#ASKJIM 99 Live from Training with Jim's Group founder, Jim Penman and Joel Kleber

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another AskJim. And we're back at training on the Monday and there's a lot of people, I think it was 103 in total, which was online. Including online, I think. How many? 50. 50 something here. 53.

70 something here.

70, 73. So it's good to be back to some sort of normality.

People have a live audience.

Absolutely terrible.

Just talking to a camera. I hate it.

Absolutely. So we've just briefed everyone online and everyone who's online watches. This always tunes in. So what we're going to do is for the training week, we've got all the questions here, which are written down. So we're going to ask the people to come up, say their name and put that question to Jim. If you watched the one last time, there's some fantastic questions on it and we're hoping for another show as well. Also prizes as well for these questions. If you are lucky enough online, put some comments in there as well, might swing you a book or two. All right, so the first one up I've got here is from a Mitch. Where is Mitch? Mitch is right up the back. And this is a good question, Jim. We've never had this one before, so we'll kick off with this one. Be interested in hearing your answer. Jim. Hello, mate.

Yeah, how are you?

So on the side, I work as a social worker. I work in addiction, alcohol and other drugs. We work under the migration agenda as a To abstinence. I just want to know your views on harm minimisation as opposed to abstinence.

I'm not an expert in this area, but I do have a research project being run at La Trobe University and we're looking into the epigenetics and the biochemistry of things like addiction. And what we'd like to do is to actually develop a treatment which I think is quite feasible, that we could dramatically reduce the attraction of harmful substances. I think the answer is in science, actually. I think there's ways of actually changing a lot of what happens. A lot of character is to do with epigenetics is today with where your genes are turned on or off. And we're looking at the ways of affecting that to actually change people's character. So I'm not an expert, but I am really concerned about it as a problem.

That's me. The way you've worded that comes down to education, basically educating people around their thoughts.

Not really, no. It's more to do with epigenetics and biochemistry use things like micrornas and so forth, and to change the actual structure of people's genes. In effect. One of the problems with addiction is people have an overly short term viewpoint. They say, I want to do this right now. And I know they're going to feel terrible in a few days, but I want my feeling right now. It's looking at a very short term point of view. Same reaction as things like alcohol abuse and a lot of other things too, like even death or even overeating. They're all the same kind of thing. What we're trying to do is to help people to have a more long term reaction to say, I don't want to do what I immediately feel like right now because I know it's better for me long term. We want to shift character. And that's basically not education. It's actually a substance. It's something that you can ingest or you could inject that would actually change help to change your character. So. So I love what you're doing. It's great. But I'm following a very different route. Yeah. And it comes out of this whole PhD research that I did back in the 70s. It had all sorts of implications for what you can do.

Thank you. It's a great question, Mitch. And you can look up bio history as well into Google and YouTube. There's lots of videos as well. And this sort of stuff. That's a great question, Mitch, to kick it off. All right, let's get into the next one, which is from Ivan. Ivan? Where is Ivan? This is a really good question. I haven't heard it worded this way before. It's been probably brought up, but never this word, this way. So my question is, what's an operational.

Issue you are struggling to find a solution for?

Good question.

The biggest operational issue now is to do with just helping franchisees to run their business effectively. It's very frustrating when you see franchisees doing the wrong thing. Not turning up to appointments, not ringing back and so forth. What I was talking about this morning, and we're struggling to try and do something about that using technology, especially Jim's jobs, developing a system that actually helps people to do the right thing, that books the jobs in for them, reminds them if they're doing something that's not best for themselves and their own business, it's kind of an ongoing struggle. How can we make also, how can we support franchisees better? What do we need to do? We're constantly asking ourselves the question of what can you do? How can you help franchisees to want to stay in the system, what more can we provide? You know, looking at incentives, looking at all kinds of things to try and like my anniversary calls, when I ring people on who got to 10 to 15 years and so forth, ring people recognizing them, sending out shirts, anniversary shirts, anniversary shirts, rewarding people recognizing that we value them, you know, running better meetings. It's a constant, constant struggle too. Those are the key operational issues, all to do with how do we make franchisees successful.

Great question, Ivan. So we've got a few comments and stuff coming online as well, which is fantastic. So everyone's tuning in and someone's saying we can't really hear the question. So just make sure when you go to the mic guys, you speak loud and close into it because it's not a good mic, I've been told. Alright, the next one here we have is from Matthew. Where is Matthew? That's a great question as well. There's a few really good ones in here we haven't had before. So I'm looking forward to it. Which division are you going to be from, Matt?

Wodonga.

Wodonga. Which mowing? Clean.

Which one?

Mowing. Jim's mowing up in Wodonga.

Jim, I'd like to ask you, when things become overwhelming, especially when you're mowing.

And a lot of things going on.

What were some of your coping strategies to make sure you keep your eyes on the job but not lose your mind at the same time?

Very good question.

As anybody who reads this book will know, I believe very tough times. It's not the same answer for everybody, but to me, my research was always the guiding light of my life. I knew I had to do my research institute. I had this PhD worked out. I had no money. I knew I needed millions and millions of dollars to pursue it. That always kept me going. I just knew I couldn't give up. I just had to keep on going and had to and had to make it work. That was in the early days. A lot of the time too. It's a sense of obligation. You owe it to various people, you owe it to your family. I was pretty useless at business until I got married actually, and then I married and had kids. You've got to do what you've got to do and then it's the moral necessity of looking after my franchisees means a lot to me. So you think if I slacken off on this, my franchisees will suffer and that's really hard. So it's a sense of, to me anyway, it's a moral thing. You just can't give up, no matter how bad you feel. And I'm like that.

I just.

I just will not give up. I will not lose heart. I just have to keep on going. I don't know how that would apply to you. Yeah. But you do find that people who are married with mortgages and kids tend to be better franchisees. Because you can't give up, can you? You can't look after your family. That's right. And so we were always very careful about young, young people, especially who are single and, you know, especially early 20s. They can be very emotional, up and down. But if you're steady, you've got to support your family. You can't give up. Thanks, man.

Great question. Cool. Next one we have here is from Mel. Where is Mel?

