S3 Ep12: The #1 OrangeTheory Owner Just Launched His Own Franchise
Jamie Weeks loves life, but he also loves business. Being a franchisor has allowed him to have it all and he’s ready to share how.
He is the executive chairman and founder of Honors Holdings, the largest franchisee for OrangeTheory Fitness studios across the globe, the executive chairman and founder of Legacy Franchise Concepts, and a Dogtopia franchisee and franchisor for SweatHouz Infrared Sauna Studios.
The Wolf and Jamie get into why he was the perfect age to get into franchising, why he works for his team (not the other way around), and why it’s harder to scale from three to 12, than 12 to 48.
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Episode Transcription
Jamie Weeks:
And so culture is the key to everything. No two ways about it. Culture is the key to everything. It’s the key to scaling. It’s the key to happiness. It’s the right thing to focus on. And I think in our first talk I in 2014, culture was 10% of what I think about. It’s 2022. I’m 47 years old, and culture is more than 90% of what I think about every single day. And you think about this, I mean, I’ll give you just one small example of why it’s so important. If I have an amazing culture at Sweat House and we don’t lose people because we don’t lose people, if I have that, how much easier is it for me to scale a business versus turnover of a hundred percent and I’m having to retrain people every year?
The Wolf of Franchises:
Welcome to Franchise Empires where aspiring entrepreneurs learn exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond. I’m the wolf of franchises.
Hey everyone, it’s The Wolf. And I am pumped that I get to conclude this season of Franchise Empires with the one and only Jamie Weeks. If you’ve been listening to this show since season one, you probably remember I already had Jamie on the show in what is to this day, the most listened to episode of all time. In that episode, Jamie and I talked about how he went from zero to over 140 Orange Theory Fitness franchises in just about six years. When we recorded that episode, he was just getting ready to launch his own wellness franchise called Sweat House. Fast forward to today and Sweat House already has 75 franchise licenses sold in just five months. In this conversation, Jamie gives us an update on how he’s transitioned from a multi-unit franchisee to now a franchisor, and how he’s using all that he’s learned in growing his Orange Theory portfolio to help his franchisees achieve the same level of success that he already has. Buckle up for this one. I think you’re going to enjoy hearing from Jamie again.
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 workweek. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf Workweek and Wolf Pack Franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.
The Wolf of Franchises:
You’ve been in the franchise world for a while, as you know, the largest theory franchisee. When did you decide just, Hey, I want to actually become a franchisor now?
Jamie Weeks:
Yo man, I didn’t want to. I mean, it was really, really a tough decision. Interesting with Sweat House. So you of think about the evolution of Sweat House. We go back to 2019 and I sold 80% of honors in Orange Theory to Prospect Hill in December of 2017. And so that was a life changing moment for me and my family. I rolled a tremendous amount of money cause I knew that later on it would be worth even more. I didn’t want to at the beginning. That was if I were mentoring people that are about to sell a business, I was like, I want my money. I want my money. And a bunch of really smart older gentlemen and women came to me and said, Hey, that’s actually not what you want to do. You want to roll a lot? And I was like, really? They’re like, yeah, trust me.
You want to roll a lot. And that was the best advice someone ever gave me for a couple reasons. First, it kept me engaged, which I didn’t have a problem with. Second is it gave Prospect Hill a really good feeling that listen, this guy that founded it and running it is still heavily involved, has a big pet here, so he’s going to make it happen. And third, for me, it really helped me focus on the future. If I had gotten more money out, I don’t know that I would’ve been as focused on the future, but by rolling that much money to me, a lot of money, I was so, so focused on the future. And I got to tell you, there’s something to be said for that. There’s something to be said for having a self-motivation when you have a big bet out there that you control.
It’s one thing to have a big bet on the Broncos. It’s a whole nother big bet, another whole nother world to have a big bet on yourself. And we talked about this last time I was on the call or on the show that I said, I love to make bets on myself that I can control, and I don’t make a whole lot of bets outside of what I can control. Or if I do, they’re such small bets that I’ll make a ton of ’em and they all add up over time something will hit. So we get to 2019 and I had already invested in Dogtopia and we’re starting to build studios and get that going. That was one that I wanted to be pretty heavily in, and I just kept feeling like no one was doing recovery right? By the way, I’m not saying we’re doing it right, but no one was doing it as well as I thought it could be done.
And so I started looking into, from a recovery standpoint, what is easy relaxing benefits more than just the athlete, what’s out there? And it just kept coming back to infrared sauna. It just kept coming back over and over from a sleep, from a meditation, from relaxation, from your skin, the autoimmune benefits, and then the recovery benefits. And so it just made sense to go down that path. And so there was a small space open next to one of our orange theories in vis, which is like the Smyrna part of Atlanta. And I said, it’s 1400 square feet, let’s go take it. Let’s give it a name. Let’s see if we can’t figure this thing out. And so that’s what we did. Fast forward, we go through a pandemic, and surely I’m the only person who’s dumb enough to start investing heavily in a infrared sauna business during a pandemic.
But when we reopened in Georgia in May of 2020, we had two studios, Sandy Springs and Vis people started coming in a lot more. And we started realizing this wasn’t just for athletes, it was really for everybody, which was a really cool kind of realization that this was a lot more broad than I thought it was going to be. And to me, when I have something that I know can be really broad, if you think about how Broad Orange Theory is, you think about how broad Dogtopia is, you think about how Broad Sweat House is. That’s really kind of one of the things I look for is I need this to be a really broad, all walks of life can use this. So I started building more and more of them, and I actually went to Prospect Hill. I went to Jeff Teskey, who’s the operating partner or who’s a partner at Prospect Hill, and has turned into being one of my closest friends.
And I said, Hey, if I were doing this and I wanted to sell it to a private equity firm, what would you tell me to do? And this is a great advice for people. He said, I’d go to five cities, I’d built five studios and five different demographics, and I’d prove it out that way because so many brands, and we see ’em coming now. They have one studio in Los Angeles, they have two studios in West Hollywood and Santa Monica. They have three studios in New York and one in Miami. And you’re like, dude, that’s the same demographic. That’s the same person. What are you doing? So we did Charleston, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston, Portland. I can’t think I can get more diverse than that. I mean, that’s about as diverse as I can get. But that gave the private equity firm, they were a lot more comfortable knowing I didn’t just build it in four studios in Atlanta next to my Fort Orange theories.
I went to Dallas and I’d only been in Dallas once in my life. I didn’t have any orange theories there. And now we’re about to have four sweat houses there. So that was kind of the thought behind it. The thought was never to be a franchisor. So I then got an unsolicited meeting request from a large private equity firm in Atlanta, that’s all I’ll say. And said, Hey, our wives are going to sweat house. Can you meet with us? And I said, sure. So I went and met with them and they said, what’s your plan? And I said, I’ll be honest guys. I don’t have one. And they were like, well, do you plan to franchise it? And I said, I don’t think I do. And they said we wouldn’t franchise it either. And I said, why would you not franchise it? I’m not franchising it because I just don’t have the effort and I don’t have the knowledge. And they said, it’s six employees and high margins, it’s low labor, high margin business. You don’t want to franchise something that’s low labor, high margin, and they’re Right. Right.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Well, that sounds like a business everyone wants in on though. No low laborers, high margins.
