Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson. Today, we have a truly inspiring guest with us, John Hewitt. John's name has become synonymous with innovation and success throughout the accounting world, even though he doesn't have a traditional accounting background. He's built and sold billion dollar companies like Liberty Tax and Jackson Hewitt, and he's been recognized as one of the most influential figures in the field.

In our conversation, John shares his incredible journey, his insights on entrepreneurship, and what it takes to stand out in a crowded market. Whether you're considering venturing into self employment or exploring the world of franchising, John's story and advice will offer invaluable guidance. So let's dive in and learn from someone who's been at the forefront of the industry for over five decades. Well, John, I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today. And, you know, when we were chatting earlier, you said you'd been recognized as one of the most influential people in accounting.

And but your journey is not your typical background in accounting, and you don't really have a background in accounting. So I figured we could start start by talking a little bit about your journey to this recognition and, you know, a little bit about your background and and what you're doing.

Yeah. In, on January 1, I'll be it'll be my fifty sixth tax season. I started when I was at H and R Block while I was in college. Loved it. And twelve years later, I was running 250 H and R Block locations.

My I'd never taken an accounting course, but my dad was, chief financial officer of a public company, and he had bought one of the first Apple computers in that were ever made. In fact, it's in the Smithsonian today. So he liked it better than the mainframe that was running this public company, and he decided that we should computerize taxes. It took a long time to convince me, but after a year, we both quit our jobs and began developing software. We developed in 1981 the first software for an Apple computer.

No one wanted it way ahead of its time. I got blessed and found a company in Virginia Beach called Mel Jackson Tax Service. Mel had died. We bought six offices from his widow. Each in our block had 9,000 offices, so I set my goal as to have 9,001 offices.

We were we needed to add 8,995 offices, But we didn't quite get there, but we did change the name to Jackson Hewitt. We went public and sold it for fifteen years later for 483,000,000 doll I had a three year noncompete, but my noncompete didn't cover Canada because Jackson knew I had never gone to Canada. And having grown up in Buffalo, I did Canadian tax returns. I knew the Canadian tax systems. We opened Liberty Tax in Canada, and within three years became a top 100 retail chain.

So now I built one of the top 100 in US and top 100 in Canada. And that's when I was first recognized by Accounting Today magazine as one of the most 100 influential people in accounting. And I, they gave me that award for twelve years even though I've never taken an accounting course. But came back to United States in February, I might not compete in it, and now I had to compete against my own name, my own software, my own people, my own system. And yet not only did we grow faster than Jackson Hewitt, we grew faster than them and H and R Block combined.

We opened 4,000 offices in 12, top 10 fast growing franchise or ever. My second top 100 retail franchise chain in The United States. No one else has ever done that, again, in public. And again, the stock became worth $500,000,000, and I sold my stock. And now we started Loyalty Brands.

And in Loyalty Brands, it's an umbrella of eight different franchisors. We specialize in three things, construction led by our roofing, siding, and solar, pets, everything pet, led by our mobile mobile grooming service, which is number one in The United States already in three years. It's called Zoom and Grooming. And then, of course, my oldie but goodie, income tax industry, tax and accounting led by our ATAX brand. So that's my fifty five years in a nutshell.

What what motivated you to kinda get into that entrepreneurship? You know, you you talked a little bit about that, but what what was really enticing about getting out and getting into business for yourself?

You know, I always give credit to that to my dad. My my dad, I remember when I was only five or six years old. You can't even imagine a world without malls, but I saw my first shopping center in in nineteen fifty forty five. And they weren't even shopping centers. Every shopping area was a downtown area and in The United States.

And I remember him with the next door neighbors designing a brush brushing kind of piece of equipment that would clean clean the the parking lot of the of the shopping centers. He always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and problem is he had too many children too quickly. And he grew up poor, lost both of his parents when by the time I was born, and never had a chance to do it until until, I was I was, 30 years old looking I was working at block, and now he had enough money and time to, become self employed. So my dad dragged me into it. I was I was happy at H and R Block, but I've been self employed since 1981, and and, it's turned out pretty well for me.

