027 - Master of Franchise | Jim Penman

Jim, welcome. What amazing story and an amazing business that you have created. And also I always say that running business is not easy because you know anybody that runs the business, including yourself, you're responsible for a lot of people, which ultimately results. You're responsible for a lot of their families. And doesn't matter how economy is going over past 50 years, us as a business owners are still responsible for making sure the ship keeps going. Doesn't matter what economy is doing. So, Jim, from where you are now, do you ever look back and think to yourself that, wow, this has grown to something big. And Jim, you have done well. Do you ever tap yourself on the shoulder for two minutes and say, it's been a big long journey and here we are.

I probably spend more time, Kezia, thinking about the things we should do better. To the extent that every franchisee, not every franchisee succeeds, not every client gets fantastic service, I tend to more look forward and say, how can we improve? I mean, we've had a. Since, since prior to gyms, we've had a 99% drop in complaint rates. We're dramatically better. But GPUs, we can be better still. And we're developing software and systems now that should have a even more effect.

So you're constantly focused more on not even reflecting on anything that has been done. Your focus is, what can we do better tomorrow?

Yes. I don't think you want to sit back just patting yourself on the back saying how good we are. We could do so much better.

Look, I think we can always be improving. Now, you have been in a business for very long time and you started your company from scratch. And I believe you started with $24 and correct me if I'm wrong, that.

I find and deeply in debt. So not, not a good start.

Not a good start. When you look back over all the time, you constantly kept growing. I always say it's much easier when you create a small business and you want to keep it small. For example, you know, you can start accounting business, have two accountants that you employ, and you only take enough work to keep yourself and two accountants busy and the journey is kind of flat and it's easier to control and maintain. But you constantly kept growing. Why?

Well, I don't know. I don't know. It's so easy to do the same thing because to me, to do any job and not try to do it better is unimaginable. I mean, if I'm unpacking the dishwasher, if I can work out a better way to get my glass from the Dishwasher to the. I'm going to do it. And so every day you think, how can I improve? It's not really a. I don't. The idea that you should run a business in a way and just keep on doing it the same way is just lunatic. I mean, the world's going to change your part for anything else. But how, how can you not want to do better?

Yes.

You were an accountant, for example. Okay, how can I do it better? How can I do a more efficient job faster? How can I, how can I amaze my clients more? How can I give them extra value? And once you start doing that, you start getting more clients and you put on staff on. So you're going to work out, how can I find better staff? How can I help them, train them better, support them better? You just, it's just a natural process to me. That's every day, how can you improve? There's no, there's no end goal. There's just better.

One thing that I've been following your journey for a very long time, you are really heavily focused also on branding because you have created brand from start. That was a lot easier for you to create other franchises in different fields because everybody knew your brand from start. So, Jim smoring, that's how it all started. Can you tell us exactly what other franchises exactly are out there?

You won't be a name. There's like 40 something, so four.

So 40. So that's what I'm saying, that your focus was so heavily focused on brand that. Do you think once you create a very, very strong brand, it's a lot easier for you to keep.

Yeah, I never focused on the brand. I never, I never, I never thought, how can I make my brand game? I thought, how can I make my franchisees successful? That's your primary goal as a franchisor. What can you do to turn every franchisee into a success story? What more can you do? What different things can you do? I mean, we're working on this all the time. One of the things that's come this, this week is an issue where we got some new franchisees who are in situations where they're not making as much money. They haven't quite many leads. So what we're doing is organizing a feedback system so that we jump on that because we look after about a thousand franchisees directly and say, okay, what system can we have in place to notify us very quickly that they're not making the money as they should and then put extra advertising into place. Franchisees and then look after franchisees properly. You have to look after your clients really well. So how can we reduce complaints? What better training system can do? How can we coach franchisees better? How can we screen franchises better? So you're always looking at. And if you do that kind of thing, if you look after your franchisees which means you attract good people and keep good people.

Yes.

Then you look after clients really well. Then your brain grows. But the brand is not the. It's the people that matter.

Yes. But at end of the day also. Exactly what you said. Putting your franchisees first and getting a good people and him and them delivering good results to the end customer. Ultimately they are building good brand as well. Because you can have a terrible.

You do and ultimately you make a whole lot of money. But it's never the first thing you think about.

Yes.

Brand is never the first thing. Nor is the money. It's always the people. Particularly my franchisees.

Yes.

And at the moment what your focus is. And I don't, I don't agree with companies.

Yes.

