Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Transforming Retail & Entertainment ft. James W. Keyes | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 63

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, we chat with James W. Keyes, former CEO of 7-Eleven and Blockbuster. Jim’s career has spanned decades, leading two of the most well-known brands through pivotal transformations. From introducing new technologies to reshaping customer experiences, his leadership has left a lasting impact on retail and entertainment industries.Jim also shares his passion for education and philanthropy, including his work with the Education is Freedom foundation, which supports students in achieving their academic goals. Tune in to hear about his unique journey, his approach to navigating change, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGwCheck Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezforclosers/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of coffees for closers. Today, we're sitting with a legend, an absolute powerhouse for all of you. Our guest is a season C-suite executive who has held top leadership positions in two of America's most iconic brands. He led the modernization of 7-Eleven during his tenure as CEO, overseeing a major transformation that extended product, offerings and improve operations globally. Later, he took the helm of Blockbuster during a critical time in the company's history. His experience spans retail, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and today we're excited to dive deep into his insights.

Join us as we introduced to you, the one, the only legendary Jim Keys. I literally every day is a new adventure. I never know where I'm going to be. what I'm going to do, what next adventure is on the horizon. And I truly have no routine. Now, if I'm at home, I try to hit the gym the first thing, the basics, right? Yeah. But on the road, you just never know.

How often are you on the road? About 50% of the time. 50% of your life is spent on the road. Yeah, quite a bit, quite a bit, especially since launching the book. Yeah. And let's talk about the book. Education is freedom. The future is in your hand.

And I know you did a tour with Mr. Beast on that, right? Yeah, I was, I was really fortunate to have Mr. Beast philanthropy reach out. And they were doing a program with Ron Clark Academy over in Atlanta. Okay. Bringing 800 teachers in to help them. Jimmy Donaldson's done some amazing, amazing work in philanthropy and teaching kids, the power of giving. It's incredible stuff. But he gave me an opportunity and he said, hey, would you like to partner on a scholarship,

opportunity when they did this video. So I immediately said yes. I mean, they've got 260 million subscribers. Most subscribed channel in the world? It's amazing. And so, yeah, so immediately it was yes. And we put together 10, 10,000 dollar scholarships.

But here's the best part. We've got kids literally from every country across the globe. And they're submitting videos to win the scholarship. Wow. And in the video, it's just, you know, 60 seconds to two minutes worth of them saying, here's why education is important to me, why learning is important. It's cool. And how many of those videos do you actually get to watch?

I'm watching as many as I can. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. You're touching so many lives. You know, it's really, I'll tell you what, these videos will make you cry because a young lady from a small village in Africa will pour her heart about the importance of education to her and how she wants. to change not only her life, but the life of her family and her community. And over and over,

these beautiful stories are coming out. And the best part is they're posting these on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, and they're telling other young people why learning is important and why it can change your life. So it's, you know, it's one thing for me to stand up there and say, I'm an old guy. And I say, hey, learning is important. And it's the key to opportunity, blah, blah, blah and that's what it sounds like it's like the guy on peanuts you know when the adults speak it's like wah-wa but when they say it yeah it's really special you know jim and people can't tell listeners can't tell but i'm from a third world i'm from egypt and i grew up in a household where all i heard every single day from my father was mazacra muzakra muzakra mozakra which means in arabic

study study study yeah so my father our family coming over from egypt at third world immigrants, we became dead broke. My dad was a doctor in Egypt, but came as a gas station attendant here in the U.S. and then had to work his way back up to being a doctor here in the U.S. So he only did that through education and still till this very day and he is 74 now.

He still studies like a nerd. And he taught, he instilled that mindset of perpetual grind in studying and learning in academics and academia in general, in me and all my siblings and, you know, we have

one brother that's a doctor and the rest of our siblings sadly work over here with us at the company. I'm just kidding. You will appreciate then. You know where the title of this book comes from? What country? From your story. Because literally, this is a true story. Back during 9-11, we had, I was leading 7-11.

I was CEO 7-Eleven at the time. And we started getting bricks thrown through the windows of 7-Eleven stores. Yeah, I remember that era. Yeah, people were kind of angry, and they were angry at immigrants. And they said, hey, you know, 7-Eleven, we had people walking in our store saying go back home and go back where he came from. And so as the leader of the company, I stepped back and said, you know, why do we have so many first-generation Americans in 7-Eleven? And I started asking, just ask the question. How did you get here?