I found I founded a half a billion dollar company, a billion dollar company, and now this third company is gonna be a a billion dollar company.

Wow. I mean, that's that's really encouraging and exciting to to hear your story. You know? And I think a lot of people who listen or or especially in today's day and age, there's a lot of crazy things going on the markets. You know, you look at the political scene.

You're like, what is gonna happen in the future? And if somebody's thinking about and I know you work with lots of folks. You know, they're saying, hey. Should I go into self employment? Should I maybe do a franchise?

Like, you know, franchise can be extensive or or can be successful, or should I, you know, stay as an employee? You know, what's the right career path? Like, what what are what are some questions they should be asking themselves, and how should they determine that?

You know, Adam, I did I do webinars occasionally, and and I did a whole hour on should you be a entrepreneur, should you go out on your own.

Yeah.

So I can't cover it quickly, but I can tell you the basics. Yeah. And I can tell you this, that two thirds of Americans almost two thirds of Americans want to be self employed, and yet about half of them don't have the wherewithal. They don't have the risk take taking is huge. Financial discipline is significant.

Get up and go. There's no one when you're self employed, no one says get up and be at work at 6AM or 8AM, or you gotta work six, five, six, seven days a week, and there's no one pushing. You you are you know, it's my favorite ten two letter words. If it is to be, it is up to me. And most people need that structure, need that guidance, need security.

And so most people, most businesses fail. And one reason is because too many people try to go into business that were never meant to be self employed. So and I feel good about that in the sense that if I didn't have workers, then I would have to do a lot more work. So I have I need people that that need a structured environment, a you too, a paycheck every week, guaranteed paycheck every week. I need those kind of people to do the work.

And, so I thank god for them. But, yeah, it takes a whole hour, but but think of those are the key factors, self starting, independent, driven, risk taker.

Would you say that's the same thing for somebody who is going to sell employment or franchising, or is it different is it different type of person?

Well, franchising is a little easier because you have your structure and your system laid out for you. Mhmm. So you know the rules, and you know what time you have to open, close, how much you charge, how much you pay the employees. So we have a term in in franchising called entrepreneur, not entrepreneur. You're working by yourself but inside the system.

So more people can be a franchisee than be independent, the like a mom and pop.

It's because you have that kind of that you have that safety net a little bit of the of the overarching organization.

Exactly. That that is is very meaningful and a a huge difference maker to many people.

Yeah. Well and and based on your description, I'm sure a lot of people listen to that and saying, you know what? I don't wanna be self employed because I don't wanna have to be the one answering all the questions. But then the other people might get excited and say, I'm willing to jump with two feet. And it's hard because there's so many other factors.

If you have a family, you know, how much seed money, like, seed all those different things that you have to consider.

Yeah. And when we evaluate a potential applicant to join us, the first thing we look for is that to answer that question. You know, that it's are you meant to be self employed? If you already have, then that answers it. Or if you haven't, then we look for, are there other factors like your parents were self employed or your siblings were self employed or you did you showed signs of self employment when you were a child.

You mowed lawns or you had a paper route or you sold lemonade or you did entrepreneurial things throughout your life. So we look for signs of that that show that you are meant to be self employed.

Do you think that some people are more naturally inclined to being self employed than others?

Absolutely. There's no question about it. And it may be I'm not sure it is. It's not inborn. I'm not sure.

You're not born into it. You can learn it, I'm sure. But the major characteristics tend to start from from Mhmm.

Yeah. When when you and I are chatting previously, you had mentioned a little bit about, you know, advisory services seems to be taking over the accounting world. What opportunities do you think is out there for especially for accountants, especially from what you've seen?

