From Debt to a Service Empire: Jim Penman's Journey to Success

I was actually flat broke. I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. So I really didn't see the mine business as the thing that was going to make me wealthy or enough to be able to do my research. But I didn't know how to do anything else. I just kept on growing it. I started off mowing lawns and doing gardens. I realized I could actually make more money leash in the short term by building up and selling lawn mowing rounds. So I made a practice of that. And then I was hiring subcontractors to work how to do it and I had to work how to sell these lawn mowing rounds. And that was quite a struggle too, because I wasn' I'm not very, very good with people. I don't have great people skills.

What is going on? L m family. We're back. And this time I have like a ultra, ULTRA awesome guest. Mr. Jim Penman out of Australia. I think, I think I got that right. I know there's a comment there about the Southern hemisphere. Jim is one of Australia's most iconic entrepreneurs. He's got some time. He's been at it for a while. He's the founder of the largest franchising chain in the Southern hemisphere, which is kind of a big deal. And one of the things that caught my attention after we made the connection to have the conversation, looked at your, your YouTube channel and it's Jim's group. And some of the chains, I think the chains that are like performing or growing exponentially is Jim's cleaning, Jim's mowing, Jim's dog wash. And so like the continuity is so simple and clear. And I also got to listen to some training. So I think there's a whole world of stuff that we're going to get to hear from Mr. Jim. And so if you're new here, I'm Jesse, you're listening to the Learnings and Missteps podcast. And we're about to learn about the sacrifices and the awakenings that Jim has had on his path to success. Mr. Jim, how are you, sir?

I'm great. Good to be here.

Likewise. So it's 7am early in the morning on your side and you're in the future because today it's Monday here in San Antonio and I guess it's Tuesday for you. Yes.

Yeah, that's right. Australia is the future.

So you've picked up some tricks along the way in, in your career. I listed some high points in the introduction. But I'm curious, Jim, what are the things that people need to know about you that is very difficult. Those hidden gems that you don't always get a chance to share with folks.

I think one of the chief things I like people to understand is the potential for the service industry. People are very obsessed with high tech these days and the Internet and those kind of things, all of which are very useful. But people neglect some of the oldest jobs around, the basic jobs like cleaning and gardening and looking after dogs and so forth, because it's actually a huge part of the economy. And I was very lucky to get into that when my academic career blew up. I turned my part time gardening mowing business into a full time and it turned out to be a very good business decision.

All right, so what is it? What was it about these service industries, the day to day real life stuff that drew you in? How did it capture your attention?

Well, originally it was my student job. I was doing a PhD in history, which took me with everything else about 10 years. I was endless student and I like to work all the time. But I also, you get a bit tired of just being indoors. So I thought a great job is to be outdoors gardening. And I can also make much better money than I could working for somebody else. Even back in 40 years or 45 years ago, I could do a lawn for five bucks and that took me half an hour. But you know, those was good money. So I was making ten bucks an hour at a time when a job might get me three or four bucks an hour. So it was outside physical love, being outside with nature and make pretty good money. That's basically what it was. And then in 1982 I finished my studies and I really had no hope for academic post or career. So I thought, well, it's about anything, I know, so let's turn it into a business.

Okay, so you dedicated a significant part of your life into following the academic route. And did I hear you correctly? Like you got to that end of that run and said wait a minute, what am I going to do now? Is that how close am I?

I always thought I'd be an academic. I would develop some theory and a way of looking at society, of history and so forth that I thought was pretty powerful, but I couldn't prove it. And the problem too was that my theory was all leading me into things like biology and genetics and so forth like that, which I had no expert in because my degree was in history. So part of the idea I needed to work out a way to become rich enough to be able to support my research project. So that's how I had to Turn my gardening business into something a little bit bigger.

Ah, okay. So. So this theory that you're working on, and I think you've produced some work on it since. Am I correct?

That's right. Yes, I have. I call it Bio Understanding history through biological Mechanisms.

Got it, got it. Beautiful. And so you came to a point, said, son of a gun. There's this thing, I don't have the resources to like actualize that currently, but I. There's another way I can build the resources to get there. Is that an oversimplification?

That's exactly right. I didn't know how to do anything else, but lucky to stumble on a business. See, I like being outside. I'm that kind of person. Even today I've got a farm and I got there and dig potatoes and stuff. I enjoy that kind of stuff. So it wasn't a difficult thing to do. It's a fun job and the service industry is fantastic. I mean you make very good money. You start with almost nothing and you can go anywhere.

