#ASKJIM Q & A with Jim's Group founder, Jim Penman and Joel Kleber from July 27, 2026.

So welcome to another #AskJim. So we've got our second training in July, so a lot of people have come through Jim's in July, which is great.

Very good bunch.

I've heard they're a very good bunch.

Very lively, gave me 2 rounds of applause during my talk, which is unprecedented.

That's not very common though. Very unprecedented in a long time. So I've heard that, so we've got high expectations for tonight. So for those who don't know, microphone's up there. Obviously if you've got questions online as well, you can leave them in the comments and we'll hopefully get to as much as we can. But who has the first question for Jim tonight on Ask Jim? Who wants to come up and go to the microphone? The first one's always the toughest.

Thank you, go for it.

Good evening, I'm Darlene from Jim's Dog Wash.

We can see that. I'm from Queensland. The red gives it away.

My first question for you, Jim, is if you're a new franchisee tomorrow, what would be the 3 most important starting points you would focus on?

Follow the system.

That's basically it. We'll tell you what to do and it's very frustrating when people don't do what they're supposed to do and they don't do as well. We get very upset about that. Look at every day what you can do to improve. Never think you're good enough. Nobody's good enough including me and just focus on your customers. If you can make your customers into raving fans, it becomes very easy. Thank you.

That's it. Good question.

Good response as well.

Good question.

Good stuff.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

We've got our next question for Jim, guys. Feel free to come up to the microphone, ask him anything you like.

Yeah.

Good.

I will but it's not It's not anything to do with the franchising. That's the ones we want.

I'm Shereen and I'm from Dogwash, but in Auckland, New Zealand.

Yep.

So we all know that the All Blacks are the best team in the world.

What are your chances of the Wallabies facing them in the final of the World Cup? If you're going to ask anybody that question who's less qualified to answer it, I really couldn't think of anybody. I presume the Wallabies are some sort of Australian team. Well, they're your team. Oh, the All Blacks. The All Blacks have got to be better. I mean, I've heard of them. Oh, go on.

Yes.

So you have heard of the All Blacks?

I have actually heard the name, the All Blacks. So you're pretty famous. I don't know any other rugby team in the whole world except the All Blacks, so they must be the best. They are, they are.

So Jim, you don't really have a footy team or you don't follow basketball or anything like that, do you?

No, I've been spending half the day immersed in Chinese history actually, so my interests are a little bit different. As you do. As you do, yeah.

As you do, but he's not a big sporting man at all. That's a good question, he knows the All Blacks.

I do have heard of them. Yeah.

Australia's no good. I think the All Blacks will do Gee, dog wash is going well today.

Hello, my name is Sasha. I'm looking forward to being a brown team here in Melbourne. To be honest, do you ever get sick of seeing your face on all the merchandise, the vans and everything out there? It's actually a 3-part question, so that's number 1. Number 2 is, when do we cut off the beard? And number 3 is, did you consult the marketing team before doing so?

OK. Are they getting sick of my face being on everything? Well, actually, no. I pay this guy quite well to do that exactly, to keep me in the public eye. It's just good for the business. It really is. Having a CEO who is well known is good. Having said that, when I occasionally meet somebody who has no idea who I am, it's very refreshing. I enjoy it. I like being anonymous. I went to a wedding recently and somebody asked, 'You a lawyer like the father of the guy who's getting married?' I said, 'No, I'm not actually.' He just had no idea who I was. That was nice. That was nice. What was the second question? That was about—

Did you consult the marketing team before getting rid of the beard?

Okay.

That's what it looked like there.

This is going to sound very disappointing, but there was only one reason. I was single at the time. This is in 2000. And I was in my late 40s. And my beard was starting to go grey. And I was very keen to meet somebody, which I did the following year. And so I shaved it off because I didn't want to look any older than I needed to. So I'd love to say there was some deep marketing significance, but there wasn't. It was purely to do with finding a woman, okay? Perfect, perfect. And honestly, the only reason I grew a beard in the first place was my fiancée at the time like beards. So we just live to please you. That is what men are about, isn't it? Isn't that correct, guys?

Yeah.

We just live to please you. Nice. Thank you. That's a good question.

Very good question.

Very good question.

Got a question, guys? Feel free to come up to the microphone there. It's free for anyone to come up there as well. Jim will pick his 3 favorite. Yeah, the 3. First pick of the fries.

They get first pick.

Yeah.

Yep.

Anyone.

Yep.

Go for it.

Line up if you want.

Yes.

Hi, Jim. I'm Pam from Dog Wash. I'm from Coffs Harbour.

Yes.

I hear you're a bit of a 5-10K runner.

Yeah, I run every day actually.

Okay, so if you did your 10K and Gout Gout joined you, who do you think would be the fastest over 10K?

Who on earth is Gout Gout?

Gout Gout is a Sudanese Australian. He's only just 20. He's now Australia's fastest sprinter over 100 and 200 meters.

Okay, I think I'd challenge him to a game of chess. I might be able to beat him at that. Or squash.

Or squash.

Well, I don't know about squash. He's probably a lot fitter than me, so he'd probably beat me on that one too. But chess I'm not bad at. It requires, it requires, well, a lot of time wasted on playing chess, I guess, but not so much on exercise.

Gafford, next question.

Yeah, good question.

Very good one.

Gout, gout.

I didn't think we'd ever have gout gout mentioned on this show, but that's good.

So very different questions today. This is good. This is good. I've never been compared with Galp Galp before.

No.

Or even asked to do a comparison. We'll have to do a video of that and see if we can get his attention.

Hi Jim, I'm trying to start a franchisee in Maryland, Sydney. And I just have two questions for you, okay? They're very full on, so.

Go for it.

All right, the first one is, what's the fastest way someone with talent destroys their own potential?

Oh my goodness, the fastest way.

Never had that one.

I've never had it put quite that way. Talent isn't very big actually. Talent being immensely capable of doing something. I'm not particularly capable in a lot of ways. I'm just not. I'm not good at most things. Particularly not very good at human relations. I've been divorced 3 times. And what does that tell you? Come on. So there are just certain kinds of things that we need to do. But the worst thing people can do is to see anything that goes wrong as being a problem with somebody else. That is the cardinal sin. If you look at the difference between the best franchisees and the worst, that is the one thing that sticks out. The best franchisees will look at themselves and say, "How can I improve? How can I improve? How can I improve?" And the worst franchisers will say, "Whatever I do is great. There must be somewhere— if I'm not converting leads into jobs, it's because I'm getting lousy leads or I'm getting lousy advice or lousy support." or whatever, they'll always blame somebody else. And because they blame somebody else, even though they might be very capable, they can fail. And some very, very smart people are actually terribly bad at life because of that issue. I think one of the greatest, most underestimated virtues in life and in business is humility. The ability to look at yourself and say, "Hi, I'm not perfect." I'm not the best. I don't need to compare myself to others to be better, but I need to see what I can do to improve myself. That's the— good question. Yes.