Can I also say about that too, there's lots of stuff in the system that's great, like meetings and so forth, getting support from your fellow franchisees. If you're feeling down, talk to your franchisor, talk to your fellow franchisees, talk to the mentors that we've got out there who are helping. If you've got any issues, use what's in the system. There's an awful lot that people sometimes don't make use of that is there to help you through hard times. And that's one of the reasons that people can stay for years. You know, we've got franchisees who are in the system and haven't taken a job literally for years, but they still want to be part of us. And it's that moral support thing that really makes a big difference.

That's a great question. So next up we have here is Mel. Where is Mel? We haven't had this one before either. So there's all firsts and interesting to hear what you say to this one, Jim. I've got my answer for this one. Hey, Jim, I'm just wondering, has there ever been any major medical emergencies that yourself has personally had to deal with between staff or franchisees? Medical emergencies on site?

Not on site, no.

I can think of one that's happened at training.

Yeah.

I think a bloke had a few too many drinks and went to the playground or something and broke his leg. And I think he was stuck out there for like three or four hours, crying in agony and we didn't know what it was and, yeah, he couldn't get up. Don't do that. Be careful. Don't go to the slides when you have a few drinks.

The worst problems we face in gyms is actually not physical emergencies, but mental issues. That's far more of a concern, actually. I know safety is important. We actually had one employee of an electrical called franchisee die, die from electric shock, which was pretty horrible. But the worst thing is mental problems. We've had several franchisees and at least one franchise all commit suicide. And we had a shocking thing that happened a couple of years back in Perth, where one of our franchisees went berserk. He killed his wife and his three little girls. And that was awful. That was really shattering in a way that no physical emergency could be. I went to attend a meeting that was over there in Perth and it was. But most of the franchisees in the whole state were there and people were really, really, really uptight and emotional about it. We put through a whole lot of things about. We send out all these fridge magnets with all the emergency mental health numbers and what else do we do?

Training.

Franchisor training. Everybody, including myself, has done. Franchisor has done mental health training and we've got mentors that are actually available. You can go in through gyms, you can actually find a mentor that all came out of that particular episode. So that's the biggest crisis and that's the most upsetting one. And we do have, it seems to be an increasing problem. I think we're more at danger from mental health than we are from physical health these days. That's my feeling.

Thank you. Good question. We never had that one before either. So we've got a few people leaving comments and questions online.

These are great questions. Really love them. Really out of the ordinary.

Absolutely. A few comments and questions online real quickly. Jim, when is the diggers division coming to nz? I think Matthew, I told him to email Paul Sandals. That's the answer. That's what I gave him when somebody.

Wants to take it there. Really? You will be very surprised how much of what goes on at Jim's is driven by individual entrepreneurs. Maybe somebody here who will take it to nz, somebody watching, who knows.

Another one. Today they message your Facebook page quite often. They say, I've got this great business idea. I just need Jim to put up the money and take all the risk. And I will, I'll make it happen. And it happens every week.

What they don't understand is that the idea is this big. The actual execution is this big. So, Solomon, you've got the idea. I get that all the time. Great ideas. But I want the business and I want someone to drive the business. Why the opportunities are there. Actually, we just put out in the newsletter, franchisee newsletter. We've Got a whole stack of divisions and looking for leadership. We just put it to the franchisees. We had a couple of inquiries. Inquiries too. So who wants to run this division across the country?

Absolutely. We've got a few new divisions coming on board this month too, which is great. So we've got another one here, one.

Tomorrow, which is Jumping Castles.

Jumping Castles, Yes. Jim's Jumping Castles and Party. No, is it an event? Hire Event. Hire.

Jumping Castles. It's a good one, actually, because it is a different market, a different franchisee. People who would not necessarily want to build fences or, you know, we'll keep.

It for the reveal, we'll keep it when we'll keep it.

Hush, hush.

We'll keep going.

Oh, sorry.

That's all right. The next one is. Is it Happy or Hoppy? Hoppy Happy. Happy. It's a good name. Happy. No one will forget you, mate.

I tell you what, he looks happy too.

It's the main.

Happy to buy. My question is also related to the business, like buying and selling as well. If I want to buy more territory and someone is happy to sell, can I buy more territory? And if I want to sell someone my directory. Not all, just one of the territory, can I sell my territory? What would be the procedure for that? Well, I guess you can really. You can go to your franchisor and get some more territory. I don't know what he or she wants to charge you, but it's up to them. It's very unusual, though, because territories don't really matter as much as you think, because most of your work initially will come from outside of your territory anyway. And if you get better and better and better, you really want to be in the tightest area possible. So you want the smallest territory you can get. Lack of work isn't. Buying more territory isn't likely to get you any more work because outside of territory, the job is allocated according to who's had the fewest jobs in the past few days. So in effect, even if you have double the territory, you won't get double the work. You'll probably get the same amount of work. So I'd say you can do it, just ask your franchisor. But you probably won't want to, but there'll be no dealing with the gyms or anything. We can directly deal with the other guy. Now you have to go to your franchisor because it's in the contract. So you normally, if you want to split. Normally, if you split your territory the way you do it, splitting your business, what division are you in digger. Diggers.

Diggers.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Sorry. Yes. If you had a regular client base of mowing or cleaning or dog wash or something, you can actually split your territory. When you split your clients, though, it's normally normal to take an extra territory and give it to a new person. Territories don't matter as much as you might think, because we're not restricted to territory and because you can work so widely outside them and there's so much unserviced leads even in people's territory because they don't take the work that yes, you can do it, but you probably never will.

Great question. Happy now? Got one real cheeky one online relating to what we said before. So it says from Linton, who's up the back there? Hi, Jim. Are you going to have a jump on the Jumping Castle tomorrow?

Sure.

For the sake of the camera, why not?

Well, there we go. There's the answer on camera.

Hey, listen, I don't mind.

Just don't hurt yourself, please. I'll get the blame for it. Please. All right, so the next one we've got here, we've got from Andrew. Where's Andrew? Because it's a territory question. So we'll go on to another territory question.

G', day, Jim.

How are you?

You mentioned this morning that you've made a couple of mistakes in business. A couple? That's an underestimate. I was just wondering what has been.

Your biggest mistake in business? So we had three Andrews. Sorry, that was the wrong question.

