How to choose a business mentor
A mentor can give you objective feedback, bring knowledge that can be shared in a safe environment, and back you when you need to make decisions. They are someone who is on your side, yet objective enough to give unbiased advice, supportive enough to tell you what you need to hear rather than what you may want to hear. A mentor can be ‘your rock’. They will likely assist you to see your blind spots, and accelerate your points of brilliance. Through regular meetings, they can assist decisions to be made, and actions to be time bound. They will assist you to keep your business moving forward.
Before choosing a mentor, consider whether you will actually listen to them. If you are only engaging a mentor so that you can say you have one, and yet do nothing different, then you are wasting everyone’s time!
It is not your mentor’s role to do anything for you, other than assist you to gain insight, assist you to find direction, impart knowledge and hold you to actions which you commit to. They are not there to ‘do the doing.’
After reading the above two paragraphs and you still want a mentor, find someone who pushes your buttons enough for you to want to take action. If it feels like a comfy sofa, look somewhere else!
Similar or Different Values.
Non-negotiable values should not be compromised. If however you are prepared to look at your beliefs, then your mentor may be right for you. If your mentor tells you what you should do without checking in on your values, then the relationship is possibly not right for you. I personally don’t think a mentor should tell a mentee what to do, I think that they should offer up options, gain commitment then ensure the mentee takes action.
Experienced or Innovative.
Business mentors who are most successful are the ones that approach mentorship as a two way relationship where both sides can benefit. A mentor with many years of industry experience can offer guidance and steer a new business owner or entrepreneur away from costly mistakes. While young businesses can offer the more experienced a new sense of enthusiasm along with new approaches to business and especially the use of technology.
A diversity of approaches?
While it is often good to get differing views, having more than one lead mentor at a time can create confusion. Sure, you can get differing views from a range of sources, but ensure that you run them past your mentor to get their view. Some ‘do good’ friend may mean the best but in fact give you advice which may undo the strategy that you have embarked on with your mentor. If you feel that ideas that you have gleaned elsewhere are better than your mentors, tell them so. If they cannot argue their point successfully, either it may be time for the mentor to say good bye or be told good bye!
Make the Commitment
In order to teach anything, the mentor must be willing to help and the mentee must be willing to listen and change. This does not mean you have to do everything your mentor says, however you should certainly listen and take some of their advice on board and implement it within a timely fashion. Mentorship requires intentional investments of time, energy, and money. If you pay for a professional service, you can expect a good level of service. If you get it for free, ensure you value it, and that the advice is of value. You get what you put in.