Absolutely. So I began my working career as a plumber's apprentice. My dad's a plumber. I spent, we'll just say over 20 years on the plumbing side of the business. Got my journeyman license and all those other things. And only until recently I figured out like, man, I think I could build something for myself. And I'm not even in the service industry per se, but the skills that I built from fixing things, installing things, constructing things. It's exactly those lessons you learn of taking your wherewithal, some information, some tools and material and creating something. That's what I apply in my business today. So I'm not doing anything new. You've been doing it for a while now. I recognize that you started earning a living through doing service based business, but it's matured quite a bit since then. Right? I mean you, I've caught some of your lessons around customer service and building a business and so forth. And so in that realm of when you started generating income through delivering services and then growing your first franchise and expanding and starting to teach people, what was that path like?

Well, it wasn't really a straight goal at the time. I started doing this back in 1992, I went full time and I had no money. I was actually flat broke. I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. So I really didn't see the mine business as the thing that was going to make me wealthy or enough to be able to do my research. But I didn't know how to do anything else. I Just kept on growing it. I started off mowing lawns and doing gardens. I realized I could actually make more money, least in the short term, by building up and selling lawn mowing rounds. So I made a practice of that. And then I was hiring subcontractors to work how to do it. Then I had to work out and sell these lawn mowing rounds. And that was quite a struggle too, because I wasn't. I'm not very, very good with people. I don't have great people skills. My wife says I've got borderline Asperger's. So that was a challenge, but I didn't know how to do that and I had to learn how to improve my own methods of service and so forth. And then what actually happened was that in the 80s, I was having this little business with building up and selling lawn mowing rounds, and I was sort of got out of debt and bought a house and stuff, so I was doing okay. And then this company called VIP came to Melbourne and they were interstate and they were franchising, and these guys had 250 franchisees and actually terrified me. I thought they'd crush me. I actually offered to join forces with them and I said, look, I'll just help to build you guys. And they said, oh, well, I'm not interested in that. So I thought, well, I'll find out what they're doing. So I actually basically crashed the franchising Expo that year, 1998, and went up to the stand and said, I'm very interested in vip. Can you tell me about it? Didn't know who I was. So he told me. And then the state manager came in and said, that's Jim Penman. Don't tell him anything else. So they kicked me off the standard. So I went away and I thought, well, okay, there's some good ideas here, there's some good principles here, but maybe I could do something that might work better for franchisees. I just. That's my idea. If I can make my franchisees into raving fans, I'll be successful, maybe just survive this onslaught. I wasn't thinking of beating them, so I got some lawyers together. Took me nine months. I spent nine months arguing with lawyers, basically. And they said to me, your franchise system's too. You're being too nice. You're giving people too much. And I said, no, I want a system that I want to join. And so then in 1989, about June, signed my first franchisee. Somebody asked me at that time, they said, if it goes well, how many do you Think you might have one day? And I said, well, if it really goes well, maybe one day I could have as many as a hundred right at the beginning. And I still thought this wasn't the thing that was going to make me give me the resources I needed for my research. But it was surprisingly successful. By the end of the first year, I had about 60. And I thought, wow, this is interesting. And then people started coming from Interstate and wanted to be part of it. Wow, this is strange. And I had a secret weapon, though. This is the one thing that really exemplified my approach. When I was selling lawnmowers, I was a lousy salesman, but I had a simple method. Every time somebody dealt with me, I did everything possible to make them successful. And then when they started, I took their name and I wrote it on a bit of black text on a bit of white card and put it behind me. That was my references. So when anybody interested in the lawnmower, I say, listen, okay, if you want to know anything about the way I do it, ring any of these guys. There was about a hundred of them, and they would say, jim is great. Did what he said, looked after me, gave me advice, best person to do it. So when I started franchising, I did the same thing. I gave a list of all my franchisees with their phone numbers, and I gave it to everybody. And people would come to me and say, why would I buy from you? You're buying it from a basement. This is company vip. Well, much better established. And I said, all right, we're different in different ways. I wasn't begging them, but right, here's a list of my franchisees. I want you to go and ring them, as many as possible. And then you go and get their list. And I knew they wouldn't provide a list because they couldn't do it, and people would ring. So Jim was great. Jim did what he said. He looked after me. That's good. Lots of work. He's always there. He always answer queries, gives me advice, runs meetings. He's a great guy. So that's what happened. So I started to grow, and it just surprised me. Actually, it was. Amazed me because it. In the beginning, I didn't even think this could possibly work that well, but it just gradually dawned on me. Hey, I've got something pretty good here.

Oh, I. You know this because you've lived it 20 times over, what I have, but what I envision, not just me, like the L and M family out there. You said it. You said, if things go really well, maybe A hundred. And you've exceeded that many times over. And I feel like when we're operating in service to others, sharing our gifts and talents in service to other human beings, the potential of growth is, it's limitless. Like it is beyond whatever we can calculate at the moment. And as we continue forward, it continues to expand. Does that sound like hogwash to you or what do you think? And we want to give the shout out to our L M family member who went out of their way to leave us an awesome comment. Awesome review. This One comes from Ms. Sanaz. She dropped this one on the YouTube and she says, I want to thank you and your team for teaching us everything that no school does. Your content is a gift to everyone who is seeking ways to success. And it's not just my content, it's really the content from our guests here.