Jamie Weeks:
But if it’s low labor, high margin, why would I only get 10% of the royalties when I can move 47% margins
The Wolf of Franchises:
Fair. Okay. That’s why <laugh>, yeah,
Jamie Weeks:
Probably need to talk about your business again. So that’s why you don’t want to franchise it. So then I said, okay, that makes sense. I then got somewhat of an unsolicited, maybe a little solicited unsolicited offer from another private equity firm that was all in franchising it. And I went to Prospect Hill and said, listen, here’s what I’ve got. What do we do? And they said, let’s work out a deal. And they said, do you want to franchise it? And I said, I’m not sure I want to think about it. And I said, what would you guys want to do? They said, we want to franchise it. And I said, well, if we franchise it, I want to do it different. I want to do it in a really unique way and do it different. And I laid out a plan for them of what we wanted to do.
We closed that transaction. This is how petty I am. We closed the transaction on February 22nd, 2022, and I made everyone sign the documents at 2 22. I was like, we’ve never had this opportunity before. We’re going to go 2 22 and we’re going to sign the documents at 2 22. That’s great. And that’s how petty and immature I am. And so what we’ve laid out is I think a plan to be a unique franchisor with a twist on being a franchisor that is set up for franchisees to be much more successful as multi-unit franchisees that can scale. And that’s what I’m really good at. So that’s the way I have to run a franchisor.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And so the turning point it sounds like was Prospect Hill and that transaction is what pushed you to the side. The
Jamie Weeks:
Turning point was them allowing me to run a franchise award the way I want to, which is going to be based on what we have to do to have multi-unit franchisees. What I didn’t want to do is have 800 sweat houses with 800 franchisees because in that model, you have tons of infighting. You have no one able to scale and take it to the next level. It’s a little bit of the tail wagon, the dog. In those situations, and I’ve talked to a lot of franchisors about this, and they all told me the same thing. Every CEO I talked to told me the same thing. If I could do it different, Jamie, we would’ve taken more time to sell licenses and sold it to multi-unit versus selling onesies and twosies that struggle to scale and struggle to get to the next level, or it’s not enough of an interest for them and those kind of things.
And so that’s what we’ve done. We’ve focused on multi-unit. We’ve created a business model that is really based around the franchisee and their ability to be multi-unit and scale. And I give you an example, we sold the rights to Boston and I gave the roofer to the franchisee for the rest of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and I’m doing that with every multi-unit that we sell. So I sold Jupiter, Florida to Fort Lauderdale, and I gave the rest of South Florida as a roofer to that franchisee. So everywhere we sell, I’ve sold, we’re about to sell Denver and I’m giving a roofer for the rest of Colorado for them. And so if I’m getting the right multi-unit partners and they’re taking a bet and investing on us and buying 10 or 12 licenses, then I’m going to give them the rofer for more to allow them to have multi-unit and scale.
Now, how does that hurt my development timeline? Sure, we’re going to build ’em less and they’re going to be slower. But guess what I’m dealing? We’re going to sell 75 licenses this year in five months, and I’m dealing with less than 10 franchisees. So now I can be so focused with those franchisees on how they’re building their business, how they’re scaling it, and just really focusing on their operations. But if I had 75 studios in 75 franchisees, our home office teams diluted, and they’re not going to get the best of what we do. And so that’s why it may not be the right thing for the franchisor, but it’s 100% the right thing to do for the franchisee.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Absolutely. No I love it. I mean, the upside is there for franchisees especially, and also just if anyone isn’t familiar, Rofer is right of fresh refusal.
Jamie Weeks:
Right? Of fresh refusal. That’s exactly right. Sorry. Yeah, no, no worries. Not right of fresh refusal. I’ve had my caffeine, so I went caffeine ready for the wolf? Hell yeah.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s what we want.
Jamie Weeks:
Want full caffeine ready? He’s going to want the most out of me, so I want full caffeine ready for you. I never do afternoon caffeine, so I’ll be up till 2:00 AM because of you.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I appreciate that. Jamie’s jacked up well. Well, yeah. And so I completely agree to you. There’s a lot of franchisors out there, and obviously with the wall fright, my whole bias is two franchisees and franchise buyers,
Jamie Weeks:
By the way. Whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on. Guess that’s my bias too. I’m a franchisee. Let’s be very clear. I am not a franchisor. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I mean, I’m hiring for smart people to make up for my ignorance, but I swear to God, all I’m trying to do is the opposite of all franchisors. You ready for this one? Here’s the most opposite thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life as a franchisor. You’ve never had a franchisor say this. We have 13 corporate studios. Those 13 corporate studios are there with managers and assistant managers for franchisees to take managers and assistant managers from.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Oh, no way. Yeah.
Jamie Weeks:
Our corporate studios are a farm league of managers and assistant managers that we have trained that are ready for franchisees to interview and help them open their studios. So you’re opening a store in Denver. You have pick of the litter. You’re going to talk to all of our managers that have an interest in moving to Denver and interview them before you go to Indeed, before you go to monster.com, before you do all that, we will refill it. We will build our pipeline because if we do that, we’re helping the franchisees move faster and they’ve already been trained with for us for a year, so they know exactly how to do it. That is the biggest leg up that a franchisor can give a franchisee.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. I mean, you’re almost seeding the market for them. Is that something you plan to keep doing or are you kind of maxed out on corporate studios?
Jamie Weeks:
I built the Boston Studio Assembly Road Assembly Row. That’s our top performing studio. I’m selling it to the franchisee for barely above cost. We built two studios in Charleston, South Carolina, both profitable studios, Mount Pleasant and West Ashley. We’re in the process of selling those to a franchisee that’s buying all US South Carolina. Then I’ll go build Chicago, Houston, Austin, Scottsdale. We’ll build one studio. We’ll train the team, have ’em in there. When someone wants to come in and buy that market, guess what? They have the option to buy that studio at just above cost, barely above cost with a team that’s already been in place and worked for us and trained under us. So when I say that we are building a franchisor model that is dedicated and ready for a multi-unit franchisee to scale and get to the next level, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.
