BMI works with economic development organizations, industry associations and communities to create opportunities for new entrepreneurs to benefit from the experience of successful business owners. Business mentorship puts you into position to accelerate your own growth.
Expand your network.
It is not what you know, it is who you know. One of the biggest challenges a new entrepreneur faces is finding out who the right people are. It can be difficult to make headway if you do not know who to talk to. It can be harder still if you do not know what to talk to the right people about. A business mentor is an excellent guide and first point of contact for anything and everything that comes up in your new venture.
Find your blindspots.
The greatest value of a business mentor can be summed up in two words: Sounding Board. A good mentor will not give you very much advice on how to grow your business. That is not a mentor's job - it is yours. Instead, business mentors inform and guide problem-solving by listening attentively, asking thoughtful questions and sharing their own experiences. They lend you their experience so that you might compare it to your own.
It is up to you to identify and make course corrections. It is up to your mentor to help you learn which ships will come in. Mentors represent invaluable opportunities to increase your own capacity for self-awareness.In learning to find your own blindspots, you become the most qualified person to address them.
Build competence in engineering your own solutions.
Identifying opportunities is only the first step. Making the most of them is where entrepreneurs stand out from the crowd. Not surprisingly, experienced entrepreneurs know better than anybody the value of learning to Reality Check.
Optimal learning occurs when we are in a position to discover the consequences of our actions but are spared losses. Comparing a mentor's greater experience to your own provides you with that opportunity. It is easy on the ego. It is even easier on the budget. In the real world, the price of failure is high. Only 20% of new businesses survive the first two years.
A mentor does more than spare you losses. Mentorship is a process that lets you teach yourself to truly innovate. Your mentor's attention and success inspires you to persevere until you do.
Learn from the best.
A good mentor knows what you should remember: The best is you. You just do not know it yet.
Business knowledge is available everywhere. What is hard to come by is wisdom in applying it. Mentorship does not provide all the answers. It puts someone in your corner who knows more about where to find them than you do. This brings the best one big step closer to you.
Mentorship is also a process that increases your own self-awareness. This helps you to build upon your own genuine competence at making business decisions. In other words, it helps you to bring out the best in you.