It's true. Look, everything's about service. Jesse. Being successful as a gardener, as a lawn mowing contractor was about looking after my customers really well. And I was fanatic about customer service. I just hate to let anybody down. I hate to do less than perfect job. I was one of the first contractors in Australia back in the 70s as a student to have a brush cutter. They called me there with the, with the nylon cord that spins around, cuts the edges because it used to frustrate me that I couldn't get a perfect, every edge perfect. So as soon as I saw this device, I just bought one straight away so I could do all around the trees and the retaining walls, all the perfect edges and then I could get the cracks from the grass from the cracks. So I really worked to make my customers into raving fans. And then I found it easy because I picked up regular customers and they got referrals and I got could make good money. Now the same principle with franchising. I did everything possible to make my franchisees into fans is make them as positive and never stop thinking about ways I give my direct phone number and email address to every franchisee at training. I did it at course, just yesterday in the opening course. I wrote it up on the board. I said, you contact me anytime, daytime, evenings, weekends, public holidays, I don't care. There's a franchise he ran me on Christmas day just to wish me happy Christmas. But he's allowed.

Okay, there you go.

So I got five and a half thousand people have my direct number. The only thing is they're told you mustn't give it to anybody else. I don't want my number getting out there just to you guys and if anybody tries to ring me, I've got no right for number. I'm pretty short with them. So dedication and I'm endlessly every day thinking how can I help my franchisees to do better? And, and the harder you do that, the more successful you are.

Oh, I love it. So your. Do you feel like your commitment to, and I'm going to say obsessive commitment in a healthy way to delivering the best service is what helped you balance out not being a people person?

Yeah, yeah, maybe. Maybe it's an attraction because if I was a great salesperson, I could just be charismatic people to listen to me. But isn't some lousy sales. You got to do something else, don't you?

No, I love it. I, I think it's an important thing. I think folks out there that not you don't have to be. Here's one thing I want to make clear. You don't have to be an entrepreneur or a frying franchisee to learn how to serve the person in front of you in an unforgettable way. We get to do that every day at the gas station with our family members, with our colleagues at work. And when we serve them in a manner that is, it's way abnormal because the majority of folks, it's very passive, very superficial. There's no deep connection, there's no real listening. And so it works in the personal space, professional space. And if you're entertaining the idea of entrepreneurship, your proof, like big gigantic proof of the, the high value that it brings. Now the thing I'm hearing a ton.

Of is that is they think of it in terms of money. You never put the money first. You put the people you're dealing with first. See, we made decisions in the beginning. I wasn't ever going to sell a franchise to somebody that I didn't have pretty good confidence we're going to succeed. It's actually one of the worst things you can do in gyms is to sell a franchise to somebody you've got reason to think might fail. And at the beginning I thought that was an idea that would hold me from growing. But I only later realized it was actually driving success. Because by knocking out the people that weren't succeeding, I want to take, take them out in the road. It had to be trial before they can get a franchise. We still do that and you don't get a franchise. And that's really in the beginning of business decision, it's a moral decision. It's the idea that we serve people. Okay.

I think it's super powerful. I want to dig into that some more. So this is a moral decision. I can sell anybody a franchise, but not everyone is prepared or equipped to run a franchise. So then I'm faced with a decision. Do I sell it to them or not? And so here's my first question. Is this. What is. What are some of the signals that call to you to say this? This may not be the best decision for them?

Okay. Sometimes it's demographics, okay? Can be a case that a franchise that was, I heard, was about to be sold to somebody. I spoke to the mother. She had a problem with the contract, which is why she contacted me. And I found out that she was buying a franchise on behalf of her son, who was in his early 20s and he couldn't find a job. And I said, that is completely out. Your son has no chance of success with that kind of attitude. She was actually very distressed. She said to me, oh, look, I wish I hadn't rung you. And I said, it's jolly good you did. So what I. But she said, what does he do? He had kind of got a job. I said, okay, why don't I get him some work with a couple of local franchisees in his area who had more than enough work looking for employees, went out on the road with them. Absolutely hopeless. Now, the franchisor who did that came up for renewal shortly afterwards. And I said to him, you are not renewing. That was an appalling thing to do, to put somebody on. You must have known. Now, he sold his business. He didn't. He wasn't confiscated. But I would not renew his business. So to sell a franchise to somebody who doesn't have what it takes, that's one sort of thing to look at. Other things to look at is actually taking somebody out on the road is one of the best things. I've recently put in a policy. I said, for my contracts department, you cannot sign anybody unless you get a written report from somebody who's gone out with them in the field. One of the franchisees and said, this person is good. And they don't get paid any extra for passing them. In fact, we just pay them the same regardless. This is taking somebody out, show them the ropes, have a look at them. Send me a report if you don't get a good report. So if they don't say, listen. So if you're putting somebody out on the road and you show them how to mow a lawn, I just say, here's what you do. You go around the edges first once, then you Go straight lines. Okay. When you go into a corner where there's a hose on the grass, you take the hose, you caught it neatly on the garden, even if it's just a little bit of grass there, and you mow neatly to the edge. Now you can tell them to do that once, maybe twice. If after that they don't listen, you fail them because they're not prepared to listen.

