#ASKJIM May 2023 - Epigenetics, Business Advice, What happened to Jim's Beard Plus More

Cool.

So welcome to another AskGym. So we're in training. It's nice and cold, but it's great to see more than 100 people in training, which is a really good number for this time of year.

I think it's about 120, isn't it?

120 or something like that.

Packed out the leisure Theatre.

It's a lot better vibe when there's a lot of people in there. And we'll start real quickly. We just had the trade day and our first ever franchisee and franchise or combined gala dinner. How did you find this Saturday night with the franchisees especially?

It was good. It was good. I think it was the first time ever with franchisees and it was great. We'll definitely invite franchisees in the future. A lot of them just said it was. It was great experience. So, yeah, we'll do it again.

Yeah. You met a lot of franchisees you've probably seen from.

Yeah, I tried to tell it to everybody. I did my best.

Yeah.

And. And they just appreciated being there and it was a nice night out and women dressed up in fancy clothes and, you know, guys with ties on, which is not something you often see around gyms, but it was good.

And you didn't wear a suit, did you?

I just wore this.

You wore that, exactly right. He's a humble man, but, yeah, anyone who becomes a franchisee here, you'll get an invite.

Well, otherwise, not as scruffy. Thanks, Joel. My wife thinks I got no taste at all of anything.

Well, you're your own. William, your boots are up.

This is. This is Kmart.

These boots you changed from Iron Williams. That's too high end for you.

She bought me. She bought me those stupid shoes. They're no good. They're just really expensive and they don't have. And you slip over in them. This has got a proper sole. I like Kmart boots.

You're a black and gold shop here.

Kmart trousers.

There you go.

Kmart underpants. I got to show you that. Kmart socks.

We'll have to get some Jim's underpants and Jim's socks. Maybe a few. Maybe you had the gyms, laundry services, being able to do it as well, so. But what we'll do, guys, is we're going to throw it open to questions. As I said, anyone who comes up to the microphone at any time, you'll get a pick of these prizes up here. Jim's Monopoly. We've got Jim's book, Jim's beer. You don't just have to wait for Me to read out or ask you to come up and say your questions. So please come to the mic. We'll get us underway with Ty from mowing. Where's Ty from mowing? Cool. Jump up, Ty.

Yeah, come through.

Hey, Jim, Why are there so many divisions rather than just focusing on, say, 10 specific ones or 10 main ones? And obviously the methodology behind that.

Well, the driving force behind divisions isn't actually us. It's the people who found them. You know, since Bill COBANogly started laundry two years ago, basically, we give him the same support as we do to any other franchisor. It's no difference to us. But he's the one that drives the division. And you find every division like dogwash. He's got Sharon, you've got leaders in every region. Haydars for cleaning, Haydar Ali for cleaning. We actually find the benefit of it, too, though, is that every division actually promotes every other division. What's very common, if you look up a job, and I often do this because of complaints and stuff, I will go in the system, I look up the address, and I'll see a whole stack of different services they might have used. Quite often eight or ten different services. So somebody has a good experience with, let's say, a new one like laundry. They say, wow, I'll get my lawns burned. My house is clean. Pest control. So they actually, actually help each other a great deal. And I think our growth is a lot, lot faster than it was if we just focused on one or two.

Good question. Thank you very much. Good man. Next one here. If you want to come up, guys, just ask a question as well. Just barging in. We've got one here from Chris from mowing. Where's Chris? Chris from mowing here. Yep. Cool.

I had two questions. What was your first five cars?

Have you had that many, Jim? First five.

Sorry, your last five cars. Sorry for a second. Well, my last five cars, I drive a electric Volvo. Now. My first ever new car I've ever bought for myself just late last year because I wanted electric and it's safe. Before that, I had a Mitsubishi Statesman.

Which Outlander?

Outlander? Was it outlander? That's right. 10. $10,000. I had it valued expensive car. Gave it to one of my sons, actually. Before that. What did I have before that?

You had a Kingswood at one stage, and you had the white Volvo way back. You had the white Volvo.

I had. I had a couple of Volvos. Very old Volvos. I always used to joke. I run. I. I drove luxury European cars. But they were all crappy old Volvos. My first car was. Was a Kingswood, which was the worst, most decrepit thing you could ever have.

How'd you customize that one? You did customise.

I ripped the back seat out because I could put more rubbish in that way. It was a really, really bad car. I had something. I was in the car park once, somebody backed into me. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll pay.

Look at the car.

Don't worry about it. And the last question?

15 minutes ago you said you'd answer any question. You always answered every question.

You can challenge me if you like.

Yep.

See what you can go.

What are the three digits on the.

Back of your credit card? You are right. You got me. You get a. Well done.

That's very original.

That's very original. Okay, that one.

I don't think anyone stumped you for like.

I don't think anybody's ever stumped me before. First prize, first choice.

I've underlighted you. Wait till then. Wait to see you when we do the prizes. Wait to the end.

You got the beer.

But I've underlighted you. I'm underlighted.

That is a good one.

Very good one.

Cool.

And the next one here you got. Sorry. I should say, if you want to come up guys, at any time, just write up yourself. Don't worry about interrupting what we're doing here. Adam from Pool Care. So where's Adam from Pool Care? Up the front. Hi, Jim. I just wanted to know why we don't have contracts with our clients, our customers. We just go by word of mouth every day. Message them at night. See you tomorrow. Why don't we have a yearly contract with them or a monthly contract? A signed contract, like a signed writing agreement.

Because most people wouldn't sign it and we'd lose all that business. Simple as that. We have a lot of contracts, but we have. With major ones. There are contracts and we do millions of dollars worth of contracts with major companies like both national office and cleaning have got large multimillion dollar accounts. They're very clearly in writing. But normal domestic customers wouldn't go for it.

Okay, all right. Good question. Short, sharp go one here. Is it from Francis or Francois? From Moe. Francois.

There we go. Francois.

Just interesting. You've such a great business success, you.

