Image by: ffaalumni
By Victor Averin
Its commonly said that most business owners have had at least three failed businesses before one succeeded. Most of those business owners didn’t have a mentor. You can help the hassle of failing businesses by finding a mentor.
Mentors can teach, promote, and encourage us to strive for success. They’ll have your back. Having a mentor is one of the best strategies when you’re brand new in a field or running a company. Mentors can hone your abilities, give advice on business strategy, prevent you from failure and help augment your networking efforts, however, the first step is to know how to find a mentor and what type of person you want.
Look Inside And Out
Someone inside of the workplace can advocate your projects, sponsor you, and ask the big man upstairs for raises. Check your employer’s human resources department to see if they have a mentoring program. Big corporations usually offer a type of sponsorship or mentoring program. If you’re good enough, eventually the big man upstairs can mentor you himself. Climb the ladder of mentors.
Someone on the outside can give you general guidance for a bigger picture. Many entrepreneurs use SCORE.org which is a non-profit website that hires entrepreneurs to mentor small businesses.
“SCORE has served more than 9.5 million existing and aspiring small business owners since inception and helps to create more than 58,000 new businesses and over 71,000 new jobs annually and has 13,000 volunteer mentors across the nation.” You can also do an advanced search on Linkedin to find people near you.
Younger Or Older
A younger mentor can offer more experience and guidance when it comes to new technology, new business trends, and the escalating business model cycles that’s associated with accelerating technology. Every field is picking up speed, and moving at an alarming rate; young brains easily adapt.
If you’re already a young and slick entry-level entrepreneur, seek out an employee who is 50 years or older who can guide you in pretty much every aspect of the business field you’re interested in.
Remember, landing a successful and great sponsor requires you to show the right personal qualities, ambition, and a motivating ‘why me’ speech. You have to show your potential, show them all of the business related work you’ve done starting from when you came out of the womb to all of the work you will do in the future. Tell them you’re goals.
How To Ask
Don’t formally request them to be a mentor just yet. Start by asking one or two questions you had about a problem or challenge you’ve encountered. Then continue to ask questions. He or she will naturally fall into the mentor role, then you can formally request it after you’ve gotten to know them on a personal level, and have shown what you’re made of. A partnership might even form later down the road!
When you’re interacting try to keep it casual and fun, show excitement by smiling or laughing while talking about business advice. Also, make it a two-way street, reciprocate and do something for them; be a source of information or treat them to an early breakfast.