#13 How B Corps Can Help You Live and Work with Purpose and Meaning

Foreign.

And welcome to Purpose Fuel performance with me, your host, Tim Jones, the Grow Good guy.

So in this episode I'm actually being interviewed by Merrill Johnson, who is CEO of an organization in Australia called Bean Ninjas accountancy firm. And then we have a bit of a chat about my background, how I came to purpose, how I came to discover the B core movement, a little bit an overview of what the B core movement is all about and really, you know, it's also deeper specifics on my journey to purpose and how I ended up starting my own business, Grow Good. And I guess where some advantages and some of the benefits are for your organization potentially to also go down the B core route. So, yeah, sit back, belt up, buckle in, get your. Get your cup of tea or your gin and tonic that seems to be the drink of du jour and have a listen and let me know what you think.

Welcome to the Bean Ninjas podcast where you get an all access pass to see what happens behind the closed doors of a fast growing global bookkeeping and financial reporting business.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Bean Ninjas podcast. Today I'm chatting with Tim Jones, who is the Grow Good guy. Welcome to the show, Tim.

Hello. Or as we'd say, over the side of the ditch, Kia ora.

And where in New Zealand are you chatting to us from?

So I am based in Christchurch, so down south, I guess the biggest city.

In the south island or the mainland as we call it.

My dad is actually from Christchurch, so I have family over there, have visited many times.

Excellent.

It's nice.

Yeah.

Beautiful part of the world. So let's start with a little bit about you and what you're working on. If you were to meet someone at an event and you had 60 seconds to explain who you are and what you do, how would you do that?

That's a great question that. It's taken me quite a few years to try and distill this. So essentially the tagline I'm kind of.

Working with at the minute is I'm in pursuit of third things.

So for me, but for people around me and I guess ultimately everyone, to be able to find more purpose and meaning in life so that you can have a better life, you can contribute.

More in your life and create a better world for more people.

Love it. And we're going to dig into how you came to be running this business. But before we do that, I wanted to quickly touch on a couple of themes around financial freedom, which we do in every podcast episode. And then we're going to jump back into your story. So first question is, what does financial.

Freedom mean to you?

So there's something that I dwell on quite a lot. For me, it's basically being in a position where you get to thrive. I look at sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

When you are at the point when you can be the best that you.

Can be and you have no worries about your ability to survive, that is what I'm kind of aiming for in many ways. And I kind of think that's the sweet spot. And whatever that number is for you, it's going to be different.

So you're the first person to tie this back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But I love that I actually. That really makes sense.

Well, just for me, that's. I've done a lot of research on purpose and meaning and why we do.

What we do and why we are as we are as humans and stuff.

And you know, really once your basic survival needs are met financially, the rest.

Of it is just trinketry.

You know, it's nice to have.

Yes. And so creating that financial freedom, in line with the theme of this podcast, means that if you've got that taken care of and you have your basic needs covered, then you can start to work on things that have more meaning.

Or bringing more purpose or happiness into your life.

Exactly that.

One other follow up question. Is there any particular resource advice that you've received book anything like that that has helped you with either on your path to financial freedom or has helped.

You develop your skills around this?

I mean, the. Probably the best sort of piece of advice that I was probably given was get rid of debt as quickly as you can. I know some people, I mean at the minute interest rate, and I guess.

Globally interest rates are generally pretty low.

So some people would make the argument.

Like, money's cheap, now's the time to.

Go and, you know, borrow money. But for me, I just kind of.

Feel like if you can owe nothing.

To anyone, that's a big step to freedom because you're literally not indebted to.

Any other person or organization.

So I guess my wife and I are running that as our end game is like the only significant debt we.

Have is a mortgage and we're working.

Hard to get rid of that as.

Quick as we can. Because in my mind, once you've got.

Rid of that, you're free. You can do more of what you want to do.

Yep.

Love it.

So let's go back to your story and when did you get into running your Business in its current form. And how did you get into it?

I had what I guess you could describe as like a hard exit mentally from the corporate world. The majority of my career I spent.

In medical device sales.

So if you imagine in a hospital, any product or any item within a hospital that is used by a nurse, a doctor, a surgeon, and is maybe.

Even potentially implanted into a human being, there are multiple companies selling those products into that hospital.

So that was my job. I specialized initially in selling hips and knees, so the actual hip and knee.

