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5 Reasons Why Mentors are Vital

Guest post by: Holly Murdoch

Article Overview: Don\'t have a mentor? Well, you should! They can give you guidance throughout your career and they can be someone that you look up to. Here are 5 important reasons why you should have a mentor.

5 Reasons Why Mentors are Vital

Successful women entrepreneurs understand the importance of having a mentor. In fact, developing a portfolio of mentors to meet different aspects of your life, both personally and professionally, is paramount! Choosing a mentor is one of the most important decisions you can make as a professional. Mentors should be those whose work you admire; poses strong leadership abilities; an inspiration to you and others; offer solutions when you are faced with obstacles and invaluable insight. Mentors are experts within a particular field and offer a wealth of experience. They cheer you to the finish line!

Do you need a mentor? Yes You Do! Here are 5 Important Reason\\\'s Every Successful Woman Needs a Mentor.

Important Reason 1:

A mentor will hold you accountable. Often, business owners neglect important aspects of their businesses such as marketing, financial obligations or operations. A mentor will hold you accountable for your actions, help you set realistic goals and assist you in finding ways to balance your time.

Important Reason 2:

A mentor will help you define and reach short and long term goals. Setting realistic goals for your business is important. Your mentor will help you explore achievable goals, ask clarifying questions to help you define them while developing strategies to keep you focused from day-to-day pressures of business and family.

Important Reason 3:

A mentor is ‘on the outside looking in.\\\' As you grow in your business, it is easy to reach a plateau. A good mentor will bring a new prospective along with a fresh set of eyes. This will help you work more efficiently with a clearer view of your company\\\'s future growth.

Important Reason 4:

A mentor is like a trusted colleague to discuss problems and find solutions. When you hire a mentor, you gain a confidant; someone to brainstorm with - a great sounding board! .

Important Reason 5:

A mentor is worldly with a wealth of business experience to help you grow your business. Is your marketing strategy stale? Out of ideas for marketing to your clients? Well, a mentor comes from a school of ‘hard knocks,\\\' a veteran in his/her own right and can give you sound advice from years of experience.

In closing, it is important to establish a clear understanding of your relationship with your mentor. Ultimately, your mentor is there to help you focus on taking your business to the next level.

This article was written for w2wlink by Sylvia Browder. She is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting and coaching firm.

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Article Tags: business, mentor, w2wlink, women empowering women, women mentoring



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Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation
Re: For all Women Entrepreneurs - Hi Cyn, its great to see you in here, I know you will be a great asset to these forums. For those of you that don't know Cyn she is one of my Mentors in the Pips Power Group and has been a enormous help to me ( and a lot of others) since I started working online. I too will soon be working full time at my business and am looking forward to the same freedom that you have in not having to work for another boss. Take care, Carol
Re: Business Coaching Resources - You're fortunate when you can find a Business Coach who has experience beyond where you've been and even where you are going. When your budget is slim and even after, it's good to have a mentor. Several of various backgrounds are very useful. They can be teachers, professors, pastors, business people, family members, bosses and former bosses. You have to be clear on what you want and what you desire to achieve, be able to convey it as simply as possible. Stop and listen and don't over tax their time. You should always expect results whether from a Business Coach or Mentors. If you're not gtting results, you're either not focused or you need to upgrade the quality of your mentors/coaches. Always surround yourself by people smarter than you.
Re: For all Women Entrepreneurs - Hi Carol Thanks for the welcome and I am sure with your dedication and perseverence that it wont be long before you can kiss your boss goodbye. Cheers for now Cyn [quote="Carol Aston":3bzehwm6]Hi Cyn, its great to see you in here, I know you will be a great asset to these forums. For those of you that don't know Cyn she is one of my Mentors in the Pips Power Group and has been a enormous help to me ( and a lot of others) since I started working online. I too will soon be working full time at my business and am looking forward to the same freedom that you have in not having to work for another boss. Take care, Carol[/quote:3bzehwm6]
Re: Hi From START.ac CrowdFunding - Hi Mal, I would love to explain a little further. START(dot)ac is a new International CrowdFunding website, and we are launching this May 2012. CrowdFunding is when a large number of people each contribute a small amount of money to fund a project. We are forming a website to host these projects on, and building a strong and large community of individuals who are interested in helping the "next big thing" be a success. Imagine if you were there for the beginning of Google or Apple, and your donations of $1 or $500 helped to bring it to life! Along with major bragging rights, if a project is successful, people who funded it get rewards depending on how much money they gave the project. At the summary level - We expands the CrowdFunding market to make a home for startup businesses and technology products. STARTac is the professional CrowdFunding site for startups and tech products. We also accept projects in many other categories (listed at the bottom). We have made nine innovations that improve upon the status quo in CrowdFunding. One is that we have inverted the selection process of projects. Potential projects go into CrowdAudition™, where our members give feedback and advice to improve the projects where relevant. The members' input plays a key role in selection of which projects go to funding. Taking this approach also means that rejected project' drivers know why they were rejected, and can better decide if and how to improve their current project, or start from scratch. We are assembling a bench of Mentors - experienced entrepreneurs and executives who want to help the new guys avoid the mistakes they made. Please let me know what you think. When we launch we will be revealing all of our nine innovative programs to the public. We are also looking for projects to host on our website for when we launch. These projects will get extra media attention and publicity throughout our social media. If you have any other questions, PLEASE feel free to ask! The categories of projects we accept are below: Art Comics Dance Design Do Good (altruistic projects) Fashion Film Food Gadgets Games Invention Kids (Youth-driven projects) Music Photography Products Publishing Small Business Start-Ups Social Enterprise (aka Social Business) Sports Technology Theater Toys Transmedia (anything that doesn’t fit into Art, Film & Video, or Photography) Writing (any writing that is not published as a book) Other


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