Know, at this point in your life, how do you still motivate yourself? Oh, I love what I do. It's really, really fun. It's very enjoyable. Very challenging, very interesting. Lots of things going on. It's Very creative and I feel a very strong sense of mission. I get very emotional about franchisees. You know, hitting 5,000 is nice, but what really gives me pleasure is actually when I get stories of people whose lives have been changed and they're doing so much better. Like when I was having dinner with people tonight, I was asking a couple of guys, what do you actually do? What were you doing in the past and why are you changing? When I speak to saga for 10 years I asked the same question, what were you doing and why you changed? I love those answers. And it's also often about kids, about families, seeing your children when they're growing up. This kind of thing, it's very motivational. It's a great thing. You gotta have a purpose in life. And I think amassing money is a pretty abysmally bad purpose. But amassing good people, that's really rewarding.

Fantastic. Thank you. Good question. Thank you very much. Jump up. Yes, jump up.

Speaking of kids, I've been sent up.

Here by my 13 year old boss right there. So his question is, what's the golden.

Rule to become a successful franchisee? Don't put money first. Money is a secondary extent. You've got to have a business mind. But if you focus first of all on giving a great, great deal to your customers and then just constantly work every day to improve what you do, look at what you do, think about it. How can I improve it? How can I do a better job? How can I do it in a faster time? It's not big changes, it's not large amounts of money. It's little tiny decisions. Every day I see things that are going on. I say, we can do this better, let's improve that, let's change that. Every day we do that. Thank you.

Good question. Cool. The next one here is from David from Cleaning. Where's David?

David?

Is David here? Good name, David, isn't it? Jim.

You'Re here. Morning, Inspector. I just basically said, how did you.

Sort of go from such a basic idea to go to a full franchising.

From your basic mowing and then bring the business to what it is today? Again, as I was saying before, it's all about miniscule changes. It's not one idea, it's thousands and thousands of little ideas. Because I was mowing lawns and then how do I do a better job of mowing lawns? How do I make more money? How do I get beyond that? How do I put on subcontractors? How do I sell lawn mowing rounds? How do I make people who buy lawn mowing rounds more happy and successful. How do I franchise? And then when you're franchising it, the franchise system has changed dramatically. I had no idea what I was doing 34 years ago. I really didn't. I still had some good principles behind it, which is the same. You know, first priority is franchisees, then customer service and then selection. That was, that was how we actually implement that has changed dramatically. It's the little things. Anybody can do it. It's not, it's not being a great genius. It's not even being a workaholic. I'm not that hard working. I mean, people think I am, but I'm really not a workaholic. I've got plenty of time for things that matter. My kids, you know, I take my son to school every day and pick him up. He's actually sick home right now. To me, that's important. Now I might be doing emails at 2:30 in the morning, which some people would think is bizarre, but that's just my wait. Why? Might as well do something.

Thank you. Good moustache too as well. Great mustache, David. Customers will remember that. And we have Where's Meg from? Dogwash me. If you want to jump up. Guys, anytime I ask a question, please do so as well. Anything that pops to your mind.

You've got 48 divisions and I'm buying into your company and I'm just wondering, we've all been told to have a two, three, five year plan, so I am keen to know what is your five year plan? Where do you see the company in five years? It's never precise. I'd never do a five year plan as such. Like I'm going to have 6,000 or 7 or 10. We never think that way. I always think in terms of complaints and franchisee service. Now you see, look at my plan is to have a system that will enable more of my franchisees to report good income and less to report poor. That's your basic, most important metric. We've actually gone slightly backwards. This year was 9% poor, last year's 8%. That's very disturbing. So what's gone wrong? So, and also at the same level, same kind of thing, to see a drop in the level of complaints. Because I know every time we drop the level of complaints we actually increase franchisee income. So it's more of a continuous process rather than a particular goal. If it lasts me what my ultimate goal is, I want every franchisee to report good income than every, every customer to get great service. And we'll never reach it. But that's the goal. It's just out there. It's like. It's like you're steering by the Southern Cross. You don't expect to reach the Southern Cross, but that's the direction you're going in.

Good question.

Good question.

Our next one, here's it from Liliana or Liliana from Dogwash.

Liliana.

Liliana. I can't read handwriting. I'm so used to reading the computer. Hello?

Can you hear me now? Yes. What is your biggest regret? Oh, my goodness. Well, I lost my kids for two years and everything that led up to that was awful. I don't think any regret ever comes to the same level as things happen to your family. If I knew what I knew now, I would have handled that whole thing a lot better. I wouldn't know what to do. On the second point, though. In another way, I wouldn't change any of my life that goes back more than 14 years because I would never regret any of my children. But in recent years, my biggest regret is the fact that we didn't change our IT systems. We kept far too long to an outdated system of software development. And only last year did we realize that we needed to go across to Odoo, which is a more modern kind of system. We use modular software. So in recent years, that's been my biggest mistake. I should have done that change a long time ago, many years ago. But personal always trumps business to me.

Good question. Thank you very much. Do you want to jump up and ask one? Guys, please do so as well. Julian from Dogwash. Where's Julian from Dogwash?

All right, probably first two questions here. Do you have any hobby and do you think you will at any point retire to do your hobby? I do have hobbies, actually. I love gardening, strangely enough, as an ex boy, I go up the farm at the weekend and I walk and I dig and I've got big, huge potato patch and I'm growing carrots and I'm growing silver beet and all kinds of things like that. So I love gardening. I like playing computer games, too. I play too much of them. Mostly very simple stuff that doesn't get you too engulfed. I don't want something that goes to me for hours because I can't. But somebody that plays like a short game for like 15 minutes, half an hour is my idea. I love reading. I read a lot, listen to talking books all the time. I'm very active in my church. I run what we call a life group, which I kind of, you know, act as a coordinator to help people get to know each other. Yeah. And I have my family every second Wednesday I go and see two of my kids and there's my grandson, one of my grandsons there. And so we have a great time and we eat together, we order food in which I pay for because I'm pretty rich.

You hope so. You'd hope so. You hope so.

The funny thing is, actually, they don't. They look like hippies, my kids. So one time when I never changed, I wanted to give a tip to the guy who delivered it. So I only had 50 bucks, so I gave it to them. This guy was just looking at this. These sort of barefoot hippies coming out, giving me a $50 tip. I don't quite know who was behind it. I got a lot of.

Lot of things.