Joint, and then moved on to selling spinal instruments and implants to orthopaedic and neurosurgeons around New Zealand.

And it's a really cool job. Part of your job is to go into the operating theater and support the.

Surgeries and make sure that the surgical team and the patient get the best outcome that they can with your product.

So really deep sense of meaning and connection to making someone's life better. But over the 10 years of my career, I started to understand the economics of healthcare and how it seemed to be increasingly that maximizing profit was the.

Main driver over patient outcome.

And that just didn't sit well with me. And the best way to encapsulate this.

Idea in a short podcast like this is to send people to go and watch the Bleeding Edge on Netflix, if it's still on there. It's a documentary all about the medical device industry and how it, how this. There is this murky and ethical underworld where it's all about basically instead of focusing on patient outcomes.

And so all of that kind of came to a head for me, really crystallized post earthquakes here in Christchurch.

So I don't know whether it's made as much news in Australia as obviously.

Did over here, but in 2010, 2011.

We had a sequence of pretty significant earthquakes here.

And so that kind of near death.

Experience that we all went through, I.

Think led to a lot of people.

In Christchurch reassessing what they were doing and where they were going.

And then in 2013, my wife and.

I had our daughter.

And that again is another mechanism like.

The birth of a child or a significant death in the family. So parent or sibling or someone really close to you.

So near death experience plus significant life event like that can create what's called a subconscious awakening. And that's really what I had.

I just, it all just came into.

Clarity, like, what am I doing? Why am I working for these big companies that kind of say they care.

About fixing people, but actually all they care about is making money and there's.

Some bad stuff going on and I.

Don'T want to be a part of that because now I kind of understand who I am and who I could be in a lot deeper way.

So that kind of led me on.

A, on a bit of a journey to go and work out.

Well, you know, is this just me? Am I, have I turned into a bit of a crazy weirdo?

Or have I seen something here that needs to be changed?

And that ultimately led me on a long journey.

And it's a journey that's still going on.

But through that I discovered B Corporations or Benefit corporations. B Corporations are, I guess for profit businesses that aim to balance purpose with profit, so maximizing the positive social and.

Environmental impact that they're making while still making money.

So when I stumbled across this idea, I was like, okay, this is it.

Other people have kind of seen that.

Perhaps our insatiable desire for profit or cost is creating some challenges on the side. And so that was like really reaffirming and you know, kind of found my tribe and I thought, oh well, there can't be one of these in New Zealand.

So I googled it and I was like, damn it, there's two of them in New Zealand. There can't be one in Christchurch.

Dammit, there's one in Christchurch. Because I was like, man, it'd be so cool to be the first one of these in New Zealand. And then so I connected with a.

Company that was based in Christchurch, a vehicle called Eagle Protect. And I went and booked a sort.

Of 45 minute meeting with their CEO.

Steve Arda, who is an amazing human.

And I left his office about three.

Hours later with my mind just completely blown that there is this whole new way of business and commerce and how it can be done in a way.

That is beneficial for everyone.

And I guess that's one of the, what the B stands for, B Corporation is Benefit Corporation. So have a company that creates wider benefits than just primarily as we have done for the shareholders or for the one or two or small group of people that own the business.

What are some of the elements of a B corp? So I know a little bit about this something that we're interested in in B Ninjas and it's actually on a project list for to address it, something that we would love to become. And so I looked at some of the criteria myself. It looks like there's quite a process that you go through and looks at. There's not just one element that is quite a holistic with a business.

And I was wondering if you could.

Talk to some of the awesome examples.

Of what a business might need to implement in order to totally.

It is a really rigorous assessment and that's a good thing. In New Zealand there are other certification systems where you pay your money and you remember you don't actually have to be doing anything.

You don't have to change any of.

Your culture or behavior or activities. So that's what I really like about it. B Corp assesses or the certification assesses.

Your business across five pillars.

So it's your governance, which is essentially who owns your business and how transparent is the business.

So for example, you would get more points if your business was a worker.

Owned cooperative and you would get less.

Points if your business is owned by one person.

You would get more points if you.

Had a board of directors that was elected by the employees.

You get zero points if you have.

No board or no advisory board.

So I guess so there's governance, there's workers.

So how you treat your staff, we're.

Pretty lucky in Australia and New Zealand.

