Jim Penman describes what regional franchisors in his group do: recruit, train, and support franchisees through weekly contact and quick problem-solving. Successful regional franchises can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, though top earners are usually franchisees themselves. Jim's only operates mobile service businesses like mowing, cleaning, and dog wash because they have the software and expertise for those models.
Questions this video answers
November 19, 2025
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Chapters
Regional franchisor is someone who looks after franchisees, recruits them, interviews them, goes through a selection process, and once they're signed, they're the coach, the mentor. So ring franchisees regularly, respond quickly to any calls and concerns and run regular meetings. I think the biggest opportunity to own a regional franchisor is just for somebody who likes helping other people. They're somebody who enjoys being a mentor, being a coach, seeing other people flourish under their care, and they make a lot of difference, too, obviously. It can be a very good business in itself, of course, and our top franchisors make very good money. Having said that, though, the actual top earners in Jim's group are mostly franchisees, but it's still. It's a great business. People who do it tend to love doing it. I expect regional franchisors to give really great support to franchisees. We are passionate about customer service. Our most important customers are our franchisees. So a franchisor is. It helps with training, helps with coaching, but it's also there in an emotional sense to be a friend, because running a business can be very difficult. It can be discouraging at times. The franchisor is the voice on the end of the line in the beginning, ideally ringing at least weekly, saying, how are you going? What are your issues? What are your problems? What's causing it? How are you converting jobs? Are you making good money? Are you coping? Or how's your family? It's just getting to know somebody and helping them to do well. Our ideal way to become a regional franchisor is from a successful franchisee, somebody who's been in business as a franchisee, somebody who is successful, somebody who has a great customer service rating, and also somebody who just likes and enjoys helping others. And that's often via being a trainer. Now, we do sometimes take franchisors from outside of Jim's group, those who seem to have the right qualities, and usually they do very well. Well, to buy an existing region with franchisees in place means that from the word go, you've got an income, you've got franchise to look after, there's fees coming in all the time. So this can be quite lucrative. Look, successful regional franchises can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The great benefit of being in a new business is you pay very, very little. And if you're good at what you do, you can make a lot of money. We only do mobile services because that's what we're good at. We did have a try many years ago at doing health clubs and frankly, we didn't understand the business well enough and it was very sad. We just failed. So we don't want to do things that we don't understand, even though it seems we do a lot of different stuff like mowing, cleaning, dog wash test and tag it. They're all service businesses where somebody rings for a service and somebody goes out and provides a service, or even just rings and provides a service, like. Like bookkeeping. So we're good at that kind of stuff. We have the software for it, we have the expertise, we have the contracts. We know how to do it. We really don't understand other kinds of businesses, so we'd rather stay clear.
