How To Get An Experienced Entrepreneurship Mentor

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For many jobs, your level of skill and experience is what sets you apart. Entrepreneurship is no different. To increase your chances of becoming a successful entrepreneur, growing your skill set and gaining experience in your entrepreneurial line is key.

Unfortunately, developing skills and experience is a long and often tedious journey. One that you may wish to at least shorten, if not escape. But is that possible? Can you shorten the length of time you need to gain skills and experience? Can you hasten the process of becoming a reputable entrepreneur?

While it seems like the easier thing to, taking short-cuts to your business success could end up doing more harm than good. What you can do instead, is to improve on the kind of advice and training that you get for your business. So, where does such advice and training come from? Let’s find out.

70% of entrepreneurs that had mentors ran businesses that survived for five or more years. This rate is twice as high as the business that had no mentors.

Who Is A Mentor

Entrepreneurially speaking, mentors are people with invaluable business experience that you are yet to attain. They are literally the people who came, saw and conquered the entrepreneurship dragon and wouldn’t mind letting you in on how they did it. Not only do they possess the knowledge of what you need to do to grow your business, they also have developed, over time and through experience, an instinct for entrepreneurial moves that would help you improve your own level of experience. Despite all this, a mentor is not a one way ticket to success. Like every other relationship, a monitor-mentee relationship requires cultivation through hard work. You shouldn’t expect a mentor to do it all for you. You must also get your hands dirty and be willing to put in the effort required for you to learn from them.

Is It Important To Have A Mentor?

While it is not cast on stone that having a mentor automatically translates to becoming a successful entrepreneur, the benefits of having one cannot be undermined. In fact, based on a UPS store survey of over 180 business owners, 70% of entrepreneurs that had mentors ran businesses that survived for 5 or more years. This survival rate is twice as high as the business that had no mentors.

That said, having a mentor can prove to be very useful in helping you realise your full business potential. They can help you troubleshot, avoid basic mistakes in advance, give you advice and valuable connections, all which can result in entrepreneurial growth and success.

Where Do I Find A Mentor?

The internet is home to a tonne of ways that you can use to find a mentor. You may even be lucky enough to get one through your normal day to day interaction with people. But, if for some reason you are still finding it a challenge to get yourself a mentor, here are a few key strategies to help you in your search.

Get A Mentor Through Cold Pitching

This method will typically involve you reaching out to a mentor through their direct contact. It may involve getting their email or booking an appointment to discuss whether they would want to mentor you. Cold pitching is often a slow process, but when it works out, it is a highly effective one, because it embodies the dedication from both parties.

Should you consider cold pitching a mentor, consider this:

• Do a thorough background search of your to-be mentor in terms of their experience and achievements in the field you wish them to mentor you
• Prepare a brief introduction about yourself, explaining who you are and why you wish this person to mentor you
• Have a few questions generated from this person’s experiences or achievements that you would want them to expound more on

Find A Mentor In Online Entrepreneurship Meet-ups And Events

This is also a highly recommended way of finding mentors. Given the rate at which events are going digital, online entrepreneurship events offer a great deal of potential when it comes to mentorship.

Sites like Eventbrite, Meetup and 10times are famous for hosting both virtual and physical entrepreneurship and start-up events. You can easily sign up for the ones you find relevant and make your way from there.

Find A Mentor On Business-Related Platforms And Forums

Again, the world has become so reachable with the advent of digital media. Entrepreneurs from across the globe can now easily connect with each other to share ideas and of course to mentor one another.

Platforms like LinkedIn, Ten Thousand Coffees, Online Geniuses on Slack and a chain of many others, all offer you the chance to meet experienced entrepreneurs whom you can make a mentorship request to. Depending on your budget and your preferred means of communication, you can also consider joining platforms like Clarity. This platform allows you to make direct calls to experienced entrepreneurs.

Engage A Mentor Through Entrepreneurship Learning Platforms

There are various sources for entrepreneurs to learn about business and its dynamics. These platforms engage the skills and experience of highly esteemed entrepreneurs or people knowledgeable in the subject. For a small fee, and sometimes even for free, these sites offer you the chance to get a coach who can become a mentor to hold your hand as you begin and scale your business.

Platforms such as Edventures offer you personalised entrepreneurship training. This means you can ask questions, receive relevant answers, test your understanding and even have your own AI coach to assess your performance and guide you on what you need to improve on.

Getting Started On Entrepreneurship Mentoring

At Edventures, we believe every entrepreneurial idea deserves to thrive, and one of the most effective ways to make an idea thrive, is to have skilled and experienced people nurture it. That is why we offer budding entrepreneurs a chance to learn and get coaching on any matters of entrepreneurship. It’s a really simple process, and all you need to do to get yourself started is sign up.

Sign up to our waitlist here! 📝