Why? How did you come? And I thought 7-Eleven was Indian-owned. It's got the Indian flag. No, no, no. That's the logo. No, that's not the- No, that was a marketing company that came up with that in the early-19-18. Oh man, here they are coming up with the Indian.

No, not at all. I'm totally convinced. Let's see, there's the image. There's the perception, yeah. But here's the story that I heard over and over from 135 different countries that were represented behind the counter at 7-Eleven. I'd ask, so tell me the story. And what I heard over and over was we came, like your story, like your dad's story,

500 bucks in our pocket. We had an education, and we wanted the American dream. So we found a store because we could be our own boss and then we'd bring our family in and then they would work and then they would go to school and they'd get a store. And that perpetuated. So what I realized stepping back is this is the American dream, alive and well, right? 7-Eleven is the American dream. It really is. So the spirit of the book was if so many first-generation Americans like your dad can come here.

I'm immigrated. Well, I personally am. I'm actually the first generation. See, so that's a beautiful story. My dad barely could speak English at the time. I mean, you know. If so many families can come here and successfully, look at you right now, turn that into. I accomplished amazing things.

By definition, the American dream. I mean, we're still beginning the dream, but. Exactly. So the purpose of the book was to say, it's all, it all comes down to learning. So in the book, I captured what to learn, how to learn, and why to learn. Because there's no reason. for anyone in the United States not to take advantage of all the tools we have here in this country. The tools, the resources, the opportunity, the ability to make money with ease, just the perpetual

reminders that you've got to, you know, now with social media, we're just pounding people with ideas to make money. Exactly. But it's like a best kept secret for so many kids, particularly inner city kids that are, they're like, they're in a box that someone else put them in. And they say, you'll never be anything. You can't go to. to school. You can't afford this. You can't, you know, who do you, I had that growing up because I grew up literally, you know, a poor kid without running water. And I was told, you think you are. You know, you can't, you can't be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Actually, that was even beyond my expectations. But, but I was, I was put in that box by others. And thankfully, I fought my way out through the power

of learning and realized there's no box boxes in your head that's right so you became so let's let's go through the journey of how you became jim keys like because what was your first job like how did you go from whatever your first job was which was very very low on the total pool i'm certain oh come on it was McDonald's flipping burgers yeah wasn't low on the total that was it that was a but now that's a $20 an hour job just so you know that's like a pretty good job nowadays yeah you know what i made A buck in a quarter. Wow. Yeah.

I'm dating myself now. 20,000 percent jump and not really rate. Yeah, yeah. But that was my first job. And it was a great experience. If you think about the job at McDonald's, I, first of all, I learned that the harder I work, the more I got rewarded at 16, 17 years old, they made me a shift manager, probably because nobody wanted to work the night shift, right?

So they gave me the opportunity. But what a great experience that was. had to do the cash drawer on the way out, do the inventory. Basically, I woke up one day and said, you know what, running a Fortune 500 company is not that different than running a shift at McDonald's. A few more decimal points in the numbers, but you're still dealing with revenues, customers, employees, payroll. H.R.

Bottom line, HR issues. The IT, the legal. Exactly. It's all there. It's like it's like a miniature version. of a big company. So the experience was actually fabulous inside of a McDonald's. So for McDonald's, then what happened? How did you get the, you know, take me to where you became first, so CEO of Blockbuster?

First 7-11. First 7-11. Okay. Take me to the journey of how you became CEO of this Fortune 500 company. Few other jobs in the way, you know, along the way. We didn't have the scholarship support. A lot of people say, oh, school's so expensive today. It's like, man, when you're making a buck in a quarter an hour, it was pretty expensive back then. Well, a unit must have been like $3. Yeah. Our $1.50.

Seriously. A unit. Yeah. Anyway, so I needed to make money if I wanted to go to school. And so I started driving a truck. I had a brother who was a truck driver, so he taught me how to drive a big rig. And so I drove a truck for a while, produce truck, had to load my own truck in the morning. Do two runs.

