#ASKJIM 97 Live from Training with Jim's Group founder, Jim Penman and Joel Kleber

Okay, so, hi, everyone. Welcome to another AskJim. And we're at training week again. So it's the second training already, Jim. It's gone very quick, hasn't it? Yep, it's gone extremely quick.

It's already February. I can't believe that Christmas has just disappeared and suddenly it's February.

It's good to be back with people at the head office here as well. And the beautiful lawn here. So the boys done a great job in setting this up site at the Foothills Conference Centre. So fantastic jobs of the guys.

Anybody a chess player, by the way? Anyone have a game afterwards? Okay, just asking.

So what we're going to do, guys, for those watching at home, make sure you leave a comment or question. I'll get some on my phone here as much as I can. But what we're going to do tonight is we've got all the questions from our audience here. Who are our new franchisees in training? So it's fantastic to have them along. So what I'm going to do is call out their name. They're going to come up to the mic over here, say the division. Now the best question on these ones is in the chance to win the gym's monopoly. So I think you've got a 1 in 10 chance of winning. So.

Yeah, well, you'll get it in from Opoly or your choice of anything from.

The shop as well. So make sure you come up here. So the first person I'm going to read out here is Georgina. Where is Georgina? So Georgina is from Jim's Dogwash. Should I take it with this red shirt?

Hello.

I'm just wondering what's the next division that you're planning on starting?

If you are probably Bouncy Castles. I think the next one coming up.

Is it just Party High or is it Bouncy Castle?

Bouncy Castle's Party High. I'm not sure what they're going to call it, but one of our franchisors is already doing that, so he's got a great business plan. As we were saying before at dinner time, people come to us with ideas all the time, but what we really want to know is what do you know about the business? But he knows all about. He knows what equipment you need, which is surprisingly little, actually, and what hourly rates you can make and how you promote it and all kinds of things. And. Yeah, so I think it's gonna be a good one. Never know, Marco might be the franchisor because he's got a big experience in that area, so. Oh, really?

Yes. Good question.

Thank you. But if anybody wants to come up with something, they've already, especially if everybody got experience in, we'd love to. We'd love to know. That's how divisions get started. People come to us. It's not so much we. We very rarely think of new divisions ourselves.

What you can't do is message Jim on Instagram and say, I've got a great idea. Put up half the money and we'll go 50. 50 and we'll do it.

That's right.

Can't do that.

You can try, but it doesn't work.

Save yourself some time. Got a question from online from Dave McDonald. G', day, Dave. He says hello, Jim and Joel. How many at training this week? So how many people at training?

I think there's just under 60 in the auditorium and there's about 30 online.

Yes, 90.

90, which is really good. 90 is very, very good.

We still have another training in February to come, so it could be three weeks time.

Yeah, it would be a good month.

Absolutely. So next one here I've got is from Samantha. Where's Samantha? Very good question, this one.

Hello.

Thank you.

What was your best piece of advice when you first started out?

Best piece of advice when Jim first started out?

From who? Someone to me or someone to you? I don't know anybody really advised me. Actually, I just used to read a lot. I read behind the arches about McDonald's. That was really good press and McDonald's was and is an exceptional company where franchise is concerned. It's terrible food and I would not let my kids eat it. But as franchisors, they are terrific. They really are dedicated to their franchisees. Ray Kroc's first franchises were millionaires before he even drew a salary from McDonald's. That's how dedicated he was to making them successful. And McDonald's has been very good at that. And even now, you know, the McAfee thing that they do, that was actually all agreed to by the franchisees in Australia. They actually talked to them and got that jointly rolled out. So they're a classic case of a franchise that listens and that really cares about the welfare of a franchisees. So, yeah, I wouldn't say one bit of advice, but that was a great example to listen. Absolutely.

And what division are you going to be joining, Samantha?

Pest control.

Pest control and pest control.

Awesome. Thank you. Cool.

You've got a few people watching online. So if you do want to put a question for Jim as well, or anything about Mike as well, if you're in the audience. You can put it in online, no problem at all. All right, we've got one here from Ben. Where is Ben? This is a really good question, Ben. I don't know if Jim answer this one. So we'll see. It's a good one. It's a very specific question.

Hi, Jim.

Today we've been learning all about consistent. Delivering a consistent brand handyman. We are restricted in trade between Queensland and Victoria. For example, we can only do $3,300. Project Victoria, I think, can do 10,000. Would you be willing or are you able or would you consider advocating for sort of getting a bit more consistency on some of sort of projects and the value.

Sorry, what do you mean by consistency?

Consistency in what we are allowed to do? We are in Queensland. We are not allowed to do anything over a project of $3,300 worth. In Victoria, you can do a $10,000 project under the same division.