I'm thinking of biggest mistake. I've just done so many stupid things. What I tend to do is to get involved in a project that I get all excited about, but I don't really know how to run very well. Okay. I tried to get a holiday resort going back, way back in the time I launched the franchise. That was a terrible idea. Almost sent me bankrupt. A trade exchange I've had to go at a couple of times. That was a disaster. Tried to start a psychology institute that was really, really bad. Tried to get a factory going to build trailers, which I lost a fortune on before I managed to find someone to take it off my hands, just for a start. Also employing certain staff members and clients. This guy. No, no, I don't mean that, actually. But I have made some awful picks in terms of. And also people to lead divisions, too. I had one guy who actually picked to lead the roofing division when it had 25 franchisees. In the end it came down to two, and he was the worst one in the division. So that was an Appalling mistake. Basically wiped out the division. So the thing is there's too many. I just tend to do stupid things. My wife's always telling me that too. That's right. I sometimes I really seriously wonder how I manage to make success of anything because I do so many dumb things, honestly. But somehow other things that I do tend to work out. All right, so it balances out.

And you had another question here as well, Andrew. Was that your one?

That was me. Must be another Andrew.

Oh, okay. This must be three Andrews here. Okay, so we've got another one from Andrew. Thanks for that, Andrew. Was it about the territories? Yes, this is a good one. This is the one I was trying to lead into before, but I didn't really segue too well. You probably answered it anyway. There was a lot of talk today in the training about what you can and can't do outside of your territory. Now I was under the impression that within my territory I'll get all the leads. Now if a neighbouring territory.

If you want them, if you want them.

But if a neighbouring territory has turned their leads off, can I submit to say I actually want leads from that territory as well?

Yes. What's happened is you'll get your own territory and then you'll go down for areas regardless of whether they're in territory or not. Don't forget so many franchisees turn them off that you just ask for the work you want. You wouldn't even necessarily need to know whether they're territory or not. It doesn't make any difference to you. You can just say, I don't mind. It's five minutes from my home. I'll work over there. Whether it's the territory is irrelevant. If it's the territory holder wants it, you won't get it. If they don't want it, well, then you're down for it. So I'd put yourself down in the areas that you want and just ignore territory. Okay, cheers.

Good question. We've got a few people writing comments online, which is great. So I'll get to those comments and questions. Want to be powerful. These ones we have here as well, so leave them in there online and we will get to as we work our way down. So next one here is from Louis. Where is Louis? Louis right there. Which division are you gonna be from, Louis?

Energy.

Energy, Cool.

So I actually had a question there, but I was like thinking through actually when I ask a couple of questions. The first one is in regards to social media. A little bit off the business topic, but social media like Facebook has recently blocked news channels and they have had this massive control and manipulation over the whole world and dictation. What's your views on how lives on Facebook opposed to on YouTube is and do you think that you might eventually move lives over to YouTube instead of Facebook?

To be honest, I haven't got a clue what the difference is in terms of. No, no, sorry, I know what they are. But as to which is more biased, I wouldn't really be able to tell you, but I do know there's a big danger and as you can recognize, anybody recognizes that these people control their flow of information. I personally got problems with social media as a way of learning about the world because you can get all kinds of terrible effects. Like you can be part of some right wing conspiracy and you'll get all this stuff in and you get a terribly distorted view. I like reading the mainstream media like the Australian or the Economist, those kinds of things. So I think you've got to be very careful because it's not just the fact that they censor what you read, but your own preferences censor what you actually get. So you can get a very twisted view of the world. Well, it's manipulation by the system which gives you what you want to see. So some story about Harry and Megan is going to get massively into your lead and it's so twisted and distorted. It's a very dangerous thing. We like it because actually social media is a great way of focusing on people we're interested in, like a certain kind of client or a certain prospective franchisee. I mean it's very useful for us to have targeted advertising but it's very worrying, it really is. I think we all recognise that it's got tremendous potential. I'm just very pleased with the deal they've made Google have made and Facebook have made to actually start paying our news media because during the lockdown last year, you know, you had, for us Victorians it was a really horrible thing to happen. And how they shut down all the small contractors in the state, no justification at all. Even solopreneurs when there was no health risk and that was infuriating and the government just totally couldn't give a stuff about anybody else. This is politically good for us, so we'll do what we want and who cares if tens of thousands of lives are destroyed. But the media was the people that folk up. You had News Corp and you had Sky News and the rest of it actually speaking a lively media, so important. So I think we've got to support the mainstream media that's my. I'd suggest you don't get your news from these sources. They're very unreliable. They're very twisted.

I agree. I agree with you.

My second question is, and by the way, I do not want to win the Monopoly games. I'm just genuinely curious about this. But this is a really. I guess that this is somehow in the mind of a lot of people and it is something that I was, like, thinking through and I was like, no, I got to know this. So I come from a third world country which was fairly poor. So I do value opportunities and everything. And I did grow up always thinking about businesses. And I developed a business very similar to Uber, where we've had an amazing success and we had no money in advertisement. We've had basically only referrals and we've had a contract that was very similar, focused on the franchisees. Opposed that, hey, we control everything and we own you. The question that I have for you is, and I don't want to be rude or anything, but I really want to know in 50 years time, what guarantees have these people have and I, as well as a franchisee, that we will be able to remain that same fairness contract for both parties.

Look, it's a very good question. Look, I'm 68 now. I've got probably another 20 years of useful life, but I'll still be around and directing things. I'm in very good health and everything else. My mind is sharp as well. Some people might disagree, but I'm still going. Okay, all right. I don't intend Gyms to become a public company. I think the problem with that you get with, like Retail Food Group is that it becomes very financially oriented and they start looking at the next quarter's earnings. And when you start doing things like that, you'll start to make decisions that are really, really bad for franchisees. Now, a company like McDonald's manages to avoid that. They do it very well. But what's happened with Retail Food Group is an example of things going badly wrong. What I'm doing, what I'm hoping to do is raise up the leaders within my family. I've got my daughter Jasmine, who's running the conference centre.

Now.

