More 2 Marketing

Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to more to marketing. The podcaster explores marketing, product and everything in between. I’m your host, Susan, and we’re going to be talking about entrepreneurship today. I would love to introduce a legend in the entrepreneur space in Australia. Jim penman. He is an absolute legend while driving around Australia, you’ll definitely see the success of his business and businesses because they helped to make a difference for everybody, small and large. Personally, I’ve come across Jim’s mowing Jim’s dog wash and of all things, gyms, antennas over the time. Because I’ve had little bits and pieces, I needed help with along the way, and these franchises really make a difference.
Susan
There’s not just three. There’s over 50 divisions for franchise options, which is huge, and this all came about from a vision from Jim, who we’re talking to today. So welcome, Jim.
Susan
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Would you mind sharing a bit about yourself and your career?
Jim
Didn’t start out to be in business. I went to university Sun 171 with the idea of understanding the reasons for the rising for the civilizations of all things.
Susan
Oh really?
Jim
Ended up doing a doctorate and. Ten years later, myself. With actually no, no career prospects whatsoever. I do a far too radical, far too different. I wanted to pursue them. I wanted to start a Research Foundation to pursue them in areas of epigenetics and so forth, but didn’t have any money. So I went into business and the only business I knew was mowing lawns, which is my student job. That’s how it started, and there was this little more main business. One man business. Originally that was unexpectedly successful.
Susan
That sounds absolutely amazing. It’s such a drastic difference as well from from what you studied to what you actually ended up creating and building yourself.
Jim
And the only thing I got in common, Susan, is that my thinking is unconventional.
Jim
In terms of research, in terms of academics, I was very, very unconventional in what way of looking at things still and in terms of the way the gyms works, very unconventional. I just don’t do well, do I look at the whole thing is OK. Way. What’s the best way to look after franchisees? What do they really need? What? What, what? What do? What do clients want? How do you look after them? Better. Is that sort of? Originality. That that’s it’s commonplace to my career.
Susan
The one thing I love about the ethos of your business is how you want to connect and keep that connection with customer so that they don’t just stay with one franchise, they they try all different ones as required cause they have exceptional experience at all of them.
Jim
Yes, that’s right. I mean it’s not 100%, but it’s a it’s it’s vastly better to give you some idea of the difference in pre franchise days when I had some contractors I would get about every hundred leads, I’d get 100 complaints. It was that bad. These days it would be a fraction of 1%. So it is it’s more than 99% improvement in terms of the service. To give compared with them and it’s just gone steadily down and as their customer service has improved and as the complaints have gone down, the leads have risen. So last year we knocked back over 200,000 leads.
Susan
Wow, that’s that’s.
Jim
It’s it’s quite must be quite here actually.
Susan
That’s exceptional, particularly with all the the growth that your business has been going through as well. That is absolutely phenomenal numbers and to get down to under 1% of complaints, that is a huge accomplishment that you and your team should be so proud of being able to be part of.
Jim
Yes, we actually have to go and dig for complaints. We we use surveys. Ten days after the leak goes out, we survey the customer and ask them if anything negative at all, and even small things. That’s a that’s a complaint and has to be dealt with. So we look for. The. One of the greatest things that customers can do for us. Is to give us feedback, good or bad.
Susan
I I’m a huge believer in feedback. Feedback is how you can improve not just yourself, but your business and that’s how. You get to that next level.
Jim
Yes, absolutely. People have no idea how bad they are. I most of people I know in business think that they do. They give good customer service, but they just don’t know. They’re so blinded to it. We are very, very aware. I personally look at every, every poor survey done and and we’re talking about thousands of you. It hasn’t every single port server. I personally look at and and and do it in some way and and obviously we’re trying to get them to do whatever we can to sell by the customer, which is the ideal. You know what you did wrong. If you can go back, if you can sell by the customer, then that’s OK.
Susan
One of.
Jim
And I also if a customer has a problem that’s not dealt with by the franchise. Or. Second time they’ve been, they contacted us, they put them on to me and I will sit. On that job. So I. I directly get involved with with customer services.
Susan
And having such a small number as well would must be so thankful for you to know they’re doing such a great job that you’re not having that volume coming to you.
Jim
Yeah. Why? I I tend to look at why we got so many. I’m. I’m never satisfied. I’m. I’m all just I’m looking at. What’s going wrong?
Jim
What? What’s and then we’re developing some IT systems, some some computer systems I’m I’m fairly confident over the next year or so we can cut that down by half. While. We’re getting now by using better IT and then following up, making sure that when we give a job to a franchisee that. Actually measuring it, they call them. Are they been in contact? Are they turning up? Are they calling back? Are they giving quotes properly? These kinds? Of things. So I think we can do a lot better.
Susan
Measuring is so important as well, because how can you do a benchmark if you don’t know what you’re measuring?
Jim
Yes. Yeah, yeah. People spend a lot of money on marketing. They’re much better off spending a lot more time, money on giving a better service. I I believe. And and then the marketing tends to take care of source to a large extent.
Susan
I agree. I think one of the things I’ve come across in business myself having run some telco businesses for the second biggest in Australia. No one at one stage for some of the second tier brands. No one’s really talking to the call centre team to find out what was being said or what they think would be improvements. And to me that’s a gold mine. Get down to the ground roots, not just here what the customers are saying, but also what the frontline. Hearing. Because sometimes they don’t share it, possibly out of fear they don’t think they can share it. There’s no opportunity to to share. So I always make sure I had that open pipeline that every year I’d have a couple of different opportunities them to send them all through to me. So I could see could I improve the product. And improve the experience. What could I do to make everyone’s life better, not just for customers? Also my teams.
