How to Get the Right Mentor For Your Business
When it comes to attracting the right coach or mentor for your business, the right way to go about it is, instead of asking yourself how to find the right mentor, start being more concerned about how you can be the best apprentice. There are so many people out there these days who are approaching mentorship in the completely wrong way. So let’s talk about some strategies that are going to set you apart from these people and help you land these mentors so that you can optimize your life and your success in business.
Be a top performer yourself
The first piece of advice is that like attracts like. This means if you want top performing mentors to be attracted to you, then you need to be a top performer yourself. What a lot of people do is that instead of working on themselves, they spend the majority of their time looking for mentors, rather than mastering their own performance. I really hate to break it you, but there’s no good mentor out there that’s going to waste their time coaching someone for free, if the client is not an action taker or has not even attempted to reach success themselves. If you can demonstrate that you are a top performer, then you’re going to naturally attract high performing mentors who are interested in you and want to also invest in you.
This same principle applies to any mentorship that we’re talking about, especially a mentorship that comes for free. Now of course there are paid mentors as well, and these mentors are so amazing because they help you full time, and because you’re compensating them for their time. But if you’re looking for free mentors, it’s completely different. You need to show that you are worth their time and their energy to volunteer themselves to help you. How exactly are you going to do that? It’s by being a top performer yourself! So the key takeaway of this first tip is that successful people attract successful people. When you show that you are persistent, that you are hungry, that you are an action taker, you are naturally going to attract mentors into your life, because they see potential in you. If you sit there on the sidelines and spend all your time Googling people or adding them on LinkedIn, that’s a very wrong signal to send to high quality mentors. You need to put your blinders on and actually put in the work, so that you can prove yourself to the people who are worth mentoring you.
Put yourself in the right environment
The second piece of advice that I have for you is to put yourself in the right environment. People can’t mentor if they cannot find you. This means if you want to attract good mentors into your life, then you need to make sure that you are at the right places. So take some time to think about where your ideal mentors hang out. That could be a business conference, a private Facebook group, or a certain forum on Reddit or on a different website. Think about where these mentors are hanging out so you can put yourself in those environments to attract them. Regardless, whichever location it is, the key point here is that you need to step outside your comfort zone and be with the big players. For example, when you pay for a $600 conference, you’re not just paying for the knowledge that you get or the presentations that happen. You’re also paying for access to high quality people because you decided to invest in a $600 ticket instead of investing your time in a free conference.
By investing in those high level places, you’re going to naturally surround yourself with high level people who are also playing big. Whenever you are thinking about going to an event, think about which event is actually going to have the highest potential people for you to have potential mentorship relationship with, and use those event opportunities to network and to also put yourself out there as a high performer yourself. Honestly, the best advice doesn’t always come free. Regardless of whether you choose to have a paid mentor or you try to find a mentor that’s going to invest in you for free, the bottom line is that no one’s going to invest in you if you’re not willing to invest in yourself.
Offer something in exchange
The third piece of advice that I have for you is to always exchange value, because when you exchange value with someone, especially a potential mentor, it shows that you aren’t taking their time for granted, and that you are showing deep appreciation for them even spending time with you. For example, when you are going on a coffee chat, always offer something in exchange for that person’s time. Let’s say the potential mentor that you’re at a coffee chat with has a blog or likes to write articles on LinkedIn. Why don’t you offer writing a positive review for their blog, especially if you’re into copywriting? You could say something like, ‘I would be more than happy to review one of your articles or even be a ghostwriter for one of your posts. That’s the least that I can do to thank you for all the advice that you’ve given me on this coffee chat.’
This approach is so much more sincere and effective versus a person who’s just saying a simple thank you. This person is not going to build rapport with the person that they’re on a coffee chat with. The first person that actually offered something in exchange for that person’s time is definitely going to be way more memorable than the person who doesn’t offer anything at all and just takes their free advice and runs with it. When you show appreciation and back it up with an actual offer to someone, that shows so much of your character. So remember to reciprocate value, because I guarantee you’re not only going to earn your potential mentor’s respect, but you’re also going to be able to form longer term relationships with the people that you exchange value with.
Implement the advice right away
The fourth advice that I have for you is to be teachable and show your results right away. In other words, what I mean by that is if your mentor is giving you advice during a coffee chat or a phone call or an email, implement their advice as soon as possible and then get back to them on the results that happened by implementing their advice. Don’t be that person who makes your potential mentor feel like they just wasted an hour of their time giving you free coaching.
There is a massive benefit of doing this, because not only are you showing your potential mentor your key characteristics: being a great listener, being a top performer, and being an implementer; but by sharing your results you’re going be able to keep in touch with them even more. That’s going to help you convert that potential mentor to be an actual mentor in the future. One of the easiest ways to kill rapport with someone is when you waste their time and when you fall out of touch with them. So definitely find ways to keep in touch with your mentor and show them that you have the characteristics of someone that they want to invest in.
Pay attention to your ideal mentor’s clients
Now let’s move on to my last and final tip. That is to pay attention to who your ideal mentor mentors. Let me explain. Many of us we look up to people like Tony Robbins, Gary V, Mel Robbins, Jay Sheddy, Sam Oven, Dan Locke, all these key players in the business world. The truth is that majority of these people are totally not attainable, especially at our level. These people are worldclass performers, and if you are still in the bottom part of the success ladder, then it’s going to be very hard for you to access these mentors one on one. But I do have to tell you that there is a little hack for that. For instance, you want to be the best chef in the world. You need to work with someone who has worked with Anthony Bourdain. If you want to be the best singer in the world, then work with someone who has worked with someone who has worked with someone, who in turn has worked with Beyonce. I hope you get the point.
Good quality information is everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and look for it. So remember whether it’s paid mentorship that you’re looking for, or just looking for someone who would help you for free, you need to first invest in yourself so that other people can invest in you.
To summarize, the first tip is to be a performer yourself or at least work towards being a performer. The second way is to put yourself in the right environment. The third is to always offer something in exchange for that person’s time. The fourth is to implement someone’s advice right away and share your results with the potential mentor. And number five: always pay attention to who your ideal mentor mentors and so on and so forth, especially if the person you want to do mentorship with is currently unattainable.
Originally published at https://opinined.com on April 21, 2020.
