Entrepreneurial Mentoring A Key To Business Success
Entrepreneurial mentoringA key to business successThe Inner City 1001
Entrepreneurial mentoring can support business growth,reduce business failure rates and increase the likelihoodof people becoming entrepreneurs.Mentoring can be formal, organisedthrough specific organisations ornetworks, or informal, drawing on theexpertise of peers, friends or family.Currently a wide range of formalmentoring schemes are offered acrossthe UK, but, on the whole, take-uprates are poor. Given the potential ofmentoring to enhance businessperformance and therefore contributeto increases in the numbers of jobscreated and the survival of competitivebusinesses, there is a need to reviewthe impact and effectiveness ofcurrent schemes as well as toincrease the number of people beingmentored or becoming mentors.This paper looks at the experience ofmentoring of The Inner City 100entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurshave fast-growth businesses from arange of sectors and continue toexperience the challenges of growinga business. The views of The InnerCity 100 entrepreneurs are relevantbecause they offer insights into thechallenges of growing businesses,and their continued support needs.This paper addresses the followingquestions: What does entrepreneurialmentoring look like in the UK?What insights do The Inner City100 entrepreneurs provide into thecurrent provision and take-up ofentrepreneurial mentoring?Drawing on this experience, howcan the benefits of mentoring beenhanced and broadened?Entrepreneurial mentoring2Table 1: Distinguishing between mentoring and coachingMentoringCoachingFocus on progressFocus on taskUsually longer term, sometimes for lifeUsually short termIntuitive feedbackExplicit feedbackDevelops capabilitiesDevelops skillsDriven by mentee/learnerDriven by coachHelps you to work it out yourselfShows you where you went wrongSource: Clutterbuck and Sweeney (1997)What is entrepreneurial mentoring?Entrepreneurial mentoring involvesone entrepreneur acting as ‘criticalfriend’ or ‘guide’ helping to overseethe career and development of a lessexperienced entrepreneur (Harrington1999). The relationship is betweenentrepreneurs from differentbusinesses and can be characterisedas a ‘mentor-protégé’ relationship.However, within entrepreneurialmentoring, the relationship betweenmentor and mentee is often one ofequals. Each party brings differentperspectives and knowledge, and inmany cases mentees will establishthe goals of the relationship.Entrepreneurial mentoring can beviewed as a business developmentprocess for owner-managers (Goldet al 2003). This is based on thepremise that there is a direct linkbetween entrepreneurs’ actions andcapabilities and the performance oftheir businesses.Mentoring versus coachingAlthough mentoring and coaching areoften confused — the terms are usedinterchangeably in many cases —there are important distinctions.Mentoring generally involves a longerterm relationship that is less rolespecific than coaching. Coaches willoften make more direct interventionsto enhance performance duringspecific tasks. Mentors though, willlisten and advise but not intervene.Table 1 highlights the maindifferences in the two roles.Entrepreneurial mentoring focuses on: The future of the menteeentrepreneur’s personaldevelopment. The mentee’s professionaldevelopment. Supporting the mentee’s firmthrough providing relevant adviceand sharing experience.