And I don't think. I don't think work. I don't. There's a stain that I really love. No other success can compensate. Fresh barrel unit home. In fact, I'm going to give you all a bit of a preview. I'm rewriting my book and I'm actually titling it. No other success or I'm thinking of doing that. I haven't discussed it with Joel yet. He may eject.

We'll see. We'll see.

We'll see what happens. Anyway, so as to retirement. Yep. I'll retire one day and we'll have a lovely ceremony and it'll probably be in a church and I'll be in a box on the floor. That's my retirement.

But I can't seem seriously doing it.

I've looked it up recently and I should live about another 23 years. I'm 71. I'm in perfect health. I've got absolutely everything that you could possibly have for a long life. Except that my parents died inconveniently a bit earlier than they should have. So I expect to be around running gyms for at least another 20 years. Thank you.

There you go. Good question. Cool. We've got a couple of comments online. Real quickly. I just want to get to Jim. So Brett Blair says great gala awards night, which is great. Then Colin Harper, this is a specific question when looking at a split run, which is buying customers, how do you ensure you receive value customers and not receiving a bunch of low value customers?

It's actually a very good idea. It's a good question. What you should do is go out on the road and do some of the customers. In fact, anybody who buys a business without doing this is being Extremely reckless and you should get a fairly good idea fairly quickly of what the value is.

There's also a 45 day period as well.

The 45 day period will only tell you the customers are good. They won't tell you how well priced they are. So we do protect you. But if your jobs are underpriced, generally speaking, the problem you have with purchase is not from splits. Franchisees who do splits are usually pretty well priced because they're competent. You don't split a business unless you know what you're doing. The biggest problem we have is with people who are selling out and you'll often find customers that are underpriced or not actually there because often people are selling because they're not doing very well. So I would say like anything else, the biggest rule in buying any business and especially a franchise is do your homework, spend time out on the road, talk to as many people as you possibly can. I'm quite astonished people can spend look, 25, $30,000 as businesses goes is not a lot, but it's a lot to most people. I would say it's well worth spending a few days out in the field researching what you're doing and if you don't like what you see, then don't buy it.

And another real quick one from Adam's gone. Hey Jim. Adam from Jim's It Penrith and he's just said he's just got 100 five star reviews so well done. Adam from Jim's It. I met because he had a really good story. He had a lot of anxiety and mental health with his other. He was an independent computer guy to Jim's IT and it's definitely helped him move forward.

Interview. Going to get an Accor membership.

Yeah. Adam submitted. Well, he needs to probably submit that. I haven't seen his name on the list so he should tell. Maybe you tell him about that on camera.

Yeah, we've got this. We've bought 500 Accor memberships. They're worth about 600 bucks each. Didn't cost us that much. You get two free nights accommodation for a couple plus half price on a host of different restaurants and hotels and all kinds of things. So it's a really valuable thing. We're going to give it to anybody who's got a good story to tell and all you have to do is do an interview with this guy, can be zoom and give it to us. And there you are. Enjoy your accolade membership.

We did our first couple last night. There was a guy from Jim Scratch and Dent, which is a new division. So a lot of ex panel beaters. It's a really good division but it's a really good earner. So we're talking like, you know, 1502 grand revenue a day in those businesses.

So we have a lot of magic stories. People who make incredible money even in their first month. Certain number of five star reviews, especially when their average is way, way up. But even great stories like community service. Like there was one guy who spends his time working with the homeless. He only works about three days a week as a mowing franchisee and he works with the homeless the rest of it, which he can afford to do. Another bloke I was talking to who loves fostering kids and that's his passion and that's his why. I mean there's wonderful stories that we have all out there. We want to hear about them. So we're looking at this. This is actually fantastic for the individual but it's also great for the brand too because it shows everybody what can be achieved.

Well, the next newsletter is out soon so I'll be in there again. So make sure they keep an eye on the franchise.

Everybody here, when you've got a great story, come to us. We don't say no. We just want a good story, good news story, how you're doing well, how you're loving it. Great number of five star reviews. Most of you will have all five star reviews in the next few. A few months. It's just the norm these days.

That's good value product. We want to hear it's a good product too as well.

I'm going to get one too. They're going to give me one.

Good hope so they can give you one.

They're going to give you one.

There we go. Asif. Where's Asif from Jim's Dog Wash as well.

Azif Dog people out in floors tonight.

I wanna row.

Where's your red shirt, Aziff?

Thought I'd dress up a bit nice.

Tonight, change things up. Heard you get quite a bit passionate.

About the subject, which is obviously around Covid.

Yeah, a tough time for a lot of businesses out there, especially in the.

Service space as well as other industries. But more specifically I guess what's your thoughts on I guess certain policies by people like Dan Andrews.

I did warn you when we spoke at dinner about this though. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's why they told me to take off my red shirt and.

All this, you know, so maybe targeted on the right.

You've probably all heard my view that I'm not his actual favorite person and I'm probably not his either, to be perfectly honest. I will say the thing that really tells me more about that guy than anything else is when he got up in that dreadful press, you know, press conference and he said you can't get your lawns mowed or your houses cleaned. He didn't say you can't go out and clean houses and mow lawns. He said you can't get your lawns mowed and your houses clean. He was thinking only of his elite, inner city, posh, upper crass woke supporters. He couldn't give a stuff about 100,000 plus Victorians thrown out of work for no reason. That arrogance. And the thing that really, really bugs me is how a person can do what he did, mess things up so badly and still get elected in a greater majority. That just really kills me.

You had a bit of a digging.

What is wrong with the people in this state.

But he had a bit of a dig at him. I don't know if anyone saw. Did anyone see Jim in the Herald sun during the week, last week at all or the newsletter.

I had to go at his budget. Yeah.

It was basically saying the 4,000 workers is going to come by Jim's franchise. And they ran that. Which is pretty funny. That was a good story. Thank you very much for that one. There's always one to be training with that. It's always good. Next one here we've got is Cheryl from Mowing. Where's Cheryl from mowing Cheryl? It's a good question. Okay, no worries. I can read it out. So Cheryl from Mowing says when we do a social media post, can you advertise for pay for work Work. Can you advertise that it's for. Is it more of a. So that you can advertise that it's a free job for pay for work or what are you thinking with that one? Is that the question?

