Enable Me to the next level with Jono Bredin - Episode 51 of Better Business, Better Life!

Debra Chantry-Taylor  0:03

Welcome to another episode of Better Business Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get what they want out of business and life. On the show, I invite successful business owners and expert speakers to share their successes. They are open and honest about the highs and lows of business and also life as a business owner. We want to share those learnings with you to inspire you, but also to help you avoid some of the common mistakes. My hope is that you take something from each of these short episodes that you can put into action to help you get what you want, not only out of your business, but also your life. So good morning, and welcome to another edition of Better Business, Better Life. Today I am joined by Jono Bredin, who is the CEO and Integrator at Enable Me. Welcome, Jono.

Jono Bredin  3:05 

Thank you very much.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  3:06 

Thanks for joining us, I know that you found out from the Hawke’s Bay to be with us, I really appreciate that. So tell me what it is that Enable Me does?

Jono Bredin  3:13 

So, Enable Me provides financial coaching to New Zealanders to help them unlock their potential and achieve their financial goals, whether that be reducing their mortgage quicker, but most importantly, setting themselves up for retirement later in life.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  3:27 

Perfect. And is there a particular type of client that no one likes to work with? Or is it just Kiwis?

Jono Bredin  3:32 

The great thing about Enable Me is that every person in New Zealand can use financial literacy and financial accountability really to get ahead faster. I mean, even those people who think they are good with money, myself included, can benefit from a layer of accountability. And that’s what Enable me looks to provide.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  3:51 

Yeah, and that’s really interesting. Your background is actually in Accounting, is that right?

Jono Bredin  3:54 

I know, ironic, isn’t it?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  3:57 

And I think sometimes you know, is that it’s not the builders house, we often find that we can say all the right things, but we don’t necessarily follow them ourselves.

Jono Bredin  4:03 

Yeah, exactly. But but also, it shows that no matter how, you know, no matter how sophisticated you are, in your financial affairs, you can always do better. And that’s what we really look to unlock.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  4:14 

Yeah. And I like it to using a personal trainer, right, we all know that going to the gym, eating healthfully – all that stuff is what we need to do. And I’m a food scientist, so we are all the people I probably know the best what I should and shouldn’t be doing. But without that accountability without somebody actually there holding me accountable. I’m helping them when having the tough times and just being my kind of cheerleader just to get things done.

Jono Bredin  4:33 

Yeah, and so it’s not about not spending money. It’s about, it’s about having the freedom to spend money on what’s important to you, but then working around the edges on well, how can we how can we tweak things here or tweak things there? And you know, just another set of eyes? In terms of what people are doing with investments and whatnot, I can make a huge difference.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  4:51 

That external view is really important. Okay, cool. So you joined Enable me how long ago was that now?

Jono Bredin  4:55 

About 18 months ago?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  4:57 

Yeah. And you came to me, you said, “Hey look, we’re looking doing EOS. So we’ll come back to that in a moment. Oh, yes. I forgot to ask, I always ask my guests. Can you give me a professional and a personal best just so the listeners can get a bit of a sense of who Jono really is apart from being an accountant.

Jono Bredin  5:11 

I guess my professional best is up until the end of last year I owned, co owned my own accounting practice. And I came into that at the age of 27. So I was extremely young, and naive. So my professional best is certainly been navigating, navigating that journey to get him to the point where I could, I could exit and go on to the next thing, which is how I landed with Enable Me so I’m really proud of that. And my personal best, I am a rugby referee. So I’m involved at the moment each weekend, predominantly running on the sideline. But before that, I was actually an international netball umpire, and an umpire the last gold medal match for the Commonwealth Games four years ago. So I am ambitious, that I I really enjoy sport and and officiating seems to have been the way that I’ve been able to achieve that and travel around the world. So that’s been pretty awesome.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  6:09 

And it’s pretty awesome. I didn’t realize I knew a rugby referree as you learned something new. So let’s get back to sort of enable me then. So you came aboard 18 months ago, tell me a little bit about that journey. And then I say you picked up the phone you we’ve been talking already about your accounting practice, and then you said, hey, look, I think EOS could be perfect for Enable Me. Tell me a little about that journey. And what’s happened the last 18 months.