And then you look at things they can't take instruction.

Yeah. Look at questions. How many questions do they ask? Are they good questions? If all they ever say is, how much can I make, how much can I make? They're thinking it's a job, they need to be asking intelligent questions. Have they done research, those kinds of things. So you look, how do they impress you? How do they come across? It's a whole rack of listening. When I do training for franchisors who do the sales actually spend the first hour talking about selection, how we select, why we select.

Nice. So it sounds like you've got a super robust system. Obviously it's massive. You got all kinds of business and continuing to grow. You're teaching people how to do this. And again, what's beautiful is you started out by doing lawn care and garden care yourself. Now, along the way, you didn't plan to be where you're at necessarily from day one. But as you saw the opportunities present themselves, how did you capture your methodology, your processes, your systems? Was it all mental? Did you document that? Like, how did you capture the learning of how you delivered the service that you delivered? 2026 is right around the corner and I want to help you make this year the year you finally put yourself first.

How?

With the Self first framework. There's a full half day webinar that's going to give you the tools and the tactics to plan effectively, to finally make room for yourself in your schedule and to execute daily so that you can dominate the day. I know four hours is a big commitment, so maybe you want a little more intel before you like go all in. And that's perfect because I got a sweet little webinar that you're invited to. There's a link down there in the show notes. Pick the date that works best for you. Sign up for the webinar and let's do the damn thing foreign.

We have mechanisms that are based on it. We spend several million dollars a year on it these days on systems that actually the way the jobs are done and their jobs are taken, how they're allocated, the feedback systems and so forth, a lot of things to do with customer service. But a lot of it's also just teaching. I give a talk in our training, the first two hours of the talk I give on the Monday morning of training, which was yesterday, and I talk about the ethos, I talk about customer service, I talk about the way we achieve customer service. I talk about service to franchisees and the way we achieve that. And that talk I've given hundreds of times and I'm always on the same topic. I'm always talking about it in the same way. The idea of service, Jesus washing his disciples feet, servant leadership, that kind of idea, I just talk about it a lot. And by example and by repetition and by passion, you just keep on pushing it. And the really humbling thing is that people actually with time have adopted this kind of thinking. My franchisors, and there's about 200 of them now who look after the franchisees, by and large, they really think and believe the same way. They actually sometimes take it faster than me. They say, well, here's a franchisee, we should do this for them. They just like, even during COVID we were locked down in Victoria, our franchisees were unable to work. It was awful for two months and now we didn't charge any fees. But during that time my franchisors were actually still ringing. The franchisees, they weren't paid, they just cared enough to do it. Now that's an example of the ethos that you get across.

Yes, I love it. So servant leadership is something that I had the fortune of working for an organization. That was the culture of the organization. There was, there were teaching mechanisms to help us understand it. And we had a large volume of leaders that could demonstrate servant leadership. I Wish it was 100%, but it wasn't. Now some people struggle with the idea. Even just the two words for some people are conflicting. And so for the person that is struggling with the concept of servant leader, being a servant in order to lead, how would you simplify it for them?

You've got to be emotionally committed to the people that you're dealing with at every level. I even mean staff members, but also franchisees, obviously in our case, and also clients. It's got to be from the heart. It's just rational. If you say I'll do this because I'll make more money out of it, you tend to compromise. But if it's an absolute, I will look after this person no matter what because it's the right thing to do. That is the best decision. And it's really strange. Jesse but the best decisions that I made in my business career were the decisions I made against what I thought was my own self interest. Like being selective, knocking back people. A person buys a franchise, they pay you money, you're not sure about them, they pay you money, they come in, they fail, hey, you've got the franchise fees, you've got the ongoing fees. Obviously you're better off. But it actually took a long while to figure out you're not really better off for all kinds of reasons. First of all, they give poor service to clients. Secondly, they turn off prospective franchisees for their bad example. It's certainly them in the community afterwards saying hey, never join gyms because I had such a bad experience. It's a whole lot of negativity. But the decision made for moral reasons that I wasn't going to put anybody on that I wasn't convinced was would be successful. That decision was a brilliant business decision.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so where does the. I've been able to. I've been in situations myself when I started my business and I've been able to work with a lot of really smart people that when it came to the question of revenue, that weight, that little birdie that we'll call the revenue bird would often lead them to make short sighted decisions that were painful for the business and everybody involved. So it takes like major strength to be able to say this is not a good idea, this is not a good fit for whatever reason. So where would you say your fortitude, Mr. Jim? And being able to say no, this is not a good deal, even though you're turning revenue away, where did you get the strength to do that? Where does it come from?

