Jim's Mowing is a lawn care service franchise which was founded in 1982 by Jim Penman. Penman initially launched it as a part-time gardening business while he was completing his PhD in History. The business was run independently until 1989, when it became a franchise, which can now be found across four different countries, with 4,000 total franchisees. After launching the Jim's Mowing Franchise in 1989, further divisions followed. The second division was Cleaning, and since then the franchise model has been adapted to almost 50 different service industries. In 2019, Jim’s Group is the largest home-service franchise in Australia. It has an annual turnover of over $500 million, approximately 4,000 franchises and about 35,000 customers. Jim is still the CEO of the group and actively involved in day-to-day operations. Jim's Group has now expanded into Great Britain, New Zealand, and Canada.
History
In 1982, Jim Penman started the company with $24 of capital. In 2009, there was a major disruption from the franchisees when fees were raised and Jim Penman was almost voted out. In 2010, master franchisors held a "referendum" asking for Penman to stand down because of concerns with his leadership style, breaches of contract, and steep fee hikes. Although the referendum followed the procedures in the operation manual, Jim advised he could not be stood down and that only he could run the company; eventually, negotiations occurred which reached agreement on the fee and master franchise issues. A number of concerns about Penman were also raised by disgruntled franchisees including that "he runs the whole business as though he owns every part of it", changes had reduced the value of their investment, and litigation. In 2006, Jim's Group received more than 100,000 leads that were unable to be serviced. In 2012, there was an unsuccessful bid for $10 million in funding to expedite expansion including a float on the ASX, which has not since been realised. In 2018, the Jim's Group launched the Jim's Plus initiative claiming to have received over 180,000 leads that were unable to be serviced. This program offers these leads on a success fee basis to non-Jim's franchisees.
