About the Author
Jamie L. Johnston
Former Trust Company VP · Serial Business Buyer · Author of Own Your Next Job
Jamie L. Johnston is a retired Canadian executive, serial business buyer and author who spent decades buying, building, operating and selling businesses.
He is the author of Own Your Next Job: How to Buy a Business Instead of Searching for Work, a practical guide for experienced professionals considering business ownership as an alternative to automatically returning to the job market.
Jamie L. Johnston writes from experience.
He has been the executive who lost the job, the candidate who discovered that credentials did not guarantee another senior role, the buyer evaluating a business, the owner responsible for making payroll, and eventually the seller deciding when it was time to move on.
His message is not that everyone should buy a business.
It is that experienced professionals should understand that they have more options than simply asking:
Who will hire me?
There is another question worth asking:
What can I own?
From Executive to Business Owner
Jamie did not set out to become a serial business buyer.
He followed the conventional path first.
He earned three university degrees in six years — a B.A., an M.A. in Economics and an MBA — while also playing five years of Canadian university football.
He built a corporate career and eventually became a vice president at a major Canadian trust company.
At the peak of that career, Jamie was earning $300,000 a year.
Then his boss called him in.
His boss said:
“We’ve got a problem. You’re making more money than any other VP in the company.”
Jamie refused to take a pay cut and was fired.
He expected his education, experience, results and executive track record to make finding another senior position relatively straightforward.
They didn’t.
Consulting work followed.
One client eventually asked Jamie to execute the business strategy he had developed for the company.
Jamie proposed something different:
“Better than that — sell me the company.”
They did.
That decision changed the direction of his life.
Instead of continuing to depend entirely on someone else to provide his next job, Jamie became an owner.
Decades of Real-World Business Ownership
That first acquisition was not the end of the story.
It was the beginning.
Over the decades that followed, Jamie bought, built, operated and sold multiple businesses.
His ownership career eventually included RE/MAX Condos Plus Corp., the Toronto real-estate brokerage he owned before retiring.
Different businesses presented different problems, but the lessons carried across industries.
Jamie learned what financial statements do not always reveal.
What sellers do not always volunteer.
What buyers routinely underestimate.
What partnerships can complicate.
What franchise marketing materials can leave out.
And what actually happens after the deal closes and the new owner becomes responsible for the employees, customers, cash flow and decisions.
His experience spans the complete ownership lifecycle:
Jamie writes about these subjects because he has lived them.
That includes the mistakes.
Why Jamie Wrote Own Your Next Job
Jamie wrote Own Your Next Job for people facing a question he once faced himself:
What if getting another job isn’t your best next move?
Experienced professionals can spend decades accumulating knowledge, relationships, leadership ability and commercial judgment.
Then a career ends.
A company restructures.
A position disappears.
A job search lasts longer than expected.
And suddenly the résumé that represents decades of achievement does not seem to carry the economic value it once did.
Jamie believes that experience may have value somewhere else.
In ownership.
Buying an existing business allows a qualified buyer to consider acquiring something that already has customers, operations, employees, systems and cash flow rather than starting from zero.
It is not the right choice for everyone.
It is not easy.
And it is not a guaranteed path to wealth.
It is an option worth understanding before automatically committing the next several months — or years — to finding another employer.
One question changes everything: not “Who will hire me?” but “What can I own?”
Ownership Changes the Equation
Jamie does not sell entrepreneurship as a dream.
He treats business ownership as a commercial decision.
Ownership does not eliminate risk.
It changes the risk.
An employee depends on an employer continuing to provide the position and salary.
An owner assumes responsibility for customers, employees, expenses, financing, cash flow and ultimately whether the business succeeds.
You may no longer be waiting for someone else to decide whether you have a job.
But you can still lose money.
You can overpay.
You can buy the wrong company.
You can underestimate working capital.
You can choose the wrong partner.
You can misunderstand a franchise.
You can make a bad deal.
That distinction matters.
Jamie’s approach is built around understanding the economics, investigating thoroughly, controlling the risks you can control and buying intelligently.