Well, the first thing we say is you need to abide by the law, whatever state that you're in. So if the law doesn't allow you to do jobs beyond a certain, then do. But we actually get very few problems with handyman division. Remarkably few in terms of the variety of work that's being done. Reviews tend to be very, very good. Complaints tend to be quite rare. So we're really comfortable with people doing the work up to the level they're allowed to. What we do do is encourage you're in Queensland. Yes. Okay. What I understand that is happening is we're doing our best to upskill the franchisees there so you can take on larger jobs, so you can start off as a doing the smaller ones and then be qualified and do short courses and stuff to actually go up. And I think that we're going up the value chain quite a lot to a certain extent, too. You can also use other people's licenses, which is what often happens in places like that. So if you've got a job that's way beyond you, you can go to your franchisor or to another franchisee and say, can we work on this together? Something like that. So there's ways around it, but ideally you should be able. $3,000 isn't a lot. It's not a very big job. So you really want to try and work towards. Have you got any plans to do that? Is that what you're doing? Oh, absolutely, yeah.

That's in the first 12 months to make sure I get something because I'm a qualified engineer, but I can't do.

A building Project Hia stuff, isn't it? Hia step qbcc.

I think actually Queensland is unreasonably restrictive. They have rules. I don't think they really benefit the public at all. It's just very extreme Queensland loneliness divisions like fencing. We actually have fencing guys who go over the border into New South Wales and get certified there and come back to Queensland because it's so difficult to get your license to do it. But we would want to encourage you, support you to go up the train as much as possible and take on as much work as possible and have as many employees as possible, do as big a jobs as possible because it's all good for our brand. And you too of course.

Yeah, thanks for that Ben, that was a good one. Good job, Jim. I didn't know you shut me down on that one big time. Alright, so people online watching got one from Jason Smythe. So I'm just gonna do this online question. So if you are watching online you can leave a question. I'll get to it. Hi Jim, are you looking at putting at franchisees who were recruited during COVID back through training? Many seem not to be par up in my area. Best feed in the other businesses in the area ever From Jason is an observation.

Yes, we are actually. In fact I spoke to gentleman this afternoon who's doing exactly that had an absolutely disastrous start. Really has no clues. What I said was he's doing the entire training course here in person without being charged. I might too because he's already paid for it. And what I said is when he's completed I will wipe his record clean. I'll take out all the complaints, all the bad surveys, everything and we'll start from scratch. From what his franchisor says and for speaking to him, I think he's a fine young man. He just hasn't been well prepared. We've had more disasters in the last few months and people who started their online training than we've ever had in the last 10 years. It's been appalling. It really speaks to the value of this training course. It honestly does. When you see the kind of results people with star ratings of 3.9 and 3.2 and multiple complaints in their first couple of months, they just don't understand the system. So if we've got problems like that, I think it's a very good factor to say come back to training, do it, learn the system properly as you're doing this week and then we'll push you out again and we'll wipe the past.

Good observation, Jason. And thanks for leaving that one there online. We've got one here now from the audience, which is Nada. Where is Nada? Is Nada here? I can read it out on the behalf, which is no problem at all. So Nada's question was, after three years, when I'm really busy and I'm not taking any more leads, do I still have to pay lead fees or stay with, do I still have to pay fees? Sorry, was the question.

Well, no, you can go independent if you like. Just pay us $4,000. You can have your own business in that sense. No, you'll pay less fees because you're not taking lead fees. Look, the surprising thing about it, though, is that people do occasionally go independent, but the great majority of those, even if you've got good businesses, stay with the brand. And there's reasons for that, even if you're not taking on leads. One of them is the sort of the personal support, which is a big factor. Like I was talking this morning, the fact that you are with other people, that you're part of a group, that you've got friends, you've got relationships, you've got your franchisor, you've got your fellow franchisees and they're helpful to you. And the other thing is, the brand itself is a very strong factor in terms of what you can charge. Now, to give a very concrete example, years ago we had division called Security Dogs, which has just started up again now in the last few months, and the guy who did it had a factory and he used to actually put out doors under his own brand, and he put doors out under the Jim's Security Doors brand. When he was charging Jim's Security doors, he charged $1,000 for the same door. Exactly. Put it back by the same people, but in a different uniform. He charged 850. He said he just could not get the same prices. So when you think about that, that's like a 17% increase in what he can charge simply by wearing the brand. So there are many reasons, even if you're not taking leaves, why continuing to pay fees and be part of gym is good. And most actually, that's what usually happens.

Now, you call your veterans all the time, which is your 10 year, 15, your 20 years. What do the veterans say about staying around? Because obviously they have enough client base to do whatever they want.

Really. I love it. It's one of my favourite. I do it on Monday nights. So when I finish here, I'm going to go back home and start ringing my veterans. And it's Just wonderful to hear the stories. Some of them take very few leaves, some of them haven't for years. They just love the system. They said it makes so much money. It's given a great lifestyle. They've got flexibility. One guy, we spoke recently, we got a. That's Ian. He was actually. I rang him at 10 years and he was about to leave, which is pretty sad. But the guy's 78 years old and he said to me, he's made more money mowing lawns in his 70s than he ever did as a manager for Bunnings at a younger age.

He's still involved, though, Ian. We're catching up with him next week.

Yeah, he's a great guy. He's really fantastic example of what you can achieve now. The guy's a real worker. He just works and works and works. But not everybody makes the kind of money that he does.

One real question online, which is to your pricing, just real quickly, Eric Smith says. Hi, Jim, how would you phrase a 10% price increase to customers without being rude?