Yeah, yeah, do that. That's a great way of doing it. I know one of the things the dog wash people have done is they actually offer a $10 deal, not a free one. If you can use your dog as a model.

Yeah.

And that's using the buy, buy, swap, sell kind of thing too. Which if you use it, it sounds really good. So you could do. What's your mowing? Aren't you. Oh, you're mowing. Okay. All right. You should be too. You're wearing green. You're the note taker. So you could be doing it. You could doing a competition for, you know, Your suburbs best garden, for example. And the condition is you can use them, use their garden as a model. So you give them a freebie or a real cheap or something like that. There's. It's a way to do it. I'd love you to do that and actually get back to me and tell me whether it works because we're always looking for ideas about how to do these things. If you can get out and offer freebies, it's really, really easy to build your business. Having said that, whereabouts are you? Okay, you might actually want to do some of that because in New South Wales and Queensland, work is a little bit quiet this winter. It's quieter than it has been for years. But if you do your freebies, you'll never run short of income. You'll always meet your base and that's what you've got to aim to do.

What Dogwash does, the introduction $10 mows really effective. $10 washes really effectively. And that works really well.

Yes.

When they first start $10 wash, and obviously $10 wash, someone sees on their feed. Bang.

One of the things you can do too, is you. Can we send it? I know Dogwash does this. And it's not about go to all the unserviced leads in the past year and say, here's an opportunity. You know, we're sorry we couldn't actually look at your service, but as a compensation, here's a free lawnmower or something like that. Why don't you try that one, too? We can give you all the back information we go to. Any past, any unserviced lead or a. Yeah, because there's been thousands of them. Last year we knocked back 32% of all leads and Melbourne was one of the worst divisions for that. So there's a lot of people who couldn't get service in the past. So approach them and we'll give you all the details.

Really good question. If you've got a question, guys, feel free to come up to Mike anytime as well and ask anything you like. Got one here from. Is it Layla from Cleaning? Layla from Cleaning. Come on over.

Hi, Jim.

My question is, at this point in your life, what do you think you.

Should have done a bit better when.

You'Re younger, as a father, as a husband and as a business owner?

Layla, that's a rather leading question. I've had three divorces, so possibly I think I could have done a lot better at a lot of things. I tend to be socially blind. I don't tend to notice that I upset people. I don't tend to notice that people are upset by me not doing or not doing something, which is one reason why so many women couldn't stand me after a while. Honestly, my current wife, 22 years, really happily married. I do a lot of things different, in a sense, except that I would want to change my past because I never lose any of my children. There's a wonderful film called About Time. Anybody seen that one? That's one where he actually goes into a. It's a family thing. They can go into a. Into a closed space and close their eyes, and they can go back to a certain point in time and rerun the past. And one time his sister got into a really toxic relationship and he went back to actually prevent her from doing that. But by doing so, he lost his daughter, who wasn't the same when he got back to the present because he changed the past, so he had to go undo it. So you never regret your children. That's the fundamental rule. But a lot of things I could do different, Leila, honestly.

And a lot of them are in the book, aren't they? Every customer.

A lot of them in the book, actually. One thing you will find about that book is I'm very open about my failures, and I think it's important. People sometimes get the idea that to be successful in business, you have to be some superman who's brilliant and never makes mistakes and is charismatic and, you know, just incredibly hard working and good insight. I mean, I'm nothing like any of those things, all right? I am a very, very flawed, imperfect person who's made stacks of mistakes. And I look back in a year's time and I say, you idiot, back in May 2023, why do you make that mistake? Happens all the time. But I think what it shows, if you look at that is what. I like people to look at that, to look at that book and say, jeepers, if this idiot can do it, then surely I can. If you get that out of it, that's success, isn't it? Thank you. Because everybody in this room, I'd say everybody in this room is better than me at doing a whole stack of different things. Absolutely. Guaranteed. There's not one person here who wouldn't sweep the carpet with me in so many different areas. We've all got our strengths. We've all got our weaknesses.

Good question. Thank you very much. Cool. Next one here is if we have. From Richard from Pool Care. Where's Richard from Pool Care?

Richard, my dinnertime companion.

Very serious question this time.

Yeah. Okay. What Year did the beard come off and why? 20. 20 and 20.

20.

2020. And very simple. I was 2020. Sorry, 20.

That's news to me.

No longer 2000.

2000.

It's the year 2000. And what happened was I was single at the time. Once again, not my choice. And my beard was starting to go a bit grey. And when you are single and when you are 40 years old, you do not need to look any older than you are. Isn't that right now happily married man. He's okay. He can. Wife will love them regardless.

But for proof, you can put that bonnet and see what you look like. It's a pretty close matching. So we can give you that. We'll do one question with this on so you can get this set up. There we go. All right. It's pretty close to the original colour, isn't it?

Berdy's very similar to my.

Good question. And there's another part to the question which was those.

And actually just to put that perspective, the reason I grew a beard in the first place is my fiance at the time liked beard. So everything I do is to please women. I mean we're all like that. Isn't that true? Be honest. What do we live for? What are we? What are we? What's our point of life?

Nodding over there and we had a follow up part. There was this Jim Regrette in your divisions. Was one. One we had there? Yeah.

There's certain divisions we started that just haven't gone so well. I wish we'd never started.

Yeah. Take your photos now if you want to. Should have said that as well with Jimmy. Maybe at the end we can do it as well.

What's that?

At the end of the night they want a photo with you and put the hat and the beard on as well. It can be a bit itchy for you. It is itchy for you.

Some divisions don't work. What do you call it? Traffic control. We've got one franchisee, construction, one franchisee. They're just not good divisions for us. We should never have done them. We try and learn the lesson. We really do. The main reason divisions work though, as I was talking to people at dinner time tonight, is because at the person driving it, I mean, laundry is a great idea. But Bill Coburn, love is an incredible guy. Dog wash's good. Sharon's amazing. Brett Blair, pulkhair with nothing. Before Brett came along, he made it a great division. So you look at the great leaders and there's likely, quite likely, somebody in this room one day who'll be a franchisor, probably one or two of you will. And maybe one of you will start a new division, who knows?

Do you want to talk about the process for a new division real quickly? If they are, it's actually a very.