Perfectly answered. The next one is, if I had 10 minutes with the version of you who was 1 week away from becoming a multimillionaire, what would that version tell me that you wouldn't say publicly today? Ironically, we're in public.

Oh no, I say the same thing to everybody. My advice is always the same. In fact, if you go to jimpenman.com.au and there's a digital version of me and you ask me questions, you'll get the same answers now as then. I've learned a lot of things since I started off, that's for sure, but mostly not to do such utterly stupid things myself. Like, for example, a number of times I've been into businesses I don't understand. And they look great from the outside and you go, "Oh, I can make a fortune." You look at it and, "Brrr, this is hard." 'Cause you don't know what you're doing. So you stick to what you know and try and get better and better at that. That's basically it. I give people the same advice all the time. And it's very, very comparable. I wouldn't hide it.

Yeah, great questions.

Great questions.

Two original questions we've had.

And I've written a saying for Christine in her book which she hasn't—

I will read it on the last day.

On the last day. She asked me to give a word of advice.

Go for it.

Afternoon or evening, fellas. What is one question that you hope nobody ever asks you?

Okay, the one question I hope nobody— why did your wife leave you?

That's a good question.

My current wife. That would be a pretty terrible question because I love my wife dearly, and if she left me, I'd done something very, very badly wrong, okay. So, okay.

There we go, personal good answer.

And having said that I've had a lot of problems in my life in that area as I've explained to you, including sometimes Lee's got close to sick of me, so it's always a worry. My commonest nightmare is the nightmare of being single. I love my wife and I love being with her.

That's lovely.

Mostly I fear something happening to her when she's out driving, every time she's late. I'm afraid something will happen to her. She'll have an accident. That's just a constant fear, like every day.

Go for it.

Hi, Jim. My name's Gwen. I'm from Brisbane, and I was just curious, and I don't know how this question's gonna come out. I haven't thought about how to frame it. It's nothing rude or disrespectful.

I should hope not.

No, but sometimes I say things and I don't think about what I'm saying. I make that mistake. It's the best way to succeed. So I'm doing my best.

You do your best.

Yeah. So I want to know, as a child growing up, what sort of— what's made you who you are, if you can recall. Like, I know I heard a little bit. I haven't read your book yet, but I've got it. So I don't really know a lot about, like, that part. Like, not everyone has a good childhood, but you make it what you want to make it. And I want to know, as a child, what was your influences like? Was it your— grandparent or was it your school teacher? Like, who would you say it was?

Well, my parents obviously had a big influence on me. But it's strange how people turn out, you know, Gwen, because I am immensely grateful for my parents. They were sometimes tough, bit bad-tempered at times, but very well-meaning. My brother didn't speak to my mother for years and he sent her a sent a letter basically after no contact saying, you know, everything that's wrong with me is your fault and there's this book called The Poisoned Parent you should read to find out why. It's the same mother whom I thought was a wonderful lady. So how can two such people end up totally differently? I think I took a different route in my teenage years and I'm gonna say something which is probably a bit shocking to people here. You can clutch your eyes, ears if you don't wanna hear it. Something very strange happened to me. I had no sexual outlet as a teenager. Nothing at all. I didn't work out how to do what kids do, okay. I just didn't. And that changed me in a very fundamental way and I kept that sort of habit of self-discipline and restraint into my life and it made me a very different person. So it wasn't so much any particular person that made that difference. It was the, it was the that sense of discipline, that sense of restraining the worst impulses, which changed me in a basic way. And I only now, decades later, do I have some understanding of what happened. It's to do with the way that my dopamine system is probably more reactive than most people's. Therefore, I find certain things like faith, like work, humility even, more natural to me. I have a kind of mental state. I'm writing a book called Birthrate Crisis, actually. I'm just— it'll be released in October, which talks about how what we do affects our character. And things like the fact that I've got 10 kids, whereas my siblings have got like, you know, 3 between them. It's the fact that I'm a Christian, Greek churchgoer, and they're not, to put it mildly. A lot of things. It's what you do yourself more than anything else.

Yeah. I wanted to say, I asked that question because I find myself odd out of 10 children, like the accountability part, like you mentioned. So I was resonating with what you said, like stop blaming people. And I kind of find like, yeah, what makes siblings different than Jim Penman?

Yes, yeah.

It's not just the environment, come from the same parents.

Exactly, we make decisions ourselves. And I think people, tend to blame. Like my brother had this attitude. Now he became a very bitter, disillusioned man, okay. Blamed his parents, including me I might say, his older brother, for the misery that he felt. But he was very different when he was younger. He was charming. He was best man at my first wedding. He was just the kind of guy who would help everybody, just a really decent young man. And he got into stuff. Hashish, marijuana, don't know. For decades he was into this stuff. And I just think it wrecked his mind. It's easy to blame somebody else, isn't it? But in reality, I think it's what he did. He took a very different path to what I did. One that says, "Let's do what feels good right now," rather than, "Let's do what's right." What's difficult, but what's right. And the whole of life depends on decisions. So the amazing thing about that is that we can have good or bad parenting, but in the end it's the decisions that we make that make the difference. And anybody can choose to live a better life.

Good.

Thank you.

That's a great question.

That's it.

Excellent. What was actually the question? What was the frame of it? What did you say?

It's right there, Gwen.

Gwen?

Gwen, it's right there.

Gwen, whatever you asked Gwen, that was a great question. I can't even remember quite how it was phrased, but that's a very— very well phrased. Thank you.

G'day, my name's Luke. I'm here for the Jim's Mowing Group. But actually, first of all, congratulations to both of you because it's a TikTok video that led me here.

Right, which one?

I can't remember which one, but it was that that put the thing in my mind.

All right, there we go.

And led me here, so well done.

Thank you. He's a very valuable guy. He won some awards in these franchising things, didn't you?

Yeah, they've been fantastic, all the social media. Jim, you're a— clearly from where you've come from back in, was it 1990 or '89 when you started to now, you're always looking forward and evolving where we want to go. So I've started, I'm really embracing AI in a lot of my life. Where do you see AI's involvement with the Jim's Group or, yeah, over the next 5 years or where it could lead?

It's very useful We use it already in things like programming. We have an immense backlog of things we want to do, and AI helps us to do that faster. I know that Joel makes good use of it, like in the digital gym, which is based on all these kinds of principles, which is really amazing. You can speak to that digital gym for hours, and it's just like talking to me.

Yeah.