The last thing I, I’ll say that we’re doing differently, and I mentioned this in our last talk. Yeah. I’ve hired, well, we have in places someone called a relationship manager. The most annoying thing to me in the world as a franchisee is when I call a franchisor and if I have 11 questions, I have to call 11 departments and those 11 people get back to me over 30 days at different times. So what we’ve hired is a relationship manager. This right now, our first has worked with me for seven years. She’s operated orange theories, she’s operated dogtopia operated sweat houses. 40% of her comp is tied to the success of the franchisee. This is their single point of contact. They have a single point of contact that they can talk to and text every day that will go get them all the answers they need to get from the franchisor and make their process, their communication process that much easier and that much better. That’s a game changer. So we have a basically farm system of managers, system managers ready to be hired. They have a relationship manager in place that they’re single point of contact for all things from franchisor and they own the area. We’re not putting franchisees on top of each other. We sold five licenses in Charlotte. We gave that franchisee a roofer on the remaining mounts of Charlotte. That’s all that’s theirs for the next 24 months.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Wow. Yeah, I mean, if you’re a potential franchisee, listen to this. I mean, this is music to your ears. Well,
Jamie Weeks:
I think the big thing, I’ve been a franchisee, and I, by the way, I’ve been a franchisee with two of the greatest franchisors in the world in Orange Theory. And I mean, they’re what Dave Long and Neil have done. They’re amazing what they’ve done. They’ve built an amazing system. So 90% of the good stuff I’ve learned, I’ve learned from them. But that 10% as a franchisee, that frustrates me. I just refuse to go be a franchisor if I was going to have to do that 10%. And Prospect Hill and Jeff Teske and Kyle Cassela, they said, you don’t have to. We agree. This is their way to do it. Let’s make it about the franchisees and let’s be a franchisor that is so franchisee centric. It’s really difficult for them to fail.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, I love it. I think it’s going to be a fascinating case study, but I think ultimately it’ll be incredibly positive in that I think this is thrown around a lot in the industry, which is make your franchisees succeed and you’ll be successful. But if you really look at brands, and to me the proof’s in the pudding, what are you actually doing to help them succeed? You’re demonstrating, Hey, I’m giving them the upside. They have the multi-unit ownership potential. You’re helping them find their first employees who already have experience in this system, by the
Jamie Weeks:
Way, that is massive. The mistakes that are made in a first time hire, slow down the scaling process by years, not months by years because you’re so scared to make that first hire. Then you make it and you’re scared. You’re even more scared to fire someone. And so if we can eliminate a lot of that risk and put someone in place that they like, that’s excited. And by the way, for that employee, they’re stepping in as the man. They’re stepping in As a manager, I’m the man. We’re going to build five of these close by. I’m going to be the regional. Here’s how we’re going to do this. And the other thing, employee’s got something to prove that employee’s been working under Jamie weeks in the Sweat House corporate model. They want to break out on their own and prove they can do it without me, and I want them to. That’s my whole goal. And so I’m telling you, that is not something that’s ever been talked about, but seeding the first employee for those franchisees will be the single most important thing I think we do.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It’s fantastic. And I mean, this is why I would honestly love it to see more multi-unit franchisees like yourself. If you start a franchise brand, you, you’re obviously leaning on your experience and it can only benefit the franchisees that now come into your brand because you’ve done it before. Yeah, I hope
Jamie Weeks:
So.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve got the experience. I’ve done it before. I’ve sold a private equity twice and combined sales of more than 150 million. And so it’s one of those things where it’s not a difficult process. And if this is not rocket science, this is a people business. This is a culture business culture is the single key to this entire thing. And coming into our system at Sweat House, we’ve really laid this out. We’ve really thought hard about these modalities. We have the Cold plunge, we have the Hyd Massage with Red Light Therapy. We’re about to announce a major partnership with a percussion therapy business. There’s two big ones. There’s Ster Body and Hype Price. So one of those will be the official Infr Sauna Studio of one of those. I can’t say which one yet. That’s going to be exciting. We’re announcing next week a long-term partnership with the Atlanta Braves.
And so Sweat House will be the official in Fred Sauna Studio of the Atlanta Braves. And so we’ve got some really cool great things going on. The business itself with the modalities in bringing in a doctor, Rachel Reed who was head of health and science at Orange Theory for three years, and now having her and our team, the things we’re doing with Tim Grover that you’ll see in January of next year, and the stuff he’s doing with Sweat House, Betina Gozo, I’ve really taken some time and thought our way through this. But at the end of the day, everything we’re doing and everything we’re building is for the franchisee to be more successful there. Nothing that we’re doing is for the success of the franchisor. It’s for the success of the franchisee.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I love it. And can you talk more maybe about, because originally I think when you said you were exploring Sweat House as a concept in the recovery space, you only really found Infrareds Sauna a businesses, but it Sweat House. I’ve looked on the website, it’s more than that. So do you want to just walk through, if I sign up and I’m assuming it’s a membership model, if I’m a sweat house customer, what do I have access to? What kind of facilities and all that?
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s pretty interesting. So when I was going through the process with Prospect Hill for them to buy the business or buy a majority of the business in February this year, so in December, January of last year, about a year ago, Jeff mentioned, Hey, should we do a consumer survey and see what consumers say? And I’ve always been a little reluctant to do it, but I was like, for this one, I think it’s the right thing to do and it’s the right time of year to do it. Let’s see what they say. So we did a great consumer survey. People filled out a five minute questionnaire. We gave ’em a $25 Amazon gift card. And what we got back was pretty amazing. They loved all things about Sweat House, but every person just kept saying the same thing. We just wish you did more.
I wish I didn’t have to go here for cryo. I wish I didn’t have to go here for whatever it was. We wish you did more. And that was at that instance, I immediately said, okay, well Coal Plunge is next. We have the infrared sauna, but this coal plunge thing is going to be massive. And by the way, it’s going to be massive over the next 10 or 20 years. I mean, this coal plunge thing is just only going to grow it. There’s nothing like it. It’s as good as it gets. So we put a coal plunge in a room in Plano, Texas where we had just opened a studio and it just wasn’t getting used as much. So I talked to the manager and I said, Hey, what’s going on? She’s like, well, people just don’t know about it yet. We’re kind of new and yada ya. It’s like, yeah, yeah. Tell me, does anyone use it a lot? She goes, yeah, we got one guy that comes every day. I’m like, what?
The Wolf of Franchises:
You
Jamie Weeks:
Got one guy coming to Cold Punch every day? She goes, yeah. I go, who’s that? She goes, oh, Dr. So-and-so. And I was like, of course. I said, who? What is he? What kind of doctor is he? She goes, oh, he is an orthopedic surgeon. I was like, yeah, he knows exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re supposed to do three minutes, somewhere in the mid forties, it’s going to alleviate joint pain. It’s cold, it’s going to alleviate joint pain. Your recovery’s going to be amazing. The endorphins and dopamine are going to be off the charts, alert focused, and it’s as good as it gets. And so we then added it to another studio and we started advertising it more. And so I’m going to get my numbers off a little bit here. In September, all studios, all 12 studios had coal plunge. We did 2,500 coal plunges in September.
In October, we did 3,500, same number of studios. In November, we’re going to push 4,500 coal plunges. And what’s happening is our member is staying longer. So then we’ve added Hydromassage and red light therapy with the Salma Red Light Therapy. That’s just quite possibly one of the best things you can possibly do for your skin and regenerating the cells in your face. It’s amazing for anti-aging acne. It increases your melatonin by up to 10 times. Some studies show up your sleep, you’re laying on a massage bed for 15 minutes with a red screen on your face while you’re listening to music. It’s one of the most relaxing things you’re going to do. All of these, a lot of businesses would have added dollars next to every one of these modalities. We decided to make it a part of the membership to make the membership more valuable.
