Mentoring 101: Grow Your Business By Helping Others Grow

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Mentoring 101: Grow Your Business By Helping Others Grow
By: Roger A. Shapiro
Issue: April 2010

In a tough economy, we have to revisit every strategy possible to create opportunities and profit. One approach that costs little, yet yields great rewards is mentoring. The concept is easy: by helping others, by sharing your knowledge with those who need to know, you help them grow. Like earning the fruits of good karma, you help yourself by helping others grow their abilities.

Sometimes good mentoring leads to an immediate new client. Other times it takes a while to grow a questionable client into a highly profitable frequent buyer.

For example, I work with a large healthcare company in New Jersey. At one point when projects slowed, I offered to bring a free writing seminar to mid-level managers. The two-hour program gave people an overview on how to improve the effectiveness of their
business writing. It also included free coaching whenever they wanted. All they had to do was call me with a writing question anytime. Some took me up on the ongoing coaching; better still, some brought me new work.

Following are benefits you earn when you make mentoring part of your business plan.

• Improve your office productivity. By taking time to share information within your
organization, you increase the efficiency of your people. Take time to demonstrate why
you have a certain process. Tell your bookkeeper the value of knowing your branding.
Share what’s worked and what failed to make your team smarter.

• Demonstrate your expertise. Many mentoring opportunities create publicity moments.
Publicity complements sales and marketing, which generates revenue. It’s true the best
mentoring comes from your generosity with your time and knowledge. But there’s no
reason to keep good deeds quiet. When appropriate, use the opportunity in your public
relations, business bio and other sales tools.

• Fill job openings faster. Not many of us have job openings today. But the pendulum
will swing back. If you are mentoring, you’ll have a database of candidates when you need
them. Before you even have a formal interview, you’ll have a deep sense of who they are
and their strengths.

• Increase sales among clients. Good sales people establish client loyalty by solving
problems, even if they are not directly linked to the promotional products you sell. When
you see a client with a situation that may benefit from your experience, offer to help that
client grow and you’ll grow loyalty too.

• Create leads. People who are helped feel an obligation. You’ll create sales
opportunities among mentorees as they tell your story to their colleagues.

Getting Started
Adding mentoring to your business plan is easy. All you need is knowledge to share, confidence that sharing your smarts is safe and a sincere desire to help people. Here are some quick tips.

Find a problem. Offer to help others help themselves (vs. solving the problem). Look at your clients’ offices. See what’s going on. Look for roadblocks. Discover what worries them. Then offer free advice. One of my clients has me manage a global collaboration tool
on its intranet. It’s a new tool and many are inexperienced. I now offer lunch and learn workshops to teach others how to benefit from the software. My volunteering has nothing to do with a new sale to this client; I’m doing this for free, but cementing a valuable
relationship with a client.

Be available. People often reach out and ask others for advice. When this happens, be available. Return phone calls. Respond to e-mails and text. Open your door to possibilities. It might be a college student looking to get into the field. It might be an old
friend who lost his job because his company is failing. It might be another business owner wondering how you manage expenses so well. You just have to open your heart to others to create inroads into theirs.

Go to school. I’ve found great opportunities by helping college students. The return is, they may connect you with who buys promotional products on campus. They may become interns. They may have parents who buy promotional products. The options are endless.
Two ways to get into the college market are to reach out to professors who may want guest speakers or seek work as an adjunct professor. Either way, you are in a situation where you can give your expertise to those anxious to learn.

Be sincere. Mentoring can be very rewarding both personally and professionally. But to make it work for you, you must be genuine, open and honest. You must be unselfish and the future client must truly gain new knowledge with no obligation to you. After all, if it smells like a sales call, it probably is.

Roger A. Shapiro has been mentoring colleagues, students and clients for years as he built his communications consulting business. He is president/creative director at Mitchell Rose,
LLC (www.mitchellrose.net) and the author of Write Right, 26 Tips to Improve Your Writing. Dramatically.