Mentors. Everyone needs them, they have been through what you are going through and know how to overcome the problems. But most people starting out start without having a mentor. Mentors are very valuable, they have spent their time perfecting their craft and have an abundance of information and experience that you would find helpful.
Mentors can help you with many things, even things you might not think you needed help with they would be able to help you with. An overlooked aspect of starting up in business is your mindset. Mentors don't always have to be there to help with business, they can be there to help through life as well. Having a mentor to guide and help you through problems as well as reassuring you through everything will be profitable in the long run.
1. Use their experience
Experience is one of the most (if not the most) expensive assets anyone can hold and can be crucial to business success. There is only so much someone can say or write and are willing to share on the internet about the experience they’ve had (and the amount they are willing to share). So by having a mentor, you will be able to use their experience and apply it to their situation.
2. Use their network
Networking can be a big factor in how well an entrepreneur can run their business. If you don't know the right people you might not be able to get the job done how you want it to be done. Getting a mentor in the same industry as you can be highly beneficial to your business as they would have contacts who have done work for them and they would know how to get the best work done at the best price possible.
“Your network is your net-worth”
3. You are more likely to succeed
When you look at the stats about new businesses and how long they last according to SBA (Small Business Administration), 30% of new businesses last past the first 24 months, 50% of those make it past 5 years. Now when you look at mentored businesses, 70% of mentored businesses survive longer than 5 years.
4.They might be able to prevent costly mistakes
Nothing can ever really run smoothly. Especially in business, mistakes can be extremely costly. Just having someone there to stop you in your tracks before you make a mistake or having someone to talk to about any problems you come across to tell you how to fix these problems will help you financially
5. They can be there for you emotionally
Dealing with failures on your own can set you back massively as well as have an impact on your productivity. Having a mentor can help you when you need that extra push and help you keep your head high through the tough times. Entrepreneurs often deal with depression when they are unable to reach their goals or the stress of owning a business catches up to them. This is often not spoken about and underreported so having a mentor can be beneficial for the entrepreneur's wellbeing as well as their business.
6. Accountability and reassurance
One thing that is able to motivate most people is having accountability. When you have a mentor you are able to talk to them about what you want to do and when you want to do it by. Accountability will subconsciously drive and motivate you as you wouldn't want to let someone down or not fulfil your task. To go with accountability, having someone there to tell you whether what you are doing is a good idea and even if you know, to tell you that you are going down the right tracks is going to benefit you.
7. Successful people and their mentors
What most new entrepreneurs think is that they can go at this alone with no help, this is the wrong mindset to have when starting out. Even the most successful people in business have had mentors. Here are some influential people who have had mentors...
Media mogul and best known for her chat show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah was mentored by author and poet, the late Maya Angelou. “She was there for me guiding me through some of the most important years of my life, ” Winfrey wrote. "The world knows her as a poet but at the heart of her, she was a teacher. ‘When you learn, teach. When you get, give’ is one of my best lessons from her." Clearly, Maya Angelou was more of a personal mentor than a business mentor.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was mentored by the late Steve Jobs. The two had developed a relationship in the early days of Facebook and met regularly to discuss the best business and management practices. "Early on in our history when things weren't really going well--we had hit a rough patch and a lot of people wanted to buy Facebook--I went and I met with Steve Jobs, and he said that to reconnect with what I believed was the mission of the company, I should go visit this temple in India that he had gone to early in the evolution of Apple, when he was thinking about what he wanted his vision of the future to be," said Zuckerberg. Now, this mentor-mentee relationship was more of a business relation one and Steve was there to help Mark Further his career.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was mentored by business magnate Warren Buffett. As the richest man in the world, you would think that he doesn't need to be mentored. Who's the best man to mentor the richest man in the world? The second richest man in the world. Gates and Buffett have a close relationship, both personally and professionally. However, it didn't start out like this, initially, Buffett wanted nothing to do with the younger Gates.
Its best to get a mentor if you can, they have been through the highs and the lows of business and will either be able to stop you or help you get over those obstacles that you'll get to. Using their experience, they'll be able to guide you to either their level or guide you down the best route to get to where you want. So if you ever get the opportunity to get a mentor, make sure you don't squander the opportunity
