Mentorship is The Ultimate Shortcut

[backinblack]

Warning, unsolicited advice ahead: My best advice to anyone new to the industry is to find a mentor if you can. It's hard to wade through the untested, theoretical fluff to find what is actually useful and valuable in this industry. Decide what exactly you want to do, find someone that has been verifiably successful at it and see if you can get an in.

Having a mentor can shave years off the learning curve for anything you are trying to learn, they can also help you avoid pitfalls and if you are really fortunate they can make valuable introductions and directly promote your success in the industry. This piece of advice is something I wish I had figured out sooner, I spent several years hitting my head against wall after wall, learning the hard way before I got my first mentor.

Note that this is not necessarily the same thing as coaching. I have had a handful of mentors (5) in this industry, none of which were paid coaching arrangements. That is not to knock paid coaching, I was prepared to pay for coaching with several of them in more recent years but it just didn't end up being necessary. It has been my experience that people that are awesome at what they do love to talk shop, they love to be recognized for their accomplishments and if you go about it right you can make friends.

Tips for getting a mentor:

1. Don't tell them you want them to mentor you. No, really, it's awkward and it sounds like a big pain in the ass to the person hearing it. It sounds like a time commitment and extra work. I have had 5 excellent mentors in the industry and while I later thanked them many times for their mentorship I never brought that up until we had an established friendship and even then never asked, just told them I was grateful for what they had done for me.
   
   
2. Find a way to get your foot in the door. Maybe that is joining groups/forums they are in, maybe it is commenting on their blog post and having something interesting to say. Do some homework on them. I got one of my mentors after I did a write-up about a marketing strategy he was using on my blog, I directly referenced him then sent him an email linking to the write-up, asked him if he thought I did his campaign justice along with a couple other follow-up questions.
   
   
3. Don't be lazy or a pain in the ass. Don't treat your mentor like google, or like they owe you something. Be grateful, respect their time and make sure you are doing your own homework and work too so that you can ask thoughtful questions. Your mentor likely shed blood, sweat and tears to accumulate the knowledge and experience they have so respect that.
   
   
4. Give back. It can sound misleading when I say I have never paid for mentorship. I have certainly written content for, built websites for, built links for, and done all kinds of favours for my mentors. I shamelessly promote them, champion them, recommend them, and even defend them as needed anytime I get the chance. I don't wait for them to ask me to do it, I just do it. If I find out they have a problem I can help with I help. If they ask me for a favour I try to come through for them. Like any good friendship, it should be a two-way street. In exchange for this they have opened their brains for me to pick, they have made the rounds with me to introduce me to key people, they've sent me business, done JVs with me. Beyond that, they have become some of my closest and dearest friends as well.

Hope maybe this helps someone on their way to where they want to be. Or that future me builds a time machine and goes back to share this advice with past me (and also kills baby Hitler, of course.) Good luck bros!

 

[Ryuzaki]

Something I think about with these unspoken arrangements, that you pointed out, is that the receiving party has got to take action on the advice and favors being given. I've been in situations where I've written full blown documents with explanations on doing on-page optimization for people, watched them jump to the top 5 immediately, have a discussion about why it works... and then they go right back to publishing with zero optimization. It was all good when I was the one doing the work, you know... that's a quick way to burn a bridge.

Another mind blowing thing I've seen happen to a friend of mine on the order of 100 times at least is the student wanting to become the master, make the master the enemy, fail to defeat them, become bitter and resentful, and then quit and/or never succeed in the industry. All after the mentor spent countless hours helping freely with no thought of getting anything in return.

 

[eliquid]

I want to frame this as guidance for those wanting to be a mentee

1. Do what you've been guided to, at least the majority of the time. I'm not saying you owe it to your mentor to do everything they say. Hey, it is YOUR life.. right? But when someone like myself takes time to answer all your questions and help you and guides you and you basically do none of it ( or do 1 of the 100's of things I mentioned, but you executed piss poorly so you were bound to fail ), I start thinking it would be better to talk to a brick wall instead of you. So I start to not help you after a while.
   
