James Webb With Paradigm Development Holdings, LLC

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have James Webb, author of the book Redneck Resilience A Country Boy’s Journey to Prosperity. Welcome, James.

James Webb: [00:00:29] Martin Lee, how are you, sir?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:30] I am doing well. I am so excited to talk about your book. How did it come about?

James Webb: [00:00:36] You know, it’s one of those things where you go through life and you have a pretty crazy life, and people start telling you, hey, you should write a book. You should write a book. And finally, I did and had a lot of fun doing it and had a lot of help with it.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:49] Your story is kind of a I don’t know what to say typical, but it’s kind of what the American Dream used to be. At some point. There are people believe that it was possible to kind of live the life that that you’ve lived. Can you talk a little bit about your back story and, and how, you know, your upbringing kind of led you to this entrepreneurial life?

James Webb: [00:01:10] Sure I’d be happy to do that. So I was born in a little town called Laurel, Mississippi, to two, uh, 17 year old parents who got a little too friendly, too early in life. And, um, but they married, stuck together. My dad became an electrical apprentice. We lived in a little shop behind their big shop, uh, in this little town. And, uh, about five years of age, I sort of figured out that if I wanted anything other than food on the table and love from my parents, I had to work and do it myself. So I started working at five years of age, making potholders and selling them at the local bazaars and potholders led to, uh, mowing lawns and mowing lawns led to. Newspaper route. Newspaper route led to working at the local printing shop, where I worked full time through high school and became the senior pressman. But by the time I was a senior in high school. That sort of faced with the what the heck am I going to do next? Because in the little town you worked at the masonite plant. Uh, or you went into the oil field business. And, uh, fortunately, I got a little scholarship at the local junior college. And, uh, one day saw a sign and said, I want to be an X-ray tech. Call this number. And I thought. That’s a two year program. Why not become an x ray tech? And that’s exactly what I did. And that’s essentially how my career started.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:33] So then once you became an x ray tech, you kind of put your entrepreneurial, um, kind of, uh, upbringing aside and then pursued that and worked in kind of, uh, in that world and that industry for a while.

James Webb: [00:02:48] Yeah I did. I sort of took to the career path, um, and worked the night shift and went back to college and got my bachelor’s degree. And then, uh, on a true story on a flip of a coin. Had to go to Atlanta, Tesla, go to Dallas. Um, I packed up, as I called it, then my pick em up truck and a bass boat. And I moved to Dallas, Texas when I was about 22 years old, slept in a Duncanville mall parking lot for three nights trying to figure out what the heck I just done, and ultimately ended up, uh, in Lewisville, Texas and three months there as a technologist. I was named director of radiology, the youngest of the United States, at 24 years of age. Uh, and so I decided to go back to school and get my master’s degree because I, again, following my career path, thought I wanted to be a hospital administrator. Uh, finished my master’s degree, and then this thing called MRI was born, and I got dragged into that industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:52] And which wasn’t a terrible thing that turned out to be a.

James Webb: [00:03:57] It was new industry. Uh, it was back in the days when we we put them in trucks and drove them from hospital to hospital. Uh, we created, um, the second largest in the US company with 53 trucks. And, uh, had one of those crazy moments. I was about 30 years old at the time, sitting in a big office in Dallas, Texas, with about 300 employees, thinking, um, you know what? And the phone rings and they say, Mr. Webb, uh, we sold the company. And since you have no equity, uh, your desk needs to be empty. You are terminated. Uh, completely caught me by surprise. And that’s really what got me thinking about how hard I’d worked. And I’d done all that work for others, and that began to set me back on the entrepreneurial thinking path.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:46] And then so when that happened, um, but obviously at this point it’s different than when you were younger and you were, um, I guess, less financially stable, younger. It was very kind of, uh, you know, scratching out a living type of, uh, world for you. And then now you’re in a point where I would assume you were more financially stable. You had more choices at this point.