Oh, Mrs. Jones, look, I'm really sorry, but, you know, the price of petrol's going up or whatever and look, I'm afraid I'm going to have to charge you an extra so and so. I always used to quote the price of petrol because back when I was mowing lawns, inflation was a lot more than now. So whatever you can think of as an excuse. The fact of the matter is, I don't think in all the years I did that I ever had one customer object ever to a price increase. But it also suggests starting with your new quotes too. Give it a try. You'll be very surprised if you put your prices up once you're busy, let's say right at the beginning. The beginning. You've got to charge what you can get once you're good at what you're doing, once you've got a very good conversion rate, once you're Busy, just add 10% to your prices. You're quoting what you normally would and see what happens. You'll be very surprised how little difference it makes. People don't mind an extra, like whether you pay 60 bucks for a lawn or 66. What's the big deal? What can you buy for 6 bucks every three weeks compared with the fact that they know you and like the service you're doing.

And one from David McDonald. So, Jim, just online in regards to what you're saying as well, if you can stay in the group, you can sell your business and make your fees back in no Time. If you leave, you're more than likely you'll end up closing a business. Here's a comment from David. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, sometimes it depends on the individual. If you've got a very good operator who's just got good regular clients and doesn't have the ambition to grow anything, they can do okay, they just paddle along forever. People who leave because they figure the system isn't working for them and they can't make enough money and it's not worth it, they're the ones that tend to fail very fast because they're the ones that aren't listening to what we're telling them.

And Wade's gone.

We changed nights.

Yes way. We've changed to Mondays at training, so Monday at training, so we can have more people here. Now we've got another question from the audience here from Luca. Where is Luka? Luka's from the cleaning group. I think they're nearly at a thousand franchisees, the cloning group.

The question is, what is your vision.

For the next three years? What is your vision for the group for the next three years? From Luke Afron, Variety or bigger scale?

I never exactly think about numbers as such, Luca. What I always think about is service. How can we improve what we do? And if we improve what we do, we become better. The big things that are happening at the moment are Jim's Jobs. It's a program that's been reached in March and we're just working on it. We're spending like a couple of million dollars a year developing it. It's really, really advanced. Within the next few months, it's going to be able to do things like book jobs in automatically. So if a client rings up, if you're in Jim's Jobs, you can actually specify how much time you've got available and where you're going to be, because the system will know and it'll actually offer the client a booking slot. So instead of having to ring the client back, the jobs is booked in. So a client rings up or books online. They're told, oh, look, Luke will be there between 3 and 5 this afternoon. Does that suit you? Now, that's one. And then we're going to be able to do things like we're going to be able to remind franchisees when they're running late. We're going to make it really easy to ring clients back. We're going to be able to send automatic reminders. I think with this we could probably, once people are using it properly, we can drop down the current level of Complaints, which is much lower than it used to be by at least 50%. And if we do that, the interest in work, the amount of work coming through will be explosive. So that is an example of a very, very big change.

Great app. To the new update you've done. I don't know if it's out yet, the new update that Alex showed me, but that's fantastic. As I told you and a few other franchisors have seen it, have already. Yeah.

Paul King was very. He's a very hard guy to people. One of our franchisors who's extremely tough marker. Tough marker, yeah, If I'd phrase it that way. But there's a lot of exciting. It is a very exciting area for us, actually. We've got a big advantage because we can spend more than the entire rest of the industry together and we can really well take on companies that are backed by billion dollar valuations, like Hy Pages, which is backed by News Corp and others like that. We can really take them on with what we've got, with our brand and with our technology and it's very exciting, actually. We've had a great six months. The Victorian lockdown was horrible, but we've grown nearly 10% in that period of time and we've got so many new things happening. It's going to be fun. Thank you very much.

And please use the mobile app because it's actually brilliant. The new update as well. Once it rolls out, please use it. Give some feedback to Jim as well, because you give prizes for feedback, don't you?

Yeah. We had two months before last we had two franchisees putting good feedback. One of them got a hundred dollar discount and the other got his old fees for the month wiped out. And that's the change that we're actually implementing right now, which is about the way the jobs are transferred through the system.

So every franchisee is basically a user test and if you give feedback on how to make it better or suggestion, you can get your fees done.

But basically the main thing we're interested in too is something that makes it easier to use. And both of those suggestions are about. Because we want a system that's going to be so great. If you look at something like an Apple calendar, it's incredibly easy to use, isn't it? Nobody has to teach you or you never have to do a training course to use it because you just, you just figure it out. It's so logical. That's the kind of thing we want for Jim's jobs.

I think one suggestion Alex made was an improvement from 14 clicks or something to three clicks.

Yeah.

Regarding invoicing or something like that. They're the type of things you're looking for, aren't you? Yeah.

You shouldn't have to be trained eventually. That was the idea. You just look at it and you say, oh, this is simple. I'm not particularly technically minded at all. I get my teenage daughters to help me with IT stuff in the house, like how to get the. The computer, the TV to pick up stuff. So I'm not really technical person, but I like. I like a system that's really, really easy. Even I can pick it up and use it without any problems at all.

We've got a few people. That's a good question. We've got a few people watching online. So make sure you leave a comment or question there. We will get to them as much as we can. And then Tony's gone. Watch out for Jim's IT this year. So you've got Jim's IT I think they've doubled the division numbers. I think we've got a new prospect in there for Jim's IT which is great.

