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Mentoring

By Mike Southon on Monday, October 19th, 2009. Filed under Finance & Legal.

Successful entrepreneurs often attribute their success to their mentors, whose advice was vital when first establishing their business and later during the inevitable difficult times.
I interviewed Ajaz Ahmed at a recent Apple Store event, and he told of being a teenager so impressed by the office building of Ashton-Tate, a local software company that he sent a stream of letters to the boss, Paul Sloane. Rather than just referring him to Human Resources, Sloane sent lateral thinking puzzles to test his determination and problem solving ability, before later hiring him.

Ahmed later founded AKQA, which has grown into the world's largest digital agency with a client list which includes Coca-Cola, Virgin and Xbox. Sloane is now one of the UK's leading authorities on creativity and innovation and still mentors Ahmed.

Being able to find the right mentor is often the difference between success and failure for an entrepreneur, so I spend much of my time connecting people. I have to explain to potential mentors that the process is very draining physically and emotionally, and requires real dedication, as well as skills in a number of areas, including coaching, and consultancy.

There are many coaches in the market, with a wide spectrum of experience. Many use the toolset provided by Neuro-Linguistic Programming, but this in itself does not make a great coach. In order to advise entrepreneurs, they also need a solid grounding in people and business skills; my advice is to always check that a potential coach has built several viable businesses of their own before asking them to provide advice on yours.

Consultancy is more often used by established organisations to formally deliver advice, along with proven metrics to demonstrate that they have provided value for money. This has to be applied more sensitively while mentoring, which can often be more like counselling.

Mentoring requires all the skills listed above, plus one other factor: certainty. An entrepreneur is usually looking for specific information on how to solve a particular problem. To provide this successfully, a mentor needs to have a deep knowledge of several different business models, not just their own, plus an excellent personal network.

Having mentored dozens of people over the last seven years, I have met some very likeable people who are kind enough to say that I have contributed to their continuing success. However, these people are greatly outnumbered by those whom I only met once, who never followed through on my advice, and are probably now in exactly the same place as before we met.
I discussed this with Jonathan Pfahl, who founded mentoring company The Rockstar Group. He has had personal success in a number of areas, including investment banking and property, and attributes his success entirely to finding excellent mentors. He argues strongly that all mentoring should be paid for, to ensure that the advice is taken seriously and always followed up before the next meeting.

Pfahl is approached by many people needing help and advice, but who have small budgets. For these, he offers a ‘Bronze' service, on-line mentoring backed up by networking events to allow people to bounce problems off their peers.

He also offers ‘Silver' and ‘Gold' packages, which include face-to-face time with specific mentors, and a ‘Platinum' package which also includes tax and legal advice plus a concierge service.
Pfahl explains that the key to their success in providing Mentoring is finding the right mentor for a particular client, to ensure that both parties find the experience enjoyable and rewarding. If mentor and mentee are looking forward to the next meeting, then the process is definitely working.

The Rockstar Group can be found at www.rockstargroup.co.uk

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