Since we were young we’ve always had someone to look up to, to ask questions, and to make sure we were on the right track. Whether it was a parent, sibling, teacher, or friend, that individual was our mentor in growing up. Now, as you proudly call yourself an entrepreneur, the concept of a mentor is no different.

“A business or entrepreneurial mentor is someone who accompanies the entrepreneurs through their entrepreneurial journey and provides a different lens or perspective to them,” says Linda Morana, mentor in residence at Futurpreneur Canada. “Sometimes that larger perspective gets lost, so it’s really part of the mentor’s role to bring them back to their vision and purpose.”

At Futurpreneur Canada, mentorship is one of their biggest practices. In addition to the funding and resources, Futurpreneur Canada makes it a requirement for entrepreneurs in the Start-up Program to work with mentors for two years. In that timeframe, mentors are encouraged to have face-to-face meetings with their mentees for a few hours each month to provide support and answer any questions they may have.

“Mentors really help the entrepreneur create framework for decision making or problem solving, so eventually they can step away and the entrepreneur is confident in their abilities to do it on their own,” says Linda, adding that the increase in entrepreneurial confidence has been valued by the mentees.

Mentors at Futurpreneur Canada offer value in a number of ways, with one being the development of personal, internally oriented skills such as confidence-building, motivation, learning, and problem solving, Linda lists. “They also gain from the externally oriented personal skills like networking, work and life balance.” And, obviously, they increase their competence in externally oriented hard skills like IT, marketing, and sales.

To inspire the entrepreneurs they work with, mentors have to ensure they, themselves, keep up to date with their practices. From peer-to-peer learning opportunities such as Sage Mentor Think Tanks, a six-week online seminar, ‘Entrepreneurial Mentoring: Cultivating the Art,’ offered in partnership with The G. Raymond Chang School for Continuing Education at Ryerson University, and a leading edge online orientation – Ment2B, to quick crash courses, Futurpreneur Canada offers many resources to their mentors. “When they get matched with the entrepreneur, they actually engage in an orientation session where expectations are established, and they create a mentoring agreement and development plan with the entrepreneur,” says Linda. “It’s about setting a good foundation for the mentoring relationship right from the very beginning.”

The importance of mentorship isn’t just talk; it’s in the numbers as well. Linda explains that based on research conducted in the UK, they “found that 70 per cent of small businesses that had been mentored lasted beyond five years.” But for entrepreneurs who chose to go solo, the percentage was just half of that.

“Going into a mentoring relationship, oftentimes entrepreneurs do look for those hard skills outcomes,” says Linda. “But coming out of the mentoring relationship what they value the most are some of the soft skills they gain.”

Photo: Andresr/Thinkstock