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

Hi, everyone. So welcome to another Ask Jim. And we're live at training week. We nearly got to 100, Jim. I think this is the 99th or the 98th episode. So what we're going to do tonight, guys, is we're going to have all the franchise, the new franchisees who are in the audience here with their questions written down. We're going to read the questions out, then Mike's going to come around with the mic and you're going to read out your question for Jim. The best question tonight, online or in the audience. We're going to get a Jim's Monopoly. So Jim wrote the game yourself, didn't you?

Yeah.

Did you write the game?

It's fun. We had a game.

It's great, Is a great game. So make sure you leave a question online or we're going to read it out there. So what we're going to do is we're going to answer these ones here first, which is the people here. So if you are online, leave a comment or question. We'll get to you eventually. So let's start off with Josh Mars. Where is Josh Mars? Up the front there. Do you remember what your question is, Josh? I've got two in there, two question there. Yeah, no worries. All right.

If you had to start a company.

To compete with your own, what would.

You create to put gyms out of business?

If you had to skip your credit card?

That reminds me of what Warren Buffett said when asked why he invested in Coke. He said, if you gave me an unlimited sum of money and said, take away the leadership of the soft drink world from Coke and Pepsi, I said, I give you that straight back in. It can't be done. I've actually thought about that. I thought, you know what, if I started again, I had to try and compete against myself. I would go into a different area. I would go into something that Jim's doesn't do because it's like fast food. We don't try to compete with fast food because people like McDonald's and Hungry Jack's is so good. So we focus on what we know. So why would we pick areas where Jim's isn't involved and go for those?

Which is a question you get a lot, isn't it? You always get, why don't you do a retail or why don't you do a site based stuff? Why don't you do this and that?

Good question, Good question. I was actually thinking about the same subject today. What would I do if I was trying to compete with myself? It'd be hard because there's so many advantages. The brand is so strong, and how could anybody compete with that, no matter how good they are? How could you? Even if they were better than Jim's, and believe me, there aren't anybody better than us, at least in my humble opinion. But even though better, how do you get that exposure that we've got? And then also the sheer fact that we've got money, we're spending this year probably $3 million on software development. How can any normal start match that? Very difficult, actually. I think we're going to crush the likes of hi pages that are funded by News Corp. I honestly don't think they can survive against us successfully because we're just better.

That's a really good question, Josh. I don't think we've had that in our nearly 100 episodes. So Tom Freaks. See, where's Tom Freaks in the audience?

You had a second question, didn't you?

Yeah, I've got a second one here. It's a good one. You'll like this one. I don't worry, I've got it there.

So I went through your book, I started reading it. I just wanted to know that in.

The start you had a couple of.

Failures, especially when you blow up the.

Clutch in your car and you're sitting.

In the cold night.

Yeah.

Then there was a.

So you set it all up.

And then there was a recession hits.

Oh, sorry.

There was a drought.

So again, there was no work. So what kept you motivated and what makes you keep pushing for success?

I didn't start out to be a mind contractor. I started out to change the world in terms of understanding history and society and what makes it run and what makes it change. And I did some. I came up with a thesis for my PhD which gave me some clues as to what was going on. But the only way I could possibly develop it because I couldn't get it accepted as being because it's so different, it's so radical. The only way I could possibly do it would be to start up a research foundation to show that my ideas were correct and to actually demonstrate that we could do it and to develop the methods of doing it, which is what we're doing right now. This year, we'll probably spend about 2, 3 million dollars on the research. The point is, because that was the main purpose of my life, there was just no possible way I could give up. I just was out of the question. And also I had a family, I had a wife to support. You just had to. And by the way when there was a drought, my work didn't stop. I just did everything else. I did watering, I did weeds, I did blackberries. I did everything you could possibly imagine. Worked incredibly long hours and just worked and worked and worked because there was no. I never ever thought of the possibility of failure. That time with the clutch was probably the nearest I ever came to being really in despair. And that was just like for half an hour. But I'll tell you something too. If you notice a story I I was listening to Keith Green and Keith Green's a Christian and I've been a Christian just a few years at that stage, only a couple of years. That was a great support to me. I always thought that God's behind me.

Good question, great question, great question. Alright, so the next one here we have from Stephen o'. Neill. Where's Stephen o'? Neill?

Yeah, Jim, what's the worst decision that everybody else thought? Back in the early days when you.

Began your journey, that turned into be one of the best decisions you've ever made.

Well, the lawyers weren't impressed by me. I think I said mentioned this on Monday. They said I was a fool because of my contract. They said nobody writes a franchise contract like this. You're giving your franchisees too many rights. So that was something. I don't know what you think. My father thought that his oldest son becoming a gardener was pretty horrifying. He really what a terrible. He didn't say too much but I knew what he thought. You know he's going to. You go to. Your father's an engineer, you go to university, you do all this work and then you go out and become a gardener. I think he thought that was a pretty poor career but it turned out not to work out too bad.

That's a great question and just interrupt everyone online. So make sure if you're online watching the Jim's group page, leave a comment or question as well. Been some great questions so far from the audience so we'll jump to the next one as well which is from Damon. Where is Damon? Damonopolis.

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you what, they've been some great ones.

Influence or inspiration or who has been. Well without being too trite about it, Jesus as a Christian. That's the fundamental basis behind everything that we do in gyms. The ethos of service is particularly there and I don't think we could have worked without that. I haven't any. I mean I like people like Ray Kroc and his attitude towards franchising is good but at A more fundamental level. It's the parable of the talents. You know, God gives you certain abilities and he expects us to use them. And that's like an obligation. It's not something that you really can decide not to do or should decide not to do. I love the gospel stories. I love the stories about the parable of the talents. Jesus washing his disciples feet. And if you think about. That's the way we think about things at gyms, instead of the franchisors being like the bosses, we say we serve our franchisees. That's a very peculiarly Christian way of looking at things. Very different from the secular world you might say.

Hope that answers your question. That's a good one. So we've got one here from Jonathan. Where is Jonathan? So if you want to leave something as well, you can leave them in the comments on the live feed as well. So we can have Jim answer them after these.

Hi Jim. So I guess knowing that you got.

54 divisions, if you removed your top.

Two, mowing and cleaning out of that and had your time over again, which one would you work in and why?

Personally working in trees would be fun. Trees is a good. Anybody hear from trees? I don't think I saw anybody. I love being outside even now I haven't mowed lawns professionally for more than 30 years but I still spend several hours a week working outside of my farm. I love working outside, I love working with the natural world. And trees are very challenging. They're very interesting jobs and they're very, very profitable. So I reckon tree lopping would be a great one.

How'd you go up the heights though?

Oh well, you get used to it.

You reckon you'll be alright? Makes good money. The trees guys? Oh they do tree and start removal. They do.

I know one guy who was a. He was a boner working in abattoir. So not any great business school or anything. And last time I heard he was, he was clearing a million dollars a year by doing trees. He had teams and stuff but I mean it's very good money.

What division are you doing? What are you in?

Mowing.

Mowing? Yeah. You have some mowing guys who do tree stuff as well.

But if I had no choice I'd still do mowing. I know you had to remove it. I love gardening, see what's the thing? People often ask me what is the best division? And I say well look, I can tell you what divisions tend to make the most money. Divisions like skip bins for example. Very high earning division. But I'd never do it because I don't like driving. And that just wouldn't appeal to me at all. But being outside, working physically in the open air is just something that grabs me. But you see, if you kind of. I said this to Haydar once. I said to him, you know, surely why would you want to be a cleaner when you could be a gardener? And he said, you know, you've got to be kidding. You're out there, you're getting rained on, you're getting hot, you're getting cold inside. It's all predictable. It's a much better job. And that's why Hadar's good at what he did. And that's why I'm reasonably good at what I did.

That's a good question. We haven't had one had before either. So I saw original ones. So I just got one real quickly online for you, Jim, from Jennifer Thexton, who says, jim, how much do you love your dog? Apollo, I presume Jem washes your dog. I think Jen does.

I'm not the dog fanatic in our house. Lee goes ape over the dog. So do the girls think he has.

His own Instagram as well, doesn't he, Apollo?

