Are you a mentee or a mirror?

You’ve hired a mentor with a great reputation. But when you ask for advice, do you get the impression she’s talking to herself? When she looks at your business, she sees her own position and her own market.

A few years ago, I worked with a well-known mentor (call her “Meredith”) who promised to help my business go through the roof. What went through the roof instead was my frustration level.

One day Meredith and I were chatting about ways to increase opt-in lists. Meredith had just returned from a conference where a mega-guru was advising everyone to send out CDs in return for subscription opt-in info.

“I’m going to do that myself,” she said.

Ah, there’s the red flag. It’s not unnatural. Mentors often prescribe the solutions they’re using at the moment to solve their current challenges. That’s fine if you resemble your mentor and your market resembles your mentor’s market. Otherwise you may need to start a search for a new mentor (or find a way to get your current mentor out of mirror mode).

Fortunately, I chose to ignore Meredith’s advice. Meredith was prescribing a tactic and I needed a strategy. Since then I’ve met many successful, experienced marketers who tried the CD strategy and realized it was actually counter-productive in their markets.

Another guru I’ll call “Loretta” decided to send out some Special Reports valued at $7 for a 100% commission. She used this tactic to build her list. However, Loretta was connected to some powerful affiliates with lists of 20-30,000. These affiliates knew Loretta had a powerful “back-end” product with a high-end price tag and generous commission.

Loretta recommended that all her mentees do the same: develop $7 ebooks and seek affiliate partners. Unfortunately, most of her mentees were not as well connected and none had that  “back-end.” As an affiliate myself I can’t spare a mailing for a low-end micro-priced product unless I anticipate real value down the road. And I think my affiliates feel the same way.

Warning signals:

• Your mentor recommends tactics, not strategies.  Tactics work only as part of broader strategies.
• Your mentor recommends whatever she or he is doing right now. Chances are you, your business and your market are in a different place.
• Your mentor balks at the question, “How can I adapt this tactic to my business and my market?” If you chose one-to-one consulting, your mentor should not recommend cookie-cutter, “one size fits all” approaches.

More info: Believe it or not, I wrote an ebook about choosing a mentor. Click here to learn more.

And if you’d like  to discover the real way to grow your opt-in list, sign up for my low-cost workshop right here. Or go to http://budurl.com/optinexpress

Tagged as: Professional Services Marketing