Philosophy of companies that say my first obligation is the bottom line to the shareholders. For a public company, I don't, I don't think that way. If you do the things right for the people, you're dealing with people first, then the bottom line tends to look after itself to a large extent.

Yes. Which is very interesting what you just said. You have built a quite large business. Did you ever get tempted to go public?

I looked at it at one stage, but not a good idea again. When you're a public company, you're chained to the shareholders. And I don't make short term decisions. We do all kinds of things that aren't good financially. Short term you make kinds of decisions like every day. What's the right thing to do, what's the best thing. But the people that we're concerned with. I don't want to be having analysts looking at my next quarter's earnings vibes. Isn't that big a company. It's very prominent. But, but you know, you're talking about people who are. We don't make that much money. We only take about a 6% on average. Our fees are about 6%. They're not calculated that way.

Yes, yes.

And most of that goes in, in costs. So we're a well known company. As I say, I'm a lot more famous than. I'm rich. But I never put the money first.

And maybe that's why also your business has grown as well as. Well, you know, over time because you put people first and once you constantly keep putting people first as well, then obviously you know, they keep staying with you for a very long time instead of keep jumping the ship. Specifically when it comes TO I have 10 offices, not thousand, but over seven years, even my 10 real estate offices, we have built a franchise model and all of our guys are staying with us and renewing their franchise after five years now. And but in a lot of industries you see that people are constantly jumping ship. So in any franchise is always people see it as a challenge how to keep people to stay with you after five years if there's the agreement that you have with them and an only way you can keep them to stay with if you're also offering them a value as a company advice. If you give people just your name behind you and not be there for them specifically when times that we are living in are changing constantly and if we don't change with time, we're going to be stay behind. Specifically in the real estate industry as well, because marketing is so crucial. The way we market anything 20 years ago or 10 years ago, five years ago, and today is completely different. And you know, so, you know, putting people first and offering them value is the only way you, you know, you can stay.

We don't even lock our franchisees into the term of their contract. If somebody wants to go independent, they just pay a small fee, four or $5,000 and often run their own business with their own branding. Does happen sometimes too. Not, not of course, but they can. If, if people don't see the value in what we're providing for them, in the brand leads and in the training and the resources and the buying group, then, then go off and do your own thing. What's going to persuade you that we can do enough for you that you want to stay with us? That's the idea, yes.

And what's the point of working with somebody if they don't want to work with you?

All right, see one, the greatest lesson, the greatest weapon we've got selling a franchise is a list of current franchisees. So these people we've got, ring them, bring all of them, bring any of them, bring all of them. And the more, the better the operator, the more likely they are to ring more people. And if, if the response they get is, you know, well, I only stay because I have to, because I'm blocked in my contract, what does that say? But then if somebody leaves, if they said quite often, they'll say, well, look, Jim's was great, they built me up business, I got to the Stage where I had all the regular clients I wanted, satisfied, didn't need the brand anymore, gone independent. But they're still, they can still be an advocate for us.

Absolutely. And they can still help you get more people in the future as well.

Yeah. The people come in to gyms because they're recommended by somebody who's left.

Yes. Building your business over 40 years, what would you say is the biggest challenge? Growing your business?

Finding good people, finding good staff is probably my number one challenge. It's. It's just not something I'm particularly good at. I made some terrible mistakes. I've also done a lot of dumb things like going into business I don't really understand, like trade, exchange, factory, all kinds of stuff. So. But I've got pretty good staff, but I could do with better. We are looking for some really hotshot managers right now, people who've got that enterprise and that drive. We just don't have enough people like that. Yes, we tend to recruit from the bottom line, often from the call center and from franchisees sometimes. But to a certain extent we do lack people at the top end. I must say it's been a challenge for us.

Would you say that people's work ethic has changed from 20 years ago or 30 years ago to today?

Well, not amongst our franchisees, but we get a lot of new immigrants who tend to have a fantastic work ethic. They don't struggle with English, but they know how to work hard. And I think we get the best of the, we get the best of the Australians too. Those who don't mind going out there having a go get their hands dirty because usually they're manual jobs, just enterprise side. I would not, would not say the quality of our franchisees has dropped, but.

Just in general, just in general, would you say that?

Oh, I think, I think we're getting becoming weaker and softer. I mean, one of the stupidest things about it I know is people have this obsession with these tertiary education. I can't. I got a PhD in History of all stupid things. But people are so obsessed with education. You want to do on all these courses and sit down and sit at the desk and be a lawyer or an accountant or a financial advisor or something. The opportunities in the service industry are to my mind, phenomenally greater. People don't. Young people in wealthy country don't tend to want to work with their hands.

