Written by Kiesha King-Brown ,Founder
Kiesha King-Brown is Founder and CEO of Differentiated Consulting LLC, a firm with a passion for retail and small business. With emphasis on strategy, customer lens, and leader development throughout her 15+ years of executive retail and business experience, her partnership as a Consulting Strategist brings game changing results for clients.
A trusted partnership along the journey of success, mentorship is a purposeful relationship that contributes to both professional and profitable growth. 76% of working professionals believe that mentorship is important to growth. While most initially assume mentorship is all about professional growth, more than 50% of businesses felt mentoring also positively impacted their profits.
Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced person in the business provides guidance, advice and development to another person. Not only does it provide access to experience and insider knowledge, but it also reduces the learning curve. And it is a relationship that is mutually beneficial. Value is added on both sides from a learning and experience perspective.
There are 10 Things That Make Mentorship More Impactful:
The mentor must be more experienced than the mentee in their industry.
Expectations must be clarified on both ends from the beginning.
The mentee must respect the mentor’s role and time.
The mentee must keep the mentor proactively informed.
The relationship should be built around them as people first and professionals second.
Both must be receptive listeners when it comes to communication.
Both must be proactive preparers relative to interactions.
Interactions should be two-way and respectful.
The mentor must be able to meet the mentee where they are as a leader, and progress them developmentally.
The mentor should be able to balance support and accountability in order to remove blinders and challenge thought process and behavior.
61% of Business Owners Mentor Others
There are several resources available for business owners to partner with mentors. The SCORE association is a non-profit that works with the Small Business Association, SBA, to help connect small businesses and volunteer mentors across the United States. They help them start, run, and grow businesses. The mentors provided are both active and retired professionals.
The VOBC, Veterans Business Outreach Center, provides entrepreneurial development services such as business training, counseling, mentorship, and resource partner referrals to transitioning service members, veterans, National Guard and Reserve members and military spouses interested in starting or growing a small business.
The AWBC, Association of Women’s Business Centers, is a network of over 100 business centers across the United States that support female entrepreneurs. They help women succeed in business through training, mentoring, business development, and financing opportunities to support over 150,000 women annually.
Local Chambers of Commerce also provide ambassador or mentorship type programs for small businesses. These Chambers are also well connected to businesses that have mentorship programs independent of those within the Chambers themselves.
Whether an individual or organizational partnership, business mentorship adds tangible value to the mentee, the mentor, and the business. And, according to Forbes, research shows that 70% of small businesses that are mentored are successful beyond the five-year mark, which is twice the rate of businesses without a mentor. Partnering with a business mentor in the current economy seems like even more of a no brainer.
Mentorship minimizes business risk, increases sustainability, and…just makes business sense.
I help small business owners and retail businesses that understand the importance of business mentorship and are ready to go to the next level with business coaching. I partner with businesses to create game-changing, future-oriented strategies around the customer, competition, and financial indicators to increase revenue.
Kiesha King-Brown is an experienced Business Executive that partners to help small business owners accelerate growth with strategic, AI-enhanced consulting so they can spend more time working on the business than in the business, and spend more time doing the things they enjoy. She has an MBA in Management, BSBA in Marketing, and holds certifications in Consulting and Executive Coaching. She draws her inspiration from 20 years experience at Fortune 200 companies in Executive Leadership and HR positions helping leaders build strategies, enhance development, and grow their business. Kiesha is author of "Differentiated Leadership", an Advisory Board Member for a Talent Management SaaS company, and Chief Relationship Development Officer for a Business Development SaaS company.