   I want to help someone succeed. Not talk to the abyss and see you not try and fail because you were lazy and unconfident.
   
   
2. Don't ask too broad or too specific questions. Some questions are just too broad like, "What should I sell on Amazon" or "What's the best way to do PPC". Others are too specific like, "I bought these dried pig ears from Brazil and it's getting shipped by sea and should be in Miami in 2 weeks. Do you think I can sell all these to German Shepherd owners in Texas via Adwords for less than 0.50 an order before Thanksgiving on just the Display network with text ads?"
   
   We can't answer either for you, realistically.
   
   3. We don't know everything. You're still on the hook for your own success. Listen, we know some shit, but we can't know everything all the time and predict the future for you. Also, you alone determine your own success. If I laid out the same ABC course to my success step and step and you copied it word for word, you still may fail. Knowing that, you should invest in your own research and strategies before and after talking to a mentor.
   
   I have people that I told, "You need to be doing this" or "This is how it should be done" and they still fail. Mostly because they didn't do their due diligence and didn't course correct when things went south.
   
   Example: I told a very good friend of mine he should be selling web design and marketing services to tow truck companies ( voice assisted search ) in a certain area of the USA. It's a hot market I uncovered for him and gave to him. He failed at it and said I was stupid.
   
   What really happened was he called 3 companies randomly and unprepared, couldn't get past the gatekeeper and deliver value, and decided this was shit.
   
   Was the issue really me? No. He failed because he wanted an exact hand out and nothing else. When he did the minimum needed, he failed as expected.
   
   4. Give something back. This is a bit personal, so maybe it's just me. But give something back.
   You don't really owe it, but why not?
   
   I know personally I have helped several people go from broke in bankruptcy to doing 7 figures in less than 6 months. I got a "thanks" via Skype and that was it. I've helped a ton more in better situation do an extra 6 figures and barely got a "thanks".
   
   Should it be more? I don't know honestly. Again it may be me and how I am.
   
   Thanks is always good, it's the minimum.
   
   However, if someone did the same for me I would have offered to fly them out and spend the week with me and send them a Christmas card and maybe a little more. I would have figured out what they liked from their Twitter and Facebook and done something more for sure.
   
   At some point these relationships can turn out like Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone needs our help when they start out and we genuinely care and help as much we can. As the kids grow up and need less help ( like a mentee ), we hardly hear from them and then 5 years passes and not a word from the grandkids while they are out living life up that we helped build for them.
   
   Sometimes just you hopping on to say "Hi" instead of asking for more help is enough.
   
   .

 

[Tao]

I think I fall into the trap of knowing too much and taking not enough action. It comes from years of following the latest guru, buying the wrong "flash in the pan" PDF and chasing black-hat methods that quickly get killed along with your site and earnings.

One of the main issues with IM or MMO is that there are a lot of charlatans out there that have all the shiny new tools, talk the most and the loudest and inspire by "transparency" and proving their earnings. Sure, some of them do give good advice and their earnings are inspiring, but it's hard to split that wheat and chaff when all you really need is a specific piece of advice on what you might be doing wrong, or what you should be doing next. I suspect that the majority of people who follow someone like Pat Flynn are still not making money, just because he flips around too much from one idea to the next.

As mentors go, this is the best forum/place on the Internet I have found that has people who are giving what I would call "real and sensible advice". Sheez! The Crash Course and the whole mindset part is just pure gold! Sure, most of it means you need to knuckle down and take that action, but you can be rest assured that next week those people won't be shifting their attention to the next upcoming affiliate deal where they can promote a new WSO to you.

 

[eliquid]

I don't want to split the thread or break off into a tangent, but what @Tao brings up is a good point.

A lot of people ( I've learned, for various reasons ) have very very VERY poor decision making skills.

On top of it all, people always think there is a shortcut or magic bullet around the hard work.

People also hate to admit they are wrong.

( future mentees, pay attention here! )

When you combine all three ( I could go into detail why, but will skip for now ), you end up with what @Tao is talking about with the IM and Pat Flynn crowd ( the PDF's, blackhat, money chase, etc ).