Jono Bredin  6:32 

Yes, I guess Enable Me has been has been around for the last 14-15 years. And obviously, it’s the brainchild of Hannah McQueen, who’s an amazing human. And you know, she’s revolutionized the way Kiwis think about the finances. And as she approached me a while ago, and really could see the value in having somebody to run alongside her and do some help her with some of the heavy lifting. So she could, she could focus on what she wanted to focus on. And I guess that’s what really brought EOS to the front of my mind in terms of a tool that we could use in our business to take us to that next level because I wanted to be able to harness the absolute best of Hannah, which is the vision ray, which is all the funny ideas, and running at pace and actually organize that in a way that wasn’t causing with respect a whole lot of you know, a whole lot of hassle and havoc within the wider business. So we just needed a way that we could do what we’re already doing. But do it in a in a considered way. And we never would have a blueprint. So we didn’t feel like we were flying by the seat of the pants. Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  7:41 

I mean, Hannah was amazing lady. And those of you’ve heard her, I mean, she really is inspirational. She’s got amazing ideas, she created this whole thing from scratch and have done an amazing job. But she is your typical visionary, isn’t it we talk about a visionary being somebody who has the great big ideas, always looking for the next thing tends to be a little bit disruptive in the business just in terms of because they work at pace, and they have all these ideas, they can throw them into the business and the business runs around trying to execute on them all and loses focus. And I think that Hannah is definitely she has created everything. She’ll take it to the next level. But there was an element of that. Where’s the focus on the business?

Jono Bredin  8:16 

Yeah. And it was and it was just a case of having somebody to share the burden, right? I mean, she, no idea is a silly idea. And I think from from I really enjoy our relationship, because it’s just a constant backwards and forwards bouncing ideas, how can we do things differently? How can we do things better? And I mean, when you think about it, like I’m hugely grateful for Hannah allowing me to share in that journey, because we’re in her head, it can’t be easy to you know, reimagine what you’ve always done in a slightly different way. But she is amazing at that. And the fact that she’s leaned into the process has only assisted really in getting the business from where it is to where it is today. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  8:56 

And so, you play the role of the integrator. So for those who aren’t aware of Eos what is an integrator role, what are you doing?

Jono Bredin  9:02 

So, basically the integrator role is the person who is responsible for the leadership team and making sure that you have the right people in the right seats. And in our business, the biggest role the integrator plays is removing obstacles and barriers. So, it’s about leaving Hannah free to do what she does best the visionary pace blue sky thinking and in our business to obviously Hannah is on the tools at the same time. So I also pick up the mantle of of basically will see and, and running any ideas to ground alongside her so it’s really just that extra, that extra bomb in the middle, really, just to make sure that the place is running smoothly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  9:44 

Yes, the accountability, the discipline, all that sort of thing, making sure you’ve got the right people doing the right things. Yeah, excellent. Okay, so it’s been 18 months. Tell me a little about that journey. What’s been the highs and the lows of that journey so far?

Jono Bredin  9:54 

Yeah, well, I won’t lie. I mean, starting the EOS journey was a bit of a shock to the system but because we had a, we had a situation where we had a leadership team, if you call it that, where there was, I think, 15 people around the table, which is basically half our business. I joke, but it wasn’t quite that bad. But you know, we had various people there who had skills and who had really good opinions about how our business should work. And I guess it was the initial rub was getting those people to understand that that wasn’t actually being devalued. We just needed more rigor and accountability around how we frame those roles up. So we’ve now got a leadership team of six. And, and that’s, that’s been working well, but the thing you learn with EOS is it’s never set in stone. I mean, we’ve changed the makeup of the leadership team. once already, I think we’ll probably change it again, just as we begin to understand what are actually the pressure points in our business, what does our business need to grow, achieve our goals. So I think the journey towards accountability has been, has been challenging, because it’s not necessarily something that we have done well in the past. But that being said, now, we’re really starting to get the traction with the rollout throughout the wider organization underpinned by the piece of work we did on our core values and our purpose, which was, which was hugely powerful. And for us now, it’s about just delivering into that really, yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:26 

