How Having a Business Mentor Can Change Your Business
Small business really is big business especially when you get into the numbers. Around 28 million small businesses are up and running across the country. Owning a business is no small feat. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with pressure on all fronts. But the journey can become more successful alongside a business mentor.
84% of CEOs said mentors had helped them avoid costly mistakes
3 Crucial Benefits of Having a Business Mentor
A proactive step you can take to ensure your small business will succeed would be to bring on a business mentor. This might become one of the most beneficial business relationships you enter into.
1. They Can Spot the Weak Spots
Months (and sometimes years) before you “cut the ribbon” on your business, you’ll put together a business plan. This becomes your operating manual. You’ll pull in research, work out the numbers and leave no stone unturned. Or so you think. A business mentor can take one look at that plan and spot the weak spot. It will probably be something you never saw coming. That is what having a fresh perspective is all about.
“We tend to defend our beliefs aggressively, selectively choosing the data that reinforces what we think and explaining away, or outright ignoring the data that does not,” writes Bonnie Reis for Inc. A business mentor will help uncover your undetected biases.
2. They Provide Amazing Insight for Franchises
A large portion of those small businesses are franchises. This is where you buy into a proven business model, follow the edicts of the parent company and watch the money roll in. At least, that is the goal. In reality, franchise businesses are fraught with equal amounts of peril.
[Tweet “3 ways a #mentor can help your #business.”]Ciara Stockeland is the founder of MODE, a designer outlet store. What started as a high-end maternity store soon morphed into a second store that became the cornerstone of a franchise business. Ciara freely admits that without the advice of a mentor, she never would have gone down the franchise route. One of the elements she stresses on her franchise protégés is that “they need to be comfortable with very little freedom.”
A franchise means you’re buying into a proven concept. You’re not going to sell pizza at your McDonald’s restaurant. Ciara’s mentorship to new franchise owners helps them go into the business with their eyes wide open. That is essential when it comes to riding out the ups and downs of a business.
3. They Challenge You to Be a Better Boss
Before you get to live through your own business horror stories, your mentor will have already been there and done that. They will be happy to share those moments when they stumbled, and things blew up all around them. That puts you on notice and helps challenge you to be a better boss. Nail that and you’ve got a good shot at success.
The Harvard Business Review looked at business coaching. For 2015 the CEOs in mentoring programs:
- 84% said mentors had helped them avoid costly mistakes
- 84% became proficient in their roles faster
- 69% were making better decisions
In closing, the great thing about getting help from a mentor is that someday soon you’ll be inspired to pay it forward. You can become a mentor to the next business owner who is starting out. Everything in business all connected.
Speaking of mentorship and coaching, you can get plenty of insight right now by listening to our interviews with top entrepreneurs, visiting our channel, or subscribing below to our weekly tips on how to start or grow your business.