Yeah, he's more popular than I am. That dog get likes all over the place. I don't know. He's okay. He's like, I don't mind him, but I had a German shepherd once when I was younger and I was very devoted, but then I was single sort of in those days, so he was my best friend kind of thing. Whereas these days, and one quick one.

Online real quickly says Jason Smythe, so how do you feel when franchisors tell people stuff, what Jim thinks and says, I'll do it my way. That's a question from someone. Jason Smythe. So we always read anything out when I ask Jim. So make sure you leave them in there if you're watching.

I don't know about necessarily, do I? But it happens, it happens. What tends to go on is that if we don't keep tight control, what people will tend to do is to modify the system. They'll tone it down. Like they say, look, we'll do it the Jim's way, but we won't be quite so. Jim is stupidly fanatical about customer service. You don't need to do that. If a franchisee objects to a complaint, just wipe it out, then keep the franchisees happy. Isn't that sensible? But what tends to happen when they do that, and it has happened in the past, say places like Canada is that the whole thing doesn't work. And they say the brand doesn't work. Well, it's not the brand. But if you don't give good customer service, then you don't get the work through and the franchisee is unhappy. So there's always this temptation to want to fiddle with the system to make it easier or I remember just as an example, the idea from proactive calls came from the fencing division. That stage, the fencing division was going really, really well. And we figured out that what was happening was that fencing franchisors tended to ring their franchisors regularly, which wasn't normal in those days. So we got it out of fencing, and fencing was really booming at that stage. And then later on, basically what the people in charge said, look, you know, it's okay for mowing and clean, but fencing doesn't need to be run every month, so we don't need to do that. You know what happened to the fencing division? It went like that. And it's only starting to grow again now as we've taken it back and tried to change the culture of it. So that tends to be what happens. We have very tough standards. People kick up about it. Some of you may get annoyed at me. Who is Luke? Where are you, Luke? He was complaining about the fact that he had the one star survey and I wouldn't take it off because there's no comment. He said, I did the right thing. So therefore. And I said, well, I don't know that, do I? Even though Luke's a 4.8, so he's obviously a great character, is a good franchisee, but I can't remove it without evidence. And that's the hard thing because people are always coming at me and saying, oh, you should take it off. And it's affecting mental health. And there are all kinds of reasons why I get told all the time to remove complaints. We had another case just today where a franchisee, I was a new franchisee and made a mistake. And so the franchisor writes, look, he was just a new guy. I made a mistake. The adopt a complaint. And I said, no, I can't do that. It's not a big thing. It's only one complaint and they've learned their lesson. But I'm not taking it off, it's just there. So they've got to learn not to do it again.

So.

You need a tough mind. And if I wasn't around and somebody took over, who was much more lenient and just said, listen to everybody, just make things Easy. And don't go to so much trouble. And don't be quite so anal. And don't be so fanatical about it. What will happen is, with time, humans will start to fade and then they'll go down and then somebody else will come along and knock us off our perch.

That's a good question, Jason. Online. You probably didn't think I'd read it out, but we do read everything out, so make sure you chuck it in. We've got a few more coming in there, which I'll get back to you.

I don't mind the negative ones, actually. I reckon they're good.

Well, if you want to remain anonymous, you can put them in there. I won't read your name out. So we got one here from Frank. Where is Frank? Frank from Dogwash. A class action against the state government. Just wondering how that was going to.

Short answer is, I don't know. They said it would take 18 months to do anything in particular, so it's only been just about three months so far, so I haven't heard anything. I actually think that the claim we're making under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 is probably more likely to be successful. We've got some people who applied who are knocked back. We're taking one as a vcat. The government's got lawyers involved, so they're taking it seriously. They are defending it rigorously. I've got lawyers involved. I'm paying the cost, of course, and we'll fight it out in court. Now, if we lose vcat, we'll go to Supreme Court. And once we've done that, that's a precedent, and so everybody else can apply, presuming we're successful. But I think we will be because it's so obviously unreasonable, unfair to not allow a single person to do jobs when multiple people can do the same jobs. I don't think they got any evidence that there was any justification behind what they did.

So.

I like the impure one. It's also.

Yeah.

And I have to say, too, I don't know if anybody realizes that we're not claiming any money for ourselves. Jim's group is not asking for a cent, but we want the franchisees and the contractors who lost money unfairly because they should be compensated.

Well, it sort of came out of Independence Messaging. You originally it was just for franchisees, but then eventually you had more independents getting onto you, didn't you?

Yeah, we've got a lot of support and we've got support all over the country being Very good. There was one franchise prospect today. I don't know if you're here, but somebody said that that's why they're buying the franchise, because.

That'S a really good question there. And the next one here we got from Paul Sandals. So where's Paul? Thanks for coming down, Paul. So Paul's from Diggers. He come down for this, which was good.

Paul's our great hero. Franchise orphan Diggers.

Hey, Jim.

Not that. Not that at all.

Now, my question was, obviously 2020 was a really weird year with COVID and everything. Diggers had the best year ever with service leads and total leads. So the question was, how did Jim's group go with the same thing? Now, assuming it's super, super high, same thing, why do you think that is? I mean, obviously it's a really tough year. Lots of divisions. You mentioned high pages going backwards that we just did so well as far as people calling us last year.

Yeah, we spend a lot of time talking about that, don't we? Trying to work out why. One of the theories behind it is that people can't go overseas, and for a long time they couldn't even go out and eat. So what do you spend your money on? Bear in mind that 90% of population still got jobs, and the ones that haven't have got government subsidies. So there's a lot of money washing around and they can't go on holidays, they can't go overseas. So I think that's partly what happened, is they spent it on us. The other thing I think has made a difference too, was the. Was the fuss that we made during the lockdown. I know that a lot of people are actually saying that's made them want to call us. That has a very, very big impact from what we can tell. But I think mainly the first one.

Well, it didn't start off as like that, though. When it first all happened, probably people thought the opposite. You had franchisees, obviously, but the way.

Yeah, I had a lot of franchisors were very dark on me, partly because the. The interview was cut in a way that made me tell them I was trying to get people to defy the law. And I didn't actually. I just said what the premier said is not the law. The law is what's happened. And therefore, if people are fined, then we'll pay the fine, we'll fight it because it's not the law. But then the department changed the ruling and it was the law. So I said to the franchisees, you know, you've got to stop so we never defied, we never asked people, but. But that was misinterpreted and there was a lot of negative in the beginning.

But you knew from then on when you did live, you wanted to just do live TV. Only because that was a Channel 7, Channel 10 thing. That 20 minute interview at the front of. I remember it was at my place. We arranged it because the mowing franchise and stuff had to come and they cut off to be that 30 second grab and they made that narrative of you.

One of the things I learned from that episode is you've got to be very careful that anything you say has the full statement in it. You can't let anything be taken out of context. That was a hard lesson to learn. My daughters didn't speak to me for about a month after that. They got blasted on social media. Yeah, we're okay now.

But it sort of worked back towards the favour. The longer the things went on, as you said, you knew from people coming out of the blue, emailing you and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think the longer it went on, the more people thought it was unreasonable. We got a lot of support. Particularly the thing that annoyed them was the council workers. They got really exasperated by that. And people, I can't tell you, I must have had a battleship full of photos of all the council workers. They keep on seeing council workers. So it was. Yeah.

And we got one online, a couple online coming. So just real quickly. So from May, Hosny says, how do you balance work life? Do you know when to switch off from work?

I don't know. Probably the answer is no.

No, that's true.

I don't switch off. I enjoy work a lot. The hardest thing for me is taking a holiday.

Which you, which you did sort of last, end of last year. Yeah, I did.

It took a few days to go to the beach with my kids and my older kids, the younger ones, and that was okay. But it's hard to be off work for a week is very difficult for me, I must say. I try not to work Sunday because I believe in the Sabbath, but I just can't do it. I just can't not work, you know, I just love work so much. But you know, I'm not a real workaholic or anything. I just, I do what comes out well. No, seriously, I spend time, you know, with my kids, my son's at home and I'm chasing around the place and threatening him with cups of Wham and stuff. We do all kinds of crazy things.

And maybe I'll tell people what Wham is.

