I have discovered a wonderful article on the Business Insider Australia website, written by Sarah Kimmorley. It has 15 Australian business mentors explaining why they share their knowledge through mentoring. I am going to share those thoughts with you over the next few weeks.
Whether you’re starting out in your career or making some changes to an established business that you’re running, having a mentor to lead you in the right direction can be invaluable.
A good mentor is both willing and able to support and encourage you to reach your goals, and push you to succeed when you need a little bit of help when things get tough.
Not only is this a positive experience for a mentee but it can also be considerably rewarding as a mentor.
Many business leaders believe it is important to share the lessons and advice they have received, seeing this cycle as a sort of entrepreneurial “pay it forward”.
Here are some of what these 15 business leaders tell budding entrepreneurs and why they act as a mentor.
Sharing knowledge with others strengthens the business ecosystem
Jodie Fox, Co-founder at Shoes of Prey
I mentor a number of people. I commit two hours a week to it, outside of business hours.
I do it because I know a lot of people take my meetings to share knowledge with me that I can only get from people who have been there, done that. And I am always so grateful, because I know how precious time is.
I want that ecosystem to continue, so I have to play my part in it and give back when people ask me for advice. Admittedly, my advice is just sharing my experiences, I don’t ever suppose to be an expert, but sometimes stories shared can help others to avoid mistakes, or learn about something they might not otherwise know existed.
Sharing is one of the beautiful things about the startup world
Andre Eikmeier, Co-CEO and cofounder, Vinomofo
This is a community. People give, and share. It’s one of the beautiful things about the startup world – open source.
I just get excited about peoples’ businesses. Especially products. I love digging into their motivations, their plans. And you always learn from either the new perspective or just honing your own thoughts through explaining them.
We did a lot the hard way. If we’d had more people to talk to, mentors or anyone, it would have made the whole journey that bit easier.
It’s about sharing what you know with like-minded individuals
Dean Ramler, CEO and cofounder, Milan Direct
I mentor several young entrepreneurs and am always available to discuss business with like-minded individuals. I have always been a student of business, reading as many business books as I could get my hands on from a very young age. I remember reading the AFR as a kid, not understanding a word of it, but reading it until I became familiar enough to understand the topics being discussed. As such I love learning and discussing business and a key part of this is sharing the learning.
Mentoring is a great way to assist others. I believe that great ideas should be shared and the more you give out, the more that comes back. I have had great mentors myself from a young age in my dad and grandfather, so I appreciate the importance of mentorship and receiving good advice. If you truly love business, then assisting others is enjoyable and rewarding.
It is acknowledging and thanking the people who have mentored me over the years
Andy Sheats, CEO and founder, health.com.au
Mentoring is, in effect, acknowledging and thanking all of the people who have mentored me over the years. I do it two ways. First, I’ve helped teach an MBA class at the Melbourne Business School for the last 8 years or so. The subject is Mergers and Acquisitions, but objective is to help students start thinking like managers. We’ve pulled in a bunch of people I’ve worked deals with over the years to make it super-practical. The second area is developing individuals. You can only really focus on a small number of people, so I tend to focus almost exclusively on people within our business at health.com.au. I like to have a lot more interaction than a monthly coffee. Also, on a more selfish note, our company benefits from their growth.
To be continued next week….