Come back in. Work a night shift at McDonald's that evening and then get back up after about four hours sleep and go back and do it again. How old are you when this was happening? 17, 18 years old. Okay. Yeah, trying to make. Does you listening because no, you know, if you want to become a Fortune 500 CEO, listen to this journey.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's persistence and determination. There's a great Calvin Coolidge quote that I use in the book about persistence and determination. I'm going to ask you your favorite quote actually and maybe recite it for the audience. That's part of it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

But, yeah, there were a lot of jobs along the way. way like that. I worked in, my dad was a factory worker. One summer I decided I was going to try to take a job in the factory and see what he experienced him. That was a good experience. Can you decline that respectfully? I took the job, but I was glad the summer was over because I realized why he encouraged the importance of learning because that was a hard, hard life that he had in a factory. So yeah, so all those things led up to trying to make enough money to get to call. And then I finally got into college undergraduate. I thought I was going to be a lawyer.

I literally was Polly Sye undergraduate, which I don't know what you ever do with political science. You go to law school. Yeah, you go to law school. It's about it. So I applied to a bunch of law schools, got into a few. And I had a professor intercept me along the way. And he said, Jim, you're going to make a terrible lawyer. I've had you in class for two years.

Please, please get an MBA. I was like, I did a job. like I didn't know how to spell MBA. I mean, literally, I had no idea. And one of the first schools to offer a joint degree, a JD MBA program was Columbia. So I applied never in a million years, thought I would get into Columbia University. But by some miracle, the business school let me in, the law school waitlisted me. And so I said, well, I'll just do it in reverse. I started at the B school, got an internship for the summer with a major oil company. They offered me a full full-time job and I never looked back.

So I finished the MBA, didn't go back to the law school and just began a pretty interesting career. I've had quite a journey. Nice. And then from what year did you become appointed as the CEO of 7-Eleven? That was announced, I think, in 1999. I was really fortunate. And in the book, I talk a lot about crisis because growing up, you had a lot.

some challenges growing up. I've learned that adversity and change is actually an opportunity because people, most people deal with it really poorly, right? They become a victim. They blame other people. They have their head down. Yeah. I saw my challenges growing up. It turned out that I saw it as an opportunity because I kept my head up and I used learning as a way to get out of those crises that I had as a kid. And so here I am in my first job. I go to, well, second job, I started out with a major oil company. 7-Eleven had just gotten into the gasoline business and was rolling out gasoline across the stores nationwide. And they hired some people from the oil industry to help. So that's how I literally arrived at 7-Eleven on the gasoline side

through Citgo Petroleum. And shortly after getting there, all of a sudden, the company who filed for bankruptcy. And they had done a leverage buyout. They took it private, loaded it up with debt. We complained today about interest rates. They funded $4 billion. 18% or something. 17 and 17.5%. Yeah. I mean, it's still free in comparison to those days. To then, yeah. So it was just a matter of time. By 91, 7-Eleven was bankrupt. And I could have, and many people argued, I should have left. A lot of people did again. How do you react to a crisis? A lot of people head down. What was me? I'm quitting. I stayed. And, By staying, I didn't work less.

I worked more. Because you had a crisis. I had a crisis. And I was used to it. I was okay. And on the other side of that crisis was huge opportunity. We ended up restructuring the company, took it through a successful Chapter 11. I came out of that as vice president of strategic planning, got to build the plan for the new 7-Eleven coming out of bankruptcy.

And then I had the privilege of being CFO after that. a few years later they made me chief financial officer um which was a shock because like i said i was a polysci major yeah not a financial guy yeah not a financial guy but we needed we needed aggressive cost cutting at the time yeah that i was able to do which took courage and detailed you know understanding of the business which i was willing to dive into so from cfo then they made me chief operating officer and then ultimately CEO so it was uh It was quite a journey. I got to sit in all of the chairs.

But again, the major lesson here that I recap in the book is in crisis really is opportunity. I've coined the acronym CEO to mean change equals opportunity. That's a really good acronym for CEO. Isn't that cool? You live it every day, right? And you're a business. And you know what? I love change.

You tell me a better way to do things right now. And I change at the snap of a finger. And people think I'm crazy for it. You were like, that wasn't thought through. I'm like, you know what? We'll fix it later. Yeah. But like we got to change.

That's why you're successful. You know, and, you know, I do have a partner. He's much more risk adverse than me. So he does, you know, kind of reel me in and get me level headed. And, you know, make sure that we are pretty calculated about how fast we change. But, yeah, we tend to change very, very quickly because we are adaptable. We were trying to leave a mark and a legacy for our industry as a whole. And I think we're making a significant impact at a national level currently.

