Having someone you admire be your mentor can be of great value to you and your business. If you are trying to get fit, learn or acquire certain skills, or start your own business – a mentor is there to guide you and show you things that you would otherwise need ages to learn yourself.
If you look at all the big shots of today’s business, successful leaders and innovators – they have all had mentors to assist them at the beginning of their career. That helped them reach their goals sooner.
We can achieve only so much by ourselves, but with a mentor or a teacher to direct us, we can get on the right track faster. Here are the reasons you need to find a mentor this instant. They are related to a startup or business world, but can be applied to other things in life if you know how to read between the lines.
#1 Experience
The best mentor would be a person who has already gone through things that currently await you, who has experienced what you are about to experience, and who has already been where you now want to be. Therefore, a mentor will share advice that will help you accelerate the outcome to what you want to accomplish, and guide you what to stay away from and what you need to learn. What you need to be doing is maximizing your potentials, and who can help you better than someone you trust and respect?
#2 Networking
“Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for.” – Christine Comaford-Lynch
When you start your own business venture, the network of people representing possible future support, potential customers, or someone who can help you improve and upgrade is limited. By getting access to referrals from your mentor, you will reach out to a completely new group of people whom you can potentially network with. This will help your influence and business grow dramatically, but it is crucial to find someone who is already in your specific niche to mentor you.
# 3 Opportunities
When certain opportunities arise which can help your business grow and improve, your mentor will be there to share his knowledge and experience with you because it is in his or her best interest to see you succeed with your plans and endeavors. This means that your mentor will answer all your grow coaching questions and involve you in potential future opportunities, similar to networking, and these opportunities may be exclusive information and knowledge to the mentor. That is why they can be total game changers for you and your business.
#4 Define Your Goals
We have established that a good mentor is someone who has already been through everything that awaits you and has all the necessary experience. Therefore, a mentor can give you a specific set of goals to help you scale your business by reaching certain milestones. First, take your clearly stated goals and write them down. Next, break the list down backwards, because you can then find out what it is that you need to do lead your business to a specific point – people you need to meet, the money required, and how, where and when to focus your time and effort.
#5 Accountability
To each of the specific goals you wrote down, your mentor will hold you accountable. Without accountability, a mentoring experience would not be complete. Having deadlines on every task you need to complete will divert you away from procrastination and wasting time on tasks that are low on your list of priorities.
If you were always told you have great potential, have done great in school, but have troubles in succeeding with your startup, and fail to achieve planned growth – hire a mentor. A mentor is someone who will share his intellectual resources that are invaluable to you and your business. If you have not found one yet, do not hesitate, but reach out to people. Seek and ask for guidance from those you admire. Be honest, talk about your intentions, and ask whether they would be interested to help you reach the maximum of your potentials.