How to 20X Your Income with Super Successful Domino’s Pizza Franchise Owner Eddie Hall

Audio Transcription

Clay:
[inaudible 00:00:00] on today’s show. This is the most excited I have been to do an interview, I’m going to go with in a year. A year. I’m going to say a year. Wes, I’m going on the record. This is the most excited I’ve been in about a year.

Wes:
That’s pretty impressive. Whoa.

Clay:
We interviewed Sharon Lechter, who wrote the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. That was… ooh, that was good. That was good. But this is so practical. If you’re listening right now today, and you need tactical, practical skills to pay the bills, if you want to create time freedom, I want you to do is I want you to turn to the person next to you in the car who’s listening right now with you, and kind of go, “Shh shhh shhh.” I want you to “Shhh.” Whenever you shush someone you feel bad, so let me shush them for you. You just look at them and I’ll shush them. “Shhhh.”

Clay:
Then I need you to pull over maybe, get out a pen and pad, because we are going to enter in to the [inaudible 00:00:51] of mojo fo’ sho’. On today’s show, we have these super successful Domino’s Pizza franchise owner, Eddie Hall. Eddie Hall, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

Eddie Hall:
Doing good. Thanks for having me.

Clay:
Oh, man, I am excited that you are here. I’m sorry, I misplaced the microphone, but it’s closer to you now. Are you feeling good today?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, I’m short, sorry.

Clay:
Okay, now you started your career with Domino’s, I believe, in 1999. Is that correct?

Eddie Hall:
I started in ’92.

Clay:
’92.

Eddie Hall:
First franchise in ’99, yes.

Clay:
How old were you in ’92?

Eddie Hall:
’92 I was 18.

Clay:
18?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
And how did you get the money to start this first franchise?

Eddie Hall:
So first franchise in ’99, I was actually 25.

Clay:
25.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, to get that money, I actually partnered up with another supervisor that I was working with in Dallas. And his dad had $100,000 working capital to invest in us, and then we took our savings that we had over the seven years that I worked at Domino’s in Dallas, and-

Clay:
Did you start off as a driver, Domino’s driver?

Eddie Hall:
I actually started… 95% of franchisees start as a driver. I actually started my first day as a manager in training, but did the first four weeks of delivering pizzas, so yes and no.

Wes:
Awesome.

Clay:
Go back if you can, mentally back to the age of 18. Where was this Domino’s located?

Eddie Hall:
It was in Richardson, Texas.

Clay:
Richardson, Texas.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
How many people were working in the store?

Eddie Hall:
So, this store wasn’t a super high volume store. There was probably about 15 people.

Clay:
Employees?

Eddie Hall:
Employees, yeah.

Clay:
18 year old version of yourself, being totally transparent here, were you an idiot at the age of 18?

Eddie Hall:
Definitely. I was a punk kid, idiot.

Clay:
A punk. Yeah. Then when did you realize wow, I can escape the dark pole of jackassery and not be an idiot, when did you have that first thought?

Eddie Hall:
So working in the stores, I was still that punk kid for probably about six to eight months. I was pretty mature at the time. I had left my wife in El Paso when I knew I wanted to become a manager. I was going to come out there, work hard, become a manager, then move back and marry her and move her to Dallas.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
So I worked that pretty hard. It was my supervisor came in one day and said, “You can’t be these people’s friends anymore. You got to be a leader.”

Clay:
Come on.

Eddie Hall:
Yes, [crosstalk 00:03:08].

Clay:
And how old were you at that time, when he had that conversation with you?

Eddie Hall:
I was probably 18-1/2, almost 19.

Clay:
Okay, and so you remember it, though.

Eddie Hall:
Oh, definitely, 100%.

Clay:
What was his name?

Eddie Hall:
Mark Frisbee. He was my mentor.

Clay:
Dude named Mark Frisbee changed your life?

Eddie Hall:
Definitely, 100%. Yeah.

Clay:
Is he alive?

Eddie Hall:
He is.

Clay:
Where does he live?

Eddie Hall:
He’s in McKinney, Texas.

Clay:
If you’re out there today and you live in the McKinney, Texas area and you see a Mark Frisbee, tell him he changed somebody’s life. I’m telling you, this is so powerful. Some people say, “Clay, who were your mentors, or who was your mentor?” I’m a guy, who I really, really like to read books from people that have figured it out. So whenever I’m stuck, I just read a book. Or I’ll relentless harass people, but I’ve had so many great mentors, and I’m just telling you, when you have somebody that unlocks your success, it’s just powerful when somebody points you in the right direction. So he kind of straightened you out.

Eddie Hall:
For sure, and I still talk to him today. In fact, I talked to him on Thursday.

Clay:
Cool.

Eddie Hall:
I’ll call him and I’ll fill up a notebook full of notes, just old school stuff. I just love talking to him.

Clay:
What kind of morons were you hanging out with? I’m not asking you to name specific names, but what kind of jackassery were these people involved in where you said, “You just can’t be around anymore”?

Eddie Hall:
You name it. You name it, we were doing it. I mean, just again, I was a little bit more mature. I already had a wife and kid, and so, at a young age. So I kind of had to provide for them.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
But yeah, friends at that age are always wanted to party and drink, and go out all that kind of stuff. I just wasn’t doing that.

Clay:
So then you got it together, and how old were you, you had the money? Your friend’s dad, he invested in you and the money you had saved, how old were you when you pulled the trigger and bought that first one?

Eddie Hall:
25.

Clay:
25.

Eddie Hall:
Yup.

Clay:
How much money did you save in your bank account on your own during those seven years?

Eddie Hall:
It wasn’t a lot. We started off with about 15 grand of my own money, yeah.

Clay:
15 grand saved over about 7 years working at Domino’s.

Eddie Hall:
Yup.

Clay:
The first store, when you got that first store of your own, do you remember that store?

Eddie Hall:
It was actually four stores. We bought four at the same time.

Clay:
Do you remember all four of those stores?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, they were here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yes.

Clay:
Where were they?

Eddie Hall:
71st and Sheridan, 26th and Harvard, Gilcrease and Edison, and 91st and Delaware.

Clay:
Let’s talk about it, making pizzas. Make pizzas, people will eat pizzas. People want pizzas. You sell pizzas. People spiritualize success. They always come to me all the time. I get frustrated. If you’re listening out there today and you attend church, please understand that words that coming out of my mouth, if you sow seeds and you water the seeds, and you live in an area where the temperature’s the right type of temperature, the soil’s the right kind of soil, you can grow corn. You can. Heathens can grow corn. Christians can grow corn. Atheists are growing corn.

Clay:
On the Forbes billionaire list right now there are so many really awful people who are on the list, and great people. There’s so many great people, and bad people. Money just magnifies. But when you say that because you believe in the Bible that God’s going to bless your business, that’s not the case if people don’t want the crap you’re selling.

Clay:
So it turns out, people in America want pizza. I don’t know if you’ve spiritualized this idea, but people want pizza, and pizza that tastes good. And people I know, eat Domino’s pizza, because they like the pizza. But there’s so many people running around like, “What’s my niche? I don’t know my niche. Don’t know my… how can I find my niche?”