Jim
Yeah, that’s fine. I I actually go into the call centre every day of the week, just go in there, look what they’re doing, chat with them, what’s happening and get feedback. You’re right. It’s very important. I think one of the big mistakes that. Business owners can make if they they they divorce themselves from the, from the, from the roots. I I wander around my different offices chatting to the staff my I give my phone number and my email to everyone of my franchisees and franchisors, which is well over 5000 now. So and as I said, I can contact with customers as well. So I’m I’m I’m aware of what’s going on.
Jim
I I don’t actually do a lot of the management of the business. I’ve got people who do that kind of stuff, the finance and those kind of. Things, but I’m very much the contact person.
Susan
It’s your heart and soul that’s in it. I I can. I can see that. I I’d love to understand. I know that this. With unique experience for you, you’re mowing lawns. You’re like, oh, I think there might be something here. What inspired you to to go down this entrepreneur path? Apart from money, of course.
Jim
It’s not really a case of going down to the next bus where I was when I was out there pushing along my run as a student in the 70s. I was already an entrepreneur cause I was looking at ways to do the job better.
Susan
OK.
Jim
So for example, I was one of the first contractors in Australia to. Have a brush cutter. Because and not no customer would complain, but it used to annoy me and I couldn’t get the grasp from the ground, the clotheslines and the trees and so forth. So as soon as I saw I met, I saw these things that made 75. I bought it straight away because I wanted to do a better job and and I was always looking at ways to to to pick.
Susan
Oh.
Jim
Up my grasp. More effectively into saving, saving a pace and getting on a tree faster and doing a better job faster. Travelling between jobs in a more cost effective way. I was always like that. I was always obsessively based on. Self improvement so I didn’t choose to go down the path I I was all with Doctor Preneur for the first time. I actually started doing it and I’m still the same today. Every day of my life, including Christmas Day and Easter and every other day Sunday. I’m thinking how can we do this better? There’s there’s really no difference. The, the the difference is in the scale. But it’s the same process.
Susan
So it’s very natural for you to think of that, let’s improve, optimise. How can I reduce wastage? Let’s make this as fabulous as possible. I love it.
Jim
But I apply that to anything, Susan, if we can, if I’m, if I’m. I’m loading the dishwasher. I’m I’m looking at the most cost effective way to do it. How can you? How can you done download it with the the least possible steps you know? And here’s the the you you have the you have the the and taking the glasses out for example. OK, I’m taking the glasses out and it’s one step and turning it and they go into the glasses drawing then. Back again like. That see. Yep and everything. Washing up or or or or cleaning or anything I do has to be efficient in the way you handle emails. It doesn’t matter. Everything is efficiency. You look at every stage how you can improve it. That’s the entrepreneur mindset. It doesn’t matter what size you’re at, the big difference between the the top people.
Jim
And the others is that the the the best people are always looking at how to improve. And the difference being the worst people from the others and most people are pretty good actually. You know, the only talking about 5 or 10% who really shouldn’t be in business. They they’re the ones that actually blame everybody else, they said. Something’s going wrong. It’s it’s it’s system sports, the clients fault. It’s Jim’s fault. It’s the anything, but they don’t look at themselves. So the more you look at what you. Can. Do and the less you try and blame other people. The. Better, which doesn’t mean to say sometimes things are wrong. I’ve got some franchisees who are contacting me by their franchisors and they got real. Deadly gripes this franchise is always not doing the right thing by them, and that’s something I’m getting involved in. But at the same time, the good ones will still say. What can I do better?
Susan
That’s that’s amazing. I I think we’re a bit of a kindred spirit there, Jim, in regards to efficiencies, even in the home. I I’m so like that with everything I do in the house that I have two twins that are 2 1/2 years old and when I their change table is literally like military precision of where everything is. I don’t have to move, everything is within just that one spot and clean clothes, shoes, the lot and even going to work in the morning. Getting the kids ready. Everything is almost to a timetable of my my kids know at 7:00, they’re in the car and going to daycare. There is none of this. Like the 2 1/2, there’s only just running around or anything, they just know because I’ve just got this precision in it. This is what I need to do. This is my timing. I’m not wasting any time. Time drives my husband nuts.
Jim
Yeah, good on you. That’s great. You gonna have any?
Jim
At least you got two I’ve got. I’ve got. I’ve got 10 kids, actually. But like, I wasn’t giving birth to them, so I supposed a bit easier.
Susan
I think he may have had the bit of the easier end there. Apart from being the support person, which can be very hard as well. A lot of people look for gaps or problems to solve. What’s been your inspiration along the journey for all these different verticals that you’ve gone into?
Jim
I I I found the world is bursting with opportunities. There’s bursting with things that are wrong. There’s so many mistakes we make all the time. And the more you look into. It the. More you see, and so many more opportunities to do it better it it’s like there’s a massive smorgasbord of potential improvements and things that you can do. It’s frustrating actually, particularly IT because we we can never never get enough IT dump with all the things I have in mind. Never. It never happens fast enough, I I. I have a sort of a a dream as if you could have it people and you put them into a time capsule where they actually time doesn’t pass outside and they can simply go and do a year’s worth of work and and and come out. In a in a day but.
Susan
I love that.
Jim
But because because it’s always something that I want. Done. That it won’t do IT is a very big part of our system. It’s it’s. Huge these days. It always has been actually the kind of system we run couldn’t possibly be done without pre advanced it.
Susan
And that’s one of the things you’ve probably seen a lot of opportunities with new technologies. Are you able to talk through some of those changes and technologies from like the 70s and 80s, definitely that have now evolved all all this time. What’s really?
Susan
To evolve gyms to where it is today that you’ve actually seen from the technological space.
Jim
Well, the, the the way your own things wouldn’t be possible. We have a centralised call centre and also online ordering. Now you might put a job in say it’s it’s it’s a clean job for Doncaster. There might be 30 franchisees who could handle jobs in Doncaster but we know which ones want it today. And we know also from that we’ve been, but who’s the territory, right, which goes to 1st and then we look at who’s had the fewest jobs in the past few days, but there might only be one person who can take it. But we know that person is. And then when the jobs.