We've got two, haven't we?

Two.

Two, that's right, yeah. I was thinking you at dinner. That's right.

Absolutely. They're doing good.

Exciting. It's gone down. It went down, actually. It wasn't very well run. We basically. We put Haydar. Haydar to run and he's put a whole lot of new advertising in place and new initiatives and it's starting to really boom. He took it over about three, four months back, I think. Eight franchisees. We're now almost doubled and the work's gone way up since he started doing it, which is great.

Absolutely. We want to hear from Jimmy in the audience. Where's Jimmy? It's a good question. Jimmy. I haven't had this one before. Doing it 100 times. Haven't had this one.

Nice to meet you. How did you recruit your first franchises?

How did you recruit your first franchisee from Jimmy?

I had a business building up and selling lawn mowing rounds. That was the. That was how I got started. I first of all started mowing myself. Jim's mowing was originally Jim mowing. And I used to put my picture on the leaflets because I got a better response. Goodness knows why. I'm as ugly as Sim. But anyway, it seemed to work. But then I started building and I started selling splits in effect, and that seemed to work better well. So then I started recruiting subcontractors to help Build up the runs and sell the split. So I was selling Law Mountain runs on a regular basis. So when I decided to franchise, what I did is I got the best people who bought lawn mowing rounds off me in the past that I really appreciated. Great people. And I said, I'll give you a franchise. And I went to my best of my subject, because a lot of them weren't very good, but the ones that gave great service, and I said to them, what about buying a franchise on a real good basis? So that was about my first dozen and it just took off from there. But the key was that the first dozen I had. And by the way, these are the ones that I sat down, which I think I told you this morning, who actually helped me design the contract. So they had helped to write this.

Contract.

But I just made them happy. I knew they were great people to start with and they were well selected and it just took off in an amazing fashion from there. Thank you very much.

Good question, Jimmy, we've got one here, Another one from the audience. If you are watching online, make sure you leave me. I've got a couple of good ones online. Someone goes, why does the logo person look different to you in person? So it's a typical comment from everyone who finds absolute.

Well, apologies to those you've heard this before, but everything about the logo is to do with women. All right? Long time ago, I was. When I was about 29, I was going out with a girl, my fiance, and she liked beards. So I thought, I'll grow a beard, all right? 20 years ago, I found myself single. Not through my own choice, I might say, but I was. And my beard was starting to go a bit gray. When you are single and in your late 40s, you don't need to look any older than you are, is that right? So I shaved it off completely. To do with women, nothing to do with business, but it was me. I actually. Somebody asked me that today. I don't know if you're here, and I got the picture out. If you actually look at Easy Back in Fashion, Jim's Jim Penman images, there's one fair way down about me standing against the old logo against the side of the trailer. That's the one it was taken from, that actual picture.

I think we're going to put that one up in the lecture theatre. I want to put one of those retro photos. So that might be the one we're going to use, I reckon. Well, you could, absolutely. So beards are back in fashion, though, now, Jim, if you can grow it back.

My beard would be white these days, I reckon. I think I look old enough anyway.

Well, speaking of women, we've got a question here from Damien which is an interesting one.

Speaking of women. My goodness.

Yeah.

We men are completely ruled by women, isn't that right? I mean seriously, everything we do in life is to impress you.

That's just.

We are.

Hey Jim, this question's on a much lighter note.

Of course there was a bit of.

Discussion around the dinner table tonight and.

We'Re just wondering how many times you've been married.

How many times did you mean marriage? The question Four.

Four was your four times. Four times. Very good. Four times, Yes. I have a terrible track record marriages. I think since it's pretty well be my ex wife's decision, not mine, I just must be extremely obnoxious. I just managed to find in fact 20 years ago, coming up in April is 20 years ago I met my current wife and she is just somebody who could put up with me. So she's a saint but it took me four times to get it right. So I say anybody who's been divorced in the past, you've not had, just don't give up.

Good question, Damon. Good question. So we've got a few questions coming along. I'll get to one from Jared in a minute which is actually really good. And he shared the stream as well. So we've got one here from Bing. Where is Bing? Bing, good name. Good question too. This one interesting.

Do you think the AI going to take over us or how much or.

Which part of us going to be.

Take take over by AI?

AI going to take us over is the question from there being from the.

Cleaning group, not from Jim's Cleaning, that's for sure. I cannot imagine any kind of robot that could do your kind of job. I think we're Jim's is probably the last company in the world to worry about AI. We want to use AI actually a lot. Once we get more advanced to do things like help you to plan your day, for example. And this is where Jim. It's a very primitive sort but being able to figure out the best way to run your business, for example, those kind of things, I think we can use it very, very well and I think it'll be. A lot of professions are actually going to come under attack. Ones like accounting and so forth and a lot of legal services, those kinds of things. There's many areas that are really going to be challenged but I do think we're in one of the best areas of the economy. And what's likely to happen, I think, is the demand for services is going to rise because it's one of the things you just can't automate. It's too difficult. You've got to have somebody who makes contact with a client. It's not like in a factory. You could imagine AI taking over. Like Amazon has got this, like, supermarket where you just walk in and you take that stuff off the shelf and you walk out and you get automatically charged. And they're automating their warehouses and stuff. But that's all within a very confined area to do the kind of thing we do, which means actually making contact with the client, going out, going to the house, doing the job, getting paid, asking about extra jobs to be done. I just couldn't comprehend anything beyond a completely humanoid robot that could do such a thing.

