Mentoring
Here’s what Dave’s tried and tested mentoring can do for you:
1. A chance to ask questions and get advice
The biggest benefit of having a business mentor is having someone you can ask questions and get advice. As a professional, a student or a new business owner, you are likely to get more advice than you ask for from people like family members, friends and the people who own the store next door. While some of their advice may be sound, Dave can help you sort out which you should follow while advising you on more complicated professional, career and business matters that your friends or family would not know how to solve.
2. A Different Perspective
Dave can help you look at problems and situations from perspectives that you would not have thought of on your own. For example, you may have trouble looking at your professional, career or business matters through the eyes of a customer, recruiter, potential investor or government official. Dave, who has dealt with these people often, can help you understand how you or your business will look to these individuals.
3. Improving Key Skills
Dave is not like other advisers or consultants, who care only about their fee or the business venture they might be investing in. Instead, Dave can help you develop your personal, professional and business skills. For example, if you keep getting rejected at critical promotion or recruitment stages or if your employees are constantly complaining that they don’t understand project directions, Dave can work with you to help you improve how you communicate with people, recruiting staff and maybe even your own staff. This way, you will have a better understanding of how to communicate with your staff both now and in the future.
4. Venting With Someone You Trust
Going for jobs, choosing your career, helping your kids succeed and also owning a business can be stressful and frustrating. You’ll often need to vent with someone you trust. You cannot vent to partners, employees or customers without causing instability in the structure of your life, relationship and the business. However, once you vent to a mentor, you can often start the process of working with the mentor to solve the cause of your frustration. For example, if lazy employees are plaguing your business, you may need to vent to your mentor before you can think positively enough about the employees in order to develop a plan to motivate them. Similarly, if you’re letting yourself down in some regards, facing that is important to move forward.
5. Expanding Your Network
Dave can put you in touch with contacts who can help you make your career and business more successful. The more networking you do, the more people you meet. And the more people you meet, the greater the odds are that you will have someone in your contacts who can help you solve personal, career and business issues. For example, Dave may introduce you to another of his mentees, an award-winning recent college grad who is looking for an entry level position in web design. Perhaps you are looking for someone to help you design your new company’s website. Thanks to the mentor’s contact, your search for a valuable asset may have just become easier.
6. Methods and Strategies
In addition to simply giving advice and helping improve your personal business skills, Dave can prepare you with a library of methods and strategies that you can pull from throughout your career. Dave cannot only tell you, from experience, how important it is to create a positive environment and boost morale, but they can also give you strategies for doing so. For example, Dave can help you learn strategies for observing your outcomes at interviews and in your career to also observing employees to see if they are happy at work, dealing with irate customers or handling financial problems.
7. Long-Lasting Relationships
Although some mentor-mentee relationships are short-lived, if you hit it off with your mentor, you can foster a long-lasting relationship through which you and your mentor can continue to collaborate for the rest of your career. This will give you the consistency and resources you need to maintain a successful business. This is Dave’s clear aim – to support you to your ultimate goals.
8. Confidence to Make Better Decisions
Knowing that you have a credible mentor to turn to can give you confidence when facing difficult business situations. Similarly, good mentors will praise you when you have made good decisions. Praise can enable you to see yourself as a wise and experienced professional person. Seeing yourself confidently this way will help you stand your ground when you must defend or stand by your career decisions.
9. A Gentle Nudge
Starting a business, getting into a new career or getting that critical promotion is difficult, and many people face challenges early in the process. However, many of us go through the same types of struggles. Hearing first-hand from your mentor about his experiences will help you realise that the struggles you are going through now will prepare you to be a better professional in the future.
10. A Chance to Give Back
Dave gets involved in lots of charity work, community mentoring and helping children escape the challenges of urban deprived areas. Give Dave a ring and he might be able to assist.