Perfect. And so yeah, we talked about the first first day, if you like, we is always, it’s always one of the fun days, I think, both for me as an implementer. But also, as

Jono Bredin  11:34 

You weren’t saying that at the time

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:37 

I’ll get a wine, get me out of here. But it is I mean, because we’re basically fundamentally challenging the way that everything runs. And with the accountability chart, which is not an org chart, but it is an accountability chart about over can reward, there can be some pretty major changes in there. And I think like you said that that changes over time, we don’t expect it to be set in stone. But yeah, so from that day, interestingly, we don’t do this stuff, like the vision, the core values, first, we actually teach some tools that you can work. So we went through the accountability chart, we decided to develop leadership team, you went into the business, what changed from that point forward, that was different to what you were doing before?

Jono Bredin  12:11 

Well, I guess we had, we had some structure around what we were certainly in terms of our meetings, we used to have a lot of meetings, I would argue for meeting sake. So now we you know, with our legal team meetings each week, we’ve got a structure around, you know, how we actually run our leadership team meetings, we, everyone’s quite clear the rules of the game, and that if they’ve got an issue, they chuck it up, we debate it, we run it to ground and probably the most important thing. And we’re still learning on this, as well as not just talking and getting down in the weeds, but like what is actually the issue and looking to come out of that with some actions to improve. And I think we’ve only just got into the rhythm of that now 12 months down the track. And we’re now walking and talking terms of our other teams within our business, because now they are on that same journey that we are, is, you know, really honing in on what actually is the issue because it’s hugely powerful. If I look at my IDS each week, I think we’ve got through 14 issues yesterday, because when you’re focused on what is actually the issues, and you’ll probably say to me, that’s too many, we shouldn’t have had them there in the first place. But you know, we, you know, you can get so much done, when you’ve got you know, you’ve got 90 minutes in a room together, we’re going to come out of this with some real tangible action points. And I think that’s what’s hugely powerful about it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:27 

Yeah. And I think that I always like EOS to be like a spotlight we put onto the business where all these issues do surface. And at first, that can be quite scary, because it’s like, oh, my gosh, we’ve got all these issues. 14 and a meeting I think is actually quite quite good. Because what it means is you’re actually identifying them, and then you’re able to kind of really dig down and go, Okay, what is the real issue here and hopefully solve that the root cause, which means they then disappear forever. So it’s not yet it is a definitely a good tool, it’s not unusual to have a lot of issues that suddenly surfaced through going that process.

Jono Bredin  13:55 

And I think when you’re in a high growth business like ours as well and a very entrepreneurial business, you are going to have things that pop up from time to time. And it’s about prioritizing those issues as well, right? Because you can’t fight fires on all fronts. And you know, there’s always opportunities to run after so I guess that discipline around what’s important to cover off now what’s going to make the boat go faster, again, referencing back to what I call purposes. And I mean, we’ve just gone through this journey ourselves at the moment, like, we’ve gone from, you know, having various different arms and our business to actually say, Well, what is actually our core business here, and let’s spend some time delving into that. And that’s, and that’s kind of the journey we’re on at this quarter. So it’s really powerful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:36 

Yeah. And I think also it’s a journey, right? It’s not there’s no kind of destination as such, but just when you think

Jono Bredin  14:41 

Perhaps, a journey to a tropical island somewhere, I mean, it’s a way we always say.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:46 

And that’s how we plan our tropical island. You’ve got these, this scorecard that you’re looking at, and how do we actually measure it and what do we measure in terms of rocks? Yeah. Okay, let’s hope so. But it is a journey. I mean, it doesn’t every business we get taught the businesses grow, you know, this beautiful S curve and That’s not really the case only at university. And every time we get to a new growth, but something else changes, and then we find that we’re going through a process again. So what about the, the challenges have been around, you know, yes, deciding who you are, what you stand for, where your core focus is, with having the right you’re put in the right seats, what are the real successes that you’ve seen in that sort of journey so far?