Because it's got everything that's been put in. So all this kind of stuff is great. I love using it myself. I use it in my research. Just been working today on Chinese dynasties, working out what happened and what changed and how their attitudes changed and political and cultural changes and stuff. It's fantastic. You get some things, you look it up, you get all kinds of references, you get more information. It's just fantastic. So having said that, it's incredibly useful to us. I would also say it's one of the most dangerous things you could possibly have. It terrifies me. If I had a choice, I would wipe it out tomorrow, today. It would be gone. I don't think the value of it is anything remotely worth the danger we're putting ourselves in. There's a book that says, "If We Build It, We'll All Die," something like that, some name like that, about the fact that if you get a super intelligent AI, which we're not far off, that's the end of the human race. It's quite petrifying. And I think unfortunately because of competitive pressures, we can't turn the clock back, but it worries me a great deal. I think we're faced with some very, very serious danger. AI is one, biologically engineered viruses is another, and AI is going to make that worse because it makes it easier to create these stupid things. Imagine something like COVID but with 30% mortality. Which is quite conceivable. It's happened in the past. So yes, very useful but really, really, really dangerous.

Probably the best thing is the franchisee is using it for quotes to win more jobs. So I think that's the thing. Play with stuff around it and just for fun or whatever, but actually lots of use cases of franchisees now, especially in mowing, like with soft landscaping quotes or whatever. They've got Mrs. Jones at the back who'd maybe never seen ChatGPT, for example, and they tell her, what do you want, Mrs. Jones? They take a picture of the backyard and then 'Is this what you want?' and show AI the AI image.

He's like, 'Jeez, how'd you do that so quick?' And people even starting off, I've started using it more than Google. So when talking to that guy, 'This is what I'm doing, Jim Penman franchise,' go through all the equipment, let's compare it all.

Yes.

And go, 'Okay, let's put together, this is the comparisons, this is the ratings on it.' So yeah.

Yeah, that's great. That's the thing, you can go deep with your, rather than just standard Google search before, right? And you can do all the pros and comparisons and it's getting all these sources of information and things like that. But I think, Yeah, franchisees in our world using it for updated weather reports every morning to their phone with what's the conditions for mowing, what's the traffic like, for example, linking it to a live traffic radar, or doing it for quotes for their landscaping jobs and are actually winning more quotes than what they would have before, or they can actually write a scope of works where they couldn't have done before. That's really been really cool for our franchisees. But Jim's a bit of a doomsayer. I'm a bit more of an optimist on it. I know Musk did an interview the other day saying that in 5 years we're going to have all this abundance and people won't have to work. Due to AI, so we'll see which way it goes.

Which would be a nightmare in itself if people weren't working, though I do think our area is the last one that could possibly be put away from AI. That is true, that's the thing. You could get rid of a lot of white-collar jobs, but what we do is very difficult unless you have perfectly humanoid robots, and if we do, we're completely stuffed.

They're a while away.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Thanks for letting us know about TikTok as well, that's great. Cool, go for next. Yeah, come up, go for it.

I just want to tailgate this Yes, okay.

Come here.

We want to just hear your question.

Come here. Alright. We want to hear from you directly.

Don't try to hide from the cameras.

So, let's go to the next guy before you real quick.

Sorry, mate.

Just for that question.

My name is Fred. I'm from Western Australia, Perth. So, just wanted to—

I'll excuse you for that, but that's alright. Yeah.

I did ask him for that, so he said alright. Okay. So, my question was that, you know, you've built such a nice business over the years, and AI, as we mentioned, is taking over. There's a human touch to what you do in terms of all this organization. So in 5 or 10 years from now, as AI is taking over, you know, tomorrow it could be— where do we see this franchise model in terms of this business leading for people in next 3, 4 years? Probably they'll get all these answers like, you know, SOPs of a business., how to run it, probably get all your technical qualifications for ready for job, probably some videos on showing how to do and all that stuff. So what's the sustainable model for Jim's like, you know, if you, if you have to explain it to us.

We have a magnificent advantage because we are, we're spending millions of dollars a year on software development, and that includes the use of AI. We've got this program called Jimba, which you're going to hear about tomorrow, which has become quite advanced. We're going to continue investing in a very, very high level indefinitely into the future. There's amazing things happening even this year. It'll get better and better and better. And we'll be using AI in more and more different ways. And because of the fact that we've got nearly 6,000 franchisees, we can actually invest in a way that none of our people in the industry can. So, I think you'll see some absolutely remarkable things happening. I can't imagine what they're going to be. This thing about landscaping is an example, but there's going to be so many others that we can do. We can have systems that can analyse your business and explain to you exactly how you can improve efficiency and where your slowness is, and what you can do, give you detailed advice on things like travel and so forth. Analyse it, and just think about it, and advise you.

So, was your question about people could get the information from AI to start a business over doing a franchise, or what was the—

Yeah, so that was like, you know, why do I come to Jim's?

Right, when I can start a business myself using AI to tell me if I have a business.

Exactly, because you know, if that call lead and generation, so if I put myself up there and then, you know, the system itself will find people who are Googling this information and they would send that leads out to me, you know.

There's a system that you can't, first of all, there's a lot of things we've got that you could never have no matter what you use AI. First of all, reputation. The fact that the Jim's brand alone allows you to add probably at least 10-20% to what you can charge. And then the fact that you having AI is one thing, but having a system that can do something like, which hopefully Jimbo would very shortly be able to do, where it can actually take the lead and it can put an appointment into your diary, those kinds of things. You can't get AI to do that. It's just not that kind of level unless you are incredible tech, wiz. It's just very difficult to do. There's a lot of things you just can't get AI to do. I mean, how can AI analyse your business? Because it doesn't know what inputs you're putting in, what you're doing, where you're stopping, how long it's taking you to do a particular job, how you're travelling. There's a lot of things that you wouldn't even know what to ask. And that's what we can do for you. We can actually do things. And I would say that as this progresses, the advantages we will have over anybody else will become greater and greater and greater. And the gap between what we can achieve for our franchisees, anybody else, we just grow.

I'll give you another one as well if we're doing the podcast. So we have 27-year franchisee, right?

Right.

It doesn't need Jim's from a client's point of view. So why does he stay? He stays 'cause of the community with the other franchisees and his franchisor. So the community of them in real life and also the brand in the market. So if he does, he just gets all these extra commercials and stuff and sort of AI can't really do that in-person community and coaching and support with other franchisees. Plus the actual brand itself. When you're a branded person compared to an independent, you just simply can't get the same rate because you don't have that known in the market. And AI won't be really able to, I think, replicate that anyway.

No.

In regards to how customers look for businesses as well, like, it's still, even though there's AI search, even though there's AI this, AI that, Google's still around, 92% of searches are still Google traditional search. So even though there's a lot of AI usage, it's still, a lot of people aren't using it to go and book a plumber directly. They might be doing research about a plumber, Then they go onto Google to then check out the website or read reviews before going and booking the job. So brand matters and name matters and things like that still.

Alright, listen up.

Mutual support is a very important part of it too. You can have all the right intellectual things to run a business right, but if you don't have the emotional support, you'll fail. You know what the number one danger our franchisees face with? Now bear in mind, we climb tall trees, heights. We use a lot of very high-powered machinery. We do a lot of, we drive a lot and driving is dangerous as you know. You know our number one danger that our franchisees face?

Isolation?

Suicide.

Suicide.