That we get a lot of points.

In that kind of bracket for because it's government, you know, state mandated. So you know, things like parental leave.

Or sick leave, you know, it's obviously state mandated or government mandated in New Zealand and Australia.

Whereas in other countries like the U.S.

You'Re not necessarily guaranteed those things.

So the workers column is looking at.

How you treat your staff and what benefits they're given and so on and so forth.

And then there's your social impact. So how do you interact with the.

Community in which your business is situated? Are you aware of your impact on the community?

Are you seeking to provide opportunities to your local community? Do you buy, you know, your supply chain?

Are you supporting local smaller businesses where you can, things like that?

Then there's your environmental footprint, which is.

Primarily your water usage and your carbon footprint.

And then finally there's your business customer model.

So how is it you're delivering your business and for which sort of beneficiaries? So if you're again, like if you're.

An organization who's say, working to provide opportunities to a disadvantaged community, you'd get.

A lot of points in that customer model sector.

And overall this you're basically assessed on.

And you get, you score points for how you answer each question. And the aim is you need to get 80 out of 200 points on their assessment tool.

If you get over 80, then you.

Can click the button and say, I'd like to go through the process to be audited. And then once you pass that if.

You'Re still at 80 points you sort.

Of pay your certification fee and you're in.

One thing I would totally advise anyone listening to this is to go and.

Take the impact assessment is free.

So, so you can go and take.

The assessment and look at your business.

Across these five pillars and consider your business through a whole lot of lenses.

That you may well not have considered them through. And that's completely free.

It's only if you actually want to.

Get audited and certified that you need to pay your money.

So I think that's a really nice explanation of what a bicorp is and some of the criteria. So we go back to your story. So you went and met with the CEO of the One and only OR.

One at that point in Christchurch and.

Came out mind blown, feeling inspired. And so what happened next?

Initially I was still. So I'd exited the world of medical and I basically went on a bit of a mission to go and find work, you know, pretty much in any.

Other industry, just, just to see what was going on in the world I guess.

And I ended up falling into working.

For a firm of surveyors and engineers in the world of sort of, I guess professional services in the built or the building industry.

And you know, I took this enthusiasm and I said to the director I was reporting to like, hey, this is.

A really amazing thing. I think this could be really cool for the business.

You know, there's nothing, there's only two in New Zealand.

This is groundbreaking stuff. This will be amazing for our culture and our direction and it's a real point of difference.

And the board were just kind of.

Like, no, we're not interested.

So that was a bit deflating. And then within me I kind of always, when I was doing the medical.

Sales they spent a lot of money for a lot of resources into you.

In terms of training, particularly around sales training. And I guess as part of my journey I'd always wondered if I'd be any good at trading and coaching. And so I was a bit disillusioned that this professional services firm wasn't really.

Aligned with how I was now thinking. And I kind of thought, well look.

This is just going to be a.

Continuation of this lack of values alignment that I was feeling in the medical world.

And I thought okay, well next best.

Step for me is going to be.

To try this coaching and training stuff. So I actually managed to I guess.

Network my way into an opportunity to do training and coaching, sales training and coaching for a New Zealand based company.

And they were sort of a small Family owned business, really small team. And again I sort of posited B core said, look, I think you guys.

Would be a sitter for this because.

You'Re doing a whole lot of good.

You give back to the community, you're really great to the staff.

But I guess small family business, it just, it can be quite time and labor intensive to do the assessment and I think they just weren't in the headspace at the time to really do it. And so this was 2015.

Yeah, it would have been 2015.

And I just kind of thought, you know what, I love this idea of B Corp. I'm telling everyone else they should go and do it, but I'm not doing it. And so late 2015 an opportunity arose.

Actually a few of us got made redundant from the trading company and I just thought, I think at the time I was maybe 38 or maybe a.

Bit less and I just thought if I don't give my own business to go now, I'll never do it because it's just not going to happen. And so that was how I initially.

Started out, just offering sales training and coaching support for other B corps and businesses for good.

Because my theory was, you know, what's my contribution? You know, if I can, if I can take all the skills and everything.

I've been taught and everything I've picked.

Up in a 12, 13 year career.

Of sales and marketing, if I could take those skills and give them to the businesses that are trying to change the world, that seems to be a pretty good place to start. And so that's where I started.