So the membership price has not increased while we’ve added three additional modalities. And when we add one of these percussion therapies to it as well, the price won’t increase. So for 1 49 a month in some states, 1 99 in Boston, it’s going to be in that range for unlimited, this is what you get. We have a four times a month also, and we sell a lot of packages as well. This is a business that is membership and package based. Orange Theory, much more membership based, but this one’s a little bit of both. And so we’re seeing some pretty awesome stuff. Our revenue, same store revenue has increased month over month, 5% every month for the last five months. So we’re seeing some really good numbers out of it. Really, really excited. And I think, again, honors and Orange Theory has been amazing for me, but I think Sweat House will most likely be, I hope, my legacy.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s amazing. Yeah. Wow. So much to dive into. I mean, well, so when I look at this, and I mean for yourself Jamie, and maybe listeners out there, cause you don’t see my face ever. I’m just a french fry, but I played Division one soccer was an athlete my whole life still to keep up with being fit, always have a gym membership. When I look at a concept like this and even health and wellness in general, it’s something I personally am always exploring and looking to improve upon. But I think the wellness aspect of people’s lives, I do think we’re in early innings into exploring other ways beyond the basics, which I would say are get a good night’s sleep, eat a healthy diet, eat your fruits and vegetables and work out, just do some type of exercise 30 minutes to an hour at least every day. And you’re going to get pretty far. But then when we look at a concept like this, this is taking it to another level and the things you’re saying to me as I learn more about it, maybe at first I thought, Hey, this would be awesome to go to. But it’s more of potentially a nice luxury to have. It sounds, yeah,
Jamie Weeks:
It, it’s really interesting. I mean, a lot of people look at it as a luxury. A lot of people look at it as maintenance. I will tell you, I think that for me, and I’ve used it now for you, the info stone I’ve used pretty religiously for three years now. Okay.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Cold
Jamie Weeks:
Plunge. It’s funny, I’ll, in the summertime, I tend to cold plunge a lot more than I do <laugh>. Funny how that
The Wolf of Franchises:
Works.
Jamie Weeks:
I got to get better at that, but I still probably cold plunge 10 times a month, eight times a month for my mental health. Sitting in that sauna with no phone for an hour and just listening to your podcast or a podcast or just listening to music or just using the calm app and meditating, whatever it is. Finding that 30 or 45 minutes in that sauna, it has become one of the things I look forward to the most almost every day where I get that 30 or 45 minutes to myself. It’s crazy what we do every day to give to everyone else and give to all people. Me and my wife have been married 20 years and we’ve got two girls. And I look at my wife and I’m like, she gives every ounce of energy all day to those girls. I give every ounce to the business and as much as I can to the girls and the family, it’s part of it.
But it’s rare that I get to have 30 or 45 minutes on a Tuesday to myself. And what’s happening is when I do it in the mornings, I am so much more in touch with what I’m supposed to do throughout the day. It’s just become, my day becomes more purpose driven when I dedicate 30 minutes to an hour to myself in the mornings. And I think there’s a lot to be said for that from a mental health standpoint. I’m just a little more grounded. I’m not just kind of all over the place and just trying to have caffeine fix everything. And a lot of times we all do that and then we don’t get good sleep and then it’s off the charts from there. And so I think you’re exactly right. I think we’re in the really early stages of something like this being really a big part of our lives for the mental health side.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, the mental benefits for sure. And as you talk about the cold plunges, I’ve even just noticed in the past six to nine months, say on Twitter, where Twitter’s full of influencers are thought leaders of every category you can imagine. But the fitness gurus, so to speak, started talking about cold plunges and ice baths a while ago. But it’s one thing that’s stuck. And now I’ve seen companies pop up where you could get an ice bath at your house. So I’m starting to think more of sweat house as more as rather than who has the money to build out your own ice bath and all these other things at your own house. This is more like, yeah, I mean
Jamie Weeks:
The thing, it’s one thing to buy. It’s nothing to maintain it. Our whole plunges, we change the water every three or four days. The water’s recirculating and fresh every six minutes. We’re changing that filter every week. I mean, there’s a lot of time and effort put into that cold punch to make sure it’s sanitary and perfect for everybody that gets in it. And if you’re just going to be the only one getting in it, I completely get it. But also it’s not really aesthetically pleasing and having just a big old cold tub sitting there, if you have it outside, it’s going to get mildew, it’s going to get mold, all the things that go along with it. So it’s really when you can have Hydromassage, red Light Therapy, a Coal Plunge, and Fred Sauna, all those things. And I’m not saying it’s something you got to do every day, but this is something that if you could incorporate four or five, six times a month into your lifestyle, it’s a game changer.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And so I guess two part question, part one, could you just more walk through it a little bit more detail? Cause as you’re talking about the infrared sauna, I noticed you’re saying you’re in there by yourself listening to music. And my head goes to, at one point in New York City, I was a member of Equinox. They have steam rooms, but there’s 20 other dudes in there at all times and you can’t listen to music. So how are you pulling that off?
Jamie Weeks:
Every person has their own suite where you have your own towels, your own vitamin C shower, your own sauna, your own iPad. You’re in there for an hour by yourself. We supply everything. And so yeah, it’s a real escape. So
The Wolf of Franchises:
You’re in your own. Yeah, you’re in your own world in a good way there. You’re
Jamie Weeks:
In your own everything. You’re in there by yourself. You do your thing. And every suite has its own shower, so that way you can shower. You’ve given five towels when you go in there, so you have everything you need. Every studio has a beauty bar. The Beauty bar has the Dyson hair dryers and the Dyson hair wrap and all the things. I mean, I’ve got two girls with amazing hair and I was told, and when they were early teenagers, Dyson, I had to have the Dyson and all these things. So of course we do. Okay, so yeah, no, we supply all that for you. So listen, it goes back to you saying it’s a luxury. It is a luxury. When you think about being able to sit in there for 30 minutes and watch your TV show if you want to, whatever you want to do or meditate, take your vitamin C shower. The best thing for your body and your skin is vitamin C. When your pores are completely open and emptied with the sweat and toxins coming out, you then take that vitamin, have that vitamin C shower, and that’s what creates that glow. And that glow is really apparent when you get out of this. And so yeah, we provide all that stuff for you.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. Okay. So I did not realize how catered to the individual the service is. And is that just out of curiosity, is there time limits or do you ever worry about overflow with the model or
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, you have that suite for an hour and you book it on the app. And then if you want to do the cold plunge after, you can book the cold plunge for 15 minutes after. You can book the Hydra massage. I think it’s 20 minutes actually for 20 minutes after the cold plunge room has a shower in there as well. So if you want a cold plunge, then kind of dry off real quick and warm up with that hot shower. There’s towel heaters in the cold plunge, so we’re going to make sure you have some warm towels when you get out of the cold plunge, you’re going to need it.
The Wolf of Franchises:
You’ve thought of everything, man.
Jamie Weeks:
We definitely have not thought of everything. Lemme just be very clear. We’re still a complete shit show. Every day I wake up and wear a shit show, but our shit show is getting better every day. I am successful because of my paranoia of failure, and so I just go through my list all morning of what we’re failing at and try to solve it and go from there.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, fascinating. I love it. I hope you’re building one in New York soon so I can go to it, but
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, absolutely.
The Wolf of Franchises:
All right, sweet. How do you think as a customer, and this also plays into the potential scale of the franchise model, how big it can get. How do you see this fitting into, I think you said like four to six times a month? It doesn’t have to be an everyday thing, like do I go to this after the gym?
