Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How to find a mentor or coach in business
Transcript
- 0:08Welcome back to the podcast. Hello. Hello, hello. How's it going? I mean, it's going very well. It's storming here in Sydney today. Well, it's just actually technically stopped storming, but it's like just been torrential downpour of rain, but otherwise good. Oh, wow. I saw some videos of that on Instagram yesterday. I think it was Jane Liu. She posted a video and it looked wild. Is that quite nice to get rid of the heat over there or...
- 0:38Well, I mean, I wasn't here yesterday. I came back from Melbourne, so I actually missed the crazy storm. But someone told me it was like so full on and like crazy thunderstorm, you know, just insane. But today wasn't that bad. It was more just torrential downpour of rain. Oh, good.
- 0:54Good stuff. And how are you in Bali? I'm good. I'm in Bali, so I absolutely can't complain. I've not had a single storm here yet, which... Oh my God, that's so weird. I know. Not even a little afternoon drizzle? Not even. Nothing. Nothing. So I think there's one in the planning tonight. I've just gotten to Ubud. I'm probably butchering that name. And there should be some storm later today, which I'm quite excited about.
- 1:19because I love a Bali storm when we were living in Bali I think we arrived we arrived in February around this time like it was literally yeah I think the start of February or something because I just got a reminder from 2019 of like a Bali recap on my phone and the day that we arrived we were like on a scooter in the evening and it torrentially started raining and we got back to our villa and we were like cool so Bali rains a lot
- 1:44Didn't read about this part. That was hectic. Didn't realize, but all right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm excited for you to have your little Bali storm. Hopefully it's little, not big. Yeah, I'm excited. And it lifts the air a bit and, I don't know, changes things up a little bit. It does. It does. The calm after a storm is always...
- 2:02So nice. So, so nice. Exactly. Exactly. Before we chat too much weather, let's jump straight into today's episode. Love chatting about the weather. I know, me too. It's the British in me. I can't help myself.
- 2:20Today we're going to chat about something which it has come up a lot in our private community, Magic. It also comes up a lot on the podcast and it's something that I feel is spoken about a lot in the entrepreneur space. But I personally have a lot of questions on and I think that entrepreneurs do too.
- 2:40So today we'll be jumping into mentorship and the idea of coaching for early stage business founders. And because of the success of our last few episodes in this coaching format, I thought we'll jump right back into that. I'll chat to you from the perspective of an early stage founder. And we'll talk a bit about how mentorship works in the space, how coaching works, how that looks practically and what that really means. Love it. Yeah.
- 3:07I'm excited. I'm here for it. Me too. I read up a couple of statistics, and it's pretty wild. And it turns out that entrepreneurs who receive some kind of guidance, so some kind of mentorship in their journey, they actually increase their annual revenue by an average of 83%. Holy shit. And entrepreneurs that don't increase their annual revenue by an average of 16%. So that's a huge difference. That's a difference of 67%, quick math. Yeah.
- 3:35last one quick map. Wow, that's a crazy start. I didn't know that. Isn't it? Yeah. And the same comes back to when we asked our newsletter audience about the number one thing they felt was missing in their business. Mentorship also came out on top. And I feel like it's this thing that everyone knows that they need
- 3:55It's super common. You hear about it everywhere. You need a mentor, you need a mentor. It makes a huge difference, but people aren't really sure how that practically looks or how to go about it. Me included. So that's where this session comes in. Great. I'm excited. Where do we want to start? Should we just jump straight in? I kind of wanted to ask you first about, because you went to see Taylor Swift. Yes. Oh my God. Let's talk about Taylor Swift.
- 4:22Oh, my God. Taylor Swift. How is it? It was life-changing. It was life-changing. I put it up there with, like, the night of my wedding. It was phenomenal. She is an absolute superstar. I can't think of anyone who is more famous than her on the planet right now. And for good reason. She is just phenomenal. That was, like...
- 4:45the best concert of all time. I can't imagine there ever being a better concert than that. She played like 40, 44 songs. And the one that I was at in Melbourne, she went for like three hours and 45 minutes or something. It was, it was crazy. And I mean, like the costumes, the dancing, the, like the production of the visuals, the fireworks, like the crowd, the energy.