Wonderful. And so because there were only a couple of people in New Zealand at.

The time, was it a challenge to find those first few customers or as time went on there was more and.

More of these businesses that you were able to help?

Yeah, I mean, for sure initially, you know, there wasn't that many, that is for sure. And you know, to a degree, I mean my first few clients, they weren't really that purpose driven. But at the time it's like, I guess I had to compromise to a degree just to survive. I tick all the boxes for idiocy really. My wife and I had just had.

Our daughter, so my wife wasn't working.

We just bought a house, we just got a mortgage and I go, hey, why don't I start a business in an industry I've had a year's experience.

In, fundamentally in a market that's non existent.

Yeah, don't do that kids.

But it sounds like it's worked out well and you mentioned in the beginning sometimes you needed to work with businesses that weren't always purpose driven. And what are things like now? Have you felt that that market has expanded? It definitely feels like there's a growing trend towards people wanting to run or work for purpose driven businesses.

Totally.

I still do a good amount of work with. I mean I'm definitely much more selective now.

I know my business is what we.

Four years down the line.

So I've obviously got a bit more.

You know, I have more profile, I have people kind of know me a bit more.

I mean that was the thing when.

You'Re going out on your own. Hi, I'm me. You don't know me.

I think I'm pretty good at training. Would you like to pay me some money to come and trade your team? It was, there was so much going on, you know, the imposter syndrome of starting your own business or people have paid me money that I don't know anything. They'll know this already.

You know, there's all that kind of stuff. I probably still spend the larger amount.

Of my time working now with businesses for good and helping them with their skill development.

But there is a growing interest in.

The purpose side of things.

I kind of thought where we are.

Now was going to be this time last year, but I guess I've just.

Been ahead of this curve the whole way. But I mean, just last night I was in Palmerston north just having a.

Talk there at the Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with another B Corps that's based just outside Palmerston North. Palmerston north, the Lower north island of New Zealand.

You know, a year ago that wouldn't.

Have been, they wouldn't have rung me and said, hey, could you come and do this?

So the conversation's getting there, but I think we're still, I guess it's a bit like, you know, the Second World War. It's that phony war. It's like it's not really kind of happening, but there's. People are maneuvering and there's some kind of intent. That being said, I did hear from.

A mate of mine on the weekend who has, he's just left a very large New Zealand company, one of the.

Biggest, and they have just put their certification through. So there or thereabouts, but it's not the, the main dominant framework yet, but it's coming. And I think the thing people have got to realize, I'm going to totally.

Pilfer this phrase from a good friend of mine, Michael Philpott, as he says.

You know, this stuff, you're either going.

To get there by conscience or by consequence. So you either do this because it's the right thing to do, or you're going to have to do it because.

All your other competitors have done it. And do you want to be the.

First person that does it and take.

The kudos and know that you did the right thing, or do you want to be the last people who have to do it?

That's a great way of putting it.

So I'm interested in your thoughts on growing a business. A lot of our audience are either early stage in growing their own businesses or they're wanting to take that leap and start a business. And you talked about that example of a year or two ago. You might not have been invited to speak at that event, but you've been working on growing your profile.

So what were some of the things.

That worked for you when you were building your network and your profile related.

To helping you grow your business?

Totally. I am a big believer and user of LinkedIn. I think that's such a powerful tool to be able to share messages and consolidate your thinking and reach out to.

People who share your thinking and connect with people and sort of test your ideas. And by doing that, you can kind of build your profile and build awareness for who you are.

I kind of feel like in the world that I'm in sort of training, coaching, consulting, in many ways, a lot of that profile building just comes from doing what you do. And the more you do what you do, the better you get at doing it and the more people go, oh, I've heard of you, you know, we.

Want to have a conversation.

I guess I still primarily rely. I mean, my background's in sales, so I kind of use the sales hammer the most, you know, so I have.

No fear in just cold calling a company and saying, hey, I love what you're doing. I specialize in helping train companies like yours. Could I have a conversation?

So I kind of rely on that rather than the marketing hammer of too.

Much on that side.

I have reflected on this a few times. It's like I've done some work with some pretty large companies in New Zealand.

Some I say large NZX 50 compared to the ASX or the NASDAQ. They're still relatively small. But in the context of who I could work with here, I've done some work, some pretty big companies.

