How to Find a Mentor: Know What You Want

Bruce Judson, a senior faculty fellow at Yale University’s School of Management has been on both sides of the fence. He’s had mentors and mentees and when someone seeks him out for his counsel he wants to know what their business goals are. He asks, what’s “your vision at the end? What does success look like and what is your objective? Is it to be financially independent? Is it to do something meaningful? Have time for your family?” Knowing a business owner’s goals helps Judson better understand what he brings to the equation and how he can best advise his mentee.

What can your mentor do for you? Determining what type of resource you need is a crucial first step in the mentor hunt. Lois Zachary, the president of Leadership Development Services, a Phoenix, Arizona-based business coaching firm, and author of The Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work for You, recommends starting with a list. You may want someone who’s a good listener, someone well connected, someone with expertise in, say, marketing, someone accessible. Ideally you could find a mentor with all of these qualities, but the reality is you may have to make some compromises. After you enumerate the qualities you’re looking for in a mentor, divide that list into wants and needs.

The next step, according to Zachary, is to “do an informational interview [with several candidates] and then go back to your criteria, that way you don’t get blown away by chemistry and you stay focused on your business or personal reasons for wanting a mentor.” By gauging a combination of the qualitative and quantitative attributes of each of your potential mentors, a prime candidate will emerge.

Keep in mind that it may be beneficial to have more than one mentor. If you fear that you may monopolize too much of your mentor’s time then multiple mentors may be the answer. “The advantages of having multiple mentors is that you can get a lot of different points of view,” notes Zachary, “and when you have a lot of mentors at one time, if they’re sitting around a table, the synergy between the mentors really helps move your thinking along.”

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How to Find a Mentor: Know Where to Look

1) Start with family and friends – When looking for a mentor, start close to home. Very close to home. “Sometimes you can talk to your own relatives or friends, people who you trust, who you know, who you can sit and say ‘gee whiz, what do you think about this?’” says Martin Lehman, a veteran of the women’s apparel industry and long-time counselor at the Service Corps of Retired Executives Association (SCORE). SCORE is a Washington D.C.-based non-profit that provides free mentoring services to business owners from its 364 chapters around the country.

2) Consider those in your extended network – If your friends and family give you enough unsolicited advice already, and you don’t think that’s the route for you, your remaining options are people who don’t know you as well or don’t know you at all yet. How do you ask for such a big commitment from a near stranger? The first step is to reach out to your network of contacts. A positive word from a mutual friend can go a long way towards getting a mentoring relationship off to a good start.

Additionally, you shouldn’t choose a mentor overnight, which means you should keep your antenna poised to pick up on potential mentors at conferences, trade shows, etc. Meeting with a future mentor in person helps build a rapport and you might want to wait until that connection develops before popping the question.

3) Consider complete strangers – Maybe none of the people in your network seem like a good fit for you. Start doing some research. Profiles of business owners in magazines and newspapers might key you in to someone who matches your style. But once you have some prospects proceed delicately. Find out as much as you can about the potential mentor and try to schedule a brief interview by phone saying you have some specific questions or just generally want to pick their brain.

You should travel to them and, especially initially, make it as easy for them to help you as you can. At the conclusion of your first interview, if it seems to have gone well, you can broach the idea of speaking again, whether by phone or in person, some time in the future. Over time, if they seem receptive, you can bring up the idea of a more formal mentoring relationship with more specific parameters and goals.

4) Consider the competition – Well, not your direct competition. For example, if you’re in retail selling socks, someone selling ties isn’t in direct competition with you but might still have some insights into the garment industry. If you have a brick and mortar store, you can even call someone who does exactly what you do in a far flung location, say you’re in New York and they’re in Ohio. However the Internet is increasingly putting retailers even on different continents in competition, so tread lightly. Another suggestion would be to seek out counsel from someone at a business larger than yours who might be less likely to view you as competition.

5) Tap your industry – Lehman also suggests that your suppliers, your local chamber of commerce, and relevant trade publications are good sources for potential mentors. These are all good places to find knowledgeable people, but how do you find someone who matches your personal style? Judson recommends seeking a mentor, “the same way that people look for medical professionals, in the sense that I would be looking for recommendations.”

6) Pay for a mentor – But what if you have a great idea that you want to get off the ground quickly, and you need a quick jolt of expertise? Good informal mentorships are cultivated gradually and can often last for years. If what you need is a crash course, it might be time to bring in the consultants.