It's, it's basically Christian values as much as anything else. Most people in gyms aren't Christian. Obviously I'm recognized. In fact, some of our best people are actually Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus and all kinds. I do think people of faith tend to particularly understand what we do fairly well. But it's fundamentally, it's Christian values. It's that you look after somebody else. And I've been a Christian for many decades and that's, that's central to my life and my way of thinking. And yeah, we try and preach the values without necessarily preaching the gospel, if you know what I mean.

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. What's important that I think our listeners can grasp onto is it's very simple. Right In Jesse Land, it's like just be cool, don't do dumb things, treat people right. Like it's not that complicated. And I love that you point out the various beliefs or religions, because it's not that hard. You don't have to have a certain credo. It really is, how can we serve another human being? How do we not take advantage of other people? How do we not cause pain in their life? And I may offend them by telling them no, by rejecting them, but in the long run, I'm doing the best thing I can do for that person that's directly in front of me.

Yeah, a lot of pressure on you all the time to do things in a different way. Like, for example, one of the things that I serve my franchisees, but one of the things I'm very tough about customer service, extremely tough. And we've actually put enormous pressure, growing pressure over the years to improve levels of customer service. And I'm very much in charge of that. I'm the only person. We have a system of surveys and complaints. I'm the only person that can actually delete them if there's good reason or if they're satisfied. So I personally handle this myself, which is an odd thing for a CEO to do, but I do, and I'm always pushing for better service. Why are we getting complaints? What do we need to do? So we institute policy. If you ring somebody, you can't get through. You've got to text. You can't just leave a message. You must text all kinds of different ways. And I get a lot of pushback on that. And I'm always pushing it. People are saying, oh, you're being unfair. You're pushing me too hard. I'm getting. I'm getting anxiety, I can't sleep because of all these complaints. And I say, yes, but if I slacken off, you won't do as well. Because we know that the franchisees who give the best service and most likely report great income, most likely to stay. So you've got to push all the time. And I keep on driving. And what's happened miraculously, is that as we pushed over the last 40 years, the level of complaints has gone down. Like, our level of complaints is less than 1%. It's a fraction of 1% of what they used to be in pre franchise days. And then we keep on pushing them. And we've got software coming up over the next year or so which will drop that by least down to half of what they are now. So this conscious, relentless pressure, this thing, we look after customers. And the same thing with franchisees, we. What can we do? What more can we do? We're always dreaming up Things. Always pushing, always driving. Every day of my life, I have these questions. How can we look after our customers better? How can we look after our franchises better every day? You've got to be relentless.

Oh, I love it. And again, the heavy focus on the customer experience. Now, you dropped a golden nugget in there that I want to repeat is if you call a customer back, leaving a voicemail is not enough. You gotta follow up with a text message as well. Did I catch that right?

That's absolutely right. Yes. If they don't do it and the customer complains they didn't call, they're wrong. That's a valid complaint. And they said yes. But I did ring. I said, yes, but you didn't text. So when I did my talk yesterday, I was talking this, and I get them to repeat it. I said, now we text. And I get a hundred people in the audience, they're all saying, text like that. It's a very emotional experience.

I understand how uncomfortable that can be. If it's not your normal practice. For me, when I'm working with my clients, I'll send them an email. I have a little time thing in my head. About 36 hours after I send that email, I'm going to follow up with the text and say, hey, check and make sure it didn't fall in your junk folder. I'm available for the call. And if I still don't get a response that very next day, first thing in the morning, I'm calling like, how are things going? Like, are we alive? Because things happen. And when I'm working one on one, I tell my. Tell folks that I'm coaching one on one. It's like, look, I'm gonna check in on you. We're gonna have work to do. And I just want to make sure that the ball's still rolling. And if you don't respond to me, I'm going to email you, I'm going to phone call you, I'm going to text you, I'm going to find you on Facebook. I'm going to find. I'm going to find you so that we can. You can either tell me, get the hell out of your hair, or things are good and you're still alive, which is a little excessive. But I'm going to use you, Mr. Jim, as my accomplice. Now I'm going to say, well, Jim said that I need to follow up, and I'm following up now after that rant in terms of golden nuggets again, beautiful nugget phone. Leave a message Text. What other, what else do you recommend people do in terms of following up with, with somebody they have an important relationship with? Again, it doesn't necessarily have to be in the context of you running your business, but just professional conversation and so forth. What other things do you teach that you see produce the phenomenal results that your company is experiencing?