Jim
Going out and that’s possible. The of the of the French. So they look after it that they they pay a small fee we call a lead fee to get them an incentive to. I don’t take what they want and to follow it up and then we survey the client. So there’s a whole process that’s highly. Automated in terms of. Making sure that customer goes to the right person and then gets looked after well.
Susan
That that would be insane. To do that back in the 80s, it it I’m having flashbacks of watching those murder shows where they have all the leads come in on the on the telephones and bring it all down, then trying to put it into some kind of filing system that would have been insane to do this back then because that would have been the technology.
Jim
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, when I started off, I spent 3/4 of nine months actually getting contracts. Do lawyers to do contracts. What I really should have been doing is is just done basic contracts of some kind and spend my time getting IT organised. I didn’t know I was. Doing. I’m actually gonna look back upon my career and the thing that most strikes me is that I made. So many stupid mistakes and and and all, sometimes quite recently. Two of them as as as recently as a year ago, I’ve made some terrible mistakes. You just keep on making them and then you just look at them. It’s OK. Made a mistake there. How do I change that? What? Do I do next time? How can I learn from it?
Susan
And I suppose that would be almost every. Day not. Not necessarily everyday occurrence, but quite regular. When you’re in this space of pushing boundaries, looking for those opportunities, jumping on it is at the right time or not the right time. Is this the right technology, not the right technology? Are these the right people? Not the right. People. But I I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens more often because of the spaces you are now. Covering as well.
Jim
Yes, they’re really in, in a sense, it looks like we’ve we’ve run a very diverse business, but in actual fact, the essence of what we do is quite similar. It’s service to franchisees. First of all, service to clients and most businesses don’t know if you’re cleaning or dog washing or pest control or mowing. They’re all very, very similar in terms of the. Customer experience and and the software involved, we have what we call the divisional structure. So somebody would come to us and say I’d like to do. I was talking about this morning about Jim. ‘S health, like doctor’s surgery.
Susan
Yes, I saw you’re on the lookout for for new people for that service. Yes.
Jim
Well, I I believe in that very strongly. I’ve got a very strong commitment to health and and Wellness and stuff and and. I think the. The the current medical system is broken, so anyway that that was this morning at 10:00 I was on. The phone with this. Really amazing lady in Queensland and she’s got this software in her system was in place and she wanted to do training hopefully in January. That’s just the new division that we could do, but the point. Is. I don’t know much about. I know what I have a problem with in the medical service area and the way the way surgeries are run and the way that the charging is done.
Jim
But I don’t know how to do it but she but she obviously does.
Susan
Yeah, getting those experts in.
Jim
That’s the partnership. Same thing with Jim’s beauty, which is just launched. It was about three months ago, one of my franchise also. What about Jim’s beauty to ask questions about what sorts of what skills, what experience you need, what hourly rates possible? We can’t see our list 60 bucks and now we’re not interested and it’s now launched it’s got.
Susan
Sense.
Jim
I had five friends. I was in training last week.
Susan
That’s absolutely amazing and. I-1 of. The things that I look at, this is go how do you handle the growth? How do? You handle all. Of this, what? How? When you realise there was something here in Jims, mowing and all these other problems you’ve seen along the line. When did you know that you were under something big? And then what steps did you take?
Jim
There’s no sudden realisation. It’s just a case of doing what you’re doing and trying to do it better. When I first launched the franchise back in 1989. Somebody asked me how many friends have these. I might have one day and I told them if it works well. Maybe one day, 100. That’s that was the.
Susan
If it works well, I love it.
Jim
I was very surprised that it took off in the way that it did, and even then for some years afterwards, it really didn’t. It didn’t cross my mind as to what a great business. This actually is. Look in the early days, I I. Basically. And I had something to sit in. Buying me out, I just. Didn’t see the potential. Fortunately, I didn’t go down that route. I just didn’t understand and and. It seems very. Pedestrian things like mowing and cleaning and stuff. But they are massive industries and. I think it’s the sort of the the unglamorous end of the of the consumer market is often where it’s the best opportunities.
Susan
I still remember my neighbour when Telecom was going through its mass redundancies back in the 90s. He’d he’d worked for telecom his whole life. He’d been like there for 35 years or something. He didn’t know what he could do next. So he started gems, lawn mowing in our local area. And I still remember the very first time he pulled up with the trailer on on his, on the back of his car, proudly showing that he was now. Part of that franchise. And it was just for me looking at and I was, I was a young girl at that stage and I still remember it because it was such a moment, because that’s when I first got introduced to gyms, because there was gym helping out someone who really needed a job but really wanted to do something good.
Susan
And and that’s where I saw that growth start happening in the the mid 90s.
Jim
Yeah, well, you know the the secret weapon I had. I was when I started gyms. I was up against the competitor that had 250 franchisees. They were much bigger than me. More money, more experience, more everything. And I had a. I had an. Absolutely a killer weapon. And that was a list of my current franchises with their phone numbers, and I used to give that to everybody who inquired. They said, look, they asked me which is a better system that well at the other one. And they said, look, there’s some differences, but here’s a list of my friends. So just go and talk to them and then get the other guys list, which I knew they wouldn’t give them if they wouldn’t. That, that, that, that strategy built my business because I did everything possible to make sure my practises were successful, including locking back people I didn’t think were going to work out. So I send them out on the road with a couple of my trainers and they’d have. To have to get a certain result to get in. Which was not unusual. It’s very unusual in the service industry and great majority. Were very happy.
Susan
It definitely makes.
Jim
We do very well. It’s like customers are no. Different, they’re actually. Crucial and most important, clients are actually franchisees rather than customers.
Susan
Cause they they do seem.
Jim
That doesn’t mean to say you you you don’t look after customers incredibly well, but you do it because you know if you look after customers, well, your franchisees are going to succeed as individuals and as a group.
Susan
To help each other.
