Building Your Relationship | Tips for a Successful Mentoring Relationship

Establish Rapport
Fostering a personal connection and gaining trust are important to any mentoring relationship. Spend time getting to know your match and helping them to know you better. Be curious. If you are an entrepreneur, share with your mentor why you have chosen entrepreneurship and how you are working to make your dream a reality. If you are a mentor, share with your mentee your personal experiences with business and why you are volunteering your time.

Remember your Relationship Etiquette
When entering a mentoring relationship enter it with an attitude of trust and respect. Remember to be courteous to your mentor or mentee, be prompt to meetings, keep true to your commitments, listen carefully and communicate freely and regularly with your match.

Build a Relationship Framework
Establish the ground rules for the relationship right when it starts. For example, how often will you be meeting and what form of communication will you use (email, telephone, etc.—be sure to exchange contact information). Discuss appropriate information about life/business style (i.e., “Please do not call me without a prior appointment” or “I usually do not have access to email or phone before 9am”). At the end of each meeting, always map out your next meeting: when will it take place and what will the agenda be? Be prepared and dependable.

Clearly Define Business Problems
Work with your match to pinpoint the exact nature of the most critical business issues. Encourage lots of questions—this process will help both you and your match better understand the challenges at hand.

Setting & Achieving Realistic Goals
Once you both have a solid understanding of the business problems, work with your match to establish goals and objectives towards solving this problem. Seek and offer business advice in small, manageable steps that are specific, measurable, realistic and able to be accomplished within a reasonable amount of time. Clearly define the desired outcomes of the relationship—what will success look like? In each meeting, clarify and restate the goal to each other and identify the next steps related to the goal.

Create Accountability
End each meeting by establishing a clear set of action steps to work on and begin each following meeting with a brief progress summary on those action steps.

Get Help When You Need It
If you have any questions or concerns while working with your match, please email us at support@micromentor.org. We are here to help.