Clay:
And I’m going, “Hey, listen…” I say this all the time, that’s why I’m so excited to interview. I say, “If you don’t know what you want to do, sell freaking pizza.” They go, “What?” I go, “Listen, Americans want to gain weight. We want to gain weight. We want to eat the carbs. We want to. We know we should be carb free, but we don’t care. We want pizza.”

Wes:
Pizza and tacos.

Clay:
Pizza, yeah. We’re taking the kids home from soccer practice, and we’re all going, “Do you guys want to get some pizza, or pizza?” Every time. “Dad, didn’t you just start Jenny Craig last week?” “Oh yeah, yeah, but let’s get some pizza.” That’s what we’re doing. So, help somebody out there who maybe is adverse to franchising, because they say, “But I don’t like pizza,” or “I’m not a big fan of carpet cleaning,” because I know so many people that are making tons of money in franchising cleaning carpets, who don’t even like carpet, who don’t even have carpet in their house. Help somebody out there that’s stuck on that idea.

Eddie Hall:
So, I actually, probably about five years into my career, I decided that I wanted my own pizza place. I was like, man, I want to open my own pizza place. I started looking at the cost and marketing, and all that kind of stuff. I said, “You know what?” I kind of slapped myself in the face. I said, “Why don’t I do what I know and open a Domino’s Pizza and franchise?” So that’s when I started pursuing that. I mean the thing about a franchisor, or the franchise system, is that everything, if it’s a good one, everything is provided for you. You don’t have to figure all that stuff out.

Eddie Hall:
When I went to my first training class at Domino’s as a franchisee, they said, “You’re a pizza maker. You hire a lawyer, you hire marketing person, you let us figure out the systems and you just go make pizzas and make a lot of money.”

Clay:
Oh yes.

Eddie Hall:
So that’s a big deal in the franchise system is, hopefully that stuff’s already put together for you.

Clay:
I love this, and Josh and I were talking the other day. We had a great… I don’t know if Josh, if you picked up on this, if you… what you said was super deep, but you might not have felt it. Josh, you said, “Well, Clay, as it relates to business, I know you know what you’re doing. So if you say to do it, I’m just going to do it. The rest of life I’m not going to ask you for tips on necessarily, but business…” That’s what a franchise is. You buy a system that works, and you work the system. But Josh, can you explain this? Because you own your own company, and you come to us, not for life advice, but for specifically, how do I grow a business?

Josh:
Yes, sir.

Clay:
Can you explain that coachable mindset, because somebody out there’s just got to get that in their cranium.

Josh:
Well, I think for a lot of our listeners out there… a lot of other people, not our listeners, not our listeners, but other people that listen to other shows in North Korea…

Clay:
Other listeners. [crosstalk 00:09:14].

Josh:
… think that they have all the answers already, or think that they’re mapping to a goal of being a millionaire. You know how everybody says, “Ah, I’m going to make a million by the time I’m 30?”

Clay:
Oh. Yup.

Josh:
But their actions map to the club at Friday at 2:00 in the morning. So, what I would say in that is find somebody who’s been there, somebody who’s done it, somebody like Eddie, or somebody like Steve [inaudible 00:09:33] or Clay, or Wes, or whomever. Find somebody who’s already been to the mountain top, who’s already gotten to where you want to be, and then shut up and listen to them.

Josh:
I get a chance to talk to some people and I just say I… and I told you when we were talking about that the other day. I was talking to a young man that we get to speak to. And I said, “You know, when I sit in the room with Clay, he gives me three things to do. I walk away and do those three things.” I’ve never said, “Well Clay, I just don’t think that’s going to work in my business. Hey, I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

Clay:
And real quick, I want to make sure listeners understand this. I cite everything I say in the meeting. So I’m always going to pull up a case study, or a stat, or a fact. I’m never like, “I think this might work.” When you wanted to name your company Living Water, I was not present at that meeting.

Josh:
No, sir.

Clay:
If you would have said, “How should I name my company?” I’d say, “Name it something memorable.” You might say, “Living Water,” and I would say to you then, “Okay, you’re going to irritate people that are not Christian’s probably, and you’re going to win over Christians. Are you okay with that?” Cool. Move on.

Clay:
But again, I just… Reid Hoffman, Reid Hoffman who couldn’t be here today, because he’s kind of a big deal. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn says, “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” Sounds like Josh Wilson. Wes, people such as myself hire you for legal advice.

Wes:
Yup.

Clay:
What happens when someone hires you for legal advice, and does the opposite? I refer to these people as ask-holes. They ask a question and then they take the knowledge and dump it into a hole and do the opposite.

Wes:
You have to make sure you pause on that K.

Clay:
Ask-hole.

Wes:
I mean personally it’s annoying. It’s just, you know. It’s hard to understand. You’re paying me…

Clay:
Why are you calling me?

Wes:
… $350 an hour to give you the right answer, and then you’re going to go do the exact opposite. So, you’re going to pay me $350 either way, and you’re probably going to end up paying me more, because now you’re going to screw it up, because you’re not listening. So if you don’t think I have the answer, don’t hire me. If you’re going to ignore everything that I tell you as far as the right way to handle a situation… and again, I’m not going to give you advice on things I don’t know about. You come to me for my legal advice.

Wes:
Some people just, they think they have a better way, or they think that they’re going to be unique, and the 900 cases before them don’t apply, that they’re in a unique position and they’re going to…

Clay:
Yes, ah I’m out the outlier, baby.

Wes:
… reinvent something.

Clay:
I’m going to Mars.

Wes:
… that’s going to change.

Clay:
I’m going to live there, and sell pizza.

Wes:
The entire world is going to bow down when they come out with this grand idea. So, I think people do that in the business world, too, though. They don’t want to take an established, proven system, or a product. They want to be unique. They want to find a unicorn. They want to do something special. I think that leads a lot of people to poverty.

Clay:
Now, doing something special. Eddie, you drive special cars, I think.

Eddie Hall:
I think so, yeah.

Clay:
What are some of the cars you have that are special? Because again, someone might say, “You’re not special, because you’re just selling pizzas.” People like to minimize franchisees. I see this all the time. Have you ever had this happen to you, where people are creative, highbrowed, educated people, they’re like, “You just sell freaking pizza, right?” Do you drive special cars?

Eddie Hall:
I do.

Clay:
What are some special cars?

Eddie Hall:
I have a GT3 RS. I have a Porsche Turbo. I have an ’81 white body that we just finished.

Clay:
Those are special cars.

Eddie Hall:
Pretty special, yeah. I like them.

Clay:
But what happens is somebody could be out there coming up with that special, unique business model that never works, and then they get to live a special way, called homelessness.

Wes:
I’m going to do a pizza/latte store.

Josh:
Ooh, slash neon sign.

Wes:
With local art that we sell on the side.

Clay:
That’s right. You see this all the time. And then you know your life has really fallen off the wagon when you independently sell pinion wood two to five days a week. You know that’s when the life has fallen off the wagon. Have you seen these stores where they’re open two to five days a week? They have little signs up that say we might be open or might not.

Eddie Hall:
Might have wood.

Clay:
Might have wood. There it is. Okay, so now you got the funding. You put in your money, as well as this other gentleman’s money. How did you guys split profits? Did you agree 50/50, was it 30/30/30, was it-

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so we structured the company… there always has to be a 51% franchisee in the franchise system.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
So, Mike Higgins, which was my partner, he took on the 51%, and then me and his dad split the rest. But we did a 50/50 split on the profits. I was the operational guy in the system, so I kind of ran the operations when we first came out there. We were also in the middle of a sell, so we flipped those stores really quick. We bought them in August ’99, flipped the in January of 2000. So there wasn’t a whole lot to do when we first took them over. It was after that when I stayed on with that guy that we did more here in the Tulsa area.