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, our average unlimited member is coming over eight times a month.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Okay. Yeah, just so how do you see, and it’s going to be different for everyone, but your standard person who’s trying to be in shape and be healthy, do I go to Sweat house after the gym instead of showering at the gym? I’ll go to Sweat house to get the full steam. We
Jamie Weeks:
Have a lot of people that do their one hour workout or 45 minute workout and hit sweat house. They’ll steam for their sauna for 30 minutes, take their shower and go about their day. By the way, cold plunge right after it for that recovery as well, which is not easy to do to go to that sauna for 30 minutes and then hit a cold plunge. But it is the best you’ll ever feel. I mean, we need to get you down to Atlanta for a day to go through the whole process with this and try it and let us know what you think. I would love to get you down here and try it because it’s pretty special. I’m really excited about it. But listen, you started the question with, for the average person, what I’ve learned in life is that no one’s the average person.
We’re all unique <laugh> in some way, and we all have something that’s going to make this process different for each person. And so 30% of our people use sweat house for recovery. 30% of our people use it for the infrared sauna, for get toxins out of their body, and they’re religious about the infrared sauna and don’t do anything else. The other 40% are using it just to escape the day and go in there and relax, and you’re going to burn anywhere between 200 and 500 calories while you’re in that sauna. I mean, as the temperature rises, your internal temperature rises. You’re getting a cardiovascular workout when you’re sitting in there. I’m not saying your running sprints, but you’re going to see your heart rate. I go in there and my heart rate’s around 75 80 beats, and by the time at the end of that hour, 45 minutes, I’m in that 1 15, 1 20 range, and I am just pouring sweat.
And you take that vitamin C shower, you hop in the cold punch for three minutes, you feel like a new person, and you can’t wait to do it again. So every person’s unique and every person can cater it the way that they want to do it, which is again, one more reason why I think that it’s going to be here to stay for a really long time. I mean, if you look at our item 19 May, I’ve got a studio going to have that has a three year number now. We opened Ving Sweat House three years ago, so I have a three year number on something that that’s pretty, and to have 13 of ’em open, 12 of ’em open today, 13 open by the end of January, one with a three year number, others with two year numbers. This is something we’ve been doing for a while. We’ve got to it figured out
The Wolf of Franchises:
For sure. No, and even, I mean, making it through a global pandemic is nothing to sneeze that, so No, no. Well, I want to shift back to what you’re doing as a franchisor, and you spoke about culture and on our last interview, I think that was one of my favorite parts, and I’d guess a lot of the folks who listened to it enjoyed it as well. At one point you kind of flipped a script and were interviewing me and you ran through your top three interview questions that you asked every new by the
Jamie Weeks:
Way, after your podcast. I started getting just emails and people just telling me their top three things. <laugh> here was, here’s my car, here’s my first job. And I was just like my best movie. I was just like, dude, man, I I’ve heard all these. I got it. I got it.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s
Jamie Weeks:
Hilarious. It’s some good ones. Definitely heard some good ones. It’s funny. So thank you for that.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No, yeah, I mean, I thought it was awesome. And honestly, as I launch Ventures in the future, I will keep in mind as a strategy, but to me that spoke to what’s important to you is the story of a person and you’re more, you’re less worried about maybe the hard skills and just your first focus is like, and this is actually something Brian Scudamore from 1-800-GOT-JUNK is very similar to you in that respect, where he wants to know, make sure you’re a culture fit before worrying about the other stuff. Yeah. How are you looking at that when you bring in franchisees and just build Sweat House as a franchisor, but also with your franchisee base? I’ve
Jamie Weeks:
Had to deliver the news to franchisees. No, the answer’s no. And that has not gone well. People get pissed, they don’t like it, and I just say, listen, from a culture standpoint, I don’t know that we’re the right fit for you. It’s never that we’re the right fit for them. I remember the other way around just I want to be really careful with it. We want to build teams that care more about each other than they care about themselves. And it starts with that empathy. It starts at that level. I told my team recently I was done looking at resumes that I wanted to just go off of energy and positivity and work ethic. And if I think someone’s got work ethic and they got great energy, I got to tell you, man, that’s 90% of the battle. We can teach you everything else. But I’m so over looking at someone’s resume and it being perfect, and then we get ’em in here and they’re negative and have bad energy.
I’m like, I don’t care how good that resume was. It’s not worth it. And so culture is the key to everything. No two ways about it. Culture is the key to everything. It’s the key to scaling, it’s the key to happiness. It’s the right thing to focus on. And I think in our first talk in 2014, culture was 10% of what I think about. It’s 2022, I’m 47 years old, and culture is more than 90% of what I think about every single day. And you think about this, I mean, I’ll give you just one small example of why it’s so important. If I have an amazing culture at Sweat House and we don’t lose people because we don’t lose people, if I have that, how much easier is it for me to scale a business versus turnover of a hundred percent? And I’m having to retrain people every year.
And so the time and effort it goes into retraining people versus the time and effort it goes into caring more about everyone else and having the right culture. It allows me to scale faster, which allows my team to progress their careers even further and make more money and have more equity and have more responsibility and have more say in the business. And so that is my focus every day. And if we continue to do that, then what we built at honors where we have 145 orange theories and 1500 employees and a big business at Dogtopia, we’ve got nine studios and 150 employees, and we’ll be the largest Dogtopia franchisee next year. And then in Sweat House, what we’re building there is a franchisor. Everything we’re building is based on the culture and we’re able to scale because of culture. And so when we do Discovery days, I’ll give you an example.
