From Lawn Mowing to 5,500 Franchises | Jim Penman

From a second-hand mower to a nationwide empire of 5,500 franchises – Jim Penman’s story is proof that purpose and persistence can outlast any plan. In this episode of Naked at the Top, Jim shares how a small lawn mowing business turned into one of the world’s most successful franchise systems, and why his mission was never about money – it was about funding research that might just change the world.

We unpack what it really takes to scale a values-led business: obsessive improvement, servant leadership, and an unshakable focus on helping others succeed. Jim reveals how giving his personal phone number to every franchisee isn’t crazy – it’s how he stays connected to the people who matter most. From there, his philosophy of “franchisees first” has redefined what leadership looks like.

He talks candidly about faith, failure, family, and fulfilment – why wealth without purpose feels empty, and how raising grounded kids is the ultimate measure of success. There’s no polished PR here, just raw honesty from a man who built a movement by caring deeply, thinking differently, and walking the walk.

Whether you’re leading a team, building a business, or chasing your next idea, this episode will leave you rethinking what success truly means – and how small, daily improvements can build something extraordinary.

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Transcript

Aleyx: 0:03

Welcome to another episode of Naked At the Top. Today I'm joined by Jim Penman. Hi, Jim. How are you?

Jim: 0:10

Good to be here.

Aleyx: 0:11

Thanks for joining me. So it's absolutely amazing to have you here. You're obviously known for the founder of Jim's Group and Jim's Mowing, and you've got a, up to, is it 5,500 franchisees, around Australia? Yeah. And, but what really surprised me, was how Jim's mowing started, and it was to find your research. Is that correct?

Jim: 0:36

Yeah, that's right. I, was a, I've actually done gardening work since I was eight years old. In most of my childhood I had gardening jobs and in 1971, I, 1970 I left school. I took a gap year and I got a couple of, just for putting a notice in the local, hardware store. Through my studies, my bachelor's and my PhD, I just kept on developing that. Started with gardening work, lawn mowing, intending to be an academic. That was what I really thought I was going to do. then when I got to the end of my academic career, I really had no prospect of any kind of job. So I decided to turn my more main business into something that could hopefully, eventually fund the research program. I wanted to continue.

Aleyx: 1:26

So what, was it about the, research that, that really fascinated you? Because it was ancient history and, biology. Is that correct? I,

Jim: 1:34

Yeah, I

Aleyx: 1:35

yeah.

Jim: 1:36

in basically the reason for the, collapse of civilisation. Why they fall as anything. What, happens, why they rise, why they fall. Started off looking at sociology, decided that was rubbish, went to history. And then got involved in cross-cultural anthropology and a bit of biology and psychology and all kinds of things, just trying to understand patterns and came up with what I thought was a, an approach that made a lot of sense that really in understanding what was going on and wanted to continue that. But my interest had changed into like neuroscience and the character was the thing and that had a biological basis. So you needed a neuroscience. Now I'm a historian. I don't have any skills in that sort of area. I don't have any money. I was impoverished and deeply in debt at the time, so I just decided to turn my lawn mow business into a full-time business as something that could hopefully in the end fund a multimillion dollar research institute,

Aleyx: 2:34

Wow.

Jim: 2:35

I must have seen some rather unlikely, but it's what happened the end.

Aleyx: 2:40

You made that happen.

Jim: 2:42

Yeah.

Aleyx: 2:43

so what, were you thinking back then when you first started it? did you think you had a, any chance of to build it into the success that it is today?

Jim: 2:54

not probably lawn mowing. That was the thing. I thought lawn mowing was the only thing I knew how to do, and I, thought there'd be something else that I could get engaged in. I hadn't go at Amway at the time, which is terrible. I was hopeless at that. I tried different things. Like I had, a computer shop at one time, a mower shop, tried to get a holiday resort going. various things over the years. it's just this mowing gig just turned out to be surprisingly successful. But I didn't really understand how it could be at the beginning. I just didn't, I didn't envisage the idea of having thousands of franchisees would've just been beyond my comprehension. all I ever did was look at what I was doing. And say, how can I do it better? How can I improve? Little things like when you're mowing a lawn and you know you've got to pick up the grass. how do you actually pick up your grass the least step I can save one step in emptying my grass, bag my grass into my grass bag. I can save time or get around the tree quicker, or navigate between buildings hire people better or work out better forms of advertising. So it's thousands and thousands of little tiny experiments just trying to figure out how to do this business better and making lots and lots of mistakes and just, gradually learning.

Aleyx: 4:12

So were you constantly just thinking up, ponding up different ideas of, how you can make improvements? Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: 4:18

I was mowing the lawns, I was always thinking about improving what I was doing. Always obsessively like that all the time. I still do today. Every day of my life, including holidays, including Christmas day, doesn't matter what day it is, I'm always in my mind, what can I do better? It's just that obsessional need to improve, I think is, which I think actually is more to do with success than having some great brainwaves. People think you've got some genius that says, oh, why don't I or do this and this and it's just not like that. It's tiny things that count. I have, I get my phone number and email address to five and a half thousand franchisees, and people say, that's lunatic, but it's actually quite sensible because first of all, because I am, I can help them individually and that's really the core moral purpose of my business. But also they give me ideas all the time, what's going wrong? Why is this person not succeeding? What do we need to do to help them? How can we train better? How can we coach them better? How can we improve our systems, their IT systems? Just, always looking at being in touch with the grassroots is very powerful that way, and I think a lot of leaders probably neglect that. too involved in, I see this very often. People get involved and they look at reports and they're on spend, always putting time in the computer. I just find it very useful to know what people are doing, what's going wrong. because to us, the ultimate success is franchisee being successful. That's the base of everything. If franchisee is successful, they want to stay with us. Others will come and join us, look after the customers, and the customers will come back grows, and grows But the core to us is the franchisees being successful. And so you can never spend too much time thinking about that. Yeah.

Aleyx: 6:02

Yeah. And being, and I like what you say, being connected with them, having those conversations is, so important. It's the same as, with your business being connected with the customer and actually listening to the feedback, and, making improvements that way. it's so crucial.

Jim: 6:19

with customers too. We, I have a policy if a customer rings a second time about a problem, it's not fixed. It comes to me personally and I look at it, which I can help to solve problems and keep people on their toes, but at the same time, it also helps'em to understand what's going wrong. why is this person getting repeated mistakes? Why is just, what can we do about it? How can we, improve what we do?

Aleyx: 6:44

Is there, a moment in time where, you have been connected with, the customer or the franchisee and it's made a big change or improvement in, your business that you can recall?

