Choosing Mentors

- A mentor is a trusted and experience adviser who is interested in the success of the mentee.

- He/She does this by investing time to be a sounding board, to listen and understand context, ask
questions, give sound advice, offer alternative opinions, opening windows of opportunities and
lessening risks of the mentee.

Mentoring ensures that knowledge, experience, and hard-won insight transfers from one person to another
through personal interaction over time. While your own great ideas are essential to your new business, with an
experienced mentor at your side, you will have one of the most powerful assets any new businessperson can
ever have: someone invested in you and your success. Here are a few key points on the vital role a good
mentor can play in the success of an emerging entrepreneur, along with advice on choosing mentors wisely.

1. What characteristics does a good mentor possess?

Ideally, a mentor will not so much give advice as coach. An ideal mentor is someone actively
involved in the direction of his or her own successful business. A good mentor should also be
accessible — not all of the time, but he or she should be able to devote enough time to assisting
you in truly broadening and deepening your understanding in ways you could not have done for
yourself.

2. What can a mentor help you accomplish?

Your mentor can help you stay focused on your goals and hold you accountable to your vision
for your company. A good mentor can help a fledgling entrepreneur think through strategies,
crunch numbers, and create a business or marketing plan. His or her guidance can get you
through rough times when your self-confidence may be waning, and show you new perspectives
and pathways to success.

3. How can you find the right mentor?

You should select a mentor carefully. Make sure to understand exactly what you want your
mentor to do. Do you need networking opportunities, introductions to great contacts, or advice
on evaluating markets or developing your product? Different individuals will bring different sets
of skills and varied perspectives to any mentoring experience, so you will need to know what
your “ask” is.

4. Where should you look for mentors?

You can try local business and start-up networking groups as well as the leadership of
community non-profit organizations to find mentors. Offer to work an event promoted by one of
these groups, which can place you in proximity to industry leaders. Find a few people who are
available to have brief meetings with you and see if you click with any of them as mentors.

5. How can you get the most out of a mentoring experience?

Be flexible enough to appreciate the many forms mentoring can take. You might read a book or
watch a video by a well-known and successful entrepreneur, learning from him or her even if
you will never meet.