Entrepreneurial mentoringin contextOf the approximately 3.8 millionbusiness enterprises in the UK, over99 per cent are small businessesemploying less than 50 employees.These businesses are central todriving competitiveness, increasingemployment, and to creating andretaining wealth throughout the UK,including in the most deprived innercity areas. As The Inner City 100 Indexdemonstrates, successful firms canhave significant positive impacts indeprived areas. In the past five years,The Inner City 100 businesses alonehave created nearly 5,500 jobs andcontributed millions to their localeconomies.What benefits can entrepreneurialmentoring deliver?Measuring the current economicvalue of entrepreneurial mentoring inthe UK is difficult because there arefew published evaluations ofschemes that provide quantitativeevidence. The majority of benefits arehighlighted through case studies ofparticipating businesses. These offeruseful insights but make it difficult togain an accurate picture ofquantifiable impacts and businessbenefits.Whether industry sector orgeographically focused,entrepreneurial mentoring schemesshare similar core objectives focusedon enhancing the capabilities ofentrepreneurs and the growthpotential of their firms. However,mentoring schemes have differentapproaches and vary in how theymeasure their success. In somecases, schemes have clear,quantifiable delivery criteria.many existing programmes. However,an independent evaluation of NorthernIreland’s Business to Business Bridgementoring programme, by SQWEconomic Consultants, specified anumber of key benefits directlyattributable to the scheme. It should benoted that the scheme involvesmanagers from within large businesseshelping entrepreneurs. Nonetheless,the results for Small and MediumEnterprises (SMEs) are interesting:The Welsh national mentoringscheme, Mentor Wales, measures itsperformance against several metricsthat, although not widelycommunicated, govern its working.These include: Increased sales turnover of 3.3 percent. Increase in after-tax profits of 17.9per cent. Increased employment of 6.1 percent. The number of jobs created. The number of jobs safeguarded. Referrals to other business supportproviders (public or private sector). The number of hours of mentoringreceived. The number of businesses andsenior managers mentored.Establishing performance againsttargets like these can be difficult asdemonstrated by the lack ofquantitative information available fromThis impressive list of benefitsindicates significant positive impactson the businesses involved. Anotherscheme in the North East of England,the ‘Alchemists’ builds on thisapproach and has clear and ambitioustargets for adding value to the region.The full impact of the Alchemistsscheme remains to be seen, but itsclear target and pool of talent fromacross the UK make this an innovativescheme whose success should beclosely monitored.3Entrepreneurial mentoring
The AlchemistsThe Alchemists, a scheme in the North East of England provides, perhaps, the best example of a scheme drivingto a clear target — to create 100 million of additional value in the companies it engages with by the end of 2005.The scheme is funded by One North East, but businesses pay for their mentors/consultants once engaged. TheAlchemists scheme links entrepreneurs with experienced professionals from a number of fields to provide advice onthe next steps of business growth. Interventions are often quite focused, for example, on realising a specific growthopportunity.The Alchemists scheme works to identify fast-growing companies that have reached a critical stage in theirdevelopment. To be eligible, businesses have to have doubled their value in the past three years and have atleast 5 million of value in the business. Given these criteria, the scheme is clearly not for the majority ofbusinesses.The scheme has assisted 22 enterprises in the North East and drawn on mentors from across the UK. One of TheInner City 100 entrepreneurs who participated provides an example of how the Alchemists scheme has benefitedbusinesses. Since joining, this entrepreneur has seen considerable improvements in his business and rapidexpansion, much of which would not have been possible without the insights provided by his mentor. Interestingly,one aspect of the advice received was that he should seek to create additional businesses because his talents lay ingenerating ideas and making them realities. The entrepreneur followed this advice and has established a number ofnew businesses; it is too soon to tell how successful these businesses will be in the long-term, but given his trackrecord and the new lease of life the scheme has provided, there are significant benefits in prospect.While there is evidence thatentrepreneurial mentoring can deliverreal added value for businesses, therequirements for clear output criteria —for example, number of jobs created —may