“Well, do you want me to coach you up a little bit?”
This was how my first ever virtual sales mentorship began earlier this afternoon. I had just called a person I’ve come to know as a friend to ask for some advice, and when he realized the depth of information he would need to convey to me he offered his infinite wisdom up in the form of 2 weekly training sessions.
Just like that. No catch. No money up front. No money at all, in fact. No request for referrals later on down the road. Just that: I’ll help you out by passing along some tricks of the trade from the past 25 years of my experience and hopefully they will help you succeed.
As I enter into one of my first real mentorship programs, I wanted to pass along some ground rules that will hopefully shape your next mentorship program to be as beneficial to you, the apprentice, as possible:
- Set the terms up front: Imagine this is like dating someone new — except you’re 100% honest with them. Agree to number of sessions, frequency of review and types of information you’re going to cover. Set ground rules so that you don’t overwhelm your mentor with questions, ideas and information. He or she has agreed to help you out — NOT to be your personal Google anytime you have a problem.
- Shut up and listen: You need to be doing the bulk of the listening, so shut up and stop speaking RIGHT THIS SECOND. If you possessed the wealth of information your mentor had, you wouldn’t need to lean on him/her as a mentor. So turn your mouth off and soak down all the information they pass on to you; you’ll have all the time in the world to act on the advice in between sessions.
- Allow for wiggle: Since most mentorships are free programs, don’t turn on your Jedi master if he or she needs to bail on a couple sessions. That mentor has gone out of their way to help you become successful, most likely for no monetary gain on their part, which means the apprentice needs to be grateful for any wisdom they can pull from their sessions.
- Thank your Jedi master profusely: Wait until you hit big milestones, and then pour on the praise. For example, when I close my first deal using my new mentor’s advice, I plan on shipping him a couple hundred bucks worth of wine / whiskey / beer (whichever poison he prefers) with a big fat ‘Thank You’ balloon. It was his advice that showed me how to close the deal, so I want to show him that I truly appreciate all the time and effort he/she has invested in my success.
Keep in mind, the apprentice is going to reap the bulk of the reward in this mentor/apprentice relationship. So as the apprentice make sure to act gracious, write EVERYTHING down and go out of your way to make it easy for your mentor to pass his valuable brain data along to you.
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Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries.
A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home.