So you still think this job is.

A people to people? Yeah, exactly right. We are not the slightest. We can improve the technology a great deal. There are certain things that can be done. For example, there are machines already that can automatically mow somebody's lawn. You actually just at the moment you set up a wire around the perimeter. We've seen this thing, we had it operating here. And this thing has. It's solar charged or it's powered and it just goes out and cuts the grass and comes back. But you start to. Somebody sell it. It's a robot. Yeah, it's a lawn mowing robot. But you still got to have somebody sell it. They've still got to come and do the edges. They've got to maintain it, see if something's gone wrong with it. It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop the need for people. I think I find technology very exciting, actually. I think it's a tremendous area of potential growth that we can improve our service and give a much better income to our franchisees. And we are absolutely in the forefront of those kinds of developments. It's an exciting time.

Okay, thank you. Good question, Ben. Good stuff. So I just got one here online as well, to keep the people online engaged. So I'm going back up through the comments, and this one is right up Jim's alley. Says, from Jared Walton, what is the most interesting historical event you could teach us about in the next five minutes? For anyone who knows Jim's got a PhD in history.

Ha. There's so many.

Oh, come on. I don't want to give you a bit of trouble.

I think the collapse of the Roman Empire is, to me, almost one of the cardinal points of history. It's a very interesting thing. It's cast a huge shadow over the world ever since. In a way, what happened in why? Without giving too much away, I actually think I know why it happened. And we're doing work in epigenetics. We've got a multimillion dollar research program going at La Trobe University, which is looking at those kinds of character changes that I believe causes this to happen. The immediate response has actually got to do with immediate use for research would be things like treating drug addiction and so forth. But essentially, yes, that's what's driven me right from when I was a teenager. I had this desire to understand why the Roman Empire collapsed and eventually to see if there's a danger for us and then do something about who it was. And that's been my life work. So whether that teaches anybody else anything, I don't know. But that's fascinating to me.

So if you Google biohistory on YouTube, it will come up. And Jim's talked a bit about it online as well. You can hear all about it. So again, so the next one here from Adil.

I also love Greek history, too. I have to. Sorry.

Because I love Greek.

You get me out of that. It's hard to get me off. One of the things that set me off. When I was 14, somebody gave me a copy of the Peloponnesian Works by Thucydides, and I became absolutely fascinated by what happened then and why Greek civilization was so incredibly creative and what stopped it being so creative. On again. I much prefer the Greeks to the Romans, I must say. I actually played a game called Rise of Rome, and I've just finished resurrecting it and playing it again. And I always get the Greeks to beat up the Romans, which is my. Which is my favorite. I never want to play the Romans. I want to play the Greeks. So I actually managed to get the Greeks to invade, and they've taken over virtually all of Italy so far. And they're just fighting the remnant Romans up in the north. This is really fun. Okay, you can go up.

I can go on. All right, cool. So we have a deal. Where is the deal from? Jim's IT good uniform, too. They've rebranded to blue now from the white, from the red.

I think the name is good, too. It used to be Jim's Computer Services. Jim's. It is a much better name.

How do I deal with the aggressive customer? How do you deal with agro customers? When I deal from Jim's, IT you.

Simply try and do whatever you can to quieten them down if they've got a genuine problem, you've just got to be patient. And one of the problems is that people get emotional at you. There's always a tendency to get emotional about that from talking to you. You don't seem a very aggressive sort of character for talking to you at dinner time. You just got to try and calm down. I'm not very good at that kind of stuff, so I have to admit that's why I like emails a lot. If I get to talking to people, I can get into an argument very easily. If it's in an email, I can think, okay, do I need to send that? How can I rephrase it? So I reckon emails are often a very good way to try and sort out problems because it's a bit calmer. But you just got to satisfy the customer. But one thing I would say is some customers are simply unreasonable and we don't do whatever it takes to satisfy a customer if we think the customer is wrong. That's why I said this morning, we will back you. If there's a complaint and your franchisor rings up and hasn't talked to the customer, the customer is really rude and aggressive and abrasive. If they've accused you of being rude, we tend to discount the complaint because it's obviously, to our mind, it's them. Especially if you've got a good record yourself. So, yeah, do the best you can. It's not easy sometimes. Most customers are pretty nice though, really. I think if you look after them well, 90, 98, 99% of customers are really decent human beings and they'll do their best to get on with you and treat you fairly.

One of Jim's main roles, sorry to cut you off, but he's the complaint handling process. So Jimbock deals with a lot of customers firsthand and I think the traditional adage of the customer's always right. I know you say it's not always the case.