I look back and go, well, four years ago, could I have done what.

I've done for them today, four years ago? And I don't think I Could have.

I think there is an element of you have to do, you have to sharpen the sword. You know, you have to go through the process of developing and honing your.

Content before you get to a level.

Where actually it's respectable enough that you can offer to a client that's deserving of it. Not saying my early, early day clients.

Were deserving, but I look back at.

The content and the style of what I was delivering four years ago and I literally go, I can't believe people.

Paid me money to look at that. It's awful.

It's funny you say that. That relates to something that I've been working on. So I recently launched the second version of the financial literacy training course for BE ninjas and I've been working on it for a year and a half. And so looking at the way that I taught some content back then compared to now and how I've thought even with feedback, you learn. Well, actually there's a better way of explaining that concept. And actually section B should be going.

Before section A to make it all make sense.

Exactly. I think one of the other big things for me was this is like.

A two edged sword.

Sometimes you just think everyone knows what you know because it's in your head and you are kind of like, you.

Know, I think someone said to be an expert on a topic, you need to write 10 books on it.

So if you love the thing that you're, you know, promoting it all about, if you've read 10 books on it, you're probably in the top 1% of.

Experts globally on that topic.

But because you're in that bubble, you kind of go, well, Meryl must know all this stuff because I know this stuff. So you kind of maybe don't push message or the idea that you have.

Because you think, well, no one wants this because they all know this stuff.

But then the other side of that is you get so far down the rabbit hole of knowledge on that topic that you forget what people do and don't know. You start maybe delivering content at such a high level that people just go, I have no idea what you're on about. Because you kind of then presume that.

Everyone does know at that level, if that makes sense.

It does.

Because you've had some of that knowledge in your own head for so long.

Exactly.

Make that assumption that everyone else has that.

Yep.

So we're coming to the end of the podcast, so two final questions for you. One is whether there's anything else that you wanted to add or expand on from what we've talked about.

And then the second question is that.

I know that you have an ebook.

That our listeners might be interested in, and I was wondering if you could.

Describe more about what it's about and.

Also where to find it.

Totally. I'll probably do the second question first, if that's all right. I guess this is a prime example of me maybe thinking that people know why they should convert their business to be more purpose driven. But it's not a necessarily obvious thinking point or idea. And so I sort of sat down over probably three or four evenings. I thought I should just. If I write this down and make.

A little e book that might be useful.

So I've written an e book called.

The why and the how of Business for Good.

So I guess the beginning part is.

All the evidence for Business for Good or Purpose Driven Business.

And there is literally no counter evidence.

To say that you shouldn't do this.

All the statistics on employee engagement, productivity, profitability, you know, it just being the right thing to do, morally, spiritually, like, it just makes.

It'll make you a better human in a better business. There was no reason not to do it.

And then the second part of it is really just some beginning thoughts about how can, how can you start connecting.

To understanding where the good is in your business already?

Because every business is doing some good in general, and it's just a matter.

Of trying to find those little nuggets. So, yeah, that's.

You can get a hold of that.

Through my website and I'm sure we can put a link in the, in the podcast.

In terms of anything else to cover. I mean, the whole purpose and meeting stuff is. It's a tricky subject and I think a lot of people don't want to go there because it maybe is a bit confronting. But the more and more research I do, and this is starting to pull.

Together ideas and philosophies that have been around for thousands of years.

If you don't go and confront the stuff you don't want to confront, you're.

Ultimately not going to have the best business and be the best human that you can be.

And if you're going to be in business for yourself, why not be the best person in the best organization that you can be? Because that kind of makes life meaningful.

You've articulated that really nicely. Well, Tim, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been really great chatting with you.

Thanks for having me. And next time you're over in New Zealand skiing, let me know.

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And that's a wrap. Hey, thank you so much for listening into my podcast. I hope you found it informative and inspirational. I'd love to know where you are on your purpose journey and if you have any specific questions or people you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know. Also, feel free to connect with me on other social media platforms. You can check out all those links in the Show Notes below. And if you want to see how I might be able to help you specifically on your purpose journey, you can go and check out my website www.growgood.co or drop me a line by email timogrowgood Co. All those links will also be in the Show Notes. I would genuinely love to hear from you. But anyway, until next time, go well and keep seeking that purpose field performance in your life.