Yeah. There's so many regulations and rules and and more and more in in our government that just paddling through the water, just the journey is so treacherous. And sometimes you need guidance as to what to avoid more than than guidance as to where to go because there are there are all kinds of dangerous, treacherous waters out there that you have to avoid. You know, they say the people that that have been that are the most successful have made the most errors. So I think that an advisory service can take lessons learned and then take them to the to their clients and help them avoid the deep deep water over here and that and the white route of rapids over here and the water fall over there and teach them to get to get through without a with a lot less risk and a lot more prosperously.

Yeah. So one thing I was thinking about is you were talking about your history, especially with all the successful organizations that you've started and then sold. When it comes to getting your name out there, like marketing, you know, what advice would you give to somebody who is trying to saying, hey. I wanna get into this, but Yeah. How do I get my name out there?

How do I do all those things?

You know, that is incredibly difficult. There are there are 35,000,000 businesses in this country, and there's and since since COVID, there's been a a record number of new businesses per year that are starting. And so when you think about it, there's 35,000,000 businesses trying to get your attention, and and there's about one business for every 10 people. So here on Virginia Beach, there's 50,000 people. That means there's 65,000 businesses trying to get your attention, and they're all they're all thinking the same thing.

And how do I get how do I how do I build that brand name? So the key is you have to have differentiator. Yeah. Do something different. And we have a whole part of our of all of our brands is it's called Guerrilla Marketing.

And there's an excellent book that I read thirty years ago called Guerrilla Marketing. So I would I would advise anyone, if you're thinking about an inexpensive way to get brand name, to read the book Guerrilla Marketing. I mean, you could do it by showing up at parades, by chamber of commerce events, by what we do a couple things that virtually no one else does, and it's so simple. You know? When I started when I started Liberty Tax, we had I I love the name Liberty because it's so iconic.

And so, I mean, it gives you a positive feeling. Right? And and people think of the Statue Of Liberty. So what we did is we put costume Lady Liberty characters dancing out in front of our locations. Well, when you think about it in Virginia Beach, the there's 65,000 businesses, but there's only two or three that have costume characters standing out in front waving.

So do you wanna be one of the three or one of the other 65,000? So you need to find differentiators, and, Guerrilla Marketing is one way to do that. And we we have specialized in growing brand name rapidly. And so for our new ATAX brand that competes with H and R Block and Liberty, We have an a Eagle costume, and we love the Eagle concept because it's such a powerful, renowned it's the you know, it's the American bird. Right?

It's the bald eagle. And so we have a again, it has a friendly feeling, you know, and we have eagles out on the street dancing, and and so we gain brand name very quickly. We pass hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses on their way to work, the people that do go to work. Most of them can't name 10% of it. But if you saw, eagle waving at you every day from January 1 to April 15, boy, that'd be one of the businesses you'd remember.

That's for sure. Well, I think the the hard part nowadays is a lot of people are at home. They're not necessarily driving around all the time, and trying to make yourself a differentiator on online is even harder because there may be 65,000 businesses in Virginia Beach. But on the web, there's probably billions.

Right. Everyone in the world is trying to get your attention.

Yeah. And so it's even harder. So finding that differentiator has gotta be even more difficult in the online space, I'm sure.

I'm sure. No doubt. But we have I mean, we have we do things different. Can't tell all my secrets, but we do have things that that we think of that are not. Yeah.

Of course. Of course. So when somebody's looking at being an entrepreneur, going into self business, or even franchising, you know, there's one thing that you said, you wanna challenge people to be all they can be. Are there times where you've felt that challenge or felt that pressure and you've had to get out of your comfort zone? And and what are some lessons you learned from that?

Because I'm sure it wasn't all sunshine and roses the whole time you were building these organizations.

Are there times I'm uncomfortable? I'm uncomfortable every day. And I think that I think that's the key word is to if you do what you'd always did, you get what you ever got. So you have to do things that are different. You cannot be extraordinary without being uncomfortable.

