FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 2025  |  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

After Being Fired for Earning Too Much,
This Executive Bought a Company Instead.

Now He’s Sharing the Blueprint — in a Candid New Book That Challenges
Every Professional Over 35 to Stop Job Hunting and Start Owning.

MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO —

In the 1980s, Jamie L. Johnston was a vice president at a major Canadian trust company, earning $300,000 a year, with a private office and kids in private school. Then his boss called him in and said he was making too much money. He refused to take a pay cut. He was fired.

What followed wasn’t a job search — it was a transformation.

Now, after more than four decades of buying, building, and selling businesses across Canada — including 25 years as Broker/Owner of RE/MAX Condos Plus, which he grew to 179 agents before its sale in 2023 — Johnston has written the book he wishes someone had handed him the day he cleared out his desk.

Own Your Next Job: How to Buy a Business Instead of Searching for Work is the straight-talking, no-theory guide for executives, managers, and experienced professionals who have been fired, downsized, or sidelined — and refuse to start over at zero.

The book is available now on Amazon in both paperback and eBook formats.

Johnston’s book arrives at a critical moment for the North American workforce. According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), 56 percent of workers over the age of 50 are forced out of their jobs before they are ready to retire. Fewer than 10 percent ever earn as much again.

“Companies don’t talk about this,” Johnston writes. “There’s no clear statistic on how many talented people get pushed out before they’re ready. But the numbers are brutal — and quiet.”

Johnston argues that the standard advice given to displaced professionals — update your resume, network harder, accept a lower title for now — misses the single most powerful option available: buying an existing business with customers and cash flow already in place.

Own Your Next Job spans 10 chapters and a comprehensive appendix, covering the full arc of business acquisition and ownership:

Chapter 1  —  What to Do First After Being Fired or Let Go

Chapter 2  —  You’ll Never Be Fired — But You Might Go Bankrupt

Chapter 3  —  Identifying Prime Candidates to Buy

Chapter 4  —  Franchising Pitfalls: Avoiding a Job With a Fancy Logo

Chapter 5  —  How to Make the Offer

Chapter 6  —  Making the Numbers Work for You

Chapter 7  —  How to Operate a Company

Chapter 8  —  Accumulating Wealth, Saving Taxes, Building Assets

Chapter 9  —  When Is It Time to Sell?

Chapter 10  —  Life After Selling

The appendix includes production-ready templates: a Non-Disclosure Agreement, Letter of Intent, Due Diligence Checklist, SDE Multiples Reference Guide, and Financial Statement Framework — tools Johnston himself used across decades of deal-making.

“This isn’t theory,” Johnston writes in the Author’s Note. “It’s real-world, tested experience. My goal is simple: to help you turn a setback into ownership and uncertainty into opportunity.”

Jamie L. Johnston is a Canadian entrepreneur, real estate industry veteran, and first-time author. He earned three degrees in six years at Queen’s University and the University of British Columbia — a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts in Economics, and a Master of Business Administration in Finance and Real Estate — while playing five years of competitive university football.

His entrepreneurial career spans multiple industries and decades. He served as President of Family Realty Corporation (1994–1997), where he took a 16-office independent network, franchised it, and expanded to 60 offices before selling to Prudential Real Estate. He later founded Dominion Lending Centres Funds as Principal Broker/Owner (2007–2014), and spent 25 years as Broker/Owner of RE/MAX Condos Plus Corp. Brokerage (1999–2023), building it to 179 agents before its acquisition.

Johnston is a resident of Mississauga, Ontario. He is married with three children and seven grandchildren.

Own Your Next Job is available now in paperback and Kindle eBook formats on Amazon Canada and Amazon.com.
ISBN: 978-1-9694256-0-8 (paperback). First Printing Edition, 2025.
Amazon Canada:  https://www.amazon.ca/Own-Your-Next-Job-Searching-ebook/dp/B0GMYG4WLB

Review copies are available upon request. The author is available for media interviews, podcast appearances, and speaking engagements.

MEDIA CONTACT Jamie L. Johnston, Author, Own Your Next Job jamie23johnston@gmail.com Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

BOOK DETAILSOwn Your Next Job How to Buy a Business Instead of Searching for Work Publisher: Self-Published, First Edition 2025 Available: Amazon.ca (Paperback & eBook)

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Note to editors: High-resolution book cover image available on request.