It's by far, we've had 2 franchisees ever die on the job. One of them from a chainsaw accident, one because he was done by a trailer in Canada, something to do with the trailer. Suicide is a terrible problem.

Right.

So you, the human element is really important. We are evolved by millions of years to live as social beings. Being part of a group, of a community, having people you can rely on and talk to, that's very important and you can't beat that. We do have people go independent, we don't stop them at all. We make it quite easy, we just pay a few thousand dollars, go, don't pay any more fees ever, keep all your customers, be my guest. But it's really striking how few people actually do it. Yeah, yeah.

Alright, thank you. I think that was very good information that the human connection on elements It's sort of going that way now.

I'll give you an example. The Franchise Expo is this week, and they've got a record number of tickets. And you think, well, everything could be online now. Why are people going? But people like going face-to-face and still meeting someone and talking to someone. And the AI won't replace that for a while anyway.

Alright, thank you.

Okay, good question. Welcome back.

Good evening, Dr. Penman.

Oh, don't call me that.

Dr. Penman? Geez, I've never heard that one before.

As far as I know, you have a—

Outside of academic circles, I don't use that title.

So, what I want to know, first of all, I didn't actually, before, I actually didn't know I would have a chance to ask question like this. I'm really grateful. So, you were a doctorate in history in the mid-'80s. Before I was born. I'm just assuming—

just not to put a nut in the nutcracker.

Not to pocket the thing of this old geezer at the front here, but still, thank you very much. I needed that.

Just had to add that in there before.

I'm just assuming back then you probably did not dream of who you are today. So, I'm less interested in your business, but I want to know what inspired you to think bigger for the community. How did it shape your journey all these years?

Well, yes, it's not the normal thing. I went to university to try and understand the reason for the rise and fall of civilisations, if you can think. So I thought— I studied sociology, that was garbage, switched to history, got interested in biology, got interested in cross-cultural anthropology, got interested in psychology, a number of different subjects, came up with some what I thought were very different understanding of how society works. I got to the end of my PhD and the people who looked at my thesis just said, "What on earth is this? This is nothing like anything we've ever seen before." They didn't know what to make of it. One of them actually said, in fact the most detailed comment, "If this was the magnum opposite the end of a distinguished career," then we maybe think about it, but who is this guy? I changed everything about why society works, why civilizations work, everything. It's all about character, by the way, changes in human character, which is biologically based. So I finished up my PhD, well, I didn't, I got failed at that time, and I wanted to continue my research, and to do that, because it's basically my research was all in the area of genetics and epigenetics and biology and all the rest of it. I needed to have a research institute. So I needed a lot of money. So at that time, I had a part-time lawn mowing business and I decided to do what I could to develop it or any other business to the stage where I could fund a major research institute. That's been my aim from the beginning. Gyms was just the way that worked. I tried a lot of different things. I tried a computer shop, I tried Amway, I tried mower repair shop, I tried a lot of stupid things and this middle mowing business just kept on improving and improving and over time it turned out to be surprisingly successful. And then 10 years ago I started to, went to an academic at La Trobe University and said, "Can you do some experiments for me based on mice and the way they react to food restriction?" and now we're spending several million dollars a year on developing it. I'm writing a book which will be released shortly. So it just basically comes from that. This is a very outdated version, by the way. There's new versions coming out that are a lot more readable but also a lot more advanced. We've changed a lot. So yes, that's my journey. Very strange, but nothing to do with— I mean, I have a passion. I have I have goals in my life, things that matter to me. One of them is my research, another is my family, my kids, my wife, another is you, my franchisees. My life is very driven by a sense of purpose at every level. So, which I think is the best life. I think if you just live a life to say, "What's in it for me? How can I get it? What's my best short-term interest?" You're gonna live a pretty miserable life on the whole. But having a sense of purpose, which I do, is meaningful. But fundamentally, research, this research is behind everything, 'cause we're in a very bad way. Not just a matter of AI, which as I said before, scares me. It's the fact that there's a change in character in the population, and it's leading us in a very, very bad direction. But it can be changed, and I think I know how to do it. So that's probably more deep than you wanted, but still.

Thank you for that. And just an extension to that, you failed many times from whatever you said so far. And you stood back firmly and kept going. Was there any trick that we can take tonight from you? Something that we can copy and paste in our lives?

I think it fundamentally comes down to a sense of what you're living for. And if you're driven by a sense of purpose, then you can't give up. It doesn't matter how difficult it is, you simply got to persist. I don't understand any other way of thinking than to simply say, "What's important? What's the goal of my life? What does God want me to do with my life?" And then follow that. And anything else is incidental. If you know why you're living, then how you live becomes less of an obstacle, doesn't it? Because you've got your direction. No matter how difficult and how many wrong mistakes you make, you look at it and say, "Okay, I made a mistake. I'll fix it. I'll keep on going." My wife says I'm like one of those, you know those plastic things which has got weights in the bottom?

Like inflatable tubes that you see waving around.

Like an inflatable girlfriend but with weight on the bottom. Okay. I don't have one of those. Very fond of my wife, no other interests. But if you knock it over, it springs back. She says I'm like that. You just keep on springing back. No matter what goes wrong, I just say, "Okay, that's happened. I've got a $2 million tax bill I didn't expect," or whatever it happens to be. What do I do? Okay, I do this and this and this. What's the next step? No matter how badly I feel about something, I look at what's my next step, what have I got to do. And to me, giving up is just not— it's not even— I can't even imagine it. I can't imagine retiring. I can't imagine giving up. I know eventually I'm going to die, probably in about 20 years' time, but I just— in the meantime, I've got lots and lots and lots to do. And that is my life. Every day I get up for a reason. I work for a reason.

There you go.

Thank you. Thank you. Fourth clap for today, Jim.

That's good.

They're a very good bunch.

I did say that.

Very nice. Go for it.

Hi, I'm Tammy, Jim's Pools in Perth. I'd just like to thank you personally. My son came here last November, started at Jim's mowing, doing fantastic.

Who's your son? What's his name?

His name's Daniel Minchell. He was here. Yeah.

He's enjoying it. He's loving it, doing really well.

So I'm starting Jim's Pools, he's doing Jim's Mowing.

We're both in the same household. We're both very driven. I'm very family first.

Yes.