Yeah.

I don't know why. Because. Because our average franchisee makes well above the Australian average wage and they've got a bit of lifestyle too, with less Traveling and flexibility and stuff and, and tax benefits and being self employed so. But there's a prejudice against manual work. I remember actually, you know, you know I got, I wouldn't go the weekend I go and work on my farm and cut blackberries and digging stuff. I've got calloused hands. I enjoy that kind of stuff always.

Did I find it relaxing. I got few development sites that are very close to my office and I remember when I started on tools, 18, 19 and 20 years old when I was working on tools I would, I remember, you know, my dad was working with me and my brother because obviously we were just I'm hungry to work. I guess we would be on a job site, you know, 5:36am and we would work literally till 6pm till we pass out from, from being tired and on physical work and. But at the time 25, 26 years ago there was, I remember, you know, all the bricklayers and, and concrete test. There was so many people working till 5 o', clock, you know, it wasn't unusual. Now all my development sites that are five minutes away from my office, if I go to any of them past 3 o' clock I can't see anybody. And, and which is very, which is different, you know. And I'm not saying they, they lazy or they're making more money whatever it is. I think there's not many 20 years olds these days that want to become a bricklayer. They want to become a concrete.

I'm a plumber. And these are, these are good, these are good professionals and they pay very well and very good opportunities to have your own business too, which is, which is much harder if you're in most. So I don't know, I don't know why I think, I think wealthy societies tend to become slack and yes, very lazy because white collar workers tend to work long hours. But people ignore the opportunities in the, in physical manual work. And it's not just a matter of opportunity, it's a matter of lifestyle and happiness too. Studies they've done have indicated the happiest people tend to be people who work manually like construction workers and gardens and so forth. And they, and they do streets ahead of people like lawyers. It's not the way society manages it. One of our top people actually was a, he was a high school dropout. He dropped out in school at the age of 15. The first he possibly could when he worked for McDonald's for a while. Came got a franchise with us a few years ago, then became successful turning over close to a million Dollars a year. Sold that now one of our top franchises. This guy's still in his 20s.

Yes, but he's not, he's not afraid of hard work.

No, he's a hard working guy at every level. He's a hard working guy. He's a fine young man, Dan.

So I think talent without hard work doesn't mean much.

No, no. People overestimate the value of intelligence. I'll tell you something, they think if you're smart, you're naturally going to be successful. Let me tell you that the best estimate you can choose about 4% towards success. The vast majority is work ethic, hard work, enterprise, willingness to learn, willingness to work with people. Just, just character. Character is everything.

If somebody's starting any business today at 20 years old, what would you tell them is waiting ahead of them next 50 years?

Anything. Anything. The difference is really, do you look at what you do every day and say, how can I do this better? See, when I've made lawns about 15 years, I wasn't, I wasn't a fast starter. I really wasn't. 15 years of mourning as a student and, and my own business full time after that. But every day I was out there, I was thinking, how can I, how can I empty the, the grass catcher with one step less? What's the best way to do it? How can I, how can I turn my mower most efficiently? How can I save a half second going a tree? How can I save time going between jobs? How can I turn over a garden bed to get the best result and the quickest thing? How, how do I amaze my clients? How do I cut my time? How do I cut my cost? Just constantly thinking about that. You start off an impoverished debt written uni student.

Yes.

And you create anything. And that's the great thing about business. There's nobody above you. Like, if I was out there in the workforce now trying to get quite, to get a job, people would say, oh, you're old Geezer, you're 71 years old. You're clearly past it. You know, go away. Got my grandpa. I want somebody, I want something. I'm a hot shot with a masters in, you know, 20, 27 years old. But I don't have to worry about that because I'm in charge. It's my business.

Yes, you can do, you know, but interesting thing is other day, one of the guys that I, I watch his videos quite often. Dana White. Dana White, I'm the president of ufc. And interesting thing that he said, he said a lot of people would Say start your own business so you can have your own hours and you can have a life. And the fact is when you are starting your business journey, you don't set your hours because you got no hours, you're working a lot harder. There's no such a thing as a long holidays when you start off your journey, when you're starting to build it up. But advantage you have is you are in control of your own journey as well and you can shape it how you want to shape it as well.

