Find A Mentor

Using a mentor is a way to make your new business more successful by drawing on the experience of someone who has been there before.

Learn more about how our Mentoring Service can help you grow your business.

What is a Mentor?

A mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor. In ancient times Mentor was more like a ‘wise uncle’ who could provide tips and advice because he had been through it before.

Today Mentoring is much more about helping you to solve your own problems so that you are better equipped to grow your business. They can also provide help, advice and contacts.

Business Matching Service

Our business matching service helps you to find the right Mentor for your stage of business. Come along to a meeting with one of our business advisors to start things off. Ring us on 01376-340770 to book your appointment.

Benefits of using a Mentor

The central benefit of mentoring is that it gives you a safe environment with a trusted advisor that allows you to take a step back and think about your business. You’ll find that by stepping back and talking things over with your Mentor, solutions to business challenges will often present themselves.

Other benefits include:

Increased awareness of how your own approaches and actions affect your business
An experienced sounding board to discuss challenges, problems and questions
A safe place to try out new ideas and suggestions
Experience of different options and paths
Someone to stretch and challenge your thinking
A bigger personal network and new contacts
Increased confidence and self belief

How it works

Working with your Mentor starts with a series of regular meetings, ideally face to face but sometimes using the phone or video calling. You’ll also have the chance to join our group mentoring sessions and network meetings.

At each meeting our mentors use an approach based on GROW…

Goals - what are your goals for this meeting? (A problem, challenge, something or even a new idea you want to talk about)

Reality - where are you now and what have you done so far? (What’s the reality of your situation?)

Options - what could you do? (A thorough discussion of all the possible options and idea generating)

What Next? - what action are you going to take? (All meetings end with a list of agreed actions)

Ethics and Safety

Just like any other relationship, your relationship with your Mentor is built on trust and respect. Our mentors are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to:

equality and diversity
data protection
health and safety

In addition our Mentors will

At all times operate within the limits of their own competence, recognise where that competence has the potential to be exceeded and where necessary refer the client either to a more experienced coach/mentor, or support the client in seeking the help of another professional, such as a counsellor, psychotherapist or business/financial advisor.
Be aware of the potential for conflicts of interest of either a commercial or emotional nature to arise through the coach/mentoring relationship and deal with them quickly and effectively to ensure there is no detriment to the client or sponsor.

We work to the Code Of Ethics of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. You can download the Code Of Ethics here.