My hope is to make an impact at a global level very soon. So you lived through one of these periods where interest rates were two, three percent. Yeah, I lived through the race where money was below free. Right. So they were paying you to borrow, basically. And all of a sudden it doubles. And then it actually tripled. And then 90% of my industry actually left the business.

And now we're, what, what happened was it just left us, the big players in the space to just gain more market share. Exactly. So we have been aggressively attacking market share like a bulldog attacking, you know, a piece of chicken bone. But that's what, you know, it's so funny because it's, it's so fundamental if you think about it, that that business, that all commerce starts and ends with something changes. Yeah. And somebody else comes in and adapts to that change. And then, and many. and mini die, which leads us into.

Yeah. Block what? Blockbuster. Blockbuster. We're going to, we got to talk blockbuster because, you know, everybody who, when we talked about this and we joked about like, the listeners who are 15 years old right now don't know what Blockbuster is, but most of you guys who are, you know, millennials, Gen Zers, I don't even know what they call kids that are 15 now. Yeah.

Gen Z, I think. No, no, I think Gen Z is. They're old. They know what they know what Blockbuster is. Yeah, Gen Z's do. Yeah, Gen Z's no. The other generation with Mike, which my kids are, I don't know what they are called. But they don't know what my kids don't know what Blockbuster is. Right.

You know, they have no idea. But there will be a really cool probably Netflix documentary about you and you'll be the star. Yeah. I should thank you. Yeah. So really they should. Like if it wasn't for you. Yeah.

So Blockbuster, you became CEO of Blockbuster when they were already in bad shape. Yeah. And, you know, there was a lot of myths out there about Blockbuster. So many myths that we're going to debunk today. Oh, man. Well, starting is, oh, yeah, they turned down Netflix when Netflix went to them and offered to sell for $50 million. Yeah. Anybody that says that, I tell them, did you buy the stock at $79?

You should have if you think Blockbuster should have paid $50 million. because that's what it was trading for at the time. Literally, this was the year 2000. And how much was it worth when they... Probably something less than $50 million. Yeah. But Blockbuster, you know, that was not me. I didn't arrive for...

They had already turned down Netflix. They had already turned down seven years before. This was 2000. I arrived in 2007. By 2007, Netflix market cap was like $1.7 billion. So... You already came in. They already had all your market share.

They are, but no, they didn't really capture our market share. What they did, they at the time, had a very successful DVD by mail business. Well, Blockbuster already had warehouses. They already had DVD inventory. So Netflix didn't really have anything that Blockbuster couldn't and didn't replicate at the time. So you guys, yeah, you did do DVD by mail. Absolutely. In fact, Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph, those guys would tell you that the

blockbuster model was actually advantageous versus the Netflix model because we had stores. So if you didn't like the DVD you got in the mail, take it back to the story. You exchange it for something you wanted to see. So it was actually Blockbuster created something called Total Access. Now when I, which was, which was by mail in stores. I had that. I had total access. Yeah, exactly.

And it was a good program. It was a really good program. When I arrived in 2007, then I added two more elements to total. total access. I added kiosks because Red Box had had just emerged. So we had a blockbuster kiosk. And then we added the very first thing I did when I arrived at the company was to buy a streaming video company called MovieLink. They had 3,000 titles already digitized. This was a company created by you guys. I'd even know that Blockbuster bought. I know. No one does. No one does. And it was the superior product at the time. It was created by the studios, five of

the six major studios to consolidate all of the digital content into one-stop. So that was Netflix. Well, no, Netflix didn't have streaming yet. So you already had streaming before Netflix? We picked up this company. You heard of here first, guys. With streaming and we were in a very, very good position versus Netflix. And they'll tell you that.

Now, we then had a couple of decision points that I'd love to have back because, yeah, I can't say that there aren't decisions I made that I wish I could redo. One was we bought the technology for streaming, renamed at Blockbuster on demand, and then what we didn't do is secure the content exclusively. We had a chance to lock up 60% of the old titles on an exclusive. basis. Had we done that, now it would have been about $100 million a year investment. It's a lot of money because if you dial back at the time, Wi-Fi was a horrible experience, buffering, very limited capability to really stream anything. The only people

streaming at the time were kids on their Xbox for the most part. So when we passed on the exclusive walk-in of old content, long-tail content. We had access to the new releases that Netflix didn't have, but then we could have added the older movies, 60% of the library for $100 million. I took it to the board. The board passed. Understand why they passed because you didn't know how long will it take to monetize that. We could have acquired that content and then it could have taken 10 years. Who knew content would be king, though? Well, everybody knew content would be king.