Jim
So that better the customer service we give, we know for example that. We do surveys every year and we ask people what level how they value their income. Is it good? Satisfactory, poor. Now typically it’s about 51, you know, 50% good. About 9% poor and the balance of satisfactory. OK. But you look at that 9%, they’re not evenly distributed franchisees who give great customer service a very much less likely to report poor income than those who give not so good customer. The service, so the better service you give, the more chance you got to stay. Also it means two one of the things that we look at a lot is attrition rate. So if you look at a typical business like cleaning or gardening, if you go into that business as an independent and you can look this up online, it’s all over the place. Your chance of still being in business. At the end of 12 months, is between 5 and 10%. With us lettuce figures 88%.
Susan
Oh wow, that’s a huge difference.
Jim
That those who leave in that first year now they don’t leave because they failed. There’s other reasons for leaving, like they could be health reasons or offer a better job, or have to move something like. But those who leave their customer service levels are significantly worse than those that stay on. So again, great customer service is that one of the best ways you can possibly help our franchise is to be successful.
Susan
It definitely shows as a key metric in all those measurements that you’re doing to ensure that they’re at that level to have that future success. So you can probably call out the ones that probably need a bit. More TLC along the way, too.
Jim
Yeah, we do. We have an automated system actually that sends things like warning letters and. Complaints had to be followed up and French also tomorrow and then we have warning letters and breach nurses if we need. To. And then very often. But you know, people continue getting complaints. So you you’ve got a process that you take them through and if in the end they can’t overcome.
Susan
You’ve got it there.
Jim
It then we. We part company we so we can’t get any more leads cause you’re. Not going up to customers long enough. And bear in mind, we’re not talking about somebody looks ups and no customers. What we’re talking about a person who looks up to four out of five customers, OK. And one out of five badly. And that’s completely unacceptable.
Jim
The top people are basically going to be 99 Percent 99.9% good.
Susan
I remember hearing in one of your talks I’ve watched quite a few of your your videos and podcasts, etcetera, about even some of your franchises with franchisees when they go out, they might go into a. Type of community. So say for example Filipino and they don’t just they, they then bring about all different people from that same nationality to build out their little franchise that they’ve got so that very quickly they grow and they see the growth as well in their business.
Jim
Yes. We’re in the interesting situation of having for most. Of visions of surplus of work. So we really like people to build major businesses. We don’t, the fees don’t rise either, except they might pay bloody more leave fees, but the base fees the same whether you’re turning over $100,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year. But the the the problem? And. That franchisees have to grow is not usually leaves. It’s finding good start.
Jim
And people with an ethnic background have a big advantage because you have people who are new in the country who don’t speak particularly good English, make very good employees because they usually very hard working and conscientious. So we had a lady who started a year ago. She’s got like 13 employees in the cleaning division, but she’s Filipino and they’re all, guess what?
Susan
Filipino Yep. Now I I think that I’ve seen a lot of that out there as well, particularly even in painting.
Jim
OK. Yeah.
Susan
My my house unfortunately went through defects, so seeing the painters and I had to actually use Google Translate to talk to them because they were fantastic workers, but they couldn’t understand what they needed to do because they hadn’t been given a list. So I I completely appreciate that you’ve got all this fantastic talent out there. It’s just about getting over that language barrier.
Jim
Yes, actually really good translation would be of such an enormous help too. We’ve looked at that, actually, what we’d like to do is to have a system which is sort of theoretically possible, where a friend where a customer could ring the office speaking Mandarin only and be spoken to somebody who’s an English speaker and be understood. It’s not quite good enough yet, but.
Jim
I was just two minutes. This morning got a good report. Yeah, but that’s that’s very powerful stuff if you could. Do it. That would be amazing.
Susan
It would be 100% and one of the other things I’d love to touch on is you’ve invested so much in your franchisees that you actually have your own compounds. Am I right that I was was watching a video and you actually have a, a place down in Melbourne where they can go and learn? And you’ve got beds for them to stay in, like rooms. And they’ve also got an auditorium to teach in. Can you tell us a bit more about that strategy behind how you’ve been training everyone up and keeping them part of the family?
Jim
Yeah, that’s right. 20 years ago he bought this site in Melba. It’s an old university campus and had some. We still haven’t completely used all the rooms there, but what we’ve done is built accommodation so they can now pick 96 different rooms in.
Susan
That makes sense.
Jim
So it’ll be third week. We come in lots and lots of trainings and they can stay on site and they can eat and we have a buffet meal which is pretty nice actually. And then like and I wander around and talk to the Chinese trying to get to know them, because if I I find if I meet them during training them or like they contact me, if they need to. So it’s very exciting actually. We just had last weekend it’s it’s a great buzz. The food’s pretty good too.
Susan
Or one day you never know. I might be down there trying some.
Jim
Well, you should come do our training course sometime. It’s really, really it’s really quite eye opening as to how business runs we we are very welcome to we do. We don’t restrict it to people who are necessarily gonna be franchisees. So on the other hand, you might get tempted while you’re there.
Susan
You never know, and also with your different mindset on how to approach this. I think that would be amazing information to to learn because I I’m more my eyes are already open. Talking to you now about how you actually came about doing gyms, which is brilliant. With entrepreneurship, we know that there’s lots of risks and rewards you’ve already touched on this a little bit that there’s some regrets, but what if some of your key lessons that you’ve. Learned along the way.
Jim
The hardest thing for me is finding good people, especially a senior level. On the whole they got very good start like the first IT guys I’ve ever signed and still with me. Guy called Stuart I love. Ugly fanatic and so forth, but he’s been with me for. Well over 20 years in 25 years, so we really try and keep staff on, but finding people who at the senior level has been a big struggle.
Jim
Very wonderful, some wonderful tenant managers. Now my CEO Rocky and and finance Manager and HR and and in-house lawyer. So I’ve got I’ve got very good people but that’s been. The biggest struggle at a certain time, I was reluctant to pay as much as. I should have.