Jono Bredin  15:22 

It was certainly the successes in that journey, that I mean, the first one would be Hannah, and her role was visionary. I mean, just the just, you can, you can see that the capacity, it’s freed up in her mind, knowing that I’m sitting in beside her, you know, doing some of the heavy lifting on strategic projects, removing obstacles, and to let you in, she said to me, it allows her to be a lot freer, and allows her time and space to think of the next best thing that Enable me is going to do, you know, the board has commented as well, because we run by a board, what a difference they’ve noticed, and just, you know, the capacity that we’ve got to run at pace at things with two of us kind of been able to play to each other streams. So that’s been a huge success, second,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:08 

Real clarity around as opposed even time to have that sort of clarity of thought.

Jono Bredin  16:13 

Yeah, and I think, the thing that’s quite unique in our situation is I live in the Hawke’s Bay, and Hannah runs a business from Auckland. So we’ve also got the element of remote working, which we were, people were worried about how that might work at the start, but it’s almost, it’s almost played to our strengths in a way because I’m free from interruption to just get on and do stuff. Obviously, I still manage a team, and there’s still the people element, which, you know, I need to cover off. But by virtue of location, it also allows me the freedom to really get into the weeds on some of the obstacles in our business and how we can do things better. And yeah, I think that’s been hugely powerful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:52 

Okay, so if we think about structures, you’ve got your level 10 meeting at the leadership thing you say that’s no roll down to the departments as well. Do you and Hannah also have a regular sort of catch up?

Jono Bredin  17:01 

Yep. Yeah, usually, it’s the weekend when I’m free for a rugby game. Yeah, no, but we would talk, we were talk most days. I mean, we would certainly, we would certainly spend an hour together each day on the phone. Sometimes it’s just chewing the fat. But usually, it’s just what do you think about this? What do you think about that, you know, chewing the fat on issues, opportunities. Yeah, we talk very regularly, we often joke, we probably spend more time together on the phone than we would if we were sat in an office next door to each other.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:33 

And that’s more focused on what’s really interesting is I think this is one thing we’ve learned about working from home is that sometimes we’re putting structures in place, you are more focused in that time that you’re actually there, as opposed to being in an office with a whole bunch, when there are lots of distractions.

Jono Bredin  17:47 

Yeah that’s a change for me too, because you’ve always got the distraction of the fridge or the gym, or whatever else the case,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:53 

I’m mostly, I’m actually I’m not good at working from home. I think it’s more that if you had the right structure in place, and you’ve got that opportunity to actually, you know, you’ve got like the level 10 meeting, you’ve got 90 minutes, you know, it’s 90 minutes, that’s never gonna go over. And so you actually have to make the most of that 90 minutes, therefore, you’re focused, you’re disciplined. You’re getting on with stuff. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Exactly. What other tools have you really enjoyed, because obviously, we got a whole bunch of tools that help in this process. I mean, you talked about the core values and the core purpose,

Jono Bredin  18:19 

I think, in relation to the accountability chart, the GWC, so you had wanted to have the capacity to do it. I mean, that’s, that’s some phrasing that we use. Now, when we’re talking about, you know, people, not issues, but people generally in our business, like, do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have the capacity to do it. And I mean, even at a leadership team level, like, we started off in our org structure with one person trying to be across all the operations layers of our business, and that was just too big for one person, then, you know, that wasn’t a reflection on the person at all, it was more a case of this is just too huge. So we use that tool to actually say, you know, we need to change this up, you know, kill combined keep, you know, without issues, so are we actually, you know, of that 14 Yesterday, we could, we could combine probably half of them into actually one underlying issue. So, rather than thinking, Oh, this is bigger than being her, you know, actually saying, well, we’ll, if we were to really hone in here, like and combine a few of these things, is there an underlying thing? So that’s been another hugely powerful tool that we’ve used.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:19 

Tell me about rocks? I mean, I use rocks in the business.