Have you got any advice that you could give that, or any pitfalls that we might need to look for? I think it's great to be successful. And I think it's an obligation on people to look after their welfare and that of their family. I really do. But having said that, I think too much focus on money is a big mistake. The book that you've been given is called No Other Success and it's short for No Other Success Can Compensate for Failure in the Home. And people often ask me how I neglected my family to pursue my business and I never did. I never ever ever compromised on that. I just don't care enough about money. To neglect my family. I'm reading a book at the moment, or listening to a talking book by J.D. Vance. Now J.D. Vance is the, as you know, the Vice President of the United States, and he is the second in charge to an extremely corrupt and obnoxious character known as Donald Trump, whom I think is one of the most unpleasant and dangerous people in the world, but I enormously admire Vance. And he talks a lot about how he became a Christian, came back to faith, and he talks about the emptiness of the elites and how they're striving for success at the expense of family and the focus on money rather than on more important things. Just a passage I'm just listening to tonight where he's talking about how when a woman stays home to look after her children, she's considered to be a drag on the community. She should be out there paying a children— someone to look after her children and then go and do a job, in which case the GDP of the country goes up. And he said, but that's really not measuring some of the things that are most important in life. So he talks a lot about the emptiness of striving and stuff. I think he's a good man. I think he's— you wonder so much about him and Trump, but I think he's fundamentally got very, very good values. Wonderful book, it's called Communion, just come out.

Thank you.

There you go. Another mother joining because their son's doing well in a division. We had Wayne's mum last time in pool chess, so that's cool. Yeah, go for it.

Hello, Jim. My name is Abdullah. I'm from Perth and I'm doing Jim's Muay. I want to thank you first because just looking at you inspired me and all the franchisees and stuff I've seen on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and all that. I love it. So it's a good opportunity.

Yeah, well, that's good. My question is, I don't know if you know it, but I don't have anything to do with social media. It's all done through this guy. I don't even say that, should I?

No, no, it's all good.

I still answer things, but he gives them to me and I answer them.

You're doing all the posting.

Trust me, there's so many clips of you on TikTok. You're trending.

There's a lot.

Yeah, you're trending.

I've never actually used TikTok, but I know all about it from this guy.

That's what we do.

So my question was, um, you mentioned your research is, uh, the most important thing to you, even more so than Jim's group and the rest. That's also what Dave said, so maybe expand on that and tell us what topics you're researching, what drives that, why you do it, and what your daily life looks like, like you're researching.

Research is the most important thing. They're all 3 important things to me. I wouldn't put the priority— I wouldn't put my research ahead of my family. If I pursue my research to neglect my kids, I'm not acting as a very good father, am I? That's one of the things that Vance says in his book too. You've got to— but it's important. It's important for everybody that we live in a better society, and I think there's this change in character taking place. People think that what happens in society is all driven by economics and the decisions of leading people and stuff. I don't think that's what matters. I think what matters is the character of ordinary people. If you've got people who are hardworking and enterprising,, you tend to have a wealthy society. If you have one where they're lazy and demotivated, you'll tend to be poorer. If people are clear and creative, you'll tend to be innovative. If they're more stodgy and more conditional, you won't. If people love children, love family, you'll tend to have a healthy birth rate. If they put other priorities ahead of it, like, you know, success, wealth, having fun, whatever, then you'll tend to have less children. And eventually the society is going to die out and fail. So to me it's all about character. People's character changes. People like to think that we're always the same, but we're not. People change dramatically from one time to another. Their character changes, and that's what I'm interested in. And I think this has a deep epigenetic base. It has a basis in the way that our— I don't know if you understand genetics, but genetics is the way that a Basically, an element of DNA spits out a protein. That's, that's basically how our whole bodies work at every level. Epigenetics is the effect of the environment in changing the way the genes work. It switches certain genes on, switches them off. And that has dramatic effects so that your life experience, what you do, your upbringing, what you do as a teenager, even what you do as an adult affects this epigenetics. That's what I'm interested in, and we are looking at this directly, and we're trying to work out ways of understanding what happens and how you reverse some of the most damaging changes that take place. And it actually could be quite revolutionary. If you look at the difference between, say, rich and poor people, the terrible problems that we have, say, amongst our native Aboriginal people, for example, now that is an epigenetic system. They're not genetically different to us. There's a few very superficial differences of colour and skin which are completely irrelevant They're epigenetically different because they're adapted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle which doesn't work quite so well in a civilised, in a society like ours, industrial society. So all the problems that we face of poverty and disadvantage and in the end of things like racism and so forth depends on epigenetic changes. We can change them. So it's a very, very radically different way of understanding what's going on in the world. It's got different solutions. No government can change things. No laws can make a difference. People are what's important. Every ordinary people, what we do, the decisions we make, the lives we live. That's what matters more than anything. More than the decisions of Anthony Albanese or Jacinta Allan or any of those top people. They don't really matter. We do. Ordinary people matter. So it's a fundamentally different way of understanding the world. Implicitly it could change everything. If I can show, if I can influence people, and we're presenting this book and we're going to promote it very widely. It's been very carefully co-written with a co-author. It's going to be promoted very actively along with Joel's help amongst others. We're going to push this out there. We're going to provide free copies of my more detailed research findings which will be actually plugged along with it. But anybody can look at the more detailed stuff. And we're going to try and get people interested in doing something to change the world in a better way. And that's for the sake of everybody, for the sake of my children, it's for the sake of you, of my franchisees, of the kind of world, the kind of world that your children are going to grow up in.

Yeah, thanks so much, Jim Penman, for that amazing answer. I'm just going to say, being here in this facility has been so good. I'm sure if you ask anyone getting to see you present, the other guys, and being here, the food, it's been so great. We just want to thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming over from Perth as well. Got a question for Jim, guys? Feel free to ask him anything.

Sorry, just me again, Sasha. Um, can I just ask, top 3 books you may recommend for success in business, please, Jim, that's influenced you?

Yeah, we had that online, that one as well, so that's a good one. They asked for 5, so we'll go 3, maybe go 5, as many as you can name.

The trouble is there's so many good books, it's very, very difficult to— I think books like Atomic Habits and Tiny Habits are absolutely brilliant because the decision about anything in life, whether you're successful in your family or your business or anything else, it depends on what you do. It's not some brilliant idea, it's the little things, it's getting up and doing the things you need to do. And these books are about habits, creating good habits and habits stacking, how you get to do the things you need to do. It's difficult. I don't find it always easy to do the right thing. I'm very lazy. I have to set myself disciplined habits. When I sit down, I do this, I clear my emails, I clear this and do this, then I work on my book and I must spend a certain amount of time every day. I know if I start, I'll complete it. So those kinds of things are really important. What other books would I recommend to anybody going into business? My goodness, there's so many. I read a lot of business biographies. I like to know what people have done. There's a book called, by Marc Randolph, called That Will Never Work, which is about the starting of Netflix and stuff, which is just beautifully written. It's a story. I love reading about people like Warren Buffett, who's an amazing guy, and Charlie Munger too, though he's dead now, of course. Just their ethics and how they got to be so insanely wealthy, but by doing really good things. Helping people but also living a good life that wasn't so bound up in material possessions and stuff.

That Covey, he always mentions 7 Habits.