Jim
Once you start paying sort of quarter $1,000,000 type of salary, you can get much. Better. People. So that was a that was a big mistake that I made for many years. The thing of it is about me is I’m not actually. One of my advantages in business, I’m not actually good at doing those things. I’m not a particularly good manager and not great with figures and not even great with marketing and social media. So therefore I hire people who are good at the things that I’m not good at. And I focus on the very few things that I can do, which is to do with, you know, new ideas and and and the and the and the ethos, the, the values of the business and and also speaking in public like this like so there’s certain things that I can do quite well, but.
Jim
Most things I can’t. I think one of the problems some of the most capable people capable people have is that they they can do everything well themselves. So it’s hard to find someone who can do anything better, so they don’t tend to grow, whereas because I know I’m so bad at doing most things, I’m always going to find somebody else.
Susan
I think it’s.
Jim
Without something like, I picked the wrong person back very often, so that’s doesn’t work out so well. But in the long run you gradually get great people around you.
Susan
I think that’s one of the the biggest challenges for a lot of people. As you mentioned, understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are and if you are just average. Yeah, you can get it done, but is there a way to do it better, smarter, faster with someone else?
Jim
Yeah. Look, the studies they’ve done in America showed that people are most successful, aren’t. The people who are top. Of their class, they tend to be fairly average. The ones who are really good at what they do tend to go on to become the very specialist quants and lawyers and accountants and that kind of people. But the entrepreneurs know the more the middle ranking people by myself. Not not good at, not brilliant at doing particularly anything but, but just the kind of mindset. Well, it’s got too resilience too, Susan. Some people get very down. If you’re gonna be in business, you’ve gotta be very tough. And and if things go wrong I I I have this sort of just bounce back. I just look at, OK that was a mistake that went wrong. What do I do? We’re now running short of money. How do we solve it? What do we do? We never, never get fussed. Never get and always make decisions and just say OK, thanks mate. Don’t do it again. Travel to do this one now. Now do this now. Do this now. Do this and you just. Do. A whole stack of things and things start coming right. I do that again and again.
Susan
I I I agree it’s about try test and learn. See where you can improve. See where these optimizations and as long as you’ve still got momentum and going, it’s so important.
Jim
Yes. Yeah, that’s right, there’s. Always. There’s always something else to do. The biggest mistake you can ever make is to think you’re good enough and and you can never be good.
Jim
Enough. You never. We used to have a one of our very early officers we had. In a row of of shops. We immediately we had one Tony shop and then we just grew and grew. And grew, but the the. Actual tenant at the end. This little shop was a Nook bar and I used to go in there and. He was complaining about about, you know, the the sign fair that there was these big shopping centres nearby and, you know, we had people coming in to, you know, buy lunches with the staff instead of coming down. To him. But I and the whole stack of things you know, I notice you go in there and be talking to one of his mates and he and he would ignore you for maybe. A minute or two? Yeah, just just that kind of stuff. And then the staff would go down and they wanted a sandwich and he wouldn’t give him lettuce. Didn’t want to open up a lettuce, for example. And I said, why don’t you go and ask, you know, whether what they want to take an order, just walk up. It’s only something like a minute up the stairs.
Jim
Oh no, I can’t do that. So it’s kind of.
Susan
Not helping himself.
Jim
He was he was surprised. He was concerned. He probably gave great customer service. He just didn’t know.
Jim
And look like a very. Hard business, of course, but all the. Same you have done a lot better.
Susan
Yeah, I I think it. It’s one of those things that you really have to be open to criticism in a positive way to. Improve and put yourself out there. Like for myself with this podcast. It’s my passion. I I love talking to people, meeting people and talking these topics. But I’m now going out to people I don’t know and trying to build connections. So I’m putting myself out there and being resilient. When you get that, no or the no comment. Back, which is why I’m so thankful to have people like yourself on here sharing a bit of your time to to help me in my. Audience. Because it it is, it’s it’s going out there. Testing yourself, pushing yourself, learning more and getting. Better yourself along the way. OK.
Jim
One of the hardest things when you become more successful too is that people tend to be in awe of you to a. Certain extent and. They they’re not as not as as honest with their criticism as they might otherwise be. I really try. It. I have a sort of a policy. When people come up with an idea, I have to think about five times before I I say no to it and and and because you don’t want to come across too strong. Just like when there’s a wonderful book called Creativity Inc, which is about Pixar.
Jim
And. That’s it. Just shows how they started. Now Pixar was basically came from George Lucas originally, but the person who funded it to make it work was, of course, Steve Jobs. And one of the things they had a system where they had this immense creative process where the, the, the creatives from each team, not the managers, the creatives would come and they would look at each other’s work and they give feedback. And one of the things that Steve wasn’t allowed in those meetings. And he knew quite well because he was such a strong character that he would tend to override other people.
Susan
Even with a small opinion, it would make a huge impact.
Jim
They had this this series of hits after hit after hit using this process, and then they went in and they took over the Disney animation and did. A much better job there.
Jim
But it’s it’s it’s it’s Frank. Frank’s feedback that you you need so badly. It’s it’s not easy to get. Yeah, especially as you, as you become a sort of a legendary figure in some ways, it can be quite poor.
Susan
I can understand and and appreciate the the dilemma you’re in there, particularly when you just as you called yourself before. Average Joe doing things you love happen to be successful with it, but I’m still the same person inside that what I was going to uni and trying to change the world with my thoughts and how I was trying to do things back then.
Jim
Yeah, I’m. Look, I’m often. I’m often startled by how well it’s gone. It’s it’s surprising. I’m. I’m very aware of my own feelings. So. Like I don’t know things I’ve done wrong and all the things I’m bad at, and you just wonder how this guy she’s thinking. It’s it’s very odd actually, but then they can obviously just shows you that you can be completely incompetent in most ways once you get one or two things right, you do all.