Jim: 6:56

I know about big changes, but look, you have a case. Okay, let me give you an example where a franchisee has got a problem with a franchisor who's being dictatorial. But that's an issue because sometimes gets franchise deals can get powerful. We have regional franchisors look after franchisee. So I, one particular franchisee rang me up about a franchisor being very dictatorial, just clamping down dissent. So they weren't doing anything wrong by the manual. they just really weren't helping the business at all. They weren't helping the franchisees because of this, attitude. So what I did is I made a negotiation. out this was a wider problem. It wasn't just this one guy that had a problem with it. And then I went to the franchisor and I made a deal with him and I forget exactly what the incentive was, but I actually got him to change the contract. But basically what it said was that as the majority of franchisees in his region weren't happy with him, and he would have to sell his business, regional franchise, which he didn't think was the case. because he thought he was, everybody liked him because they never dared to say anything against him So he agreed to that, but he didn't, I warned him he didn't, change his ways. And so the net result was he got voted out and that particular, that became part of our standard contract, that regional franchisors can be voted out by their franchisees. It's one of the unique things about our system, which actually puts an awful lot of pressure on franchisees to consider franchisees clients. Have a single phone call, one person, who just called me and said, I've got a problem with my franchise order. So we do something that actually has a impact.

Aleyx: 8:39

Yeah. That's amazing. And ultimately, it comes down to looking after the franchisees and making sure everyone, does, right by them. And then it, that has a flowing effect to the customers as well,

Jim: 8:51

Yeah. People find it very strange that I spend my time doing things like that, but in fact, I'm not particularly skilled at most things. Stuff like, I don't know how it works. I know what it's supposed to do. I'm not financially very literate. I've never done a business plan in my life, but, so I'm not, I'm not, I, don't even use social media personally at all. We have a great social media team working, but these things aren't, are not my strengths. So my strength is, In touch with people finding out what's going wrong, how can I help you? Why isn't this working? What can we do? How can we do it better for you? And I do this all the time, just franchisees approach me about, certain kinds of issues. Now we've got tremendous library for franchisees of advice from different divisions about different subjects like social media and think paperwork guarantee and different divisions and all kinds of different issues. And I had, franchisee was approaching me about these, it was difficult to find'em. So I went to the, to Joel that you may have been in contact with who does social media, and I said, okay, can we put them in categories? So now this happened just about six months ago, so now there's categories for each one of them. So I can refer people to individually to say, go and have a look at these videos in this category. They have asking me for help. And, I, decided that was a better way to help them. So that's been very useful too. So probably every, more than several times a week a franchisee approaches me and I say, go and see the videos here. because they're going to help you a lot.

Aleyx: 10:31

Yes. Yeah. So do you find, people are quite comfortable opening up with, to you and sharing their problems? Asking questions?

Jim: 10:41

I'm not like an agony these is specific questions about business. I haven't got enough leads, for example, I haven't got enough income. These are common ones. So I have, different ways of, and then I get these sponsors too. So I, give talks at training. Like I give the first talk at training and the last talk at, a franchisee induction training. So I, things that I learned from my franchisees, I introduced into those sessions to try and teach them in advance to help them. cause what we've found is that the training itself is, Quite successful. It actually dramatically reduces conversion rate. We used to lose about one in, 70% of our franchisees in the first year. to put that in perspective, if you go into independent cleaning or gardening business, you're probably, you've got about a 90% chance of failing in the first year with us it says about 17%. And then we put the training course in and we dropped that first year did down to 10.5%. So a third of the people who were leaving in the first year weren't leaving we started to train them better. this kind of thing.

Aleyx: 11:44

Yeah. Wow. That's, amazing. The difference in the numbers. it's just about having that support and the right training around you. It's fantastic. I'd love to, I'd love to go back and get a little bit more insight into, what you were like growing up. I, during my research, I gathered that you were a bit of a rebel. You like to go against the main point of view. could you give us a little bit of insight into what little Jim, was like?

Jim: 12:14

Oh, very, very socially awkward, extremely introverted, having terrible crushes on girls, which never went anywhere. very tormented. Didn't go with my father very well. At that time. We didn't, my, we did later. just very, yeah, very rebellious. I was at school. I went to a sort of very conservative Christian school and got into trouble by taking issues with the Powers that be, and compulsory chapel and people who were stupid enough to believe in God and this kind of stuff, which is quite ironic because 10 years later I've become a very fervent Christian sides. But at school, and I would always take the opposite point of view. I always argue against anybody, even when I was like 10 or 11 years old, there was, we were living in England for a year, and I used to, have long debates with the, past, the director there about, capital punishment and stuff like that. So I was always very argumentative, not very

Aleyx: 13:15

it's interesting because you say you're introverted and you, I, always, when I think of someone introverted, I think shy and, so I wouldn't think somebody that would argue against something, so it's quite a interesting contrast then.

Jim: 13:28

different kinds of introversion. the different kinds of one, one is, Being timid and shy and not careful. And then the other one is being very unsocial, disliking, social events being very uncomfortable, common. And then they tend to correlate. People who are bold and strong minded tend to be socially outgoing. I've got a very strong and need this. The bold thing is what's called dominance. Raymond Canel, a psychologist, has a good say on that one too. He talks about difference between certaincy, which is life as a party type, sociability and dominance, which is strengths of mine that usually correlate. But I am actually very strongly dominant, but very des urgent. So not at all social, but very, strong minded. Sometimes people call that loud introvert. It's often associated with people who are creative. I hate events. I freak me out.

Aleyx: 14:30

Oh, really?

Jim: 14:31

go to parties and stuff and would, I would just not do it

Aleyx: 14:34

what is it about? because I, because I really like that. I love when I meet someone and we have a different point of view, I'm like, oh, interesting. This will be an Interesting conversation, but many people then will back away from that if they think, oh, we disagree. Oh, let's avoid that topic. What do you think? what's going through your mind when it's, you want to, have that debate.

Jim: 14:57

what's going through my mind, probably not a lot. I'm notoriously tactless. My wife says I've got, I've got, case of Asperger's, mild case of Asperger's because I'm so blind at times. I'll say things that then people. They're sending me emails and, if they want me not to share it, they'll say, do not share, because I just automatically share things. I don't even think about the fact that what somebody has said in that email might offend somebody else. I don't hesitate, I just don't think, I just say things. if you see some of the stuff that I, put out on podcasts like this, I'm very blunt and, probably offend an awful lot of people, but it's just me. I just, very good at being tactful.

Aleyx: 15:39

Is there any, kind of time where it, is really backlashed on you?

Jim: 15:45

Oh, lots of times. so social skills, like I, I've been divorced three times and it's not really me chasing women. it's, being impossible to live with I think is probably the point. and it was very, it's very difficult for women to, to cope with that. like, I, I'm very obsessed with my children. So like with my current wife, and we've been very happily married 24 years, but it's been very difficult for her. because I have children from an earlier marriage and when they come I'd be so obsessed with them that I wouldn't even notice kind of thing. And that was very hurtful. just don't see that kind of stuff. I just don't read people very well. I'm very intellectually know a lot of stuff, but I don't apply very well to real life.

Aleyx: 16:29

Yes. Yeah. How does your, because you've been married 24 years, is that, right? How does your, or your wife must have found ways to, work with that?

Jim: 16:40

our relationship has been very stormy. The kind of fights we've had over the years, legion, quite a volatile person too, but, I'm crazy in love with her. That's what I can say. I think she's amazing woman. Gorgeous. My best friend, best thing ever happened to me, apart from becoming a Christian. The two best things, meeting God, meeting my wife. she's just actually the best and I depend on her a lot and, she on me too.