Well, when it comes to franchisees, serving them who are actually our primary customers, as our customer service has improved, one of the most remarkable things is we find it easier and easier to find clients. In the early days, I had teams of campuses knocking on doors. These days, look, we've got so much, we can't even spend our advertising budget. We have to give it back to the franchisees because it's in the contract. We knocked back over 200,000 leads in the last year. So we've come. Work's become enormously easy to find. The better customer service, the easier, the more the work floods in. It's just an extraordinary change over the years. So what we now focus on to a large extent is how do we serve franchisees better? And one of the things we've found from experience is we actually tried a lot of things in the early days, like we didn't sit and done business reviews, half a day business review with a franchisee didn't work because you can check these things, you've got to measure what you can do. But then we later found that other things do work. Responding to a franchisees call very fast really makes a difference. If you get back to them straight away, take the call, that's so much better. They've got an absolute maximum of 24 hours to respond and that includes my staff. So if anybody actually comes, doesn't get a response within a hut, within 24 hours, business days, they get 100 bucks. That's a standard offer. Keeps them on their toes. But what we found from experience is that what really worked with franchisees, there's two things you've got to do. First of all, you've got to run regular meetings. And we figured out every six weeks is the right amount. You've got to get them together, you've got to get them sharing with each other. You put on a meal because that always makes it more communication. You come in, you learn and you have developed fellowship, develop community. And the other thing we found is really powerful and is that you got to ring your franchises regularly at least once a month, ideally once a week, and just say, how's it going? What happened? How did that job go? How'd that quote Go. How was your daughter's wedding? Whatever the story is, you keep contact regularly. And we found that the frequent small contacts are the best way to actually keep people happy.

Oh, my God, there's a bunch there. So here's what I wrote down. At least once a month, like absolute minimum, check in, see how things are doing, have regular meetings and in person to build community, the knowledge sharing, the trust, the just say, think realizing I am not less than. You're a human. You have the same problems I have problem that I'm having. So I'm human too. We can get through this together and then call back within 24 hours or you get a hundred bucks. That one's kind of fun. I think those are phenomenal. Obviously they're driving performance in your business, but I think they're like phenomenal in terms of anything that's going on, like for our listeners out there. Do you do these things when somebody calls you? Do you get back to them within 24 hours? Do you make an effort, like put it on your calendar to reach out and touch them at least once a month? If you could do once a week, you're winning. Do you spend and share time with these individuals that you're working to influence, support, or grow super, super powerful? Now here's a question, because I know by now the L and M family is saying, oh, this is exciting, I want more of it. In terms of the business that you have now, do we have to live in the southern hemisphere to access your knowledge or become a part of, or become a franchisee, etc.

Well, we've got a small branch in Canada in British Columbia. We've got about 90 franchisees there. From that. No, but I tell you what, we're very open about what we do. We have one of your American entrepreneurs, a franchisor, come across to a training just recently, and he came across and went through our full training course, all of our franchisee training, franchisor training, the whole thing. And he actually delivered a talk for us too. So he told us about what he was doing. So that was fantastic. And so we actually invite anybody. If you're interested in learning how to be a franchise franchisor, come to Australia and we'll train you. And the course is only about 1500 bucks, so it's not a lot of money. I mean, getting here costs a bit more, of course. So we just really give everything to anybody. So somebody comes to us and says, I want a French mind my own business. I say, well, come and do our training course now. When they do that very frequently. They end up deciding the franchise through us, but.

Right, right, give it away. So, Jim, there's a thread of generosity in just about everything you've said. Why would you advise somebody to be generous? And what has it brought to your life?

It's just, it's surprising if you stop thinking about yourself first of all and you think about the person you're dealing with at any level, it just somehow seems to come better, even though it doesn't seem so. Like we've got people come across who've actually come to our full training course and then tried to launch their own business using our systems. Now, as far as I know, they haven't actually succeeded at any great level, but we still offer it because it's just a nice thing to do and it's surprising. Like this guy, this American guy came across. Now I just did it because you want to be nice, give somebody a bit of a hand, help them. But in fact, what he actually gave us was wonderful because he's actually had some fantastic ideas. We did a recording, we did an interview with him. So it was really good stuff that we can use to help our own people. It's a great thing about if you got money, you give it away. You haven't got it, but if you've got an idea and you give it away, still own it and then that person gives you their ideas and everybody becomes wealthier. In terms of ideas, I'm a great believer in sharing in learning. We'll teach you everything we know. I never sign non disclosures. You can come and you can learn everything. You can see my computer system, we call it franchise management system. We spent tens of millions. We show you how it works. We show you everything. We just do that.

W. Yeah. What I really appreciate about that again is the generosity. And also I know that like the truth because I. There are some people that are in my space every now and then that are very. They covet the idea, right? They operate in fear. And I'm like, and no ass like, Jess, why do you share so much? And I'm like, because I want to make. If I really want to make the world better the way I say I do. But I don't share this little tip or trick that I have. I'm lying. A B I know how long it took me to get good at doing that thing and I know the sacrifice it's going to take to really make it stick. And so by the time that person figures it out, that's okay because I'm going To be further down the road, just like I, just like I have been. So that may be a little snaky, but that's how I look at things now.