undervalue the more informaltacit benefits that mentoring provides.These include:These factors may take time to feedinto quantified benefits. Therefore,focusing solely on quantifiable shortterm outputs may lead to schemesbeing assessed against criteria thatdo not capture their long-termsuccess. Whilst it is important toevaluate schemes robustly, care mustbe taken to measure ‘soft’ outcomesas well as the ‘hard’ outputs.representatives from the public sectorand entrepreneurs underlined the roleof mentoring. Lee Williams, ManagingDirector of Universal ServicesSolutions, expressed a commonlyheld belief that mentoring was criticalto many of his most importantbusiness decisions. In addition tobeing mentored, Lee Williamsmentors less-experiencedentrepreneurs to help them developtheir businesses, and feedback fromthem suggests this is one of thecritical factors in their success. Clearly,there are many factors that contributeto the success of a businessincluding market demand,product/service marketing, andproduct/service quality; however, theentrepreneur plays a central andimportant role in the fortune of thebusiness. Supporting thedevelopment of owner-managers (theentrepreneurs), and their businessesshould considerably increase theirchances of success.What does entrepreneurialmentoring look like in the UK?Entrepreneurial mentoring alreadyplays a role in efforts to assistentrepreneurs and SMEs across theUK; its contribution to improvingentrepreneurs’ success is increasinglyacknowledged. In the majority ofinterviews for this work,The number of entrepreneurs involvedin informal mentoring in the UK,whether as mentors or mentees, isunknown. However, evidence fromThe Inner City 100 suggests thatsome entrepreneurs may be receivingimportant support from entrepreneursthey know through personalrelationships, family and business The increased confidence ofentrepreneurs. Better staff management andinternal business processes. Broader networking.Entrepreneurial mentoring4contacts. However, the focus of thispaper is largely upon formalmentoring. As the number and sizeof programmes available is growing,their likely impact and role inentrepreneurs’ success andpersonal development requirescloser examination.At present, formal mentoring schemesin the UK tend to be locally orregionally organised and supportedand delivered by public organisationsand agencies. The RegionalDevelopment Agencies (RDAs),National Federation of EnterpriseAgencies (NFEA) and Business Linksare key players in deliveringmentoring schemes. There appear tobe clear benefits of organisingmentoring schemes at local andregional levels: Interviews with entrepreneurssuggest that businesses may bemore willing to participate if thementor or mentee is local andaccessible. The economic conditions ofparticular areas may mean thatnew/growing businessesexperience common problems.More established entrepreneursmay have particular insights intothese challenges.
National mentoring programmesEnglandThe Business Volunteer Mentor (BVM) network is a national programme with 35 sub-contracts in place for delivery ofthe scheme. These range from a pan-regional scheme (in the East of England region), to one that offers purely online mentoring with no geographical boundaries (Shell LiveWIRE).WalesMentor Wales has been developed as a partnership involving the major supporters of business across the whole ofWales including the Welsh Development Agency. The aim of the Mentor Wales scheme is to provide long-termsupport to financially viable, established SMEs that show growth potential. The mentees must have a managementteam in place or in the process of development and be seeking up to two years’ professional advice and guidancefrom a mentor.Northern IrelandInvest Northern Ireland is the main economic development organisation in Northern Ireland and funds two keymentoring programmes: Business to Business Bridge enables large, well-established firms to invest a variety of non-financial resourcesincluding mentoring to help SMEs through periods of growth. Northstar Mentors are willing to offer expertise to help other businesses overcome problems and improve theircompetitiveness. The role of the mentor is to discuss issues and advise on ways to overcome obstacles togrowth.ScotlandBusiness Mentoring Scotland was introduced by the Scottish Executive in 2000. The Scottish Executive formalisedexisting networking groups and its Business Gateway provides the first point of access to public support available tofirms in Scotland. Several mentoring programmes have been developed within the Business Gateway including aprogramme aimed specifically at women.There are national business mentoringschemes operating in England,Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.Additionally, Business in theCommunity (BitC) supports severaldifferent mentoring schemesthroughout the UK and NorthernIreland including CompanyConnections