Almost every successful business in the world is a mixture of people,

It’s rare that just one person is running the whole business, even if there is an obvious figurehead like Steve Jobs did this at Apple or Michael O’Leary does at RyanAir.

Even apparent loners don’t normally work alone. They have a team of people around them. Which is something we could all use but we can’t necessarily afford tens or hundreds of people to surround us and help us out.

Which is where the idea of a business mentor comes in…

There are mentors everywhere.

Some are free – you probably get advice from friends and family all the time.

Most are chargeable.

The fees run from fairly low to as much as anyone could afford.

In some ways, it’s a case of you get what you pay for. Especially at the free or cheap end of the market.

Part of the trouble is that – at least in our heads – we place a value on things according to how much they cost us.

In reality, an expensive car gets stuck in the same traffic jams as the cheapest vehicle. But the more a car costs, the more we perceive it to be worth. And, sure, the build quality will be higher, the specifications will be higher, and on the open road (always assuming you can find one of those on your route!) the actual performance will be higher.

Mentoring is slightly different.

Some mentors underprice themselves – either because they don’t know any better or because they are embarrassed to charge more money or a myriad of other reasons.

On a rare occasion, mentors overprice themselves. But that is really rare and the marketplace will find them out soon enough.

Before you can find a mentor, you need to work approximately what your budget is. Most mentors charge either per meeting (whether that’s face to face or not) or per month.

Once you’ve got an approximate budget, it’s time to narrow down the list of potential mentors.

Part of the narrowing down process is working out which area of your business you want to improve – whether it’s some ongoing practical problem that’s outside your current skill set like maybe copywriting, attracting more visitors to your website or whatever, or whether it’s more to do with your mindset.

Most mentors fall into the mindset side of things.

Because it’s often our mindset that is the biggest problem.

If you’ve ever watched a television business reality show like Undercover Boss or Dragon’s Den, you’ll know that immediately.

It’s easy to look at someone’s business from the outside but they’re too close to see the problem.

So often, the entrepreneurs are out of touch.

What they think is happening isn’t what is really happening.

Which is where a mentor can help.

They can help you step back from your business.

They can help you to gradually change your mindset – maybe from “I can’t” to “I can”, maybe something else.

You need to track down a mentor who can push your limits.

There’s no point in having someone timid trying to mentor you. You won’t get much out of it.

Ideally, you should end each mentoring session with a mixture of “my brain hurts” and “my mind is buzzing”.

Rather than it being a chore.

You probably won’t get a try-before-you-buy deal on mentoring but you can get a good “feel” for someone by the articles they write, the videos they create, maybe the products they’ve created.

The more you resonate with them, the more you’re likely to get value from the mentor you find.

So:

• Make a shortlist of the things you want from a mentor.
• Figure out an approximate budget.
• Set aside a period of time to find someone, even if they’re not a 100% fit (90% or 95% is still a lot better than doing nothing!)
• At the end of that period of time (or earlier if appropriate), make the decision and go for it.
• Evaluate the decision after 3 months – that gives you long enough to evaluate in real life how well you get on with your potential mentor, even if they weren’t 100% ideal when you first made your decision.

Like everything else in life, the main “trick” is to actually doing something rather than procrastinating and doing nothing.

Naturally, I’d love it if you chose me as your mentor 🙂

But the important thing is that you choose someone!

Sooner rather than later.

Even if it’s a stretch of your budget.

And be happy going with your gut instinct because, more often than not, that will be correct.