When we do Discovery Days and the franchisees that have signed with us already, I’m in that Discovery Day for seven hours. I’m not hopping in for 30 minutes as a C and founder and making it like, Hey, I’m the guy and here. No, I’m there with you. From the beginning to the end, we’re going to sit through this whole thing together because you need to get to know me, and I need to get to know you because we’re going to spend a lot of time together and we’re going to have some difficult conversations, and I need to know when we have a difficult conversation that you can take it. And I need to know when we have a difficult conversation towards me that I can take it. And so we’re focused on that. And the franchisees that we’ve gotten so far, I’m so excited because I see in their eyes, they want to build culture. They want to scale. They believe in our modalities, they believe in team. And it’s really exciting when you start kind of putting that stuff together. It’s like a snowball man, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until all of a sudden you wake up one day and you got 145 orange theories and 1500 employees, and you’re like, what the fuck did I just do? And so that’s kind of where we’re going with this, and it’s a lot of fun, but culture’s all I care about, it’s all I care about.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Amazing. Yeah, I had a flashback to what you said about the Discovery Days. When I first got started in the franchise world, it was at a franchise development company, and it was a startup young executive team. I mean, it was a three person company, and we clearly made the wrong decision with any franchise or that we partnered with, which were, they were all emerging brands. Our strategy with one in particular was we struggled with the fact that we were new, and rather than embracing it, we tried to make it look like we were bigger. And yeah, we would bring in the CEO e o on purpose only for 30 minutes to an hour to make it seem like they were so busy doing other stuff. I mean, just hearing you talk, I’m like, that was the last thing we should have done. Can
Jamie Weeks:
You think about it? How can I sit here and say I’m going to make it all about the franchisees, then I step in for 20 minutes? Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. And so if I’m going to make it all about the franchisees, I mean, listen, our current franchisees, we have a group text, there’s us, and in that group text with me and them, we just talk about the random stuff. Hey, Jamie, give us an update on this. What’s going on here? Let’s talk real estate. And they have access to me 27. And I’m not saying it’s just about me. I don’t mean it that way, not at all. I want everyone to realize that I go about this with the most humility and as humble as I can possibly be at all times. But I just know how important it is for a franchisee to have that text access to a CEO founder who’s most likely went through these issues before and they have never experienced it before. And so I have to be the one that’s helping them guide them through all this. The relationship manager has to be the one helping guiding ’em through all this, but most likely, I’m hoping we have already failed every way possible in the last three years. So we can show them the mistakes that we’ve made. I mean, every day we find something that we can do better and more efficient, and we immediately send that to franchisees and say, we just discovered this. Here’s what we think we should be doing.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, it’s great what you’re doing with franchisees. And along those lines, I mean, if I’m a prospective franchisee listening to this, is it fair to say that what you’ve done with House partially is, you know, went from, I think right, JP Morgan into Orange Theory, Morgan Stanley, Morgan
Jamie Weeks:
Stanley? Well, I was at Morgan Stanley, I was a family wealth director at Morgan Stanley, really focused on family offices. And prior to that, I worked at UBS for 11 years where I worked on the Global asset management side, which was again, very high net worth families and family offices. And I did very well there. I was very fortunate. I mean, my wife and I can say that I owe pretty much everything I have prior to 2017 to Barry Mann Act and Jeff Cerruti and the people I worked with at ubs. I mean, they were really good to me.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, well, where I was going with that is basically, you know, had to learn multi-unit franchise ownership, and you obviously have a wealth of experience, so
Jamie Weeks:
No, no, no. I wasn’t born into this.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, exactly. But with Sweat House and even just the terms, right? By giving every franchisee a large territory and then a writer of First Refusal, are you effectively is it fair to say that you’re teaching if they need it, but giving franchisees the playbook, not just how to operate a sweat house, but to become a massive multi-unit franchisee where they can have that life-changing opportunity. You
Jamie Weeks:
Listen, their goal is to monetize that business. If their goal is to monetize that business, then we are the choice, because I’m going to be sitting at that table with them and going through that process with them and helping them monetize that business. The playbook is not that difficult. Now, let’s be very clear, you have to have a great culture, and you have to be a great operator. It doesn’t just fall in your lap. But from an operations standpoint, I’d say we’re some of the best in the franchise world. I mean, between Dogtopia, orange, Syrian Sweat House, we’ve kind of got this thing figured out. So from an operations standpoint, absolutely, from a multi-unit standpoint, it’s really difficult to be multi-unit when the franchisor is selling licenses all around you. I mean, how are you supposed to scale that? I mean, it’s a years of process and it becomes very difficult to do so.
And by the way, every franchisor at some point then tries to, he help with consolidation. That’s what happened in Orange Theory in the last six years. Private equity came in, consolidation happened. You went from 800 franchisees down to 400, then down to 300 and so on because, so I’m just saying, let’s cut out the timeframe, let’s cut out the middleman and let’s just go straight into multi-unit ownership. Let’s help them scale and get to the next level to monetize this business. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to do here. This is not a for-profit, non-profit, right? This is a for-profit business, and I’m trying to help people scale and monetize and make money. I’m just trying to make it an easier path for multi-unit franchisees to do that versus other franchisors where it’s difficult. I want to be very clear. I’m not talking about all franchisors. There are some amazing franchisors out there who have forgotten more than I will ever know in this business. I want to be very clear about that. I’m just saying we are taking a unique approach in doing it a little different than I think is more efficient for everybody.
The Wolf of Franchises:
You’re doing less with more, that’s for sure. So I want to throw this scenario, or not a scenario, but something that I thought was fascinating that I learned recently about Culver’s, the restaurant franchise
Jamie Weeks:
Ice cream and restaurant. Yep. Yeah, yeah. I don’t know what, well,
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, it’s not about the ops, it’s, it’s more about something they do with prospective franchisees. And so just for some data points for you, so they have close to 800 locations open. They’ve been franchising since the late 1980s. They’ve only got two franchisees closed ever. Which to me, I was like, that’s pretty fantastic. And people always ask
Jamie Weeks:
Theory’s never had a studio close.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fantastic. Yeah, I love hearing because you don’t really get good data on that outside on the internet. I’m always looking for, people always ask franchises versus independent small business, what’s the difference? But like I say, in the best brands, you have a much higher chance of success, and that’s just adding AM to it right there with the Orange Theory. So what they do though, which has to lower the amount of deals that get done, but they actually require, before you can sign a franchise agreement, you have to work in a Culvers for a week straight. I think they could put you through seven days, and that’s to make sure that you actually are like, yeah, I want to do this, versus maybe you have some idealistic vision of what it would be like to be a franchisee. Yeah. So I’m just curious, do you have any thoughts on that? I mean,
Jamie Weeks:
Well, I mean, the first thing I’d say is you told me they’ve been franchising since the early eighties and it’s been 40 years and they have 800 locations. Yeah, it’s not many. I mean it’s a lot, but for 40 years it’s not a crazy amount, but they’ve had very little failure rate. So obviously what they’re doing is unbelievable and very smart. One of the things that we do with our franchisees is we do a full tour in studio, and they spend the first half of the day with Chris and Crawford, who’s basically our operating partner running the corporate studios every day. And that’s a big deal to be able to talk to that person. She’s a part of the meetings as well to talk all the X’s and O’s department operations standpoint. But I want to be very clear about Sweat House. It’s 1600 square feet, it’s seven employees at the most, it’s 10 rooms.
It’s membership model. When I say this isn’t rocket science, I mean, it’s not even firework science. <laugh> like so below rocket science. I mean, this is a really, really simple business model. If you focus on the member, you focus on culture and you hire people that want to be a part of health and wellness industry long term that want to make a difference in people’s lives. And so you can’t just be a salesperson. You got to really have empathy and care about that member because that member’s coming in for a reason and why you’re there and why you’re a part of this business. And that’s really important. So from a restaurant standpoint, I completely think that makes a lot of sense and it’s brilliant. But from ours, it’s just not that difficult.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, it’s a different model for sure. And you’re right, people might hear that think, oh, 800 locations is a lot. But no, I mean, when it comes, comes to that timeframe, and you can definitely have more expansion. I mean,
Jamie Weeks:
They’re in Canada as well also, so I, I think don’t, not sure, but I mean, it’s a big number. I mean, you think about Orange Theory with 1300 locations, 1400 locations today, 13 something, and the first one has been 2010.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, that was a rocket ship.
Jamie Weeks:
That’s a rocket ship
The Wolf of Franchises:
And not a single franchise closed, which I did not know that. So that’s pretty incredible.
Jamie Weeks:
No studios have closed.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It’s amazing.
Jamie Weeks:
Amazing. Yeah. I mean, what Dave and Ellen and that team, that’s pretty impressive what they’ve done.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, a lot of people hear Big Uni growth and they think, oh, it’s going to collapse eventually, or it’s not sustainable, but you hear that can be done and I interviewed the founder of Crumble Cookies a month ago at this point. Same way, they haven’t had a single location close yet. They’re five years in. So it is possible
Jamie Weeks:
They are crushing it. I mean, they are absolutely crushing it. God bless ’em. Yeah, God bless ’em. So that I tried to be a great American cookie company franchisee one time.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Really?
