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Mikaela Patterson, the recent winner of the Wellness Advocate of the Year award, explains what pushed her to start a financial wellness program that targets corporate Australia.
Over the years, the finance broker at Entourage Finance had seen many of her clients come to her with questions about their financial wellbeing.
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“Often I’d get the same question: ‘what does having a credit card limit in place mean for my loan application or how does that affect my credit file?’,” Ms Patterson told the Elite Broker podcast.
The winner of the Wellness Advocate of the Year award at the 2020 Australian Broking Awards also saw that there was a lack of understanding among clients or even the general population about different financial terms.
This, coupled with her struggles with her own financial wellbeing and not receiving the required education, and witnessing her family members experience financial struggles, prompted her to create and deliver a financial wellbeing program.
Ms Patterson decided that tapping into corporate Australia and targeting their employees would enable her to reach a broader audience through the program rather than only targeting her individual clients.
She saw an opportunity to reach tens of employees or more at a time by targeting businesses for her workshops.
“I think it just allows us to educate a lot more people at one time rather than just that conversation we’re having with our [individual] clients,” she said.
She started presenting her workshop to just one business – food delivery service, Deliveroo.
Through word of mouth and promoting her program via social media, she gradually grew her client list of businesses.
“We’ve done probably a dozen workshops now. It was really just starting with one, and we grew from there,” Ms Patterson said.
Attendees at Ms Patterson’s seminars have included people on the ground in businesses, or “everyday workers” as she believes it is important to educate everyone on financial wellness.
“It doesn’t matter whether they're a CEO or even just the cleaner. I think everyone at any level can gain something from the workshop,” she said.
During the workshops, Ms Patterson runs through what financial wellness means, how its meaning differs for every individual, and why it is important to understand this.
“The message throughout the whole workshop is just trying to get people to seek help from a professional,” Ms Patterson said.
“There’s so much free advice available and that’s really the key: take away that taboo of speaking about money and trying to make people not be scared or intimidated by speaking to someone.”
Mortgage brokers have the additional advantage of constantly seeing the financial situations of different people, which according to Ms Patterson arms them with a wealth of knowledge of different financial terms and scenarios.
“If we can’t help them with one thing, we know exactly where they can go to get help in another area, whether it be insurance or superannuation,” she said.
“We typically can’t deal with [them but] we can always point them.”
One fear she had to conquer to present her workshops is public speaking and addressing a room full of people.
“I still find it hard. Even after doing a dozen of them, I’ll get extremely nervous before I go in,” Ms Patterson said.
She decided to speak to a confidence coach to conquer her fear of public speaking, which she found invaluable.
“You just need to remember that what you're presenting is information that people want to hear, it’s valuable,” Ms Patterson said.
“The other thing is the people that are sitting there watching you don’t want you to fail. They want you to do well. That’s something else that really helps me get my frame of mind right before I go in.”
To warm up before a workshop, Ms Patterson ensures that she chats to her attendees and establishes a rapport with them.
“It straightaway calms me down and gets me on a comfort level with the attendees. I found that general chitchat before talking helps my nerves a lot,” she said.
To listen to the full Elite Broker podcast with Mikaela Patterson, click here:
[Related: Why this award-winning broker is focused on financial wellness]