Aleyx: 17:11

what, what do you like, what do you like to do together? Like with work? Because, do you work together? Does she work with you?

Jim: 17:17

we do. She helps. She's got businesses of her own. She's a builder and she's running, runs the conference center and she's developing another venture. and she's also helping with my business too. So she's a enormously, she's, very good backend sort of person. She does the, detail work, and I have the visions and the passion and the ideas and the courage to do, a bit of anything. And she's got the ability to make it work and find the right people and stuff. So we are very complimentary. It's been difficult to learn to work together, but she's, She's amazing. But we had a lot of fun too. we, we have a very affectionate, sexy love life, you might say. We do a lot of things I wouldn't even mention on a public program. We enjoy each other very much, and we have beautiful children together.

Aleyx: 18:06

How many children do you have together?

Jim: 18:08

we have four together

Aleyx: 18:10

Yeah. Wow.

Jim: 18:11

from previous marriages. Yeah.

Aleyx: 18:13

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You've got 10 children, so I've got two, and I already think, wow, that's a handful. how, do you manage 10 children and I, business of the, size of yours?

Jim: 18:27

I never felt the conflict. I would never not see my children or spend time with them. Look like I'm fairly busy, but I, just drove my son to work this morning. Sorry, school, So I drive him to school, we were having a chat about things, all kinds of stuff about, stuff that he's going through and work and, talking about the book. I'm reading about Bonobos and chimpanzees and stuff. So he is a, very, he's a wonderful kid. He's very, creative mind. He's great to talk to on the way back. Listen to a talking book and I'll go pick him up from school this afternoon. and that's great time. I just, to me that's just important. I don't, think there, there's wonderful saying, no other success can compensate the far in the home and, I just don't think it matters that much. I don't think making money matters so much that you should ever neglect your family.

Aleyx: 19:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: 19:23

If

Aleyx: 19:23

So it is,

Jim: 19:24

if my wife that she's more on the phone than me, but go out to dinner and she's taking texting and making phone calls and I threaten to take the phone off her if she doesn't put it down.

Aleyx: 19:35

yeah, we have a rule at dinner time. No, no phones at the table. It's the, one rule for us. So you would say, it, it's, it is family first. You just schedule the family time. first that's your priority.

Jim: 19:48

Yeah, I do.

Aleyx: 19:49

And I often say, when people say about work-life balance and things, for me it's more of a blend. It is, sometimes you'll need to be in the business more and less than the family and vice versa. what's your viewpoint on, that?

Jim: 20:03

you do what's important and, making money isn't really number one. look, I'm pretty wealthy anyway, for heaven's sake. I can fund the research I need to and more with time. So that's, what I need it for. I don't personally have very great, spending needs. I all, I'm extremely stingy. for example, the shoes that I'm wearing, that's,$10 from Kmart. that's me. If I can find something cheap, I'll use it. I like to buy the, in the supermarket, I'll always look at the bottom shelf to see the shop brand stuff, to see what's the cheapest, brand. I'm just like,

Aleyx: 20:43

Have you just always been that way?

Jim: 20:45

on things like books, unlimited book, all my kids too, because I want a book. I buy'em a book, unlimited Fruit. Those are the two things that there's absolutely no limits in our household. and most, a lot of my friends tend to be missionaries and people like that haven't got any money, so we often shout them for dinner and stuff. apart from that, I live very simply. My, my favorite job is actually hobby is actually gardening. and I like to grow as much of a around of food as possible. I like, I just love having to get out there and dig potatoes and, plant fruit trees and things. It's just fun.

Aleyx: 21:19

Yeah. Simple. That was actually going to be one of my questions for you a bit of a fun one, but maybe you do, you mow your own lawn?

Jim: 21:29

at the farm. I've got a small farm. I do, it's a hand actually, which is good. My, my current place where I'm living has actually got too much growth and they can do with looking up with a ride on. But, yeah, I do. But gardening is fun. I did it for many years. Is it is not a bad job, it's, outside. It's fresh air. It's in touch with nature. In fact, if you look at what makes people happy, exercise, open air, contact with nature, flexible of your lifestyle, gardening business is one of the best possible businesses, and it's actually known that gardeners the happiest professions.

Aleyx: 22:09

Yeah, because you're out with nature. You're quite present in the moment. yeah.

Jim: 22:13

You mind getting rained on and stuff and getting hot at times and stuff. It's not always physically comfortable, but I think it's a great job. And you see the satisfaction of a job being done well and,

Aleyx: 22:23

so start, you started mowing lawns in 1970. your slogan back then was, most lawns,$5. What? Was there many other lawnmowing businesses at that time?

Jim: 22:36

Oh yeah. Yeah. Actually I started originally working in only 70. it was dollar 50 an hour, believe it or not, at all. So it was a few years later I got myself a lawn mower basically because I wanted to buy a car. It shows you where these things come from and the reason I wanted to buy a car, because I thought it would help me with girls, which complete failure there at all. So I decided to buy a car and then I bought a lawnmower to, to help me pay for it. So most lawn, that was 10 bucks an hour. because I could do two, two in an hour. So that was pretty funny in those days. my first, I bought my first house not too much later for$30,000. So it was, you could do wonderful off with, 10 bucks an hour back in the 1970s,

Aleyx: 23:26

Yeah. and was it, how easy was it to get clients back then to mow the ons?

Jim: 23:32

mostly leaflets, then a few local papers and stuff wasn't hard. the key really is I was very, fanatical about service. I was always working out ways to make my clients happier. I was trying to be quick, but like for example, when you, difficult thing about lawn mow is, mow the lawn's. Okay. It's easy, but there's certain things you've got to do. One of them is you've got to pick it up clean. And I got very good at learning how to use a mower to do that. Cutting straight lines and doing edges. The toughest thing is edges. And we used to have a wheel, like you go along the concrete mower strip and then you'd use the mower to suck the grass away and make it look at a clean edge. But it used to frustrate me. I couldn't get round the, clothes lines and the retaining walls and stuff. And I remember vividly going into a shop where I used to get my stuff fixed. And seeing this gadget on the floor, which had a long, pole with a handle in the middle engine at one end and a funny-looking plastic thing with a bit of white cord sticking out. And I said to the. The guy who ran it, I said, what's that? And he said, it's a brush cutter. I said, what does it do? He said, it's a new idea just out from Japan. You cut the grass without ring, bark in the trees. And I bought it on the spot with a lot of money. But it really just amazed me. because then I could do a job better than clients could do, but I could do it really quick and make it look good. And people would say, I never knew my lawn could look that good. So I go and job and pick it up as a regular and I get the neighbors. I find it quite easy to get jobs because if you get good service people just flood in. It's not difficult at all. And you don't charge cheap either. You just have to be good at what you do. Great job. Turn up.

Aleyx: 25:20

And having customer service at the center of, all of that, which is, something that we talked about, at the start of this, conversation's still a big part of, what you did today.