Wham is hot water and milk. That's what I drink. I don't drink tea or coffee. So it's a bit about a quarter milk and 3/4 hot water. So actually I certainly meant to tickle him. But also if he's really. When you want to get him, I get a nearly empty cup of whammy. Threatening to pour it on him. That really freaks him out. So. And then we go in and we wreck the place because he keeps on hiding in the curtain in their bedroom. And then it broke the curtain, it came down, so they had to get it fixed. So we're a bit righteous. So it's not all work. I just.

You do work in spurts, though. You work in spurts and you do stuff on the farm or you do some gardening as well, like you do. You break it up a bit. It's not just you sitting in front of a computer all day doing stuff.

Yeah, a lot of what I do is fun stuff. You know, I talk, meet people, come around and have a chat to people doing training and stuff. And I do a lot of phone calls and stuff. It's fun, it's a great buzz. I mean, it's so fun. Business is just great. It's one thing everybody talks about. It's so much fun and I enjoyed it. I always enjoyed it. I have to admit, it's more fun now because it's at a different level. But even when I was mowing lawns, I loved what I did. I loved the work, I got pride in what I did. I loved the fact that I could improve, I could get somewhere. That sense of progress. I could never be a gardener. Working for the council, couldn't stand it. No matter if you paid me $200,000 a year, I couldn't stand that job. But being in your own business, no matter what you're making, it's like a. Who likes video games? Who likes computer games? I mean, just everybody, except some women don't. But most of us normal people love computer games. To me, business is like a vast industry complex computer game, but you get paid to pay it, play it. Isn't that a good deal?

One real cheeky one coming online real quickly directed at Mike up the back. So everyone knows, Mike, a fam's gone. Mike, do you spike your hair up like that to hide the fact that you're going bald on top? Which is what I've got a comment on. Who's a fam? I don't know. Does you know a fam?

Hey, we're all going bald on top.

Currently not winning Monopoly.

Thanks very much.

But we read everything out, so it's a good cheeky one. I like that one. Maybe you are. Oh, we got Diane. Where is Diane? With the next one, Dan in the corner. Real quickly, Mike. Thanks for running on.

Mike, you're losing fitness. You gotta run faster.

Get back out in the field.

So, Jim, what are some of the challenges you faced during the lockdown in 2020? Look, financially speaking, we were okay because Jim's overall was profitable. The hardest thing was talking to franchisees. It was just really hard to take. It's like you talk to people and you know people are being threatened with eviction and you know, the suffering they're going through and the hurt and the bewilderment. And people are ringing me up and saying, why do. Why is this happening? Why can the council workers work and we can't? It was like just a horrible leaden weight on me the whole time in that eight or 10 weeks. That was the hardest thing. It wasn't hard financially. I wasn't out of work. I had plenty to do. I just felt the pain at second hand. And it was a really horrible experience. It really was. And it was still necessary. It makes me so. I'm still angry about it. I don't make public fuss anymore, but I'm still angry about what he did.

From a media perspective, though, you were getting requests left, right and centre after that first thing.

Oh, yeah, I kept busy. I kept busy. All right. I had plenty to do. I wasn't telling you, sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Yes, it was an interesting experience. I just.

You still get emotional about it, don't you? Yeah, yeah.

It upsets me because I just.

So what I'll then do is Mary. So where's Mary?

What process do you follow to develop a new division?

Good question. What process do you follow to develop a new division?

Fundamentally, we only do divisions that are similar to what we're already doing, that have the same thing. We don't do retail divisions, we don't do one specific site. We're not knowledgeable. But it has to be a service business of some kind.

That is.

The basic Jim's model, where somebody calls or books in for a service that somebody comes out and offers. That's the. That's the fundamental idea behind it. Now, having said that, there's a couple of things. First of all, we need to know that that division can make at least 60 bucks an hour. That's our benchmark. If you can't show me 60 bucks an hour. I'm not interested. I've had people come up with ideas for less than that, and we won't look at them. But apart from that, the only real consideration is the person driving the division, what they're like. And if you look at the divisions that work their divisions with exceptional leaders like cleaning, which is Haydar, or Dogwash, which is Sharon, or pool care, which is Bret Blair, or building inspections, which is Paul Comerford, you've got people who are innovative, charismatic leaders. That counts a lot more than what you actually do. So, I mean, dogwash was almost nothing. Dog wash was almost gone. It was 32 franchisees. We bought it back, built it up a bit and gave it to Sharon. It's now. It'll be 200 this year, sometime in the next few months. And that's because you've got a great leader, which I'm sure anybody who knows Sharon would agree. She is one of a kind. If I had 42 Sharons, we'd probably have 42 dogwash divisions. But they don't grow on trees.

We had one comment online from Michael King saying, is the Jim's sign and print franchise still going forward or has it moved direction towards Jim's uniforms, who also do stickers?

It's still going forward, but they're not franchising very much. They're more of a license certain gyms, things like. Actually more of a contract licensing. The brand, like plumbing is one. They're now taken over roofing. Roofing and air conditioning, what used to be heating and cooling. So it's not always. But the only thing is they've got to give great service, which they do, so that's fine. But the person counts. You look at who succeeds in business and who fails. It's got very little to do with the division. In any division in any region, you'll find franchisees who are incredibly successful a lot who do reasonably well, and there's a few who will fail. And if you look at the difference, it's not anything but the person involved. And if I had one thing, I would really, really love one tool, it's be able to shine a light on somebody, be able to say that person will succeed, succeed or not, and then say no if they're not going to, because that's the most hurtful thing. When somebody fails and you feel like a failure. And our failure rate's pretty low, but still, 10% of our franchisees say they make poor income. That's terrible.

There are a few comments online saying, oh, new Jim for Your comments before. And there's Zach's. Norris, real quick one, real cheeky one. Jim, do you still mow your own lawn?

It's only up at my farm. I don't just took one here and my farm. I make a lawn up there now.

Next one. Is it from Locky or from Locky here? Mike's handwriting is a bit of a struggle for me sometimes.

Jim, what does the average day look.

Like from you from AM to pm? You've sort of half answered it before.

But yeah, I'm intrigued what it looks like.

Average day. I spend a lot of time on emails. That's for the time I get up and I'll be doing emails at 10 o' clock tonight. That's the only reason I'm not going to stick around.

Yeah, he's got to leave it early.

So I start off with emails. I do emails through the day. I clean my email box every day. Every franchisee who contacts me gets an answer. I also, if I get phone calls, I want to answer them too. So that's. I also. I tend to wander around the office, talk to people. I come down and just sit down with various staff members and say, how's it going and what's happening and stuff. We have some great talks, don't we, in the office and with Rocky and so forth. And what else do I do?

Squash.

Yeah, I play a bit. I try to get exercise every day. At least half an hour of vigorous exercise. Today I'm missing out because it's just been so frantic, but normally I would. I usually have lunch if I can with my family, with my wife or kids or something. I don't know, lots of different things, don't I?

We do a Day in the Life video. We follow Jim around for a day and condense it into 45 minutes, which is pretty good. You played squash? You did a bit of the garden to chooks. Made you. Wham. In the morning, that horrible stuff.

I beg your pardon? Exercise, Wash your mouth up with coffee, that disgusting stuff.

We've got Eric over there from Mobile.

Cafe, but his chocolate is good. I've never drunk your coffee so I can't say anything bad about it.

It's a good watch day in the Life of Jim. YouTube video. It's a good one. Chucked it into YouTube, so got a real quick one here. Jim. Robert, Barn just online as well, acknowledged. The online one says, hi, guys, I've already met with Anthony Silverman for lawn mowing and I'm doing my trial day this Tuesday with Pete. I'M really excited. What's your biggest tip for me on the observation day for the trial day. We haven't had that one before. What's the big tip for someone who wants to do observation?

The main thing is to find out whether you're going to like it or not. Just remembering that it doesn't matter. Money will come if you love what you do. But if you don't love it, how do you feel? How would you feel about doing this? You know, you want to work outside. Hopefully you'll have a bit of a stinky day so you're going to be able to feel it's not all, you know, nice spring weather could be very hot probably this time of the year, could be raining. Just get a feel for whether you really want to do it. That's the main thing.

There's nothing wrong with trying a couple of different to start.