- 5:15I love you. I'm obsessed with you.
- 5:17It's incredible what she's done. I think it's amazing how everyone in the world has essentially watched this whole set through social media at this point. Never mind the fact that she created a movie, which I'm not ashamed to say I watched three times in a row. And you're still just as excited to go and see her in person. And you still get as much out of it, which is just insane. If you compare that to, you can't compare that to anything else out there, any other experience.
- 5:47Literally. You just don't get enough of it. It's amazing. It is so amazing. And you know what she said in one of her kind of moments when she was talking to the crowd? Her new album comes out in April. And so if you think about it, she's been on tour for ages and then she's obviously also written a new album, recorded a new album and is now promoting a new album. And I'm like...
- 6:10Just this is superhuman level stuff. Like how can you go from doing an almost four-hour show, three days back to back, but like for weeks on end and months on end? Like I don't know how long her tour is, but usually these tours, I feel like they're going for like eight to 12 months or something. Yeah, she's doing 151 shows, which is insane. Oh, my God, that is insane. How many weeks is that? Like worth of like if you're doing three – I want to just do some math here.
- 6:40What was it? I think it spread out over two years overall, 151 shows. And I think she even added some new ones on the American leg to that. So that's 528 hours. And then that is like divided by 40 if we're just thinking about like the usual. Oh, no.
- 7:00How would I figure out how many hours are in a... You know what? I'm not good at this. I'm not going to do that. It's a lot. It's a lot. She's doing a lot. I'm loving watching all the memes come by. And it's like, if Taylor can write and release a new album in between doing a million dollar world tour, you can get up for work today. You can start that business. Literally. You can do that TikTok course.
- 7:25Literally. Literally. I'm like, this is just, I mean, yeah, that's athlete level performance. Like that's insane. Pure stamina. It's amazing. I feel like she doesn't even break a sweat. Like her hair gets a little like zhuzhy, but like she just doesn't break a sweat.
- 7:40Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. I want to go. I'm on a mission. You need to go. To anyone listening to this, just do whatever you can at all costs to get tickets to that. And if you can't get tickets, go sit outside the stadium and just like get involved in the vibe. Yeah, it's a special moment in history. I really feel that even just watching it through the phone screen.
- 7:59This is a cultural moment in history. My husband and I were saying this to each other because we both got, well, I got two tickets, but like because of the way the system was just so insane, they weren't seated together. So we essentially both went solo. And even he was just like, I just can't even believe how euphoric the joy was and like how insane that was.
- 8:22It's just a moment that, yeah, a cultural moment in the world and, like, in our life. So insane. Yeah, it's amazing. There's nothing quite like it, right? Getting that connection and feeling like a big, big part of something. A hundred percent. Wow. So special. Amazing. Amazing.
- 8:41Alrighty, let's jump straight into today's episode. And as we explained a little bit in the intro there, we do hear about mentorship all the time. By now, I think either 99% or 100% of the SB500 have some kind of mentorship program in place, which is amazing.
- 9:00But I wanted to kick off by just asking you, how does that look for someone in entrepreneurship when you don't have kind of a direct thing through your employer that has it all set up? How do you find a mentor in the first place? Yeah, so I guess like if we're thinking about
- 9:17Well, even just to rewind a little bit, to start when we're thinking about like a mentor or a coach or just someone who's there to help kind of guide you through this process, whether it is, you know, someone who's helping you in your nine to five or if it's someone helping you kind of on your business, if you're in the early stages of building a business.
- 9:34I guess mentor and coach, they're kind of like, it's a bit blurry and everyone has a different take on like what this means. But for me, when I think about a mentor and when I look back in my career, the way that I viewed a mentor is often kind of a relationship where it's a bit more informal. It's someone who I already know and have trust with. It's a bit more of like a long-term relationship.