Jim: 25:29

It's a, very emotional thing for me actually. I, don't, it's not really logical. I'm not thinking if I get better service, I can make more money. I'm thinking I can give better service. I amaze the customer and that makes me feel good. And I hate people down. It's just an, it's an emotional driver. The same thing with my franchisees. I'm very attached to them. I think of them as my extended family. I don't really mind if they contact me anytime, even Christmas day. I don't, mind because they're, it's like my kids in a way. And that, gives me a reason for getting up in the morning, a reason for living. And I get great delight in helping somebody. and I really get trouble when they, get into trouble like you do with your kids when you're obviously quite young, but you do, you worry about them. And I'm a bit like that with my franchisees. That's a very emotional thing. when I started this thing, I thought maybe I said to somebody, somebody said, how big you think it might grow? And I said, maybe if it works, it could have a hundred franchisees. It was quite unexpected. But I think a lot of that is that obsession. Looking after customers really, well. You get more customers looking out franchisees really well and caring about them. You get more frank, you get more, franchisees. and then too, this obsessional thing about customer service, I just kept on wanting to do better and as we developed systems to do that and better it and so forth, as our complaints went down, the, volume of leads just went up dramatically. Far more than expected. I'm not theoretically thought it would happen, but it just did. It was astonishing. In early days of Jim's, very difficult to find clients. We actually had, because I was trying to grow this business quite fast to campuses knocking on doors. because it was so hard to find clients. Now, in recent years, we knocked back hundreds of thousands of leads a year, despite the fact we spend less per Franchisees on advertising than in the old days. And yet most of the flat out year round, and that's level of customer services risen and complaints have gone down. And we measured this very carefully. the, reaction from the public is extraordinary.

Aleyx: 27:44

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Wow. So in, in 1989, was it 1989 that you, started franchising?

Jim: 27:52

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Aleyx: 27:53

Yeah. Yeah. so what, made you decide to franchise? What made you decide to go from the Jim's Mowing to, I'm going to franchise this business?

Jim: 28:01

Mostly fear actually, because I had this business, was business puddling along, building up and selling lawn mowing rounds. Had a few subbies and stuff. Not going anywhere in particular, but just until something better comes along, was my view at the time. And then there's a company called VIP came in from Adelaide and they were franchised and they had, 250 franchisees. It was huge. Huge. I had about 10 subbies. So they, and they had this office and they had all these logos and all this kind of stuff, which I didn't have a clue about. I, just thought they crushed me. Really, thought they crushed me and I went. I actually rang up the state manager and said, I need will, I'm got, I'm Jim's mowing and I'd like to help you build your company rather than try to compete with you. And he, wasn't in for that one, so I basically rated their show at the expo that year, 1998. This franchising expo went up to the stands, said the guy there, tell me about this. Interested in VIP. I'm a terrible liar. If he'd asked me why I wanted, I would say, because I wanted to compete with you guys, but he didn't ask. He told me all this stuff and the state manager then came on and kicked me off the stand. He said, that's Jim Penman. Don't tell me anything else. So there's some good stuff about this. I can see some benefits to the franchise system, which I, in the past, maybe I could do something that would work even better for franchisees. So that was what I did. And about nine months later, after arguing with lawyers, mostly it was frustrating. signed my f franchisee.

Aleyx: 29:34

So it was really looking at what a competitor was doing and, seeing that they've done it. I can do it even, I could probably do it even better.

Jim: 29:42

Yeah. Yeah. my, it was very simple, I was running it from my, my basement and I had this fancy office and stuff, and, people would, these, the two comparisons, they're both selling franchises, so they asked me, why would you buy it from you rather than VIP? because there's so much better established and stuff, and this office and all this fancy stuff I didn't have. And I said, here's a list of my franchisees with their phone numbers. Why don't you go and ring them and then go and get their list and ring them, which I knew they wouldn't provide. The crucial thing was that my people were happier. Was simple thing. I made sure they were, I talked to them, I helped them, I gave them work. I just really bled for them. and somebody would ring up and they start talking to me. and the good people will do their research. They, would bring and talk to them and the, they'd say, Jim is great. Looks after us. it's great system. It's very fair, very balanced, got protection. Jim is great. So they sold it, not me.

Aleyx: 30:44

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And, you do, and you do things differently than other franchisors, don't you? Could you give us a few, examples of, how you do things differently?

Jim: 30:55

Okay. The contract itself, right from the beginning was very franchisee balanced. This is what the lawyers used to object to. For example, my, my franchisees can grow to any. And they, their fees don't go up. They pay the same base fee, whether turning, I know at least 20 franchisees in Jim's turning over more than a million dollars a year. Their base fee's the same. It's about 700 a month, something like that. they can work wherever they wish. If a job comes into their territory and they want it, they must get it, but they're not restricted. They can get referrals anywhere they like, they can open branches across the country. it's up to them completely. So it's very fair. They own the right clients. We cannot take clients off them without their consent not allowed, even if we can buy them, but they decide. so that was all in the original contract. they have the right of renewal at the end of the contract period, even with a franchise or they don't have it, but they have the right to sell their business at the best price they can get if we don't, if grievance. So there's all these things. In the original contract that were fair. And then with time we put other clauses in. For example, the vote out one I told you about before voting out and nobody does that. This is the only one in the world as far and by the way, I can be a franchisor myself, so a franchises can vote me out as a franchisor. they can change to a different franchisor. So we had a situation in Sydney cleaning, some time back where some of the franchisees were getting unhappy about lack of leads. It was divided into two different regions. One of them, the people were getting unhappy about lack of leads, and I pointed out to the franchisor that they were getting less leads per franchisee than the guy in the other half of the city of Sydney. And I said, if you keep that up, your franchisees are going to start bleeding across the boundaries. They'll shift from your region to his. we did immediately boosted the advertising to make sure they had enough work. We can even change to a different division engines and the franchisee's say so. Somebody not very happy with one division can shift to something else. I don't want to give Powers to franchisees, which basically gives everybody a very strong incentive to think about a franchisees being the main person. And we also, in recent years, we've actually given them veto power of a change to their own manual. So if we want to change the franchisee manual, we have to ask them if they disagree, we can't do it. And they've actually had not backed some changes, which we talk in one. So it's incredibly democratic in a sense that even though they're in charge, they have enormous powers. and culture of Jim's is very, pro franchisee. We had somebody, a guy called Brian Ducker, come out and speak to franchisors at one of our conferences some years back, and he'd be involved in dozens and dozens of different franchising systems. And he said it's, he seen nothing like our culture, which is very franchisee. How can we look after franchisees? How can we make them more happy, more successful? It was really different to anything he'd ever seen before. Like during COVID in, in, Melbourne. We, couldn't work. we were forbidden to work, which was crazy and, really brutal and unnecessary. And we didn't charge any fees, of course, in that time my franchisors actually worked harder than they did normally because they were talking to franchisees and encouraging them and supporting them and helping them and sometimes giving them financial help and all kinds of things. And they helped each other that, that culture of caring. Very powerful and I'm more proud of that than anything. Much more proud than the numbers I have to say. The fact that this idea that, that franchisees matter and that we look after people is more important than anything

Aleyx: 34:49

Yes.

