to stay in touch with you and follow along on your journey, what’s the best platform for them to keep up to date.

Jamie Weeks:

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. So, you know, I’m, I’m on LinkedIn. I’ve got a girl here that runs it for me. So I, I, if I don’t respond immediately, I promise like we will, I’m on Twitter, but I rarely post I am on Instagram. I think it’s Jamie Weeks’s ATL and its private. I don’t know why it’s private. <Laugh> I have nothing. I’m I have nothing I’m hiding, but you know, if you request me there, you’re probably going to get a fallback. So but yeah, those are the three places.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Cool. All right. Yeah. We rarely get an Instagram plug there, so that’s cool to see, but alright man. Awesome luck. This was fun and we’ll talk soon. Okay,

Jamie Weeks:

Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

The Wolf of Franchises:

Thanks for listening to franchise empires. We’re coming to you soon with actionable insights to take the next step on your franchise journey. So make sure to subscribe on apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.