Mark Lyttleton is an experienced angel investor and business mentor with extensive experience of supporting both public and private companies. This article will look at the advantages of business mentorship from the business owner’s perspective, identifying the different types of support that business mentors provide.
Business mentors help entrepreneurs to refine their ideas, hone their skills and determine the optimum direction in which to take their business. Whether the business owner is just starting out or already operates an established enterprise, a business mentor can accelerate their progress towards achieving business objectives and goals.
A business mentor is typically a seasoned professional who seeks to share their experience and knowledge with the next generation of business leaders. They typically have extensive experience within a particular area of entrepreneurship or business, providing a listening ear and a positive role model for entrepreneurs.
Business mentors often give up their time free of charge, sharing knowledge and experience to support and inspire entrepreneurs, providing support that focusses on both personal development and business growth.
Working with a business mentor helps entrepreneurs to feel supported, challenged and inspired. Research from Simply Business suggests that 38% of female small business owners would find working with a business mentor helpful.
Entrepreneurs benefit from business mentorship in a variety of different ways. Business mentors help the business owners they work with to identify their specific strengths and skills, helping them to hone specific competencies that could ultimately have a transformative impact on their business. Mentors also motivate the professionals they work with, helping them to stay focussed, celebrating business successes with them and holding them accountable for things they say they are going to do.
Business mentors serve as a sounding board for ideas, providing valuable feedback rooted in their extensive knowledge and experience and helping founders to see potential new opportunities and solutions they may have otherwise missed. Business mentors help business owners to make better decisions, providing a listening ear and helping them to identify and explore all of the possible options.
One potentially huge benefit of enlisting the help of a business mentor lies in the fact that these seasoned business leaders boast an extensive network of contacts, introducing business owners to potential employees, investors and partners who could help them to grow their company.
Having already ‘been there and done that’, business mentors can provide business owners with the benefit of their experience and advice, enlightening them by sharing the lessons they have learned through their own hard-fought successes and failures. They also present the advantage of a different, fresh perspective.
For entrepreneurs who are struggling with a particular task in their start-up activities – be it bookkeeping or an issue with an employee – a mentor can be extremely helpful, providing bigger-picture insights as well as the benefit of their advanced skills.