Jamie Weeks:
They turned me down.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Oh, that is? That’s in the wall of shame. Turn it down. Yeah,
Jamie Weeks:
I got denied. I got denied. And
The Wolf of Franchises:
Is this Preor theory or
Jamie Weeks:
So during, I don’t want to get too far into it cause it was actually a pretty interesting story, but you’ll love this. I was looking to hire a certain role at honors at, or the Orange Theory business, and one of the great American companies, Fran people, one of their corporate employees applied for the job. And I interviewed ’em and I said, Hey, you turned me down to be a franchisee. I wanted to open one of these in Carrollton, Georgia where I have a farm and I’m there all the time. This is a college town, it’s perfect. And you guys denied me. And the guy was just like, there’s no way. I’m like, I’m telling you bro, there’s a way. And I think about it every day, every day. And they definitely had a reason and it I’m sure had nothing to do. It may had everything to do with me, who knows. They may have just saw my application and said, this guy’s a complete fool, which was a smart move. I would’ve eaten all the profits. But yeah, I’ve been denied. I was denied. I was denied. Franchise business is hard, man. Franchise business is weird. With your platform, you have this unique ability to talk to all brands and all people in an unbiased view. And I’m excited in 2023 for you to do more with this. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but there’s going to be a way for you to do something here because you’ve got a really unique way of going about it that’s unbiased and in the franchise business, finding someone that’s unbiased is really difficult to do.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Agreed. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And that was definitely part of the inspiration for I saw the need there for sure. Well look, I want to just in wrapping up here, I kind of want to focus on you for just a little bit in the first focus on you.
Jamie Weeks:
Let’s focus on me. Let’s focus on you.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Well, I think the audience is curious because that first interview we did was easily the most successful episode on Franchise Empires. And to me, especially the folks who I work with for my media production stuff, work, they’re called workweek based out of Austin, they asked me, they’re like, well, why was that episode so successful? Let’s keep, let’s replicate it. Let’s do it again. And part of it absolutely is a big part of me and my preparation, but also the guest and you have this energy about you. So yeah, I don’t even know what to ask. I mean just what’s as a starter? I mean, what time do you wake up? Give me the morning routine. Are you the guy who’s up at 4:00 AM do meditating and all that or what do you do, man?
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, I have a high energy, highly positive silver linings and everything. I think it’s the way I communicate. I’m really direct. I’m really to the point. You always know where you stand with me. I said, someone sent me, I sent a text this weekend to two people on my team and I said, Hey, this is what I want to do. And it was pretty specific what I said. And they sent back options that weren’t what I said, and I just replied with, Hey, just a heads up, I sent you the link of what the fucking order. I don’t need options. It’s Amazon. You think that I didn’t already go through those options and pick this one? I sent you an Amazon link. Yeah. When you go on Amazon, you type in what I’m looking for. It gave me 800 options. I looked at all of ’em.
I then sent you this one and said, order it. You then replied with other options like you’re Amazon. You’re not Amazon the person that’s ordering it. I’m the one that sends you what to order, end of story. We don’t need to have this discussion. And so listen, that was a little, I mean, and maybe it wasn’t that direct or that mean, but the gist was the, there actually, it maybe was also, but the gist was, Hey, I’m trying to get shit done. I don’t need more options. Just do exactly what I’m saying and we’ll go from there. And you just have, if you want to be a leader, you have to be positive, you have to overcommunicate and you have to constantly have a sense of urgency because if you’re not the one with the sense of urgency, who the fuck is going to have it?
Right? People don’t just wake up with a sense of urgency, especially this generation, right? Good God. I mean, not only get me started, but that sense of urgency is contagious, positivity is contagious and communication is contagious. And so I’ve never fired a person where I said, you know what? They just communicated way too much and we’re just really in the details. I’ve never fired that person. Have I fired the person that I said this person couldn’t find a single detail if I asked them to? Did this person not communicate the way I asked them to communicate? Absolutely. And so when you overcommunicate and you’re constantly in the details and you have a sense of urgency, you will not fail. End of story, you will not fail. But if you don’t have those things, there’s an option for you to fail. And so I wake up every morning at 6:00 AM maybe six 15,
The Wolf of Franchises:
6:00 AM That’s the time. That’s the magic time folks get at.
Jamie Weeks:
I’m fucking a <laugh>. I know where you need to go with this, right? You want to hear my day? Yes. I’m not going to tell you everything. I will either do one of three classes. I mean, this is really vulnerable here. I’m telling you everything right now.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s the good stuff, man.
Jamie Weeks:
I will either take an orange theory class, I will take a spin class at this studio called Turn in Sandy Springs. This Ashley girl owns it and there’s only one of ’em. She’s the best. It’s great. Or I am now somewhat addicted to solid core. What Anne has built there, I think they’ve got 80 something studios. It’s amazing. I love it. But it’s too hard. I can only do it two or three days a week. So I typically take a class first thing in the morning, and I’m usually at the office by seven 30. I do Monday through Friday, seven to seven. I’m in the office by seven, I leave at 7:00 PM and I work Saturdays usually 8:00 AM to three and Sundays, 10:00 AM to two depending on what football game’s going on, what we got as a family, that kind of stuff. And it shifts around.
We travel a bunch. I typically, I’m in the L F C office today where we have about 12,000 square feet and about 50 employees across the street is honors where it’s 7,000 square feet and about 30 employees. And so my day is going back and forth between the two offices quite a bit. I’m chairman at both, but I’m not a normal chairman. I’m heavily involved in Orange Theory and or honors and obviously heavily involved in L F C and all things. And I’ve got a chief of staff, a Sean Neibert, who is my right hand to all things and all things that I do. Most people would say, why would you need a chief of staff? I need someone who is communicating to everyone for me at times and giving me information of what’s going on. I wouldn’t say he’s a major decision maker, but he is a major communicator that comes to me with all things. And then my day is pretty loose. It’s appointments and it’s meetings just like all of us. Yeah, that’s about it.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Wow. Seven days a week, that’s that’s a grind. And that
Jamie Weeks:
I work seven days a week.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Just a little tidbit for everyone. This is not me bragging at all, but just for context, between Greg Flynn, the c e o of Crumble cookies, I’ve had somewhat high profile guests. I have their email addresses and cell phones. But Jamie is so, protect is in a good way. I mean, this is a compliment protective of his time that I don’t have any of Jamie’s contact information. Sean, his chief of staff is the one I communicate with. So I got to imagine you purposely, you, you’re protecting your time and even maybe your mental state based on what can pop in at any moment.
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah. I’m pretty limited on who can text me, but I’m open to anyone on LinkedIn and Instagram can DM me and I will respond. That’s me responding to you. And so I don’t think I’m exaggerating. I’ve responded to 45 texts while you and I are doing this call.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Holy shit. Okay.
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, I can show it to you right here. I’ve been responding to text.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Good. Multitasker. I couldn’t even notice. I’ve
Jamie Weeks:
Been responding to Texas entire time. Yeah, right here. So, well, we could talk for hours about this one. I mean, I have a whole philosophy on communication and if you think about, I guess I can plug my book. I’ve got a book coming out in the first quarter about culture and scaling and it’s called, it Takes a Fight. The real secret to keeping a winning team for long term. And one of the things I talk about in there is communication and how in the eighties and nineties it was fax and email and we’ve gone from fax and email and heavy email in the early two thousands into this text world and into this DM world. And if you email me, you’re going to get a response in a couple days. If you text me, you’re going to get a response in 15 to 30 seconds every single time.
