How a Mentor Can Help You With Growing Your Business

Research in both educational settings and in the world of business indicates that students, employees, and CEOs are more likely to succeed if they had a mentor. Fortune 500 CEOs were asked what contributed most to their success. Many listed an effective mentor as one of the key factors. As a result, more and more entrepreneurs and business owners are following the lead of their corporate counterparts by engaging the services of professional business mentors.

Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which a more experienced person, referred to as the mentor, assists another person less experienced, referred to as the mentee, in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance the less experienced person's professional and personal growth. Successful mentoring programs do not just happen; they are the result of careful planning and implementation.

Working with your own mentor can have a tremendous positive impact on your business. Whether you are an established company or just starting up, your mentor can teach you how to increase your confidence, develop vital business skills, and implement effective strategies to transition your business to the next level.

Even if you consider yourself to be an expert in your field, a recognizable knowledge or experience gap may still exist or be present. You may have a great idea for a new business, but you feel like you need to verify the feasibility of your new venture or to confirm the strategies that you are considering using. Seeking the guidance of an experienced mentor who has had similar experiences is the best way to get your question answered with valuable professional advice.

What does a professional business mentor do?

Your mentor serves as a trusted counselor, a guide, a source of information, a provider of perspective, and the voice of experience in addition to performing a number of different functions:

• Teaching you about specific business practices and functions.

• Coaching you on specific business skills.

• Facilitating your growth by providing resources and contacts.

• Challenging you to move beyond your comfort zone.

• Creating a safe learning environment for expanding your horizons.

• Focusing on your total development, both professional and personal.

What benefits will you realize from working with a professional business mentor?

• You will gain from your mentor's expertise.

• You will receive critical feedback in key skill and knowledge areas.

• You will develop a sharper focus on what steps are needed to develop professionally.

• You will learn specific skills and knowledge that are relevant to your personal goals.

• You will gain knowledge about business tactics that are critical for success.

• You will adapt more quickly to changes in the marketplace.

• You will have a 'friendly ear' to share your frustrations, as well as, successes.

Professional business mentors are a valuable asset to any business organization.

When you struggle all alone in your business, it can lead to costly and demoralizing mistakes. Having an experienced mentor spares you the trouble of having to crack the business success code on your own. A seasoned, professional mentor is the perfect person to offer help and advice, especially if you are just starting out or facing difficult challenges. An experienced mentor has been there and done that! He/she knows what works and what doesn't work.

By tapping into the wealth of knowledge and experience of a mentor, you can fast-track your business success by minimizing the mistakes most entrepreneurs make... Why try to re-invent the proverbial wheel, when you can engage the services of a seasoned, professional mentor to help you navigate the minefields associated with growing your business.

Don't be trapped into thinking you don't need a business mentor simply because you think know your business. Just like sports, running a business is highly competitive. So, if top athletes employ coaches/mentors, then it makes perfect sense to follow in the footsteps of these top athletes and employ your very own mentor!

Just like a good sports coach, the right professional business mentor will not play the game for you. They will simply assist you in determining the most effectively strategies in order to maximize your rewards and minimize your risks!

How to find a professional business mentor

Choosing a mentor is a serious decision. It is important that you select a business mentor who is competent, experienced, and has both integrity and expertise---an individual that you can trust in this newly formed fiduciary relationship.

There are a couple of avenues you can use to find a good professional business mentor... First, you can reach out to your local sphere of contacts. Talk to your existing advisors -- your CPA, your attorney, your banker, and your insurance agent. Second, you can use the Internet. Fortunately, with the Internet you are not just limited to your local geographic area when seeking a business mentor. Many professional mentors provide their mentoring services via the telephone or Skype. This is often more convenient and more flexible than having to personally meet with a business mentor.

When evaluating your business mentor candidates it's important to consider

· Confidentiality: Sensitivity to the importance of confidentiality is critical. Since a business mentor will be privy to highly confidential information about you and your business, it is very important for you to discuss bonds of confidentiality with him. A signed confidentiality agreement is recommended.

· Non-compete: Make sure that the business mentor candidate is willing to sign a non-compete agreement and to refrain them from advising/mentoring any of your direct competitors, not only during the course of the engagement, but also for a certain period of time thereafter.

