Years ago when I was first launching my practice, I hired a business coach based on a referral. My coach made wildly attractive claims, telling me he was well-networked in my city, and even went so far as to say, “I’ll send you so many clients, you won’t know what to do with them.” The coach was charismatic and I wanted to buy what he was selling: effortless success.
Did my coach deliver on his promise? Um…Sort of. He gave me a business plan that I was too green to challenge and make my own. He also sent me one client. In hindsight, I recognize the promise to fill my office with paying clients should have been a red flag. At the time, though, I was feeling very isolated in my business and wanted to believe he could deliver because that would take care of marketing, revenue and entrepreneurial connection all in one fell swoop. He was very charismatic and I wanted to access that energy to help fuel my business—but that’s never how things work unfortunately.
That experience taught me to be discerning when hiring a business mentor. I’ve worked with coaches since and I’ve learned that, to be happy with the results, I have to do the proper vetting before signing on for a program. Here’s how:
- Be specific about goals. Knowing what you’re specifically looking to learn and achieve from a mentor can help you hone in on the right person to help you succeed in the area you want to enhance. Very few human “Swiss army knives” exist, so you rarely get everything from one person.
- Verify online testimonials. Don’t automatically rely on the veracity of online testimonials. Instead, pick up the phone. Many times people will be honest with you in a live conversation in a way that rounds out things that might have been omitted from a printed testimonial. My go-to question: “What were you surprised about, or what didn’t go the way you expected at the onset of your work together?”
- Call former clients. Find people who finished the program at least a year ago (they should be different people than who provided the testimonials). It’s easy to be excited about a program while you’re in it. The real test, though, is whether the content helped them reach their particular business goal. That’s a question that can only be answered if enough time has passed.
- Trust your gut. An emotional attachment to a certain expert (like mine) may be a warning sign. It usually means you’re looking in the wrong place to satisfy an emotional need.
- Be wary of good sales people. Some experts make excellent money because they’re able to bank on their charisma. Aim to uncover the specifics of the program’s content. If the description is too general, it could be a sign that the course material is sparse. Sit with a decision and never feel pressured to pull the trigger.
- Know what skills you’ll gain. Ideally, you want a mentor who can teach you to fish, not one who offers to hand them to you (like mine did when he offered to send me new clients). A new skill is something you can leverage for the entirety of your career.
- Have realistic expectations. Sometimes it seems like businesses can make huge gains in a short time—but this is not the norm. No skill worth paying for will be mastered in 90 days or less. A more realistic guideline is to expect mastery to come in an 12-month to two-year window, at minimum.
- Get granular with cost. Run a cost benefit analysis to find out when and how you’ll likely recoup your investment. A revenue booster is generally worth the cost, while a course that satisfies a passing curiosity is probably not.
P.S. As long as I am talking about entrepreneurs this week, did you see my post about all of the most common ways entrepreneurs waste money? You can check that out here. Also, here’s another as we head into tax season!
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