- 9:55fluid relationship where I would meet up with people here and there, you know, for a coffee and just to ask some questions specifically relating to either like my job or specifically relating to my business. And I've had like multiple kind of people in my life who I would say have taken on that role of, of mentor. And I think that
- 10:16You know, having those people in your life that you can turn to, to be like, what do you think about this? Or what would your, just brainpower, basically, giving you some brainpower. It's so powerful. And I've kind of forgotten the question. I feel like I'm rambling a little bit. What was the question? No, this is all great stuff. The question was, how do you find a mentor in the first place?
- 10:35Right. Okay. So for me, that's what I define as, you know, a mentor. And that was kind of like early stage in my career and in the early stages of building my business. And then of course, there are different ways that you can access mentorship. Like for example, what you said about the mentorship program in the SP 500 companies, or, you know, here in Sydney, Australia at UNSW, I'm a mentor to the new wave program, which is an accelerator for women who have ideas and want to turn them into a business.
- 11:02So practical advice if you're looking for a mentor, and this really does apply also if you're looking for a coach, I guess, but slightly different pathways. Yeah.
- 11:12If it was me and I was thinking, you know, I'm in my nine to five, I'm looking for someone who can maybe guide me in terms of my personal, but also professional goals and kind of just help me kind of balance what I'm working towards and kind of informally catch up here and there to like meet with someone and just get their advice, get their brain power. I would probably be looking more at someone that I already know.
- 11:35So I'd be looking at like my boss or trusted colleagues who are potentially a bit older than me or a few steps ahead of where I am. And if I was looking from the perspective of a small business owner, I'd be thinking, okay, if I want a mentor, maybe I'm thinking about,
- 11:51someone who is in a similar-ish industry who is, again, ahead of where I am and might be informally happy to kind of like meet up and, you know, just help kind of give me some guidance when I need it, or if I need to just get on a call and ask a couple of questions and...
- 12:06kind of, yeah, like text them or whatever, just to chat basically. So I'd be looking first at my personal network through, you know, going through my emails, going through my LinkedIn, thinking about colleagues, thinking about bosses, that kind of stuff. I think that would be the first...
- 12:22thing that I would be doing to try and find someone. And I guess the thing with mentorship is it doesn't always need to even have such a label of that's a mentor. Like I can name people who in my life I haven't been like, hey, can we please formalise this and call this a mentor relationship? It's more like I know that that person who –
- 12:40I've like trusted to go to and ask questions and ask for advice. They kind of act like a mentor role to me, but it's not like we've spoken about that back and forth that they're a mentor. They might not even know that I view them like that, but in the sense that they've provided me such high value brainpower and guidance that I've just received that in a way where I'm like, wow, I really view them as a mentor to me in my career and my professional kind of endeavors.
- 13:10my network and just like kind of look around at who might be the right kind of person in that role. And of course, like, like I said, like you might not have to like even say I'm looking for a mentor kind of thing if it's those kind of trusted colleagues or a boss or a previous boss or something like that. Or you might be able to, you know, send a message and be like, hey, I'm looking for a mentor and I'm just kind of wanting to keep it really informal and catch up here and there and ask you some questions. Would you be open to doing that and taking that route?
- 13:39You could also, I guess, ask around your network. So ask people like, do you have a mentor? You know, what do you get out of it? Like, yeah.
- 13:47How do you think I would find it? Like, how did you find it? And kind of like ask for, you know, potentially a recommendation or get some insights on how your friends have done it or your colleagues or other founders in your network. And then I know that there are websites you can go and get actual professional mentorship services. I don't have one off the top of my head, my bad, but you can also, you know, go down the pathway of Google or looking on websites like meetup.com and things like that.
- 14:16Absolutely. I think it's just about like starting the process by first identifying, do you want a mentor? Do you want a coach? What do you want out of that relationship? Like, what do you need? Kind of creating a vision of what you want and a goal of what you want. And then it's like going out and following the breadcrumbs. So asking for recommendations, posting on LinkedIn about it, asking friends like how they did it and following the breadcrumbs.