Possibly slightly different in a franchise system. In fact, the more common story that I hear is that somebody's getting very similar money to their previous job, but they've got a better lifestyle.

But with franchise model you already set the road for them which is much better in place.

You're basically screening, you've got training process, you've got, you've got your leads coming through, you've got your meetings, you've got your, your mentor, your coach, your franchise also. It's all there, it's, it's look, you know, one of the most characteristic stories, one of the most moving stories I hit when I rang one of my 10 year franchises. I ring them up when I'd been going 10 years or 20 years on the big anniversaries and this guy told me, I said what were you doing? And he said I was an IGA manager and I said what happened? He said one day I was leaving about for work very early in the morning because they were very long hours and my 4 year old son said to me, daddy, I wish you could have breakfast with us.

Yes.

He said he drove to work, tears streaming down his face, quit his job, bought a mowing franchise and he's had breakfast with his kids and he's seen them growing up and his son's now 40. Did I said, you ever thank your son for that comedy? He said every day. Now it's not that he's making so much more money. This guy wants to see his, his son, his children grow up and that's been more important to him. There are, we probably created more millionaires than any company in the country, I believe because so many of the franchisees do, do very, very well. Like Guy Dan, I was telling you about before. But it's actually rather more common for people to buy a franchise for the sake of lifestyle.

Yes.

Because there's things like people think that if you have a, a fancy car and a big house and stuff, you'll be happy. Actually there's not much to do with it really. Past about average Australian wage, which is a lot less than most of our franchisees made. It doesn't make much difference, but things like commuting makes a huge difference. You're traveling an hour to work, that's like equivalent to a $75,000 cut in salary. Honestly. This is the studies they've done on this.

Yes.

Things like working outside, things like flexibility, time with your family, good family relationship, relationship with friends, lifestyle. So I mean, you and I are both ambitious people, obviously, and we see it differently. And obviously I always want to create a great business, but it's not the only goal.

I always say that my day starts when I wake up in the morning and I always wake up at 4 o' clock for past 20 years, regardless if I'm tired or not tired. I just wake up like a buddy Christian clock. I always start my day by being grateful and being grateful that when I woke up I'm breathing and I'm being grateful that I'm healthy and I'm being grateful that I have a good family around me. And then my day starts and I'm. And I'm so conscious that today is the day that I never lived before. And when this day is over, I'm one day closer to my ultimate destination, which is me being nine foot under. And so with me, I always like to use my time wisely and be happy, individual with anything that I'm do money or bigger homes or cars. That is just a bonus if you like that stuff, if you're happy, individual. But if you're a miserable person, if you're unhappy with life in general, nothing can help you. No money in the world.

That's right.

How many hours?

People are very miserable, which is very sad.

Yeah.

A guy now who's the brother of a close friend of mine, committed suicide a few years back. He was immensely wealthy man, much richer than I am, and just stuffed up family, stuffed up personal life, killed himself. What's, what's, what's the point? Money itself is limited value. There's got to be a purpose in what you're doing.

Question I have for you, you don't have to do interviews like this. And you constantly keep putting yourself out there, keep passing your knowledge to others where you don't have to. You can be having your breakfast in your farm and not talk to people like me and not let anybody hear your stories. Why do you keep giving your knowledge to others?

Yeah, I'm not that altruistic about it. I don't mind helping people. In fact, I'm very happy to, but the fact of the matter is talking to you is very good value for me. I'm going to spend an hour on the phone. You know, know people will listen to this. You never know. Two or three of your people, people watching may decide to buy a franchise as a result of it. That's a, that's a very good out work for me.

You know, I, I tell you interesting story. You know, I have created a small franchising, you know, a real estate company. We only sell $2 billion a year, which I think is small compared to, you know, company that you have created. And, and with me it's almost like, you know what, I'm glad that I'm not sitting in this interview in person because I reckon within an hour I would be rebranding to Jim's Real Estate. So this is much better and safer for me.

Well, it's dangerous actually. We do have a good, we have a good track record. I mean, you can look at the statistics. You want to go into a service business like cleaning or gardening, look it up online. It's all with the, your chance of being in business after the first year is between 5 and 10%. What's our chance? 88%. I'd like to say it's 100%. But 88% of franchise people are still franchise. They haven't got independent, they haven't failed, they haven't decided. They're still with us. That's, that's what we do. But also when you're talking about a new business, like, like a new division, like we start new divisions all the time. We're about to launch Jim Beauty and looking at Jim's vending machines, there's a few businesses now, not all of our businesses succeed, but most of them actually do. So we, for example, got, somebody came to us the idea of building inspections. It's now the biggest building inspections company in the country. Somebody came to us with working for a competitor, a Mr. Antennas came to us, started Jim's Antennas, now the biggest antennas company in the country. So we've got a structure that allows people to come in and with a new idea and a system and, and make it work mostly obviously much earlier than where you are in business, you're already quite successful. But if you want to start a new business entirely and you want to dominate the industry, we're a great place to go.