She's a wonderful girl and I hope one day she'll take a very leading role and I trust her ethics. Got a wonderful fiance, not actually fiance, boyfriend, who's also, you know, potentially I've got a son who's a lawyer who I'd also trust. So I've got some children that are, I hope will be Able to take over and run Jim's, you know, ethically and properly for the next 50 years.

Awesome.

That'd be my hope. But, you know, nothing protects us. But I'd like to see one day we might even have a system that's not in place right now where the national franchisor can be voted out to give franchisees and franchisors some protection. That's something we may look at in the future. Divisions can, including my own, as I'm a franchisor or a divisional, I can be voted out. In fact, we had in the computer services division, basically, they voted me out. In effect, they said they don't like the way you're running it and they're probably right. So now someone else is running it. So it applies to me as well. And I think. I think down the track of something, we should think about giving franchisees and franchisors the ultimate power to say, are we being looked after?

Unless there's some major development, we can upload you into a computer or something and you can be around for a long time.

Well, the other thing is, I'm very carefully watching all the biology about aging research and the country comes to the stage where dying becomes optional. I'll be first in the queue.

Add me to the list.

We did do these lives to YouTube as well. The problem was technical issues, so we used to have obs and used to go Facebook and YouTube, but there was too much issues for it, so we just did to Facebook. But we do upload them to YouTube as replays. So. Yeah, cool.

Thank you.

That was a really good one, Louis. Good stuff. But the original question was, where did you grow up? I'll just read it because where did you grow up? I don't think many people know that one.

Not Adelaide.

Adelaide.

I lived in Adelaide from the time I was 3 until I was about 14. I'm ashamed to say before that, I wasn't even Australian. I was from the uk, but my mother's Australian, so I'm not really a POM excuse. Too many POMS here. But, you know, us Aussies are different.

Good stuff, Louis. I've got one here from Connor. Where's Connor? Connor's coming up here now.

Just to start with, I don't think there's much.

Wrong with being a Palm.

I know it.

No, I have to say, you know how you can tell where there's a plane load of POMI migrants arriving at Ptolemy airport? Because the plane stops and it keeps on whining. But don't worry, you can Assimilate, you'll even learn to speak properly after a while.

You remembered your question.

So the question is, if you could have started this with any other sort of trade, what would it have been and do you think it'd be as.

Successful any other division to start with? Good question. We have another one.

Well, it'll be difficult because basically it started off because I love gardening, I love being outside, so doing it. The basis of gyms is that I was a lawn mowing contractor for 15 years and I knew the industry really, really well. So when I started franchising I was franchising something that I understood extremely well. There's no reason it couldn't be done for cleaning. If I had a different temperament where I preferred to clean rather than gardening. And a lot of people do, actually, people much rather be cleaners. I think it would have worked just as well for cleaning or almost any other division, quite frankly. Yes, mowings have been a good one. It happens to be ourselves and vip, but some of the biggest franchises in the world are actually cleaning franchises rather than mowing. So yes, could be in something else. Same principle applies. Very, very similar.

Good question. Thanks that one, Connor. Cool. And we've got the next one here from Dean. Where is Dean? Sure you have a few answers to this one, Jim.

How you going, Jim? Just curious whether you've got a hobby and how do you relax and if.

You do relax, that's the better question.

Yeah, no, I do, I do. I have a small farm. I spend a lot of time, probably about 10 or 12 hours a week, just working outdoors on my farm, just digging weeds and planting things and growing potatoes and all kinds of stuff. I love that kind of stuff. I like playing computer games mostly, sort of strategy games like Conquest and stuff like a risk variant. Yeah, I love reading. I probably read at least a book a week, all kinds of things. I'm reading one about CRISPR now, which is the technology for changing genes and so forth. So I'm not a workaholic. I really. I probably work 40, 50 hours a week, I reckon. Yeah, I love spend time with my family. I love my wife. Got some good kids.

I just thought if you're into horses.

I got a tip for you on Wednesday. Definitely not. That's one thing. Definitely not. So a few comments and questions coming online. So one real quickly is from Brad. Do we have any subcontractor templates available from Jim's resources? So he must be in a position now. He wants to put on a subby to help him in his Business. Do we have any resources for templates?

We don't, but if you want some help, just let us know what you're after and we'll help you drop a contract for sure. I can get my documents team legal team working on it for you.

You can also shop something into I presume the Dogwash Facebook group or the Jim's Group Franchisee Facebook group. There's a lot of people in that can help and have things as well.

We have an in house lawyer actually so we can do things with contracts. We work things out all the time. So yeah, sure, we'll give you a hand.

Thanks for that one, Brad. Next one here is from Doug. Where is Doug? I like this type of question. Let's see what you come up with this one, Jim. What division you going to be, Doug? Fencing. Fencing. Jim's fencing. Good man.

Hey Jim, what's the funniest customer complaint you've ever had to deal with?

Funniest customer complaint. Do you do it for complaints still on a daily basis. Is there anything that you've funny?

I don't know. They're more outrageous than anything else. Sometimes customers can be incredible. They're just neurotic as all hell. People say the customer's always right. It's garbage. Some people are just morons. They really are. You just cannot comprehend. I can't even think of an example. But some people are just so unreasonable. We have a service that are called Red List where we read list clients who were just completely impossible to deal with. Yeah, I don't know. They make all kinds of claims. We had one client who claimed that she had cleaning and gardening done. Both vacate clean in both cases she said they both did extreme damage to the house and the garden respectively and she wanted massive compensation. I mean that's a bit of comedy in there. Whether they actually got paid, I don't know. But we.

Yes, because our ladies and our call centres they probably have the good ones because they obviously in the front lines and you have people who are a bit drunk and ring up pretending to be possums and want a pest controller come out and catch them and rehome them. And all the recalls are recorded. There's been a few funny ones. Rachel's at the back there. But we had a dog wash franchisee I think shaved the Labrador when it wasn't what the person wanted and the guy absolutely lost it. And if I could animate a clip to it it would have been pretty good but I can't do it. But the ladies in the call Centre who do a good job deal with probably the most of these sort of things in a cava. Lot of stories for you if you go and ask them. Thanks for that one, Doug. Cool. Got a few questions and one from Meg online regarding a customer complaints. I think Meg's a customer regarding a customer complaint saying please read the message I sent through to your page. So I think with that one, Megan, you've got to email adminims.net because obviously the Facebook page is we tell you to do that. So email through to adminims.net, and they'll escalate it to Jim for you. Okay. The next one here is from Hong. Is it Hong Kong? Cool. I'd like to know this one. I don't know this one either. Another original question. There's been some really good ones. A lot of good thought into it. So fantastic. Just want to know when did you.

