Why every entrepreneur needs a mentor

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. This is an adage that I wish all the Kenyan youth could aspire to live by, but unfortunately, our mindset is a special kind of process and we have developed the ability to blame others, especially politicians for all the bad things that are happening to us, yet we forget that we put them there.

We forget that they paid us to tweet for them, to update for them, to be their guards, to be their errand boys and dance girls and we fell for the simple lies that when an MP/President/Governor tells you, that they will have you as their advisor in this and that.

Then boom and your calls are never picked and you forgot to work on your business as you ran all over campaigning for this politician. Then you are back to square one. Wondering how to get your old clients back, clients you ignored their advice as you let them down to dance with the politician and your small business wound up. Now you hungry, the tax man is on your case, bills are piling up and your girl friend/boyfriend has left you.

This is the classic mistake we young entrepreneurs make and this makes us hate business and vow never to go back and we start tarmacking and looking for a white collar job and from there things are downhill.

As Noam Chomsky once said, there are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action ... and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future.

These are lessons that first time entrepreneurs never learn because the crash is so deep and painful; they vow never to do business ever again. This points to one omission in the realm or the eco system of entrepreneurship and this is the need for mentorship or apprenticeship.

THE NEED FOR MENTORS

All of us, we need mentors we can look up to, role models we can aspire to be like as we grow older be it in relationships, marriage or most important, business. Without a mentor, any entrepreneur will be walking through the journey of business like a traveller at night without a light.

Mentors guide us as they have been there, they have made mistakes and they have failed and learnt how to embrace failure for it to be their guiding light to success. As upcoming entrepreneurs, we need to understand the meaning and essence of failure and on our own, we will fail to grasp the meaning and that is why a mentor is key.

Many of us open businesses without a clue on how to market our products and services. Like a lawyer opening a law firm and has no idea how to attract customers. A mentor is key on how to appeal to the interests of the potential client and close the deal. An entrepreneur’s biggest challenge is how to attract potential clients and close deals.

By now mentors have learnt how to close deals and how to sustain them. This is where their guidance and advice comes in handy.

We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success. This is a lesson that can only be appreciated with the guidance of a mentor, without which, one’s business is bound to fail and this is why, without a mentor an entrepreneur runs the risk of failure within the first six months and even if they succeed, the price paid is too high to make the entrepreneur appreciate the value and essence of entrepreneurship, which is to create value and offer solutions that affect the society that we live in and not just profits. Mentorship helps us entrepreneurs to understand that it’s never about price but value.

As Rachel Carson put it, that if a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. This is true when it comes to entrepreneurship and the need for mentorship.

An entrepreneur needs a mentor to keep the passions and ideals that made one become an entrepreneur going, without which, the entrepreneur will lose focus and derail the business. The element of networks is key for any business and a mentor is crucial as they will guide on how to get and activate the networks and turn them into an eco-system of opportunity. The mentor provides access to their contacts.

As business veterans, these mentors have experience working with many investors, service providers, and other important resources. If you establish a close professional relationship with your business mentor, they will certainly make key introductions for you and as an upcoming young entrepreneur; any lead is a good lead.

Kenya’s entrepreneurial eco-system has never ‘boomed’ or gone beyond the threshold for it to have the kind of impact that peers in the same realm across the world, especially in the developed world have. This is purely because the country lacks a visible and supportive mentorship program that supports entrepreneurs.

LESSONS LEARNED

The other important element of why a mentor is vital to any business, especially a start up, is because they have been in your situation and succeeded. Business mentors know from experience what will work for companies in your industry. Using lessons learned throughout their entrepreneurial journey, they can give you their honest opinion about your pitch, vision, and business plan - for starters. This is crucial, as you will need to make the right decisions early to be able to entrench your business.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. This is normally the prayer of many local entrepreneurs as they hope to have mentors who will guide them, but mostly, it’s always that, a prayer.

The biggest reason though that makes mentorship a must for any entrepreneur, is that we need to learn how they got to where they did. What lessons they learnt, the tears they shed, what pushed them not to give up, how many sleepless nights did they have, what did they sacrifice, how much was their first deal.

This is key as it helps the upcoming entrepreneur to be grounded as one dizzying success can derail the entire business without knowing how to handle it. This also teaches us to be patient as we move towards success, without giving up, just because we have had plenty of failures. Patience is a powerful weapon if wielded properly.

Choosing a mentor is the tricky and harder part, but after asking online, on Facebook and twitter, through a mini-poll and who is a good mentor and a bad mentor, the responses were unanimous, that such a classification is bad as all mentors have a story to tell and it’s crucial that we listen to the story and be the judges.

My advice to my fellow entrepreneur is, wear patience around your neck like a necklace that guides you in the darkest of nights, with the silent words of your mentor. As a new entrepreneur, it is easy to become caught up in the minute details as you strive for perfection. Business mentors will keep you moving forward and focused on your main goal: getting to market and revenue. So it’s important to plan on having one before you kick start your business.

Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it. Let your mentor be your beacon because entrepreneurship is a difficult word, both in terms of spelling and calling oneself that hence a mentor will make it easier to understand, embrace it and know how to spell it.