James Webb: [00:05:12] Yeah. I was still, uh, at that point, uh, kind of known in the radiology world at that point. So I had a job within a couple of days, but it was in Atlanta. So I packed up a family, moved to Atlanta, uh, unfortunately went through a divorce and got recruited to Boca Raton, Florida, to be president of a company down there that had, uh, 15 medical imaging centers. And that’s really when I transitioned into the outpatient medical imaging world. Uh, stayed in Boca. Finally bought a house there, I guess, when I was about 35. Uh, and then one day, the doctor asked me if I’d be interested in having the company bring the MRI to Latin America and the Caribbean. And I thought, no, the company will not, but I will. And so I quit my job and started traveling the world and trying to figure out how to raise the money to, to put an MRI machine in Trinidad and Tobago. And I did. And Trinidad Tobago led to. The Bahamas, which led to Honduras, which led to Nicaragua, which was a crazy part of my story. Uh, and did that for about three years. Now begin making an okay living. And then, um, I always tell the story about Nicaragua, which sort of set the stage for my real move in entrepreneurship. I was, um. Trying to save the location. I’d been there 53 times over three years trying to save that particular location, and I met with the Sandinista soldiers, which was was quite an experience. Uh, dealt with a riot in the middle of the streets carrying a sawed off shotgun with a bodyguard, and at that point had a young child and thought, you know, this is getting a little crazy. I need to probably sell this company and find something back in the States. Unfortunately, I was able to sell it and, um, came back to the States. Took a breath. It’s been about a year of consulting and then, uh, headed to back to Dallas, Texas, to start a new company.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:15] And then at what point did you get into franchising?

James Webb: [00:07:20] So franchises became really quite a lot later than I did. I’ll finish the quick history of the company. We started a radiology outpatient imaging company. We built the became the largest in the state of Texas. Over the next ten years, we built a pain management company with surgery centers and became the largest in the state of Texas doing that. Uh, 2017. Sold all of that off. Uh, in 2013. Uh, the sadder part of my story is I lost my wife to pancreatic cancer in 2012 and was raising two little boys on my own and decided that a guy with a wallet, so to speak, that lived a block from Jerry Jones probably shouldn’t do the bar scene and probably was susceptible to drama. So I, um, started dating a young lady I met on Match.com, and we ultimately became a couple and three years later married. But she’s the one that actually found Orange Theory fitness. And I had not been involved in the franchise world until then. And we bought some locations in Dallas and then eventually bought the territory. Uh, and ultimately became their largest franchisee with 33 gyms, uh, spread across North Texas. With some partners. And, um, we had one of those crazy lucky business moments where we exited on December 9th of 2019, about three months before Covid hit. I had to exit. Bland did not have Covid bland. Uh, and so that’s really when I got heavily involved in the franchise world.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:00] So now what did you what are kind of the lessons in as a young person? And you were, you know, kind of doing just almost random, uh, entrepreneurial things. You were working for yourself, but you were working, um, probably very hard work. And then you get to a point where now you’re in a corporate setting and that’s a different kind of hard work. Um, and then you’re you do take an entrepreneurial path to start your own companies and seeing the opportunities within that industry that, again, is is a different kind of hard work. And now franchising is a different chapter. But it’s, um, it’s all a variety of working for yourself. I mean, even your corporate stint laid the groundwork for you to work for yourself. But now in the franchise world, this seems like a different type of industry altogether.

James Webb: [00:09:53] It absolutely was. It was interesting because, you know, we were the franchisee, not the franchisor. And so as a franchisee, whether you believe it or not, you actually have a boss. Uh, they’re called the franchisor. They set the rules. They set the guidelines. They provide the support you need to help you be successful. But it’s still your business and you still have to run it. Um, and I learned a lot through that process. Uh, one being don’t buy a franchise, buy a territory. That’s probably the number one lesson I learned. Um. But I didn’t want to be a mom and pop. I didn’t want one. Orangetheory fitness. I wanted 33 orange two fitness. And to do that, you have sort of secured territory, the secure territory. You really need to be more involved with a startup or a younger franchise. And at that time, Orange Theory was at only 90 gyms and most of them in Florida. And now they have over 2600, I think. Uh, so, yeah. Five territory. Nada. Nada. Not a franchise is my number one recommendation when it comes to franchising.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:01] But how did let’s pause that for one second? Now, when you’re going kind of you’re you’re saying, let’s if you’re going to do this, don’t dabble, go all in. How did did you look at lots of different franchises and then went all in in Orange Theory, or was this just kind of happenstance that your spouse found Orange Theory and you’re like, oh, this is kind of cool. Let me see what the opportunities are. Oh, it seems to be, you know, emerging, growing franchise. Let me go all in. Like, how did that come about? Did you vet several and land on Orange Theory or did it just kind of organically happen?

James Webb: [00:11:33] The answer was organically happening. It was from a dinner in South Florida with some friends, and somebody said, if if you ever heard of Orange Theory Fitness and I won’t use the language I use, but I said, heck no, what is that? And, uh, they told me. And so I took the class and in Boca Raton, Florida, back visiting friends. Uh, and what caught my attention was not so much the class, which was cool, but the trainer caught my attention. And I’ve always said this, this trainer bled orange, and, uh, really got me motivated about digging into this thing deeper and deeper. Uh, and then once we got into it, we couldn’t build them fast enough. I mean, it was nuts. It was a situation of just being right time, right place, right company. Uh, but no due diligence other than making sure they were legit. And they were.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:26] Now, once you’re in Texas and you start cranking out these orange theories and you get to 33, you sell, you exit. Was that kind of the end of your franchising adventure? Or were you said, hey, you know what, maybe I should be a franchise or I like that side of the table better.