Make your first million and what did you buy with it?

What did you do with your first million and what did you buy with it? Good question.

Well, when you say your first million, what's what you mean? When was my company was in million dollars? Probably round about 1990, shortly after the franchise started. It was probably worth that. But as to what I did with it, it's not a case of it's not money. It's always just debt. Because what I would always do if I had $2, I'd always spend them and then another extra dollar beside just to try and make the company work better or cut their costs or increase the marketing. So in fact, I'm the stingiest person imaginable. I still go into. I have fights with my. I mean, I'm not too badly off now, as you can probably imagine. But I still always buy the Coles brand in the supermarkets. I cannot stand to spend money. I drive a crappy old car which is about 10 years old and makes very funny noises. You can get a better one. These trousers come from Kmart. They're not from. So it's. I am the original Scrooge. I can tell you that. I do not spend money outside of my business. And then I'll spend a lot.

Good question. Which division are you going to be?

Bookkeeping.

Bookkeeping.

Well, you should know all about money. When you earn money, you've got to invest it, don't you? Isn't that right? You can't just spend it. People actually come unstuck, you know, they start making money and they start spending and they get expensive stuff. One of the things that people believe in too, which I think is really wrong. They think you have to have impressive stuff to impress clients. You know, you have to have the best mobile phone and clothes and up to date cars and all the rest of it. I don't think that impresses anybody, at least not in our industry. I don't think people want to think that you're spending all your money on those kinds of flashy prestige stuff. They want you to think you're spending your money on things that are going to benefit them.

Good question, Hong. Thanks for that one. Good luck with your business. Okay, we've got a few comments and questions coming along, so I keep putting in there. So we've got six questions left here which we're going to get through first and we'll tackle anything left online. You can put anything on there as you want. Okay, the next one we have here is from Brenda. Where is Brenda? Brenda. All right, Brenda? Oh, sorry, who wrote this? Brendan. Sorry, mate. Brendan. Brendan. Is that an A in an N or what's that? Oh, no, I'll show you what it says. Sorry, it says who wrote that?

You do not look like Brendan, despite the hot.

Sorry. Brendan.

Brendan.

That's all right.

Sorry, this is just a basic question, just a basic question, but it intrigues me. You've been doing this for a while now. If you weren't doing this, where do you see yourself? Oh, in just some other form of business. Business is so much fun. I just love it. It's like a. I mean, I love computer games, but business is like the best computer game of all time. Endlessly productive and obviously challenges all the time. It's just always ways of improving and doing things better. It's just the greatest fun. It's like. It's like the best computer game in the world, except you get paid for doing it. That's what I love about it. So I can't imagine anything better than business. I would never retire. I just couldn't imagine it. It would just be like dying. I just enjoy what I do so much. It's good to know because this is the first time that I've actually chosen a job rather than fallen in, into a job. So good. Yes, it's good to make your own choices. All the onus is on me now. So, yeah, there's no limit, there's no upper level, there's no. Nobody's going to tell you you make so much and no more because of your education, because of your skills, you're going to decide this.

Yeah.

And you might have a comfortable, happy life. You Might become a multi millionaire, you might fail. It's up to you. I hope you don't fail, but that's not common.

What division are you going into, Brendan?

Mowing in Hobart.

Tassie. You'd be fine. You got what's his name down there? Tim. Tim responding? Yeah. He's a nice man.

So he's good.

Oh, good man.

But you can go anywhere with this. That's the thing. I mean, it doesn't have to be. You could be the franchisor. You could employ a whole stack of people. You could use it as a bouncing point. You could start a new division. You'd go into something completely different outside the gym because you learned the business skills there really is very open. That's why business is so much better than a job. I could not imagine working for somebody else. I couldn't imagine working for me either.

Yeah, it's pretty hard. Pretty hard.

I did it for 20 years in transport and I think that was enough. You will love it. You will enjoy it. I tell you, as long as you can cope with the. With the ups and downs, you've got to have some emotional strength and stability and that's a big challenge. But if you can do that, it's a fantastic way ahead. Yeah, cool.

Perfect. Good luck. Thanks for that, Bryn. Now we have Laith. Is it Laith? Laith. This is a good question. This does come up in some regard every training, but it's worded a bit differently here. This one. Jim.

Hi, Jim.

Jim's it.

So what challenges did you overcome during the bushfire and the COVID 19 pandemic? And what kind of support did you offer the franchisees during that time?

Well, the lockdown was the challenge. In actual fact, it's been a very good year for us because you've got to think in our situation, we don't lack work. Work is incredibly plentiful. We lack franchisees. And in a sense, Covid was very good because it actually stuffed up so much of the economy that people were coming to us because there was. We had all the work and it's been very, very good for us. The lockdown was the hardest time because in Melbourne we had, like, best part of a thousand franchisees who were out of work. And we were in touch with them and you heard stories. I know two franchisees who had suicide attempts within their own family. You know, we had a couple of franchisees in Dog Watch who were being threatened with eviction from their home. We actually said, if anybody gets thrown out of your home, you can come and stay at foothills, no charge. But they were being contributed. We didn't wanted them some money. People were giving them food vouchers and stuff, which is wonderful the way France is rallied around. But that was really hard to take. It was just absolutely traumatic. Horrible what happened during that lockdown. And it really got me very angry, as people understand, because what was done was so unnecessary that we were not a danger to public health. It was purely political. That was the worst experience. They told you that. Overall, financially speaking, we did fine because our business is growing and doing very well. But the lockdown was horrible.

What about the bushfire component as well, Jim? Obviously we did touch on that a bit sometimes with the bushfires up in New South Wales and when that happened a bit.

