I can’t think of a single more important thing I’ve done over the past several years than finding excellent mentors.  With their guidance and help, I’ve managed to change Webnet IT from just me running around Tokyo, to a bustling team of bilingual IT professionals servicing companies Japan-wide. Without their help, this would have been either much more difficult, or maybe even impossible.

In this post, I’d like to briefly discuss how to find mentors, how to keep them, and how to give back to them.

If you’re setting up a new business, or starting a new project, the amount of new skills to learn are seemingly endless. All of the problems you’ll encounter are new, and you’ll often find yourself completely lost and confused. Something as common as creating and negotiating your first contract, or hiring your first employee can seem like huge and insurmountable obstacles.

To give you some perspective; you can spend hours, days or weeks trying to figure out what to do in a situation, and you’ll still make mistakes.  Someone with the right experience could identify the correct strategy within 5 minutes. At these times, it can be invaluable to have a mentor to ask for advice.

The Mentor ‘Profile’

The first step is to understand the typical mentor profile.

Anyone who has the experience and knowledge to be your mentor will likely be very, very busy. They will likely be running a company (or several), or be working in a senior position. There will already be a number of people clawing for their time, and they’re going to be naturally suspicious of people asking for meetings.

You’re going to be asking them to take time away from their business to help you.  This time is worth money to your mentor.

Most successful people in business are natural problem solvers.  Much like you probably do, they love to take apart a problem, analyse it, and solve it.

It’s very rewarding for a mentor to help someone who is self-motivated, and who is doing their best to accomplish an objective.  It’s even more rewarding for a mentor when that person goes away, implements a solution suggested by them, and returns and shares the story of the successful result.

With this in mind, here is a complete guide for interacting with your mentor.

The 10 Step Guide For Getting and Keeping Mentors

1. Contact your mentor with the utmost respect for their time. All communication should be succinct, open and honest. It’s important to be friendly, but above all else strike a tone of politeness and respect.
2. To engage with your mentor and receive relevant advice, it’s important that you are trying to achieve a specific goal, and that you’re able to communicate this goal.
   • Take full personal responsibility for the completion of this goal. Make it clear that whether your mentor is available to help or not, you’ll figure it out. This takes away pressure or obligation from your mentor.
   • This goal could be as simple as “Trying to hire an employee”, or “Trying to win this new deal”.
3. Present your situation in such a way that your problem is clear and easy to understand.  Make it very clear that you do not expect them to do your work for you. A good way to do this is to present them with a thought-out possible solution to your problem.
4. Ask for advice.
5. Once they start talking, take notes.  This improves recall, creates a record, and demonstrates respect.
6. Thank your mentor at least twice – in person and by email.
7. Follow the advice as closely as possible.  Even if it’s difficult, and especially if it’s not what you would normally do.
8. Report back the results to your mentor.
   • If it didn’t go well, take full personal responsibility, and thank them for their time and help.
   • If it did go well, wherever appropriate, attribute full credit to your mentor, and thank them for their time and help.
9. Send a gift in order to show your appreciation.
   • If you’re just starting out, it’s likely that you won’t have anything to offer your mentor in return for years. At the very least, send some chocolates.
   • Of course, most mentors do not provide advice for direct return.  Your growth and development is reward enough.  The gift/chocolates are simply a sign of your gratitude.
   • Bonus points if you can send a gift in direct relation something they said, or something they can give a member of their family.
10. Look for any kind of opportunity to help your mentor in turn.
    • Find ways to introduce them to customers, or look for ways to provide them with free products or services.

When I get a chance, I’ll create another article with some example conversations and meetings demonstrating these principles.

I hope this is helpful and you make plenty of great new relationships.  Thanks for reading. Let me know how you go at pj.oc.ti-tenbewnull@nosaj.

A few months ago, a poster on a website I frequent posted a request for mentors and advisors for one of his projects.

I responded and made myself available as an advisor. I still have plenty to learn, but many people have provided me with advice and mentorship over the years, so I’m always happy for an opportunity to pay it forward by returning the favour. I received a reply thanking me for my offer to help, and promising future updates.

A few days later, I received a message sent out to 10 people, saying “Here is a status report, I’d appreciate some comments on…”

I browsed through the site and email briefly, and clicked close. He’s got a whole bunch of people on his list, I thought. He doesn’t really need my assistance, and besides I’ve got plenty of things to be doing.

For better or worse, I simply didn’t feel motivated to reply and provide assistance when the requestor is not making a personal connection to me.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the above thought process until I received an email from a good friend of mine who I have known for years. He’s very smart, and a very technically orientated person.

“Hey guys, I need help moving….”

The email was addressed to himself, and I assume theres a bunch of people in the BCC field.

I would normally reply immediately If the message was addressed to me, but even for a close friend, I feel far less inclined to reply if I’m a face in a crowd of BCC’d people.

When written out, this concept seems very straightforward. However I’ve personally made this mistake a number of times, observed it many times, and based on these two recent examples, there are likely many people out mass-emailing themselves out of assistance.

A couple of days ago, the original poster requesting mentors recently sent me a personal email requesting my advice. I replied with a page of comments and thoughts, which prompted me to write this post.

Mass contact may be the most efficient way to communicate to a group of people, but personal contact and establishing a personal dialogue is hands down the most efficient way to receive replies and assistance from people who are happy to help you.

Came across the below image recently, and it struck a chord :

Being a technology junkie, one of the best things about working in IT company is always being able to get hands-on with the new toys, gadgets, phones, software, PCs, servers, routers and so on.

However once the novelty wears off,  the next step is to take these gadgets and figure out how to use them to improve personal or business life.  Then we share these benefits with fellow Webnet IT staff members and our clients.

For instance, here is my current phone :

After modifications, upgrades and experimentation, here are some of the things I’ve configured my SmartPhone to do :

• use voice recognition with my Bluetooth headset to immediately dial the office and regularly dialed numbers
• listen to music and display pictures (naturally!)
• download a Word document proposal on the go, make a few edits, and send it off again
• enter a new contact in Outlook, including a phone number.  15 seconds later, the contact and phone number are automatically synchronised to the phone
• display weather for every day in the week
• download all of my work emails and personal emails, and keep them separate
• act as a English/Japanese dictionary
• help me study Kanji and Japanese phrases
• find a song title quickly with only a couple of words from the chorus
• take pictures of a funny English sign, and email a friend overseas in 5 seconds flat
• act as a remote control for my television (or the gym television if you disagree with the stations)
• give me a choice of two different train routes to get to my destination, the fastest and the cheapest
• keep me updated with the latest news around the world while I’m on the train, and
• Use Skype to talk to my family for free through my home WiFi connection.

This is a great example of taking an every-day device – a phone you can purchase in 30 minutes at Bic Camera, and unlocking its potential in ways that can make a serious impact on your life.

This is with technology that is over 2 years old.  The capabilities of a well configured iPhone these days make this list look anemic.

I’m looking forward to writing more articles like this and explaining how I use common, or not-so-common technology to make sizable improvements in my personal lifestyle and business productivity.

** While I was writing this post, I got an email from Amazon : “Top 10 Deals in Electronics”.  It’s nice to be understood, even if it’s only by the Amazon recommendation engine.