· Chemistry: It's not just for romantic relationships! There has to be certain chemistry with your business mentor. This is someone you are going to work closely to grow your business. You have to feel a connection and a sense of trust with this person. To gauge your level of comfort with your prospective business mentor, arrange to have a couple of pre-engagement discussions with him/her.

· Learning: Some experts believe that what you will learn from a particular mentor is far more important than the chemistry you have with that particular mentor. The critical question you must answer is, "exactly what I'm I going to learn from this particular business mentor that I can apply to overcoming my current issues and challenges."

· Confidence: Make sure that you have the level of confidence that you need in order to move forward, and that the person-the business mentor -- is as passionate about their business as you are about your business.

Use Your Small Business Website To Gain Leverage Over The Competition - Unlock What's Inside

There are many arsenal tools of a Small Business, but by far the greatest is the Business Website. Without a business website for The Small Businessman it can be very difficult to reach your fullest growth potential. There are many benefits locked inside your business website. The key is to find them and unlock your websites potential to be a money making machine for your business. See if these 5 power tools can unlock the potential that's inside your website.

Tool 1. The Small Business Website Can Be Designed & Structured To Build Business

The structure of a Small Business Website can be designed to bring a focus to what's important to you company and to bring you more business. Using proper placement of things like opt-in forms, videos, picture images, pop-up pages, landing pages, color palettes, Facebook & Twitter shares & survey forms can not only make you website fun & exciting to see visually, but it can also move and flow traffic to different pages of your website. Website design & structure can lead customers to buying shopping carts, that can boost sales. Large images on a photographer or artist website can help to showcase work better. The right placement of color on your web pages can turn the attention of your customers and highlight sales, a special discount coupon, or a survey form you desire your customer to fill out. What ever strategies you decide to use, make sure as you are designing your website with a little more thought about website design & structure to bring business.

Tool 2. The Small Business Website Is Your Voice

The Small Business Website is the primary tool to share the voice of your company. Your business website should be from your point of view. How or What your company... Thinks? Feels? Wishes? Desires? So how do you accomplish all of this in one website? Through CONTENT! Content Management is your voice. Sometimes on a website it is design with a blogging system that allows you to post content regularly which helps generate a following or leads. For businesses like MLM's, Direct Sales, or Service Businesses, blogging has a very inexpensive starting cost with a high return value. Share the voice of your business with the world and watch the financial benefits follow.

Tool 3. The Small Business Website Can Be A Leverage Tool

When you have a small business, using your website to leverage or give your business the upper hand over competition is a high priority. There are statistics by Google that show 66% of Small Business do not have a business website. OK... Breathe & Meditate on this for a moment... Ready? What this statistic is saying, is only 44% of people in your industry have a website that is in front of buying customers each day. So if you have a product like Organic Skin Care, or a specialized service for example Immigration Law, then you can see how a business website can almost immediately increase your leveraging power. And remember to use your VOICE... ie CONTENT for more leveraging power.

Tool 4. The Small Business Website Can Establish You As The Expert & Authority

Now that you know only a small percentage of people have a small business website in your industry, it's easier to recognized how powerful a website can be, and how this can set you as the expert or authority in your industry. Posting articles on your website puts your company's name in front of your customers or clients. In your article, give your potential customers information that is helpful to them. Provide information that helps them to make a better buying decision on products. All of these things establishes your small business as an authority and you as the expert. Each week by sharing vital nuggets and segments of key reviews, potential customer & prospects look to your business for critical answers.

Tool 5. The Small Business Website Can Be The Ultimate Advertising Billboard

Most small business have little to no advertising dollars. So one of the best and least expensive ways to advertise is through your website. It is the Ultimate Advertising Billboard. Creating Banner Ads, for example, can showcase what your business does, or what you have to offer can be place on your website to increase your sales. Often time websites are built only as an Affiliate Marketing site for just that reason. Also the cost to advertise in the newspaper, or in a magazine can be expensive, and your ad will only run a few time before you have to pay again. With a website, your ads can stay up for as long as you like. When someone is using a search engines, an optimized website can drive traffic right to the Banner Ads with just what your customers wants.

