Unlocking business growth with mentors: 6 ways they can help you
Are you struggling with business growth? Learn how mentors can help with it
You shouldn’t face your business’ challenges on your own, there are people out there willing to help you. Mentors are waiting for opportunities to rise where they can use their experience to guide someone else. Even though hiring a mentor won’t solve all your problems, at least it will make going through them more endurable.
You should look for a mentor that has many years of experience working in your same industry, this will ensure that they are the right fit for you. You may think your problem is way bigger and above you. Here’s when mentors come in, they’ve faced the same or similar challenges and were able to overcome them, so what makes you think you can't?
So, don’t make it harder than it is now, start looking for a mentor that can guide you into growing your business while overcoming all your challenges. In this article we will help you understand how mentors can help your business grow and how to choose the right one for you.
6 ways in which you can unlock business growth with a mentor
Mentors are connected to more people who can help you too
When someone decides to become a mentor, they have already experienced challenges that they faced over time, some of them overcame those with empirical learning, but others asked other people for help.
This means they are well connected with people who helped them in the past, or people they have met over time. Whatever the case, they most likely know someone who can assist in your case as well. Taking advantage of their network is a great way of expanding your own so you can count on other people’s support too.
Mentors assist you into prioritizing your needs
Most of the time, people are not well-organized, and it’s not even their fault. They simply ignore methods that can help them do it, this is a great way in which mentors can help you. Methods like: Eisenhower Matrix, MoSCoW method, or RICE technique are great workflows that will help you prioritize your tasks.
Using software like Trello or Monday are also helpful to determine which tasks you should be doing first and determine how much time you will be working on them. Next time you feel like your time is not enough, don’t feel bad, reach out to someone instead, and ask for their help, you will see the difference.
Mentors guide you into finding the right thought process and strategies
Hiring a mentor doesn’t involve having a genie that will grant you unlimited wishes whenever you want. They are not a magical object you can use to solve all your problems, instead they are people willing to help you find a solution.
That is the key, they won’t solve the problem for you, but will help you develop the right state of mind for you to solve the problem yourself. They can provide resources, insightful experience, data, or opinions, but what differentiates a great mentor from a bad one is the way they help you change your mindset.
Mentors help you understand your audience better
Since they have already valuable industry experience, they are able to help you identify some customer issues you would’ve not taken into consideration. Their insights will help you identify some areas of opportunity and improvement that would have otherwise gone unseen.
To make the most out of your mentoring session you must also contribute with knowledge and data from your own company and customers. Collect feedback before reaching out to a mentor in order for them to help you analyze the data and transform it into action items that will improve your customer’s satisfaction.
Mentors support you to transform challenges into opportunities
Related to the previous point, this is exactly where the mentor’s knowledge comes into action. You go to them with some challenges your business is facing and ask them for help, they will analyze your situation combining their experience with your own data and will come up with opportunities you had not recognized.
Mentors can keep you motivated
It is a normal human feeling to become overwhelmed or frustrated when you are facing many challenges at once. Business owners, executives, or workers could potentially feel like they are not good enough and would want to give up. Mentors prevent this from happening.
They help them stay motivated and focused on fulfilling the goal they came with. They also work into breaking down their main challenge into minor progress points, this way they will know they are progressing over time.
9 tips to help you find the right mentor
Identify your main issue and extra challenges
Before you reach out to anyone you must first make sure you have identified why you want to reach out and the challenges you are facing. This way you know exactly who to look for and what questions to ask. This is also a great way to filter out those mentors who have little experience on your case.
Reach out through LinkedIn
If you are first starting in your mentor search you can scout through LinkedIn’s content creators. Look specifically for those who have a proven track record in your industry, then you can send them a connection invite and personalize a message so they know why you are reaching out. Reacting and engaging with their content is a great way to catch their attention too.
Search for online mentoring programs
If you don’t know who to look for on LinkedIn, then you can look for mentoring programs online, there you can evaluate their pricing fees and reach out directly to the mentors associated with the platform. This is a great way to start your mentoring journey without any idea to whom you can go to. There are excellent budget friendly options out there ready to help you.
Ask help to other entrepreneurs
Go out to events and enroll in business talks, this way you can expand your network too. But, the key is to participate and avoid being just a listener, reach out to people and ask them questions related to your challenges.
Make your needs understandable
Once you have identified your needs and reached out to people, you need to be sure your needs are understood. Make sure you write every piece of information you can and with that, create a summary that includes your challenge and the available resources you have at the moment. This makes it easy to ask for help and make sure people understand what your main issue is, so they can personalize the mentoring session.
Create a list of your best options
Reaching out to one or two people is not enough. You need to create a list of all your potential options in order to find the right one. Selecting the right mentor should not be a process you take lightly, this is an investment that will help you with your business, becoming a strategic ally.
Meet with potential mentors and select the right fit
After reaching out to people and having told them about your challenges you will have a list of potential people that can help you. Filter your options based on pricing and knowledge, ask them about your specific case and make sure they are guiding you on the right path before you hire them. They may have a lot of experience, but if it is not valuable for your case, they are not the right fit for you, so if they show enough knowledge, then you can start working with them.
Set clear expectations from the beginning
Once you have selected the right mentor to help you, make sure you both work together to define realistic expectations and progress items that will help you achieve your goal. Defining expectations from the beginning will help you prevent misunderstandings and will determine the right path to follow to overcome the challenges you are facing.
Start working on mentoring sessions
Now you can both start meeting to help your business thrive, you need to be prepared for all the meetings. Show all your available data and make sure you have enough questions for the mentor so they can help your company.
Go find the right mentor for you
Maybe you underestimated the potential of hiring a mentor or maybe you thought it was too expensive to have one for your business. Most companies even ignore the fact they can have mentors for their employees, but having a mentor attracts several benefits that you must take advantage of.
At Mentors CX we work hard to make sure you find the right mentor that can help you crawl out victorious from your challenges. Search for the right mentor and start working together on a strategy that will make your business thrive!