Yeah, I know sometimes you get bad things happening, bushfires. But bushfires tend to make us money though, because we actually go out and do clean up jobs and stuff. The drought in western New South Wales was pretty bad. That was not this year, but four. And that was difficult. We had franchisees who were really struggling in that area. But that's quite unusual for us to be short of work because we were in that area. But you sort of feel things, you know, because we're not remote here. You know, franchisees, I talk to them all the time and you hear these things happening, what's going on in their families and how bad they feel. People kept on ringing me to say, when is this going to be over and when can we go back to work? And what can I say? It's not enough to be me.

Yeah.

The reason I asked, because during that time the market had a huge meltdown and many, many small businesses closed down. And also many franchisees breached their franchise agreement because they were. They were suffering financially and they didn't receive any single support from the franchisor. And I, to be honest, I was one of them.

So which, Hang on. Which. Where were you at that time?

I was with a company called Sandwich Chefs.

Sandwich Chefs?

Yeah, it's a restaurant.

Were you actually. So did you have premises?

Yes, yes.

Well, that was. You had your rent. I suppose. What we didn't. What we did for any lockdown in Australia or anywhere else in New Zealand, we completely stopped all franchise fees.

They didn't do that with me.

No, no, no. Well, we Greenacres, our big competitor in New Zealand, actually kept on charging franchise fees and they got really hammered in the media about it. We completely stopped all the franchise fees. Every franchisee was paying no fees. But not only that, but we actually said that we're not going to charge you any fees, but if you're able to go out and do ndis or anything else, you can still do that. We're not going to stop you, but you won't charge you any fees. Plus, they got government support. And of course, course our franchisees don't have any rent. So in actual fact, for the most part, we didn't suffer too badly because of it. I'd say one of the things too, and it's not just my own decision. Nobody in gyms, if anybody in gyms would suggest that we charge fees to franchisees in lockdown, we would have put them in a lunatic asylum, because. So against our whole ethos. But what was actually really heartwarming is that even when the franchisees fees were all frozen, the franchisors in Melbourne were still ringing their franchises regularly and saying, how you going, mate? How's things? Bear up, I'll be with you. So that was still providing the support, even though they weren't getting paid for it. And of course we stopped their fees as well too, so that's great.

Thank you.

And the franchisor support probably went up. They were daily. Weekly. I know people do spend more time.

Looking after franchisees when they weren't getting paid in lockdown. I feel very proud of my father. Franchisors. It was fantastic, the amount of way people. I know one test and tag franchisor who rang me up and said, look, I know people are suffering worse than me. Can I help? Is there anybody who needs something? And he. He was cut off from work. He couldn't work because of the lockdown. But he was still ringing up to say, how can I help other people? And things like, as I said, the food vouchers and all the stuff people did, the way they looked after, we had people from Interstate actually just offering support to the Victorians. It was a horrible time, but it was really, really heartwarming. Very moving to see the way that people supported each other in this organisation.

There's a lot of GoFundMe set up as well. So GoFundMes, which. Where people could donate. I know a lot of people did that out of state for various franchisees. Rachel and Mike, for example, just one of many zoos. They used to do like weekly game shows and stuff via Zoom. Obviously, when we couldn't do anything from a mental health perspective, that was good for them to stay in touch. They actually worked a lot harder probably in that time than any other time.

You know, people often ask me, do I feel proud of having 4,000 plus franchisees. And I say the thing that makes me most proud, if you ask me, is the way that our people look after each other, particularly the way that franchisors genuinely, genuinely care for franchisees in cases like that elsewhere, that is the one thing, because that is an attitude that is very peculiar to us. And it's my own personal view, very strongly held, as you know, from this morning, but it's also strong, something that's very widely disseminated. Most franchisors do genuinely care about franchisees. Yes, but that's a great thing, isn't it, that it comes, it goes through the organization. And you also find, at every level, you will find when you go to meetings and I talked about it this morning, but you'll find franchisees who are good at what they do, they'll support you, they'll actually give you advice. You can talk to them, you can ring them up in the evening and they'll give you advice on how to run a business. People will give their time. You find that ethos of sharing, it's like an extended family. It's very strong in gyms. And I want you to wave to each other when you pass in the streets too. Wave to somebody when you see someone in a different division.

We don't want you jumping on here saying, oh, someone didn't wave to me in the streets. Which happens sometimes.

Sometimes they don't. They miss out. But it's good to have that sense of connectedness, isn't it?

But we also have a Facebook group for franchisees and they always post. Can someone do this? Who recommends someone good? This. And within one minute there's someone replying with details and mobile numbers and stuff like that. So make sure you join the Jim's Group Franchisee only Facebook page as well for that sort of stuff. Cool. All right, we're going to keep going here and we've got one here. Is it from Neil? Neil? I don't know. Whose writing is this about? The contribute to your success. Oh, Leah, sorry. Now, what does that look like to you, Jim?

Leah. Leah, absolutely. These young people, I can't read. They've got no eyesight, they're going blind.

I need Jim's optometrist, don't I?

Too many computer games.

I've done it with Brenda at the back. Brenda and I. She was. Leah. Sorry, Leah.

Brenda did look like Brenda. I can't say.

Leah.

Yeah. So who or what things? You've kind of answered this question but drove you to your success today. Well, Actually, I hope people to read this book actually. I know I keep on pushing to it but a lot of it's got to do with my research. Look, I intended to be an academic. I wanted to understand the reasons for the rise and fall of civilizations. That's what I went. That was going to be my career. I was going to be an academic and researcher. And then when I got that completely failed, I knew I had to set up a research institute which would take millions and millions of dollars to do the basic physiological research that was necessary to make this thing happen. And that more than anything else drove me until I realized that was the only way I was going to succeed. I never had any concept of making money. I never thought about becoming rich. I never thought about business. But it's this drive to do this particular thing here by history that's driven me more than anything because it's a moral goal. I don't live rich now. We don't live anything like what we supposedly could. You've got to have a purpose in life. To me, and I don't think piling up money is much of a purpose. In fact I talked about control of the company for my children but in actual fact the way that the family trust that owns Gyms is set up, the actual it belongs to the research institute. So that's going to be the major focus of where the money goes. My children get some help with housing and stuff but not much. That's always been the moral purpose behind Gyms, which drives me as well.

