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Brick No2: 9 qualities you need to look for in your mentor
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 23 September 2003 It's my firm belief that even the smallest business should have a mentor to turn to - someone who can open doors for you, see things from a detached perspective and give you the benefit of his or her ideas and experience. Someone who greatly improves your chances of business success. Your mentor might be someone you know, an old colleague, boss or business contact. Alternatively, as a small business, even if you don't know anyone suitable, you should be able to access free mentoring services under new publicly funded initiatives. I've outlined the best schemes down below. These are the qualities you should be looking for in your mentor (some will be more relevant to your business than others): - Experience and know-how in your particular sector - Contacts that will open doors for you - Empathy with your situation - Ability to take a strategic view, a step back from the day-to-day - First-rate listener, honest sounding-board - Experience of raising money or getting funding - Great source of fresh ideas Plus, most importantly your mentor will need to be: - Someone who you gel with and are stimulated by - Someone who shares your belief and enthusiasm for your business idea My mentor With my business, I've got exactly the right person on board. He's an incredibly experienced and well regarded MD of a fast-growing publishing house. When he was put in charge, some 8 years ago, the company was in poor shape and employed only a handful of people. Over the years, he has driven the company forward through organic growth to the extent that the business now has sales of some £20m and employs around 70 people. Most importantly for me, he's a bubbling stream of ideas, useful contacts and straight down-the-line feedback. Over the last few months, he's proved a real godsend. I meet up face-to-face with my mentor every couple of weeks, just for an hour. It works for us. It's always surprising and reassuring to see how far things have moved on each meeting. It's very useful to be able to step back and look at the bigger picture, and be positive about what we have achieved. He also gives me really honest, detached feedback on ideas and work in between meetings. FREE mentoring for start-ups and small businesses The great news for you is that as a start-up or small business you should be able to access FREE mentoring. Recently, public and not-for-profit organisations such as Business Link, the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies and the Prince's Trust have invested in mentoring in a big way. They share my belief that a good mentor is a must for any new small business. And the word from my contacts inside the Government's Small Business Service is that this investment is likely to grow and grow. If you don't already have a mentor on board, I strongly recommend you find out about the schemes below. British Volunteer Mentoring Scheme (BVM) Government funded, Business Link branded, but managed by the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA). I met up with the then newly appointed CEO of the NFEA, George Derbyshire around this time last year. The meeting was a bit 'on the fly' and, as a result, we had to settle for a Costa café in a dingy Milton Keynes shopping centre. Still, I remember George having genuine enthusiasm for the scheme. Since its launch in 2000, the BVM scheme has recruited over 1,200 mentors and helped over 14,000 businesses. All the mentors are volunteers, many of them retired or semi-retired. Typically they would spend around 24 days a year with you. It's specifically aimed at pre-start, start-up and micro businesses (this usually means 1-5 employees). Here's the link. The Prince's Trust This registered charity aims to support 18-30 year olds who are unemployed or in part-time or 'inadequate' work. The trust's mentoring service offers 3-6 hours support a month. The Prince's Trust can also offer low interest loans, grants (in special circumstances) and ongoing marketing support and advice. Is the future e-Mentoring? The hot news earlier this week was that Business Link has thrown its weight behind a new 'e-Mentoring' pilot. They're putting £250,000 into the scheme, which at first will run only in the South and South East, administered by the very active South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). Here's the Telegraph's very full write up. If you're in the South or SE, I don't think it would do any harm at all to register. All the information is on the dedicated site for the pilot although I suggest just going direct to the FAQs if you want straight answers. It's an interesting idea, but I really value regular face-to-face meetings, so put me down as a sceptic for now. Shell LiveWIRE (another not-for-profit scheme) have tried the approach before, although their approach was more 'Ask A Mentor' rather than trying to build long-lasting relationships. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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