Clay:
Now Dr. Z, who’s not involved in franchising, he always says you have to have a 51% person or he won’t get into the business. Why did it require a 51% partner in the world of franchising?

Eddie Hall:
Well, in Domino’s case it’s so they can protect the brand. They got to make sure that somebody’s in charge, somebody’s making the decisions, and somebody’s working the business. In fact, Domino’s doesn’t even allow you to do other businesses.

Clay:
Sweet.

Eddie Hall:
You can’t be a Domino’s franchisee and own a Burger King.

Clay:
So how many Domino’s do you have now? How many do you own?

Eddie Hall:
We have 17, with three more on the way.

Clay:
17 with three more on the way?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
Now, if you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine, but I want to know. I’m going to ask you, and if you say no, I’ll just come back again a different way. I’m just kidding. For the elephant in the room, when someone cuts their hair, when we cut someone’s hair, the average ticket price is $42.00. And we’re going to make about 20% margin as a company, about $8.50 per cut average. I pay myself two of those dollars.

Clay:
When I get a pizza at Domino’s, which we’ve done, I get a pizza at Domino’s and we get a extra large or something. Say it’s about 20 bucks for an extra large-ish.

Eddie Hall:
Sure. Yeah, close enough.

Clay:
There are socialists that peek on this show sometimes. Then there’s people out there that, see there are people who are not capitalists.

Wes:
They don’t stay very long.

Clay:
They’re in the Edmonton region up there, and they’re laying on the railroad tracks blocking shipments up there in Canada.

Josh:
Is this question ethical?

Clay:
Yeah, they’re in skid row out there in LA. They’re living in their mom’s basement. They’re at the medical marijuana store where the only thing they need pot for is not medical reasons. They’re there. And they’re going, “He’s going to ask, isn’t he?” Do you make a profit?

Eddie Hall:
Yes, we do.

Clay:
Okay, the cat’s out of the bag. Now, do you guys try to stick in the 10%, 20% range? Is there a certain range, 40%, what do you do?

Eddie Hall:
We run about 15% cashflow.

Clay:
15%.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, and each store is different. My higher volume stores, of course with great operations can run up to 25% cashflow EBIDTA.

Clay:
Again, let’s talk about this. So if I buy a pizza for 20 bucks, you are getting… if the pizza’s good, I’m happy, I’d pay that kind of thing. You’re going to make about 3 bucks?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, 3 or 4 bucks.

Clay:
You got to sell a lot of $3.00 to make a lot of money, don’t you?

Eddie Hall:
A lot of them, yup.

Clay:
How many pizzas do you sell in a month?

Eddie Hall:
We’ll do about 20 million this year in sales out of those stores.

Clay:
Did you say 20 million?

Eddie Hall:
20 million, yeah.

Clay:
Of pizzas?

Eddie Hall:
Yup.

Wes:
That’s a lot of Domino’s.

Josh:
Simple math seems like that’s about a million pizzas. That’s a lot of pizza.

Clay:
I feel like Bernie Sanders is mad right now, because Bernie wants people to be able to make money selling feelings, and the fact that you were born here, he wants to be able to monetize the fact that like, I’m somebody, too. Or I have a degree. But at the end of the day, I’m just trying to make sure you get this, if you want to make millions, sell pizza. Because Americans want to get fat. Write that down.

Clay:
Now this is another deep thought, another tip for you. Years ago I worked with a fitness company, and they used to send people text messages that would remind you and say… And they’d never send it to you, Eddie, by the way, but they would send it to people. They would say, “Eddie, you haven’t been here in two days.” Because they have a swipe card and they know if you’ve been to workout or not. They send you a text that says, “We haven’t seen you in two days. Come see us at this yada yada gym.”

Clay:
I told my client, I said, “Listen, I’ve worked with major big box gyms now on four occasions. Do not do that.” They’re like, “No, no, we want to do it.” “But listen, I’m telling you this, if you send people text message reminders, they will cancel as a way to say thank you.” Seriously. But people want to have pizza parties at the gym where it’s judgment free. So you need to put fit people on the billboards, serve pizza in the gym. That’s a move.

Eddie Hall:
I was going to say, the texts work for pizza.

Clay:
Oh my gosh.

Eddie Hall:
Reminding you you haven’t ordered today.

Clay:
So again, but in the franchise world, the text message, the texts say something like, “Are you hungry,” or something. In your office… I’m sure you’re the one who does this. You are fattening my office up, which is good, because winter’s coming. But you send a text, I believe you do, or someone does and it works. And it says something like, “Are you hungry?” And all of a sudden I see Domino’s boxes appearing around my office. Do you do that?

Eddie Hall:
I don’t personally send those out, but they go out from our system, yeah, with a special or a coupon and it tells you… yeah, it says-

Wes:
Eddie’s not on a subscription. The problem with the gyms is you’re reminding yourself, you’re right I haven’t been in three months, why am I still paying for that?

Clay:
But you see certain franchises, what I’m saying is certain franchises, like Planet Fitness, in my opinion gets it for fitness. They get it. Let’s have a gym, call it judgment free. If you want to open a Planet Fitness, these are the tips. I’m giving them to you. Skinny people on the billboards, attractive people, pizza parties in the gym. Do not remind people to come workout. That’s not what they’re doing. They just want to pretend like they want to work out. That’s the key. You’re selling the ability for them to workout, not the accountability to work out. That’s at Planet Fitness.

Clay:
Now, back to the pizza place. Text people. They’re hungry, all the time. So what are some of the systems that work at Domino’s where you’ve maybe seen franchisees push back on, but they work? Systems where you go this works, man, but people push back?

Eddie Hall:
Man, I have the biggest one for you. So, back in 2005, Domino’s decided that they wanted to roll out at one system for all stores, and there was a huge pushback from the franchisees, but it is why our stock’s at what, 362 today or something like that now.

Wes:
Like a software system, or an operating system?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, it’s a POS system.

Wes:
Got you.

Eddie Hall:
So we’re all uniformed across the board, and now we have so many systems in place because of that, I can check right now, I can pull out my phone right now and show you every, to the minute, what my sales are, what my food cost is, what my labor cost is. I can look at each… if you just placed an order, I can actually go click on that order and see where it is in the store. I can tell if it’s left yet or hasn’t left yet. I mean, it’s pretty amazing.

Wes:
That’s cool.

Eddie Hall:
So that was one of the biggest things. There’s hundreds of systems that they’ve put in place, but that’s the biggest one where there was some pushback, and then now it’s been amazing.

Wes:
So have you seen that lead to increased revenue?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, for sure. Our online ordering system came out of that. If you remember, Patrick Doyle, our ex CEO, he came out and said, “We are a tech company that sells pizza.”

Wes:
There we go.

Eddie Hall:
We would not have been able to do that without this POS system.

Clay:
Now, what I see, and again, I just want to get into the nitty gritty, because this is so important. When you buy Domino’s you have checklists for everything. You have a suggested org chart, you have an operations manual. You have a franchise disclosure document that discloses all these details.