Susan
And also the resilience just keep going.
That’s right.
Susan
Keep keep going at it, I think.
Jim
That’s something I have by nature. I am just very, very half minded. I just don’t. I I just can’t imagine giving up. It would just be like. Just couldn’t do it. Anyone like this? Put my gun on my head or something. I just can’t imagine it.
Susan
M.
Jim
I can’t imagine stopping either. I mean, I was 71 years old and strong. I’ve got a life expectancy probably been early to middle 90s and I don’t expect to retire. I really don’t know, maybe I’ll get a bit sooner. But I tell you what, right now I feel fantastic. I feel full of energy and ideas and I’ve never felt. More. A lie more capable, in a sense, very fit. Obviously I I run a lot, a lot exercise my time outside.
Susan
You’re probably a lot thinner than me.
Jim
Well, I’m fitter than most people actually, but I can’t remember feeling better than this when I was half my age can’t, so I don’t. I don’t believe in this retirement thing. I just don’t think it’s necessary for me, the hardest time of the year is spring, Christmas and New Year when the office shuts down, I get I find that very difficult. I don’t like holidays. I’m notorious for hating holiday. I I try and keep, I try and keep the Sunday clear if I can because of the service, but it’s too difficult it really.
Susan
Think.
Jim
Is I just can’t.
Susan
Something tells me workshops are in mine between Christmas and New Year to try and get some new ideas.
Jim
Yeah, I’ll use it. I’m actually going my family down to Torquay. I’ve got like, my, there’s quite a bunch of us now with all the partners and kids and stuff. So it’s quite a gathering once a year, so that’s good that that gives.
Susan
All the kids and grandkids.
Jim
Yeah, I’ve only got 1 grandchild in Australia, but 2IN in New York.
Susan
That’s an excuse for a future holiday.
Jim
Thank you. Ohh, I hate travel. I hate travel. I would be very happy never to travel half an hour from from where I live in my whole life. If I if I could get away with it.
Susan
One of my final questions for you is my second last question is or third last actually what excites you about starting a new business division the most?
Jim
Well, it’s just fun. It’s just fun to grow. It’s, it’s exciting to see it. So when when you started laundry, like 2 1/2 years ago, it’s got over 100 franchisees now it’s just. It’s amazing to see it. But I have to say that the thing that gives me the most satisfaction is just hearing from a franchisee. One of the things I do once a week is I ring my my veterans on their on their anniversary like 1020 years and to hear the story of how. Somebody lifes changed, that’s. That’s unbelievable that that’s more meaningful to me than anything else at all. The the numbers are just, I mean it’s just the number really, how many franchises you got. But if you look at somebody. There’s there’s a story that guy rang last year. He was a 10 year veteran and I asked him what he was doing before he got. Into gyms, which I often asked that kind of question. And he said he was a. He was the manager of the IGA supermarket manager, saying take quite well but working very long hours. He’s about to leave for work one very early one morning and it’s little son. His four year old sitting daddy.
Jim
I wish you had breakfast with us. And he went to work and he said he’s he was. He was swimming on his face the whole trip. Quit his job. Got a mine franchise and ever since then he’s always been out at breakfast with his children.
Susan
That’s gorgeous.
Jim
And he’s seen them grow up. And he said there’s nothing in the world that could have. Made up for that now his money is actually no better than he’s making as the supermarket magic lying for inflation, of course, but his lifestyle is different. I said to him, do you ever thank your son for that comment? He said every day. That, to me is a is a.
Jim
We’ve probably made more millionaires than any. Other company in the country, I reckon, because a lot of our franchisees do very, very well. But the biggest, the biggest benefit is just having time for family.
Susan
That balance is so critical.
Jim
And I work. I work pretty long hours myself in strange ways. I mean I I was, I I.
Susan
To be able to see them.
Jim
I was complaining about my managers. I said to him, what are you doing answering emails at 2:00 in the morning? And he said, Jim, what? Are you doing emailing me?
Susan
Replying back.
Jim
Complaining about each other, but the thing of it is I drive my son to school. My 14 year old and I pick him up most days so I would probably spend, you know, 2 1/2 hours, 3 hours a week talking to my son, my 20 year old son. How can you? You can’t do that. If you had a normal job.
Susan
You can’t put a. You can’t put a price on that.
Jim
Yeah. And I’ve always had time for my kids growing up. There’s a there’s, there’s a. There’s a saying. I really love called no other success can compensate the value in the home. I just don’t think money itself is is to be on an indoor and I and I think people have this idea that if you go out and you make more money and you have a better car and a bigger house and more expensive clothing and. Lush holidays and the rest of it you’ll be happy, but it just doesn’t work that way. Money has very limited. Additionally, when you’re talking about spending on social comparison and and theatre is, it’s Theodore Roosevelt said it right. He said social comparison is the thief of joy, so you’re making more money so you can be better than someone else. That’s a terrible way to live it, actually. In fact, the best. Way. To spend money is on experiences and the best way of all is on giving it away.
Susan
You’re not living.
Jim
To a cause that you’re involved with. That’s the kind of thing that creates happiness. So I live in a reasonably simple life. I was in a super like the other day and somebody recognised me and I said I’m surprised you’re shopping as if I should be having minions of servants do all the jobs for you. I don’t. I put the rubbish out and do the washing up and put the laundry through and help my wife with that and. Longer life.
Susan
You’re keeping active, that’s why.
Jim
It doesn’t. It doesn’t. It’s it’s not.
Jim
I think God doesn’t give us money. Just to live a self indulgent life, I don’t think it’s good for you or for your kids.
Jim
And our kids know that, and it’s some theoretical level. We’re quite rich, but they say, well, where’s the mansions? Where’s the where’s the chauffeurs? Where sell the stuff that you’re you’re supposed to have, and you just don’t see it.
Susan
No, I love that. I absolutely love that and gain comes back to the. You’ve got you’re very humble about what you’ve done. You know, it’s amazing. But at the same time, you’re still all struck by how amazing it has been.