in Wales, BusinessBridge in England and Business toBusiness Bridge in Northern Ireland.The Prince’s Trust and the Prince’sScottish Youth Business Trust alsooffer mentoring support focused onyoung entrepreneurs in the UK.Mentoring schemes differ in format,but most in the UK consist of face-toface interactions between mentorsand mentees. Telephoneconversations often provide the backup to these meetings. As informationtechnology has improved andbecome more accessible, onlinementoring has increased insignificance. Shell LiveWIRE, part ofthe Business Volunteer Mentor (BVM)network, is a scheme targeting youngentrepreneurs solely delivered online.LiveWIRE provides an informal forumfor discussions where members seekadvice from each other rather thanthrough formal channels. Benefits ofbeing online include ease of accessand the comfort young people feelwith the medium. Initially mentoringcan seem intimidating for both partiesand less formal systems may be anideal first step.Mentoring and The Inner City 100An examination of The Inner City 100businesses’ involvement inentrepreneurial mentoring offers someinsights into its benefits and use. Thefindings are derived from informationgiven by all of The Inner City 100winners in 2003. Subsequentdiscussions with several of The InnerCity 100 winners from years 2001–03provided further insights into theirexperiences of mentoring.The Inner City 100 firms havesuccessfully navigated the turbulentearly years of business formation andgrowth. However, the majority are not‘established’ in the sense of havingextensive professional systems andteams of skilled managers. This doesnot mean that they are not managedexpertly, but that owner-managersremain essential to firms’ dailyoperation and success. Theseentrepreneurs: Combine multiple roles thatdemand wide-ranging skills. Are often under considerablepressure. Have little business experience insome cases.Entrepreneurial mentoring proposes toassist these entrepreneurs in helpingthem to step outside of their dailyroles and take a more strategicapproach to their business.Within The Inner City 100, 26 per centof entrepreneurs are involved inentrepreneurial mentoring either asmentors or mentees. Initial findingssuggest that of these, approximatelyhalf are mentors and half arementees. These firms come from a5Entrepreneurial mentoring
Figure 1: Inner City 100 firms mentoring by sectorFigure 2: Inner City 100 firms mentoring by regionrange of industry sectors thatbroadly reflect the composition of thewhole of The Inner City 100 (seeFigure 1). This broad mix of businesssectors appears quite typical ofmentoring programmes in the UK(France 2003).youngest firms or the mostinexperienced entrepreneurs,indicating that entrepreneurialmentoring may be appropriate atall stages of business developmentand growth.The Inner City 100 firms that areengaged and involved in mentoringare not recent start-ups; they havebeen established an average of 10years with an average turnover of 5.1million. Many of these companieshave strong market niches and arebuilding on successful periods ofgrowth. Clearly, being involved inmentoring is not restricted to theEntrepreneurial mentoring6Examining The Inner City 100entrepreneurs’ involvement inmentoring by region indicates no clearpattern (see Figure 2). However, it isinteresting to note that despite 25 percent overall of the The Inner City 100being based in London, none of themare involved in mentoring. This mayreflect: A lack of provision in London. Greater independence of Londonbased entrepreneurs. Dominance of informal mentoring. Poor coordination and/or marketingof mentoring activities. Lack of public sector support formentoring schemes.Clearly, this finding deserves furtherresearch to understand its causesand significance.Analysis of the entire of The Inner City100 indicates that advising otherentrepreneurs is just one of thementoring activities in which they
Figure 3: Number of Inner City 100 firms involved inmentoring activitiesparticipate. As Figure 3 shows, overhalf of The Inner City 100entrepreneurs take part in visits andplacements and are linked toschools and colleges; this is twicethe number participating inentrepreneurial mentoring. Clearly,the entrepreneurs are finding time foractivities outside the daily running oftheir businesses.Looking specifically at the 26 of TheInner City 100 entrepreneurs involvedin entrepreneurial mentoring (seeFigure 4) the majority are alsoinvolved in visits, placements or linkswith schools and colleges (81 percent); a number are also involved inmentoring at-risk young people.The findings suggest thatentrepreneurs who are involved inentrepreneurial mentoring are alsomore likely to be involved inmentoring young people. While furtherresearch is required, this finding mayhave important implications forchanging the culture ofentrepreneurship in the UK.Entrepreneurs involved inentrepreneurial