Try something else if you want to. I always say too do some research and I hope he has. I would say to any potential franchisee in any division, including ours, in any system, ring up the current franchisees and ask them and say what they think. I mean lawyers and accountants and stuff are pretty much idiots as far as I'm concerned. They haven't got anything to say. Look, my son's a lawyer and he's a good guy but seriously, how much can you get out of somebody looking at a contract? I know we tell them it's all in the law and stuff, but it doesn't tell you anything. You can have the best contract in the world and ours are very good contracts. But if your franchisor's no good, you're not going to be successful as if they are. So what do the other franchisees say? What I've often said to the franchising co, they have these inquiries every year and they always come back with more and more bureaucracy and paperwork and you know, this person's got to check and his expert's got to check and let's pay. It's absolute rubbish. Most people, I don't know who's read the disclosure document, who's actually read through that document? Anybody? Yeah, one person. Alright. That gives you an idea, doesn't it? I mean I would personally, I reckon the disclosure document is more complicated than our contract. It really. You must have a good legal mind to be able to read through it. It's not easy, is it? You're talking about people who aren't on the whole sophisticated business owners. They're not lawyers, they're not merchant bankers, they're People, they don't understand this stuff. There is one thing that they ought to do, and I've told them this year after year and they always ignore me. I said, what you should do is set up a central registry. You should have every franchisee surveyed every year by some company, paid for by the franchisors. And you should make that available just like what we do with our annual franchisee survey. And you put that in public and you absolutely enforce by law, you must give a copy to anybody who's interested in the franchise before they sign. If you don't, the franchisee can get all their money back. Now, if you did that one simple, and then you'd have a look at the satisfaction levels, you would wipe out so many cruddy, terrible operators, which there are. That's the one thing that should happen. But they won't do it because they say, well, yes, okay, that's good for the franchisees and they'll risk. But what about all these poor lawyers and accountants? How are they going to feed their families? So let's give the money to them and let's not worry about the franchisees.

And you do do the submission. So when they ask for inquiries and all that sort of stuff, you do do an official submission all the time.

I've been twice in to see them and I've written in again and again I say thing and they absolutely ignore me. It's a brutal system. It really is. More paperwork, more bureaucracy, more legalisms, which most people ignore me. It's a brutal system. It really is. More paperwork, more bureaucracy, more legalisms which most people cannot understand.

Look what happened to the Retail Food group recently as well. Again, yeah, within the media.

Well, they're pathetic. But who stopped them? None of. None of the things they did protecting against retail frugroup. Because they just look at the contract, they don't look at what the experience is. The fact that people were ripped off blind. It's shocking what these people have done. I'd love to run one division I would love to run is Jim's Legal. We'd really like to give a legal service. And one of the things we like to do is to. Is to represent franchisees against corrupt and evil franchisors. Because in the industry, I can tell you there's a lot of bad stuff going on.

You've had requests from people outside of gyms, from other franchise systems before, haven't you?

Yeah, we do. I have to say, just to be fair, our immediate competitors like vip, I would not put in that category at All. There's nothing wrong with VIP in that sense. They're not as good as us, obviously. Well, that's what I think. But at the same time, Bill, this is not dishonorable guy. He's never done the kind of things that Retail Food Group has done. But you have a look at rfg, they're the worst. It's just shocking. We specifically forbid things that they do as a matter of course, like we cannot change our franchise. They change the manual. They do what they like. They put people under ridiculous constraints and force them to do things that are really basically bankrupt and they throw them out of business. They make them buy stuff at double the cost of what it costs. You can get it from Coles. They do all kinds of awful things and the law doesn't protect them at all. They do nothing.

Well, sort of half the reason we did ask Jim originally a couple of years ago, because of the bad press with franchising come out. So we sort of thought, let's do a transparent forum with the CEO all the time just to show some transparency around franchising. So sort of half reason there.

But even so people can watch me. And if anybody's on there and you're looking at a franchise, you still do your homework. I don't care. Even if it's us, just do your homework, no matter what you're buying. And I hope everybody here has done your homework too. You stop people in the street or you've rung up a series on them. See, unlike the disclosure document, which is legalistic, if you ring somebody up and say, what's it like? What's gyms like? Or what's whatever like, you know, what's your experience? Do they treat you fairly? Is there enough work? Is your income good? Whatever. Just ask those questions. Anybody can understand that.

We had a couple of responses saying Stephen o' Neill said, I did my trial day weeding the whole day of rose gardens at a cafe in Kilmore. Talk about testing me out. Absolutely. We'll test you out as well. And Zack Norris real quickly has gone. I run a small landscaping and garden business in Darwin, luxury landscapes. What would be the benefits of joining your group? So he's got an existing business. We get this one a bit. What would be the benefit of rebranding his gyms?

Well, we've got huge overflow of work in Darwin, that's for sure. So we'd love to have you on board. It depends how busy you are, I guess. But if you are busy already, the biggest benefit is that you can Put your prices up a lot because generally speaking, if you're in gyms, you can charge at least 10, 20% more and your fees are only going to be 8%. So there's benefits. Then you've got the buying group and stuff, which is minor. And you get good costs, things like insurance. You get a better deal. And if you break your leg or you get sick, you've got people to look after your customers. And that's quite real because, you know, if you have a buying business, it might have cost you $20,000 to build. You break your leg and it's all gone in the growth season. So there's benefits like that.

Now we have one here from Mig. Is it Meg? Mig. Mig's there.

Hi, Jake. Will you pass your business on to your family? Yeah, it's done as a sort of a family trust which continues on and I've got a. A board which will take over if I walk under a truck tomorrow. My wife, who's very involved, my daughter Jasmine, who works in here, she's one of the. Another. My son James, who's a lawyer, He's a great, fine young man. And also Andrew, he looks after the research side. So, yes, I'm hoping for an heir within the family. Jasmine is probably the most. Don't tell her that. Freaked out.

It's on camera now. Anyway. Yeah, because that was. I've got a Paris question here. And that was pretty much a similar thing from Paris there, I think as well. And we got one here from Josh. Where is Josh again? Up the front. There was another pandemic question, but I thought I'd leave that as well. This would have been answered. Jim will like this one.

All right.

This one is not business related. Has the context of ancient Judaism in a time of Roman oppression been lost in the message of modern Western Christianity?

Boy, you are a. This guy used to be a pastor, so.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

I've never heard that before. I asked people what you used to do. He said, I was the pastor for my last job. So that's unusual.

Yeah, you've got Jim thinking for once on that one. You only go bang, bang, bang.

You have got me stumped as the context of ancient Judaism. Well, we're not in the same situation because after all, Christians are starting to face a certain amount of persecution, but nothing like at the level of what people suffered in those days. We're still democratic, we're still free. I think the concern I have, Josh, is that we're moving towards losing it. There's a decay of Character, which is something that I've identified in my research.

You've got Jim Finking for once on that one, generally go bang, bang, bang.

You have got me stumped as the context of ancient Judaism. Well, we're not in the same situation because after all, Christians are starting to face a certain amount of persecution, but nothing like at the level of what people suffered in those days, which is caused by wealth and urbanization which destroyed the Roman Empire and we're heading in the same direction unless we do something about it. The values of Christianity and Judaism fight against that, but they're being decayed, become increasingly secularised. So I think we can turn it around but it's a challenging time. Aren't anybody democratic? We're still free. I think the concern I have, Josh, is that we're moving towards losing it. There's a decay of character, which is something that I've identified in my research, which is caused by wealth and urbanisation which destroyed the Roman Empire and we're heading in the same direction unless we do something about it. The values of Christianity and Judaism follows. Have anybody read Foundation Isaac Asimov? It's a great account. It's coming out on video this year sometime they're doing a film on it. But this is about a galactic empire and it starts off when it's at its peak and then this scientist predicts what's going to happen to the fall. It's. It's good stuff. That's my inspiration.

That's a really good question. Got Jim thinking. So what we'll do is we'll give it to one of the audience ones. So Jim, which out of all the questions.

Oh, I like what Josh, I knew.

You'Re gonna like say that one. So we'll give you that one there.

If you want to grab fight against that. But they're being decayed, become increasingly secularized.

That's Josh. So thanks for asking that question. What we're gonna do, guys, we'll let Jim.

So I think we can turn it around but it's a challenging time. I don't have anybody read Foundation Isaac Asimov. It's a great.