Thanks, Leah. Cool, we've got one here. So if you got my question put in online. So David, sue, real quickly, is mobile mechanics covered by insurance? So yes, they would have compulsory liability.

Yes, you must have compulsory. You cannot be a franchisee without having at least public risk insurance.

So that's it. They answer that one there. So we got one here from now. Mohamed, regarding Skip ins. Where's Muhammad Cool, come up here. Jim can have a go at this one. I can answer this one I reckon though.

Yeah. I'm from Sydney Southwest and my question is as the Sydney construction market and housing market is booming again, so do you have any special marketing plan to go along with it for the skip in business?

Well, skip inside skip bins. There's a lot of work coming through with skip bins. The biggest issue we have with skip bins is the sorting yards and that enables you to be more competitive. The one thing that would really help Sydney to get off the ground would be a sorting yard, a major sorting yard or more than One, we've got two already in Melbourne, no one in Sydney. Because if you've got a sorting yard you go through and you can separate all the different stuff out and you can get rid of most of your tip fish and it's a lot better. You can even sell some of the stuff like the metal and things. That would be a huge secret of it. I don't think there's a lack of work in any way. It's always a matter of keeping your cost down to be something reasonable. But we were talking about that at lunchtime, weren't we? If you're going to do this business properly, unlike a division like cleaning or mowing or even dog wash or those kind of ones where you'll tend to get lots and lots of work, with skip ins, you do have to do some self marketing, which means whenever you pass by a builder or anywhere else, you drop in and give your business card over. You just got to constantly be looking out for it. And with time, when you do that, you'll actually pick up your regular client base and you'll look after them. The customer service.

Yeah, I moved to Australia like 12 years now and what I believe myself, all the job I got is just knocking on the door.

Yes.

Well done.

You're very well set for this.

Yeah, I believe that if I knock on the door, I'll get the job. So this is my part and so what I will get from Jim's.

Yeah. So the franchisor in your area, knows the area best, will be responsible for setting up your Google Ads, especially for skip ins. It predominantly depends on Google Ads and there's SEO, which is obviously for the website. So they've just engaged new SEO companies.

Yeah. I'm not saying you're going to get all your work, you're getting all your work for yourself, you're going to get quite a lot of leads from us. In fact, if you actually look at it or if you email me, I'll tell you, we'll tell you how many leads there are coming and how many per franchisee per month and how many they're getting, there's a substantial amount of leads coming through already. What I'm saying is that if you can continue doing what you're doing to build up your own client base, it's also better too because you take a lead from us, you've got to pay a lead fee, but it's from a regular client that you picked up, there's no lead fee, so that keeps your cost down.

Cost down.

One thing for Skips is Google my business as well. So you know the little three packs. So you've got to have a listing there. Skip ins. There's a guy called Peter Berendorf who does this really well for his franchisees and some of his listings have like 147, five star reviews and you type in skip in hire in that area and that listing will always come up. So talk to your franchisor, they're the ones who are there supposed to be driving that for you. And anything else you can do is just a bonus really.

And also talk to the. Have you talked to the other franchisees in your region?

No, I didn't get the chance.

Have a chat to them, ask them what the work is like how much work's coming in, how easy. Do some. I say to anybody too do some research before you actually go to signing. Make sure that you understand what you're doing.

What I know of there is work. There's a lot of. Plenty of work. Like there's a few guys that actually one territory but he's running two trucks so he's flat out. And my question was actually Sydney's growing big and big and big. So are we going big as well?

Like you know, it's actually skip ins in Sydney is a lot smaller than skip ins in Melbourne. We've got about 30.30ish. Yeah, 30 something in Melbourne, about six in Sydney. So you know, we're only tiny by comparison with the market. I don't think the lack of the market is going to be an issue. It's a big city. We're only a fraction of a percent of the actual market there. We could be much, much bigger. It's really a case of things like as I said, sorting yards. It's a case of how good you are at marketing and you know, how many trucks you want to put on down the track a bit. Put as many as you like.

A lot of guys down here have three, four trucks going with employees and stuff like that and someone's sorting their stuff out in the yard. So it's a great business. It's a really good, it's a really good earner.

Look, it is actually the single highest earning division in Jim's group. You've just got if you can and you just got to make sure you take the leads, you follow them up properly, you give great service, you build your connections, you do a bit of self marketing and then you can be as big as you like. Thank you.

Great question there. We've got a few. One more online from Jesse Martin says question. Have you thought about doing Twitch Stream for your gaming gym? Do you know what that sentence means?

No.

So Twitch is like an online place where you can go and watch all your favorite gamers and they'll watch your game. They might pay you money to even watch your game. So you can have the Jim Pemmin Twitch stream and you can play your game and people can interact with you.

What nobody would pay brass scent to watch me game, I can tell you.

I reckon you might be surprised. There have been a few gyms, racing, esports, teams getting started. I get them all the time.

The games I tend to be like are more like strategic type games like Age of Empires and those kind of.

Things about Call of Duty or anything like that.

No, no, not that I don't think.

You would like Call of Duty.

No, no, no. It's not my thing. I don't play much in the way of computer games actually. Business is more fun, honestly.

But then we had one here from Andrew, the last one from the audience, another Andrew, regarding flying. Yes. Which division are you going to be from, Andrew? Mowing. Mowing in Tassie again. Cool.

Probably already answered the question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So have you ever had any interest in flying or learning to fly? I've got one of the most famous flight phobias of anybody in this country. So I don't get such as itself. I can help you with that. There's actually a chapter called Fear of Flying and in this book I used to go interstate by train to avoid the need for flying. Actually, I hate flying. My family would like to go and overseas jaunts and stuff and I just don't want to go.

Fair enough.

I would be extremely happy never to go outside Victoria the rest of my life. I really, really don't airplanes at all. They're uncomfortable, they're just horrible.

What's your background with it? Are you.

I'm an instructor.

Oh, you're an instructor.

Sorry. No, that's okay. I'll put it out there. Just trying to get. I'm just trying to get a customer.

Well, in Virgin, well, we always get off. We always get asked, you should buy, you know, Jim's Airlines or something. What's your quote regarding buying an airline? Jim's. Jim's Flight training. Flight simulator. Yeah.