Stephen Covey, yes. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. A lot of it's actually about character more than anything else. You can learn it because I read incessantly or listen. I probably read or listen to a couple of books a week. So I read all the time about different things. Sometimes you want to read about things that are bad, you know, why Enron went bad. What was the mistake there they made? What was the attitude that was so poisonous that caused them to come unstuck? Or even companies like GE and so forth. If you go into jimpenman.com.au, you will see a list of business books which is there. It's very hard to pick, and the answer I give you will change according to what I've been reading. Recently, so it's difficult to say. But I do suggest that one of the best things you can do is to immerse yourself in stories, in books about discipline, in books about happiness, in books about being a good parent, and then business biographies. 'Cause I don't think that being successful in business is the be-all and end-all. Listen, I'm not nearly as rich as I could be. It's just not even one of my major aims. I wouldn't spend half my time working on other things. And so much of my resource and other things, if I thought that money was the most important thing, it just isn't. I deeply admire people who are, like, we've got a pastor in our church, um, guy called Bill, who is just the most amazing guy. He is just, I went to his birthday party once and his wife got several of us there to talk about what Bill had done for them. And it was just an amazing thing to hear this outpouring of love for this guy and all his Bill will never be rich. He's just on a pastor's salary. They don't pay that much in my church. He's just such an incredible guy. And I see great stories from my franchisees. I hear stories about— I talked to a guy who's from Liberia and he's making good money as a mowing— this is a 10-year talk— and he's actually funding a school and a clinic back home in Liberia. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that wonderful? By being a mowing franchisee in So I'm sort of wandering wildly, aren't I? But I do think that if you immerse yourself in books and good podcasts and stuff too, as well, if you can immerse yourself in good ideas and good thinking, it can't help but improve you and change you. And I do think that success is a lot more than business.

Sure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Good question. So JimPenman.com.au is a whole bunch of books. And stuff on there which Jim mentioned that are all listed there as well under your book recommendations.

Go for it.

Hello, hi Jim, hi Joel.

G'day.

I'm Mohammed from Central Coast, NSW. I've watched a lot of videos of both of you but this is the first time I've seen you live.

Very disappointing.

Very scientific. First of all, I would like to say thank you to Jim for doing whatever you're doing for community and providing us such a great platform to build our own career. Secondly, I would like to ask you, what would be your message for those social media keyboard warriors? Because that's my personal experience when I started doing some research.

Sorry, my advice for who?

Social media keyboard warriors. So maybe somebody leaves a negative comment about—

yeah, they have negative comments about Jim's, about you, about that brand. But I've done a lot of research on that. When I personally met different people which they actually doing business, it's totally different. I watch a lot of YouTube videos as well. I've done my own research. That's why I'm here. I didn't hear anyone, and I personally talk few people actually from social media. Some of them are ex-franchises, don't know for whatever reason they left, but they say a lot of negative things about Jim's.

Most of the ones that say negative things are those who don't know anything about us. They'll say things like, why would you pay 40% of your income in fees? This kind of thing, when the reality is like 6%. We don't mind the negatives actually at all.

We spend all day on TikTok answering those.

We tend to pick them out. We tend to answer the negative ones more than the positive ones because it's chance to set the record straight. And what actually happens is when you respond to that, you might get, what, 20,000 people looking at some answer which actually puts it straight. And you say sensible— I can say sensible things like, well, do some research for heaven's sake. If you think that somebody pays 40% of their fees, then go out on the road with a franchisee and ask them how much they're making and what fees they're paying. Do some real-life asking. And in reality, those are pretty strong answers. And I think in the end more people see the answers and they stick it and they say, "Well, this guy's just a fool. He's just making a comment. He doesn't know anything." Whereas here's the actual answer. You know how we made Jim's work in the early days? I didn't have any money. I had, but I didn't have any great office. I had a list of my franchisees with their phone numbers. And if somebody come to me about a franchise, I'd say, "Ring 'em. Go out on the road with them.

Find out for yourself." I think the strength for us is you have actual franchisees who are working going, "That's completely wrong, I make this and that," and you see that and they still don't want to listen to that. I also think a lot of people, a lot of those people leaving the comments are employees, they're actually not business owners. A lot of the time you'll have independents coming and saying, "I'm not with Jim's but it's a great system, I'd use this and stuff," but I think some people just enjoy leaving negative comments on things, then I guess that's more of a reflection on them. Anyone who takes the time to leave a negative comment on social media, I would not say is a successful business owner. A successful or happy person. And that's sort of the way I look at them. But it's great for us because we can use that comment to then do—

But sometimes negative comments can be good. I think there's some definitely bad things going on in the world, and if somebody criticises that, I wouldn't want to shut them down.

I do think franchising as a business concept does get a bad rap. You know, you have things like the 7-Eleven, for example, and like, that's not good because we will get lumped in with that just because of the word franchise, right?

But having said that, one of the best signs that somebody's going to be a good franchisee In fact, almost the single best sign, I tell this to franchisors, look for somebody who's done their research. The more research somebody does, the better that they're likely to be as a franchisee. So, in general, the kind of people that would read some ill-informed comment and say, 'That's it, I won't do franchising,' are probably fools. Whereas the person that looks and investigates and says, 'Okay, I can see this, but here's an answer here and here's this person saying this.' and looks at a whole lot of different things and then do some analysis and then investigate. That kind of person is likely to be a very good franchisee. Honestly, that's the person we want. If somebody's foolish enough just to take some misinformed impression and go beyond it, they really— I mean, why would you decide to buy or not buy a business, which is your whole life basically for the next however many years, on the basis of no research? Even if you say yes on the basis of no research, that's stupid. I would say to anybody, investigate. Don't just believe me. If I say that we're better than X company, it's okay, it's my opinion, but I'm the franchisor for heaven's sake. You do your research. Go and talk to them. So when somebody tells me they've actually been to talk to somebody, competition, I say good on you, that's great. Now I'm pretty confident in the end we'll win because if they do their research properly, they'll find it's a better system. I don't expect anybody to believe me. I think they should do their own research and find out. So I don't worry about the keyboard warriors. We do very well out of social media. We do really, really well.

Yeah, and last, I would like to pass a message to those people who actually try to mislead me. This is real, and please do your own research before spreading wrong information. Absolutely.

We'll clip that up. I'm sure they'll comment on that. That'll be good. That's a good one.

We've never had such a positive bunch. I said this morning after the talk, this is a very, very enthusiastic group.

Well, each group dynamic's different. So last group was a bit more reserved, and obviously this group's a bit more present, which is fantastic. We just can't pick it, can we?

We don't know why, actually.

Just the whole changes.

Maybe if you keep it by the door.

I don't know. I've got a question for Jim, guys. Feel free to come up. We've got time for a couple more. I'll read one online while people are getting their questions up. One from Marissa's gone, "What would you suggest I do to increase my customers, especially for winter months?" 'With many rescheduled appointments at the last minute.' She's from Jim's Dog Wash in New Zealand.

Upsell. Look what you can do extra. There's always other jobs you can do. I can't speak so much for dog wash, but if it's mowing, which is quite typically in the winter, you can do pruning, you can do gutter clearing, you can do rubbish removal, you can do all kinds of things. You can even do drainage and so forth if you can do it, and do moss removal. In fact, the best operators will make more money in the off-season than they do in the in the busy season.