mentoring could alsobe encouraged to speak to youngpeople about the benefits ofentrepreneurship and offer guidanceon how to start a business.Inner City 100 entrepreneursreceiving mentoringOf The Inner City 100 entrepreneursinterviewed, the majority expressedpositive views of their experiences asFigure 4: Inner City 100 firms involved inentrepreneurial mentoring and other mentoringactivitiesmentees. As one of The Inner City 100entrepreneurs put it,“Mentoring can help with anybusiness, providing the menteeis open minded enough to listento external advice. Naturally, yourmentor won’t get it right everytime and it’s up to you todecipher what is relevant to yourindividual situation.”But others have more mixed views(see case study on page 8).Entrepreneurial mentoring provides anoutside perspective on a business,and may be particularly useful indifficult times such as periods oftransition and for family ownedbusinesses seeking external input.“Coupled with the fact that thebusiness leadership was in atransitional phase from myfather and mother to my brotherand I – we had problems.Having the external influence ofa mentor was very important inthat he could see straightthrough any personal issuesthat may have been preventingus from seeing the real pictureand acting accordingly.”Inner City 100 entrepreneurThe Inner City 100 businesses haveachieved huge growth and, as oneentrepreneur noted, there isconsiderable value in having “someearly warnings on what was likely tohappen to the business” from thosethat had already experienced thedifferent stages of businessdevelopment. In addition, many of TheInner City 100 entrepreneurs do nothave business backgrounds andmentoring may be particularlybeneficial in offering support andadvice in these cases.Although feedback from The Inner City100 entrepreneurs regardingmentoring was generally positive,there were some cri
Entrepreneurial mentoring can be viewed as a business development process for owner-managers (Gold et al2003). This is based on the premise that there is a direct link between entrepreneurs’ actions and capabilities and the performance of their businesses. Mentoring versus coaching Although mentoring and coaching are often confused — the .
entrepreneurial mindset. Based on the researcher's observation, the management has been neglecting developing an entrepreneurial mindset through training to promote an entrepreneurial culture and mindset. Entrepreneurial culture or entrepreneurial environment provides a place where entrepreneurial mindset/spirit can be enhanced/developed.
entrepreneurial mindset as indispensable to the success of SMEs in Nigeria. Entrepreneurial competencies are skills, values, and attitudes that are well-thought-out necessary for the success of small and medium scale businesses. Entrepreneurial mindset refers to a specific state of mind which orientates human conduct towards
mentoring relationship, whether formal or informal. Use it to plan your mentoring interactions. (A companion guide, Mentoring Guide: A Guide for Protégés, is also available. See Appendix III.) Although mentors can be sought for various spheres of one’s life, this guide focuses on mentoring within a professional context.
Mentoring a new Toastmasters club is similar in many ways to mentoring a single person. Mentors are the advisors and tutors for new clubs and have a great effect on the degree to which a new club succeeds. Benefits for Mentors New clubs are not the only beneficiaries of the mentoring relationship. Mentoring allows you to Share your expertise
group mentoring contexts actually represent the majority of the programmatic mentoring youth receive. In addition to these formal group mentoring programs, there is an almost infinite landscape of mentoring-like group youth work in after-school programs, hobby clubs, sports and recreation programs, and camps. While these may not
Appendix F - Peer Mentoring Program - Role Guidelines Outlines expectations of both senior and peer mentors within the peer mentoring group. Appendix G - Suggestions/Types of Mentoring Meeting Exercises Suggested activities for new peer mentoring groups to get to know each other. Appendix H - Mentee Self-Assessment Worksheet
Jessica Miller Mentoring Program Assistant millerj@fau.edu 561-297-4809 Jheanelle Gilmore Mentoring Graduate Assistant jgilmor7@fau.edu 561-297-4809 Rosedale Joseph Mentoring Graduate Assistant rjosep33@fau.edu 561-297-4809 Casey Zimmerman Mentoring Graduate Assistant czimmerman2014@fau.edu 561-297-4809 The Mentoring Project 777 Glades Road
López Austin, Alfredo, “El núcleo duro, la cosmovisión y la tradición mesoamericana”, en . Cosmovisión, ritual e identidad de los pueblos indígenas de México, Johanna Broda y Féliz Báez-Jorge (coords.), México, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001, p. 47-65. López Austin, Alfredo, Breve historia de la tradición religiosa mesoamericana .