What no one knew is how long it would take to recoup by to be robust enough to have the streaming experience be viable. We knew it was coming. We just didn't know how to. What G was that? Was that 2G at the time? It was like 2G. It was bad experience for a man.

You start a movie and then you wait and then the middle of the movie, it would stop. And then, you know, buffering would go on and you wait. It just wasn't a great user experience. But we were prepared. We were very well positioned. So you might say then, okay, next year. You guys, yeah, you guys should have just ate your losses for a couple years like a tech company. But no one, you guys weren't operating like a tech company.

Well, no, we could have eaten the losses, but here's what happened. And this is the real story behind Netflix and Blockbuster. We had a billion dollars of debt. Now, that wasn't really anybody's fault. The company went. IPO, in other words, it was spun out of Viacom in the year 2004. They put a billion dollars debt on as a reasonable amount for the, for the earnings of the company at the time.

It passed all of the reasonable tests, but it was due in 2009. They had a big tranche, like a third of it, due in 2009. Now, if anybody had a crystal ball, if I had a crystal ball, I would have said, oh, shit, the market's going to collapse in 08. I better refinance this debt in 07. Nobody knew. We got into the year 08.

We doubled earnings. We had a great platform versus Netflix. We had true total access, including streaming. And then the market collapsed. We had a billion dollars of debt. We had no way to refinance the debt. So my crash, the crash of 2008, the industry, the mortgage crash. That's what happened to Blockbuster.

Hurt is the what caused Blockbuster? to implode? It caused us to have to file for Chapter 11 protection because we couldn't refinance the debt. So we filed. Still, we had another life. We had strategic partners. I had a deal with Google that would have been a true game changer. But Google, when we were rumored to file bankruptcy, Google backed away from the deal. Dish Network stayed with us. They saw us through the Chapter 11 filing. they came out on top. They bought the company. And it was really DISH Network ultimately that decided to close the stores and back away from the opportunity.

Wow. Yeah, very different story than what. I had no idea. I didn't know that Blockbuster just basically imploded because of the debt crisis. Yeah. Yeah. I thought they implode because they just Netflix put you out of business. Oh, not at all.

Not at all. And Netflix was a good competitor. I have nothing but good to say about Reed and the team over there, Ted, and they've done fabulous, fabulous job. They've pivoted. They've pivoted well. They pivoted well. I mean, who would have thought they would reinvent the movie production business by creating, you know, binge watching and TV series, basically, that turn into movies? They created that, and they made big gambles on that.

They, I think, invested $100 million on House of Cards. completely unproven concept. Yeah. And they rolled the dice on and they won. It was a great product. Reed takes big risks. He does. He takes big risk.

Yeah. And he's a visionary. I'd love to have him on the show if you can text them and let him know. Read if you're listening. Now, what do you think the biggest lesson is that you learned from both companies? The biggest lesson that you took away from being the CEO of 7-11 during the crisis, And the biggest lesson that you took from Blockbuster and the implosion.

Yeah, I've got three things that I've been, I've been a bit repetitive, but I think repetition is good. I call it my gift because these three things really, I think, have marked my career. They've, they help to create a successful transition in 7-Eleven from bankruptcy through where they are today to 80,000 stores. Yeah. And at Blockbuster, even though people may think that that was a failure, in many ways, it was a success because we were able to get through that crisis. We didn't liquidate the stores at the time. We were able to find a strategic partner in Dish, get the company restructured, get it sold, preserve the jobs at the time, and at least lived to see another day. And still maintain one Blockbuster in Oregon.

One Blockbuster. Yeah, and Bend, Oregon. But so here are the three things. Number one, we've talked about adapting to change. But here's the problem. Most people don't have the confidence then to do something. So they'll say, okay, we got to change. But confidence is critically important to be able to execute that adaptation to change. You've got to have confidence.

And the third is clarity. Clarity comes in two forms, both inbound, listening and outbound communicating. We complicate the shit out of very. everything. We're humans. So we take a complex problem. We make it even more complex by complicating it. And it's critical to be able to break the biggest problem, the hairiest issue that you face into simple terms so you can solve it because you'll never, you'll just swirl if you try to solve everything at once. So to break things into simple terms and then if you think about you can have the best plan in the world. If you can't communicate it,

it effectively, no one can execute it. Three simple steps. Brace change, have confidence, and clarity or simplicity. Those are you guys who are overcomplicating. Those are you guys who are not willing to change. Get out of your rut. Yeah. Get out of your rut.

