I met Jim Penman in September 2017 at a business event held at Foothills Conference Centre, which he owns. A friend had called to offer me a free ticket to the event, adding, ‘Jim Penman will be one of the keynote speakers; it'll be a great day'.

‘Jim who?' I replied.

‘Penman — you know Jim's Mowing? The guy who started it.'

‘Oh Jim!' Of course I knew of Jim's. Who didn't?

At the event Jim shared the story of his franchise, especially his obsession with great customer service. It was inspiring. He also made a brief mention of his research into the rise and fall of civilisations, which I found fascinating: what can we learn from our past mistakes and successes as a civilisation?

After the talk a small group of us chased Jim down, catching him just before he left for his next appointment. He was happy to chat for five minutes, and gave us all a free copy of his book Biohistory: The decline and fall of the West — and, amazingly, his email address.

I love talking with individuals who have achieved a lot, learning valuable insights and hearing their incredible stories, so this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I emailed him that night thanking him for the book and suggesting we catch up. He agreed, as he wanted to discuss with me how he could get more exposure for his research, and suggested I read the book first.

I read it over the next month, emailed him, and arranged to meet at Jim's national office. Upon arrival I had two distinct impressions. The first was how beautiful the 20-acre property that hosts Jim's national office and the Foothills Conference Centre is. The second was how unassuming the office buildings are. There was no grand entrance. In fact, the buildings looked rather plain: the main office building is long, and looked from the outside more like a row of schoolrooms than an office. I had a hard time figuring out where to enter until I noticed a laminated sign blue-tacked to one of the doors that read ‘National Office'. Surprised, I opened it and stepped into a basic, well-lit, open-plan office.

Valerie Lobo, Jim's employee of over twenty years, pointed me to Jim's office. The door was ajar, and inside he was sitting on a bright-purple exercise ball, working at his computer. I noticed a very basic desk, empty except for his computer. The walls were bare and there was no clutter: no papers, pens, keys or phone, no photos in frames, nothing personal. (Months later I walked into his home office and discovered the walls covered with artwork from his kids, photos of his wife and children, and all the usual desk clutter. It was clear he kept home life and work life separate.)

Jim stood to greet me, immediately launching into a rapid monologue. ‘Oh hi there Catherine; I watched your TED talk and it was good. I liked your Funnel of Greatness idea. It's similar to what I say about the importance of character. You seem to be a lively person who communicates well — maybe there is something we can do together.'

Through our chat that day, and more in the following weeks, we arrived at the idea of me writing a biography of Jim, incorporating the differing perspectives of the people who know Jim — ‘warts and all', in Jim's words. ‘I'm not always easy to work with. I'll introduce you to family, friends, staff, franchisees, franchisors, particularly those who don't like me, so you can have an honest account.'

Throughout my research, Jim has been true to his word. For example, in an email he sent me in April 2018, he suggested I speak with one man in particular: ‘He's just launched a legal action and known me for years, so would be a strong negative voice'. He included his email address so I could contact him.

He was also happy to draft and sign a legal document for a number of interviewees who requested it, promising not to sue them for anything they told me.

Jim has given me access to his family, and current and former staff, franchisors and franchisees. I've attended Jim's Group training, staff lunches and Jim's National Conference. I have been to his home and his farm, and have interviewed over one hundred people from all areas of his life. A few have wished to remain anonymous, and a few declined point-blank to be interviewed.

It would have been impossible to include the perspectives of every one of the over 8000 people who have been involved in the Jim's Group over the years, and there have even been too many GMs, COOs and CEOs to adequately cover in one book. Likewise, the expansion into each new Jim's division has not been covered, as that is too long a list; today there are over fifty divisions, plus others that have failed.

My aim is to give you a full account of Jim's life — his character, his business, and his passions — as well as the company's progression over the years. Some people have very different accounts of what happened, and I have done my best to reconcile them.

This book is the story of the unique man who has built the largest home-service franchise in Australia through his passion for franchisees and customers. Yet while this unrelenting passion has driven his business forward over the past thirty years, his temper, unorthodox communication style, and some of his business decisions have put many offside. His story is inspiring, often surprising, and at times very strange.

In the beginning the structure was simple, with Jim as the franchisor selling franchises and no layers of management in between. Today, the Jim's Group franchise system is set up as follows.