You I mean, you cannot be extraordinary without suffering. So if you wanna be normal and avoid discomfort and do the same old same old, well, you can do that, and most and, unfortunately, most people do. More than half of the people do that. But if you wanna accomplish the be the greatest you can be and change the world and make it a better place and be be extraordinary than you. You said the keyword.

You have to be uncomfortable.

So what does that look like for somebody who says, I wanna do this. I feel like I can do this, but they're not quite in a leadership role. They might not be quite ready to go out on their own. What advice you give them to take those steps forward?

What we try to do with people that are in a decision making situation is we say, the least you should do is come and work in one of our branches for a week or two weeks. Take time off. Could be be all on weekends. It could be take a week or two off from work, but come and we will immerse you in we will immerse you in the we will you can you can try it. Try before you buy, and that will ensure that it fits with your comfort zone.

I mean, we had a person come to training. This is the first time that it ever happened to me that and I've been doing this for fifty five years. But a person came to train two months ago, and they were so scared that they went home and and sat in the closet. And, I mean, they were just petrified, and so we gave them their money back because the the prospect of being self employed was just so overwhelming. They just were, I mean, just horrified.

So, yeah, they put your toe in the water. Mhmm. Come and work with us. Come and work in the environment that you're seeking. I mean, we all can we all can spend some time exploring opportunities and explore the opportunity.

Yeah. Well, it it it it's not really a decision you can just make. Say, alright. I'm gonna be self employed tomorrow. It takes time.

So I I like that that determination of saying, hey. Just go dip your toe in the water. Try it out. Because you might try it out and say, you know what? This isn't for me.

I might need to do something else.

And probably half the time you will.

Yeah. Well and and your first everybody's first go doesn't become a, you know, half a million dollar organization either. It takes time to build things.

Yeah. Only 5 percent of the the country become millionaires. So, I mean, you gotta be in the top percentage of of people to but the good news is if you get to be part of a great franchise system, you have the tools because half of the half of the tools of making it is having a a excellent system. And the other half is peep

So you have the system, and then you have to hire people. So when somebody comes and has a franchise, do they, you know, buy into the franchise, and then did they hire the people after that? Like, how does that can you walk me through what that looks like?

Yeah. Almost always. Occasionally, people will come with a group of of employees already from some of their I mean, for example, someone that worked at at H and R Block had with had two other friends that worked at H and R Block. And so they acquire a tax franchise, and then the friends come along with them. So there's an occasion that but that's rare.

It's mostly just a single independent person or two that partner. Sometimes there's partners, and they'll come on board. But but bringing in employees probably only 5% of the time. Mhmm. Mhmm.

So you have to hire from scratch, which is a good thing in the sense that they don't have any bad habits. And I find that if we're doing things different and you've been doing things a different way, boy, that's it's really true about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure. And when you're hiring new people, you have a chance to start at the ground level building a good foundation for your or the franchise that you're a part of.

Right. And to understand your philosophy of exceeding customers' expectations. And, really, that's what this is all about. You know, one of my favorite authors, Stan Phillips, wrote a wrote a book on customers and the way you treat customers. And first of all, he said, no one arrives at a meeting exactly on time.

You're either early or late. So if the meeting's 06:00, you're there at 05:54 or 06:02 or almost no one comes in exactly at the strike of six. He said in the same manner, you don't meet customers' expectations. You either exceed them or fail to meet them. You rarely exactly meet their expectations.

So each owner has a level of exceeding customers' expectations that they strive for, and each employee responsibility is to understand that and help them get to that level.

So how what are some strategies to to kinda build that that culture within an organization? Say, hey. We're here to exceed their expectations every single time.

Yeah. I learned that. And Tom Watson senior said it founder IBM said it extremely well. He said, give me a hundred great engineers or give me a hundred people with great attitude. He said, I'll take the people with great attitude.