James Webb: [00:12:43] Yeah. So I did want to be a franchisor. That wasn’t the place I was at in life. I had cashed out at this point, and I didn’t really talk about a lot of the other companies we built along the way, but they all sort of supported outpatient imaging and pain management. Um, ultimately built 17 companies, sold eight of them. So from a financial perspective, uh, going forward, it was what could I do for my family? And so my son in law and I started looking at franchises and settled on one that, um, hasn’t turned out to be the best yet, but it’s still going okay. Uh, and then we started looking at a second franchise group, and this one was actually, um, the chairman of Orangetheory Fitness was their number one investor. It had nothing to do with fitness was in the dog health, wellness and grooming space. And so in the case of the first one, it was a female weight loss, uh, franchise. And we bought most of the rights of Texas. Uh, and then the case of Scenthound is the name of the company. Uh, we bought five territories, uh, in the Dallas market for a total of 25 stores. And we’re in the process now of doing that. And my my thought process is a lot different now than it used to be. It used to be make enough money to put food on the table. It used to be make enough money to put some money in the stock exchange. And with my, you know, money manager guy. And now I look at it a little bit different. It’s bigger. It’s about the family. It’s about how can we enhance, uh, what I leave them. And so we hope to do 25 stores, pack it up. Private equity will be hot for that kind of product. And. Sell it off again.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] So now when you look back at your life and you look at the beginnings, what, uh, kind of are the key moments that got you to new levels? Do you have you thought about that in terms of legacy, in terms of lessons learned in how you were able to go from where you started to where you are today?

James Webb: [00:14:52] Yeah, there’s one kilo store. My my dad, when I was a teenager, decided to start his own air conditioning service company. Uh, so he became an entrepreneur. Uh, in about two years later, the IRS walked through the door and took all his assets because his accountant had been skimming money off the table and not paying taxes. Uh, and I watched my family lose everything, and I watched my dad put on his work hat and go back to work and repaid every penny he’d ever, uh, not paid the IRS and paid every vendor every penny they were owed. Uh, it really taught me a hard core lesson in resilience. And that’s really where the book came from, of just going back, sticking to it. Watch my mom as a young mom with three children and go back to college, uh, own her own, found a way to pay the bills, worked at Sears and Roebuck, things like that, but became a nurse practitioner. So she did fine in life. So you learned a lot of lessons from my parents. Um. You know that various forms of tragedies that we dealt with along the way. Um, we had our house catch on fire and burned to the ground, so we lost everything at one point. Had to start over another time. So just those kind of lessons teach you that when you get knocked down, get back up. If you get knocked down again, get back up, find a different direction, continue to move forward. And you know, I’m 64 years of age now and have no no plans on stopping now.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:28] One of my favorite books is called The Obstacle Is the Way. Um, the meaning that the obstacles aren’t there to sabotage you. They’re not there to, um, you know, make you quit. They’re there. They’re just part of the journey. And obstacles are not things that you can necessarily avoid. You just have to figure out ways to go around them or over them or under them. Um, when you had those kind of points of, uh, challenges that were happening, how where did you get kind of the strength and the resilience to kind of just keep moving?

James Webb: [00:17:02] And I don’t know. You know, it’s a good question. I think part of it is genetics. It has to be part of it’s growing up, the life you grew up with, with a family that loved you. But love is all they had and everything else you had to get on your own. So if I wanted it, I had to do it. And it just became sort of a a mindset that I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to stop.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:27] Now. I mean that that’s a mindset. That’s that somewhere was born into you. But there’s a lot of folks out there that, you know, the first sign of struggle, they’re pulling the ripcord and calling it a day and saying, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

James Webb: [00:17:43] Yes. I mean, we do see that and I sort of talk about in the book and really the important things of being an entrepreneur. And, you know, number one is relationships. Relationships will define and will determine your success and whether that be with partners, whether that be with your vendors, whether that be with your employees, even your competitors. Developing strong relationships is critical. Uh, and the other thing I found interesting, which is not so much in the today’s culture, but it was in my culture, which is, you know, I wanted to work harder than anybody else. If it was time to go home, I would make one more phone call. If it was time to to leave the shop, I would send everybody home and I would stay so they would see me working. Uh, and to do that, you need a supportive family, which I had. And, uh, it was always just work, work, work, work. Keep my head down. And now, you know, you have a different kind of work at this point in my life. My work is zoom calls and. Cell phone calls and things like that. But in those days it was 12 hour days, six, seven days a week.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:55] Now, um, how has the franchising world different? Um, now that your franchisor in a couple areas is that or do you is it a similar process to get new franchisees, or is the mindset the same for a potential franchisee?