Another one from Trevor. Hi Jim, do you think as a business owner it's okay to take 20% as a deposit when booking in a job?

If you can get away with it, I don't mind.

Fair enough. Make sure you do the job though, that's the main thing.

Yes. Hey, I'm Denton. I'm looking to start a Jim's Antennas in Wollert, India. I've got two questions. One is a little bit more personal and then the other one is a bit more professional.

The professional one is, what is What are your biggest business regrets that you've had over the years from Jim's Group to you as well as your academic career? And then number 2, what is your personal biggest regrets?

My worst mistakes is always going into things I don't understand. I've done so many stupid things. I tried to run, way back, I tried to run, get a holiday resort going. I didn't have the expertise. Expertise, I didn't have the money. I just lost me a fortune doing it when I didn't have it. This was just about the time I first started Jim's. Well, I didn't think Jim's was gonna work that well. I've done other things. I've got the Trade Exchange a couple of times, bad idea. I've tried to set up a psychology institute which I actually set up but it cost me a lot of money for no great return. Just so many things I've made going into areas I don't understand or taking over things I don't understand. Stand. We tried to run a factory for building fibreglass trailers. Terrible. Just, we don't know what we're doing. So that's my, in business terms, that's the kind of thing I've done wrong. I've also chosen wrong people too. That's very difficult for me. I don't know how to judge people sometimes. Sometimes you just have to try and see someone and then you work out that they're not a great thing. Personal regrets, look, I've done a lot of things that are awful. My first marriage, losing my kids was just disastrous, just terrible. It was an awful blow. It still hurts years later, decades later. You'll never recover from that.

I think it's in the book, a lot of the detailed stuff.

A lot of things in the book actually, a lot of personal issues and things. You know, I broke up with a girlfriend when I was 21 years old and I broke up with her, not her with me, and it still hurts. So I didn't— I've done a lot of really bad things. I've done things that I regret. My life's been messed up. But having said that, I wouldn't undo any of my kids. I wouldn't undo my marriage that I've got now, which is amazing, 25 years. I'd never undo anything that led to the great things that have happened. Some of the things in recent years I would undo. But you can't regret your kids. I've got wonderful kids. I've got 10 great kids. And I've got 6 grandchildren, another one on the way. So you can't— you can't regret that sort of thing. At all. But what you try and do is learn from the mistakes and try not to make them too often again. That's all.

Very good.

Good question. Good question as well. Appreciate it. If you've got a question for Jim, guys, feel free to come up and ask. We've got time for a couple more.

Hi, Jim. Scott from Brisbane in Mowing. Just wanted to say I've just been sending messages back home Hi to Abby and Charlotte. I hope you've done your homework. If you haven't, please get on to it.

This is a good relationship. Good father. I approve.

And I guess through my learning about gyms and all the different franchise models that are available and the different business types has really broadened my horizon as to what is available to the point where I'm now talking about— I've sent some photos home and my youngest daughter Abby loves dogs. So I've told her about the dog washing and she's already wanting to sign up. So what's the minimum age? That's not really my question. And my eldest daughter Charlotte, she's been wanting to be a psychologist. So she's 14, still in high school, still fairly early. So I've been talking to her previously about the life coaching side of the business and sort of thing. So that just got me curious as to Does Jim's actively promote your franchise models and range of businesses to schools, primary schools, high schools, as career options?

No, we don't really. Strangely enough though, we do promote ourselves because one of our top demographics is 15 to 25-year-olds, isn't it?

Yeah, on socials and stuff, yeah.

We do extremely, we actually reach hundreds of thousands of young people through the social media side. Which is a lot more direct than anything I could do speaking. I can go and give a talk to a school and I can speak to 60 kids, but you can do a post on social media and you speak to 60,000.

Occasionally Jim does talks to schools and stuff. I remember this engineering kid school and stuff. He does Zooms and he will do talks.

But they record those too.

We record all that, yeah.

Yes. So that's the kind of thing we find. Social media is actually the best way to reach people, and I think you can reach a lot more effectively.

We do find it's good where we have younger people who are doing the business, like Skagen's like 23, didn't He was a lawyer at uni and quit that and became a Jim's Window and Pressure Cleaning franchisee. That's really powerful stuff for like the 18 and 21-year-olds to sort of watch. So getting our younger guys to do more content, which they're great because they want to do all that sort of stuff.

We don't, we think having young people do it is great, but there's one thing, they have to find the money themselves. As I was saying this morning, if somebody else, if your parents are buying your business for you, that's a very, very bad sign. You shouldn't do it. The absolute most. They maybe act as the guarantor for a loan. You've got to have a young person who's got the initiative and energy to do it themselves. 'Cause you often get a situation where a parent's very successful, they can see a child, often a son, not going anywhere, and they want to get them on the road. And they think, 'I'll give you the business.' No, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. You've got to have it yourself. You've got to have that drive yourself. So—

Abby and Charlotte, I hope you heard that.

Yeah.

Thank you, Jim Penman. Off the hook. Good question, you guys. Got a question for Jim, guys? Feel free, come up. Got time for maybe one or two more, I reckon. If you've got a couple there, go for it.

Yeah, sure, go for it.

Uh, it's not, you know, Jim's related at all, but, um, you know how you were saying earlier about, um, super intelligence and AI and all that stuff? Um, how far off do you think we are before it takes a major effect on our world or universe?

I don't know. Next few years? I mean, it's getting there, isn't it?

Yeah.

It gets better all the time. It gets more powerful all the time. It's quite dizzying, the speed. They've been talking about artificial intelligence for ages. It's just the last few years and suddenly they've made this breakthrough about these learning models and stuff. I really don't know. I don't know. I'm just not an expert in such things. It does worry me. I can see the excitement, I can see the potential of it. I can see the kind of stuff we can do with AI can be tremendously useful. But it's like a lot of things, you know, you can use genetics and stuff to understand how to cure diseases and you can use it to make deadly viruses which kill people in a huge level. Technology's always got two uses, hasn't it?

Yeah.

I'm concerned about the way the world's going in so many ways. I really do. I think everybody ought to be prepared for things possibly getting a lot worse. I think everybody should have a year's supply of food put away. If you can have space, then have your own garden. Learn some self-sufficiency skills. I think the world is a dangerous place. We've had so many decades, even centuries in a sense, Australians, of prosperity that we don't understand how dangerous the world usually is. As a historian, I can tell you that's not the normal state of humanity. We're in a very benevolent time. So I think, I don't know where the danger will come, but I see potential dangers, a lot of them. I'm personally optimistic. You can't, I'm not down by despair. I'm continuing to develop the things that I want, I believe in. I think something easily could go very badly wrong. And that could be within the next decade.

Good answer.

We've got one more question. We're trying to end on a high note. Anyone have one more question? We'll end with this one. Then do you get your three favourites ready for the prizes?

