Mentorship – Sales Blog Entry

“To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world”
-anonymous

Now more than ever our society needs mentors. We have an aging population and fewer qualified people to fill much needed leadership positions in our community and corporations. Having a strong mentorship process and strategy will be paramount to North America remaining competitive in the next decade.

Many street smart skills and attitudes within major corporations are retiring with the senior executives. As a mentor we have an opportunity to leave a legacy behind.

I recently sat down with a former student of mine. Seven years after my team and I graduated him from our entrepreneur development program he now has 47 employees and has a much business as he can handle in the commercial cleaning business.

He was underemployed and cash strapped when I met him, but his willingness to learn, grow and do was massive.

Flavio, one of the other program leaders invested a lot of time with him. Although he only spent 16 weeks with us, seven years later he still refers to the principles he learned in the program. Investing in this person led to the creation of an enterprise that will do $1 million in revenues and has created 47 jobs.

The biggest message he got from the program was the importance of investing in and maintaining strong client relationships. This is a simple concept but one that has become foundational to his business.

We didn’t want a piece of his business, but we contributed to a stronger local economy and made a big difference in the founder’s life.

I guess for this blog entry I want to pose these questions:

What if senior executives (all of them) in our communities gave an hour a week to mentoring a young executive or entrepreneur? What impact on our economy would this have in seven years from today?

This doesn’t just apply to business but the arts, sciences, and the public sector as well. Mentors make a difference.

Shane Gibson
Author of: Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals
shane@closingbigger.com