Well, look, to be honest, the most businesses when they do start, they don't have structures, they don't have processes. They obviously definitely don't have any kind of brand because they're just starting up. And I always say, you know, a lot of people are comparing starting your own brand and taking franchise on. Everything comes down to what you want to what's your life goal, you know, and my plans in my business is not two years short. You know, I'm thinking 100 years ahead and. But franchise models, they just save your time straight away. And you are in the business from day one, not building the business. I mean you're always going to be building the business but if you don't. No, if you don't have any systems, processes and branding and leads, you are so behind till you get to this place where you are.

Branding is very powerful too. Some years ago we did a survey in Adelaide about glazing companies and there was a couple of local ones and then there was o' Brien's Glass, which as you know is by far the biggest in the country. And then there was gym class and we asked people who they prefer. Now it's not surprisingly o' Brien's did better than the locals. People were more likely to call them because they knew the name. But by far the most popular that people what they said use was Jim's Glass, which didn't even exist. We were just doing so before you started your business, you've already got the best known brand in the country for.

What you're actually doing, which makes it a lot easier.

That's one of the reasons we focus so heavily on Australia and New Zealand, because the brand is so strong here rather than going overseas. Because it's much easier to start a new division in. Yes, in Australia or New Zealand, that is to start one in the U.S. for example, instead of anything in the U.S. because the brand isn't known.

Jim, do you have family members that are working with you today?

Not really. Basically people. All my kids have worked at some time in the business, but I don't have anybody at the moment. Yes, I'm not an easy person to work with.

Yes. Something. Something interesting that I've just learned of lately that all this company In Japan is 500 years old. I had no idea about this. Japan does have over 50000 businesses that are over 100 years old, which is phenomenal.

I think you'll find those businesses in Japan, they're over a thousand years old. There's a few and they go through.

There you go, There you go. Which is really interesting. I feel like you should almost be living in Japan because you have created company over last. It's been over 40 years now. With young generation these days, and I constantly see it all the time and I feel like I'm much older than a lot of new generations because I'm 44. But with young generation, they start something, becomes a little bit hard, they give up, they get distracted, start something else. I'm assuming in your 40 years business journey, it wasn't always easy, but you were always thinking long term and you always kept pushing through, I'm guessing. Why am I. How can any young individual that is facing any problems, how can they mentally get over that hurdle and keep moving forward?

Motivation is, is a, it's a difficult thing. I mean, obviously you've got to have a certain amount of ambition behind you. But as to how, how a person becomes motivated, I think a lot of it's to do with lifestyle. I think it's to do with sense of purpose. You've got to, to my mind, you've got to believe in what you're doing to some extent that you're doing something valuable. But that's a personal motivation. Some people are driven by the idea, the, the desire for money. But I think also things like health and stuff make a lot of difference. Like for example, exercise, keeping fit. One of the things that when I got up this morning I, I went out and did weightlifting and ran for a half hour on the treadmill. And during the day I'll do a lot of walking and so forth too, you know, all around the place. It's just my natural life. So I'm physically very active and on the up my farm, including blackberries the weekend. And there'll be quite a few more hours doing that. So it's, it's spending time outside. Keeping yourself psychologically healthy is very important. I don't think people should live to work. I think work should be something that you love doing. It's part of a great lifestyle. And I certainly would never want to retire because I love what I do. But there's got to be a purpose behind it.

I think every person, every employee that I ever have always give them this little lecture when I meet them. I always say it's very important that you're passionate about things that you're doing. Because work in my mind is 80% of your life while you are alive, while you are awake. Because when you're sleeping, in my mind, you kind of don't exist. Right. So most people, when they wake up in the morning, they're getting ready to go to work, then they're driving to work, whatever it takes them, then they work all day, then they're driving from work home and they get home 5:30, 6:00 clock and then they awake for two, three hours and that they, then they are passed out again because they're sleeping. So while you are awake, you really want to waste 80% of your life so might as well give it all. Do something that you're passionate about, do something that you love. Otherwise if you're going to be one of those people that as soon as they come to work they are looking at the watch when it's going to be five o', clock, you're wasting huge part of your life that you're never going to get back. What is the point?

