Up-leveling Your Success - Is a Coach or Mentor best?

If you look at top business achievers, you will find one common denominator: They didn’t do it all alone.

High performing entrepreneurs and business owners know that to truly excel requires guidance and support.

Are you wanting to be a high-performer?

If so, you might be wondering what kind of guidance do you need exactly?

Do you need a mentor or coach?

How can these kinds of advisors best serve in your professional development?

Working With a Mentor

First let’s look at the role of a mentor. A mentor is a more experienced individual who offers guidance, friendship, and support based on their past experiences, knowledge and expertise.

Usually there is a level of personal connection as the mentor serves as a role model to help an individual reach their potential.

Working with a Coach

A coach on the other hand serves more as an expert guiding you in a very specific area of performance. If you Google “coach” you’ll see coaches for performance, marketing, financial support, sales, business growth, social media support and more.

What's unsettling is that many coaches are self-appointed experts.

While they may present themselves as knowledgeable and highly successful, many could be just one step ahead of you. While they may "talk the talk", you truly don't know if they have the experience or skills to help you succeed.

Advantages of Working with a Mentor

• Outside Perspective - Often we are too close and emotionally tied to our business to see what’s really going on.

There’s a great benefit to someone else taking a bird’s-eye view to get a clearer picture of your situation. Sometimes we are too in love with our work to be truthful about areas that need a little work.

Your mentor can probe to uncover problem issues that may not be apparent to you.

• Help You Reach Higher - Sometimes we will do things for other people that we wouldn’t do for ourselves. Having the accountability of a mentor can help you push harder to reach your goals. Knowing you have to report your results to your mentor can make you go the extra mile to get things done.

• Business Experience - Even if you have years of corporate experience, running your own business can be a real challenge. While you probably know a lot about your particular industry, you may not know enough about running and growing a business.

Having someone with experience in creating systems, delegating, marketing, and successfully growing a business is invaluable. Not only can it help you avoid costly mistakes, but it can help you grow farther, faster.

Often mentors have proven templates and blueprints to boost your results in a number of areas.

• Cheerleader - Being a business owner can be a real roller coaster ride. There are days you are on top of the world. But there are also days you doubt yourself. You wonder if you should throw in the towel.

Everything seems to be going wrong. You don’t know what to do.

It is in those times that a mentor can dust you off and get you back on your feet again. Staying positive and motivated is key to keeping your business moving forward daily.

5 Common Blind-spots That Crush Our Success

As a mentor, I have worked with dozens of small business owners over the years. When entrepreneurs come to me for help, there are some common areas I see them struggling with.

Here are the most common “stories” we tell ourselves about our business that keep us stuck:

1. Being In Squirrel Mode.
When you spread yourself too thin, it’s hard to fully monetize your business. One big mistake I see people make is when one thing isn’t working, they see the next “shiny object” and try something new. The result is they never fully put in the work it takes to make a new objective take off.

Having a mentor can help you find the focus you need to experience growth. They can help you create a plan to use your money, resources, and time in ways that laser focus your results.

2. Not Admitting When Wrong.
Being your own boss is awesome. You get to call all the shots and be captain of your own ship. But the problem is that you always get to be “right” - even when you aren’t.

There can be great value to having a mentor to reframe your situation and show you areas that need improvement that you may be overlooking. Having someone speak the truth to you when it’s needed is critical to growth.

3. Getting Stuck in Victim Mode.
It can actually be cathartic to gripe and moan about how busy you are, or how out of control things have gotten, etc. but some people find a certain kind of honour in projecting themselves as a martyr that way.

But people who succeed know the value is healing those wounded areas. A mentor can hold your feet to the fire and help you move through the bleeding wounds and address the bigger issues.

4. Not Looking in The Mirror.
It’s your team’s fault. Your software isn’t working right. The market has changed…The excuses can go on forever. Until you realize that you are 100% responsible for everything that happens in your life and business, nothing changes.

A mentor will be honest with you about the role you played in failures. They can help you learn the lesson, grow, and move on. Personal growth is key to your success.

5. Trying to Do it All Themselves.
Women are especially hard on themselves when it comes to thinking they should know everything they need to know to run a business. It’s a sign of weakness ineptitude if they don’t, so they set off to learn everything all themselves.

The problem is, the more they set off to learn someone else’s skillset and expertise, the less they are focusing on their own core competency and thus, not on their own business.

A mentor can help you determine what you should be doing yourself to grow and expand your business, and what you should be outsourcing and delegating. This allows you to take advantage of someone else’s skillset so you can spend more time focusing on your own.

Work Smarter, Not Harder - Mentoring Can Help

I’d love to provide you with the empowered support you need to grow your business. As your mentor, we’ll look at what’s working, what’s not, and create a plan to move you forward.