Because Jim's got to do a bunch of emails and he's been a busy day. So I'll just take that off your Jim. So what I'm gonna do up now is I'm gonna grab David and David up first. So this is sort of a good thing for you guys as new franchisees. Thanks Jim. Thanks Jim. Thanks for doing that. Alright, so David, if everyone here's watched, Ask Jim Every week there's two people who are always in the comments and you're probably going who annoying people. So this is one of them.

It's coming out on video this year sometime they're doing a film on it. But this is about a galactic empire and it starts off when it's at its peak and then this scientist predicts what's going to happen to the fall. It's good stuff. That's my inspiration.

That's a really good question. Got Jim thinking. So what we'll do is we'll give it to one of the audience ones so Jim Witchett and the other one there is Eric. So reason why David. Why David gone for a couple of minutes. Everyone here, most people are prospective new franchisee so maybe you want to give a bit about your story and how your business is going so far and maybe some advice when they start off in their gym's journey, no matter what their division is to actually give them some pointers.

That's a lot to ask.

There's a lot to ask.

So we started in 2015 and we just wanted a sea change. So I bought the franchise. My actual boss was going to buy it but he didn't want to and I was not up for the running to run it. So we bought it and then went and did the training.

Did four out of all the questions.

Oh, I like what Josh, I knew.

You were going to like say that one so we'll give you that one there if you want to grab that to Josh. So thanks for asking that question. What we're going to do guys, we'll let Jim run because Jim's got to do a bunch of emails and he's been a busy day so I'll just take that off your Jim. So what I'm going to do up now is I'm going to grab David and David up first. So this is sort of a good thing for you guys as new franchisee.

Station weeks on the road and I had a, an electronics background so it was pretty easy for me. Wasn't that hard to know what to do and then we took some leads and got some referrals and one of the first jobs was my accountant so did that sort of thing so and then now we don't take leads.

Thanks Jim, thanks for doing that. Alright, so David, if everyone here who's watched Ask Jim every week there's two people who are always in the comments and you're probably going who are these annoying people? So this is one of them and the other one there is Eric So reason. Why, David? Why David? We've gone for a couple of minutes. Everyone here, most people are a prospective new franchisee, so maybe do you want to give them a bit about your story and how your business. So something I want to get out of you real quickly for everyone here is in your first week or two, it's very daunting. All right, you leave training, you go, and all of a sudden you're running your own business. In that first week or two, what did you do? Well, what was the most helpful thing.

You found the best thing was getting stickers on the vehicle.

Stickers on the vehicle going so far. Maybe some advice when they start off in their gym's journey, no matter what their division is because we had the.

Vehicle and it was white and you get the stickers and then once you get the stickers on, you know. But the daunting thing is knowing if. If there's going to be any work.

Yep. We were pretty fortunate to actually give him some pointers.

That's a lot to ask.

There's a lot to ask.

So we started in tuition. It that I did my homework in the town and there was 2015 and we just wanted to see change. So I bought the franchise. My actual boss was going to was not many antenna installers and a lot of the retail businesses, your Harvey Norman, your Better Electrical and your JCAR were actually wanting an antenna installer that was going to be reliable and do a good job. So that's really what pushed me over the edge. I'm thinking, well, if these guys can't get anybody to do their work, then maybe I could fill that gap.

Now, is that a concern of anyone here at all?

But he didn't want to and I was not up for the running to run it.

So I'll bet the work in the first week or two, everyone's okay with that. Everyone's confident.

No, we bought it and then went and did the training. Did four weeks on the road and I had an electronics background, so it was pretty easy for me. Wasn't that hard to know what to do and then.

No, no. Everyone's confident. What division are you from? Cleaning. Cleaning. Cleaning's got plenty of work done.

Cleaning.

Cleaning's got plenty of work.

You can come up to Hallsgate and clean everything up there.

So what's another bit of advice on the first couple of weeks? Worrying if there's enough work there, but.

Get out, get out, don't sit at home. So we got the vehicle and we drove around, we drank lots of coffee, we Took some leads and got some referrals and one of the first jobs was my accountant. So yeah, did that sort of thing.

So.

And then now we don't take leads. So what?

So something I want to get out of you real quickly for everyone here is in your first week or two. It's very daunting. All right. You leave training, you go and all of a sudden you're running your own business.

Lots too much coffee. And we went to the businesses, we went to the real estate agents, the builders and we sort of just waved the flag and said, hello, I'm here if you need any work. And didn't do any hard sell or anything like that at that stage. And from that we've gotten three businesses that regularly give us work in that.

First week or two. What did you do? What was the most helpful thing you.

Found the best thing was getting stickers on the vehicle.

Stickers on the vehicle.

Because we had the vehicle and it was white and you get the stickers and then once you get the stickers on, you know. But the daunting thing is knowing if there's going to be any work. Yep, we were pretty fortunate. And three real estate agents that regularly give us work and a couple of builders as well.

So I've got to give it to you. You've watched nearly every one of these live streams. We don't own 100 of them. You haven't missed one. You got yourself and Eric there. So what's the sort of favourite question or what's your favourite moment from when with Jim. Obviously Jim answers everything, so favourite.

Geez, put me on the spot. Passionate that I did my homework in the town and there I think the favourite was when he wanted his headphones fixed.

True. Well, maybe you want to tell everyone that story about you actually have been to Jim's Honan.

Yeah, I went and I come down here. 2019 was not many antenna installers and a lot of the retail businesses. Your Harvey Norman and fix his headphones. There's a video on YouTube. Anyone who wants to watch that. And your better electrical and your J car were actually wanting an antenna installer that was going to be reliable and do a good job. So that's really what pushed me over the edge is I'm thinking, well, if these guys can't. Jim had been going on about these headphones for three or four weeks about, oh, they make a buzzing noise and do this and made this buzzing noise. And anyway, I got sick of him complaining so I said I can come down and fix them for You. So an email was sent about 8:15. So 15 minutes up getting anybody to do their work. Then maybe I could fill that gap.

Now is that a concern of anyone here at all?

Jim replied at 8:30 and then Joel organised accommodation and I think it was two weeks after that I was down.

Well, Jim made this to be out a big pullback to work in the first week or two. Everyone's okay with that? Everyone's confident. No, no, no. Everyone's confident. What division are you from? Cleaning. Cleaning. Cleaning's got plenty of work done, won't they?

Cleaning will have heat.

Clean's got plenty of work.

You can come up to Hall's gate and clean everything up there.

So what's another problem? Just sorry to interrupt you but he made this out every week he's going on about my headphones. My headphones, my headphones. We think it's gonna be a big problem. So like we'll get you down and all that sort of stuff.

I loaded the van up with headphones and cables and adapters and all sorts of things to try and solve this problem.

And then what happened when you rocked up?

He had two sets of headphones and they were both on the same frequency.

Yeah.

So basically same frequency. You switch the frequency over. Another bit of advice on the first couple of weeks, worrying if there's enough work.

Get out, get out. Don't sit at home. So we got the vehicle and we drove around. We drank lots of coffee. Lots too much coffee. And we went to the businesses, we went to the real estate agents, the builders, and we sort of just waved the flag and said, hello, I'm here.

Second, they worked. You should watch that video. Just type it in. Jim Penman. I think Jim's antennas. And you'll see the amazement of Jim. But changed one frequency.

And sometimes the job we do are that simple. So you walk into a customer's house and they'll have a fly lead that they've bought from a check if you need any work and didn't do any hard sell or anything like that at that stage. And from that we've gotten three businesses that regularly give us work. Two dollar store. And it's just not cutting the mustard. So you just give them a new fly lead. And three real estate agents that regularly give us work and a couple of builders as well.

So I've got to give it to you. Watch nearly every one of these live streams. We don't own 100 of them. You haven't missed one.

EV works fine and they don't need a New antenna. They don't need a booster, they don't need anything. They just needed a fly lead. But they don't know that they went and bought a new one. It just wasn't good enough.

Now you've been in business for five years and obviously people here just starting on their journey. How does it go? Quick or what was the.

No, it goes very quick.

Goes very quick.

Yeah, it goes very quick. Every Christmas is a little milestone and every financial year because we.

