In my life I have been blessed with wonderful mentors.
Growing up I had great examples to follow. My parents, coaches, teachers, professors all impacted my life positively. Later in life I entered the Marine Corps and was mentored by several higher ranking Marines. Later still, after starting Intense Debate and getting into TechStars, I was absurdly lucky to go from meeting to meeting and visit with people like Alex King, Brad Feld, David Cohen, Todd Vernon, and several others. A lot of Intense Debate’s success is drawn from outstanding mentorship.
Having taken a break from the consumer web business and entering a more conservative industry (natural stone), I found myself in need of a new type of mentor.
The way you find a mentor is kinda like how you might find anything else. You look for it! There is no magic. Search for one, two, or however many suits you.
I found that mentor last Summer. Since then it has been a similar experience to the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” books. Every week there is a new lesson. Each lesson is backed up with stories, structured reasoning, and most importantly, numbers.
This week’s topic was looking at a potential distributor scenario. We fleshed out numbers, a breakeven analysis, and role played a negotiation scenario. After it was over he told me to come up with 50 ideas. I said, “For what?” He said, “For every question you have. What channels are there to market? What Marketing Materials are needed to reach those channels? What content goes into the marketing materials? Everything.”
He went onto say “You see, you don’t truly know your business until you can come up with 50 ideas. It isn’t an arbitrary number. If you can’t come up with 50 ideas for everything, then you don’t know your business” (your customer, your channel, your marketing, etc).
I found this advice tremendously relevant to my business and I just wanted to share it with you