- 14:42I think there's also something to be said for a bit of a cold outreach strategy in this place. And we post about this on Instagram this week and it got a lot of traction and it got me thinking, especially in relation to mentorship, that it's worth kind of reaching out to the people that you admire and the people that you look up to in business. So, well, A, I think it's important to have an idea of who those people are, I think, and,
- 15:09If you're an early stage business founder or you've been in the game for a while, there are definitely going to be journeys that you look up to or people that you admire in the space. And it's worth keeping a list of these people close by, even if it's just in your notes tab, that whenever these people pop up, you have a clear idea of who these people are. And when the time comes to just cold outreach, reach out to people, see if you can have a second of their time, maybe offer something back in return. I know that came up on our episode with Mimi Econ.
- 15:38She mentioned the phrase picking your brain and that she struggled a bit with founders reaching out and asking to pick her brain. But what she really loved is when founders would say, hey, can I take you for a coffee and can we chat? And that you're kind of offering something back as part of this mentorship agreement. And yeah, this idea that you miss every goal that you don't shoot. So it's worth just reaching out to these people. Absolutely.
- 16:08I would also add, like, I agree with Mimi when people reach out wanting to pick your brain or things like that. It can be a little bit vague and a little bit broad. And I think it's always good to remember that, like, everyone is...
- 16:21really busy, when you're reaching out to people who are, you know, if you're reaching out to someone like Mimi, she's got a lot going on. She probably doesn't have time to just, you know, hop on a million calls and give advice and things like that. If you're kind of wanting to reach out to someone that you don't know, what I find works best for me and when people kind of drop into my DMs, where I'm able to give most value is ask specific questions. So when someone comes into my inbox and they're like, hey,
- 16:48would love to have a chat or would love to go for a coffee so I can hear more about your story. I'm like, hey, I get a million of these messages all the time. You can listen to my story on the podcast or you can listen to it somewhere else. Like that's probably not something I'm able to give you my time for. However, if you reach into my DMs and you have a very specific question like, hey, you know, I'm doing X and I'm trying to get to X. Do you have a recommendation for
- 17:15blah, or what would you do if you were in this situation? And kind of being more specific, that's where I feel like you can get much better answers. It's more like, hey, here's the challenge that I'm having. And I thought of you because of X, of course, like,
- 17:30it's easy to even just able to give a text reply back in those scenarios. Whereas I think like what I've noticed from, you know, getting a lot of messages on Instagram and getting a lot of messages on email and LinkedIn, I love chatting to people and texting is my love language. So I really love being in the DMs, but everyone wants your time. Everyone wants to get on a call. And obviously your time is so precious. So you have to really set clear boundaries. And if you're
- 17:58Imagine if you're a founder running an eight-figure business and you have a team to manage and you're already on lots of different calls. Of course, it's difficult for you to be able to give your time to someone to just have a coffee. It's more like
- 18:11Those with the cold outreach, I think it's a little bit harder. I think you want to kind of follow breadcrumbs of people that you already might know and kind of can build a relationship with them like that. Maybe you get to meet one of these founders who you look up to, you admire, and you get to know them over time. And then it becomes naturally and authentically and organically more of that kind of mentor mentee relationship. But I will say on the topic of mentorship, and I forgot to mention this before.
- 18:40The reason why we started Magic in the first place was to bring elements of that together. So with the kind of, you know, the group calls that we have every week, that gives the opportunity for like-minded founders to come together and help each other. But then also when we're able to bring in guest experts or women from the show to do kind of like intimate Q and A style questions, that's an opportunity for people to access a level of mentorship through.
- 19:08you know, other like-minded founders and people who might be a few steps ahead at kind of a low ticket, affordable price, but you're able to kind of like, you know, use that to your advantage. Whereas if you're looking just for a mentor in your kind of day-to-day business and day-to-day life, I do think it kind of revolves a bit more around having some kind of relationship with someone because it's a bit more of like a
- 19:34I don't know. I think it's a bit more of a personal thing. You either have to go professional where you're paying for services or you're going through a program that specifically is for mentorship or it kind of comes around through organic connection.
