Why hire a mentor?
I guess the first place to start is to consider what actually is Mentoring?It is described in many ways, but perhaps the best definition that I have seen is that Mentoring is a professional relationship in which an experienced person (the Mentor) assists another (the Mentoree) in developing specific strategies, skills and knowledge by sharing their own experience in a thought provoking manner to enhance the person’s professional and personal growth.
Quite often a mentoring relationship is considered longer than a coaching relationship, but I in fact see many similarities and depends on the support desired.
The term mentor has previously been commonly used in the workplace by companies whereby a senior colleague may mentor a junior person as part of their personal development and growth within the organisation.
In my opinion, a mentor helps you develop with a combination of effective questions and guidance, whereas the role of a coach is more focused on developing the solution from within,
So what is a mentor. I feel the role is very well described by Virgin Startup as ‘The role is about guidance and helping your entrepreneur to achieve their goals and realise their potential. You’ll help them understand problems, identify solutions and implement their plans.’
A mentor is likely to save you from many hours of worry and procrastination, help you maximise your time, and save you money, by sharing proven strategies and their experience to help you avoid the common pitfalls or make the mistakes quite often made by others trying to do everything themselves.
Many of my clients come to me because they want to scale a business or are now at the stage to grow their business, but perhaps don’t know where to start, how to effectively build the right foundation and how best to apply the skills that they have in the most effective way.
When choosing a mentor, you should consider what you need in a mentor and what skills or areas of the business that you would like to develop with their assistance.
From my research and experience, business owners become frustrated with coaches that just ask ‘What do you think?” “How would you approach that?” etc. My approach is to coach but, when asked or required, provide a thought, example or case study that fuels ans sparks a thought in relation to the clients own business.