Yeah. And adapt or die. Adapt or die. Yeah. Which is crazy because, you know, the assessment of Blockbuzzle, at a public level. Like, everybody talks about, like, you need to change. Or, and they use the example of Blockbuster.

Oh, I know. So people have you actually used your company as, like, the poster child. Yeah. Of Adapter Die. Yeah, I know. They go Blockbuster, and they'll put a Blockbuster logo next to a Netflix logo. Oh, I know. And that has been a symbol, actually.

But here's what's so sad about that. By over, and that's a case of oversimplification, they're not really, doing the work. They're not really asking the right questions about what really did happen. Nobody knows. Oh, yeah, Blockbuster had a bunch of debt and then the crash of 08 happened. No one can. That's a lot to deduct and it needs its own story. Exactly. But here's the sad part. For entrepreneurs especially, there is a critical lesson of cash flow management. Most entrepreneurs fail because of cash flow, right? They get themselves into a box and they and they aren't watching cash carefully.

Not tech companies. They just keep raising more. Growing people more. But seriously, the lessons in Blockbuster are huge. It's a beautiful case study in what can happen and the need to pivot because the micro, the macro environment sometimes will cause you to have to react to it in ways you didn't want to. So I got there, I got there to transform the company.

I knew that obviously digital. Do you think you transformed it to the best of your ability given the circumstances that you were in? Given the circumstances, yeah. Can you have, do you think you could have saved it somehow? Oh, yeah. If you just had $100 million, though. No, I mean, there were a couple things. I would have had that.

I would have done that. See, if I knew we were going to, the financial markets were going to collapse and we were going to be under severe pressure, maybe even filed bankruptcy, I would have acquired that asset and then filed around it. So we would have come out of bankruptcy, but we would have owned that asset. Yeah, you should have filed in the chapter 11. Yeah, that would have been a game changer. That would have been a game changer. And you had already went through bankruptcy with 7-11.

I wouldn't like I was afraid of it. I already understood it. And then that, you know, it is possible to come out the other side victorious. The other thing that I would have done, and this is what I, if I really had one thing I could do over with Blockbuster, when I arrived at the company, it was I was trying to buy it because they had already run into huge financial issues. The banks were ready to shut them down. The week I got there, they busted a bank covenant. So they were ready to put Blockbuster down at the time because of their cash flow management. They weren't managing cash and the banks were really unhappy with them.

So when I got there, my intent was taking private. I had been talking to private equity firms, had been talking to investors. It wasn't going to be a big hurdle to be able to take Blockbuster private. refinanced the debt. Think about that. In 2007, refinanced a billion dollars of debt to take it private,

a little more, at about 6%. And then we would have blown right through the financial crisis without batting an eyelash. None of our kids would know Netflix right now. It would have been Blockbuster

would have dominated the streaming market. Blockbuster would have dominated. You had the branding. You had the streaming platform. You were already light years ahead. You already own a streaming platform. We would have done that. that deal for the intellectual property for the you wouldn't be sitting here right now i know you'd be

a billionaire yeah often like i'd be a multi-billioner actually flying around on my gulf stream yeah you didn't even you know know me now yeah but you know it's it it it is business it businesses is choice that's what we choice business is uh risk yeah and you make the best decision you can and given what you know at the time yeah And I wish I had like, they say hindsight to 2020, you know, it's like, I just wish I had a little bit better hindsight. Yeah. Wouldn't it be great? Have that crystal ball be great.

Yeah. Maybe time travel. But that's why I feel like you always just have to stay in tune with what youth are doing and just be always as relevant as possible. Yeah. And I've learned through my marketing and my education that I want to be relevant to like, my kids, which are 10 years old, nine years old. And if I'm relevant to them,

then I immediately am relevant to their parents. Yeah, it's true. And that that concept actually makes a lot of sense for me as, you know, from a growth mindset perspective for our organization, where I'm like, the kids know me.

So their parents are going to work here. Sure. You want to hear a great example of that, what you just described? Sure. So I was invited. I'm here on the West Coast because I was invited down to San Diego to speak at the limousine industry event that they had. Sort of a trade show.