Yes, though, though I, I don't necessarily agree that work should take care of your life to that extent.

But if you love it, then it's not work.

But one of the, one of the statements I most believe in is, is, is a very wise man once said no other success can compensate for failure in the home.

Yes.

What do you do with your family? How many kids have you got? Can I ask that?

I got, we couldn't have kids. I got no kids for different reasons. Not because I love kids. Trust me, if I, if I can, if I can have, if I. But that's okay. We are, we are okay. You know, I never beat myself up with situations that I can't change. Right. Some stuff. If you can make changes, great. But we are happy because you know, I have amazing nephew nieces. I employ a lot of great people. So to us life is beautiful. We don't beat ourselves up. But you know, I always say that that's another thing that in Japan, one of the reasons they keep companies for 100 years, because they want their kids to work in the businesses so they see them more often and so on. Which is interesting.

I think eventually my, some of my children will. I've got a couple of potential sons in law too that I think will be very, very good in the business. Very impressive young men.

How many kids do you have?

10.

Jim, you got 10 kids?

Yeah, that's right. Doesn't everybody?

No, I think I said I think Jim. I think me and you can do the deal. I got no kids, you got 10. Even if you give me three, you won't know the difference. What's.

I can't spare any of mine. I love them all.

Jim, I'm gonna steal three kids from you. You won't even know the difference you got here.

Not all by the same wife.

That's okay.

Staying married. Women can't stand me After a while though, I've been quite well married for the last 20 years, quite happily. But.

That'S beautiful. That's beautiful. I will. Which is interesting. Listen to this. I got no kids. My grandma had 12 kids. My dad's grandma had 22 kids.

That was a hard working women.

That's a lot of kids to the same husband.

Yes, that's imprisoned.

And she died at age 47, which is 5. Fascinating. So the family is so huge and my brother is expecting fourth kid, nine is four and a half years younger than me. So I come from a massive, massive family. And I remember in 1986, I will never forget, I was only seven years old. And for some crazy reason, Jim, I remember stuff that I did 40 years ago more than what I had for breakfast yesterday in 1986. I remember there was a picture taken. My grandfather who passed away that same year, he was sitting and family cooked pig on the spit. And all uncle and aunties, they were there and all of their husbands and all of the kids, there's like freaking 50, 60 people in the picture at that time. And it was amazing to see and I will never forget that. Big families. Jim. Do you talk of travel, do you work? Do you live far away from your business next door?

I walk to work. After I finish this interview, I'm going to walk across. It'll take me, it take me five minutes to get into my office. Nice bush track. See, commuting is not a, not a positive thing. And I don't like to commute.

Same thing. We are building a house now literally 1.2km away from our office. So when, when you, and you should.

Walk to work or cycle to work too. Don't get the car.

Don't get the car. You know what I say?

Don't have a car. I said don't use the car to go to work. You should walk yourself. And even, even if it's at night and even if it's raining, walking is great all the time.

I got, I got a few little dogs and that's one thing that I do every morning and every, every night as well. I think that, you know, any kind of exercise is good for us to clean our heads as well.

Because what exercise do you get? What do you do apart from walking your dogs?

Well, I, I'm guilty of. I, I have a lot of cars, Jim. And, and when we lived in one house we only had two garages. And I love a lot of cars. So I convinced myself that I need to buy their house so I can put all My cars in it. And then what I have done, I built a full commercial gym for myself to go and exercise in. So.

But how often do you use it? How many, how much time do you spend?

I, I exercise right now, I have to be honest. I'm not gonna say that I exercise a lot. I probably exercise twice a week. But my exercise would be, I would literally go and be really intense. I'm a big in rowing and running as well. And I normally, I Normally run about 4:30 in the morning for half an hour alone than I walk my dogs and that's almost every day.

So half an hour running every morning. That's great. That's good, That's a good, yeah, well.

Well that's, that's running. But I would use my gym once, twice a week. But I definitely run every day. I need to do that for myself, for my own sanity as well. I feel like, you know, fresh air.

It'S good for, it's good for health, it's good for energy, it's good for happiness. Exercise is, is, is huge. There's so many people my age who are just geriatric. They're slow, their minds are slow, they lose their passion, they lose their drive, they lose so much. I don't want to be like that. I may be 71, but I'm not old. I look old, but I don't feel it.