Simple thing to do. It doesn't even much money. We look for a potential idea, doesn't conflict with another division. That's impossible because of territory rights. You can't overlap them. We've got to see at least 60 bucks an hour. And we've got to have somebody who shows the ability, ideally with some knowledge of the industry in some way, and somebody, if they're a franchisee, making good income, good customer service, that kind of thing, good sort of person, a helping kind of person. And look, the upfront costs, usually about 25 grand. It's less than most franchises. And a lot of that, most of that is simply the first six months of fees in advance. So the actual. We actually do what we call a rental. So you rent division, you don't pay for it. You've got an aim. You have to have 30 franchisees within three years. And if you've got that, we just give it to you, no cost. Because we're not interested in making a lot of money up front. What we want is division that grows and is serious. And a division with over 30. People often talk about having so many divisions. It's not really a good thing in a great way. We've got actually 45 divisions in the last check, but 25 of those have got over 30 franchisees. They're the ones that are serious divisions. Anything less than that is a good potential division, but it's not really an established division as yet. So, yeah, there's a lot of divisions we really shouldn't have done. Mostly because sometimes because the division idea wasn't that great, but mostly because the person driving it wasn't the person that it needed. It's a big challenge.

There we go. Next one here from Rick from Mowing. Where's Rick from Mowing? I like this one from Rick. It's cheeky.

Rick, where are you, Rick?

Maybe he doesn't want to ask it. I'll ask it for him. Will Jim give me a 10k per week guarantee? Might be in your region. You gotta ask. You gotta ask.

Probably, yeah. We'll probably charge a bit more for it. The point of it is though, how could you get it done? The limit on it is that you've gotta be able to do free services and that takes time. So I think it would be Extremely difficult to do it. We honestly don't find there's much difference in the claim whether we're paying 2,000 or 1,000, honestly, because past a certain level offering free services just is not going to get you then also because people start offering free services quickly build up so much clients that they don't offer them very long. Even in dogwash, which we really, really push free services. The average pay out for a new franchisee so far this year is just a bit under $1,000 each. It's not much because. Because people who do it just. They succeed.

Absolutely. Got a few questions online if you want to ask people one up there on the mic, guys, please feel free to jump up as well. No one's asked you about your black book. That's all right. Nadona online's gone. I recently got an offer for the diploma course here in South Africa. Since you can assist with finance, what is the next process? So someone from South Africa is watching, asking about the process because they've been accepted for the diploma.

Well, it just rough the course and we'll put you into a franchise. And the idea basically is for people overseas, particularly South Africa, because they're native English speakers, makes it very easy, is that they simply get a franchise which they run while they're doing their course and the course itself, plus the postgraduate takes about seven years. Well, if you've got a gyms franchise for seven years, if you're any good at all, you'll have enough. You'll be able to sponsor yourself into the country with a good income.

How many interests in that so far? There's been a few interests in it, yeah.

How many people accepted?

So I think 40 or 50 or something like that.

They're at potential. We've got so much work here. South African tend to do very well. They don't come from a welfare state so they're used to working hard and they've been very successful. Quite a few franchisors are South African.

Manny's one of our biggest one in wa.

Yeah, he runs the pest control division.

Yep. Building inspections as well. He does, yeah, yeah, okay, cool. Got a few more online. But guys, please feel free to come up to the mic and ask Jim anything you like. Nigel from Car Detailing has gone. Hi, Jim. I congratulate the Jim system as it's allowed me over the last eight and a half years to grow a success, successful franchise business, allowing me to give back to my community. He volunteers a lot as well and as a franchisor he gets to share his success with other franchisees and give him the lifestyle. Deserve an interview with him, with Nigel. Yeah. He needs to fill out the form. He can't be on the form. Nigel, he says, I have three new franchisees coming next two months, which is great. We've got here one from. Where is he? CT Property Services. What are you working on now? Short term and long term from online.

What, what divisions?

Well, I think just in general he.

Means the biggest thing we're working on right now is it. The potential biggest breakthrough in gyms could possibly be is this program we call Jim's Jobs, which has been an embarrassment and it's because we put it on the wrong platform and it was unreliable. We're not even encouraging people to do it. By the end of the year, we should have a totally rewritten version of Jim's Jobs and it will have so much good stuff. It will allow things like people to be able to sell leads, sell and buy regular clients. For example, have Joel's books tread into your diary. It'll have systems that will control customer service. So franchisees got a problem with customer service. If they don't bring the customer back straight away, it'll actually send alarm bells to the franchisor. There's a whole stack of things that are going into that that could revolutionize, could actually dramatically drop the level of complaints and increase franchisee income. That is the most exciting, biggest thing.

Going on because he's left a second comment. Yep. Yeah, come on. Yep. Go for it. Yeah. Just because we can hear it from the people online. It's all good. Jim, what's the recommendation then in the interim before your apps roll out or the improvements there to what to use? Do we continue to use the Jim's Jobs with a combination of a CRM or just scrap it all or.

Look, Jim's Jobs most a lot of franchisees swear by Jim's Jobs. Even as an imperfect version, a lot of them still use. We've got still quite a few hundred users. It's just we're not encouraging people because it's the new people take it up so much. But you can use Jim's Jobs Classic, which is just a DOS based system and there's other systems around that you can use for the time being. We don't have any particular recommendation.

Well, it's interesting. I've been out with a few franchisees. The one I interviewed last night from scratch and Dent loves Jim's Jobs, maybe because he's only doing two customers a day, so it's not as much volume with it and another guy, we went out in the field mo for that day on the road. He uses it solely. So it all depends.

There's quite a few people using it. It's just that we have a bit of problem in some areas. It tends to be unreliable at times. So if you want to use it, if you're, if you're, if you're sort of savvy with things, it's probably worth having a go at. But it's embarrassing when it doesn't work.

But there'll be franchisees. What division are you mowing? Yeah, there'll be franchisees in your division who might use a combination of other things and they'll rarely show you what they use. They might use something to maps and something to this. Some of them quite often use multiple combinations together. So it all depends. I'd check with what they're using in your division first and give it a go. Cool. Got a couple more questions here.

Yep.

Come up, by the way, just on the Jim's jobs thing again, one of.