Clay:
And some people hate the checklist, because that would require them to be in a cage. Some people love it, because they go with all the checklists, that represents freedom. I think that you believe that the systems and checklists create freedom. Maybe you don’t, but some people, they hate… I see people that buy a franchise, not necessarily a Domino’s, but they’ll buy a franchise and they hate the checklist. They hate the lack of creativity. They’re like, why can’t I change my logo? Can you… what is your mindset with all the systems?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, I mean look what I brought with me today, a checklist. So, I mean, I live off them. It’s what I do every single day. I love that fact about Domino’s. They’re really good about it. I mean, I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel. So, let’s use what works already. It’s already been proven. Domino’s is good at that. So, I love all that stuff.

Clay:
When did you feel like you first started to gain traction as a Domino’s owner? When did you feel like, you know what? I actually am going to rock and roll? Or did you ever even have any doubt at all?

Eddie Hall:
So I have two answers to that. The first time was in 2006. We had four stores, and we grew from four stores to 21 stores in 18 months. So I kind of felt like ahh, I made it. Then 2008 happened, and I didn’t make it, and we kind of got crushed. So I had to reorganize and downsize. So I would probably the second time was more recent, within the last six years. We really started growing, starting pursuing commercial real estate on the side of Domino’s.

Clay:
You mean a simple minded person that makes their millions one pizza at a time can buy commercial real estate, too?

Eddie Hall:
Oh yeah, for sure. We had three properties in 2016, and now we have 15.

Clay:
Do you like to read, or no? Are you a reader guy?

Eddie Hall:
So I listen, I’m not a huge reader.

Clay:
Okay, well just a thing that you would like. Behind you, on the wall, there’s a picture right there of Henry Ford chopping wood. The guy looking at him chopping wood is Thomas Edison. Over here is another picture of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, William Wrigley, John D. Rockefeller. They’re all hanging out. So you got Roy Firestone, you got Henry Ford, you got Carnegie, and they’re all in the same place chopping wood.

Clay:
Some people say, “Well…” this was the criticism on Henry Ford, is they said, “This guy is a mental numbskull.” Henry Ford, this guy. All he does is make black vehicles. He’s a simpleton. Their criticism on Easy E, Thomas Edison was that this guy’s a simple dude, the most prolific inventor of all time. There like, “This guy is myopically focused.”

Clay:
I think a lot of times franchisees, and I work a lot in the franchisee space, you guys get labeled as being morons. I see it all the time, by people who are the creatives. I see a lot of college campuses railing against, these business professors, rail against the lack of creativity. I think basically like, “All they do is sell pizzas.”

Clay:
So let’s talk about the you 2.0. yes, you’re making a lot of money selling pizzas. Commercial real estate, what was your first buy, your first property, where you bought it, and said, “That was a win for America,” the first one where you said, “Good job.”

Eddie Hall:
So, I actually bought two locations when we grew to that 21 stores. So they kind of came with the purchase, but my really first, let’s buy this property and build it up was the property at 71st and Memorial.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
Pretty big purchase, $795,000 property that we spent about 300,000 on redoing. So, to be at 71st and Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma with a Domino’s which by the way is right next to Pizza Hut. We did that on purpose, was pretty awesome.

Clay:
You opened up right next to Pizza Hut?

Eddie Hall:
Same parking lot.

Clay:
I’m looking at the screen here, because Kendall’s going to get this on video here and you’ll see on the big screen here. Is this the right corner? Am I looking at the right corner? Which corner do I need to turn to? I want to make sure the folks on YouTube can see it.

Eddie Hall:
It is on the southeast corner.

Clay:
Southeast. So I’m going to go south… right here? Okay, going this way.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so scroll down a little bit. You’ll see-

Clay:
Into incoming traffic. Is this it right here?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, keep going.

Clay:
Oh. There’s a Pizza Hut right here, okay. You aren’t lying. There’s a Pizza Hut. Okay, there we go. You’re sick. You opened up a Domino’s next to a Pizza Hut?

Eddie Hall:
And then we put on that little sign there, we’re going to huff and puff and blow the Hut down. Remember that?

Clay:
Were you aware that you did this? Was it an accident?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, for sure. We were well aware.

Clay:
Why would you do this?

Eddie Hall:
To crush them.

Clay:
I just think this is so big.

Wes:
I love it. A man after Clay’s own heart.

Clay:
No, I love this. I love this. So now how do you make money off of commercial real estate? What is your… somebody out there is listening and they’re kind of newer to this… we have a lot of doctors and dentists that don’t own their building. How are you making money with this?

Eddie Hall:
It’s really simple. Take what you’re paying in rent, and now pay it to yourself. Really simple.

Clay:
And again, there’s somebody that’s been watching TED Talks for four years in a row, reading every business book that I have in the man cave, running around gazing at their navel going, “I’m just trying to figure out a great business model.” Sell freaking pizza. Clean freaking carpets.

Wes:
So do you have any tenants in any of your other commercial properties?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, for sure.

Wes:
Other tenants?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so in the last two years we started building properties that had other tenants. So we have a 5,000 square foot in Bartlesville that has a nail salon. Our 14,000 square foot strip center in Edmond has an ice cream shop, a nail salon. We have another restaurant going in.

Wes:
And a Domino’s.

Eddie Hall:
It always has a Domino’s in it.

Wes:
Okay.

Eddie Hall:
Yes, yes.

Wes:
So they’ve always got a Domino’s, and then some other love to go around. I like it.

Eddie Hall:
The thing about commercial real estate that we figured out is if you’re 50% leased out, you’re breaking even. So anything about that 50%, now you’re making money.

Wes:
Gravy.

Eddie Hall:
So if you have a building that has two spots in it and one of them is a Domino’s, you’re already breaking even.

Clay:
What I’m trying to communicate, and I don’t think I’m doing a good job, and Josh Wilson has a hard out here in six minutes, so we’re going to go fast. Is I feel like somebody out there…

Josh:
Beautiful. Beautiful.

Clay:
… is trying to over complicate the path to success. Andrew, I think I have boom book over there by the printer. But it’s not a complicated thing. Step one, figure out how many customers do I need to have to achieve my financial goals? So if you make $3.00 per pizza, how many pizzas do you need to sell? That’s your goal right there, is box number one, okay? Box number two, you got how many hours a week are you willing to work? I got to ask you, how many hours a week are you willing to work?

Eddie Hall:
Unlimited.

Clay:
Okay. Box three… no, again, you just heard that unlimited. Some people are willing to. Some people aren’t, but don’t say you want to be an NFL linebacker and be unwilling to put in the work. Box three, what makes you different? Domino’s has already thought about that. How often do you sit there and think about how can we differentiate our pizza?

Eddie Hall:
Never.

Clay:
Interesting.

Eddie Hall:
They do it for us.

Clay:
Brand… you never think about the pizza?

Eddie Hall:
No.

Clay:
See, this is why…

Eddie Hall:
I just eat it.

Clay:
… people ask me all the time with the elephant in the room, the haircut chain. “Do you spend your time thinking about new haircuts?” No. Okay. Branding. You got to make your branding great, but Domino’s does it for you. Don’t you love it when people buy Domino’s and don’t execute the system? Do you see blood in the water and you’re going, “I’m going to buy you.” Don’t you like it?