Jim
Yeah, it is fun. It’s a it’s a great buzz. It’s a great buzz. And as you, your kids grow up, your twins grow up. Then then no one has successful you are you. You’ve gotta do the same thing. You you don’t want it to be being sporting kids is the worst. Thing. So they gotta learn to be, which they already doing, you know. You’re disappointing them. That that’s you. They. Gotta learn to help with the household chores. And stuff at a very young age.
Susan
Exactly my, my, my mantra is kindness at this age because only 2 1/2 so kind be kind share help, help, go help but be kind when you’re doing it. So that’s that’s where I’m trying to instilling them at the moment. It’s so cute because I’ll have like a bag of nappies and I’ll be like, oh, can you take. This to Daddy and off they run to do that because they just think helping is just an amazing thing to do.
Jim
Well, we think of having another one or two. They’re really wonderful no matter what you achieve in life, nothing beats family.
Susan
Have to agree they’re. Just it’s just. A new level of joy and happiness.
Jim
I can’t. I can’t think of a person who’s been their whole life just piling up money and all they’ve got is no kids or they’ve got kids that are complete, wasteful waste of like like someone like John Paul Getty who used to be the richest man in the world and kids were rubbish. I mean, just just bad. What’s the point of a life like that?
Susan
Yes, not good. Not good at that.
Jim
I don’t envy people who are rich for its own sake. I don’t compare. I need to do what I do. Whatever gives God’s giving me. You are the. Best of my ability. That’s my thing. I don’t want to compare myself with anybody else.
Susan
Well, I’m. I’m not sure how you go with my last question or second last question I ask all my guests because you don’t like to compare, but there might be something that touches you and makes you feel similar or joy. What brand any brand in the world best represents you and why?
Jim
I wouldn’t talk about the brand so much, but I admire certain individuals. I I hugely admire him on Musk, for example. I mean, the guy’s a flaking idiot. He really is what he’s done with Twitter. Changing the name and all the rest of the dumb things he’s done. And technologist, he is incredible man. What he’s done with SpaceX in particular, he’s just beyond belief. And there’s a new, I don’t know if you’ve read the living biography.
Jim
The new one? Which is better than Ashley Vance? It’s a really good book you should read.
Susan
Not yet.
Jim
We keep the book recommendations whenever I talked to them, we just talked about how he did it and the way he changed the manufacturing process and the way he looked at every stage of the process. What can I leave out? Can I do this cheaper? Can I get a better thing that that relentless thing? I almost really, really admire him. And I I really admire James Dyson. There’s a book called Inventor, which is fantastic book about what he did and how he did it. Just looking at it, incredible quality of product and we used Tyson stuff cause it’s fantastic. It’s the best, it’s just better, better, better, better.
Susan
I think I think my Dyson is. 25 years old. I’ve got a very old Dyson vacuum cleaner, one of the originals, and it’s still going.
Jim
It’s just good stuff. It’s so beautifully engineered and it’s just designed for purpose. You. I’d never buy anything else but Dyson. It’s it’s. It’s the best.
Susan
Quality.
Jim
And I admire another person. I I greatly admire is is Steve Jobs? Not so much because of Microsoft, but because of the Gates Foundation. I mean, he’s actually taken all these incredible billions and he’s using them to make the maximum. Benefit to humanity and and the great Foundation has saved millions of lives. I really Revere that man too, so I have. I have my my idols, the people that I that I admire the most rather than brands as such.
Susan
And it’s all the qualities as well that that you love too, which is what I really like and how you’ve described those.
Jim
Yeah, yeah.
Susan
My very last question, I promise it is my last. Is there anything final? That you’d like to share with the audience about becoming an entrepreneur in the. Jenny.
Jim
I just say it’s a lot. Of fun. It’s really, really, really fun life. I cannot imagine any more exciting thing, more interesting than being an entrepreneur. Look, I don’t know if you like computer games. I do too much.
Susan
Yes.
Jim
Business is like a it’s like a really, really complex computer game with infinite number of levels, constant challenges, constant excitement, constant achievements. And you get paid for playing it. Now. Could you imagine a better life than that?
Jim
People say to me, why won’t you enjoy your goals? And I said, I’m enjoying what I’m doing so much. I love what I do. I love my life. I love Mondays. I love work, I love. I love the rewards of it. I love the excitement, the challenge, and I love the relationships. It’s so fun.
Jim
And what can you say next? And I and look, if you look at work as something that you do for the sake of money rather than rather than for the sake of fun. I haven’t worked in decades.
Susan
I think you found your absolute calling. You’re doing it every single day and you’re helping others as well so that they can live their best too, but not feel like working. Feel like they having fun too.
Jim
There’s going to be a sense of purpose in what you do, Susan. Now, whether it’s family or whether it’s business. I I feel very strong, see my franchisees like my tribe. They like my family, I I very.
Jim
I get very involved with them. I get very upset when something goes wrong for them and and I’m very it’s a very emotional thing. It’s not, it’s not clinical at all. And and honestly speaking, in my mind, money tends to come a long way down the list. You’ve gotta make money, you gotta make profits and you gotta watch that kind of thing. But it should never be in the front of your mind. We should always be looking first. How can I amaze my customers or in my taste my French? So these are my primary customers. How can I focus on them? How can I do that in the best possible way and then try and do it cost effectively? That’s that’s the basis of it. Never. You never give good service because it’s you make more money out of it.