People always. They'll try and copy you, but it's far more difficult. In the beginning, actually, I thought people would just grab my ideas and run with them, but it's actually very difficult to do because you're always progressing. What I'm doing now is different than what I did 12 months ago. And my software is better, my systems are better, and my training is better. Everything keeps on improving. The other thing, too, is even if you teach people rationally how to do what you're doing, it's very. It's. The hardest thing is to convey the culture, the idea, the servant leadership thing, because they'll take what they think they want, but they'll miss out on the really important core stuff of values because they'll just look at the mechanics. And I think, oh, yeah, I'll do what Jim did, but I'll. I'll do it my way, and I won't be so extreme on this, and I won't be so anal about that, and I'll do it there and this and this. And they. And they end up. Something doesn't work.

Yeah, I love it so often. And I think maybe it's just part of the human condition. People anchor on the tools. They anchor on the shiny things that they can easily grasp and understand and miss the deeper meaning, the, the values, the. The principles of the thing. And then they're like, it doesn't work. Yeah. Because it was built on a foundation and all you took was the roof. And I'm guilty of that. I've done that myself so, so many times now in the scheduling of our. Of our conversation. And I'm grateful to you for getting up early in the morning to do this. Something in the emails, I remember something about Montgomery Burns. Can you give us the background on Mr. Montgomery Burns there?

Jesse? I'm a big fan of villains. I just like the bad guys. Well, I aim to be a. A bad guy, but I just. Yeah, he's wonderful. I mean, I like anybody. I like Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars. I like Darth Vader. I like the Green Goblin in. In Spider Man. Bad guys to me, more interesting. I just love the. I just love the bad characters. Now, I'm not saying I use that as an example, but I think he's just a great character. Monty Burns. When my kids would. I got 10 children, so when my kids would be listening to Us watching the Simpsons out in there, and I would just be doing my work and stuff. And then I hear Monty Byrne. So I'm out there like a flash saying, what's he up to now? I love.

So I wonder, in your appreciation for villains, do you see. Do you feel like there's something in them, in their experience or what they're portraying that gives you empathy for them?

Well, yeah, I always like to know what somebody's motivations are. It annoys me when somebody acts in a way that hasn't got proper motivation. See, one of the things that really bugged me about Star wars was in Return of the Jedi and Palpatine, the Emperor tries to get Darth Vader to kill his only son. Now, that is an insanely stupid thing to do. How could you be smart enough to become ruler of the galaxy? Get your chief supporter, who's more powerful than you, to try and kill his only son. So to me, that was really bad because you weren't looking at it from Palpatine's point of view. So I would want to know what somebody's motivation is. Why does a person do the thing they do? Because in real life, it isn't as simple as black and white. Everybody has. There's positives and there's negatives. What they say, the line between good and evil runs in the heart of every man who said that, Edmund Burke or someone like that. That's really true. So I do have this thing where I like to think about it from the point of view of the other guy. Always, what are they thinking about? What are they doing? I think that attitude is quite healthy. And you're looking at a villain. What's his motivation? And if he hasn't got a reasonable motivation, I don't like him very much. That's one reason that the talking about Spider man, the Tobey Maguire ones, the first ones were really good. You get this guy who's a businessman who's built his business, and he's a good guy. He's a scientist and he's a mentor to Peter. He's a good guy and he builds this business, and then his board of directors takes over control and wants to kick him out. Well, yeah, to me, that's a reasonable motivation for killing them. I mean, not saying I would do it in the same situation, but you've got to understand his point of view. So I like to see it from someone else's viewpoint. And that's my thing about villains, too. What are they doing? Why are they thinking? Why are they doing that is it reasonable. And you've got a complicated, complex villain. They do have a motivation, and you can understand why.

Oh, yeah, yes. The one villain that I related to the most was Thanos in the Avengers series, the most recent Avengers series. And it was odd to me, the way it struck, because if you've seen it, you've seen it. There's the storyline. But what it brought to my heart or my mind was the times that I had to make very difficult decisions. And I knew it was going to hurt people, and I knew nobody was going to care about why I made the decision or why I had to make the decision, and I had to carry that burden. And so to your point, like the. Everybody's coming from a different place. And I think your appreciation for villains is close to your appreciation for your customers, because understanding what their experience is, understanding how to better serve them, understanding what drives them is really what you're focused on learning and using that to inform your support and service towards them. Does that sound pretty accurate or close enough?

Yeah, I think so. I can't say I ever thought about Jesse. But it does make sense, doesn't it? You've always got to look at it from the other person's point of view, like, why can I sell franchises so well? It's because I'm always thinking from the point of view the person about to buy, what's in their interest. And the same thing, you're looking at somebody looking at a villain. He's the bad guy. Okay, but what's his motivations or her motivations? What are they after? Why are they acting that way? Why would they act that way? I think it seems it's crucial to understand it. What do people want? And then when you do that, you can look after them. Because if you always look at from the point of view of what I want, you'll never get into their shoes, will you?