Jim: 34:50

they approach me. They'll want to do things like, sometimes they're too, they're they're, they going to be a bit soft. They can be a bit soft on complaints and they have to take a tougher line. Or sometimes they're a little bit too slow to accept, to charge fees. Sometimes they need to toughen them, but they have this caring attitude that's to see,

Aleyx: 35:12

Yeah. You must be really proud of that. It sounds like a really, supportive environment where everyone feels like they belong, but everyone feels like they, they have a say as well, very inclusive environment.

Jim: 35:21

say everyone, not everybody, we have a lot of people think I'm brutal and hardhearted and when? When there's complaints, systematic complaints, I can be very tough. you do need to do better. If you don't, you can't stay with us. You can go independent. You can't stay if you don't look after customers better. So they get upset about me sometimes.

Aleyx: 35:47

How do you balance that in terms of, being, fair, but also being strict and making sure the right things done and supporting the franchisees? how do you balance that?

Jim: 35:58

It's no different to children, okay? When you are a parent, you love your kids, don't you? sure you. How old are your kids?

Aleyx: 36:05

Four, two?

Jim: 36:06

Four and two. Beautiful age. Alright? Okay. You love your kids very much and you want my best one, but sometimes that means. got to tell them what to do, even when they don't particularly want to. Okay. They need to go to bed or obey you or help with the chores or whatever the story is, or, not using proper language, this kind of thing. So, it's because you care for them. You got to be tough for them, tough with them. And if you don't, and if you're not tough enough, then, you're not going to have, you're not, doing your job as a parent, are you? So it's the same idea really, is you've got to be tough. I've got to say to somebody, look, luckily I know you complain about the complaints system, but the fact is you're getting too many complaints. You need to work out why it's not good enough just to blame the system or the client, or your franchise or me. What? What's going wrong? What are you doing? And then we send them a tough message, like a letter or even a breach notice, which is very upsetting. And sometimes they can't sleep at night. But you've got to do this because you care about their welfare. And in the end, If they really, really can't do it, then you have to let them go, which means they can go independent if they wish. We just let them go. They can sell their business if that's possible, but they can't stay there because it's not working for them. And it's really damaging my other franchisees.

Aleyx: 37:25

Yeah.

Jim: 37:26

tough line.

Aleyx: 37:27

Yeah. And do you have it situations where, people are really, think it's too strict and there's a lot of complaints about it, but then what they turn around and they actually come to your way of thinking, but no, you are right. Yeah,

Jim: 37:44

yeah. I think one of the nicest message I'll ever get when we have a, system of monitoring complaints. There's a warning letter and then there's a breach notice. But if after that the complaints drop off, they get a, they get an reminder to say congratulations. And that's a really nice thing to be able to do. And they often apply to me and I say, well done. That's fantastic. I'm so pleased. that's a really good, that's a really good finding also. I mean it's one of the greatest satisfaction too, is when people are struggling in any way and you can do something that helps them. And sometimes it does take some fairly tough talking like you'll get a franchisee who's new, who's not getting enough leads. And I had to come back to them and quite toughly and say, we have a system called Pay for Work guarantee. You need to do these jobs. This message is use this, do this. And if they actually come back to me and say, I did that. It's working. My cash business is building. Thank you. That's a really wonderful feeling of achievement.

Aleyx: 38:36

Yeah, I bet, What do you, look for in franchisees? Because I'm assuming it's not just anyone can open a franchisee with you. What do you

Jim: 38:46

one of our, my founding principles, that I wasn't going to accept people that I wasn't happy with. because I knew, I used to sell lawnmowing rounds and I knew that if somebody didn't have a good attitude towards customer service as shown by our sort of training days, they tend to fail. So I was determined not to do that. And, my competitors didn't do it. VIP they, they didn't select anybody. They just took anybody who had the money. And that's quite common in service franchising, not, in retail like McDonald's, but service franchising. They tend to take anybody. I've always had the very strict policy. In fact, a franchisor who is found not to proper due, proper discretion can be let go. It's a real serious offense. Won't, we won't renew their, fran, their regional franchise if they do that. So we look, for, I, I usually find trialing days as the best. Put a person out on the road and now for lawn mow for example, they'll be shown what to do. Okay? You mow around the edges and you mow straight lines. If there's a, if there's a hose in the corner of the lawn, but there's usually not much grass there. Just a fuse spreads and a bit of leaves. But you still, you pick it up, you wind it on the garden and you mow to the edge. Every blade of grass has got to be cut. That's the principle. Now you tell a person to do that. You might tell them twice, this is my trainers, not me. At the end of that time, they can't pick it up, then they're not suitable because they're not listening, they're not learning. They just know what to do and they're not going to listen to what you say. That's a, big danger sign. Or a person turns up late, they're supposed to leave at eight o'clock. Everybody's loaded. They turn up late 20 past eight, they don't apologise. That's a very bad sign because somebody's waiting their whole day is waiting to go out with them. That, kind of thing. You look at, look, it's easy to pick the good ones. Good, good franchisees are going to be people who ask a lot of questions, who've done their research. How much do you know about the company? Who are you looking to? Competitors? They should, look at everybody. they should be dressed appropriately. they should communicate properly. Now, a lot of our franchisees are actually immigrants, so their English isn't perfect, but as far as that's concerned, obviously they've got to be understandable. You look for a whole stack of different things. Good attitude. You don't want somebody who just says, how much can I make as if it's a job? That's not the sensible question. it is a reasonable, but it's got to be more sophisticated than that. It's not a job, it's a business. It's your business.

Aleyx: 41:18

Yeah.

Jim: 41:18

I'm not going to guarantee you anything. a guaranteed income, but you have to do free services to pay for it. Find people to offer. And that's not always easy.

Aleyx: 41:27

Yes. yeah. And the fact that,

Jim: 41:30

assess where they've got what it takes. But most people who've got like$30,000 off to spend 25,$30,000, they usually reasonably competent.

Aleyx: 41:39

yes. Yeah. Yeah. I like what you say about the research of the research, you and your competitors, that just shows that, they're, in it. They, want to do this, they want to know more. I think if you just show up, how much money can I make? Is your, heart really in it?

Jim: 41:57

yeah. It just, it tends to a business. why would you go and spend even$25,000 without spending a couple of hours making a few phone calls? I'm astonished that people can do so little research. They just, don't do those basic, even for me, that's a lot of money. If I could spend an hour and maybe not make a mistake of that nature, I would certainly spend it. Why? Why would you go into things? Something like that's just got no sense. They should, they should. research you. They should have been watching. There's so much around these days, they should be watching stuff and learning and then asking sensible questions. if a person would come to me to buy a franchise and they had a big pad of, questions and they'd often be quite apologetic and I'm thinking, no, this is great. This is fantastic. I love this person.