You got yourself and Eric there. So what's the sort of favourite question or what's your favourite moment from when.

We started at the start of the financial year. So it's every financial year, it's another year and another year and with Jim.

Obviously Jim's answers everything.

So I'm favourite. Geez, put me on the spot. I think the favourite was when he wanted his headphones fixed.

True. What do you make on Saturday?

It just keeps growing and growing and growing. This year we want to put on some staff members. So I've got a name to put a story about.

You actually have been a James Heynan.

Yeah, I went and I come down here 2019, one staff member on by the end of the year, if we can find somebody, and then hopefully two.

Now, how was the first year for you as well? So first 12 months is crucial. So how did you find your first year?

I was just pretty cruisy.

Pretty cruisy. All right, well hopefully everyone will be.

Pretty cruising as well.

Yeah, no, we just, we just did the work, just put in the hard yards, did a lot of K's and fixed these headphones. There's a video on YouTube. Anyone who wants to watch that. And territory. We did 100 k's from Horsham. So Jim had been going on about these headphones for three or four weeks about, oh, they make a buzzing noise and now we don't do as much. We sort of shrink it down and we just say no to those people, do this and play this buzzing noise. And anyway, I got sick of him complaining so I said, I'll come down and fix them for you. So an email was sent about 8, 15, so 15 minutes up. So, you know, we can't do that.

So the key to start is, I think is to take as much work as you can and then as you get more experience then you can apply.

It, travel an extra 20ks, 30ks. If it takes an hour to get to a job and you make some money, well, that's better than sitting at home doing nothing. After Jim replied at 8:30 and then Joel. And you don't know where that job's going to lead to. A lot of the times I've travelled to a. A customer's house an hour and it might be an antenna fault and then they want security cameras and then they know somebody else and then they have an eyes accommodation and I think it was two weeks after that I was down.

Well, Jim made this to be out of big.

Somebody else and yeah, you just don't know.

Does anyone have any questions for David at all? Just. Sorry to interrupt you but he made this out. Every week he's going on about my headphones. My headphones, my headphones. We think it's going to be a big problem so like we'll get you down and all that sort of stuff.

And I loaded the van up with headphones and cables and adapters.

Experienced franchisee maybe give a different bit of a different perspective.

No.

So we'll get. Mike said thanks for that. David, you do one. Yep. Okay. Real quickly. All right, here we go.

There's all sorts of things to try.

And solve this problem. And then what happened when you rocked up?

He had two sets.

David, you're always spouting of how good per hour your earnings are and how much money you make. Your shirt seems very dirty. You couldn't afford the washing headphones and.

They were both on the same frequency.

Yeah. So basically same frequency. You switched the frequency over in one second. They worked. You should watch that video. Just type it in. Jim Penman, I think Jim's antennas and you'll see the amazement of Jim. But change one frequency and sometimes the.

Jobs we do are that simple. So you. It's not time for a new shirt. Didn't know I was going to be on camera.

Anyway.

David, walk into a customer's house and they'll have a fly lead that they've bought from a cheap.

Thanks for coming down all the way from Horsham for this and thanks for watching every week and contributing and all that sort of stuff.

I'll keep doing it.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Dave. So we'll get you down and Eric come up real quickly as well. So for anyone who's watched Ask Gym every week. So we thought we'd have a couple of guys who come down.

So Eric's probably done it $2 store and it's just not cutting the mustard. So you just give them a new fly lead and the thousand comments and.

Written a bunch of essays as well. So Eric, you're in mobile cafe now.

You're from a division EV works fine and they don't need a new antenna, they don't need a booster, they don't need anything. They just needed a fly lead. But they don't know that they went and bought a new one. It just wasn't good enough.

Now you've been in business for five years with only one franchisee, which is yourself. That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

But you've had a lot of business experience before, so you've done different businesses. So why out of everything did you pick gyms? Because you ran your own independent business for like, what, 20 years or something, wasn't it?

Yeah, but 30 years old.

30 years.

And obviously people here just starting on their journey. Does it go quick or what was the.

No, it goes very quick.

Goes very quick.

Manufacturer.

Right, so what made you then do gyms or what was the change?

Yeah, it goes very quick. Every Christmas is a little milestone and every financial year because why I wanted.

To get out of having the responsibility of so many staff.

Yeah.

And I knew Jim's was successful, so.

I looked on start of the financial year. So it's every financial year, it's another year and another year and it just keeps growing and growing and growing. This year we want to put on some staff members. So I've got a name to put.

Line, saw what they've got and thought. I saw Mobile Cafe and it had new in brackets. And I thought, well, something new has got to be a goldmine.

Now you're a bit of a one.

Staff member on by the end of the year, if we can find somebody.

And then a unique person here because with your division, it's very low on leads. Now, most people here will have leads, you know, leads from day one, which will be a way you're going business. You build your business purely without hopefully two. Now, how was the first year for you as well? So first 12 months is crucial. So how did you find your first year?

I was just pretty cruisy, pretty crazy.

All right, well, hopefully we're going to.

Be pretty crazy, but yeah, no, we just. We just did the work, just put it in the hard yards. Did a lot of K's territory. We did 100Ks from Horsham, so, yeah.

Or with minimal leads. So maybe do you want to talk about how you do that with your business? Because you literally don't take any leads, do you? It's all down the road.

I keep leads on and open because if someone rings up and they want something, I want to be able to speak to them at least Service it for the good of the division and possibility of new franchisees. But. But I had troubles at the very beginning and going through and just trying to go to businesses. DOOR KNOCKING Can I get your coffees? And doing all factories. And it wasn't until I set up on the side of the road and so I get up and I'm out on the side of the road by 5am and I stay there till 8:30 and that's when everything really started to come off. And that was in my second year that all of a sudden things really flew.

Now, do they talk about that much? In training with Sam at the local area marketing about parking your vehicle down the street and stuff like that. You know, I don't think it works. But it does, doesn't it?

Yeah. No, it's big. So I get people that call in and they're people that live next door to me almost and my van's parked in the street and they didn't realise. So. And the advertising works. So everywhere I go because the van is my vehicle. My wife has dog wash, so our other family car, she tows the dog trailer with that and does all the dog wash.

So what do you like particularly? Obviously gyms. But you really buy into the ethos, you know, you do all the events, you comment on everything. You do everything. What do you get out of it? What is it?

I suppose Jim answered it best of all when he said it's the love of the job. So every morning and I'm up at 3:30 every day to get out on the side of the road by 5am and I jump out of bed every day and I look forward to it and I really enjoy it and it's from the first customer to the last. And you know me, Joel, I'm loud and I'm out there.

I know you've all your comments. Yes, yeah, Comments, yes.

And I'm loud and out there on the side of the road and the people come by and they love it and. And really you're selling yourself every day and that's really what you got to do out there, is sell yourself no matter where you are and what you're doing. Wear uniform proudly because people will come up to you, people will ask you. I've picked up events. I had a. I had a phone call from a lady a week before New Year's Day, New Year's Day a year ago, and her coffee person had let her down and she was getting married on New Year's Day. Now, I'd already made plans and I Said, well, I'll do that for you because I don't want to let you down on your wedding. And just this year gone. I sent her a text message for happy anniversary and she was just blown away that I'd remembered a year later. And service, look after your customers because. And the perfect story was you don't know where that next customer, what it's going to lead to. So I called in and shouted a mate of mine a cup of coffee. And he said, have you got enough milk? And I said, yeah, I got plenty of milk. He said, good, because I'm going to shout all the staff one. And he said there's about 100 staff here. So I quickly called in at 7:11 and grabbed a heap more milk because no, I didn't have enough. Well, I now go to that business every day and service them and that's over $2,000 a week that I earn from that business. And that's because I was going to shout a mate of coffee. You don't know where the next one's coming from.

It's a great point, Eric, because a lot of people only want the good jobs or the big jobs, but it's those little ones where you just don't know who that person knows or owns. And you hear it all the time. You go down, I'll use Mike. Mike will probably know Mike, get him on in a minute real quickly. But I might have to. But the once off mow, but they go, I don't want the once off mow. But that person owns five factories or is a body court manager or something. You just never know.

