“You don’t even have to ask somebody to be your mentor to get this kind of benefit, but if you do want to make that kind of ask.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 421
How do you build your mentor network?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I thought I’d share a quick exchange I had this last week with a listener who was looking for some advice via LinkedIn. This is short enough and Alex gave me permission to use his name so I’m actually going to read this and then share some additional comments at the end. So this comes from Alex Whyte who is an Enterprise Account Executive at GoCardless in the UK. Hi Scott – Thanks for connecting. I’m currently getting sucked into your book ’Sales Success Stories’ and it’s fair to say a common theme (as you clearly stated at the start) is that top performers all boast mentors. I’d love to know how one goes about building a mentor network? Any pointers massively appreciated. Best, Alex. P.S. Fantastic book – will definitely recommend.
To which my reply was: Alex, Just ask. Find people you admire who are where you’d like to be and ask them. 9 times out of 10 they’ll be flattered and be happy to help. You just have to run the process. Schedule time. Act on their advice. Report back. The episode I’ve got set up to release tomorrow on Sales Success Stories might be helpful for you as well (here I was referring to Jacquelyn Nicholson’s Sales Success Summit Presentation titled Stand on the Shoulders of Giants – Coaches, Mentors and You that we released last Tuesday on the Sales Success Stories podcast.)
Alex then says: Great stuff Scott – makes sense. I follow your podcasts currently so I’ll check out the new one. Appreciate it! That was Tuesday.
Then on Thursday, he writes: Hi Scott – really enjoyed your recent podcast with Jacquelyn Nicholson. Certainly pertinent to my question above. I took action today on the back of your suggestion and approached a senior sales leader at Google. The response was exactly as you predicted – “happy to help.” Thanks again – will be sure to stay tuned to more of your podcasts.
So, first of all, it was fun to watch all of this play out over the course of just 3 days. But there’s really a story in the story if you look at what Alex did, and I suspect he doesn’t even realize what he did.
First, he reached out to me with a specific question. That allowed me to daily respond with specific advice. So in a very limited way, I’ve now become a mentor to Alex. But the most important thing that Alex did is that he acted on the advice and reported back. That right there is the key, because if and when Alex reaches back out to ask for advice again in the future. I’ll be glad to do it.
Don’t overthink this mentoring thing. You just heard it in action and it was super simple. Reach out. Ask for specific advice. Act on the advice and report back. Then rinse and repeat. It’s really as simple as that. You don’t even have to ask somebody to be your mentor to get this kind of benefit, but if you do want to make that kind of ask. Again I think you’re very likely to get this “happy to help” type of response.
Now it’s your turn. Go try it! And if you want to share this idea. Click over to DailySales.Tips/421 where you’ll find the full transcript along with the audio in a way that is super easy to pass along.
Thanks for listening and be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip! Thanks for listening!