Aleyx: 42:44

Yes. yeah. I've had it before in, in a past job when we were interviewing someone and, at the end of the interview said, do you have any questions for me? And she had a list of questions. So this is great.

Jim: 42:56

This is a good sign, isn't it? it's important for a job too. Yes. If somebody comes in and they know a fair bit about the company and they have good questions to ask, and it's what you look for, it's the same thing.

Aleyx: 43:06

Yeah. Yeah. So what, would you say your leadership style is? Jim?

Jim: 43:12

You have to ask other people. fairly passionate, very emotional. quite blunt. but preach the same message. it's the servant leadership thing. And I think people know, I mean it, because I walk the walk. I don't just talk about it. I, do it. And everybody knows that. So it's it's funny though, since I've become well known people have this awe struck attitude sometimes and it's very odd. because I'm pretty ordinary in a lot of ways. Just people know me, know I'm not impressed at all. Not one slightest bit, but strange as that is. look, I'm very, visionary. I always think long term. I'm, I, the worst thing you can do is think short term. gouging profit all the time. I like to save money. But you've got to keep your basics. You never drop your service. You never drop what you do for people. You've got to just got to try and improve. One of the great things about automation is that you can actually, you better serve it at a lower cost. It's, phenomenally good. But I don't run a business primarily with money in mind. just give you an example, people Forbes came to interview me, earlier this year. And, Forbes is, as it's a magazine about wealth. I said, you, you've really got the wrong person. because if you, first of all, I'm a lot more famous than Rich in any case. But, secondly, it isn't even, wealth isn't even my top 10 priorities. It just isn't. I could, Make a lot more in all kinds of different ways, but, I'm just not going to do it. One of the things I most fear is when, if I'm no longer around, to protect my franchise, if somebody comes in and grabs hold of Jim's and starts ripping people off, which they could do and turn to make a hi of money, put a clause in all my new contracts as from last year, which says that the majority share controlled of ownership of Jim's group cannot be sold without the written consent of a majority of franchisees. I said That would dramatically cut the value of your business. And I said, good. First of all, I don't intend to sell it. And secondly, the thing I most fear is that somebody else will hurt my franchisees and they will rip them off. That's happened to so many great brands in the past when people like retail food group come in, which, they do disgusting things. They're just greedy for money. I just always think it's the long term. It's the, you've got to keep it in mind. The ownership, the owner of the company is not the most important person. Everybody matters. you've got to make money. Of course. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart. But you've got to look after, in our sense, particularly franchisees, but also clients as well, suppliers, staff, of course.

Aleyx: 46:09

So you really, you've built that, that you built that to protect your, franchisees and, your brand that you've, worked so hard to build.

Jim: 46:18

Yeah.

Aleyx: 46:18

when, Forbes came to interview you, did you show them your shoes? quite a few of the leaders that I've interviewed for this podcast. All, talk about, having the ability to have fun and, not take yourself too seriously in business. And then the growth, and I've, really noticed a trend between all of them is this, same for you? is that important to you to keep having fun in your life?

Jim: 46:51

great, I have a great life, Aleyx I,

Aleyx: 46:53

Yeah.

Jim: 46:54

very much. I am, as blessed as anyone on the face of the earth could be. I have a great business. I have an amazing wife. I have great kids. a great church. I have a great mission in my research program. It's not about piling up money. I want to, interested in the subject of happiness too. PE people have this extremely wrong attitude that happiness is just about piling up more and more wealth. And really it's not past a certain level of income. Makes very little difference how much money you have. but what really doesn't work is, status goods. like expensive clothes and house and car and this kind of stuff too. They, really don't add anything significant to your satisfaction very briefly, but after a few months it's gone. Nothing there, but things that really make people happier. experiences sharing society, communi French, those kind of things. And, giving your money away is actually the best thing you can do with money to make your not so happy. You actually get an enormous boost of happiness from helping other people, especially when you're involved with what you're doing. I believe life should be joyful and in a very fortunate situation. We're a wealthy, safe country with incredible medical advances. I'm grateful every day. I, thank God every day for, the wonderful world that we have.

Aleyx: 48:18

on that point, you, you, talked there about, you, your faith and, believe in God. And was it, it was when you were 28 that you found Christianity. Could you take us back? Take us back to there. Like what, what was happening in your life and, how has it helped you throughout your life since then?

Jim: 48:40

I was, interested but also antagonistic in a way. I would argue against people who believed in God. I was notorious at that school, and I remember going to a Billy Graham concert and making fun of people who went down the front, which is really awful, but the kind of obnoxious kid I was and still am, I just, I was interested, I suppose I had this, felt need somehow. But I, and actually helped me a way too, was I was doing, my research program, trying to understand how societies work. And one of the things that obvious over, over the years of doing my PhD was that religious religions were very effective ways of helping people to the best. And matter of fact, the key to what makes society works. like restraints on sexual behavior, for example, and the sanctity of marriage and the way you treat children and all those kinds of, even things like fasting and sabbath keeping and so forth had enormous point, enormous sense to them. So I can understand that this religion that I've thought as being very irrational was actually incredibly powerful and sensible, and it was the best way to a good life. And that kind of, in a way opened my experience, my heart to something different. And, but I, the main thing actually, I was just wandering through our, union during, orientation week, and I, got chatting to some people in the Christian Union stand, just got talking with them and I liked them and they invited me to go on this retreat, in the first morning of the retreat, they were supposed to sit and have so quiet time, like prayer and so forth. And I couldn't pray because I believe in God. So I, had this book. Like textbook and a red pen. And I, just started to write down things that were going through my mind and I just thought through that exercise, God called me. I sat down atheist, I got up a Christian. It is sudden. And I expected and surprised a lot of people too. because I'd been so obnoxious.

Aleyx: 50:51

Yeah. Yeah. Do you recall what that, was? What you felt that calling was at that point?

Jim: 50:58

just a sense that God called me, I'm here.

Aleyx: 51:03

Yeah. Yeah. and how, does it, how does it show up with you in your daily life and, throughout your business and things? Is it, is, your faith really guided you?

Jim: 51:13

Yes. Look, if you look at understand what we do in Jim's, the whole concept servant leadership. And it's the same thing as Jesus washing the Disciples' feet, is something I talk about a lot, but it's, Washing somebody's feet was a really degrading, dirty job. In those days. It was something that slaves did. It was really low because people had very filthy feet because they'd walk in sandals on dirt roads and stuff. No, no bitch or anything. It was just dirty. Occasionally, he had a very revered rabbi. His disciples might wash his feet. As a sign of respect, Jesus washed his disciples feet. Now, a lot of what Jesus taught was very much in the pattern of Judaism at the time, and which is a great, faith and a great culture. But this was really revolutionary stuff. That idea of servant leadership is really central. I don't, my franchisees don't work for me. I work for them. they're my clients. They're my family. They're my people that I have to look after that attitude is really ingrained, and there's so much too in the gospels. Like Jesus said, it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than the camel to go through the eye of a needle. that's very something to keep in mind. because wealth is corrupting. Wealth makes you proud. Wealth makes you think that you are. there's a proverbs, number, Proverbs number 30, I think it's verse seven and eight. And it says, God, don't let me be too poor or too rich. If I'm too prosperous, then I might forget you. If I'm too poor, I might steal. And then that's, we just heard that in church on Sunday, and that's a great idea. And I am obviously wealthy by most people's standards. But at the same time, it's dangerous and you got to watch yourself that I'm not, becoming proud. I'm not becoming puffed up. I'm not putting something the ahead of God. So I, always see money as something that's, entrusted. It's not something that we own. It's something that God's given us. I said, okay, here's some wealth. What can you do with it?