Do you actually see how you mentioned Mike, there's a little trick so everyone knows the comb over from the side and my father had it in the end the part was down here, but this is actually its purpose is a comb over more than a barista bun. So that could be your next thing.

So what we'll do there is thanks, Eric, for coming on all the time and appreciate you making the effort and get a coffee if anyone wants one as well. Really appreciate you as well for doing it as well. Now Mike, do you want to jump on up real quickly just for one question with you? Because people see you, you have a routine so Mike Davenport will come up, everyone recognises Mike. So Mike does a fantastic job of our training. Now you have obviously your set jokes and your set routines. So we've got your mic here. If there's anything you want to ask Mike. Now that's a bit off center or a comment or something.

I've got a question.

Okay.

It's taking you 100 shows to get me on. What's going on?

Well, I've had you on a podcast, so we've actually had a Mike Davenport podcast talking about the evolution of training. So the Polish training that people see here has taken yourself a very long time to obviously get to that sort of stage, haven't it?

Certainly has, yeah.

It doesn't come overnight, unfortunately, but, you know, look, you stick at it and you learn little tips and tricks along the way and just like you do as a franchise business. And, yeah, finally you find a pretty good formula that works across the board. You tweak it here and there, but then you have great crews like we've had in, you know, for a long time now. And a lot of our franchisees are great people. They enjoy their training, they get involved and it just makes it a lot easier.

You really do enjoy it because obviously we had the lockdown period where we couldn't do the.

Now we don't do as much. We sort of shrink it down and we just say, no to those people saying, no, we can't do that.

So the key to start is, I think, is to take as much work as you can.

30Ks. If it takes an hour to get to a job and you make some money, well, that's better than sitting at home doing nothing. And you don't know where that job's going to lead to. A lot of the times I've travelled to a customer's house an hour training.

In person, we unfortunately had to go to remote, so if anyone did the online, they would have seen you. But that obviously did really hurt, didn't you?

Yeah, it was. It was tough, you know, like, it was nice to have a little break, I think, at the front end. But certainly as it kept going, it was, yes, we were looking forward to getting back. All of our trainers are looking forward to getting back. So we're pretty, pretty wrapped.

We're back on site and it might be an antenna fault and then they want security cameras and then they know somebody else and then they know somebody else and. Yeah, you just don't know.

Does anyone have any questions for David at all, as a experienced franchisee? Maybe give a bit of a different perspective?

No.

So we'll get Mike, so thanks for that. David, you do one? Yep. Has anyone got a question for Mike or anything a bit different? Jake, up the back. How did you get your job as head trainer is the question.

There's a couple of stories around this. I'll Tell you the truth.

Okay, real quickly. All right, here we go.

Ben Ward will tell you the lie, of course, because Ben loves to call me Kevin Rudd or, no, sorry, he calls me Julia Gillard because he reckons I knifed him. So Ben's my best mate and in.

Gyms, David, you're always spouting of how good per hour your earnings are and how much money you make. Your shirt seems very dirty, you couldn't afford the washing.

It's not time for a new shirt.

And he probably won't be watching now. So I'll get away with this story, but, yeah, Ben's my best mate in Jim's. He was the national training manager. Jim pulled me in one day and said, I want you to take it over.

Didn't know I was going to be on camera.

Anyway, David, thanks for coming down all the way from Horsham for this and thanks for watching every week and contributing and all that sort of stuff.

I'll keep doing it.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, David. So we'll get you on down. And Eric, come up real quick.

And I said, well, you do realise my best mate's training manager. And he said, I don't care, I want you to do it. I don't want him to do it anymore. So anyway, it's a long story as.

Well, so for anyone who's watched Ask Gym every week, so we thought we'd have a couple of guys who come down.

So Eric's probably done it and it's been well publicised in books and whatever else.

It is in the book, isn't it?

Yeah, it is in the book and it is on the podcast too, where we spoke about it. But so in the NDI took it.

Over and a thousand comments and written a bunch of essays as well. So, Eric, you're in Mobile Cafe now. You're from a division with only one franchisee, which is yourself. That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

But you've had a lot of business experience before, so you've done different businesses. So why, out of everything, did you pick Jim's? Because you ran your own independent business for like, what, 20 years or something, wasn't it?

Yeah, about 30 years old.

To Ben's credit, though, he's a great supporter of the training program and Ben set it up. Ben set up the training program, sort of what it is today, and it's just been refined along the way. And, you know, he's a great guy.

And he's a caravan manufacturer.

Right, so what made you then do Jim's or what was the change?

Why I wanted to get out of having the responsibility of so many staff. And I knew Jim's was successful, so I looked online, saw what they've got and thought I saw Mobile Cafe and it had.

He's got a couple of franchisees in this week who are good blokes as well. So, yeah, to Ben's credit. Hey, mate, how are you going? And thanks very much. I really appreciate the job.

It's good.

And now I've asked this question to Eric and David, but from your perspective, you probably imparted some wisdom in training. What's the best bit of advice or what are some tips for the first couple of weeks? First week is going to be very.

Daunting, new in brackets. And I thought, well, something new has got to be a goldmine.

Now, you're a bit of a unique person here because with your division, it's very low on leads. Now most people here will have leads, you know, leads from day one, which would be a way you're going business. You build your business purely without or with minimal leads. So maybe do you want to talk about how you do that with your business? Because you literally think back to when you were a franchisee. What sort of helped or did you have any stories from that first couple of weeks you can tell, maybe?

No, never any real main stories. I bought a split when I first started.

You don't take any leads, do you? It's all down the road.

I keep leads on and open because if someone rings up and they want something, I want to be able to speak to them, at least service it for the good of the division and possibility of new franchisees. But I had troubles, so I had.

A few jobs to do. But so my first two months of.

The very beginning and going through and.

Just trying being a franchisee, I took, I remember I took 30 leads the first month and I got 30 to go to businesses.

DOOR KNOCKING Can I get your coffees? And doing all factories. And it wasn't until I set up on the side of the road and so I get up and I'm out on the side of the road by 5am and I stay there till 8.

30 jobs and I converted 30 of those leads into regulars, okay? And the reason being was I was too cheap, I'll tell you that up front, you know what I mean?

So the second month, and that's when everything really started to come off. And that was in my.

I went out and I got another 30 leads and I converted 30 of those into jobs and I converted 30 of those into regulars. So all of a sudden with a few pickups and whatever I had 122nd.

Year that all of a sudden things really flew.

Now did they talk about that much? In training with Sam at the local area marketing about parking your vehicle down the street and stuff like that, you know, I don't think it works. But it does, doesn't it?

Yeah, no, it's big.

So I get 20 plus customers in two months. But the reality was I was absolutely too cheap and that's why I got so much work. But I must admit what that did was it got me out and about. It got me touching clients.

I get people that call in and they're people.

I didn't touch clients, but it got me all the touch points and all the networking sort of stuff. And then all of a sudden it just grew and we grew to 300 plus clients that sense people that live.

Next door to me almost and my van's parked in the street and they didn't realise and the advertising works. So everywhere I go because the van is my vehicle. My wife has dog wash, so our other family car, she tows the dog trailer with that and does all the dog wash.

I've pretty much only taken 60 leads in 20 years. So it's interesting. So no, I believe in the premium price theory and charge well. But through my mistakes and a few things and training 20 years ago was slightly different as well. But. Yeah.

What do you like particularly? Obviously Jim's up, but you really buy into the ethos, you know, you do all the events, you comment on everything, you do everything. What do you get out of it? What is it?

I suppose Jim answered it best of all when he said it's the.

It's the for me.

And bingo, it took off. And it's been the greatest 20 years of my life.

Giving me interesting stories as a franchisee.

Love of the job. So every morning and I'm up at.

3:30, I'll give it a real quick one for Dan Cahill. He's got around seven staff now, but in his first week he was a viral video where he was driving the Jim's mowing trailer down I think Chelsea somewhere. And he, and he flipped his right.

On out of the every day to get out on the side of the road by 5am and everything in his.

First week of business. And now this place got seven franchisees, you know, turning over half a mil.

I jump out of bed every day and I look forward to it and I really enjoy it and it's from the first customer to the last. And you know me, Joel, I'm loud and I'm out there.

I know you've all your comments. Yes. Via your long comments. Yes.

