Business Mentoring, Sometimes You Just Need Someone to Talk It Through With Someone

Why having a business mentor isn’t necessarily about being given the answers.

One of the things I enjoy most about mentoring business owners is being their sounding board.

Running a business means making decisions every day. Some are relatively straightforward. Others can go around and around in your head for days because there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer.

Sometimes you don’t need someone to tell you what to do.

You just need someone to sit down with, talk through the problem and help you see things a little more clearly.

A recent mentoring session reminded me exactly why I enjoy doing this.

“I think I need to employ someone…”

The business owner I was working with had a good problem.

Their business was growing.

They’d reached the point where there was simply too much work for one person and they needed some additional help.

On paper, the solution sounds fairly obvious.

Employ someone.

But when you’ve never employed anyone before, it doesn’t feel quite that simple.

My client had lots of questions and concerns.

Could the business afford it? What responsibilities would the new employee have? How would they manage them? What if they employed the wrong person? What would happen if things didn’t work out?

These are completely understandable concerns for someone becoming an employer for the first time.

So we talked them through.

The conversation became about much more than employing someone

Of course, there are practical things you need to consider when taking on your first employee.

But I was particularly interested in what happened after they’d employed them.

We started talking about what kind of employer my client wanted to be.

What are their personal strengths as a manager?

What sort of person would complement those strengths?

How would different behavioural styles affect the way they communicated and worked together?

We talked about flexibility and working conditions.

Would the role work better from an office, remotely or as a hybrid position?

What would the new employee need during their first few weeks?

How could they make them feel part of the business rather than simply giving them a laptop and a list of jobs on Monday morning?

And how would my client create an environment where that person felt comfortable asking questions, making suggestions and eventually taking ownership of their role?

Suddenly, we weren’t simply talking about hiring an employee.

We were talking about building a team.

There’s quite a difference.

What does being a good employer actually look like?

This was probably my favourite part of the conversation.

When you employ someone for the first time, it’s very easy to concentrate entirely on what you need from them.

But employment works both ways.

People want to feel valued. They want clear expectations, good communication and an understanding of where they fit within the business.

Different people are motivated in different ways too.

Some want lots of interaction and regular feedback. Others prefer being given responsibility and the freedom to get on with things.

Understanding those differences can make a huge difference to the relationship between an employer and their team.

It also made my client think differently about recruitment.

Rather than simply asking:

“Can this person do the job?”

We started thinking about:

“Is this someone I can work with, develop and trust as the business grows?”

That’s a much more interesting question.

This is where mentoring can really help

I didn’t leave that meeting having made the decision for my client.

That’s not what I see my role as being.

My job as a mentor is often to listen, ask questions, share experiences and occasionally challenge someone’s thinking.

Sometimes I’ll have suggestions based on things I’ve experienced myself. Other times, simply asking the right question can lead the business owner to their own answer.

There’s also something valuable about having someone outside your business who you can talk to openly.

Your family might be supportive. Your employees might be fantastic. Your accountant, solicitor or HR adviser can provide specialist advice.

But sometimes you need a conversation that isn’t specifically about tax, employment law or the numbers.

You need to talk about you and your business.

The difference at the end of the meeting

What struck me most about this particular session was the difference between the beginning and the end.

My client arrived with lots of questions and concerns going around in their head.

They left with a clearer idea of what they needed, what kind of person they were looking for and how they wanted to manage that person once they joined the business.

More importantly, they seemed much more comfortable about taking the next step.

Not because every possible problem had disappeared.

But because we’d taken everything that was going around in their head and worked through it together.

And sometimes that’s exactly what a business owner needs.

You don’t have to make every decision alone

One thing I’ve learned from running businesses myself is that you can be surrounded by people and still feel quite alone when it comes to making certain decisions.

I have my own business coach for exactly that reason.

Having someone I can bounce ideas off, challenge my thinking and talk through decisions with has helped me enormously over the years.

It’s one of the reasons I enjoy providing that same support to other business owners.

Mentoring isn’t about someone standing on the sidelines telling you how to run your business.

For me, it’s about having someone alongside you who understands business, listens to what you’re trying to achieve and helps you work through the challenges that inevitably appear along the way.

My client came into that recent meeting worried about becoming an employer.

They left thinking about the kind of employer they wanted to become.

That, for me, is the value of a good mentoring conversation.

Glenn’s Notebook – Business, life and everything in between.