Jim Penman – From $24 Mower to Franchise Empire

By John Ogilvie

You see his face and name everywhere, mostly attached to lawn care businesses but also many others (including pet grooming, construction and electricians). Jim Penman is, without a doubt, an Australian icon. In addition to building his massive franchise empire, Jim has been in the news recently for his outspoken criticism of government waste and excess regulation.

“I cannot comprehend how the public service works. It’s so, so bloated… My best estimate is you could probably cut bureaucracy by two-thirds and you’d have a much better functioning government.”

So how did Jim get to where he is now?

Early Years

Jim was born on May 25, 1952 in England. His mother, a teacher from NSW, met Jim’s father during a vacation to the UK. The family moved to Australia in 1955, settling in Victoria.

He went to various schools, and eventually studied history at La Trobe University. Jim would go on to complete his PhD, also at La Trobe. While completing his doctorate, Jim worked as a lawn mower to support himself, a setup which cost him $24 at the time.

As time went on, Jim realized that doing the lawn work himself was very time-consuming and yielded limited financial return, so he shifted to building and selling “rounds” (packaged customer lists) and hiring subcontractors. By the late 1980s, he had sold around 100 of them.

Building an Empire

Competition changed everything. When VIP Home Services entered Victoria in 1988, Penman knew he had to professionalise or lose ground. He turned the operation into a formal franchise in 1989. The model was deliberately built around franchisee protection rather than franchisor extraction. This included right of first refusal on work in their territory, automatic renewal, no supplier kickbacks, and fees that stayed stable.

Jim has always described his mandate as being “fanatical about service” to both customers and franchisees. Sounds like a model that lots of businesses could learn from today (I’m looking at you, Sony ).

Early on Jim had little success as a salesman, but he learned to focus on what the other person needed. The approach scaled. Jim gradually expanded into other services (cleaning being the first new edition).

The head office has a reputation for high standards and high turnover. Penman is quick to fire when standards slip, yet the franchisees themselves show strong retention compared with independent trades. Average turnover per franchisee sits around $150,000 (with the best operators running multi-million-dollar businesses). The structure rewards operators who execute rather than those who game the system.

Today, Jim’s Group spans more than 40 service categories with roughly 5,500 to 5,800 franchisees generating around $1 billion in annual system turnover across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

Speaking Out

Like many in the Australian business world, Jim has recently decided to throw his two cents into the political debate.

Penman has argued that excessive public sector size drags on productivity, creates tighter regulation on business and construction, and ultimately makes the country poorer (especially ordinary households, rather than the already wealthy). This last point is particularly important. Laws and regulations that stifle wealth creation ultimately affect the working and middle class the most.

He singled out zoning laws as a primary driver of housing unaffordability, contrasting Australia’s restrictive rules with lighter-touch jurisdictions where housing costs far less. The author of this profile has previously written about the effect of government regulations on housing prices.

His July Sky News appearance sharpened the personal angle. He described the compliance load on franchisees. Thousands of dollars upfront just to prepare complex contracts and disclosure documents full of legalistic jargon. He said that some regulations do have merit, citing the old 7-Eleven scandals as an example of why franchisee protections matter. But the sheer volume has become destructive. He returned repeatedly to the idea that politicians who have never run anything real simply do not grasp the cumulative cost and time sink.

Jim has decided to put his money where his mouth is, and is running as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Victorian state seat of Northcote at the upcoming November election. The seat is crimson red, so the run is unlikely to deliver a seat. Jim has framed it as a way to force attention onto housing supply, red tape and bureaucratic expansion rather than as a conventional political career move. In a way, raising awareness of these issues is even more important than actually winning an election.

The public-sector growth Jim criticizes is measurable. Federal numbers alone have risen sharply in recent years , and the broader public sector now absorbs a significant share of the workforce. When that workforce is insulated from performance pressure, the default becomes more process rather than better outcomes. Red tape does not fall evenly. It lands hardest on the smaller operators who lack dedicated compliance teams. Zoning restrictions demonstrably constrain housing supply in high-demand areas, pushing prices higher for everyone who is not already an owner. Those are straightforward incentive problems, and Jim has lived on the receiving end of them.

Regardless of what happens at the upcoming Victorian election, maybe it’s time for Jim Penman to start a new division of Jim’s Group.