You don't look old and. Yeah, and interesting. You are still so passionate as an individual. You know, you talk about your business, I got a feeling you talk about it now the same way you talked about it 30, 40 years ago.

Yeah, I love my business. It's a great business. I can help people. Every day I'm helping people, trying to work out how to be better. Every One of my franchisees, 5000 plus has my direct phone number and email address and they, and they, they use it. So I'm always getting calls. People are ringing me or people are emailing me, say, what can I do about this? And very often I can help them. Sometimes I can help them by saying, hey, you need to do this. You got a problem?

Yes.

Do that area, work in this area. Do this company do, do more self marketing or talk to your franchise or go to meetings or whatever it happens to be. Yeah, but sometimes there's a problem with the system and then I look at it and I say, how can I help you? Okay, what can I do to improve the system? To help other people?

Yes.

That's a moral purpose. It's a meaningful life. And I've Also got a research project which I'm funding. The great majority of my profits actually go into a research foundation which is looking away to help them to overcome problems like addiction, which is based on my PhD research. I'm interested in that and I'm also very interested in ideas. I read on, listen to on average couple of job books a week. I'm always finding out more things. I just love, I love learning. I love new ideas.

Yes.

It's, it's very.

And it's good. You, you remind me. And you're much younger version than him. You remind me a lot of Warren Buffett and his right hand man, Charlie. Actually Charlie Manga is probably my favorite businessman of all time because he doesn't say much but whatever he says is to the point and, and that's it. But interesting thing is they are. You're very young compared to two of.

Them because well, they're in the 90s now.

Charlie manga is 98.

Yeah.

Fully active in at work. And Warren Buffett I think just hit 93 as well. And an interesting thing is they're much older than you, but they are still passionate. There's a, there's a.

One thing I remember reading about, about Buffett is that, that he would actually be running through the town in a business suit which you hardly ever see. But that's something I do.

Yes.

Haven't got much in common apart from that. But very physically active. He's got a racquetball court in his, his house. I'm getting a racquetball court to my office next door.

Yes.

Staff and for our corporate center visitors. So you've got to be active and that's, that's a huge part of staying young. Interesting thing. There's a book called. Which I can't even find now, but I had it before I lent it to somebody called the Buffett CEOs. And in the early days what Buffett used to do was to buy private companies with the management intact.

Yeah.

They keep on. He'd buy them the money but they keep on running it. That's what he wanted. He wanted. Now the interesting thing about these people was that most of them, the great majority were over retirement age. They were over 65. And one of the best was over 100.

Yes.

So. So this whole idea that once you reach 65 you're suddenly a geriatric has been I think is a bad idea. It depends so much on, on yourself, your exercise, how you live, how you look after yourself.

And also clearly you're very passionate about things that you do. And I think what keeps me going every day is one, I love life. I love life and, and I put such a value on my time and, and I love creating things and I love doing things that I'm so passionate about. As much as we say, you know we are going to work truly at this stage of my life, I don't see it as a work maybe you know, every day. Somebody sent me a text last night and they said they. Did anybody ever tell you a workaholic? I, to this day I work till 9 o' clock and I've been doing this for last 20 odd years and I'm so passionate about giving it all and, and that's not just you know, one year thing or exciting and I'm starting new business. I've been doing my own thing since I was 18 years old and I'm 44. But the passion is so crazy there. That just drives me to keep improving and for me to keep learning and creating and, and I don't do anything for the money. Money just comes because you know when you become expert in your field and then enjoy it, it comes as well. How often do you come to Brisbane?

Never. I hate travel. I detest travel. To me even to go into Melbourne city is a long, unpleasant trek which I avoid as much as possible.

I was going to say, you know, next time you come to Brisbane I will steal you so we can have lunch but looks like we're going to end up having it in Melbourne or your place.

You can be my guest and we'll go out and have, have, we'll go have a local pizza, Indian reel in a local restaurant. That's, that's the extent of it. I, I, I don't find travel really. I don't, I don't enjoy travel. I don't, I hate airplanes, I just hate that movement. But I also find that being in one place with electronic communication you're actually more accessible. Like a franchise. You can ring me, can contact me anytime, you know, even weekends and stuff and after hours and I'm always available. Yes. Even on my farm I got my phone with me. Somebody can ring me up and talk to me, they can send me an email. I, I'm very, very contactable. I find that I actually have more contact with people by electronically. Like this talk for example. I mean I don't know what your listening audience is but I imagine from the, it'll be a few people 100%. Now if I was going to go out and give talks I, I could fly up to Brisbane and give a talk. And maybe two or three hundred people would come and listen to me. But you've got a lot better audience than that. I'm quite sure this.