Now that text may say, Hey, I’m driving, can’t talk, or, Hey, I’ll get back to you in an hour, whatever it is. But you’re going to get a response. And so if you think about, I’ve got 2000 employees right now, and back in 2014 and 15, I used to communicate with all 60 of my employees. Well, now I can’t communicate with 2000. So I communicate with a percentage of those 2000 via text. And those text message conversations that I have with 80 or 90 people on a daily or on a weekly basis that are really running the business day-to-day are the lifeline to me running the business. That communication. And that’s why I’m just, I’m so key on communication and culture being such a major part of what we build and what we do. And you’ve become a friend over the last year, and so you having a text of my cell, I care less about that, but I do get a lot of random, I do get a lot of random questions and random stuff, and I’ll still answer ’em and I’ll get to ’em. But yeah, man, I’m not above anything bug. I’ll talk to anybody.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No. Yeah, not definitely was not trying to paint that picture, but I think it’s important. Special.
Jamie Weeks:
No, no, I knew you. Yeah, I know. You weren’t
The Wolf of Franchises:
Just like notification overload. I mean myself, between Twitter, LinkedIn, email, slacks, my own personal life text messages, it’s E Yeah, it’s, it’s a lot to deal with. So
Jamie Weeks:
You got to be really selective. I tend to communicate with people that communicate better and the people that don’t communicate well, if I send a text message and it goes hours without being read or without a response, I then ask someone nearby who knows that person, Hey, are they okay? Is everything all right? They’re like, oh yeah, they’re fine. And then when someone says, Hey, I just, sorry I was busy, I just want to get back to you. And I’m just kind of like, really? How busy have you been for six hours? Because I’m going to tell you something. I’m busy, but I’m going to find five to seven minutes to text a fucking boss back. I mean, what the
The Wolf of Franchises:
Fuck? <laugh>?
Jamie Weeks:
Like, just send me a text, says, Hey, I’m busy. I’ll text you later. I’ll be like, all right, I’ll leave you alone. But if I send you a text and say, Hey, what time, whatever it is, and it’s seven hours later, you should respond to me. I’m just kind of like, man, this is not, what are we doing? There’s an excuse for everything. I get it. But you asked Jeff Teskey if he texts me, dude, that guy’s getting a response in a second. I mean that’s got that respect for people like that. Dude, I can’t text him back fast enough.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, you got to prioritize the boss. So for sure.
Jamie Weeks:
I don’t mean that way. I’m just saying seven hours. Really, you keep responding seven hours. What do you do? I, I need to know what you’re doing for seven hours where you can’t text ’em back. Now if you’re floating down a river, then yeah, tell me that you’re hang gliding. I need to know you’re hang gli <laugh>, right?
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, you’re right. Yeah, I think the moralist stories and honestly you’re saying this and I’m like, shit, I need to get a lot better with that is just give an update because you can give an update on Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. Alright, last thing man. I just, again I know you don’t love talking about yourself, but what drives you, man? I mean you got wife kids, you know, got already one incredibly successful venture now kind of just the beginning of another and it’s got off to a rocket ship start. But yeah, I mean, what drives you man? What’s your goal? Is it family oriented? Is it, talk to me about it man. What gets you so jacked up all the time?
Jamie Weeks:
You want that secret sauce so bad you’re trying to get it out of me. I dunno what it’s, dude, if you tell me what it’s tell you, I don’t know what it’s, yeah, I don’t know. That’s probably a better question for Sean and some of the people close to me to say what it is. But listen, my family is my everything. Reagan and Maggie and Charlie and my girls are just like, they’re my life. They’re everything. And we travel and we do amazing stuff. We do fun so much, such fun stuff together. My wife and I are concert people we’ve seen in 20 years we’ve seen 600 concerts. Holy gosh. And I’m so lucky. My girls are really into country music the way we are. And so we just took them to see Zach Bryant at Red Rocks and it snowed four inches of snow while we’re in Red Rocks.
That was their first experience. It was like taking ’em to church for the first time. I mean it was insane to, we used some really cool fun stuff, which I live for concerts. If someone wants a way to my heart, you take me to a concert, I mean that you have won me over for life. If you’re like, Hey, we got Texas six concert, you got to come. I mean, I don’t care who it is. I’m coming. I’m coming a concert guy. And so I would say what drives me is being able to continue to have fun and do stuff like that. I’m a fun guy. I live for fun first and business will kind of be a part of it. We have fun, we have fun at the office, we have fun with everything we’re trying to do at all times. We always have a fun element in there.
Listen, let me be very clear. Many people are come on your show and say this, I am money motivated. I am not ashamed to say I’m money motivated, I am a capitalist and it’s what makes the world goes round. And that’s part of it. And being able, when we sold honors the first time and we sold for, I won’t say the amount, but I’ll just tell you it was north of, well north of 50 million. I was able to give 20 employees large checks and we sat in a room for 45 minutes and cried together. These people were paying off student loans, buying their first houses. And to me that was the greatest thing that I could have ever done outside of family. And so when we sold a majority of Sweat House and Dogtopia or L F C to Prospect till in February, we did the exact same thing.
I wrote checks again. And for me it’s my legacy is going to be what we’ve done for other people, whether it be employees or franchisees or whatever it is. And it sounds really kiss ass to say that, but I’m just telling you that’s it. I’m very fortunate I have everything I need. I’m not worried we don’t need more. The week’s family’s good, but now it’s really, I love to win and I love my team to win and I want my team to experience the financial awards that I’ve experienced as well. And so that’s what we’re building and that’s what we’re going to do.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Hell yeah, man. That’s awesome. And I believe you, and I think a lot of people do believe you. That’s probably why these episodes perform well, you’re, you’re a genuine guy, so
Jamie Weeks:
I appreciate passion for me a lot.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah. Well look, thanks for coming on the show again, man. This is another awesome conversation. If there’s anywhere people can follow you online or Sweat House, is there good website or anything that you want to point him to?
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they can go to jamie weeks.com. That website will be up in the next week where they can shoot me a message there and I can get in touch with ’em there. Listen, you can also reach out to me through LinkedIn or Instagram. I’m Jamie Weeks ATL on Instagram. I’m on there quite a bit. So feel free to DM me there. And yeah, I mean I respond to everybody and I’ll happy to talk to everybody. And on your last call, the last thing we did, we got a lot of people reach out that were actually graduate students and people looking to the franchising and it was really pretty amazing. I spoke to a lot of younger people about what to do and what to think about, and to me that’s just as rewarding as anything we’re doing.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fantastic. Yeah, there’s definitely a movement, the growing movement there of kind of the NBA type person now thinking of doing things differently. So
Jamie Weeks:
Yeah, franchising over the next 10, 20 years is going to be pretty impressive. And so I think you’re in a great spot. I’m excited for you as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Appreciate that, Jamie. Well, yeah, look, thanks again and we’ll talk soon.
Jamie Weeks:
Awesome.
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.