No, we don't actually. They send customers complaints to me if it's been a previous complaint hasn't been sorted out and then I will try and mediate a solution. But sometimes I will simply say to the customer, look, you know, we think the franchisee is correct, we just support them, basically. They did what they were supposed to do. And people, people are very unreasonable sometimes they just ask ridiculous things. We had one client recently who complained, first of all that somebody had torn her carpet. This is a carpet cleaner. And that was just not credible. It just was not reasonable. It was a very good franchisee using a machine that wouldn't do that. So we said no. And then the customer comes back and says the job was lousy and I want a refund. Well, how much credibility is there in that? They've already made one ridiculous claim, now they make another one. So I said, no, we're not giving you a refund. Thank you. Sometimes you deal with an aggressive customer by simply saying, no, we're not going to give it to you.

Now, there's also the red flag. Now, do you want to mention about the red flag as well from our side?

Yeah. We put a red note on a customer. If they're difficult, we'll actually red note them. Now, the problem at the moment is that only applies to address, but shortly it'll apply to phone number. So when certain customers ring the office, we tell them we can't provide service because they're just not nice.

Thank you. Thanks for that, Adil. All right, now we've got one here from Zach. Now, Zach, you're apparently an avid Facebook live watcher, and it's your 18th birthday as well this week, so happy birthday to you.

He's about to go to university. We're trying to persuade him to buy a franchise instead. But still, he looks a bit young. But still. But he's studying business, you know, so never mind. He might come back with a super guru with a great business idea.

Alrighty. On the point of that, Jim, G'. Day.

What would be your best advice for.

I guess, people who are wanting to.

Like, start a business or like a franchise? If you want to start a business, my advice is to look to the service first and the money second. Look to give a fantastic service, look to give value to your customer. If you do that, you'll somehow work out a way to get money out of it. If you put the money first, you tend not to make as much. And that applies at every level of business. Whether you're in business, you're a franchisor, employer, anybody, in my view. As to buying a franchise, my advice is do your research. You get hold of as many people as you can. Get the complete list of all the franchisees. Check out multiple businesses, not just us, multiple divisions. If you like, do your research, ring the people and ask them what it's like. We know quite well people who do that tend to be very, very successful because they're smart and businesslike. Don't believe the hype. And that includes within gyms. Sorry, it is because I'll tell you what, most of our franchisors are good, but there are a few out there I wouldn't buy a franchise off. Just a few, not many.

We put that in a video online before, so it's quite common to hear that.

Well, we do breach franchises occasionally for lack of support. And if somebody's been breached for poor service, I would say to somebody, don't buy a franchise off that person until they get better support. Good. Otherwise you're not getting the best deal. You'll probably still succeed, but your chances are not nearly as good as if you buy from somebody who gives proper support.

If you want to start watching something interesting, Zach, Jim did a whole podcast episode on the Value of University, so it might be interesting to watch that one as well. And Jim goes in a bit more detail about his thoughts on the whole thing.

There's a wonderful book that I was reading over the holidays, Brian Kaplan, called the Case Against Education, explaining why education as such, in terms of actually teaching you anything useful, is completely useless. But what it does is it's a seedling device that tells an employer that you've got the ability and the determination to stick to an essentially meaningless activity. I'm probably. I know it's probably what you don't want to hear when you're planning on business career, but they've actually done studies to show that Tyler's Pennant University has virtually no effect on your educational prospects, your employment prospects or future income. What matters is that you get the degree. It's called the sheepskin effect. Once you've got a degree, an employer looks at it and says, okay, they've got something, so we'll employ them, we'll give them a chance, and then we'll start to teach them what they need to know. My son, my number four son, is actually a lawyer and he says he'd much rather have a legal aid with a couple of years of experience than a lawyer fresh out of university, because they know more and they can do more.

Awesome. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming, Zach, and happy birthday as well. So we've got a few questions online, Jim, which we're going to try and rip through. So they're there. And we'll ward the monopoly just towards the end as well. For the question there that you like.

The best, where are we going to give out that. The car cleaning thing.

The car cleaning thing. What one's that?

The poster.

Oh, the poster's on.

Oh, that's on Wednesday.

So we'll keep that for Wednesday. That'll be on footage as well. But Luke Juergens has gone in. Hi, Jim. I would like to know why the Jim's Group terms are 10 days after invoice, but when it comes to being paid for work done for the group, you won't pay on your franchisees terms. The group will only pay after 30 days. But Luke Juergens is a current franchisee asking a pretty tough question off you there.

Well, first of all, nobody does work for Jim's group as such. We don't pay on 30 days. In fact, anybody who does work for us tends to get paid within 24 hours. Any franchisee, I think what he's talking about is there's a franchisor who actually runs a. Yeah, it's probably one of the franchisors who actually controls a master contract and takes out 10%. And they may work on different terms, so I can't speak for them, but it's not Jim's group. That's all I can say. I personally, I don't like letting anybody wait at all. I'll make a big point. When I get any sort of anything from a franchisee, if it's personal, I'll pay it direct. If it's business, I send it to finance and say, could you play this ASAP on the spot? So we're known for doing that. The other thing to bear in mind about that is that there was one particular case that came up and I don't know if this is Luke's franchisor or not. I can't remember actually.

Lux Francisor is new. Luke's franchisor's Matt Watts. Matt's new one.

Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know who he's talking about. But I do know that there are some situations. For example, one franchisee was complaining because the franchisor had this big contract and was letting out the work and the customer hadn't paid the franchisor. And bear in mind this guy's only charging 10% for administration. So what the franchisee was saying that I should get paid on the dot even if you haven't been paid. But the franchisor just doesn't have the money to pay on time to pay quicker than the customer pays him. So that can be an issue. I do know the contracts department actually does tend to pay, which is run by Haydar. Jim's contracts does actually pay quicker, but Haydar's got a lot of money behind him, which not every franchisor does. So that's basically the story, Luke. It's not Jim's Group as such. It Depends who you're dealing with. But if you only work for us personally, we'll pay you 24 hours.

And put some more details in there. Luke as well, if you want that answered now. Dave McDonald's gone. Jim, have you heard about the Great Filter in the context of the Thermi Paradox? And do you think we have passed the filter or we are doomed to destruction because we cannot overcome some part of the evolutionary path we are set out on? Very complicated question from David.

I don't know what he's talking about, physics or evolutionary biology?

I would maybe say physics, but that's a guess.

No, I'm not sure what he means by that. There's a whole lot of. I just finished reading a book about the. It's called the End of Everything, which is quite interesting because there always used to be this idea that we came from the Big Bang and the universe has been expanding ever since. And what's going to happen? Is the expansion going to get to a stage where the gravity pulls it back together again, or is it going to be enough momentum to keep expanding forever? And that makes a difference because the first way you get the Big Crunch, and the second bay, you get just a cold, dark universe which falls apart. And so they took measurements and what they actually figured out in the first 5 billion years of the universe, we were actually. The expansion was slowing, but then after that it started to speed up. So the actual universe is growing faster than it has for some time and steadily faster with time. Now, I think there's something about called dark energy, which you've probably heard of, which is to do with the space itself, which is pushing matter apart. So I don't touch what he means by the filtering effect, but that's what I know about in terms of speculation about what's going to happen to the universe.

So Ashton's just not franchising questions. Is it science? It's universe?

I wouldn't say I understand the mathematics. I mean, I vaguely know what quantum theory is. I love Big Bang theory, actually, because you can look through it and you can actually pick out problems with it, which is fun. Look at what they got on the blackboard. That doesn't make sense because of so and so and so and so. So I enjoy that kind of stuff, but I'm not really a physicist, of course.

Good question, Dave. Good try. And he watches every week. So Ziffan's gone. Do you think the logo of Jim's group is too complex? How about simplifying it into just the letter J from Zifan as a suggestion online.

No way. It's one of the best known logos in the country. Even if my rather unprepossessing self is the main force of it. No way.

We do have T shirts where we've got just as Jim's so it sits a bit cool on that one line.

We don't actually, we. This is, this is known, this is known. This is power. Jim's name itself doesn't actually mean anything. If you could. Anybody can call themselves Jim's Mowing. It's only when you put the logo on and no, we won't change the logo. The only thing we do is we might change it in a way that makes it recognized me the same but somehow did which we did this. If you look at that picture you'll actually see the old logo and it had a picture of me but it was very gloomy. It was like that I looked very. I wasn't smiling or anything like that and it was. Well anyway some of my managers got together and said this logo is a bit old and so forth so they changed it and that's why they shot that picture. And by the way, if you want to know why I'm smiling in the logo they were having enormous troubles getting me to smile because I'm really bad at smiling at the camera and they tried everything they could get to try and get it. People were telling jokes, all kinds of stuff and eventually one of the managers actually got next to me and he put his. Pretended to put his tongue in my ear and that is why I'm smiling in that logo.

Very true. We've done some photo shoots with you Jim. I've had to pull out a bunch of riddles and try and read them from behind the camera to get one to laugh and they'll get the photo at the right time.

I need that. I'm terrible at being photographed which you'd think is ironic actually. When I was younger I did everything possible to avoid being photographed. I would actually go to like a 20 footling and I would hide behind somebody so they couldn't photograph me. So it's rather ironic isn't it when I get into a business where my image faces everywhere.

Now the Mick Brady's got you online. Do you guys run an expo day for all the mowing, landscaping equipment etc for mowing businesses from Mick Brady online?

Yeah, we do actually roundabout. What's going to be this year?

What date ran the conference? He told middle of winter. It will be just because when everyone's a bit more quieter in Vic we.

Didn'T do it last year for obvious reasons, but before that, the previous couple of years we had like four or 500 mowing franchises, which is pretty amazing, actually. If you look at. You never really get a picture of how big Jim's is until you see four or five hundred guys in green uniforms in the same building. It's quite phenomenal. Wow, we're like a tribe.

They have food trucks here have really good prizes, actually, so. Oh, they did give away trailers and everything.

Tens of thousands of dollars worth of prizes. It's really, really an amazing thing. And all the, all the, the, all the suppliers love it. They really put incredible prices through.

Yeah, absolutely. And then Nick's gone here. What was one high point in your week and what was one low point in your week? It's an interesting comment from Nick online. High point off the week and a low point. We're only start of the week, so must have been last week.

Well, Sunday was great. Church is great. I love going back to church. I missed it so much. That's always the high point of my week. But then after church I came back, I had a barbecue lunch with one of my daughters, Sarah, and her boyfriend, and that was good. And we went off to try to play racquetball. And then in the evening, another one of my daughters, Jasmine, came back with her fiance. Wow, we're like a tribe.