And down in San Diego. And I was invited to talk about the book and about change and that kind of thing. And I thought, what am I going to say to these? I mean, limousines. I mean, they're under a lot of pressure. Yeah, with Uber. With Uber. Uber black.

And now you sounds like a blockbuster. What are they doing anyways? How do they pivot? So exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a lot of pressure. I'm thinking,

oh, man, I, you know, I want to give them reason to believe, right? That there's still

opportunity. There's still opportunity. Outside of proms. I mean, equals opportunity, right? How am I going to explain this one? So,

uh, so I did a little research. Uh, and this is what's, this is fascinating. I'm very interesting. Seriously, because this is,

this is what the book is all about. With knowledge, you can solve virtually anything. So I started digging in, okay, what's the future look like? To your point, what are kids doing?

And I was shocked by the- They become content cars. Better than that. I was shocked at the research I did. And this took me like 15 minutes on the internet. Yeah. Or you just asked chat chief of you in 60 seconds. Exactly.

In 1980, right, when I was around the time I was getting my driver's license a little early in that, but 1980, 88% of 18-year-olds had their driver's license. You know what the percentage is? today? What is it? Forty-three. Wow. They don't want to drive. They don't care. Yeah. We grew up. I grew up like it was a right of passage. I got to have my everybody. Yeah. Now they're like, why? Take Uber. You know, I don't want to mess with a car. Why? So my point to the limo drivers was, hey, guys, you realize there's a wave of demand coming because these kids aren't getting their driver's license. What's that going to look like in 15, 20 years when they're now running

businesses and they don't care about even owning their own car they're going to rely on transportation but you've got to be able to be there for them and have a better experience than uber so are you branding are you consolidating are you rolling up in the industry i mean fabulous opportunity wow so but how to from a cost perspective though how is a 18 year old or 20 year are going to afford a limel like are they going to cut costs are they going to go electric how are they going to be able to maintain with margin compression? Well, that's the good thing about these big old cars. You don't really know.

So the question is, who's going to respond to that change in the best, in the best way? Yeah. And there's two ways you can look at it. If you're going to get gas efficient, limo cars. Yeah. Or electric. Well, what I was recommending is cut a deal with the manufacturers, you know, you've got General Motors, you've got Mercedes.

They're overproducing EVs right now. They've got all this excess inventory. the consumer's not yet jumping in and adopting. That's a screaming opportunity for limo operators to take on fleets and help the manufacturers introduce this product to the public so that they're riding in the back saying, hey, it's pretty nice car. It's quiet. So all of these little things represent opportunity.

But you have to be able to first see it instead of having your head down and saying, oh, whoa, was me. The industry is dead. Uber's killing me. blah, blah, blah, I'm a victim. Instead, turn it around and go, hey, wait a minute. There's a whole generation of young people that are going to need my service. I need to be there for them.

I need to figure out a model that will compete effectively with Uber. The easiest thing now that I'm preaching from the rooftops is like, to your point, and you just said it's like your brand. These limo drivers need to build their own brand within their own local communities. Exactly. So like when someone needs a ride, call me. Exactly. I gave them an example.

There's a company in Texas now. They're in Dallas. Black car company, right? Well, no, no. These guys are called Alto. They branded a car. It's all, I'm not sure which vehicle they're using, but they're all white cars with a very bold branding across the side of the car. But it's a white glove service.

So it's like an Uber, but it's a high end. It's like an Uber on steroids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's you've got a trained professional driver. People will pay for that. People have so much extra abundant money now from the random things that they're making money from these days.

There's so much money. Exactly. Excess money that Uber's not good enough for the rich. Well, there's plenty of room for somebody else in that space. There is. That was my message. Hey, great ideas, great suggestions. For those of you, Limo Drive companies, I mean, that's a great, great concept.

But it actually applies to all businesses and infrastructures anyways. It applies to virtually every business that's my message to entrepreneurs, change does equal opportunity, but you've got to overcome that natural human resistance to change that we've got. Yeah. Overcome fear. We all are vulnerable to that insecurity. It's like, well, I don't know. I don't know if I can do it, right?

Yeah. You don't have that. You're an entrepreneur. Yeah, exactly. I don't. But sometimes I think about it. Like, hey, it happens. But I just like, I'm like, what's the worst I can happen?