The conditions of the pay for work guarantee is we have to use Jim's jobs, though that doesn't apply now. Okay, so we could use something else and still. Yes, absolutely. No, you're right too. It's also conditions of contract. Look, it's in there because when we do get to a situation where it's a perfect system, we want you to use it and then we'll say come across because then it'll be really useful in so many levels. It'll improve your business out of sight. But that's only when that happens will we actually ask you to change. Sure.

Good question. Thanks.

Mind you, by that time you definitely won't need paperwork guarantee anyway because nobody ever used it after the first two or three months. Hi. Thank you for your book. I'm actually reading and having a lot of fun. So why actually return the hundred bucks when you went to buy the things and then once that you accepted as a refund and then you changed your mind and you went back and extend $100 and then you mentioned that this thing was some kind of managed by some mysterious forces around because you return the hundred back in a mystery way after that.

You have read the book gold stars. Yes.

Okay, look, I'm a Christian. I don't make a big thing of it in the book. But that's basically my motivation. If you have a look at the values behind Jims, the ethos of service and the humility and those kind of things, they are very fundamentally Christian values. Jesus washing his disciples feet is kind of like the way we think about franchising in gyms, which is very unusual. So basically, as far as I was concerned, I was in a desperate financial situation. But I just thought it was the wrong thing to do. And I somehow felt, even though I couldn't imagine, that God would look after me in some way. And that was what was so striking about it. It wasn't so much the hundred dollars, it was the fact that it was just somebody there. It was the most powerful evidence there could be. But somebody was there. You can tell that was the same thing that happened when you were a kid and you were this neighbor of your giving this job. And then it wasn't much job done and then he asked you to carry on the garbage. And then you, you find this guy with a kind of attitude. And then in that moment maybe you understand that this my standards. So could be that like that moment that was very impressive. Well, that was long before my Christian days. I was 8 years old at the time. I was a kid.

Yeah.

Look, I have an emotional attitude towards service. It's not a business thing. I've made a lot of decisions which I thought were actually very unbusinesslike. Give me an example. When I started off franchising back in 1989, the absolute universal policy of every franchise competitor was that you take anybody, they use what we call a mirror test. It's a joke in the industry. If you want to know whether to sign somebody, you hold a mirror to their face and if it fogs, you sign them. Or somebody actually told me, you saw Fujiani King. I said, how did you select franchisees? He said, $50,000 and a pulse. They were told that. So this was the policy that you take anybody who has the money. And I looked at it and I said, I am not going to sell a business to somebody that is likely to fail because it's just not right. It's a wrong thing to do. I would not do it. Even though it's going to cost me, even though it will slow my growth, I will not do it. Strangely enough, that decision that was made purely on moral grounds against what I thought was my financial self interest. Tend to be one of the best financial decisions I ever made. And when I do franchisor training, I go through and I explain why that is, why when you're selective, you actually grow faster than if you're not and you make more money. And I found that again and again in business, when you make a decision based on what's the right thing to do it actually turns out to be the best business decision, even though it doesn't look like it. And the people who do best as franchisees are not the ones who are money hungry. The people who do best, the people who care passionately about doing things well, they care about their clients. They want their clients to be delighted as a franchise or they want their franchisees to be successful. They have a real heart for what they do. And those are the people who actually end up making the most money, not the ones who chase the money first.

Good question. What was your name? Sorry, Rod.

Rob.

Rob. Go for it.

Right, I have two questions or one question. Looking towards the future, what is your view in regards AI and robotics? Elon Musk now taking off Optimus, which is going to be the humanoid version of robots. How do you see if that's going to compromise the future? James? Or is going to complement that our kinds of businesses be one of the last ones in the world that could possibly be affected by AI because what we do is so complicated. It's not like washing a dog, just watching it. Maybe you get a robot to wash the dog, for example.

Maybe.

I don't know how possible that is because dogs are, are very difficult to handle. They don't sit there, they just bite you. If you're just my dog, they bite you. And this kind of stuff too. Notorious as being the worst, most savage dog in the whole history of Jim's Dog washes my dog caboodle. But the point of it is you've got to do so much more than that. You've got to relate to the client. You've got to turn up when you say you will. You've got to communicate with them, you've got to take the money. It's a very complicated sort of business what we do. It's, it's, it's inconceivable that what we do could be automated in any reasonable sense. Now certain things we could. We were at the weekend, we were seeing this, this robot thing which is about that long and you can just, you can do a. Just walk around the lawn. This is a pro commercial. We're going to get one for here, a commercial line. You can check the outlines and then the thing just goes off and mows the lawns by itself. That kind of technology can actually help. But somebody's got to put it in place, somebody's got to take it around, somebody's got to take the money, somebody's got a quote, somebody's got to do the edges. So potentially it's a tool for making a mowing franchisee more prosperous and more successful, and we intend to be right on top of that. But it won't do the matter business. So I think actually ours is a safe haven because so many businesses could be put out if things like Chat GP become successful. So many people will be out of a job. Maybe they'll come to us and start mowing lawns and washing dogs for a living.

Good question. Thank you very much. One of the franchisees, Rory, who I know he's gone. AI will definitely affect mowing, Jim, So he's concerned a little bit about effective mowing.

I don't see how. If you were just talking about mowing a lawn. Yes, but running a business is so much more than that. See, most of the problems we have with customers, maybe about one in eight customers have a complaint about the way the job is done. The other seven in eight are all to do with communication, turning up those kinds of issues. These are the kind of things you can't automate. Yes, you could get a robot to mow the lawn, but how do you get the robot to talk to the clients, communicate, find out what they want? It's an order of magnitude harder.

Absolutely. Got another one here from. Is there Mark Hayden? Mark Hayden from Mowing had one.

Mark, where are you?

Mark?

Mark?

No, I'll read it out. No worries. What was Jim going to do before instead of mowing?

Ah, this. I went to university to try and uncover the rise and fall of civilizations. What happens? What makes society change, what makes interventions collapse? Came up. 10 years at university doing a PhD in history. Came up with some extremely radical approaches to it. Completely impossible to get any kind of job. I intended to be an academic, so that's what I was going to do. So what I decided to do was to launch a business which would enable me to fund a research institution to actually pursue this, which is what we've done. We're now spending about $3 million a year. Most of the actual net income from the business goes into a research project, most into epigenetics. So I was going to be an academic. Completely failed.

