- Just over one year into my business
I got an offer for one point five million dollars to sell it
It would've been life changing money.
I sat there and I was looking at the offer
and I didn't know what to do, so I called one of my mentors.
I went to a local coffee shop with him and he talked me
through it and he asked, why do I wanna sell?
And the truth is, I was just scared.
As soon as I told him that, he looked me dead
in the eye and he said that fear never goes away.
Now this is someone that has a net worth
of over three hundred million dollars.
His advice then took me down a path where I really learned
that the business had so much potential
and I was just trying to cash out way too early.
Fast forward three years
and I was making one point five million dollars
profit a month.
This is the power of mentors. In this video, we're gonna go
through how to find a mentor, what makes a good mentor
and even the dark side of mentorship.
So what makes a good mentor?
I think there are two main things.
The first thing is, are they the right size?
And what I mean by that is are they too far progressed
that they can't actually communicate properly
and understand the challenges you are going through?
This also makes them far easier to find
if you don't need a multi-billionaire to support you
in your journey.
If you haven't got your first ever sat within your business
you're only looking for someone
that has gotten twenty thousand dollars in sales for that.
They're going to be able to
really communicate the challenges that you are facing
at that time to support you in your journey.
And I think this is why our eCommerce mentorship is so
so good.
We've got so many people that are starting out
and then there's so many people that are one
or two years of decent sales
and they're just teaching things like basic Shopify things
those things that you don't know how to ask the question
but people have just been through the experience.
And that brings me to my next point
around what makes a good mentor.
They need the right experience.
Now, there are two main forms of experience.
There's theorized experience
and there's applied experience.
Theorized knowledge, they might be a business lecturer
they might understand business and have read a bunch
of books that is not as good as applied knowledge.
You want someone that has walked the walk
that faces all the challenges that has been
in emotional situations that they've need to navigate
because that's really what you're going to need when you are
in the trenches.
Chances are you're going to take mentors
in different parts of your life.
For example, my dad
when I have emotionally charged subjects
with staff or something like that, I go to him.
He's amazing at that.
For really complex business strategy decisions
I would go to someone
like Toby Pierce for anything marketing or brand related.
I would go to Greta Van Real.
These people all are mentors
to me in their own designated field.
You want someone that has applied knowledge
and has succeeded in what challenge you are facing.
You wouldn't go to a billionaire that's had 15 divorces
and asked them about marriage
and how to support your marriage.
So how do you find the mentor?
Mentorships are very much like friendships
and you can't just walk up to some random
on the street and say, hey, do you wanna be friends?
We could I guess, but I'm not sure how to strike right.
One of my favorite stories
about mentorship is Warren Buffet and Benjamin Graham.
Benjamin Graham, right?
The Intelligent Investor, one
of the best investment books ever written.
Warren Buffet had read so many investment books
at that point, and nothing reconciled
with him as much as the intelligent investor.
Buffet went to the University of Columbia Web.
Benjamin Graham was teaching
at the time just to learn from Graham.
Warren Buffet even offered to work
for Benjamin Graham for free.
And Graham replied, Your overpriced, which is so, so true
person that is getting mentored, gets so much value.
And I think this comes to my first thing
about how to get a mentor that you can just actually work
for one, whether that's working
for someone for free, which is always controversial.
People are saying never undervalue yourself.
Truth is when you are just getting started
you're not worth anything.
And that's a hard truth to learn
but you will become something incredible
if you learn from the best
whether it's a proper salary and you're properly employed.
Just make sure you avoid the rat race.
Don't get stuck and lose your entrepreneurial spirit
or you're just consulting for someone.
Doing some side work with the understanding
that this person is going to teach you.
Make sure they don't take advantage of you.
Make sure they actually give you knowledge and value.
The second way you can find a mentor is doing some
cold outreach or trying to get an introduction to someone.
People like myself get this request so much.
So you need to be able to stand out.
I've got a few ways of doing that.
First of all, achieve something really cool.
It could just be that you've got a new viral hack for TikTok
or you've just done something that they don't
know how to do.
Once you do that, people like myself are just
generally curious and they really wanna meet people
like that and learn how they did it.
Mentorship is generally a two way relationship.
People provide value, even
if it's disproportionate around who gives more value
it doesn't really matter.
It's just fun to have like-minded people.
And by succeeding in something
you can create that connection that you are like-minded.
The other technique that I really like is
say you're gonna do something and then follow back
in six to twelve months or however long
that it actually takes to achieve and just follow through.
Because if there's one thing that mentors hate
it's that their lessons and their time goes to waste.
Mentors genuinely do wanna help people
but when they see people not helping themselves
it just completely breaks the relationship.
Show that you're a man or woman of your word
that you can achieve something
and what you want to achieve, you get
and people are much more likely to invest the time
into working with you.
If you're still really struggling and you have a bit
of a budget, maybe you've got a successful business
you can jump on a call on something
like Mentor Pass a new service that connects mentors
with people.
I'll leave a link for Mentor Pass.
They are a good service and I love NoCodeKenny on Twitter
he's great. The final thing I will sign
off with is beware of the dark side of mentorship.
There's a few things that come to mind.
First of all
courses can be repackaged information that are predatory
to new entrepreneurs.
If it's repackaged, it's not a mentorship.
If it's just a PDF and there's no one-on-one support
for a long period of time, as much as you kind of need them
it could be a waste of money.
So just beware of that.
The second thing is, while mentors are smart
they don't know everything.
I have taken my mentor's advice blindly
without using my own intuition
or creating a second opinion around the subject matter.
And I've got in a lot of trouble.
You know more about your business, hopefully
than your mentors.
So make sure you, you play your own judgment.
Don't follow them blindly, and this is the benefit
of just having a wide array
of smart people that can help you along your journey.
The final thing I will say is books could be
your mentors as well.
They're cheap, they're affordable.
You can even get mentors that have passed
away like Steve Jobs.
So don't sleep on books.
Enjoy reading.
If you wanna join our mentorship program
we've got a Discord community.
We're not trying to make money off it
we just wanna connect people that are like-minded
in the same journey facing the challenges.
We've also got the YouTube live where you can connect
with me as well and we will just go through websites.
We'll just break things
down and face any challenge together.
So don't forget to like and subscribe.
Thanks.