Jono Bredin  19:23 

Yeah. So rocks has has been a game changer for us, because we used to have, I would say, 20 strategic priorities, we used to call them that we wanted to achieve, we were kidding ourselves that we were going to smash these out of 90 days, you know, without stopping to think that that was probably to a week. So you know, being able to actually have, you know, four or five key things that are going to make the boat go fast and a quarter and having somebody accountable for the delivery of each of those has just honed that focus, which has been really helpful for us as a business that is always coming up with fresh ideas. Its what actually is a rock. Yeah. And can we just put this on the back burner? Yeah, we’ll put it on the issues list. And we’ll come back to it and our next quarterly, but do we need to deal with this now.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:09 

And the way I always like talk about rocks is that you know, your best to have less is more, right. So you have sort of three or four that you actually focused on. And if you get those done, there’s nothing to stop you from doing something else. But if you’re trying to do 20 things, you just haven’t got that clarity of focus. And so you’re, you’re spread too thin. And the chances are, you’re gonna get added 20. Probably, too,

Jono Bredin  20:27 

if you’re lucky. And I mean, are they rocks? The other question? I mean, I would say before some of them were just operational, they should have been occurring business as usual, as BAU something that’s an accountability piece for whoever’s across that. So yeah, now the strategic projects are just sorry that the rocks are strategic projects that are gonna make the business go forward.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:46 

Faster. Awesome, okay. And from a team perspective, as you’re probably a fair way down the journey now, and it is a journey, for sure. No, you never stop learning. But you’re also 12 months into it, you have done the rollout to those of next level downs, we always start at leadership team level, then we start to roll it down. Tell me about the rollout. And tell me about how it’s been received by the team in general.

Jono Bredin  21:06 

So we’re probably two months into the full rollout within our business. So we started with the core values, speech, and just introducing and that was a hugely powerful moment in our business, like Hannah and I stood at the front of our team and you know, Hana was hot on sleeve, passionate about, this is my business, this is why I started it, this is where we want to go. And this is this is, this is how we’re going to get there. Honestly, I was sitting there at the front of the room with goosebumps just and just taking in people’s reactions as to, you know, how powerful that moment was for them to actually hear it. You could kind of see it resonate with people. And and then to kind of follow off the back on that. And in terms of these are our values and how we’re going to this is going to be the enablement way of doing things because we often talk about the Enable Me way, but it was just in this ether, it was almost, you know, this unwritten thing? Well, now we’ve got it in writing, it’s on the wall. It’s on everyone’s desks like, this is now how we do but this is the Enable Me way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:12 

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing is that all of these things actually do exists within us. We don’t actually, we uncover what already exists and make sure it’s articulated? Well, because Hannah, I know, as has been hugely passionate what she does, I suppose now she’s got a way to actually communicate that on a regular basis with the people that she’s working with to go this is, you know, who we are, what we stand for where we’re headed. Yeah.

Jono Bredin  22:31 

And there’s no, there’s no way to hide, which is cool. Because I mean, people were asking for that, like, people want the accountability, they want to be challenged, they want to know why we doing things a certain way, you know, and now they’ve got a framework and a context for that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:45 

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I think we often think that people avoid accountable, it’s quite the opposite. And most people, if they’re, you know, people who are driven wants to know what they need to achieve, and how they contribute to the bigger picture as well. And I suppose you know, that speech that Hannah gave, when you start talking about the future as well, it starts to get people off the bus, because they either go, hell yeah, I want to be part of this, or that’s not really my cup of tea.

