Mentor

[Houlden24]

I am a business student, and i was wondering how important a mentor can really be. do you just need a mentor if your starting up a business, thanks

 

[Mustaka]

You don't really need a mentor to be in business. You just need to know what you are doing. That comes from reading a lot. Asking questions on forums like this until you have enough knowledge that you feel comfortable that you have enough answers to run whatever business you get into.

Oh and welcome to the forums

 

[SBOnline]

Hi there,

I agree with Mustaka. A mentor can be helpful, but if you are going to start business on your own you need to have the courage to go out there and learn what you need to learn yourself.

There is no greater feeling then knowing you made it on your own. Trust no-one and rely only upon yourself.

I am only at the start of my journey and proving you can do it and finding and bagging the business are the hardest lessons you can learn, but there is only one way to learn them!

Good luck with your venture.

 

[NSP5]

Whilst I dont disagree with the crux of what the previous 2 posters have said, in that its down to you....I do think there is some serious value in having a mentor.

An experienced mentor gives you a bit of a sounding board for asking the stupid questions you may otherwise be reluctant to ask, as well as providing a neutral external perspective.

I had a work based mentor in my previous role who was very useful in terms of providing additional guidance/support.

If there is support/knowledge out there- tap into it.

 

[KateCB]

A Mentor is not a neccessity, however they are useful for providing cold, hard facts - things that you as the owner don't see, or don't WANT to see....they have no emotional involvement with your business so they tell as they see it, and sometomes it hurts, but once you get over that, the cold hard truth at times does open your eyes!

 

[Houlden24]

so what your saying is that its probably better to learn from your mistakes at the beginning, and have a mentor there to back you up and guide you through how to make sure it doesn't happen again. So there needs to be a happy medium. this is if you have a business

 

[Mustaka]

An experienced mentor gives you a bit of a sounding board for asking the stupid questions you may otherwise be reluctant to ask, as well as providing a neutral external perspective.

There are no stupid questions in business.

 

[NSP5]

There are no stupid questions in business.

Correct, perhaps I shouldve wrote stupid people to scared to ask the questions