Franchisor view

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

BC Forbes 



  

Jim Penman – The Green Goblin of franchising

After a serum injection enhanced franchisor Jim Penman’s physical abilities and intellect, but also drove him insane, he adopted a communistic-themed appearance, dressing in a creased Jims Mowing costume and using an arsenal of high-tech “blame game” and “manual/contract changing, fee charging” weapons to destroy the regional franchisors!


A Gillray cartoon possibly showing the franchisor view of Penman.

Feedback from the most recent franchisee induction training:
Jim got up and blurted that "he hates all of the Franchisors, and if he had his way he would get rid of them all and never have them again”

A most interesting comment coming from the self-proclaimed “worst franchisor”.
And by the way he treats his Regional Franchisors whom he is referring to, the 200 odd franchisees who have helped him become the second biggest franchisor in Australia it all smacks of a man who has lost the franchise plot!

JIM'S WINDSCREENS SMASHED?

All is not well in yet another Division:


2009/9/8 Damien Digby damiend@jimswindscreens.com.au

 
    Hi Jim,

     I just wanted to let you know of the growing challenges we are facing & the overall disappointment we have to date on the purchase of the Windscreens division & the poor return we are receiving on our investment.

     Here is what we thought we had invested in:

    * We paid $300,000 + GST for a National division that had 2 active franchisees that had operated since 2005, with one who was committed to training franchisees at $1,000 per franchisee.

     What we in fact have is:

    * A franchise that has operated with no operations manual, ever. We have now engaged someone to draft this for us at great expense & hours of time from both Vito & myself.

    * One franchisee who has not paid fees ever. He currently owes us $5,000.

    * The same franchisee, who is also our 'trainer,' charges us 10% ($3,500 + GST) from every franchise sale & we have had no other option.

    * No one from head office with a clear enough understanding of our particular division & us having too work things out as we go along. We can't get anyone to tell us what constitutes a fair 'region' for a business like ours & have been told too sell one first & work out the borders later which I feel is unfair if not illegal.

    * Demands from Head Office to change the landscape of how we were sold & currently run the division which will make us even less profitable.

     We're down to the last $2,000 in our bank account after paying our last lot of vendor payments & head office fees & are running out of options, even though we have sold 3 franchises within 6 months. For us to continue in any sustainable way means the decision we have to make now is to dig into our pockets again (we put $20k to get going in the first place) to prop the division up by having to purchase a van, employ a trainer at $1,000+ per week & move a delinquent  franchisee (one of the originals we inherited) on. This in addition to the day-to-day service provided to franchisees let alone trying to sell others in to cashflow the business.

     In saying that our passion to grow the business is still there but we have no financial relief from any area based on the over inflated price we paid for the division. If we wanted a start-up we could have started one at a much lower cost than $300,000. We have paid all our bills & payments to head office & Andrew Parke in a timely fashion but something is going to have to give if we are to survive let alone succeed. We have not taken a single cent out of the business to date & see no opportunity in the near future to do so - meaning we have to work in other full time jobs to support our families.

     Jim, I need your advice on what options we have to pursue & whether we can get a refund on our purchase, seeing that we were sold something very different from what we have received & apart from one meeting with Richard Reid 2 weeks ago (which was very positive), have had no support or interest shown to us by the Jim's Group. We are not even listed as a preferred supplier in our own directory.

     I'm available anytime to discuss this matter further.

 
And these are examples of many such recent emails to Jim:


The below Franchisor view has been contributed with the franchisor requesting their name taken off the correspondence, Jim still must have the LAST word:

2009/10/6 ANON

Again I state that you have no idea about our business and you again have shown this. Talking about raising prices in our market is not possible at this time of the year due to the fact that 90% of our work is insurance work and the rates are pre approved so if my franchisees raise their price they will not get a job. I find it interesting that you state I need to provide a better service when you and your office can’t provide anything that remotely resembles service to me. Thanks for your yet again useless and out of touch comments. Keep it up Jim, you really know how to de-motivate.

P.S. teaching my franchise owners to ensure they are stocked with product otherwise they won’t be able to do a job is in fact very proactive, but how would Heather be expected to know that. Yes I copied and pasted the same note but this is the first time I have done it and that was because I felt the same proactive was necessary for all four of these franchise owners at the time.

Yours in a depressing business due to head office bullying, ANON

Jim do not bother to reply as I have no respect for anything you have to say, just go and do as you will.

From: Jim Penman [mailto:penman.jim@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 6 October 2009 8:41 AM
To: ANON
Subject: Re: Change of note status

ANON

Your opinion of me is irrelevant. Just look after your Franchisees.

Jim