Eddie Hall:
And we had a lot of that in the middle 2000s.

Clay:
You love those.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, I loved it.

Clay:
Oh, you loved it.

Eddie Hall:
Hard to find those guys now. We got some good operators.

Clay:
Okay. Then the three-legged marketing stool. You got to have a way you acquire customers. How does Domino’s acquire customers? What do you do?

Eddie Hall:
They’re TV marketing, Facebook marketing, digital, and then the best way is provide great operations.

Clay:
Don’t you kind of, at a certain point as a franchisee you can kind of go, “They do a bunch of stuff.”

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
You don’t have to overthink about, think it. So Josh, with Living Water, we’ve kind of, in a way, helped you to kind of franchise your business.

Josh:
Oh, absolutely.

Clay:
While we’re in the process of steamrolling, I think we can talk about it.

Josh:
Yes.

Clay:
In a few different cities.

Josh:
Yes, sir.

Clay:
Which ones are you for sure going to in the next 12 months maybe?

Josh:
For sure, 1,000,000,000% Edmond, Oklahoma, and Bentonville, Arkansas.

Clay:
Okay. When you go out to the new markets, do you have to make a new system to market?

Josh:
No, sir.

Clay:
Interesting. Why?

Eddie Hall:
I got a space for you in Edmond if you need one.

Clay:
Oh, networking here.

Josh:
I love it.

Clay:
So talk to the listener there who’s looking at the camera, listening in right now, who just wants to change the logo and the print piece and the branding everyday as way to fill their soul and search for significance while they can’t find profitability.

Josh:
Sure. Philosophical thought is wonderful for people, but it’s not really a really, really good thing to do if you want to make money. So you need to take action. You need to wake up every morning with a to-do list and a calendar. You need to go put in your hours. We were talking about it earlier today, actually. It is a simple equation. How many hours you’re willing to put in, and whom you surround yourself with, and the quality of service that you provide is going to dictate how much money you have. That’s it. It’s not more complicated than that.

Clay:
Now, what is your biggest limiting factor right now, Eddie Hall, as you think about your growth in the commercial real estate space, and the Domino’s space, and the exotic car collection space, what’s your biggest limiting factor right now?

Eddie Hall:
Limiting factor, I mean on the Domino’s side there really isn’t anything. On the commercial side, it’s finding those properties that fit into our portfolio.

Clay:
So you’re looking at a lot.

Eddie Hall:
I’m doing a lot right now, yeah. A lot going on.

Clay:
And do you have a broker that helps pitch you deals, or do you just look yourself?

Eddie Hall:
No, we have a broker that helps us with the real estate.

Clay:
Do you like your broker?

Eddie Hall:
I love her.

Clay:
Okay, great. If you didn’t, I would have a backup plan for you.

Eddie Hall:
No.

Clay:
Okay, great. So you like your broker. Can we recommend your broker? Can we do that on the air?

Eddie Hall:
Sure, it’s Amanda Duner.

Clay:
Amanda Duner.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
Okay. I’m sure you get asked all the time if people can pick your brain. So I’m going to give you the floor a little bit. What are some principles or things you would love to share with our listeners out there, most of which are self employed and/or want to be, that you would say, “Here’s some things I’ve learned. Learn these things.”

Eddie Hall:
So, when somebody asks me that, I usually just go to my core values that we use in our company, which is [crosstalk 00:31:11] level.

Clay:
Great.

Eddie Hall:
Which is customers first, 100% integrity which is a big thing for me, positive training, and the will to work. Great work ethic. So, those are the kind of things that I kind of preach to everybody when they ask me what are some things I should focus on.

Clay:
Can we go through those, kind of unpack those one by one real quick here?

Eddie Hall:
Sure.

Clay:
Okay, let’s go with the first one. What’s the first core one?

Eddie Hall:
Customer’s first.

Clay:
What does that mean?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, to us, they are why we’re here. So they pay our paychecks. They’re the ones that provide the money. We need to make sure they’re 100% satisfied all the time.

Clay:
Second value was what?

Eddie Hall:
100% integrity.

Clay:
100% integrity. Now, the word integrity means, from the word integer, it means indivisible, the whole number. What does that mean to you?

Eddie Hall:
For me, it just means I want people to do what they say they’re going to do. I want them to-

Clay:
That’s never going to happen. I mean, seriously, if you do that, you stand out.

Eddie Hall:
I want them to do it right. I don’t want them to cheat to do it, and great things come out of that.

Clay:
You said there’s one more principle. I think you said one more thing.

Eddie Hall:
I said positive training.

Clay:
Positive training. What does that mean?

Eddie Hall:
We like to create an atmosphere in the company that allows people to grow.

Clay:
True. You’re never done training over there.

Eddie Hall:
Never done training, never trying to get people to pursue their career.

Clay:
Never done training. Never done interviewing people.

Eddie Hall:
Never done interviewing people.

Clay:
Never done recruiting.

Eddie Hall:
No.

Clay:
Never done training, but people want to get… now they go, now I’ve got a good team. Now I’m done recruiting. What would you say to somebody who says, “Now that I have a good team, I’m going to be done training?” What would you say?

Eddie Hall:
Nobody in my company says that, ever, because they know that we are always hiring, always.

Clay:
Andrew Bloomer here, he’s a 21 year old guy. A little commercial for Andrew. He’s been our team for three years, going on probably three and a half years. He’s a married guy, 21 years old. He has his first rental property. He has his own house as well. He’s a new member of the six figure club on the income level. He’s doing great. He coaches clients down the path. He does videography, photography, web development. What else do you… audio editing, he messes with that. What else do you do?

Andrew Bloomer:
Photo, video, SEO, coaching clients.

Clay:
He’s kind of a mutant.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, does everything.

Clay:
So he’s like where we all look back and go, “When I was 21, if I was there, I would be here.” You know what I mean? He’s that guy. So Andrew is married to a wonderful lady. He’s avoided the idiot phase of his life. Andrew, what question would you have, or questions would you have for Eddie on behalf of your clients, many of which are doing great, some of which need that little kick in the tail sometimes before they have that epiphany. What questions would you have for Eddie on behalf of maybe former clients or current clients that might be listening to today’s show?

Andrew Bloomer:
Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds like from what you were saying earlier with your sales and those numbers, it sounds like you really know your numbers for all the shops, for all the stores, for probably each individual location. So I’m curious, how important for you is it to look at those numbers, to know the numbers, and how often are you looking at those?

Eddie Hall:
So I am looking at those numbers all day long, and every morning, and every week. So, like said, it’s at the tip of my fingers with my phone, so we can look at that stuff. We’re meeting about them. I talk to my director of operations probably four times a day, because we’re also really close. But every Monday we meet, me and the director of operations, supervisor, and we go through the previous weeks and where we’re at for the period, where we’re at for the quarter. We go through all those numbers, sales numbers, food variances, labor variances, service.

Andrew Bloomer:
So good.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, tiger reports, which is our theft. It’ll show us if somebody’s stealing. Cashflow, cash shortage, cashflow.

Clay:
People steal pizza?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Andrew Bloomer:
Is this customers or employees?

Eddie Hall:
No, it’s employees.

Andrew Bloomer:
Okay.

Wes:
Hey, Eddie, it’s really good. If I worked there, I might steal pizza. That might be a thing.

