Frequently asked questions and comments about owning a Jim's franchise with Jim Penman - 131 546

Because you're more likely to succeed. Statistics show that between 90 and 95% of cleaning and gardening business fail in their first year with us. The figure is averaging around 11% and that includes people who are successful but go independent. So you're far, far, far more likely to make a good long term living out of it. What do you like doing? That's a simple question. What do you enjoy? I was a mind contractor because I love being outside. I. I love gardens, I love grass, I love fresh air. Other people love dogs or they love cars, or they're really keen on electronics. Find out where your love is and do that. In the end, you'll make much more money doing what you love than doing what you think might make you the most money. Basically, you receive training, you receive equipment and tools and setup and so forth, including upfront insurance, of course. And where possible, if there is an established business, you'll buy the actual goodwill for its clients. Otherwise you buy what we call a pay for work guarantee, which means we set you a minimum level of income, which by the way, is a lot less than most franchisees normally make. It's usually between about eleven and fifteen hundred dollars per week. But if you don't make that much money, you go out and offer free services to anybody you like. Your friends, neighbours, family, other gyms, franchisees, anybody, and then the franchisor will pay. And that tends to build their business quite rapidly. We absolutely would insist you doing a trial day. We want you to go out on the road, we want you to have a look at what you're doing to make sure you want to do it. And to be pretty blunt, we want to have a look at you too, because we will fail you if you don't trial well. And we've done that many, many, many times. If you haven't got the ability to listen and do a good job and follow a system which is going to make clients happy, then you shouldn't go into business at all. It's far too much work. Actually, a proportion of unserviced leads is rising year by year. It's currently 28%. Used to be about 15%. As time goes on, we actually find that the demand for service is growing a lot faster than we can grow our franchisees, which is actually a major problem with us. The interesting thing we find too is that where you've got the most franchisees, you tend to get the most work per franchisee. The hardest ones to get going are when you go into a new area or with a new division. But where you've got lots and lots of people like mowing and cleaning, we tend to be flooded with work. For most divisions we do with something like being electrical or plumbing. We obviously you need a qualification also something like handyman, you need to know. But the great majority we provide from scratch. You know, mowing, cleaning, carpet cleaning, antennas, pest control. The great majority of divisions we start from scratch. Fencing is a great one too. It's an eight week course which actually makes people into professional fencers. It's a very, very good deal. We can arrange finance. Usually for most people, if anybody's got a good credit rating, they can normally buy a franchise. If you've got a bad credit rating and no money, you're going to find it difficult. We not only can, but we want you to expand beyond your territory. One of the problems we've got is because there's so much unserviced work around, it's a big problem with customers. Customers will ring us up and they want something done and we can't do it. And they're less likely to ring for other services. So we actually strongly encourage franchisees to build major businesses. We even run training courses on how to do it, how to put employees on, how to put extra vans and vehicles on the road. You can, and we want you to. A split is when a franchisee has so many regular customers they can actually divide them off. So a franchisee in mine might have, say 130 customers. He takes 65 regular customers and sells them and that will probably pocket him about $20,000, which is interesting because the actual that's enough to pay franchise fees for three years. So a franchisee who does a split every year, which is not uncommon, are actually getting far more back from the business. And it's a good deal for the person buying too, because they get good established client base and they're off to a strong start. What I suggest anybody to do is not take my word for it, but do some homework and some research. Get hold of a list of current franchisees from your franchisor which they have to provide you, it's part of the code and their phone numbers, and ring as many as possible. And then you go to the opposition and you ask for their list. If they won't give it to you, then you know you've got to stay clear. But otherwise you ring them and do your homework and go with the system that's best. I'm quite confident it's going to be us, but if it's not, you go wherever it. Go wherever you're led. If you love what you do, it is. And that's the whole secret of it. If you love being outside, if that's your great thing, Mountain Lord's gardening is a great business. I did it 15 years. I should know. If you love cars, if you love dogs, if you love what you do, it's a great lifestyle. The great thing too about any business is that it's flexible. And this is one thing. When I talk to long term franchisees and I ring people who've been with us for 10, 15, this kind of, I talk to them. The main thing they say is the great thing about having your own business is that I get to see my kids, especially men. You know, you got somebody working in the city and had a great salary and had a suit and tie and a smart car, all the rest of it. But they never saw their kids except the weekends and they were so tired. Now they say, I pick up my kids from school, I can go to these sporting events. I know my children, I know my family, I know my wife better than anybody could in the past or women who are doing it have said, this is the kind of job where I can make decent money washing dogs or as a cleaner and I can be there for my kids. Don't have to be latchkeys. I take them to school, I'm there when they get home. It's the biggest size single advantage. I would love to say that our franchisees make a packet more money as franchisees than they did in their previous job. Some do, but on average it's probably reasonably similar. The big difference is lifestyle support is very crucial. First of all, we have meetings and we find those very, very important. The franchisees who go to meetings regularly and we have a meeting about every six weeks, we find that's the optimum. You go to the meeting, you get to know other franchisees, your franchisor, you hear useful things, you get tips to business, you get motivated. Very important on the other side is frequent contact with your franchisor. And that means your franchisor has got to ring you regularly. It's part of their deal. If they don't do that, they can be breached and terminated. So it's very important and they've got to respond to you very quickly, at least within 24 hours to any inquiry that you make about anything. Plus you've got support from the division, which is say mowing or cleaning, whatever that is. Plus, of course, any franchisee in the system has my direct email and phone number and they can and do contact me at any time and I'm very good at responding. So there's a whole layers of supporting gyms. Put in an inquiry through the call centre 131546 or online, put your details through and the local franchisor will contact you any and tell you anything you need to know and do your research thoroughly. Well, yes, you do get to meet me at training and I look forward to shaking your hand when you come and having your picture taken and stuff. The most common question people ask our franchisees, is there really a gym? Well, there is, and I'm even more ugly than I look on the trailer, but that is me. So you do get to meet me. And it's very important too, because the toughest thing I find is to get franchisees to contact me when they need to, because so often they've got a problem and they ring me up or email me and I give them an answer, something that may be an issue for weeks going by, and they ring me and I can say, here's your answer. Now, whether it's a problem technically or can't reach your franchisor, your franchise, anything at all, I can help out and I'd love to help, and it's actually one of the high points of my day to be able to do that.