Not chasing the idea of “being your own boss.”
Experience over hype. Evidence over assertion. Ownership with your eyes open.
Stop Waiting for Someone to Pick You
A successful career can create the appearance of security.
But a salary, title and corner office still depend on decisions made by someone else.
Jamie learned that personally.
Business ownership gave him a different relationship with work.
It allowed him to apply the experience he had already accumulated to assets he could own, operate, improve and eventually sell.
The businesses Jamie bought and sold ultimately helped him build the retirement his corporate salary alone could not have provided.
That is his experience.
It is not a promise about someone else’s outcome.
The larger lesson is simpler:
Experienced professionals have more options than employment alone.
“Stop waiting for someone to pick you. Pick yourself.”
— Jamie L. Johnston
About Own Your Next Job
How to Buy a Business Instead of Searching for Work
Own Your Next Job is Jamie’s practical guide to considering, finding, buying, operating and eventually selling an existing business.
It begins before the acquisition.
The first question is not:
What business should I buy?
It is:
Is business ownership right for me?
From there, Jamie takes readers through the ownership journey: identifying opportunities, evaluating the numbers, understanding SDE and valuation, negotiating the purchase, conducting due diligence, considering financing, assessing franchises, taking over operations, building wealth and eventually deciding when to sell.
There is no promise that buying a company will be easy.
There is a framework for making a more informed decision.
Stop Job Hunting. Start Owning.
More Than a Book: Practical Acquisition Tools
Jamie did not want readers to finish the book understanding the concepts but still wondering what the paperwork actually looks like. The book therefore includes practical resources readers can use as they investigate a potential acquisition:
- Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) template
- Letter of Intent (LOI) template
- Due Diligence Checklist
- Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE) reference information
- Financial-analysis resources and case-study material
- Recommended business reading and reference material
The objective is practical:
Move from understanding the idea to knowing what to investigate next.
Fast Facts About Jamie L. Johnston
Jamie’s Perspective
Jamie is not a motivational speaker.
He does not believe everyone should quit a job and become an entrepreneur.
He does not promote hustle, overnight success or easy wealth.
And he is not selling consulting services.
Jamie is retired.
He wrote Own Your Next Job because the book he needed when his own corporate career ended did not exist.
His perspective is shaped by decades of real decisions involving real money:
Understand the business.
Understand the numbers.
Understand the risks.
Then decide whether ownership makes sense for you.
Interviews, Media & Speaking
Jamie is available for selected interviews, podcasts, media conversations and speaking engagements. He brings the perspective of someone who has experienced both sides of the employment-versus-ownership equation: senior corporate leadership followed by decades of buying, operating and selling businesses.
Topics Include
- Buying a business instead of automatically searching for another job
- Career reinvention after corporate displacement
- Business acquisition as a second-act career strategy
- Turning executive experience into economic value through ownership
- Finding and evaluating an existing business
- Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE) and small-business valuation
- Negotiating a business purchase
- Due diligence and deal structure
- Financing a business acquisition
- Franchise risks and trade-offs
- Partnerships and ownership structure
- Taking over and operating an existing company
- Building business value through ownership
- Business ownership, wealth accumulation and retirement
- Knowing when to sell a business
- Life after selling
Jamie speaks as an experienced owner, not a theorist. The objective is not inspiration for its own sake. It is to give experienced people another way to think about what comes next.
Read Jamie’s Latest Articles
Jamie writes about the practical decisions behind buying, operating and selling a small business. His articles explore business acquisition, valuation, negotiation, due diligence, financing, franchises, ownership, wealth creation and the realities buyers discover after a deal closes.
No hype. No theory for theory’s sake. Practical guidance from experience.
Connect With Jamie
Follow Jamie L. Johnston on LinkedIn for his latest perspectives on business ownership, acquisition, negotiation, career reinvention and the economics behind making your next move.
Own Your Next Job
Stop Job Hunting. Start Owning.
A career ending does not mean your experience stopped having value.
The question is what you decide to do with it next.
“Stop waiting for someone to pick you. Pick yourself.”
— Jamie L. Johnston