Jim
You give good service because that’s the kind of person that you are and in the end you’ll tend to make more money. But most of the best decisions I’ve made in business, what things I made against, what I thought was my own self interest, like when I started off, I thought that by knocking back franchisees that I wasn’t sure of, I would slow my growth. In fact, it was a great decision. It’s actually one of the things that have driven our growth very hard because you’ve got more happy people and more happy clients. But I didn’t know that at the. One I just said, I don’t want to be responsible for putting a person into business who might fail, and I had a case just to come some while back where I found out that a woman rang me about a problem with the contract and she I found out that she was buying the franchise was among franchise on behalf of her son who and I asked why she. She was doing that, she said, because. He can’t find. John. And I said to her, we’re not gonna sell you a franchise. That is completely unconscionable to do it. She was quite upset, actually. She said. Well, I wish I hadn’t run you. And I said. What’s the? Johnny, good thing you did. And she said, what can I do? And I said, well, Tim, well, I’ve got a couple of guys in that area who need workers. They usually do go with them. They go. He was hopeless. He was absolutely hopeless.
Susan
Yeah. Yeah.
Jim
Now that to me. What that franchise all did in putting that person through opposing them was an absolutely. It was, it was. It was. A wrong act. It was an act without conscience to take money from somebody when you must have known that was a failure. Mother. Buying the business, son. Can’t find a job. No possible way. Is that gonna work out? And I was really, really angry and upset that that anybody, any my people, would do such a thing. And you’ve got to have that kind of attitude. You’ve got to care about people you’re dealing with.
Susan
Exactly. And make sure that they’re going to succeed. Otherwise there’s a poor reflection not just on that small business, but also the bigger brand itself, with the Halo effect.
Jim
That’s right. But all the what the most important. Thing of all you do. It because it’s you because what you. If you if you don’t really believe in what you’re doing, it’s just all for money. It’s not gonna be as powerful as if you do it because.
Jim
You you feel.
Jim
And I’ve had a case just recently, a couple of franchisees who. Have got a problem. With the region with the franchisor, it not been looked after right and and that disturbs me and I’d be talking to who would I be talking to them and emailing back and forth and talking and just doing all this stuff and it’s it’s in my.
Susan
It’s understandable.
Jim
Mind it it it, it weighs on me because. I just can’t be happy. Until we’ve done something about that and you know. It it’s two out. Of. 5000 plus people, but it’s it’s emotionally it matters. Yeah, but I think that. Kind of attitude, people. ‘S business isn’t about figures and and and money primarily. It’s about people making them successful doing something that they want, looking after your stakeholders. And as an owner of the company, you you are a stakeholder, yes, but so are your clients. So are your your workers like you mentioned before about employees? And in my case, so very much in my franchisees, they’re people who matter just as much. I hate this. The I think the the Chicago school idea, the idea that the only response to the. Business is towards the shareholders. That’s that’s a that’s a morally bankrupt system. I think it’s evil. I really do. There’s a there’s a wonderful book. The man who broke capitalism about about Jack Welch, just talking.
Susan
No.
Jim
About the damage that. So I did 2G and it’s now worth a fraction of its body of its value. And he was one of the most admired leaders of the late 20th century. But you look at what he actually did and he was appalling. Just sacked people might let the centre shut things down. Got rid of stuff because you could get cheaper ones somewhere else. The, the, the whole thing. You, you, you you buy 10% of the apartment every year. Yeah. Regardless, just just it was awful what he did.
Susan
Unfortunately, I think there’s still some businesses with that same ethos.
Jim
Ohh, there’s too many. There is too many. One of the things I’m really determined is that after I’m gone. I’ve got to set up a structure that makes it impossible for anybody to have take over gyms and do what people have done, like retail food group, what they did, a lot of franchise brands was just awful.
Susan
Yeah.
Jim
Not so much franchise franchise franchise, Zees franchise the way they ripped them off when they treat them so badly. I I find that.
Susan
Yeah. People that have the jobs, yeah, yeah.
Jim
Morally offensive. One of the things we’ve got a new new department gyms legal which is just stuck up too. And one of the things I’d like to do with that is to actually represent franchisees who are being ripped off by these evil franchisors, these money grabbers.
Jim
There’s a lot of really nasty predatory businessmen going around there and I get to see more than most people. I’m in touch with the franchisees association too, so I hear a lot about what goes on in the industry and it’s it’s awful what goes on and in all sorts of areas too.
Susan
Add builders into that list. Some of the things that build is it’s just horrible as well and you don’t have much fall back either. It’s just shocking.
Jim
There’s some very bad people in business out there, I can tell you that.
Susan
Thank you so much for your time, Jim. I’ve really appreciated it. The biggest thing that I’ve learned is if you want to be an entrepreneur, go for it. If you’ve got an idea, explore different ideas, find out where there’s some gaps opportunities and test, test, test and just try. Go with it. See if there’s some area to improve. Proof. Try to think if you can do things faster, more cost efficient. Where are those opportunities? Can it be your best friend because it can help automate a whole pile of the process for you too. Look for good people to support you, whether family, friends or in the business itself, so that you might not have all the answers, but you’ve got the people around you you can trust and make sure that it’s going to build and be strong. But most importantly, be resilient. Knowing that it you just keep going at it, going at it don’t give up. Keep trying. That’s one of the ways that you can actually grow, not as only as yourself, but also your business too and really underpin those values that you want your business to strive for. Make sure that it makes sense and that’s actually filtered throughout your whole business, that everyone’s got those. Same ethos, that same value, that same care structure within it, so that you’re growing together to make something magical together. And as always, I love my metric. I love customer care and also the customer journey. Make sure their keys are part of your success too, that you’ve always got your ears open and you’re actively listening and doing what you can.
Jim
Can I also add to that, Susan, look after yourself in terms of your? Physical and your mental health. And that means things like being fit. Yes, watching the diet, getting exercise. It also means spending time with family, spending time with friends, having problems, social relations, spending time outside. I think, just working all the time. Is A is a bad idea? I don’t think it’s even good for your business.
Susan
Agree. You’re probably going to be over analysing things if you’re always in there too, and always second, possibly second guessing yourself. A lot as well. Thank you. Again, Jim, don’t forget to add more to marketing to your podcast lists so that you hear some more fabulous guests in the future. More to marketing.