This is going to be listen to well over 100,000 people and the DES.

Can you see the benefit? I'd have to go to brisbane and all 50 times to actually get the same audience as you're giving me now.

And you would lose three months out of your life flying to Brisbane every single day.

So I don't think you need to travel. I. I think you can do so much. And my biggest, most common journey is to go up my farm, which is half an hour.

What kind of farm do you have?

It's 250 acres. It was originally run to cattle, nothing. But we're turning it into an organic food forest. Plant a lot of trees, mostly nut trees and so forth. No chemicals, nothing at all. That's why I'm clearing blackberries by hand because we don't like to use Roundup.

Yes.

So we just. It's. It's very manual, totally organic. And in the end it'll take a while. We'll be able to produce hundreds of hundreds of tons of food per acre.

Yes. Oh, beautiful.

The wildlife and the birds and the insects and everything that. It's a passion of mine. It's something that I love. I love my farm. I love that.

I feel like that. I feel like. I feel like that's your little hobby and you time when you go to your farm.

Yeah, but when I'm on my phone too, I'm thinking all the time too. I'm listening to talking books. It's not. It's not just doing the work. It's. It's actually I'm. I'm learning and listening and. And thinking. A lot of thinking time. I, I don't. I don't actually work incredibly long hours. I. I don't even know what I work Exactly. Probably maybe 40 hours a week. I don't know. I don't think I work the same hours as you. One of my reasons is because I'm not very good at doing most things. I've got very good staff who are excellent at doing things like finance and yes. HR and all kinds of things. Social media, they're much better than me. So I basically tend to wander around, talk to people. Kind of what you're doing, throw out ideas. I'm always coming up with ideas to do things. Talking to my franchisees. Yes. What are they doing? What's happening? How can we help you? What's gone wrong with the system. I spent a lot of time just analyzing. Not a lot of time spent doing.

Yes. I'm gonna ask you two last questions and a lot of people, my, my, one of my very good friend has asked me, he said to me, emil, he asked me this, he said, emil, what does never give up mean to you? So I'm asking you, Jim, what does never give up mean to you?

I, I don't think I know what that means. I just can't imagine it giving up. See, to me, my life has a purpose. When I get up in the morning, I have a reason for being alive. I have my franchisees and I feel very strong loyalty to them, which is why I got so upset when our premier shut down everybody, all the home service workers for two months for no reason back a couple of years back. It makes me very angry because I identify with them, kind of my tribe, my people, my extended family. So I'm very, to get to them and I'm dedicated to my own family, my children, they matter a lot to me. Tomorrow night I'm going up to see my couple of my children and my little grandson who's just about to turn one. So that's, that's, that's fun too, that's meaningful. And, and I have my research project which, which I actually, you know, as I said, most of my actual personal income goes into that, which is something that has immense potential to help people. So I just don't know how you would give up when you've got that kind of purpose in your life because it's so meaningful. It's, and it's enjoyable. I am a really fortunate, happy person. I don't need the glitz, I don't need the material possessions. You know, I, I, I need a purpose. And, and, and why would I give up? I love what I do. I don't want him to retire either. I, I really don't believe, I often say that I'll have a retirement ceremony one day and I'll be the star of the retirement ceremony and I'll be in a box and when I'm dead, that's it.

And I think the way you're living now, that's not going to happen anytime.

Soon for a long time. I've probably got at least another 20 years. And there's some, there was in last week's Economist, there was this, all this series of articles about, you know, things about longevity. So my view of these, well, I, I could die tomorrow. Could, under a truck, who knows? Yes, I could live another 20 or so years. That's probably the most likely thing. Or I could live a thousand years. Who knows?

Yes, I think. I think you are. There's not much difference between you and Charlie Manga. I reckon he's got a lot more.

Money than I reckon you show you.

It's been. Jim, it's been very pleasure talking to you. And I'm very grateful that you gave us time of your day. And when I am your way, I will find you. And I'm going to hunt you down and take you for lunch. Take you for pizza.

Okay? All right, Gary, you'd be very welcome. I'm sure you go to Melbourne a lot more often than I go to Brisbane.

Thank you so much. Once again, I'm very grateful.

Okay. See you later.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.