Aleyx: 53:19

Yes. And a lot of your wealth, it goes back into to funding your research. is that correct? Yeah.

Jim: 53:25

net income, but 90%, it goes back into my research. We live

Aleyx: 53:29

Ah,

Jim: 53:29

small amount and that amount, we've tied 10%. So it's look, we live very well, honestly, by normal standards. We, have a nice house and I don't go around with ragged clothes and stuff, books and the fruit I want. So we live well, but at the same time, nothing even remotely close to the money I make the kids, my kids, which is also for the sake of the kids too, because they, they would have some sort of, especially my younger ones, would have some theoretical sense. We were quite well off, where's the mansions? where's the luxury holidays? Where's the, servants? Where's all this stuff that you're supposed to have? If you're rich? No sign. Good catch. they've always had a good attitude towards money. they save well and they work hard. My youngest sons. Started working at McDonald's, which is great training, terrible food, but great training. They all, they just got that attitude because they, they're not brought up support rich kids.

Aleyx: 54:23

And I think that's really important, right? Because if things come too easy to us, it, doesn't, serve us well and the future, if you give your kids everything they could possibly want and they don't have that, drive and that, that work ethic to go out and, make something for themselves. So I think it's a really valuable lesson to.

Jim: 54:43

meant to be easy. It's not good for us. of the things that's interesting in my research, what means we've come across is the idea of dopamine reaction systems. If you have. Like example is a drug like cocaine. If you take cocaine, it actually gives a surge of dopamine to your brain. that, but then if you take it again, it's a lesser effect. And the reason for that is because if you put surges of dopamine to your brain, the brain reacts by becoming less sensitive dopamine, and you need more and more to feel okay, which means you feel miserable if you don't have it. And it tends to have really bad effects on character. there's a lot of things that have the same effect. And leisure is one of them. If you're not working, you're actually, you're not. You're doing something to your brain that makes your dopamine system less reactive. And the same thing with junk food. And the same thing with too much in the sense of, social media and a whole lot of other things like that has the same kind of effect. They actually undermine character. So our, whole brains are built upon the idea that you've got to have a reasonable toughness. Too much of the good thing is not good for you. That applies to everything, to drugs, to leisure, gambling, to, social media, to, to overly big concern with your own status and success and pride and wealth. And they all have a really bad effects. They undermine character. It's not good people. It's not good for kids.

Aleyx: 56:09

No, not at all. Not at all. Where there's light, there's dark, right. And there's a reason for that, I think. yeah. So what's next for you? Jim, what's in the, you said your visionary. what's in the future? What's happening?

Jim: 56:27

in the business, a lot of exciting things going on. We've got a, a program called Jimbo, which we're developing for franchisees, which is really far advanced now, and they're starting to adopt it. That's going to really help to improve productivity. it does things like remind them if they haven't actually contacted the client, for example, which reduce the level of complaints and there's other things in it, which will make it easier than to give good service. Also, it'll be able, they'll be able to do things like, down the track a bit. One of the things we are most looking forward to is the ability to have clients, if the Franchisees wishes, the client can book a job directly into their diary, we'll know where they are and how much time they've got. So instead of saying, we'll get a call back, book it straight in, ability to be able to sell surplus regular clients to somebody else and buy them if they wish to. Those kinds of things. And there's a whole lot of stuff happening with that should dramatically improve customer service and also franchisee profitability. So that's very exciting. That's actually a lot of that's going done by the end of the year. And early next year we'll do even more. So that'll be great. We'll have a financial package set up. So they don't need anything like, Xero or QuickBooks or anything at all. It just be built into the system. No, no charge at all.

Aleyx: 57:44

Fantastic.

Jim: 57:45

And there's a

Aleyx: 57:46

Wow.

Jim: 57:46

possibility taking that to the general can contract the community too and providing it free and so forth, and then doing a whole lot of things that will, that could be very, big. So technology is extremely exciting area. My research is really interesting. We have tested like a hundred thousand drugs to have the effects we want. because we can, what we're doing, trying to do, develop a, treatments to have this beneficial effects of, religious involvement or food restriction, very similar. So we've actually been understanding the epigenetics. We're actually been testing them in, Human brain cells, hugely automatic process. And we're about to test nine that are proved very effective in animals to see if we can get effect, which will include things like being better parents and so forth, because that's how you'll measure it. So that's exciting. We've got somebody, we've, we are assigned one of the top CRISPR experts in Australia. CRISPR is the way of directly going into the, genome and changing things. In our case, epigenetically, but very targeted. That's really exciting. So about this book I'm writing, I'm still working on it. we waiting for some research findings now that'll go out early to mid next year and I think it'll make a splash because people are starting to panic all over the world about the collapsing fertility and they're trying to, and not working, and I know exactly why they're not working. What you need to do is to change your character and we've got. Pro. So I'm optimistic that, enough people will listen to this to actually fund the research to get this thing to work, in which case we will be able to turn around society. So there's some

Aleyx: 59:24

Wow.

Jim: 59:25

exciting things happening in

Aleyx: 59:26

Yeah. You've got a lot happening. What? What's the title of the book?

Jim: 59:30

birth rate crisis"

Aleyx: 59:32

"Birth Rate Crisis" and Early next year it'll be out.

Jim: 59:35

early to mid next year. Yeah, we've got some really good experiments going that really backs up a lot of the stuff that, that we're, or tests a lot of the stuff that we are doing. But that's, going to be interesting and I'll do a lot of publicity for that. And I may have to travel. I hate travel normally, but I, if I have to, I will. It could change everything. It could change the world. I don't know. it sounds very grande, quote, but I don't think anybody understands what's happening at the moment. Why, birth rates are crashing, collapsing. They think it's money, but it's not, it's priorities and, why you getting rising deaths of despair and why people are more and more lonely and miserable and cut off from each other and, why suicide's going up, be heaven's sake in, a wealthy society, you know the lowest levels of suicide of people are born during the Great Depression,

Aleyx: 1:00:22

Really?

Jim: 1:00:23

Yes, we think of prosperity as being so wonderful, but has some very bad effects.

Aleyx: 1:00:30

So what's the mission with all of this? what do you hope when release this book and demo this research? what's the mission? What do you, hope for?