You can teach engineering. You can't teach attitude. And so when we look to hire new people, we don't look at their skills first. We look at their attitude and see if they'll fit in with the culture of our organization. And because different people have different different ideas of acceptable customer service.

I mean, I love doing this example. When I'm teaching a group, sometimes I'll say, I want you 10 right here to tell me if you went into a restaurant, how long and you went to the front desk, how long would it take and there was no one there, or, they were on the phone? How long would you be acceptable for before they would recognize you? You have to tell it in seconds, and you can't use round numbers like five or 10 or 20 or 30. And they'll give me 10 answers, and they're amazingly different.

Some people will wait five minutes, and they're not upset. Some people won't wait two seconds, and they're upset. So if that's the way they feel about being treated themselves, then that's how they're gonna treat customers. Mhmm. And so you hire for attitude, and you judge them on what's acceptable to them and the way that they wanna be treated.

And do they have just the highest level of expectation, or do they think, well, if the person gets around to me in five minutes, I'm fine with that. Then that's to me, that's not a great a great likely great customer service theater.

Well, that's not something I mean, I guess you it is something you can teach some people, but not everybody can be taught that, especially when it comes to customer service.

Exactly. There are some people that that you're just never gonna change and are gonna be complacent, and they just are rule followers. You know, I believe that principles are more important than rules. And and we set we make that clear in our companies. For example, one time, I had a rule.

I let the CFO make a rule that the franchisees could only call the departing, the accounting department and talk to an employee from two PM to 4PM. One of his new clerks, I mean, accounts payable clerk gets a call at 04:15, and somehow the franchisee had got through the switchboard and got to them past the magic 4PM. And she said, I can't oh, it's after four. I can't talk to you and hung up the phone. And that's that violates our principles, but she clearly put the silly rule above the customer.

And the principle is happy, successful franchisees. That does not make a happy, successful anything when you hang up the phone and then so there was repercussions for that that you need to most people or many people will fall back on rules to avoid offering exceptional service. And I'll tell you that the exceptional service in The United States has declined every year as long as I can remember since long before you were born. That every year, the the quality of service goes, down on average goes down and down and down. And I could speculate on

we could speculate on why that's happening, I'm sure, for a long time. But it's it is interesting, especially with the instant gratification that our society brings with with all the technology that we have. Everybody wants something right now. And it's it's a balance of principles versus rules versus just understanding that somebody has a different situation than you, and you should just take a breath before you blow up at them. And I think it's it's a and that's a that's a individual thing.

That's that's hard to teach. You have to learn that.

Yeah. It's it's frustrating to me to be you know, I had one girl that that I dated a long time ago, and she would frequently send the meal back when she got it. It was too hot, done incorrectly, dirty, plagued. I mean, she and and or she would complain. And I said, I'm not gonna put up with your complaints.

It makes me uncomfortable. So let's say that they that you did they served you something you didn't like, then just ask them for another dish or another version and don't complain about it. Just let it go. I mean, let's say that she didn't like the fish. Well, then instead of complaining about it and whining about it, just say I'd like a steak and get a steak.

I'll pay for the I'd rather pay for the the extra fish than make a scene in a restaurant. That's so uncomfortable for me. And I would I pick. I choose to define my support of a of a business by my by footsteps. So if I get bad service, I'm just not going back.

I mean, I will I will. I'm not gonna and I I'm not gonna complain to someone who's just the clerk. I mean, it's just the waitress or the or the maitre d'. I mean, they have no power. Why am I I mean and I'm bothering everyone around me, and it's just that I I mean, the waitress didn't cook the food, and you're why are you why are you making that?

So that I feel that very I feel very uncomfortable about that. And but some people love doing that. They love they love teaching teaching businesses a lesson.

John, I think this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on the Count Me In podcast and just sharing a little bit of your knowledge and a little bit of your wisdom with our audience, and I just, you know, thank you again so much for coming on.

It was a great pleasure, Adam. Thank you.

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.