Jim Penman built business

How Jim Penman built a multi-million dollar business

Sarah Stowe
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The Jim’s Group has grown from humble beginnings to a network of more than 5000 franchisees – and it all started as a part-time lawn mowing business. Today the group encompasses 50 different service divisions, from antennas to cleaning, from dog wash to pool care, from security doors to uniforms.

With it’s tag line ‘Need it done? Jim’s the one’ this uniquely-structured franchise group continues to evolve.

In this podcast, founder Jim Penman shares his journey from Phd student to franchisor, admitting to plenty of errors along the way.

“I’ve made more mistakes than I’ve had successes,” he says. “I’m a hopeless businessman. I’ve only ever succeeded at one thing in my life. Fortunately I’ve done quite well on that.”

Jim shares what keeps him motivated, reveals the magic weapon that helped him scale the business, talks about how to pick the right business, and offers some tips for young entrepreneurs.

“The best opportunities are actually in the service industry because you can start with nothing. You can start part-time as I did, as a student job. You can work with somebody else. You learn that if you’ve got a good attitude towards customer service and this attitude of constant self-improvement, you can be really, really, really successful,” he says.

Show notes

Jim Penman established Jim’s Mowing in 1982, launching franchising seven years later. He launched the cleaning division in 1994. Today there are more than 50 divisions in the group.

Jim’s research project centres on biohistory.

Sylvia Penman, Jim’s daughter, is heading up the removals and storage business, which is not yet franchised.

In the podcast we mention Joel Kleber, Jim’s chief marketing officer, who has had his own journey from law student to award-winning marketer. You can listen to his story, and find out how he took the brand viral here.