Jono Bredin  23:06 

Yeah. And I think that’s the that’s the other piece, right, is that, you know, we have had some people leave us on this journey. With our best wishes, it was a mutual thing. And, you know, equally we’ve had people that we’re now starting to attract talent that, you know, aligned to what we’re wanting to do and where we’re wanting to go. And that’s, and that’s obviously the sweet spot. I mean, you talk to a lender, who’s, who’s across the people and culture of our business, like, when we can start getting the momentum in the in the marketplace, and people want to come and work for us. And these are the reasons why like, I mean, that’s where, you know, you’ve really, you know, hit the nail on the head.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:42 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s some real reflection of the team really embracing this and living by those values. And then you will, you’ll get people who genuinely want to come and work with you, because they believe in that vision and how you work.

Jono Bredin  23:54 

Yeah. And we already had an element of that, because Hannah was, is such a bubbly and well known person in the marketplace. So we always had a bit of a head start on that. But so this has only just added to that really

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:05 

Fantastic. Okay, what are the other sort of things that have happened on the journey? What could you share, because we, the listeners here are generally established businesses there. You know, they looking to hear both the highs and the lows of business, because yeah, as we said, it doesn’t grow like a beautiful S curve.

Jono Bredin  24:19 

Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the challenges we’ve obviously had is trying to, you know, that every business has been through over the last two years, as our business has been affected by COVID. You know, we’ve had, you know, and predominantly our people are Auckland based. So, you know, we had extended lockdown periods for trying to try and to keep the core values piece running through the business while people are, you know, at home, you know, some of them are working on the laptop on the couch, they’re not set up to work from home. You know, we were asking them to deal with our customers who are in crisis mode and in relation to the finances, that some of our people going through the exact same thing. So it hasn’t been an easy it hasn’t been an easy period for our business just like any other, so, we’ve had to adapt, we had to do things differently. We had to put people front and center and make sure that people are okay. And that piece of work is ongoing, because I don’t think we can underestimate the impact that COVID has had and reseating the way that our life is.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:17 

Yeah, yeah, I don’t think we’ve seen the full impact of it yet. I think we’ve still got some more to come, sadly. But yeah.

Jono Bredin  25:21 

Yeah, I mean, Hannah and I went down in the same, in the same 10 day period. And, you know, talking to each other was like, we didn’t know each other, like, our brains just weren’t operating at all it was, it was quite funny really was a real level.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:34 

I would have loved to have seen that. Because I know. I want to give me some nice. Okay, so yeah, so it’s definitely affected the way things are done. So then, how have you kept the team together? Because you’re right. I mean, some of them have been going through some pretty major stuff themselves. What do you think is the magic that’s kept them together?

Jono Bredin  25:52 

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t think we’ve got the silver bullet. But I mean, our team leaders have been have been across, you know, have been very good at having regular catch ups, asking if people are okay. As a business we’ve seen, you know, is there ways that we can help? Do you need care packages do you need, you know, IT stuff make your life easier at home, like we’ve done what everyone else has done to try and smooth the journey. But I guess the other bit that we’ve done is overlay the, this is happening, now we’re going to come out the other side, for our business that only makes what we do and what we promise to our customers more relevant, because financial wellbeing is a huge thing in New Zealand, and it’s one of the single biggest causes of stress, and marriage breakups, I think, exactly, I mean, handle rattle off stats off the top of your head, but I mean, if you ask, you know, one in 10, New Zealand is probably seven of them will have some worry about money, or wealth, or, you know, buying a house or future. And I’ve discovered only exacerbated that. So but that therein lies an opportunity for us, you know, now people are probably more attuned to it, because they’ve been forced to.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:01 

So just take me a little bit on the customer journey for a customer coming in to Enable Me so I recognize that, “Hey I’m not so great at my spending, I probably do the budget, whatever it might be, I get in contact, and I’d be what happens from there?