I am sure there is more, but I've distilled down that if you can:

1. Admit you are wrong
2. Admit there is no shortcut or magic bullet to most things
3. Develop solid problem solving skills - Book

You won't fall into a trap like this ( as described above ). Notice I didn't say you wouldn't fail, just that you won't fall into the "trap".

These are fundamentals that I know most people have not grasped yet, and more than likely never will. These people I speak about are in their 60's and 70's and still not grasped it.

Something I personally do ( but sometimes fail at - see I am wrong at times ) is to say NO to everything first and then if needed, find a reason for yes later. For you nerds, its like a deny all approach to Apache.

Example:
Latest guru or Skype friend ask me to buy their course on how to close 50 more clients in 24 hours with the magic funnel that I just need to check out and watch a webinar on.

I say NO and move along. I have to let my subconscious work and tickle me later for a reason on YES. My subconscious never does, so I avoid the trap of their new shiny object that I have to remind myself 6 months later I never used and hunt down the cancelation process in Paypal.

Compared to, if I would have jumped on it with an open mind "Yes Maybe" attitude, watching the webinar, wasting 45 minutes of my time and now my inbox to their sales tactic, out $1300, and trying a new shiny object project that gets me nowhere and regretting it.

In my process, my brain has to work to prove my NO wrong. Sometimes it does when Im in the shower later or in bed or just driving along a long trip where I am with just my thoughts. When that happens, I know I need to go back and maybe rethink because my brain had to work to convince me I was wrong.

The times my brain doesn't do this.. I know I made the right choice and never got trapped.


If you are looking for a mentor and you can't do #1 - #3 above. Do everyone a favor and don't waste someone's time asking for help. You need to get yourself right first before someone else can help you ( really help ). Otherwise, you will be wasting your time and theirs.

.

 

[Coney]

4. Give something back. This is a bit personal, so maybe it's just me. But give something back.
You don't really owe it, but why not?

I know personally I have helped several people go from broke in bankruptcy to doing 7 figures in less than 6 months. I got a "thanks" via Skype and that was it. I've helped a ton more in better situation do an extra 6 figures and barely got a "thanks".

Should it be more? I don't know honestly. Again it may be me and how I am.

Thanks is always good, it's the minimum.

However, if someone did the same for me I would have offered to fly them out and spend the week with me and send them a Christmas card and maybe a little more. I would have figured out what they liked from their Twitter and Facebook and done something more for sure.

At some point these relationships can turn out like Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone needs our help when they start out and we genuinely care and help as much we can. As the kids grow up and need less help ( like a mentee ), we hardly hear from them and then 5 years passes and not a word from the grandkids while they are out living life up that we helped build for them.

Sometimes just you hopping on to say "Hi" instead of asking for more help is enough.

.

You got more than I did. I ran into a guy that owns a funnel cake food truck. I was impressed with the business and the logo that he had for the truck so he and I became Facebook friends. I googled his business and to my shock he didn't have the domain name registered. I sent him a private message through Facebook warning him that if he didn't register the domain name that someone else could and charge him out the wazoo if he ever wanted it one day...

Silence.

After about three months or so, I checked to see if had indeed registered the name and sure enough he did and never once said thanks, heck, he didn't say anything. So yeah, you got way more than I did

Another similar incident just came to mind. I met up with a guy who was doing tours in a city out in the midwest. It was a one on one tour of the history of the city. I was so impressed with him that I said to him, Look, you need to branch out and do specialty tours like many other cities have, ie, Littly Italy, African American History, Irish, etc....this city had no one doing that. I told him that he should make the business official by getting business cards, website and trying to grow it. Now I have never been a business owner but I gave my opinion as a consumer and what I expected from a tour operator as a consumer. Once again, we became Facebook friends and about 1 or 2 years after that I happened to look at his Facebook page and voila, he had implemented every single idea I suggested to him and didn't even reach out to me to at least say "Yeah, I took your advice and now see how my business has grown". Now these ideas didn't take these people from bankruptcy to wealthy like the poster above did, and I was certainly not a mentor, but geez louise, I gave my opinion from the consumer's point of view and it worked out both times, couldn't I at least get an update instead of dead silence?