Jim: 1:00:41

basically we want to develop treatments that will basically reinforce the good side of our character, the sides of, faith, of self-discipline, of hard work. We want to be able to help people to achieve that more readily. Interestingly now, some of the weight loss drugs like Wegovy and so forth, seem to be having effects of this nature. We are testing those for these kinds of effects. So this, basically, look, if we found treatments effective, what would we really work for is to treat people like depression and, drug addiction and so forth. because it helps have a more disciplined and long-term view on life. That would be the basic initial aim for treatment. We can help people to develop better character, then they will have, they will want to have more children and be better citizens too. This kind of thing.

Aleyx: 1:01:34

It's fascinating. I, we'll go be watching, I'll be watching this space and looking, for the big when it, comes out. we're coming towards the end. I could speak to you for hours, Jim, but I've got, I've got a quick fire round that I always do, before the, last question. So what's, one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

Jim: 1:01:56

I dunno, people know a lot about me. I'm a real cheap skate. Notorious, miser. You do not like spending money. I hate travel. and I'm a lot more famous that I'm rich. People think I'm, people think I'm a billionaire. this kind of stuff. It's not even, I'm not even, a fraction of that way. I, sometimes think I'm a bit fortunate. People come to me to secrets of the, of being successful in financial terms. I'm, pretty well off, but my goodness gracious, the BRW wanted me to join the, the, rich 250 and I said, don't be ridiculous. I'm not even close to that. you talk about the billion dollar turnover of the business, which is probably about right. We're probably turning over, my French is probably turning over a billion dollars a year, but, the fact of the matter is only a tiny portion that comes to me, so it's, I'm not nearly as rich as you think I am.

Aleyx: 1:02:50

yeah, you've got all that research department, right?

Jim: 1:02:54

as I said, most of my income goes into research anyway because it's

Aleyx: 1:02:57

Yes.

Jim: 1:02:57

not my priority.

Aleyx: 1:02:59

Yeah.

Jim: 1:03:00

that, I don't know, that's what I'd like people to know. I don't think money is the, all

Aleyx: 1:03:06

Yeah.

Jim: 1:03:06

sometimes I feel bit of a fraud if people's coming to me to say, how do you become wealthy? because it's not really my aim.

Aleyx: 1:03:12

Yeah. Yeah, You've got a much bigger mission. That it sounds of it. What's, what's your favorite division in Jim's group?

Jim: 1:03:20

Mowing.

Aleyx: 1:03:21

Mowing? Has it got a special place in your heart?

Jim: 1:03:24

yes. I was a mowing contract 15 years to, to, me mowing is really, it's a wonderful lifestyle. It's healthy, it's outdoors. It's just great. I love it. I, gardening now is my hobby. Yeah, mowing. Mowing is good. I don't understand how somebody would want to clean houses or carpets or do anything else, but to me, car is the, best, manual job there is. But then luckily people have different priorities. somebody who loves dogs, they would think dog wash. Oh, fantastic. And they love it. They think it's the greatest thing ever. Great Working with dogs and they're friends with the dogs and they're just different people. Or somebody likes cars, for example. to them washing cleaning cars is a wonderful job because they love cars so much. See, that's the point. You got to fit, you got to fit what your temperament is. To me, lawn main gardening, particularly gardening and we get the spade, digging out, gardens. I've just en I love that so much. It's just so therapeutic.

Aleyx: 1:04:26

Oh, I love it. You see your light, your face lights up. We can talk about it. What's your proudest moment outside of business?

Jim: 1:04:32

I hear people being successful. I hear stories about people who've done well, who've turned their lives around. that really is something amazing. You have somebody who's, one of the things I do is I ring franchisees on the 10 year anniversaries. and you hear stories about people who've seen their kids growing up, who've from being now somebody who's 50 years old in a financial failure, and, 10 years later they've got their own house and a boat and it just, their whole life is different. that is amazing to hear. And then when your kids do great things too, you, you're so impressed. I know, that sounds trivial, but we had a family gathering, about a week ago, and my son, Aaron's 16 years old, he just got a virtual, did the whole washing up. Which is, there's a lot of us too. There was about nine of us there, and he just got up and washed up and cleaned up. And I was so impressed. I thought, wow, this is a great kid.

Aleyx: 1:05:30

And you didn't have to ask, that's impressive for 16. Didn't even need to.

Jim: 1:05:34

Yes. when he was eight years old, we used to do, fasting every, month we'd do fast where you, don't eat certain things during, from a whole month, like, the lenon fast and he would do it with me. That was great. So we just see your children. Now, mind you, Aaron is also good. His weaknesses, he's, he tends to get his assignments in late, which his mother and I get quite upset about. And, so he's got his weaknesses, but he's, when you see somebody doing something that's really good like that, I know it sounds small, are you with your own kids when they grow up? You'll see them doing something which shows that they've really taken the lesson and they're really helpful to somebody else. So they're really reliable and hardworking and stuff. You take pride in that sort of thing. You really do. And that's, a great glow of satisfaction that, that

Aleyx: 1:06:22

Yeah, I can relate. It's usually the, smallest things. Like even when I just see my 4-year-old and my 2-year-old just playing nicely and just the little conversations. You over here, I, I almost cry just because I'm just like, oh. It's just, it's often those small moments. It's not the, the big moments that you think it would be.

Jim: 1:06:41

great. The kids get on well with the other two. We have this, especially our, youngest four, Lee and I have, and they're just, such great kids and they get on really well together and they care for each other and they just, they're just good people. there's always things they have to be doing better. Why don't they, but we get married and not having kids, for example, but they're great.

Aleyx: 1:07:02

beautiful. this has been a great conversation, Jim. I always end on with the last question as I pass it on, gift to the listeners. you've built one of the most recognisable brands in Australia. What's one lesson or story you pass on to someone listening who wants to build a legacy such as yours?

Jim: 1:07:25

Don't, focus primarily on money. it's a good, it's a good, you've got to make money at what you do, but do something that you love. Service industry is a great one to go into because it's not very competitive and there's very little capital involved with it. And just do it. look after people well. Think of the value of what you are doing. Don't, put money first. I think one of the biggest dangers, people like, like speculation. They want, they want to put money to something because they think Tommy will pay more like crypto or something like that, which is gambling. that's a really bad thing to do. You should never, ever put money to something simply to make money out of it. You should always see some value in what you're doing. So, how can you help other people in some way provide a service that will help them? I think service industry is, I'm biased in that one. I think the service industry is wonderful in that particular way. We reckon we've created more millionaires than any company in the history of Australia because, because you can start with very little and you can build anything depending on, and we'll show you how. So find something and just do it better. Be endlessly so critical. Look at what you do all the time and say, I've made a mistake. What can I do? How can I learn from this? that is so, powerful. Be humility is one of the most underrated virtue when it comes to business. ability to say, I've done the wrong thing. I'm sorry. Made a mistake. Okay, what do I learn? How do I not? You don't get buried by your mistakes. You just got to say, what can I do better? And if I look back even a year ago, I reckon I could make a good point of mistakes that I've made two years ago. Terrible mistakes, obviously making it, but then trying to learn.

Aleyx: 1:09:09

learn from them. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jim. It's been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you, joining me today. Thank you.