As a business owner, you are obligated to handle all business responsibilities, tackle challenges, solve problems and also come up with the direction of your business. To handle all business issues you need a high degree of self-confidence and independence since they are the major driving forces for any enterprise. However, as the business continues to grow, as the owner you need to keep reigniting your business driving forces so that you can handle new challenges more efficiently.

As a business owner, you need some form of assistance to keep you in the loop on the changes and emerging opportunities in the business world. Most entrepreneurs seek such assistance by attending classes and reading materials offered at information sharing centers, such libraries, and the Internet. While such actions can be very helpful, a business mentor can be a good complement.

Unfortunately, not many individuals understand clearly what business mentoring means. Most business owners confuse business mentoring with business coaching and management consulting. Here is the difference:

Business Coaching

This is an aspect that assumes that a business owner has necessary capacity but has not yet exploited it, thus this form of training helps entrepreneurs discover their full potential.

Management Consulting

This a form of business training that is based on technology, knowledge, expertise, and skills of the consultant. The consultants use their internal resources to help business owners run their business.

Business Mentoring

This an aspect that aims in affirming the skills sets and knowledge of business owners who have already established themselves but need extra assistance to realize their full potential.

So do entrepreneur needs a business mentor? Here are some of the benefits of business mentoring.

Advice

One of the major benefits of having a business mentor is having someone who can answer your questions and also advise you on matters concerning your business. Whether you have a new business, or your business has been operating for some time you need a person who will help you to make sound decisions. Sometimes as an entrepreneur we may listen to a lot of ideas from colleagues, family members, and friends but most of these ideas are just suggestions of which most of them are not viable. Therefore you need a person who can guide you in sorting out the most viable action for the benefit of your business.

Networking

Networking is the core of the success of any business. Whether you have a small business or a huge business, you need to have important contacts that will help you manage your business much better. You need to know where to get a reasonable supplier, where to get the best employees, how to market your company and so forth. Since business mentors deal with different types of business, there are high chances of being introduced to other helpful business owners with whom you can do business with.

Confidence building and encouragement

The world of business requires a business owner to take a risk that calls for a lot of courage. There are some business actions that determine whether your business will be a successful or not. Therefore, you need a person who will give courage and also help gain the confidence of taking these business risks. Business mentors are usually successful business owners who share their experience with new enterprises and how they become successful. Business mentors help upcoming entrepreneurs gather enough courage and confidence to work hard since they also feel that they will also be successful.

Polishing skills

As a business owner you may have read all the materials available on the industry you are operating. You may also have studied enough to acquire necessary information about your business, but that is not enough since you have to master all the details of your business, including the finer ones for you to be successful. You need guidance so that you can polish your skills to perfection.

Business mentors are different from other consultants in that they act like life partners. They help you steer your business in the right direction. For instance, if your employees understand your instruction, your business mentor can work with you and help you communicate more efficiently to your employees.

Strategizing

In addition to helping you polish your business skills, a mentor will help you come up with excellent strategies for the success of your business. Business mentorship is more of satisfaction than money based. In that, a mentor will want to see another business flourish under his or her guidance. In this case, a mentor will help you come up with perfect strategies that suit your business best. A mentor can help you learn a variety of business aspects, which includes dealing with intolerable clients, observing your employees determine how they take their job, and even predicting market changes.

Long lasting relationships

Since business mentorship is not money-oriented, you mentor is more likely to help your small business to success. Mentors do not expect anything in return, but you can offer a reward as a sign of gratitude. The long-term relationship helps to build consistency in decision making since your mentor has seen your business grow from the dust. Thus they know exactly what needs to be done to boost it.

Venting

A business environment can be very frustrating and stressful sometimes. Therefore as a business owner, you need to have a trustable person who you can vent with. You cannot vent with your employees, partners, or customers without compromising the stability of your business. Venting is usually meant to help a business owner to calm down and think things straight. Perhaps you might notice that some of your customers are refusing to pay their debts, or the employees are acting lazily without caring about their responsibility. All these issues around the workplace can be very upsetting, and you need a person who will help you settle and come up with the right way to handle business problems efficiently.

The great thing with business mentoring is that it benefits both the mentor and the mentee. By helping upcoming business owners build their business empire, business mentors also learn new things and also improve their existing skills. Business mentors also feel the satisfaction of giving back to the community by helping struggling businesses get on their feet. In fact, most successful business people have someone who guided them build their business to the top.

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