Alignment, the Secret to Modern Business Success

One of the biggest challenges facing modern businesses of all sizes is how to take the business to the next level of success and profit without the cost structure getting out of control. One of the biggest costs on most business's Profit and Loss Statement is salaries and wages, or in simpler terms, people.

As a business leader, your challenge is to get more out of your people without making them work ridiculous hours or chasing them around barking orders. What would it mean to your business if all the people you employ were passionate about the business, understood and believed fully in the goals and ideals of the business and strived each day to deliver the goals and results their job was designed to deliver?

In the past, business leaders have often resolved growth challenges by employing more people and trying to get them to generate additional sales and improved customer service, only to find out much later that the growth in overhead costs has cancelled out the growth in sales. It has often been said that any business is only as good as the people in it, and today this statement is probably truer than it has ever been.

So how do we as business leaders and managers go about getting more out of the people we employ?

A famous quote states; "A fish rots from the head down" and this is true for any business or organisation. The senior leadership of any organisation is where any strategy to get more from the people must start. The leadership of any business must give clear direction, rules and goals for all members of the business to follow, including the most senior directors.

Being a leader in a business is not just about explaining the goals and rules of the business, but inspiring the team in the business to become passionate about what the business is trying to achieve and why it is so important. Many leaders forget that you can only lead people, not a task or a job, and as such, it is the way the people feel and view their jobs that often makes the difference between a company that slowly moves forward and one that continues to outperform its competitors regularly. True leadership is about inspiring people where they care as much about the results and performance of the business as much as the directors and owners do.

Another key function of leadership that is often overlooked in modern business is that of retaining and developing the key talent currently in the business and to be constantly on the search for new talent to bring into the business to develop. Many of the business owners I speak to in the UK today, tell me that they often get very high numbers of people applying for jobs with them, but finding real talent in the market place is becoming more and more difficult. It is therefore very important that the most senior leaders in any business must align the culture and perception of the business to attract the kind of talent they are looking for and to retain the talent already within the business.

From this the owners must make sure that the structure or organisational chart of the business is aligned to deliver the goals and results the business is looking for.

It is amazing how many businesses have compromised their structure to fit the people in each of the roles which often results in lack of clarity about ownership of each area of the business and also major communication challenges within the business. This is what happens when the structure is not aligned with the results the business is looking for.

Once the structure is in place, it is vital that the job roles are aligned with the structure and results the business is looking for. One of the most common methods of creating a job role is to focus on what you want the person in the role to do, so the job role often becomes a long list of things to do and the overall function of the job role is then lost. A better way to create a job role is to start with the outcomes or results you are looking for from the job role and then define what the role must do in order to deliver those outcomes. Each job role must also have a measurement or set of measurements connected to it so that the person in the role and their leader can quickly and easily measure how the job role is performing.

I was recently working with a business on this very matter in their sales department and all the sales people told me that on average they spent around 10% of their time on sales and the rest on other functions and duties. When I investigated the matter, it turned out that most of their time was spent doing other departments work, the structure and roles were not aligned to deliver increased sales, the very thing the business was looking for!

Once this is all done, look at the structure as a leader and make sure you have the right people in the right roles. This is often a very challenging step for a leader to take as it often comes with the fear of upsetting people or causing disruption to the business. As a leader in a situation like this, take a step back and look at the bigger picture and just ask yourself, how much upset, lack of results and frustrations are being caused to the business and the team with the wrong person in the role. The answer to this can very often be a huge eye opener.

Once this is all aligned, it is important that the marketing strategy of the business is aligned with the key customers in each market sector they are looking to attract. It is interesting to hear how many business leaders complain about the large quantity of potential customers who contact their business and just waste their time. The key factor they are not seeing is that it is their marketing message that is attracting these people to contact them. Know the market place you want to be active in, identify your ideal customer in that sector, understand what your point of difference is in the market against your competitors and then align your market strategy and communication to attract the kinds of customers you really want. Then do this separately for every sector you wish to be active in.

The next step is to make sure that your sales process and all the people who take an active role in it are aligned with the marketing strategy and communication so that a consistent level of profitable success is achieved.