And I'm loud.

So do you have any sort of memorable stories?

No, probably no real funnies. It's just been solid, hard work in that sense. Look, as I've said a few times, the best thing that happened to me was I got to work with my dad. You know, I was only telling the story a little bit today where I walked out to hop in my car day one, and I'll never forget that. I walked on the front porch and my dad walked out behind me and I sort of looked around and said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I thought I'd come for a ride and see what you do.

And I pretty much out and out.

There on the side of the road and the people come by and they love it. And really you're selling yourself every day and that's really what you got to do out there, is sell yourself. No matter where you are and what you're doing, wear your uniform proudly because people will come up to you, people will ask you. I've picked up events, I had a.

Said, well, I don't know what I'm doing, so jump in the car and. And he jumped in the car first every day for the next 11 years. And he loved it. I reckon he loved the business more than I did. It was really interesting and I've always loved the business, you know. Know what I mean?

So.

So it's probably my memorable story, working with my dad, getting to know my dad and as an adult, we used to go home for lunch every day. Mum would have lunch on the table for us.

I had a phone call from a lady a week before New Year's Day, New Year's Day a year ago, and her coffee person had let her down and she was getting married on New Year's Day. Now, I'd already made plans and I said, well, I'll do that for you because I don't want you to let you down on your wedding.

We always work locally. It's been a pretty cool life because.

You'Re still out in the field as well. So obviously you do training, you do franchisor role, which is good. And you do a bit of franchisee work as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm as busy as hell at the moment because I've had one of my franchisees go back home to India. Unfortunately, his wife has been quite ill and she's had to go back home and he's made the decision to go.

Back home and just this year, gone. I sent her a text message for happy anniversary and she was just blown away that I'd remembered a year later. And service, look after your customers because. And the perfect story was, you don't know where.

So he rang me through Covid and said, it's all yours and he's got commercial clients, he's got everything. So I had to go back out and we went back out after Covid when the grass was this high.

So that next customer, what it's going to lead to. So I called in and shouted.

Talk about saying, thanks very much for getting a little round, but it's been great. I've enjoyed getting back out and really punching it out and it's been good. Yeah, it's. I've really enjoyed it. So I'm absolutely flat chat busy at the moment and it could even get busier with some changes coming up. So see how that all goes.

Absolutely. What we'll do is we'll probably leave it there for tonight. So thanks for that, Mike, and thanks for everyone who's hung around and watched this. We do do this every training.

So was every a mate of mine a cup of coffee and he said, have you got enough milk? And I said, yeah, I got plenty of milk. He said, good, because I'm going to shout all the staff one. And he said, there's about 100 staff here. So I quickly called in at 7:11 and grabbed a heap more milk because, no, I didn't have enough. Well, I now go to that business.

Every Wednesday, but now it's going to be every training. And thanks to the people who watched online, I think we had around 60, 65 watching online tonight, which was great. If you do want to tune in and learn what's going on with Gyms group, probably the best thing to do is tune in every Monday at training week. So make sure you follow the gym scri, Facebook page and Instagram. We do this every three to four weeks. It's a great way to check in with Jim is just to find out what's going on, ask him a question in more informal format.

Yay. And service them. And that's over $2,000 a week that I earn from that business. And that's because I was going to shout a mate of coffee. You don't know where the next one's coming from.

It's a great point, Eric, because a lot of people don't only want the good jobs or the big jobs, but it's those little ones where you just don't know who that person knows or owns. And you hear it all the time. You go down. Yeah, once I'll use Mike. Mike will probably know. Mike, get him on. So let's take advantage off it and really good luck in your first week as franchisees and thanks for hanging around tonight. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys. In a minute, real quickly, but I might have to. But the once off mo. But I go, I don't want the once off mo. But that person owns five factories or is a body court manager or something. You just never know, do you?

Actually, seeing as you mentioned, Mike, there's a little trick so everyone knows the comb over from the side and my father had it in the end. The part was down here, but this is actually its purpose is a comb over more than a barista bun. So that could be your next thing.

So what we'll do there is thanks, Eric, for coming on all the time and appreciate you making the effort and, you know, get a coffee if anyone wants one as well. Really appreciate you as well for doing it as well. Now, Mike, you want to jump on up real quickly just for one question with you because people see you, you have a routine. So Mike Davenport will come up. Everyone recognises Mike. So Mike does a fantastic job of our training. Now, you have obviously your set jokes and your set routines. So we've got your mic here if there's anything you want to ask Mike. Now that's a bit off center or a comment or something. Okay.

It's taken you 100 shows to get me on. What's going on?

Well, I've had you on a podcast, so we've actually had a Mike Davenport podcast talking about the evolution of training. So the Polish training that people see here, it's taken yourself a very long time to obviously get to that sort of stage, haven't it?

Certainly has, yeah.

It doesn't come overnight, unfortunately, but you stick at it and you learn little tips and tricks along the way, just like you do as a franchise business. And yeah, finally you find a pretty good formula that works across the board. You tweak it here and there, but then you have great crews like we've had in for a long time now. And a lot of our franchisees are great people. They enjoy their training, they get involved and it just makes it a lot easier.

You really do enjoy it because obviously we had the lockdown period where we couldn't do the training in person. We unfortunately had to go to remote so if anyone did the online, they would have seen you. But that obviously really hurt, didn't you?

Yeah, it was. It was tough, you know, like, it was nice to have a little break, I think, at the front end, but certainly as it kept going, it was, yes, we were looking forward to getting back. All of our trainers are looking forward to getting back. So we're pretty wrapped. We're back on site.

How does everyone. Got a question for Mike or anything a bit different? Jake, up the back. How did you get your job as head trainer? How did you get your job as head trainer is the question.

There's a couple of stories around this. I'll tell you the truth. Ben Ward will tell you the lie, of course, because Ben loves to call me Kevin Rudd or, no, sorry, he calls me Julia Gillard because he reckons I knifed him. So Ben's my best mate in gyms and he probably won't be watching now, so I'll get away with this story. But yeah, Ben's my best mate in Jim's. He was the national training manager. Jim pulled me in one day and said, I want you to take it over. And I said, well, you do realise my best mate's training manager. And he said, I don't care, I want you to do it. I don't want him to do it anymore. So anyway, it's a long story, but. And it's been well publicised in books and whatever else.

It is in the book, isn't it?

Yeah, it is in the book and it is on the podcast too, where we spoke about it. So in the end, yeah, I took it over. And to Ben's credit, though, he's a great supporter of the training program and. And Ben set it up. Ben set up the training program, sort of what it is today, and it's just been refined along the way and, you know, he's a great guy. Anyway, he's got a couple of franchisees in this week who are good blokes as well. So, yeah, to Ben's credit. Hey, mate, how are you going? And thanks very much. I really appreciate the job. It's good.

And now I've asked this question to Eric and David, but from your perspective, you probably imparted some wisdom in training. What's the best bit of advice or what are some tips for the first couple of weeks? First week can be very daunting. Think back to when you were a franchisee. What sort of helped or did you have any stories from that first couple of weeks? You can tell maybe.

No, never Any real main stories? I bought a split when I first started, so I had a few jobs to do. So my first two months of being a franchisee, I remember I took 30 leads the first month and I got 30 jobs and I converted 30 of those leads into regulars, okay? And the reason being was I was too cheap. I'll tell you that up front. You know what I mean? So the second month I went out and I got another 30 leads and I converted 30 of those into jobs and I converted 30 of those into regulars. So all of a sudden, with a few pickups and whatever, I had 120 plus customers in two months. But the reality was I was absolutely too cheap, and that's why I got so much work. But I must admit, what that did was it got me out and about. It got me touching clients. Well, I didn't touch clients, but it got me all the touch points and all the networking sort of stuff. And then all of a sudden it just grew and we grew to 300 plus clients in that sense. And I've pretty much only taken 60 leads in 20 years. It's interesting. I believe in the premium price theory and charge well, but through my mistakes and a few things and training 20 years ago was slightly different as well. But yeah, it worked for me and bingo, it took off. And it's been the greatest 20 years of my life.

Giving me interesting stories as a franchisee. I'll give it a real quick one for Dan Cahill, who's got around seven staff now, but in his first week, he was a viral.