Never. And because I've walked that path for a very long time myself, Jim, where I'm just worried about me. And the problem was this. If everyone would just listen to what I'm thinking and do what I want them to do, the world would be fine. And that was just never gonna happen. That was miserable. Oh, my goodness.

Never could.

So I got another.

You've walked and walked a mile in their shoes. You know what they say? It's very true. You gotta understand somebody. And that sometimes you've got at least tough line. And I have really tough conversations at times with franchisees or franchisors who won't follow the system. And I say, look, I'm really sorry, but you have to do this. You've got to do this thing. You've got to be texting, you've got to be following up. You've got to be making absolutely sure your customer is happy with the job and go back and finish it. If they aren't, you just keep on pushing them. But you got to understand, I feel your pain. I understand you, and you've got a pregnant wife and things are hard for you. But I want to help you in the way that I know how, which means you've got to do these things or you're going to fail. And I don't want you to fail. You've got to have that real concern.

Yeah, I love it. And they may not believe you in the moment, but I'm sure eventually they're like, yeah. Mr. Jim? Yes. Thank you. Thank you for holding my feet to the fire because I needed that.

Well, hopefully they do. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they think I'm an evil man, but these things happen. But I. But I will keep on doing my best for what I believe is best for them. And. And you got to have a heart. It's very hard. One of the things I find very hard, Jesse, I think people fail. That is the most painful thing that happens. And we do fail. All I can say is if you go into business by yourself, your chance of still being in trade business in 12 months, like cleaning or something, it's about between 5 and 10%. With us, it's like 88. We measured these things. Okay. And that's because we keep on pushing people. And even though they don't want to be pushed, even though they think they know and they think they're right and you're wrong, you've got to help them because you've got to care enough to do it. And in the end, sometimes you've got to say, look, we cannot continue. We've got a past company. It's destroying everything. And that's very hard conversation to have.

I can only imagine. So, Jim, if folks want to get a hold of you or get up, get access to more of your knowledge, where should we send them?

Well, jims.netwwjims.net and if they want to email me directly, they can go jims.net I answer emails very fast. If anybody wants to come to Australia and learn how to be a franchisor, you come to our training course. It's a very moderate cost. We'll house you on site, really good food and Have a great time. You'll get a chance to meet me and stuff. I'm happy to open to anybody who's interested. We call our business the Millionaire factory because we reckon we've created more millionaires than any other company in this country because we just train people and people often start with the service business and they go on to really huge, substantial businesses. They start with us. We can teach you from the ground up.

Oh, that's a mess. And how many days should they plant, should we put on our calendar to come down there?

The basic generic training course is three days and then we have a franchisor training course we run once a quarter which is another three days. So basically come at the right time. It's the six day course. As I said, it'll cost about sixteen hundred dollars plus accommodation and stuff, but it's not expensive.

Oh, there you go. And that's a nice little two week vacation in Australia of all places. That's amazing.

Which is a wonderful place to live. Well.

So as we bring this home, Mr. Jim, I got the closing question and I imagine you can have a pretty profound response to this. What is the promise you are intended to be?

I believe life is about mission. I don't think personal happiness, those kinds of goals really matter now. I'm a profoundly happy person. But I believe it's so because I have a life for a purpose and my purpose had to do with my family. I love my kids, I got all my kids and my wife, my franchisees, my passion for them. It's a purpose, it's a moral reason, it's a reason for getting up in the morning, it's a reason for what I do and my passion for my research project, which I believe can immensely help the human race. So to me, and all of this is doing the will of God. That's how I perceive my mission in life. I am. I'm not here to serve my health. I'm here to serve what I believe is important. And that is what life should mean. It should have meaning. It shouldn't be about personal aggrandizement or status or wealth of anything. It should be what can you do? How can you serve?

Amazing. I knew it. Thank you. Thank you for that because I know I'm going to be referring back to that piece a few times because I got to keep my head centered. It's very easy for me to get off track and it's about serving others. Did you have a good time?

Yeah, it's great. It's really good.

Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time sir and I'm going to stop recording here. Thank you for sticking it out all the way to the end. I know you got a whole lot of stuff going on and in appreciation for the gift of time that you have given this episode, I want to offer you a free PDF of my book Becoming the Promise you're intended to be. The link for that bad boy is down in the show notes.

Hit it.

You don't even have to give me your email address. There's a link in there. You just click that button. You can download the PDF and if you share it with somebody that you know who might feel stuck or be caught up in self destructive behaviors that would be the ultimate you sharing that increases the likelihood that it's going to help one more person and if it does help one more person then you're contributing to me Becoming the promise I am intended to be. Be kind to yourself, be cool and we'll talk at you next time.

Peace.