Jim's Group CEO Jim Penman is calling on retired CEOs, business owners and other entrepreneurs to rejoin the workforce to become life coaches.
Jim's Group CEO Jim Penman said life coaches were needed to help Aussie small businesses, with the ability to rake in thousands per week.
The CEO of one of Australia’s best-known chains has called on retired Australians to return to the workforce and help the nation's struggling small businesses. Abandoning your twilight years after decades of work may not be appealing, but you could earn up to $150,000 for your efforts.
It's likely you recognise the iconic green and gold of garden maintenance brand, Jim’s Mowing. But you may not know the Jim's Group has a stable of more than 50 divisions, from beauty and dog washing to security and electrical.
Founder Jim Penman told Yahoo Finance his franchise network was seeking out retired business professionals and experienced entrepreneurs to become life coaches.
The father-of-10 said Jim's Life Coaching is a "cost effective" system that allows people to get advice about how to "improve their lives", but took a particular type of person to suit the role.
“You ask certain kinds of questions, you find out what a person really wants to do with their life, and then you help them to achieve that," Penman said.
"It's having a certain attitude towards people, certain character, certain communication skills, which is why we think people who have been recently retired are very good options for this.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics data found that there had been higher levels of retirement in Australia in recent months.
Australians are also retiring later in life, with research from KPMG finding the expected retirement age for men was 66.2 and 64.8 for women — the highest since the 1970s.
Penman said the biggest demand for the division’s services was coming from business owners going through his franchise network.
Penman (left) launched the Jim's Life Coaching division with Sue Thomas (right) last year.
“The hardest thing with any franchise is not finding the clients. It's about finding the right kind of people with the right kind of attitudes and they don’t grow on trees,” he told Yahoo Finance.
However, he argued it's not just Jim's members that would benefit from the wisdom of experienced business people.
“Life coaching is about everything," he said.
"It can be about exercise and health, it can be about better human relations, about having a sense of community, having a sense of purpose in your life.
"It’s about living a better life."
'Pays well enough': What earning potential do ex-retirees have?
Franchisees are responsible for running the day-to-day operations of their business, while franchisors are on hand to give them support and mentoring.
Penman said the Jim’s Life Coaching division was still fairly new, but “$3,000 a week should be a reasonable sort of aim” for franchisees to turn over.
“That’s the case for most of our services. A single person should be able to turn over about $150,000 a year,” he said.
Penman said he was hoping to attract people who had a “genuine interest and concern with other people”.
“It pays well enough but it’s not something that you can get fabulously rich on overnight,” he said.
Penman said the group aims to create at least 30 franchises within three years.
“It can go a lot better. Our laundry division started and had over 100 within the first three years,” he said.
No retirement plans for Jim
Penman established Jim's Mowing in 1989 after picking up a side hustle tending to lawns while studying a PhD.
But the founder has no intention of retiring himself.
“I have a retirement ceremony planned. It’ll be in a church actually, I think that's appropriate and I’ll be the guest of honour,” he joked.
“I might be in a box because I’ll be dead.
“That’s my plan. I turn 73 next month, and I do not feel like slowing down.”