#5 Reasons How Mentors can Help Entrepreneurs The most beneficial experience with a mentor is to be transparent and open with them
By Arijit Dutta
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Mentoring benefits entrepreneurs and business owners and is also beneficial for business professionals looking to advance their careers.
As Benjamin Franklin said, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
1. Identifying Areas Interest
The most important facet of the mentor-entrepreneur relation fetching success is the identifying interest areas.
It is important to identify which areas a mentor is most well-versed in and whether or not their experience in this area shall be suitable in the long-term. A good mentor is a good mentor but It can be beneficial, however, to have someone with similar interests areas when it comes to another aspect, networking.
2. Maintaining Frequent and Constant Communication
Consistent and frequent communication with the mentor is beneficial in the long-run as they can discern and quantify tangible progress and give proper feedback and advice. Fortunately, today we live in a world where constant communication is simple. As the entrepreneur, it is best for you to find a medium of communication, that satisfies both, that is used to facilitate efficient and detailed exchange of information. Ideally, In-person communication is going to be the best form of direct communication.
3. Be Transparent and Open
The most beneficial experience with a mentor is to be transparent and open with them. The lesser obstacles, the more fruitful is the mentorship experience. One should be open to constructive criticism ensuring quicker professional improvement. Providing feedback to the mentor is equally important. This mutual exchange allows the opportunity to work well together.
4. Using the Mentors Past Experience
Mentors offer valuable professional experiences that can be used as a guideline for business decisions. All transformational or inspiring experiences of the mentor can be used for taking correct decisions in future. The mentors failures and experiences from failed decisions can be the cornerstone to the mentee's correct decision. Learning from these failures and how they coped and rose above these failures are lessons to be learnt. They can be incredibly helpful as an entrepreneur, working positively in a often high-stakes environments.
5. Networking
Perhaps the most important value addition of the mentor is to utilise their professional networks. A fruitful relationship ensures getting access to their professional networks making the entrepreneurial journey a cake walk. In fact, a good mentor will be certainly sharing contacts referring them to individuals who may be probable support to their business ventures.
Mentors are information and knowledge hubs. They can see where entrepreneurs need to improve where they often cannot. Movie maker George Lucas once noted, "Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults that we would like. It's the only way we grow."
Mentors stimulate personal and professional growth they offer encouragement. Mentors are disciplinarians creating necessary boundaries; they are like sounding boards for bouncing off ideas for neutral opinions. Their experiences can be learning curve for preventing beginners' mistakes.
