When considering a mentor-protégé relationship, keep one thing in mind - start off thinking you want to be the best company you can be, not a copy of your mentor. Just like anything else, having a strategy with clear-cut goals and defined expectations is a wonderful way to start. By doing so, you can truly maximize the value of developing a relationship with a great mentor.
A relationship can be formal or informal, meaning you can have scheduled meetings with a real working agenda with milestones you want to reach. Or, your structure can be very informal, where you just get to know the inner workings of how your mentor became successful and how you may be able to apply some of the same principles that he or she did.
Mentors can often have many protégés, and you can have more than one mentor. For example, you may find that you develop a relationship with someone who can help you understand how to maximize and position your brand in the marketplace and that is the true value he or she brings to you. As you grow your company, you may need in-depth advice on how to take your operation and scale it up to that next level that everyone dreams of. For that reason, you should scan the horizon, always keeping your eyes open for a mentor for a particular goal you may have in mind.
Key benefits of a mentoring relationship include:
- They become your go-to resource for understanding where some of the unforeseen challenges could be lying in wait for you as you grow your company. Having this invaluable advice can save you thousands of dollars and hours and hours of anguish that could have been used to develop an opportunity.
- A mentoring relationship can assist you with navigating great challenges and help you evaluate and choose among the many opportunities you may see coming your way. Too many opportunities that are poorly managed can be just as disastrous as too few opportunities - both can put you out of business.
- The greatest value of a mentor is that he or she should be teaching you how to fish and not just giving you fish. In other words, I see many small businesses chasing mentors in the hopes of doing business with them and gaining more contracts. I learned that the true value I gained from my first mentor was that they very thoroughly taught me how to win federal contracts with successful proposals and to diligently manage contracts in order to build a strong brand. After the relationship was over, I never had any significant contracts from that company. The great value? They had trained me extremely well to go out and grow on my own. They showed me where the opportunities could be, and, most importantly, laid out where the land mines were so I could avoid disaster. My second mentor was truly a partnering mentor, in that we both marketed and brought in the big fish together. My second mentor allowed me through an aggressive marketing partnership to use all of the great information my first mentor had taught me.
Sometimes, a mentor is someone who allows you to think and strategize about how to grow your company. These relationships are priceless. The ability to have a “sounding board” and someone who will say, “Have you thought about this?” is the true definition of the mentor- protégé relationship.
About the Author
Doña Storey has been a successful business owner for over 30 years. As creator of the GOVtips.biz website and the World’s Biggest Customer book series, she is an expert on federal and corporate procurement. Doña is an author, speaker, and moderator nationwide. She can be reached at (757) 490-4710 or Dona.Storey@govtips.biz.