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WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A MENTOR?


Running a business, particularly a small family owned business, employing just a small number of staff, can be a very lonely experience.

Who do I talk to about the many issues I constantly face – money, production, sales, profits, where do I go from here, etc, etc?

Family owned businesses can suffer from what we call “family business paralysis” where the family having worked all day in the business, are simply in no mood to talk about the business when they go home at the end of the day.

In fact, it can cause stress and make their business and private lives difficult.

Involving the staff in problem solving and target setting is helpful to some degree but there are limits to which a business owner would want the staff to know about the more intimate details of the business.

Who do I talk to? Where do I go?

Bring on the business mentor.

A mentor can simply be a person outside the business, who has a good general knowledge of how businesses operate, who can act as a non judgmental, private and confidential sounding board and be a person that the business owner can just talk to.

Or, mentors with specialized knowledge can be directed at more specific areas of the business – accounting and finance, sales and marketing, planning and strategy, general administration etc – and they can be interchanged to suit the different issues being faced.

And this is where the Small Business Mentoring Service Inc (SBMS) can be of assistance.

SBMS is a not-for-profit incorporated Association made up of approximately 70 volunteer mentors with a wide range of business experiences. SBMS has been operating since 1986 and its mentors are mainly retired or semi retired business people whose main aims are to give something back to the community by providing help and guidance to the small business operators of Victoria.

SBMS is not a free service however its fees are considered very reasonable - $95 for one session (a session generally lasts up to 1.5 hours) to $300 for four sessions and on-going mentoring beyond four sessions is also available.

Mentoring for one session only is not generally recommended as the first session is regarded as a “diagnostic” session where the mentor and business owner get to know each other and the mentor gets to understand how the business operates and the particular issues that need to be dealt with. From there, a strategy and action plan as to what is expected to be received from the mentoring sessions is developed and then worked through.

Via the SBMS website www.sbms.org.au business owners are able to view available mentors and their profiles and business experience and select a mentor that they consider that they will be happy to work with.


By Terry Manwaring


Terry Manwaring is a retired banker and has been a volunteer mentor with SBMS since 2002.

Labels: small business mentor, volunteer, volunteering, volunteers