In the late 1980s Jim Penman was in an ‘utter panic'. He had been mowing lawns in Melbourne, employing subcontractors, and selling his excess clients in batches called ‘mowing rounds' to people who wanted to start independent mowing businesses. He knew there was a mowing franchise system called VIP in Adelaide that was very successful, but Jim couldn't see how to make a franchise work in a way that would clearly benefit the franchisee.

Then VIP expanded to Victoria and Jim feared they would swallow his entire business. He talked to VIP's Victorian state manager at the time and offered to sell his entire output of mowing clients to VIP on an ongoing basis, making Jim an appendage of VIP. But VIP was a big business that was growing steadily, and the offer was refused. Still, the success of VIP suggested to Jim that franchising was feasible.

Shortly thereafter Jim attended a meeting at his church. That day the talk was about goal-setting, and, as Jim recalled, ‘On the spot, I decided that franchising the business would be my goal'.

His first move was to attend the 1988 Melbourne Franchise Show, immediately hiding his nametag upon arrival. He walked straight to the VIP stand and enquired. ‘The man gave me a brochure and a long and detailed explanation of the VIP system,' Jim recalled with a grin. After twenty minutes VIP's Victorian state manager arrived, saw Jim, and called out, ‘That's Jim Penman! Don't tell him another thing!' But Jim had already learned what he needed to know.

Jim discovered that VIP concentrated work in one area to reduce franchisee travel, provided discounts on equipment and insurance, and allowed franchisees to make extra cash by selling surplus jobs. Plus, if they were sick or injured they could have someone look after their customers, a major concern for contractors. Jim could finally see why franchisees would pay fees for these benefits, but more importantly Jim was, in his words, ‘very motivated by defence and survival'.

Jim engaged a solicitor to draw up a franchise agreement, rejecting VIP's, which he considered ‘simply unfair to franchisees'. The first thing the solicitor did was create a template for two contracts, one for each company: Jim's Mowing (Australia), and Jim's Mowing (Victoria). ‘I said, “What's this for?” and he said, “In case you want to set up interstate”. I just laughed,' Jim recalled. His ambition was to survive VIP's expansion to Victoria; he would never get big enough to expand. Still, he ended up agreeing, ‘just in case'.

After nine months of arguing over an agreement that the solicitor feared was overly favourable to the franchisee, Jim finally had a franchise agreement he found satisfactory. Though the contract was radically pro-franchisee in many ways, it was still tough on customer service, on-time payment of fees, and that franchisees must always wear their uniform when working.

And so, in June 1989, at the start of a Melbourne winter, Jim Penman launched Jim's Mowing and signed his first franchisee.

Fast forward to today and the Jim's Group is Australia's largest home service franchise, with fifty-two divisions (as of writing — it's rising fast), and with almost 4000 franchisees servicing roughly 35 000 customers a day, on average. The Australian Financial Review¹ described the Jim's Group as ‘Australia's second-largest franchise player after Australia Post'. Jim begs to differ. ‘There may be more than four thousand post offices in Australia but less than three thousand are licensed. Look it up.'

Every week in Australia some 175 000 people have their needs met by a Jim's franchisee. You could wake up one morning and have your antenna fixed, your dog washed, your bookkeeping done, your lawn mowed, your house cleaned, your windows washed, your devices tested and tagged, your computer cleared of viruses, your home cleared of pests, your car detailed, your pool cleaned and a new fence put up — all by a Jim's service. And this isn't even a quarter of what Jim's people do.

Today, the Jim's franchise as a whole turns over roughly half a billion dollars a year. Jim himself employs roughly forty people, and rising. And though franchise numbers have been growing steadily, client demand has risen even faster. In 2016 the Jim's Group turned down 121 000 jobs because there were not enough franchisees to do the work. In 2017 and 2018, the number of ‘unserviced leads', as they are called, was 170 000 and 175 000, respectively.

So who is this Jim?

An Aussie icon

What is the first name of the founder of Jim's Mowing? When Jim posed this question to me I made the obvious guess, ‘James', as did most of the people I have since asked. Jim shook his head, grinning. ‘My first name is David,' he said. I was somewhat dubious so he pulled out his driver's licence to prove it, and, sure enough, it reads ‘David J Penman'. ‘If you talk to any of my relatives they still call me David,' he laughed.