Ben from Jim Penman Gippsland.

Just what do you guys think about franchisees taking on content themselves with YouTube and things like that. I've seen a few out there.

Yeah, I love it.

Well, we've got Jordan's Mowing, you asked me a question before. Jordan's doing a really good job on that, I thought. He's a good kid and it looks like good. I love it, yeah. And just, and the second one is, is just how did this place come about?

Obviously an ex-Swinburne, I think it was, university, and what was the thought process behind the facility?

Well, basically we're running it out of an office complex I wanted the place to be able to do this. I wanted a place to be able to bring prospective franchisees together and build a community, build a sense of vibe. When you leave here after, you know, it'll be 2 and a half days I think this time, more for some.

2 and a half days, yeah.

You have a sort of a sense of the spirit of the place. There's a sort of a cultural thing. And Jim's, as much as anything, it's not just contracts and uniforms, its culture, its ideas, the way we think about each other. And if you can be in this kind of community for several days and you absorb some of that, I think it has a big impact and it does change people in a way. 'Cause we find people who actually start in business are often very open, very flexible. After a time they get more fixed in their mind but the moment when you're starting off you're open and if we can show you a way to think about business and think about life and think about each other that is powerful and attractive, and it changes people.

What was built here then, Jim? So when you took it over back in 2002, around about then, what was— what have you built here?

Well, all the buildings across the other side there were there, and there was another building which was the library, which is on that concrete slab behind lecture theatre, which was burnt down. This was here, was just a small cafeteria. Is hugely extended. What we've built is we extend this building, we put all the accommodation in place, which is 96 rooms. So that's what we've done. And we've modified everything else, of course. So it was very different. But the basic idea was to be able to have people come together and live as a community. That was the idea. And I think it's worked quite well. We never thought we'd be this big. This was back in— what, 23 years ago we moved here? Before your time, but you'd have been—

I was in primary school, maybe.

You were in primary school. But it was really quite unimaginable that we would grow to the extent that we have when you came here, but it was good. Initially we had 24 rooms, just the top ones up there, that was all we had for accommodation.

And in regards to what you said about content, I think it's great. So the more you can do it, the better. That's all my session is about tomorrow. I think we're very forward thinking in franchisees doing content. A lot of franchise brands are ultra restrictive and they, you know, here's some stock photos and posts and they get zero engagement. We've got some franchisees who generate millions of views a month just doing mowing content, all this oddly satisfying content, which we don't have to do at head office and they can create millions of views for the division for free.

And sometimes they can say things we don't always agree with, like I think it was Jordan was saying—

Jordan Mowing, yeah.

—said don't start a business in the middle of winter, in a mowing franchise in the middle of winter. Well, I think that's pretty bad advice because people who do that tend to do better, but The fact of the matter, that's his opinion, and I don't mind if he says that.

It's very forward-thinking, like a franchise allowing a franchisee to do a YouTube channel independent of us is something that would not be allowed.

I think the very fact that he's prepared to take a different view from us makes it more real.

Well, he gets hundreds of thousands of views, and that's something we don't, you know, that builds trust on his side because he's the— people will trust him as the franchisee more than they will the corporate account, right? So yeah, it actually helped being— because he did it from day one right through. Yeah, it was actually really interesting to watch his content. Absolutely, and some physically we just can't do. We've got one video team here, we can't physically be there from that, so he's allowed to do it. He loves doing it as well, and he's making money now off the YouTube revenue for himself, and I can see him being a big star with it actually.

It's quite exciting actually, because as he progresses, and he's a very capable guy, it's going to get to the stage where he's actually going to progress.

Wait for spring, wait for spring with his videos. He started in winter, right?

Yeah, he started in winter, so he's going to be showing things happening and workers and so forth and explaining that that's going to be a real-life story. Real life. You know something? I love stories that are real life. I don't know about you. But pure fiction is never as interesting as real life. So I love, for example, historical stories like things like Wolf Hall, which is about Thomas Cromwell. Or other kinds of things like where you take actual historical stories and they kind of show them what they might have been like at the time. To me, that's more interesting. I love the real world, in all its imperfections and peculiarities and false things. And I think something like what Jordan's done is fantastic. We'd love more people to do it. I hope he makes a fortune out of it. That would be absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, I think he will. He's a gun. I think he's gonna be a full YouTube creator.

He might get to the stage where he's actually making far more out of his YouTube channel than he does out of gyms.

Wouldn't surprise me. He might do it in a reckon 6 months, to be honest. He's done fantastic. So it's really good, but I think us as a brand allowing trust in franchisees to do it's the key. Most, 99.9% of franchise brands just wouldn't allow because they can't control it. They want to control messaging and all that sort of stuff, and the reason why it works is because it's not the corporate account. It's the franchisee posting his own experience, and it's even when you watch it, you go, geez, you can't, you know, he might have said something that, you know, the corporate might not like, but that adds to the authenticity of it because everyone goes authenticity now with marketing. Yeah, and I think it sends a pretty clear clear message of exactly what happens in the franchise world of gyms. That's right, absolutely. Yeah, and we've already sold 2 franchises on the back of his videos apparently, which is not his intention, but people have mentioned his video specifically when inquiring about it, so that's great for us and the franchise. But we'll end on that, it's a great comment. So Jim, 3 people— so what we're gonna do, I'll just explain it. So anyone who asks a question, you'll get a prize, but what happens is Jim will pick his 3 favorite for first pick of the prize, so get whatever you want. Then anyone else that asked a question, you can come and take everything here except for the laptop. I've got some little gift cards here and we've got all the prizes there. If you want a photo with Jim as well, hand me your phone and I can take them for you as well at the end. So which one's stood out to you, Jim, tonight?

I like the question that Gwen asked.

I can't remember what it was.

Gwen? Where's Gwen? Where are you, Gwen? Gwen, come up and pick anything you like. First pick. Yeah, go for it. Grab anything you like first up. What's the next one?

The statement about regret. What's the biggest business and personal regret?

I think it was the second or third last. Who asked that? Yep, come up, grab anything you like. Yep. Also there's gift cards here if you want one of them instead.

And look, there's so many, there's so many, um, someone was asking about the reason for what we do. That was a good one.

The reason for your research, or what was it for?

The reason, the reason, what's the reason? I can't remember that one. Who was that? You can remember what that one was about? I just wrote it down.

The reason. Who can remember that? Who wants to, ah, it's all good.

Alright, the first person who asked about AI then, who was that? This was it.

Who first asked about AI? Was it you with the beanie or was it someone else?

Was it you guys? Was it about AI? Okay, come down the front. But look, some great questions. Very hard to choose. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. And those who asked multiple questions, multiple picks.

That's right. So guys, thank you very much for your attention. If you want a photo with Jim as well, it's a great time now because there's a big rush on Wednesday. So hand me your phone and I'll take that for you as well. So thank you for your attention tonight. Cool. Yeah. I have to give one of them one. That's all good. Yeah.