Clay:
But you look at the numbers everyday?

Eddie Hall:
All the time, constantly. Everyday.

Clay:
And the key numbers that you would say to all the listeners, they need to know, would be what?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so my key numbers I look… the first thing when I wake up in the morning and pull out my phone, I’m looking at sales, food variance, labor variance.

Clay:
What does food variance mean to you?

Eddie Hall:
Food variance is our food costs and what they should have put… so if a large pepperoni is supposed to get 40 pepperonis and they put 50 on there, they wasted food.

Clay:
Got some food variance.

Eddie Hall:
So it’s money out of the bank, yup.

Clay:
And what was the next variance you had?

Eddie Hall:
Labor variance.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
So, same thing. We have a labor scheduler that tells us exactly how many people we-

Clay:
Overstaffed, understaffed.

Eddie Hall:
Yup, overstaffed, understaffed. And then we check service.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
So those are the four things that I check first thing in the morning everyday.

Clay:
Do you do net promoter scores at Domino’s where you survey clients to see if they’re happy?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so we have a report called a CSAT report. It’s our Customer Service Analytics Tracking System.

Clay:
I love this. I could talk about this all day.

Eddie Hall:
Oh, I got to show it to you. It’s amazing. But yeah, it tells us everything. Net promoters. It tells us customer care, ranks us.

Clay:
This is interesting, after all of our conferences, we call everybody who attends asks them their feedback, how was it, what could… that kind of thing. Why do people who have a business that’s not doing well never want to know customer feedback? Why is that a universal trait, when people are not doing well? You would think they would want to know how to get better, but I see it a lot in the personal training industry for fitness, where they’re like, “All of our clients cancel,” and you go, “Well, because they don’t like you.”

Clay:
Steve, I’m sure you’ve seen this with personal trainers. I’m like, “We should survey them. “No, I don’t want to.” “Why?” “Because they’re wrong.”

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, that’s why our first core value is customers first. So you got to know what customers think about you and what their feedback is so you can get better.

Clay:
Andrew, you’ve got a man who really doesn’t do a lot of interviews here to do an interview. So what other questions would you have on behalf of your clients who might want to ask Eddie a question? Because he’s a guru. I mean, a $20 million pizza business, making millions one pizza at a time, what’s another question you might have for Mr. Eddie?

Andrew Bloomer:
Yeah, so you mentioned systems and checklists and recipes, and those are all things that Domino’s has created for you, right? So those are things that they’ve already set up. You’re not running around trying to create recipes for how to make a pizza, for how to, you know.

Eddie Hall:
True. Right.

Andrew Bloomer:
So what would you say to somebody who has decided to not go the franchise route, but to rather go the tradition, go start a business, who doesn’t want to take the time to create the systems because ah, I know it, they know it, they know it by memory, what would you say to that person who’s not willing to take out the time to actually create the recipes and the systems and all those checklists?

Eddie Hall:
I mean, the first thing that I would say is that I think that they’re going to fail. They have to take the time to put those systems into place and figure out how they’re going to run their business.

Andrew Bloomer:
Yeah.

Steve:
Would you say like, “Excuse me, Mr. Idiot? Yes, you’re going to fail, because you’re an idiot.” That’s what you would say. That’s what I would say. I would say, “Excuse me, Mr. Idiot, yes, you’re going to fail.”

Clay:
Now you two guys are a member of this car club. What do you call this thing, Steve, your car club?

Steve:
Well, it’s the Lam bros now, but we started out as the Tulsa DDE, which is a channel we follow.

Clay:
Before we leave, I want to make sure [inaudible 00:38:21] go out there and film some cars a little bit and show some. Because this is one thing that’s cool about your car club.

Steve:
There are no cars.

Speaker 7:
We didn’t bring them.

Steve:
We don’t bring cars to your driveway, bro, come on.

Clay:
Oh, my driveway. So you’re in the Lexus?

Steve:
Yup.

Clay:
Okay, so you really are, we went down all the way to the Lexus.

Steve:
Right. It’s that kind of day.

Clay:
But you guys have a car club, and we can learn more about it by going to Lamb Bros, the YouTube channel?

Steve:
Yeah, lambrosteve.com

Clay:
Lambrosteve.com, lambros, plural?

Steve:
Just lambro, Steve.com.

Clay:
Oh, Lambrosteve.com. So we go there, to lambrosteve.com.

Steve:
Or LambrosTeve.com.

Clay:
That’s easier for me to remember. Okay, but you guys all have these nice cars. There’s Lamborghini in there, there’s Porsches, there’s… I’m not into vehicles, McLarens.

Steve:
McLarens, yeah.

Clay:
And the one thing I would highly recommend, for anybody out there who could join your club or be a part of it, is you’re going to be around people that all worked hard to buy said cars. And the vast majority of people in your group started with nothing. And according to the millionaire nextdoor, which is a great book. 88% of America’s millionaires today are first generation. Now there’s a new book that just came out by Chris Hogan, who’s an African American self help guru. Phenomenal book. The data that he shows is even higher now. He’s shown it’s like 90% of people who are millionaires came from nothing.

Steve:
Yeah.

Clay:
But there’s somebody out there who loves Bernie Sanders. Oh, they love Bernie.

Steve:
Oh, Bernie.

Clay:
I mean, Bernie’s figured it out. He’s figured out how to be a pro Communist, but still be a capitalist. He makes millions of dollars by preaching against capitalism. And so there’s a certain culture right now that feels like the world owed him something. What would you say, Eddie, for somebody who says the world owes them something? You worked for seven years at a Domino’s, delayed gratification. You’ve worked really hard to get where you are. I’m sure you’ve pulled into a gas station in your luxury car and I’m sure you’ve heard a comment from a person who’s propelling poverty out of their mouth.

Eddie Hall:
Daddy’s money. That’s what they say. Daddy’s money.

Clay:
And they go, “Yeah, it must be nice.” You’ve heard that right?

Steve:
It must be nice.

Eddie Hall:
Oh yes, for sure.

Clay:
It must be nice. While they’re smoking their pot, they’re sitting there smoking their pot.

Steve:
There are starving kids in Africa, and you’re wasting money on that car.

Clay:
What would you say to that person if you did, if we could sit down one-on-one, they’re on the other end of the camera. You could look right at them, and they’re going, “You’re entitled. I deserve…” they want to raise your taxes, because they need more free stuff. What would you tell them, what would be your tip?

Eddie Hall:
I mean, usually my response to those guys when they’re saying, “Oh, Daddy’s money,” I really just get into my story with them. I tell them I did all this with hard work. So, I didn’t have a handout. You don’t need a handout. You just need to get out there and do what you need to do. You need to go do the work.

Clay:
You actually have that conversation with them.

Eddie Hall:
Oh, I have it all the time.

Clay:
Does it go well?

Eddie Hall:
It never goes well, no. Because I usually end up-

Clay:
It never goes well.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, I usually end up telling them they’re pieces of…

Clay:
But what happens is, is that this is interesting, is I don’t drive a luxury car, but my office is nice. I see people all the time that come tot the office, and they’ll do this, Steve. It’s the employees of the clients, not the client. The clients are always curious. Clients are always going, I wonder how he did that. Even the successful ones, who are already successful. I wonder how he did that. They’re curious about how to do it.