Can you explain real briefly for people, what is epigenetics?

It's basically looking at society, what makes society prosperous, what makes them grow, what makes them make war, what societal form of government they have. It's got to do with the character of the individual people in it. And if you've got certain kinds of character, for example, if you are the kind of people that relate well to the rule of law, You've got strong impersonal loyalty, strong moral principles, tends to. You tend to get a stable democracy. People are hard working enterprises and you tend to be wealthy. If they're good with machines, you tend to industrialize. It's all based on character. What we're actually doing is looking at, we believe the changes in character are based on epigenetics. In other words, the way your genes function. People are extremely similar genetically across the world. It doesn't matter who you are, whether you're a Bantu or whatever. Doesn't matter who you are. We're very similar genetically. How we vary is in the way our genes are turned on or off, which is related to family, related to culture, related to all kinds of things like that. What we, what we're looking at with this project is working out a way to change the epigenetics of people in a way that will actually create a better character. For example, one of the simplest ways to things we should be able to do is to change people's character in a way that makes them more long term thinking, which means they'd be better at things like getting out of drug addiction, alcoholism, those kinds of areas, or obesity, those problems. So, so that's one of the first goals. But we're making some very interesting project with progress. We've had quite a few, about 20 different publications in high ranked magazines. I've got a former professor who's now heading up the research team and it's very exciting. I believe one day it could change the world.

That one. There is an MP3 for download on biohistory.org is the website. So yes, there's a free MP3. I'm pretty certain of that.

It's a slightly earlier version of the book, but very similar.

Yeah, absolutely.

The problem is what happens actually as the research has gone on, I've actually found that some of the ideas in the original book were wrong. So I've had to change them, adjust them based on the empirical results from experiments with RAs.

How much of your week is dedicated to this?

Not much really. I mean, I'm in regular touch with the guy who runs it. I meet with the research team occasionally. We had a half day just recently. Write things, send them off, do a bit of research. Not a lot.

Absolutely. Then Rory Green's gone. He says, I'm not concerned, it will affect us, but not necessarily negative. We can always adapt and upsell. And he's gone. Do you know much about Neuralink?

Neuralink?

Musk's project, how he wants to put chips in the brain and all that sort of stuff. And to help with different things. He's just been approved as well by the fda. Human trials. How would you have a chip in your head, Jim?

I don't see the value, honestly. I think it's very exciting where I see the potential. That kind of thing is in terms of people with spinal cord injuries and so forth. I was seeing something just recently where they're actually people who are completely paralysed from the waist down. They're walking. They're actually walking. They're with sticks, but they're walking. That is amazing stuff. Or people who are blind, who actually can be given sight. That's what excites me. Look, there's danger in some of this stuff. I tend to be an optimist, a techno optimist. I can see society going in a very bad way. But I think science and technology has incredible potential to make people's lives better. I think most forms of mental illness, just as an example, are large, epigenetic in origin. If you understood what was going on and you could do something to change the epigenetic nature, people could be cured of schizophrenia just like that, that kind of thing. And these are terrible burdens on people. I think we can do so much good if we understand the science. And I do think epigenetics in particular, much more than genetics as such, has the greatest capacity of any technology. It's greater than AI, greater than anything. Epigenetics, the science of understanding how character works, how attitudes work, how we can change for the better, how people can be helped.

We do have a few to give away, so anybody interested?

We've got some.

Absolutely. I've got one here from Fab from Mowing. Fab from Mowing has a. At the end, we'll give it to you, no problem. Yep.

Jim, I've got two questions for you.

How many children do you have?

It depends on. That's how you count them. 10 is what I. 10 that I bought helped to rear up. 16, if you want to know how many I'm genetically related to because I was a sperm donor. So there you are.

Another question is, do you have any mentors or anyone that inspires you?

Books? To a large extent. I'm a voracious reader. I would read a couple of books a week. So I'm always looking for examples of people that can help me out and learn things from. There's so many great books around. One of the wonderful things, too, I didn't have when I was mowing lawns. It was Too noisy. We didn't have talking books in those days. But these days if I was mowing lawns for a living I would be out there with electric mower which is quite. I'm listening to talking books all day long. It's wonderful the kind of stuff there is out there. I'm one of Amazon's greatest customers. I actually got their one year often where there's 260 books that you can.

Buy all at once or something like that.01% or something. Top listener or something. You got some record they gave you like what, how many Credits was it? 10 credits or something like that?

I don't know.

I'm certainly Amazon doesn't give people many free things so that was quite impressive.

Yeah. If I wake up in the night, can't sleep for a bit, I'll just read half a book.

What's your three recommended audiobooks? Let's say people here that what you think will help them.

Atomic Habits, Better habits, seven habits of Highly Effective People. I would recommend. There's so many. The Dopamine Nation talking about the nature of addiction and how to overcome it and so forth. I read a lot of books about health and happiness and so forth about human history. I reckon this one here is a great one.

Not biased at all.

Guns Gems and Steel by Jared Diamond. A fantastic book. Read that one.

And the one you get in training is actually on Audible as well. So we need to get some more reviews on that. So if you do want to listen to Audible it is on there as well.

So you can actually if anybody follows my feeds and we're starting a newsletter now, I regularly put out recommended books.

Absolutely.

I also read magazines too. Economist is really great. Very good in depth study of the world and technology and everything else that goes on. Interesting New scientist. I like Australian Atlantic Monthly. So yeah, a lot of good stuff around. I love ideas, I love being challenged. I love thinking. You know. I've changed my mind more in the last 10 years than I have almost any other period of my life. I love coming across things that really challenge the way that I think about things. Like one I read recently of Boys and Men. We were just talking about the way that so much of society. Society discriminates against men, particularly men who haven't got university degrees. There's just so much good stuff around the case against education. Why education is a waste of time beyond a certain level. That's so interesting.

We've got one here on the sheet which is Chester from Laundry. Is Chester from Laundry still here? Yeah.

Chester.

Hi Jim, I'm Chester from Jim's Laundry.

I don't know if this has been asked many times before, what does retirement.