Jono Bredin  27:13 

So when we get when we get a lead come through the door, we basically go through a process to, I guess put you in a box in terms of what program or what sort of coach do you need to work with to start the journey? Because it’s, it’s just that right? I mean, somebody that comes into our business will be at a point. And the first thing that we do is figure out what their spending habits are? Are they there? Are they a shopper? Or are they a saver? Or are they somewhere in the middle? Because that behavioral piece around how people are with money underpins any work that we do with them

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:47 

It kind of comes back to their core, core values. But then so the whole onion, the core of their whole being. I’m a shopper, by the way.

Jono Bredin  27:53 

 So is Hannah, it’s quite, quite fun.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:57 

And so that actually affects the way that we treat everything, like I risk with money, all that kind of stuff is affected by that sort of fundamental core personality, I suppose.

Jono Bredin  28:04 

Yeah. And I think money is a very emotional thing. Right? Yeah. So we have to get permission to, you know, unrevel that. And I think the way that we do that is, you know, and I’ve been a customer enable me, yeah, so and I still am. So I mean, what sticks with me, as I went through my journey was, I thought I was good with money. I was an accountant. Which is great. But when you actually turn up the dial, or could you, you know, what, what are you frittering away each week, you know? And how could we be using that to get you a heap faster, smash off your mortgage? You know, and, you know, people who’ve got family like, how do we, how do we help them achieve the goals that they’ve got for their children and for the next generation? So you so yeah, when they come in the door, there’s an initial what we call an EFC, or financial consultation, where you sit down for an hour with one of our financial coaches, and, you know, just discuss money, we’ve done some pre work in terms of, we’ve got the bank statements, they kind of have given us an insight into how they spend the money now, so we kind of get a feel for it, and where we might be able to move some dials. But I guess the thing that I like about what we do with our customers without giving it away, is that we always start from the point of what’s non-negotiable, right? So we don’t seek to change that straightaway. Which if you talk to if you just talk purely budgeting services as like, well how can we slash their slash you know, we’re not having coffee we’re not going on family holidays we’ve that’s really important to a family because you know, and that was in our case, we lived away from our family so going on a holiday or going to see family was a non-negotiable. So we worked around what can we do with the rest of our money? So by focusing on the stuff that you have an appetite for change is a really easy start to making some behavioral change.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:52 

And again, I’m going to liken it to personal training. I mean, when I first went to my new personal trainer, and I said to him, Look, if you’re gonna make me eat just chicken and broccoli, forget it because I won’t stick to it. I just can’t I like chocolate. I like wine, yeah, I need to somehow find a way to have that built in. Yeah. And so that was my non-negotiable chocolate & wine. Yeah. And now we’ve got a program that allows me to do a little bit of that without feeling like I’m being deprived or the stuff that makes me happy.

Jono Bredin  30:14 

Yeah, well, we only live once. Yeah, I mean, COVID has proven that right? There’s more important things in life. And it’s just about well, how do we do it in a way that achieves positive change in the outcomes that people are after. And part of the journey will be actually getting people to realize what might be possible.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:32 

So it is a personalised journey. So you’re kind of the person is coming in, you’re understanding what their strengths and weaknesses are, you’re working out what their goals are, what their non negotiables are, and then you start to put them on a journey to help them achieve that. Yeah. Like EOS

Jono Bredin  30:43 

I mean, we are ultimately trying to build out a personal or a family’s cash surplus, and then how and then so that’s the first stage of the journey, then it’s how do we put that surplus to work? Yeah. Because if that surplus can be multiplied by doing things in a certain way, yep.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:02 

Okay, I’m gonna ask a question. It’s not related to Enable Me but you know, you are 27 years old with your own accounting practice. Have you got any lessons that you’ve learned from that first business that you’re now sort of taking forward into Enable Me?