Eddie Hall:
Right.

Clay:
The employees who work for the clients, by and large, not always, but most of the time, say stuff like… Kind of smirking, “Must be nice. Must be nice.” Then I’ll say, “What do you mean?” They’ll say, “Well, just, you know. It must be nice working in an environment like this, work environment.” I’ll say, “I did get to work today at 3:00 AM, today. Most days 4:00. Let’s just say on average, 4:00. What time do you go to work?” And they go, “Oh, well, 8:00, but I have carpal tunnel. I’m going through a thing.” Okay.

Clay:
Then I usually leave work at 5:00. I do that six days a week, usually. On the weekends, if the kids have cheerleading, it’s six days a week. If they don’t have cheerleading, it’s five. But I would say conservatively from 3:00 AM to 6:00 everyday, book it. That’s 12 hours plus 3… 15 hours a day, six days a week, plus Saturday. I usually sneak in about 15 hours a a week on the weekends. “That’s how I lucked into it. How many hours a week are you working?” Then we discover even if we were just having a foot race and we were the exact same speed, I would be twice as far ahead because of the hours I put into it.

Eddie Hall:
Right.

Clay:
And they go, “Do you hate your family?” I say, “No, no, you missed out.”

Steve:
But what about work/life balance?

Clay:
I get at home at 6:00, but I don’t watch TV. Now New York Post and New York Times report the average person watches TV now 5.2 hours per day. The average person is on social media 11.3 hours per day, according to Nielsen. That’s a full-time job, bro.

Eddie Hall:
It’s your fault.

Clay:
So I point to them, I’m not working more than you, you’re just working on stuff that doesn’t amount to anything.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
Do you see this phenomenon there?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, so we were at a car show one time and these two guys, probably 20 years old, walked up to us and he’s like, “Ah, man, that car is sweet. Man, I have to get me one of those one day.” The guy goes, “Ah, man, you’re going to have to work like 40 hours a week to get that.” I was blown away. Actually Freddie was there and Freddie goes, “Bro, better double that, like 80 hours a week. Yeah.”

Clay:
There’s a book that I love so much, called I believe, Eight Seconds. I read it back in the day. It’s about the Phoenix Suns. The story is Steve Nash is a point guard at the time. He’s in the locker room with all these NBA players. The book is great. Steve, you would love the audiobook if they have it, but there’s a reporter who gets to spend a whole year with the Phoenix Suns. And this is when they’re at the peak, okay?

Clay:
So he’s writing down all the notes. And the players, they get fined if they’re late. So one particular player, who I won’t mention his name, and Kendall, do not, do not show the video footage of this. Do not show the video footage of this. But I’ll show it to you guys, because it’ll blow your mind. This particular guy gets sold on the idea that if you take a champagne bath, then you will be able to extend your playing career somehow. Here he is.

Eddie Hall:
What?

Clay:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there he is. And the bottles he’s pouring in are $300 a bottle, and he’s in there. This guy’s making 17 to 20 million bucks a year at the time. So one of the players, Steve Nash, pulls him aside and says, “Hey, dude, you got to watch your money, because there’s not a lot of careers when you can make this much. After taxes, bro, you only get to keep half, maybe. Because you’re in Phoenix and the tax is federal and state. You know you’ve got income tax, property tax. After all those taxes, you maybe are keeping 40% after all the taxes. So you got to lay off the champagne bath.”

Clay:
And he says, “All right, man. Okay, that’s cool.” Well this guy’s a 19, 20 year old guy. And then Steve says, “You got to stop being late, because you’re getting fined like 5 grand a day for being late.” He goes, “Shoot, man, I used to take my mom… my moms, it took her a whole week to make that much, man.”

Eddie Hall:
A whole week?

Clay:
Steve’s like, “Do you understand that you grew up on food stamps? Your mom didn’t earn 5 grand in a week, or in two months, let alone three months. Do you understand?” Had no concept of the value of money.

Clay:
So as the book progresses, it’s really funny, because he’s starting… he says, “Steve, man, I’ve been investing. I’ve been looking… I’ve been doing what you’re saying, and I’ve been investing now in assets.” So he said, “What’d you get?” He goes out and sees and it’s all these super luxury cars that are brand new. So you guys, when you buy your cars, you’re buying them because they’re fun.

Eddie Hall:
Right.

Clay:
But you understand the difference between an asset and a liability.

Eddie Hall:
For sure. Right. Yeah.

Clay:
So I want to make sure we’re getting this, because some people go, “Oh, that’s how he made his money. You see, Eddie, the Domino’s guy, he makes all of his money with his cars.” So when you buy a Porsche or something, what does a Porsche cost?

Eddie Hall:
Oh, I mean they range. The GT3 RS run [crosstalk 00:46:23].

Steve:
Anywhere from 19,000 to-

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, 19,000 to 20,000.

Clay:
How much is a Porsche?

Steve:
Hey, you know what Porsche stands for, just to be clear? And then I’ll let him talk, okay? I’m poor… Shh.

Eddie Hall:
Poor-ish.

Steve:
Poor-ish.

Clay:
What does a Porsche stand for?

Eddie Hall:
So the GT3 RS I have, new, would be 200K.

Clay:
$200,000.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
Okay, so you buy that car, and that doesn’t make you money. It’s a liability. So in the asset column it’s a liability. Now when you’re doing the financial statement, you could take the asset minus the debt on it, whatever. But the point is, it doesn’t make you money, so it’s a liability, if we over simplify it.

Eddie Hall:
Right.

Clay:
But then an asset is a commercial real estate. Can you explain, for someone who’s kind of new to entrepreneurship listening the different between a commercial property and a Domino’s in asset and a liability?

Eddie Hall:
Yes, so the commercial property appreciates.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
So, it’s simple. You’ll continue to make money off of that. We keep anywhere from 20 to 50% in equity in our commercial properties.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
I mean, you have access to that money if you need it. So I mean, it’s an asset. Then the cool thing about commercial property is when you have tenants, they’re really paying for everything.

Clay:
Then after servicing the debt… you said once it’s more than half full, you’re making cash.

Eddie Hall:
Making money, yup.

Clay:
You’re making pretty decent money.

Eddie Hall:
Pretty good money, yeah.

Clay:
You’re signing people into three year leases, five year agreements.

Eddie Hall:
We do seven year leases.

Clay:
Seven year leases.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
So what I want to do now, is I have three final questions for you and then Andrew, you can ask one final one here. Daily habits, what do you do on a daily basis? What time are you waking up everyday? What do the first four hours looks like?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so Domino’s… I mean 28 years in this career now, we stay up pretty late. So we open early and we’re open late. I have a store that closes at 3:00 in the morning. So my habits are a little different than people that do the 9:00 to 5:00.

Clay:
Yeah, so that’s the Domino’s workflow.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, so I’m usually up til midnight or so, and then I’m usually up by 6:00.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
Usually go to the gym. And then after that I’m checking my checklist, my calendar for the day. Usually around 9:00 I’m on my morning call with my director of operations.

Clay:
You’ve got a checklist.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
Everyday you have that.

Eddie Hall:
Everyday.

Clay:
You have a calendar everyday?

Eddie Hall:
Two calendars.

Clay:
Do you have a to-do list?

Eddie Hall:
Yeah, to-do list, yup.

