Should I invest in a business mentor?

Investing in you and your business is one of the most valuable and important steps to take as a business owner. It is the fundamental change I made in my business that helped me take my business to the next level, reach the big goals I had set and ultimately help me reaching my main goal of leaving my corporate 9-5 (actually 7pm!) job and pursue my dream of running my own business full time!

Firstly, I hear you, what is a business mentor? I see it online, all these coaches, mentor, strategists – who are they? A business mentor/coach is a person you connect with who offers online or in person coaching or mentoring services that help you with a specific goal or project that you are working on, or towards.

The way I came across my first business coach, was through her blog! I am an avid reader of blogs, covering lots of different areas, from lifestyle to beauty, but during this phase of my life I was reading a lot of articles and consuming masses of content from female entrepreneurial blogs, business blogs and just general experts in the photography industry that I looked up to. I had taken a hard look at my business to evaluate where I was at and where I wanted to go. Where I wasn’t showing up, what I wasn’t good at, what I needed to improve. I knew that my next step wasn’t to focus on any more photography training as I just needed to keep practising and honing in on my skills. What I actually needed was someone to help me with my business skills and help me up level my business to the next stage.I came across a blog post, that I literally felt was written just specifically for me.

Everything she said, it just clicked, I knew that I needed to learn from this lady no matter what and she was going to help me get to where I wanted to get to.

The benefits of having a mentor or coach is that you have a dedicated person who is invested in helping you achieve steps towards your goals, some one you can turn to to hash out ideas with, be challenged by and help you work on your struggles and blocks to get through and work towards your next steps.

It does depend on which route you plan to go down – whether that be 1-2-1 coaching, where you have a tailored programme or a schedule of Skype sessions just for you, or whether you choose a group programme will depend how much involvement they have with you – both have different benefits which I would be more than happy to chat through with you if you are interested to find out more.

If you decide to invest in 1-2-1 coaching, you have someone you can chat through your personal goals with, your biggest fears in business and what you want to achieve. As someone who is there to guide you through certain goals, projects and focus on whatever it might be you are needing help with, can provide you with a level of accountability, to make sure you achieve the goals and complete the tasks you need to do to reach them!

And equally on the other hand, challenge you when you deviate, get distracted or procrastinate! Anyone else get easily distracted…and procrastinate? One more episode on Netflix 😉

If you are in a group programme, nowadays many come with a private group on Facebook or a place for the community of some description. These are great as there is a specific curriculum that you follow, you know exactly in advance you are going to learn and cover and you can work out specifically if that programme is right for you.

An example I use to explain this, was if you were wanting to lose weight, an option you could look into is signing up to a gym, but that is only half of it. If you hire a Personal Trainer to help you focus on the particular areas you want to work on and where lose weight, or just to hold you accountable, hiring a coach or mentor is very similar way of looking at it.

Having a 121 coaching session is definitely not a light investment, but it should pay off ten fold! However investing in a coach again is only half of it – it is down to you to do the work! There is only so much a mentor or coach can do for you. If you don’t put in the graft to do what needs to be done, you will be in the same position as before! If you decide to invest in a mentor, you have to throw every ounce of yourself into it and more. They can share incredible knowledge, insight, motivate and inspire you. They should challenge you, ask questions that get you thinking, help you make the right decisions for your business, hold you accountable to the things you said you would do!

Sometimes a bit of tough love is what is needed, to give us a bit of a kick up the bum! I know sometimes I need it for sure on things I am really holding back on, or scared to do!

Finding the right mentor for you

This one is so important. You have to find someone who you connect with on some level.

Someone who you feel is either an expert in the particular areas of struggle you are going through, or you are inspired by their journey and success and you want to learn from them. When you read their blog posts, they really resonate with you. You love what they already share on social media, in their online communities etc. Get to know them! You might really resonate with their story and want to invest in a 121 with them to get you started, or work on a particular project.

But you need to make sure they are a good fit, I always say go with your gut!