Mentorship in Entrepreneurship

By / Published November 17, 2015 | 6:43 am

Entrepreneurship is the process of setting up a business to offer an innovative product or service. An entrepreneur is that person often referred to as a person with a third eye, a person who sees and perceives an opportunity and then takes the decision to exploit the opportunity.

Most entrepreneurs, however, consider themselves as alpha and omega. They are too stubborn to seek a mentor. They are always confident in themselves and often see no need to seek guidance from others. Those entrepreneurs who do not seek guidance from mentors are not the best. The best entrepreneurs are those who rely on a mentor, in fact, multiple mentors.

Mentors will greatly help to fill your gabs in terms of strength. Mentors should not be necessarily people closer to you. In fact, friends, family members as well as those you work with should never be on your list of mentors. Why? Simple. These people will tell you what you want to hear while a mentor will tell you exactly what you need to hear.

There is an old adage that experience is the best teacher but only fools learn from it. This is not the case with entrepreneurship. In business, real world experience is the best teacher and therefore, in looking for mentor, look for someone who is more experienced than you and has time. The best mentor in business is an executive who has retired. This is because retired executives, most of them are often willing to mentor people and they also have time.

If you are an entrepreneur or an aspiring one, having personal relationship with other people is very crucial. This is called having ‘connections’ in some quarters. Having connections means you are in contact with others who share same dreams as well as business aspirations as you. Do not just cut a niche for yourself and be cut off from others, always have links and make sure that you learn from them.

There are mentors who can theoretically explain to you have to make it as an entrepreneur but they cannot practically do it themselves. Such mentors are like teachers who can tell you how to succeed when they have failed. Do not look for such mentors. Look for someone who has already made it practically for he or she will help you achieve.

A mentor should not be part of your business story. This implies that he or she should not participate in making decisions for you. He is there as a pacesetter, for you to do as he does or even better. Many entrepreneurs have failed because they believe that a mentor should do everything for them including giving them a direct formula to success. That should not be the case. You have to take responsibility when you fail and not blame it on your mentor.