Clay:
Everyday.

Eddie Hall:
And I’m kind of old school. I use the pad for…

Clay:
Get a look at that pad. Look at that pad. What would happen if you didn’t have your to-do list or a calendar, would you know what was going on?

Eddie Hall:
No, I wouldn’t.

Clay:
See, that’s interesting. This is like the… it’s so important for someone listening out there. That’s the cornerstone of success, if you don’t have a to-do list, you can’t win. I don’t care how smart you are, if you don’t have a to-do list, and a calendar, and people fight back about this all the time. Just get it. Get a to-do list. Get a calendar. He said he’s kind of old school.

Clay:
I’ll tell you this little secret, I’ve spent days, an entire day, with the founder of Hobby Lobby, billionaires, millionaires, many, many times. This is what I do. I kind of view myself as Napoleon Hill part two. I just run around interviewing super successful people to see what they do. A lot of clipboards. Even the young bucks have clipboards. Not a lot of phone to-do list apps. I’ll tell you why. You turn on that phone, you got a distraction coming in. According to Psychology Today, the average person is interrupted over 90 times per day homies. So get off that phone, get on that to-do list.

Clay:
Next question for you, proactive guy. I would assume that you have plans for the future, and I’m not asking you to share your plans for the future, but do you have some certain goals that you’re working towards in your mind, or are you kind of done with the goal thing right now? Do you have some things you’re pushing towards?

Eddie Hall:
I’ll always have goals. I always have them. Right now we have a lot of projects that we’re working on. So my goal, my short term goals are to get those projects done. We have two strip centers we’re doing right now. We have three more Domino’s we’re opening.

Clay:
That’s awesome.

Eddie Hall:
So those are short term. Longterm goals are within the next five years, I’d like to have the commercial property business big enough to where if I wanted to sell the Domino’s, I could.

Clay:
Sell the Domino’s. Have you sold some Domino’s in the past?

Eddie Hall:
I have, yes.

Clay:
Okay, and usually when you sell them, do you get a multiple of the profits? Let’s say a store made 100,000 this year. Can you usually get 3X or 4X or 5X? How much can you get for a Domino’s if you sell it?

Eddie Hall:
So they range depending on sells and cashflow, of course. They’re ranging anywhere from four to six times cashflow.

Clay:
Four to six times the cashflow. I’ll tell you why, because the systems are good. If you’re out there building a small business without the systems, people know as soon as you sell it to them, it’s not going to work. Build the systems. The most selfish thing you can do for your family and your financial freedom is build those systems. Final question I have here for you, are you one of the larger Domino’s owners in the country? Are you smaller? Are there guys bigger than you, have more Domino’s? How do you fit in to the scheme of Domino’s operators out there?

Eddie Hall:
So there’s definitely… I believe the average is around five stores, is the average.

Clay:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
There’s definitely some big guys out there. Our very first franchisee that has 300 stores.

Clay:
Super cool.

Eddie Hall:
We have a couple guys with 100 stores. But I’m considered a big franchise at over 15.

Steve:
That’s awesome. I just love this.

Andrew Bloomer:
This is good stuff.

Clay:
I love this. This is just a… I’m telling you, if you’re listening right now, you’re over complicating it 90% of the time. You’re trying to make a business system. You’re trying to sell something that the world doesn’t want. You’re trying to run around selling something the world doesn’t want. And nothing could be more discouraging than you hand painting ducks, and then going to the state fair and setting them out. This isn’t funny. This is sad for somebody. And you set these out, and no one buys them. And you’re living a life of poverty. Just sell something the world wants. Find a problem and solve it. Find a need the world has, and fill it.

Clay:
Andrew, we have time for one more question from the young buck.

Andrew Bloomer:
Oh yeah.

Clay:
What question do you have, sir?

Andrew Bloomer:
Yes, so let’s say someone’s looking to buy a franchise. So, what things should they look for? Is it even possible for someone to get in? I know you mentioned that you said 95% of the Domino’s franchise owners were at one point a delivery driver. So is that something, is it possible for someone to get in to the franchise world of Domino’s, or what’s a good fit for Domino’s?

Eddie Hall:
So, one awesome thing about Domino’s is they’ve kept it internal like that, so that you know that you’re getting a great operator. Well, hopefully you’re getting a great operator when they come next to you.

Andrew Bloomer:
Got it.

Eddie Hall:
But you can get into the system. You have to come and work in a store, though. There is a six month to one year training program. So you can’t just come in with millions of dollars…

Andrew Bloomer:
Smart.

Eddie Hall:
… and say, “Let me buy all these stores.”

Andrew Bloomer:
Super smart. It’s really good.

Eddie Hall:
You have to go through the training and go through those steps to get approved.

Clay:
Chick-Fil-A is the same way. Chick-Fil-A is the same way, Outback Steakhouse the same way, a lot of the great brands that stay strong do that. I’m going to give you the mic before we drop the mic. What’s your final hot take, or your word of encouragement? We’ve got about a half million people that choose to listen to this show. This month we’ve got the founder of Netflix on the show. We got the founder of Square, a lot of great people. But I personally am most interested right now in what you have to say, because you’re doing it. You’ve done it, and you decided to take time out of your schedule. You’re not a coach or a consultant who gets paid to do this. There’s not a win for you other than just sharing what you’ve learned. What is a tip or advice you want to give to the listeners?

Eddie Hall:
Plus, I don’t think I have a very good radio voice.

Clay:
Oh, it’s a great, it’s pretty good.

Eddie Hall:
I would say that my best advice is what’s worked for me, which is hard work really does pay off. So, if you get out there and push yourself to be number one, to be the best, it will work out for you. And then also, success, it’s not an elevator. It’s a staircase. So you’ve got to be able to take the ups and downs and really focus. That’s what I would tell everybody out there.

Clay:
So you got some ups and downs.

Eddie Hall:
It’s hard. It’s tough.

Clay:
It’s tough.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah.

Clay:
It’s not an elevator. It’s a staircase.

Eddie Hall:
It’s not just the push of a button.

Clay:
It’s hard. It’s like taking the stairs. It’s not like taking the elevator up to the top. Okay. That’s it. That’s powerful.

Eddie Hall:
It’s good stuff.

Clay:
Is there a certain website people can learn more about you? Do you have a YouTube channel where you’re hanging out with Steve? Is there any way people can learn more about you?

Eddie Hall:
I mean, I post…

Clay:
Just go to Domino’s in Tulsa?

Eddie Hall:
… car stuff on Fat and Skinny Bros Instagram, so Fat and Skinny Bros is-

Clay:
Fat and Skinny Bros on Instagram.

Eddie Hall:
Yeah. That’s my car thing. It has nothing to do with Domino’s or business, but it’s just a car deal. So, don’t have anything else really out there.

Clay:
Eddie Hall, I greatly appreciate you so much. If you’re out there today, go eat Domino’s, in moderation. But go eat Domino’s. Not too much at one time.

Eddie Hall:
No, order a lot.

Clay:
Order a lot from Eddie, but then don’t eat it so you stay thin, but you’re helping support him. That’s what we’re going to do, order a ton, don’t eat very much. If you live in Tulsa, buy Domino’s every single day. Throw it away, so you stay thin, but [inaudible 00:55:13] stay fat. With any further adieu, here we go. Three, two, one. Boom.