- 19:48Mm hmm. Yeah, I see that. I love that part of the community as well, and especially the WhatsApp group, how when these questions pop up that you just need a quick answer to, like you mentioned, the more specific, the better. Those are the kind of questions that founders will often throw in there. And then you have, you know, five responses by the morning. And it's just about having, you know, different perspectives on something sometimes or just doing a gut check of, you know,
- 20:14hey, is this really what I'm supposed to be doing here and getting that green light? Totally. And that's what I kind of meant in the beginning when mentorship and all the concept of mentorship, it can be kind of blurry to define. But one view and one perspective of the WhatsApp group is that all of the women in there you could view as a mentor, because if people are going in and giving you kind of answers and
- 20:37you know, helping you for those questions that for some kind of level is mentorship. And I will just say one last thing. I don't want to sound like I am discouraging people from the cold outreach because the cold outreach is so powerful, but you just need to always put yourself in the reverse position and make sure that you're kind of aware that someone is busy. And maybe if they don't say yes to hopping on a call, it's a no.
- 21:00It's not so much because of you, it's because of that person being really busy or things like that. So the cold outreach is definitely key. And I mean, I love the cold outreach. I do the cold outreach all the time myself. But it's always good to keep in mind kind of how it's a two-way street. And if you're building a relationship specifically from the perspective of mentorship, for me and the way that I've approached that is more through people that I've kind of known. Yeah.
- 21:26Yeah, I really see that. So we've kind of covered this more organic approach to mentorship and a bit more of a kind of casual way of finding someone that you connect with. We touched upon just now having a bit more of a professional approach.
- 21:42one-on-one coaching situation where maybe you pay someone for their services or there's a set amount of time that you meet with someone every week and you really track this progress together. How would you describe this kind of realm of things, the coaching, compared to the more casual, organic mentorship?
- 22:01Yeah. So I guess coaching is really, it's a professional service. You're paying someone for their time. It's formalized. You know that you're going to have X, Y, and Z outcome, or you know that you're going to meet on X, Y, and Z day and X, Y, and Z time, and it's transactional. So you might be looking for a coach again, for just guidance and support and where you can kind of ask questions to and things like that. Or you might be looking for a very specific coach to help you get to a desired outcome, go from A to B.
- 22:30And obviously there are coaches in so many different aspects of life, whether it's, you know, even if you think about therapists, if you think about a relationship coach, if you think about coaches that help executives functioning kind of within a business, and then obviously you can have a business coach who can help you kind of.
- 22:48in that journey too. And so I view mentorship as much more of informal, voluntary, just like relationship-based concept. And then I, concept's not the right word, but you know what I mean. And coaching, I see as professional services where you are, you know, paying to work with someone and make sure that you have, um, this like ongoing relationship. Um,
- 23:11And I know you've been doing some one on one coaching through FSC recently. What are some common things that you see your clients needing help with? Or what does that look like really for an early stage founder? What can they imagine?
- 23:26Yeah, so for coaching, so we launched the coaching at the end of last year. I think we launched it. We launched like iteration one like earlier last year, which was much more like kind of consulting. And then we changed our offering and really made it something that was literally designed for an early stage founder who is in that situation where, and I've been there myself. So I really designed it with myself in mind from when I had the jewelry business of, you
- 23:55you know, you're a solo early stage founder who is, you know, so overwhelmed, doesn't know what to focus on, just doesn't really know what the steps are to keep going or just kind of a bit scattered in the thinking. And when you're an early stage founder, like the loneliness and that kind of feeling of just being like, who do I talk to about this is really difficult. And so having either a mentor or a coach where you can actually kind of know that you're showing up this
- 24:25whatever, and like asking the questions. It is so powerful having these relationships in your life. And I think for me, like,
- 24:33Actually, just to quickly say before I answer the question, coaching has been such joy. I get so much joy from the clients that I have and what we work on. And I have so many different kind of things. Like it's not a one size fits all, right? Like everyone comes into coaching with a different goal or a different challenge that they need help with. So I would say the common things are...
