The following is an article “Here’s Why You Need A Business Mentor” by Marc Primo.
The best entrepreneurs in the world all had to start somewhere and learn the tricks of the trade from a mentor. Despite earning college degrees, businessmen still need support and tips on how to attain success. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both had to rely on their mentors before they learned how to make the right decisions or implement the necessary strategies for their respective companies. The fact is that no one really starts as an experienced entrepreneur and thinking that you already have what it takes as you begin a venture may just lead you to failure.
A good mentor should be someone who has the genuine concern to guide you and groom you for success. They don’t really serve as coaches who feed you game plays to follow. Instead, they allow you to grow at your own pace, and let you commit errors to gain valuable lessons out of them. Of course mentors should also be successful in what they do.
Now that you know the traits of a good mentor, here are the reasons why you need them in your business life.
You learn from their experience. Experience is always the best teacher and learning from a mentor who has journeyed through life’s ups and downs can surely teach you a lot of things about business and people. By hearing your mentor’s stories, you get to steer your own path to success as you learn to merge traditional solutions with new ones and apply more creativity. You get to know how to deal with various kinds of people and what you can do to forge important partnerships. When you talk to your mentor, you’d not only want to hear their triumphs but their mistakes as well. Like experience, mistakes can also give you good insights on what works, or otherwise.
You become part of a network. Most successful businessmen have established professional networks throughout their careers. Having one as a mentor will instantly give you access to their own network which will allow you to market your brand and generate leads more effectively. Starting from scratch in building your own network may take years and is very difficult for a novice businessman. If your mentor is willing to introduce you to his customers and partners, you’ll have an advantage in knowing that you’ll be working with people and companies with established reputations, and know the business by heart.
He can be your investor. Your mentor can also invest in your business. That is if you have already won his trust and confidence. Let him know your ideas whether you think they are feasible or not so that he can give you his two cents. Be transparent about what bothers you and what you think could work. Giving him a sense of ownership to your ideas can turn him into a silent or active partner who can take you to greater heights.
He can inspire you. Regardless if you have made it or not, your life as an entrepreneur will always have its own fair share of challenges. You can rely on your mentors to lift your spirits and boost your confidence at times when you experience self-doubt or failure. Chances are he also had experienced a major setback sometime in his own career and who better to turn to than someone who has walked the walk. Studies show that most businessmen who give their companies up easily are those who operated without mentors.
He can strengthen you through criticisms. Having a mentor entails mutual respect and honesty so don’t get offended when he gives you criticisms about how you do things at times. Take it as a sort of ‘father and son’ relationship and don’t dismiss his thoughts just because you think some of them might already be obsolete. What you’d want to do is dig deeper into what he is really trying to tell you and apply the lesson you gain in your business. You’ll know that he’s the perfect mentor if he’s the first one who’s there for you when you reach success as well.
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