5 steps to get the most out of your business mentor
The American author and businessman, Zig Ziglar, couldn’t have said it any better — ‘A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.’ And I think this is so true when it comes to business mentoring.
At the New Entrepreneurs Foundation we support our young entrepreneurs with business mentors as part of their 12 month entrepreneurial leadership programme. How do you become a great mentor? Why should you have one?
I discussed this topic with Tirdad Sorooshian, Chair of the NEF Mentors’ Panel, Business Mentor at the University of Surrey and Imperial College incubators and Growth Consultant at Acclaria.
A business mentor can be an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs at the start, growth and at scale. It’s important you pick the right mentor and make the relationship work for the real magic to unfold.
Let’s first start by defining what we mean by business mentor: The NEF’s definition of business mentoring is:
“The development of a one to one relationship that helps one person to learn from their own experiences and the experiences of another person to support the development of the NEFers as entrepreneurs and their business ideas as true innovations.”
It is a relationship between equals focused on learning and sharing. Here are our five key pointers to help you find and benefit from your mentor:
1. Change your mind-set: you need a business mentor!
You may think, you don’t need a mentor to launch your business. You are confident that you will and that you will succeed, you are a go-getter…, but don’t let your ego fool you! When you start asking other successful entrepreneurs, it will become apparent that most of them received help from a business mentor. The man the legend himself, Richard Branson advocates for this in his blog. You may be confident, resilient and energetic enough to take on the world, but a mentor will take you to the next level much quicker.
2. Find your mentor
There are various ways for you to find your mentor — you could:
- ask someone in your network with relevant experience or with unrelated sector experience but a track record of launching businesses
- reach out to someone you admire
- look out for mentoring organisations: for example the Princes Trust , or The-Protégé.com; the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies
- join an entrepreneurial programme with a mentoring support like, for example the New Entrepreneurs Foundation
- there are also other organisations that may charge you to find you a mentor, here you should do your due diligence carefully on the quality and background of the mentors
3. Choose your mentor
In order for you to select the right mentor you need to be clear about what it is that you are looking to get out of this relationship. You need to be clear about your short term or long term business goals:
- Do you need someone with specific expertise to discuss your business idea and sector?
- Do you need someone with a specific professional skillset that can help you?
- Or do you simply look for someone as a sounding board with more general background in helping start-ups?
Mentoring is very personal, spend time to research and select the right mentor and you and your venture will fly.
4. Work with your mentor
Once you have found your mentor, how can you make sure that both parties, the mentor and the mentee, get the most out of this relationship? Most of the time the foundation for such a relationship will be set in your first meeting or what some people would call the “chemistry” meeting.
This initial meeting is about establishing the parameters of the relationship. The goal of this session is to get to know each other and talk about what each of you want to gain from the business mentoring experience. It is also important to ensure that the relationship begins with a deep, shared understanding of the key success factors for the relationship. Base them around:
• personal connection/chemistry
• a clear purpose and long- and short-term goals,
• clear expectations, defined roles and responsibilities
• creating a relationship of mutual respect and trust
• agreeing processes and protocols for effective communication
• collaborative problem-solving
5. Long-term tip
Be mindful, that as you progress with your venture over time, the nature of the mentoring relationship may alter as well as the nature and level of the support that you need. Therefore, it is valuable for a mentor and mentee to openly review the relationship at appropriate points and make any adjustments necessary to get the right support for the next level of your journey.
Final tips for success:
Business mentoring can be difficult at times. As the relationship progresses, there are several things that you and your mentor could do to make it work better. Be disciplined, honour commitments, uphold strong communication, provide candid feedback and be proactive to spot and overcome potential obstacles.
• Listen to your mentor’s points of view and ask questions to gain better understanding of the challenges ahead and ways to overcome them
• Discuss issues objectively and seek constructive, honest feedback
• Be open about your own shortcomings or knowledge gaps and those of your mentor’s
• Be open to the mentor’s perspective and mindful of their work/life environment
• Most importantly, be ready to commit time and energy to the relationship — be available!
When properly done, business mentoring allows entrepreneurs and their start-ups to really flourish! Go out, reach out and find a mentor.
Applications for the New Entrepreneurs Foundation are open until 30th March 2017. Take your next step. Apply. And realise your entrepreneurial dream.
Véronique Rapetti, Programme Director — Learning & Partnerships, NEF, Business Mentor