They have food trucks here have really good prizes, actually, so. Oh, they do give away trailers and everything.

Tens of thousands of dollars worth of prizes. It's really an amazing thing. And all the, all the, the, all the suppliers love it. They really put incredible prizes through.

Yeah, absolutely. And the next guy was one of the.

I'd say boyfriend and we had a good talk then. Do you have a bit of a.

Routine when you meet their boyfriends or their fiancees? Do you do a bit of the intimidation or what do you do?

Respecting my daughter.

What's the routine you pull?

No, no, I just, I just, I just, I just speak in very calm points to them and about what I expect from them and I sort of carry one in my shotgun here, like, just to make sure they understand the lesson.

Well, you do have a gun license.

So I do have a.

What was one high point in your week and what was one low point in your week? It's an interesting comment from Nick online. High point off the week and a low point. We're only start of the week, so must have been last week.

Well, Sunday was great. Church is great. I love going back to church. I'm a couple of guns here. So it's there. If anybody wants to court one of my daughters, they know they've got to behave. I missed it so much. That's always the high point of my week. But then after church I came back.

I had camera now, so they know you got a gun.

I got two guns. That was a good day. That was a really, really good day. And it was a bad day. Jeepers. I don't have bad times really. I don't know. Oh, I had a terrible, terrible nightmare the other night. I dreamt my wife was walking out on me, which given my past history is not surprising. It's really. Oh, it was awful. And I woke up and I found him in bed next to me. That was such. That was. That was relief. But that was awful. Barbecued lunch with my. With my. One of my daughters Sarah and her boyfriend and that was good. And we went off to try to play racquetball. And then in the evening another one of my daughters, Jasmine came back with her fiance boyfriend and we had a good talk then. Do you have a bit of a.

Routine when you meet there?

I still have nightmares about divorce. 20 years of happy marriage. It really leaves scars, I tell you. Anybody here being divorced, it's not a nice experience.

Mike, have you. We'll ask Mike four times as well. Mike and Frumo. Four times.

Four. Four divorces or four?

He wouldn't be working if he didn't get divorced. He lost half his stuff. Their boyfriends or their fiance's. Do you do a bit of the intimidation or what do you do?

Yeah, I gotta respecting my daughter.

What's the routine you pull?

No, no, I just, I just. I just. I just speak in very calm points to them and about what I expect from them and I sort of carry one in my shotguns here like just to make sure they understand the lesson.

Well, you do have a gun license.

So I do have a.

We'll move on.

All right, here's somebody here who's a couple of guns here. So it's there. If anybody wants to caught one of my daughters, they know they've got to behave equally obnoxious as I am. So they are. Mike. We're together. Yeah, same here.

The Nigel from Nigel from Car detail says good to see you guys and hope you have a good group over there this week. Looking forward to coming over to catch up sometime soon. Nigel from FSO Car detailing in. Over in South Australia. I think Niall just hosted the trainer camera now so they know you've got a Gun.

No, I got. I got. I got two guns. That was. That was actually, if you want to get a clue to why I've been divorced so long. Have anybody ever seen the Big Bang Theory? That was a good day. That was a really, really good day. And what's a bad day? Jeepers. I don't have bad times. Really? I don't know. Oh, I had a terrible, terrible nightmare. But I talked about it before. You know, the main character, Sheldon Cooper, you know, who's completely insensitive and impossibly difficult. Lee says he strongly reminds him of me. Her of me. So that might give you some clues to why I have so many domestic problems.

Not anymore. Not anymore.

I dreamt my wife was walking out on me, which, given my past history, is not surprising. It's really awful. It's awful. And I woke up and I found him in bed next to me. Not anymore. Well, no, we still have a few arguments. Every now and then she yells at me. That was such. That was. That was relief. But that was awful. I still have nightmares about divorce. 20 years of happy marriage. It really leaves me at times, that's for sure.

Then Eric Jones says here. Hey, guys, sorry to miss you today. Jim. Jim. So Eric reckons he's got a brand new decadent hot chocolate for you to try.

Yeah, I know. Where are you?

One is Ferreira Rocher and the other one is Flavours Nutella.

I was looking for this and he's not around.

Sally, you missed out, but I think he came early.

Take guards. I tell you, Anybody here being divorced, it's not a nice experience.

Mike, have you. Well, I came at 12 o' clock when he should have come at 1, which was lunch, when he would have. Catch up, Eric.

I'm sure you're watching.

Mike. Four times as well. Mike in the front row. Four times.

Four. Four divorces or four?

He is watching.

I was expecting this chocolate. And where were you? I don't like coffee, but I love. Like.

He wouldn't be working if he didn't get divorced. Lost half his stuff, we'll move on.

All right, here's somebody here who's chocolate.

Absolutely.

Too much. Too much. You do. It's my version of crack cocaine. Nutella straight from the jar. The only thing that's better than church. Actually, no, I'm.

Well, what about Nutella in church? Have you tried that yet? You can get a little breadstick thing.

I think that object we tend to set you at the front. If I was there holding the jar.