James Webb: [00:19:12] I’m not a franchisor. I’m still a franchisee.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:15] Oh, I thought you were part. I thought you took a leadership position in those or you just took over.

James Webb: [00:19:21] We did territorial, so we were we were area managers. And so we have a territory that we we can sell franchises out of that territory if we wanted to. Um, I chose not to, uh, from a mathematical perspective, it didn’t make sense to me. Why would I sell someone a franchise in my territory, uh, for $45,000 and get 6% royalties when I could own the whole thing? Again, planning an exit strategy, something I talk about a lot, which is when you start a business, it’s a bd b a b, c, d e for exit. I’m already thinking about the exit before I start the business and how do I get it there, and how do I get it to a level that’s attractive for people? So yes, we could have sold franchises. Uh, but we have not and did not. We just were the area manager for a franchise or so.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:16] Then your your the way that you like to play in the franchise world is to take over a territory or an area and grow it and then sell it.

James Webb: [00:20:28] That’s that’s correct. And what I noticed and learned too, also is some people did the opposite. They, you know, had the territory, they might have had 1 or 2 stores and then they they sold off 20 franchises to 20 different people. Uh, and from a management perspective, it was a management nightmare because you had to go manage and make sure they were following the franchise or rules. We didn’t have that problem. We owned our own. We had our own internal, uh, quality control folks. And, um, again, just about keeping it together, building it, finding the right way to exit. And there’s nothing for the record, there’s nothing magical about exit. You can keep it and turn it into what I call a cash cow. Keep it forever. And there’s nothing wrong with that process. I know people that have done that in businesses and passed them on to their children. Uh, that just wasn’t my model.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:24] Now. What’s next for you? What, uh, what do you got on the roadmap?

James Webb: [00:21:30] Yeah. Right now we’re doing, uh, um, uh, the scent hound. So we just started that last year. We’ve got our fifth store opening, uh, in October, and then we’ll take a little break, uh, because the thing I believe in is OPM other people’s money. So we borrow a lot of our money to build these things. And so we got to pay it down. Pay down debt. Why that pay down comes from when you exit. And then I think, um. I don’t know what next is. Kind of depends on what what direction my children go. I’ve got one son works international on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So he’s he’s a bit in the wild world. And I’ve got was about to go to law school and I’ve got three daughters making babies. Um, grandchild number six just came around. So I’m just kind of going to, you know, buy our time and seeing what will be next. But I do like the franchise world. So it would be more than likely, I would suspect, in a couple of years. Looking at and seeing what’s the new hottest thing out there?

Lee Kantor: [00:22:36] And, uh, if somebody wants to, uh, get the book or learn more about your work, what is the best way to connect with you?

James Webb: [00:22:44] Yeah. Maids on Amazon. We made Amazon bestseller list three times, so that was nice. So you can find it on Amazon. You can also go to my website. James Harold web com tells my story that has all my articles and podcasts and things that we do. Um. So, you know, again, the book has just been a lot of fun. I learned a long time ago, you don’t make money with a book unless you’re a celebrity. So I’m just having a lot of fun with it and having the pleasure and opportunity to talk to people like you about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:17] And then your advice for anybody in franchising is go for the territory, not a franchise.

James Webb: [00:23:24] Yeah, a lot lot. Lockdown of territory. And people are surprised that you can actually negotiate a lot with franchisors. In our case, we bought three franchises, but then we just put a small deposit down on our three territories. Excuse me. And then we put a deposit down on two other territories and then we set goals. If we meet these goals for these three territories, then we get the other two territories. So we just set up a pathway. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:51] So that wasn’t maybe on the rate card that they showed you, but that was you able to negotiate based on your success.

James Webb: [00:23:59] Yeah. I think in fairness and transparency, you know, they knew my history, knew my background. And so it was easier to have those kind of conversations with the executives because, look, I’ll do this, but I want a, b, c, d e. And for the most part I got it.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:15] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

James Webb: [00:24:22] I appreciate you having me on your show. And, uh, best to everyone out there. And good luck to all the young entrepreneurs.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:27] All right. That was James Harold Webb. You can, uh, learn more about him at James Harold Web.com and get a hold of his book, Redneck Resilience A Country Boy’s Journey to Prosperity this Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.