Looks like for Jim?

Death. I can't imagine retiring. You know I've known people who retire in their 50s and they get old. No, I look old. I look like an old ninja. You got to admit I do, don't I? But I don't feel it. I'm full of energy. This morning I had a cold and I still ran half an hour and lifted weights and 8 kilo weights and did this 120 times and they had a cold shower to finish it up with. That's not a bad day. So. So you're aiming for blue zone longitudity? Yeah, 100. Well now let me tell you, I'm aiming for a thousand because it may not happen but in 20 years time that I presumably got left, who knows what they're going to come up with. I follow the technology very carefully. If they can do rejuvenation, I'll be in front of the queue. We should all should. Why not?

I'll follow you.

I think when you get older you learn so much. The stuff that I knew now that I did not even 10 years ago I didn't know a fraction of what I know now. Much as when I started gyms. You lose all that knowledge, it's such a waste. You spend so many decades learning how to live life, learning how to do business and then you die. I don't like the idea. I'm going to live forever if I can. I have one more question. Yeah. Regarding Jim's Laundry. I know you've been plugging laundry for many times. What do you think of the Jim's Laundry future in Tasmania? Oh it's great. It's great. It's a great division. Look, potentially it's very large. This has been the fastest growing division ever since the start of mowing back in 1989. 70 franchisees, just over two years. Fantastic concept. Everybody needs laundry done. That's true. And they get everything else done. Why not? It's a great service. We could have a thousand franchisees in laundry. There's nothing to stop it. It's also female friendly as a franchise system. It's a brilliant division. Brilliant division, brilliantly run. I love laundry. I was wearing the cap all day on Friday.

You were. It's good product placement for me. Right.

Went around all the interviews with my lording. I still got it too in the car.

Are you the first franchisee in Tasmania? You're Going B. Actually it's the third one. Third one, yeah. Three of us in Hobart, one in Lichester. Great.

If I could be on any division.

And we got five buses there. You have five buses with laundry. Laundry services on the bus, yes. They do a lot of marketing on with influencers and all that sort of stuff.

It's, it's, it's a brilliant division. It's really well run. It's, it's kind of the model in a way. Everybody looks to laundry as being the star of the last few years, so we've got all kinds of people. I always say go and talk to Bill Coburnoglu, I say work out what he did and then you do the same thing.

Sorry, you already done that? I've done that, yes, you have.

Good idea, Very exciting.

Thank you. Got time for a couple more questions, guys, if you want to jump up.

Great colour scheme too. I love the sky blue. It's really nice.

If you want to come up and ask a question, guys, please feel free to do so. We've got a couple minutes left but I've got a couple online as well, so. Dean's gone in from bookkeeping. He's been in bookkeeping for five and a half years now and his income is still growing every year. Would have never been this successful if I was. I was an independent from Dean. Please fill in the form, Dean, and let us know your story. That's great. Jason Smith says they use Jim's jobs in fencing and have 30 franchisees using it nationally. So he says whilst it has a few quirks, it does a sufficient job. So for fencing it works for them. Well, some of them find it working for them, which is great. Then we have one from Colin harbor who says you mentioned that mowing sales in NSW has slowed down more than normal. What is contributing to new NS mowing sales slowing compared to other states, winter will slow things down, but there's any insights in particular. Compared to other states, the leads have.

Slowed a bit and we think that's because of El Nino coming back. We've had five years of El Nino which has been very good growing conditions, especially in New South Wales and Queensland. So it's the first time in, well, nearly a decade I think, where we've actually been a little bit quiet for work in the middle of winter because in the past the middle of winter was the time that it was basically New South Wales and Queensland mowing, which actually gave these huge give backs to the franchisees with unspentable advertising because they were so busy year Round, so it's been quite strikingly different. Having said that in May, so far we've still not backed 24% of all leads, but it's not. It's not even across the country. So it's a little bit quiet in New South Wales and Queensland, but then again, it's 12 weeks to spring. I mean, all you got to do is to get your pay for work guarantee and do your extras and your.

There's potentially cross divisional stuff.

If they want to do it cross division will work. Yeah.

We've got one here from Elizabeth Bagger. Says, how's it putting up with Joel Cleaver on a daily basis? She goes, how is it putting up with Joel Cleaver on a daily basis?

It's hard.

Yeah. She knows I don't know what she's after, but I have to read out everything in order. So to be fair, it's very hard.

Cool.

What we'll do is if you've got one more question, guys, please feel free to come up and ask. If not, what we'll do, Jim, is we'll pick out the three questions that you like the most and they get first pick off the cans. Now we've got one that we probably should give first because it was a very.

I think the guy that actually asked the unanswerable question.

Yeah, I've never heard that. I've never heard him start before he speaks. Choose whatever you like.

Whatever you you like. You choose whatever you like. Oh, I'm not surprised.

No, we go.

There we go.

Now, there's a lot of good questions tonight, Jim, and thanks everyone who wrote one down and came up to the mic. But was there any one in particular?

I think the one about motivation was good. Who said that?

Motivation. Do you remember? What division was it? Francois. Francois, I've got motivation question mark. So, yes, come up. Grab anything you like here, mate. Pick anything you like called you want Jim to sign it. Could be worth something if he pulls it off. Could be your retirement if he. If it works.

If this does work out, this could be very.

Could be worth something. Yeah. We'll see it on eBay in 10 years, maybe. Cool. Good man. And we've got one more. Jim, do you want to pick out? Is there anything in particular? I don't know.

What do you think was your question?

I always like a Dan Andrews question because it gets you fired up a bit. So where's as if. Where's as if? Yeah, there's always one every training, so you can choose anything you like here you want. A sign book as well. Cool. Now, for everyone else who asked a question, please come up at the end as well. And I will give you something that I have here as well. If you do want a photo with Jim, and now's a really great time, if you can convince him he could put on the beard and hat as well, no one else will have that photo, so please do so as well. Yeah. Thank you very much. Cool. Anyone who asks the questions or see me at the end, thank you for your attention tonight and good luck with your franchise. If you want photos with Jim, please come and see us now. He'll sign books as well, have a chat, all that sort of thing. So thank you for your attention and good luck for the rest of your training experience, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.