The Three Mentors Every Entrepreneur Needs

There are two traits inherent in every entrepreneur, no matter what your business type or niche: 

• Motivation and Drive: The deep, burning desire to build something greater than yourself.
• Expertise: The knowledge required to do something. If you're a coach, this could be your coaching skills. If you're starting an Etsy shop, the skills you have to craft and create something.

These two things will get you started, but there are three types of mentorship and guidance every entrepreneur needs to grow their business:

1. Encouraging Mentorship
2. Business Mentorship
3. Mindset Mentorship

In this episode I talk in depth about the three types of mentorship that every entrepreneur needs, including: 

• What they each mean
• How they relate to each other
• Why they're important
• How to find the right mentorship

In today's episode, I am going to be talking about the three types of mentors, or the three types of mentorship, that every entrepreneur needs. No matter what kind of entrepreneur you are, whether you are a coach or just starting your own ecommerce business, these three types of mentorship are really important for you to take charge of your business and grow in the way that you want to grow. When I was starting my business, I had the two things that a lot of entrepreneurs have. These are the two things that really help you get started, and they're what helped me get started. 

I had, first, motivation and drive. The second is I had the expertise for how I was going to help people. That's what helped me get started, but as I started to really step into what I would call my true entrepreneurial identity, I realized that just those two things—motivation and expertise—were not enough to really grow the business in the way that I envisioned. I started to realize that there were some pieces of the puzzle that were missing for me, and my job as an entrepreneur, if I wanted to create this successful, self-sustaining business, was to figure out what those pieces were and then find them. 

There were three things in particular that I needed to hear and that I needed to have some guidance on. The first thing I really needed to hear was, “Hey, Jacob, you can do it.” I needed that encouragement. The second thing I needed was, “Hey, Jacob, here's how you do it.” I needed that guidance. The third thing I needed to hear was, “Hey, Jacob, let's get your head on right. Let's get your mindset right, so that you can do it.” I already had the first thing pretty early on, which is the encouragement that “Hey, Jacob, you can do it,” but I didn't yet have those other two pieces I needed. 

I want to back up and talk about that encouragement piece; that is such a core element, because you do need to have that encouragement every day. For me, that mentor, that you-can-do-it mentor, the encouraging mentor, was my grandfather Jerry Hancock, who I have talked about a little bit on the show before, and who I talk about a little bit as well in my book. Now he has been, really my entire life, responsible for seeding this entrepreneurial spirit in me, so it was natural that he was a really big piece of the conversation I was having with him and with myself in regards to starting this business. Having that level of encouragement from him was so important and still is so important to this day. Even today, if I have a rough day, or I need some encouragement, he's usually one of the first people I call for that, because I know that I can depend on him in that way. 

I know that I am so lucky and fortunate to have grown up with this encouragement mentor, with this figure who is a really successful entrepreneur and business owner in his own right, but you might not have the same privilege, which means that if you're feeling like you don't have the encouragement you need, not just the internal encouragement from yourself, but that external encouragement, it's really important to be intentional about going and finding that. 

The second type of mentor I believe that every entrepreneur needs is the business coach or the business mentor. My grandfather Jerry, in a lot of ways, was also this for me in the beginning of my business and still to this day. Beyond that, I have had lots of different people who have helped fill this role for me. I have worked with business coaches who focus with me specifically on the sales piece, specifically on the scaling piece. This has been super important for me, because while I am, in pretty much every sense of the word, a business growth expert, I still have my own blind spots; I still have my own strengths and weaknesses. That's true for all of us, regardless of what our specific area of expertise or our niche is. We all have these blind spots; when it comes to growing our business, we need that tactical and strategic support in order to, in the first place, just know how to do the things that you need to do. 

Before we go into this third type of mentor, it's worth noting that when we're talking about these three different types of mentors or mentorship, it doesn't mean that these are three separate people, or that these are three separate mentors, because one person can play all of these roles, and sometimes you need more than one person just to play one role. So it's important to separate this idea of mentor and mentorship from the idea of a single person, because if I am talking about the business coaches that I have personally worked with over the course of my business up until even today, they have played very specific roles within how they're helping, within the specific aspect of the business they're helping in. And all of my business coaches that I've worked with have played this encouragement role as well as helped me with this third type of mentor or mentorship, which is the mindset mentor. 

This is really around “Hey, let's work together to get your head on straight, so that you can do the things that you need to do.” The reason this is so important is that working with a lot of business coaches, you'll really get the tactics and the strategies you need, but if—and I'm going to use this phrase again—if your head isn't on right, or if you're having some mindset issues, those are going to ultimately get in the way of the results that you achieve. 

This comes with a massive, massive, massive disclaimer, which is that if you are working with a business coach and not getting results, and the business coach is trying to find an excuse, saying, “Oh, well, this is a mindset issue, not a tactics issue,” and they're not helping you with that mindset issue, that's a massive, massive red flag. That is a honestly fairly common tactic that some less-than-ethical business coaches use to try to explain why you or why their clients aren't getting results. You absolutely do need this mindset piece, but you also don't want to be gaslit into believing that the problem is with you, or the problem is with your mindset, because usually it's not just mindset. If you're not getting results, it's usually also something to do with the tactics and strategies you're using, because with a lot of tactics and strategies, those tactics should more or less work, regardless of your mindset. 

Now there are some specific instances around how you're showing up to conversations, and how you are interacting with prospective clients that are informed by your mindset. But other than that, marketing tactics, if they're being consistently implemented, don't 100% rely on you being in the right frame of mind. However, having your head on straight, having the right mindset, does, in fact, improve the results and will also increase the amount of fulfillment and joy you are finding in the process. I also don't want to discount the mindset piece, because at the same time, it really is important, but it's not the only thing.

At the end of the day, you don't just need to have that right mindset; you also need to have the right encouragement, and you need to have the right business tactics and strategies that are going to help you attract new clients. Whether you're finding this mentorship from one person, from three different people, or from 12 different people, it's important that you do have each of these three things in your business. 

As always, thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of the Client Attractor Show. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our next episode. Take care.