I've always been willing to go, go dead broke. Yeah. I'm willing to sleep on someone's account. I'm willing to win, right? So I'm a bigger risk taker than people think I'm crazy. And having kids did change that dynamic a little bit because now I've got four kids to feed. Yeah. Pressure.

Just little pressure. So let's talk about some of the goals. So Jim Keys, the brand as the personal brand. Now, you know, you've built Jim Keys. Now you're like a public speaker, motivational speaker, bestselling author. What else is Jim working on? I've got, I've got too many interests. I'd probably be more successful.

if I could focus more, but I'm sort of the human ADHD of business because I get involved in everything from aerospace to retail to. Really? Are you, do you have ownership in some other companies as well? Yeah, I have a little bit. I've been sprinkling around a little bit trying to get some participation in some space. I'm particularly intrigued with space. I'm pilot.

I've flown my whole life. So aerospace has always been of interest to me. and I've partnered with a company here in Southern California called H-Star, building a bunch of former SpaceX employees that spun out, and they're building a jumbo rocket for low Earth orbit. Great concept. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

So there's some really interesting stuff out there that I've been fortunate to be able to jump in and lend a little advice. And you've done a great job with your philanthropy. You've education freedom working with the, thank you. You know, Mr. Beas philanthropy.

And just being, even being associated with the biggest brand in the world and in, on social media and having a, you know, a philanthropic opportunity with such a household name is just tremendous. And it kind of speaks volumes as to the work you've been able to do. Talk to me a little bit about the philanthropy you've done. Yeah,

I've been, I've been fortunate. But, you know, growing up like you did, like I did, do you realize you've got a responsibility to help give back, right? Yeah, we sure do. The purpose of my life.

All it comes down to, it's like, how do I help others achieve their success? Because if I can do it, I feel like anybody can do it, right? So, yeah, so I've been pretty actively involved in a lot of philanthropic things. And the purpose of the book, it was really the name comes from a foundation that I created about still at 7-Eleven. And it was intended to go into high schools and help young people. realize, oh, okay, I really can, I can do anything. I want to do it all about learning. The more I learn, the more I can do. And the more doors will open for me. So I set out to write that book,

but then as I got into it, I realized this isn't just for kids. This is, this is for society because we're all vulnerable to fears and insecurities and all that stuff. And if I lead a life, I started this session today by saying I wake up every day. It's a new adventure. I mean that. Every day, there's a new opportunity that I can't wait to see what's going to unfold. And the reason that my life is that way is I've learned how to learn. I can do anything.

If I want to play an instrument, I just go learn it. If I want to learn a new instrument to play, because I've learned how to learn. If I want to fly a new kind of airplane, no big deal. I'll just go take some classes and I'll fly a new kind of airplane. I already fly helicopters and float planes and jets because that's a passion. But I've learned that you can do anything you want to do if you just decide I've got the confidence I can do this. And now I'm going to invest the time necessary to learn how to do it. Love it, love it.

Now, I want to wrap up with a couple last questions. What's a personal goal that you have for Jim Keys as a person, your individual self? And what's the goal that you have for your business, your philanthropy work, et cetera? Yeah, that's a hard one to answer because, you know, I've gone through life in a somewhat opportunistic fashion. That's what entrepreneurs do, I think. You say, yeah, I'm going to go here. And then you realize, wow, I could go here.

And so I've done that my whole life. My current goal, and I say current because it may change. Yeah. More opportunities may open up and I'll go down a different path. path, but right now I've realized that I've got a unique opportunity because of two iconic brands, 7-Eleven and Blockbuster, I have an audience, and especially an audience with younger people, let's say 30 and below, that are hungry for their own success. And if I can help share some of those tools, simple tools that will help them be more successful, that's my current.

be able to do as much as I can. Love it. Love it. That ties into my last question. And this is going to change your physiology a little bit. But when you're in front of the, when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? Oh, man. That's a tough question.

I would hope it would be, hey, you screwed up a few things, but on balance, you did okay, kids. you did okay kid that's awesome mr jim keys thank you so much for coming to today's show i appreciate you coffees for closers if people want to connect with you how do they find you uh james w kees kis dot com i've got a website out there and uh for the book it's education is freedom book dot com so the title of the book and book dot com awesome and uh yeah yeah and my my instagram uh j kees author instagram um tic talk all that stuff i've been having having a lot of fun with social media. Yeah, awesome. Jay Key's author on all social platforms, check out his new book. This guy is a legend. Learn from the best. You heard it and seen it

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