He started calling himself Jim, he explained, when he worked on a farm after graduating high school. The owner's son was also named David, so he told everyone to call him Jim, from his middle name, James. The new name stuck, and we don't have to contemplate a world serviced by ‘David's Mowing'.

Jim has quite a reputation. While writing this book, when it came up in conversation what I was writing, I received an interesting array of responses:

‘Oh, Jim! I've heard he's a prick.'

‘Man there's a Jim's everything these days. Where will they stop? Jim's Haircuts?'

‘I heard Jim fired his sister, is it true?'

‘I know someone who was a franchisee but left because of all the changes to the contracts.'

‘I was a Jim's Mowing guy a number of years ago! I was much fitter back then, of course.'

‘Wow — he's an Aussie icon!'

‘I've heard some bad things about him.'

Jim Penman is a powerful man with tight control over his franchise system. He is relentless about delivering great customer service and looking after franchisees. He has a rigorous complaint system that he personally manages. Because of his forceful reputation in the business world, I did a double take when I saw him affectionately cuddle, kiss, and tickle his eight-year-old son. I have watched Jim command a room with riddles, jokes and party tricks at a franchisor dinner, and I have had him finish many of our interviews by simply standing up and walking away without saying ‘goodbye'.

The first staff member I interviewed wrote me an email beforehand, to give me an initial insight into Jim. Remarkably, Jim was copied into the email, which either shows this employee's extreme confidence in their ability to hold their job, or it shows that Jim doesn't mind his employees being brutally honest with him. Maybe it's both?

My first direct experience with Jim, beyond the initial ‘welcome aboard' handshake, was fear. He was asking me about an ETA on the project that I'd been hired to work on. I told him my estimate and — holy crap — that look in his eyes … you feel like you're standing on very, very thin ice. I've heard the same about that penetrating stare from other people (who actually did end up getting fired!) …

I've got a ton of respect for him. Respect has roots in both admiration and fear, and I have both for Jim …

When it comes to business: he's ruthless. If you're not contributing, you're gone. Regardless of your situation. I've seen him fire a guy who was a week from his first baby.

Some of Jim's staff are daunted by him, but not those who communicate with him most. Where other employees see him as domineering, to them he is a passionate, intelligent, ‘tough but fair' boss.

In 2012 you might have seen Jim's sister Gill Moxham talk on Today Tonight about her own brother firing her. ‘The Today Tonight interview twisted it,' Gill told me. ‘They made it out like it was a family business. They didn't push the fact that Jim shafted me so much.' Needless to say, Gill is still very hurt and mad at him. You'll hear the details of what happened later.

Jim has many contradictions. He is not a likable, social personality, nor is he someone you meet and instantly feel warmth for. Yet he has a lot of people in his life, gets on well with his kids, has been married to his current wife for seventeen years, and has friends he sees weekly. Jim is known to change his mind often, make decisions very quickly and get angry in an instant. (‘Of the seven sins, wrath is definitely my downfall,' Jim admitted.)

Jim responds to emails with record speed, though often without thinking through how his response will sound to the recipient. And he doesn't add niceties like ‘Hi Catherine, I hope you're well' to his emails; he is famous for replying abruptly. Jim has a reputation of being a firer, with many franchisors laughing that ‘it's always a revolving door at National Office'. And yet he has multiple staff members who have worked for him for five to ten years, and some who have been there for over twenty.

Jim is generally seen as ruthless and tough in business, not one to be crossed lightly. And yet the Jim's Group has avoided litigation better than most franchise systems. Though himself a powerful and forceful man, he believes passionately in the rights of the underdog, which is why his contracts are unique in allowing franchisees to vote out franchisors who do not support them properly, and in allowing franchisees to walk away and operate independently.

Jim is the easiest person to reach that I have ever met. He gives all franchisees his direct phone number and email address and actively encourages them to contact him at any time, responding with lightning speed when they do. Yet he has many faults as a manager, which he admits openly. Many of his staff, franchisors and franchisees say he doesn't know how to manage anything effectively, and yet, somehow, he has built an enterprise that has far outstripped its competitors. Though Jim is deeply and ferociously ambitious, he lives a simple lifestyle and pours every dollar he can into finding a cure for addiction, depression and other ills.

So among all of this — who is Jim, really?

And how on earth did he build Australia's (if not the world's) most successful home-service franchise?

Is he a tyrant? Or a saint?