- 24:56you know, solo entrepreneurs who feel lonely. And yes, you might have a partner that you can talk to. And certainly I have this, I can rattle off things, but sometimes you also need to have someone who's unemotionally attached and who has like a different perspective and can just kind of help you with that thing versus someone who's so intimately attached to you and what you're doing. So the kind of common things that, you know,
- 25:19I specifically help early stage founders with is things when it comes to social media and content, when it comes to editorial planning, when it comes to industry connections and just general kind of guidance and accountability and support and talking really to just keep you moving in the direction of what you want. And yeah,
- 25:41For me, I've found that what's really powerful is just being able to like, you know, with my clients, we also have one-to-one kind of messaging. So anytime something comes up, you don't have to wait until we have our scheduled weekly call. We talk things through in real time so that it doesn't kind of, you can just kind of like get it out, figure out which direction you need to go in and keep moving forward. And I kind of liken it to
- 26:07Almost like business therapy. Like sometimes you just need to talk to someone and be like, what do you think? Like you're like not connected to this situation. Like, of course, there's nuance and context to everything, but you do get to know that about your clients over time.
- 26:22So yeah, the summary answer is everything is different. It depends really on the person and where they are in their journey. And if there's also an alignment in terms of personality, I think it's really important to find people that you're like looking forward to talking to and have a good relationship with in that regard. And it can take time. You can, you know, might take you a few different coaches of trying out different things.
- 26:48different styles to find someone that you really gel with and mesh with. And going back to, you know, how to find a coach, even though it's the same kind of approach where you need to follow the breadcrumbs, I would say the difference in this is that's where you are actually searching online. So yes, you can go and get recommendations from a friend, or yes, you can just ask
- 27:08kind of one-to-one in a cold outreach, but you can also actively look for professional coaches on Instagram or LinkedIn who advertise their services as a coach and who have experience in coaching. So it's a little bit more like a professional search versus like a search through your own kind of networking community.
- 27:29Yeah, 100%. And I think a tip for finding coaches that you naturally gel with is also comes down to kind of how you associate with the copy that someone has on their website or how that messaging comes across to you. And that already gives you a bit of an indication whether someone is the kind of person where you're going to have a good back and forth with, which I think is important because...
- 27:51grabbing that momentum from each of these coaching sessions is so valuable, especially at the start of your business where you don't have anyone yet to hold you accountable. You maybe don't have, you know, this momentum built in yet. And a lot of the legwork and a lot of the energy is having to come from you directly. And if you can get energy from a call like this once a week, that can be enough to spur you on for the rest of the week. So it's really valuable to have that and that good back and forth with whoever you're working with.
- 28:19Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Last question on this. I just wanted to ask kind of how accessible do you see this looking for an early stage business founder? What's the money piece? And at what point would you advise someone that this is something worth investing in if they have a very limited budget, like many early stage founders do?
- 28:40I mean, coaching really varies in prices. I've seen, you know, offers from, you know, a few hundred dollars right through to thousands of dollars. And I've definitely done all kinds of different myself personally. For us, you know, when we developed this idea for Female Startup Club and started offering this as a service, I...
- 29:01basically just made it as most affordable as I could for an early stage founder. So we have a weekly subscription. It's 95 US a week and you can cancel or pause anytime and we meet once a week. And basically that's kind of at cost of my time or anything.
- 29:19maybe not even, but I wanted to make it as affordable as possible. But there's really a variety, you know, you can spend thousands of dollars a month on a coach easily. I certainly have. And so it really just depends. It really depends what you're looking for and what you need out of it. I think if you're looking for someone...
- 29:36If you're looking for something very specific, you might be going out and looking for a very specific coach that you hire for three months who's going to get you from that A to B point. Whereas, you know, for us, we're kind of the, yeah, your business therapist or someone who is just going to go along with you on the journey and be that accountability buddy and someone that you can just talk to ongoing every week, whether it's on a call or in the messages.
- 30:01And the answer really, it just varies depending on what you need and how much time you need and things like that. A bit of a strategy of finding a co-founder, kind of looking for these spots where you have weaknesses and then seeing if you have a coach out there or someone you can work with that can fill in those blanks of where you might be missing an essential skill set. Totally, totally. Hey, I love that. Thank you so much, Dune.
- 30:30Love these sessions. Thank you so much for the great questions. That's the pod. That's the pod. Looking forward to next week. See you next week. See you next week. Bye.
- 30:44Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
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