Well, you know what they say about airlines. How do you make a small fortune in the airline business? Start with a large fortune. I'm very happy to be in the area. One of the things I've learned very Hard over the years is stick to what you know. Once you get outside what you know and do different things, you tend to become a horrible cropper. I'm not the slightest bit tempted to do anything to do with the aviation business and Jeep as are we so lucky in the last year what happened to airline stocks and stuff and look how well we've done. I reckon we've got a great industry. I reckon the service industry is fantastic. It just booms regardless, you know, whether the economy booms or whether it slackens. It always seems to be plenty of work for us. We always seem to go better. We're just growing so well, increasingly profitable. Complaint rates are improving. As the technology comes in, it's going to get better and better and better. I think it's a marvelous industry. I'm not slightly tempted to do anything else, I can assure you.

Fair enough.

If you change your mind, let me know.

We've got one more question online, so thanks for that one.

Now if you could teach me how to be like Superman and fly that way, then I'd be interested. I just don't eat by planes.

That is a good question from Trish Solomon.

Jim, my son always likes my 11 year old. Which superhero power would you like to have, dad? That's one of his favorite questions we.

Have from Trish Solomon, which goes, what advertising actually done to promote each individual's franchise area or is it the responsibility of the purchaser from Trish Online?

Well, franchisors are actually responsible for advertising. So most divisions, that's really all you need to do. The franchisor will take your 140 bucks a month or whatever it is and spend it. And it's changed dramatically. In the old days it was so simple. It was just local papers and yellow pages and now it's all the online stuff and the adwords and Facebook and social media and all kinds of stuff, which is really, really complicated and challenging. But to a large extent what tends to happen in more recent times is that previously franchisors would do it. These days it tends to be more done in larger groups like divisions or nationwide and so forth. We have companies that do this kind of stuff because it's got so complicated. I mean we're doing very well because obviously our leads are increasing all the time though I think that's probably mainly customer service. But still we do manage to do very well in finding, finding leads. But it's a very different animal from what it used to be.

Gawani from Glenn Sharp as well. Hi, Jim Ole is informed that you are looking at doing or are doing private leads for private contractors. Is that true?

Private leads?

He goes, are you doing leads to private contractors? Is that true?

What actually happens is that we've got a system which we call Jim's plus, which is actually selling our surplus leads to independent contractors and we've got somebody here who was actually part of this system. Yes, that's right. So actually got leads from us, had a fantastic record, like 4.9 stars and now he's come to join us, which is perfect for us. So there's quite a few franchisees who come in through that door because we already know they're good from seeing their ratings. So they can actually carry your ratings in the gyms too? We've arranged that to be done. So yes, it is. I think, look, there's reasons for that. One of the reasons is that actually produces income that we can then use to find more work or more franchisees. So in fact, for example, we've got somebody who sits there and rings Denise who in the office, paid for by these lease that are being sold and she sits down, rings ex franchisees and invites them to come back. We've got quite a few come back already, people who've left us and then want to come back again and we're going to do other things to actually get more work too for our franchisees. So that's the idea. And of course, if we can get people like Sayyid over there. Is that your name, isn't it? Ivan?

Ivan.

Ivan, yeah. If we can get people like you across into the business as the best of the independent contractors, that's also an advantage. So I see it as a very good way of expanding gyms.

Excited for that one, Glenn. So what we'll do is. We've gone through them all, Jim. I didn't think we'd get through them, which they were. Great questions tonight. So thank you everyone for putting a bit of thought into them now. Fantastic. Now let's decide on who gets the monopoly and maybe a couple of books. Jim, what ones do you want to give those to?

Who asked that question about motivation? What keeps you going? Who said that one? It was one of the early questions.

Was it with the hat? Hat on? Yeah, in the Vulcan jacket.

Yeah, I like that question. I think motivation is very important.

So that was when you. Matthew. Your name. Yeah, Matthew. Yeah. Overwhelm or how do you stay calm?

Yeah. How do you keep going and so forth. Just choose whichever one you'd like. Monopoly or would you like the. This book or Whatever you'd say.

The Monopoly, of course. You're going to take Monopoly. Now we've got two more books, Jim. What ones stand out to you from the books? I've got one. I reckon Louis was pretty good. Didn't ask the question that he wanted to ask. I asked three ones on the spot. That was good. So, Louis, we'll give you a book up here, mate. So. Which one? Okay.

Whichever one you want. Yes, sure.

For the bear.

The beer is fine. Anything. Well, you can't. This one. This one's my.

You can't take that one. What else there, Jim? What else do you. Anything else that you can remember? There was no.

I was going to say that I like the question on addiction, asking about the difference between probably the bio history.

That one, you reckon? Yeah, yeah, that'd be the one, I reckon. You go for that one.

Yeah, I think it could really be the answer. But it's a great. It's great that you're involved in that area. It's an area of huge need.

I'm always happy to sleep every night.

Thank you very much.

And we've got one in for Jim's book. Which else? What else? Off the top of your head.

So many good questions, wasn't there?

There was a lot.

What was the.

Where's Brendan for mispronouncing his name wrong. Brenda. Brenda, remember pack of mowing playing cars. He's going to the mowing division. I think he's going to mulling division. Sorry about that, mate. There you go there.

Actually, I like the question that was, Connor, if you could have started any gyms with any other trade, what would that be? It's a smart question actually.

Which. When you then insulted him when he spoke. Yes. So, Connor, that one there. So which one do you want, Connor?

Well, this one you get free.

Yeah.

One that.

For free. Just take this one. Everyone will get that for free anyway. So we'll leave that there. If you want Jim to sign it, I guess at the end we can have him sign it as well. So what we'll do is thanks to everyone who wrote the questions. They're really insightful. We do this probably 100 times now. And that was probably one of the best bunch we've had, wasn't it? So thank you very much for hanging around as well. And we do this every Monday at training week, so every three to four weeks you can pop in and let us know how you're going in the comments and we'll. We'll read it out to Jim. And thanks, Jim, for all your answers tonight and giving us an hour of your time. And thanks everyone who watched online as well. We'll see you again in three weeks time. So have a good night and enjoy the rest of your training week. Thank you. Good job.

Got.