When I was younger, I went to an interview for a position with a company that looked very interesting to me. I didn’t know it was going to be an opportunity to become self employed. The job didn’t end up panning out for me after trying it for a week or two, but it was definitely an eye-opening venture.
You see, I was met by business executives in Nashville that were in their 30’s and 40’s, and it was very intriguing to me how they carried themselves. Evidently, they were pretty well to do, and they had made good money with the company. At first, I was introduced to the business by the head guy, but then I was assigned a mentor.
You see, they had a business mentoring program in place, and this was years ago, almost two decades in the past. Still, these types of mentoring programs are extremely popular these days, and it makes sense for certain types of business environments.
The guy that the company assigned to me was actually going to go out in the field with me for a day to show me the ropes. We visited certain businesses, making our presentation, and he showed me what points to bring up, how to carry myself, how to close and much more.
While this is an example using a business in which people were self employed, there are many traditional businesses that use this type of mentoring program. Whereas some businesses have training programs, or just expect a person that is hired to be experienced enough start carrying out his or her duties, a mentoring program is a great idea in more situations than you think.
Have you ever participated in one of these mentoring programs at a business. Perhaps you own or manage a business and think that one of these programs would really make a difference. Think about how it makes the employees feel, too. They feel like their position is much more important if they are entered into a ‘mentoring program’ vs a traditional training program.
In some ways, it’s all in the approach. Mentoring and training programs can often include many of the same things, but you just have to decide what is the best approach for your business. It would have been weird if I walked into the business that I mentioned earlier and was put into a ‘training’ program.
I was being groomed to be a business professional, in ways running my own business, yet under the established people that were providing guidance. So think about what you would need for your business.