Jono Bredin  31:13 

Yeah, where do I start? I mean, my business partners and my accounting practice, they were probably the single biggest lesson for me in the sense that they gave me the freedom just to learn from my mistakes, right? Because I think that you can’t underestimate the ability from learning from mistakes. And I mean, I did make some mistakes, not on client stuff, but just in terms of how I manage the business. Some ideas in terms of did they work? Did they not work? I mean, I guess that’s one of my lessons in life is that business is always changing. There’s never the right answer, you’ve always got to have two or three things up your sleeve to you know, explore, and, and you just have to keep on that, you know, on that chain on that train,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:59 

And I learn from the mistakes. I’ve made some huge mistakes, as you well know, and lost the house, lost my car lost everything. But I think the only thing you can do is if you don’t learn from that, then it’s been a complete waste if you can actually go okay, here are the things I can take from it.

Jono Bredin  32:11 

Somebody once said to me, it’s only mistake if you do it twice, yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:18 

Okay, so we’re running out of time, but I’ve got I always asked, you know, have you got three tips, tools, pointers, things that you would say to people to help them on their journey?

Jono Bredin  32:27 

Yeah, I think the first thing would be that just because you’ve always done something a certain way, doesn’t mean that it will always be the right way of doing things. Yeah. There’s, there’s always ways you can change. There’s always ways to reimagine how you do something. And I think, you know, it’s a little bit of a cliche, but if you do what you’ve always done, you will probably get what you’ve always got, or got or get lease.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:51 

Yeah, yeah.

Jono Bredin  32:52 

I mean, the second thing, which I probably should have said, first, as you know, it’s always the people, you know, you really need to harness the collective abilities of your team, the backgrounds, the experience, that’s hugely valuable and adding into any organization. And, you know, I, I have not always that’s always not been a strength of mine. But I think, as I’ve, as I’ve matured, if you’d like to say that, you know, getting other people’s views on the world only add, you know, the sum of the parts is great, you know, that individual parts. Exactly, yeah. So I mean, that that’s hugely powerful. And I guess the third thing is the accountability piece. Nothing, you know, having a goal without a plan is hopeless, like you actually have to write it down, hold yourself accountable to it, people need to know the hearts and the journey and what they’re responsible for. And only when you have true accountability. And with that comes the honesty, transparency, and all the rest of it, and the permission to have the hard conversations.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:52 

I think it’s really, really important, I think that somebody will think that with all this accountability, or the fun will disappear, or the creativity will disappear. But in actual fact, I’ve found in my experience, that it becomes more fun, and you can be more creative because it’s almost like that stuff is dealt with it’s the business as usual. It’s being held accountable, then you’ve got the time freed up to be that you know, more creative and have a bit more fun with what you’re doing. Yeah. 100% cool. Jono that’s been really really helpful. Thank you very much, hey, people wanted to get in contact with you or with Enable Me for help with their financial stuff. How would they do that?

Jono Bredin  34:22 

So just through our website, all our onboarding is there, so enable.me very easy to remember. Yeah. And for anyone listening today who wants to experience the journey, we’ll put a link in the podcast for people to come and get a special offer and we’ll make sure that they’re taken care of so yeah, fantastic.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:38 

Thank you. And if they wanted to talk to you because I’m on the shows a few people kind of go I’d love to hear a bit more about your story. You’re open to people getting in contact with you.

Jono Bredin  34:45 

Yeah, just hit me up on LinkedIn as probably the easiest way, I’m more than happy to talk to anyone. I love the ability to network with people in business, and share my journey and learn from others as well so you won’t, well if you’re not abusing me at a rugby match, you won’t find it hard to find me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:02 

That’s really cool. Hey, Jono, and thank you so much for your time. And again, thanks for coming to Auckland as well. Really appreciate seeing you in person. I appreciate seeing you again and we’ll see each other at our next quarterly too. Great. Thank you.