Finding a Mentor Who Thinks Holistically

Hi. This is Paul D'Eleazar, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Show before we get into today's topic, I have 1 request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, your guest show is yours truly me, Paul Zellizer, the founder of Awarepreneurs and a business coach for social entrepreneurs for show a long time now, I've been in business for 16 years, and our topic today is finding a mentor who thinks holistically.

Show so some of you know who Abraham Maslow is. He's really well known. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right? He was thinking about show, human performance and psychology and really challenge psychology to help us think proactively about humans in show terms of what is possible for us as opposed to psychology had been previously pretty focused show on problems and clinical issues. And famously, Abraham Maslow liked to say, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. So you might be asking yourself, well, Paul, what does this have to do with show, mentorship and growing impact focus businesses. Well, let me give you 2 examples of things that have happened in my life show that have helped me become a better coach and think more holistically. Number 1 is I had the honor of being selected show by the United States SBA, Small Business Administration, they have a program in cities around America, including in Albuquerque where I live.

It's called the SBA Thrive program, and it's an accelerator for local businesses who've kinda hit a ceiling in growth, show and their founder or the person running it doesn't have an MBA. They don't have formal training. They're an entrepreneur really excited to be in their local community, show But, you know, they've kinda topped out what they know how to do, and it's a great program, lots of great research on its effectiveness. We have 22 members show in our cohort here in Albuquerque, and as I record this, we're about halfway through 8 modules. And I wanna share with you what those 8 modules are, show and it'll give you a sense of what I'm talking about at the holistic one one example of how I'm learning about show, thinking about business coaching in more holistic ways, and later on, we'll talk about what does this mean for you in looking for mentorship. Show so the 8 modules are, number 1, becoming an effective leader, number 2, business planning and development, show, number 3, business finance and raising capital. Number 4, HR, human resources, show, hiring and company culture, number 5, marketing and building brand awareness, number 6, driving sales, number 7, digital marketing and social media strategies, show And number 8, legal compliance IP, that is intellectual property, and contracts. Show, that's a 6 month program, and you get a sense.

I hope, like, this is quite comprehensive, show and nobody is equally skilled or equally needs work in all the areas. Show, what I've learned halfway through, you know, we just finished module 4. The modules show are you know, they're online and people study them, and then we get together as a cohort, and we discuss and unpack and talk about where each show, individual business owner is got some challenges. People share, you know, their strengths when they have them. They can ask questions. We have show outside, experts who are local who come in, the last one was on HR, somebody who had done HR in a large organization for decades, show really skilled people coming in as well as the business owners themselves. They have to have been in business for a while making at least 200 50,000 a year have at least 2 employees besides themselves. Right? So everybody's up and running to a pretty good degree, and this is to help supercharge things or accelerate things.

That's what an accelerator is. But I think you get a sense, like, that's stretched me and helped me grow. I have some strengths. I used to be the director of social media for a large conference. Right? I know something about that in marketing and company culture, show but the legalities and compliance and HR, you know, not my strengths historically. Now show, this doesn't mean that somebody can know about everything. Right? We have people come in. I'm not teaching the curriculum.

There's an online curriculum, and then we have guests. Show, speakers come in with expertise, but what I can say is I'm a better coach taking part in this program. It's such an honor to lead people through show, the curriculum, and get people talking to each other and sharing their wisdom. But I'm a better coach, and even for my non SBA clients, show, I'm thinking more holistically as being a part of such a well orchestrated and designed program. Show so that's one example. Let me give you another example, again, from my recent experience. In addition to being the coach for SBA Thrive, show, I was also earlier this year recruited and started as a consultant for New Mexico Angels. Show New Mexico Angels is the largest and in some ways kind of the only game in town.

New Mexico is not a big state. We have two point 2,000,000 people total in Albuquerque, Greater Albuquerque areas, you know, something like 7, 800,000 people depending if you show, you know, how you count things, and we're the largest city in New Mexico. Right? So you get a sense, fairly small state, but this is the largest network. I think we're up show over a 140 members. Right? And this is where people come to learn about early stage investing show end, look at deals as a group, talk things through, share information, ask questions together. It's a great network. Show and again, it's been a tremendous learning experience for me to be in the network. I got invited in to help.

Show, I'm the a membership and sponsorship consultant. That's my titles to help attract new members and help attract sponsors. Right? They knew I had certain or they felt like I had certain business development skills, which is why I got recruited, show I'm learning about early stage investing, and I was adjacent to I've certainly had clients who've gotten investment, show some quite significant, but it's not something that I've gone super deep in. And then over the course of this year, show, my knowledge and just real world stories and experience and talking to people who've gotten 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars in investment in a variety of different structures, it's just so much clear to me that side of the entrepreneurial journey when somebody wants to go to an angel investor or a VC, what does that even look like? Who's a good candidate? What are some of the show mechanisms, what does the selection process look like, how are deals structured? In 9 months, I've learned more than in my 15 years of business previously about that particular topic. So what I notice is I'm able to be of service to my clients even though show, I am not the right person to, you know, structure a deal and get into a lot of details. I have supportive people in my network. Show when something is, you know, kind of past my knowledge base, but I'm able to help clients look at their options, show, whether we're talking about HR, which again is not my genius, I'm not in any way positioning myself as an HR expert, show I know so much more about how HR fits and when it's important to be asking certain questions and when certain legal thresholds. Show You know, we were talking about an example when the group met last Wednesday about certain things happen at show, when a company gets to, you know, 15 employees, let's say, in our state or nationally when you hit certain threshold.

Show, I understand those thresholds and when it's important to get some help and to be proactively planning for things show, even if I am not the primary HR expert or the primary person who's gonna be structuring a deal, I know show, more about when to bring these conversations or to even put them on the menu because I'm more comfortable and I understand it better. Show, I can be a more holistic mentor or coach. So that's a little bit my thinking show kindness, and what does it mean for you? Somebody who's thinking about, you know, finding a mentor or assessing, show, the situation, the support that you have right now with a coach, with a mentor, with your team, etcetera, show, that's why I wanted to do this episode. This is fresh for me, and my clients are seeing better results even though I would have said, a year ago, I try to think really holistically, and I've done a lot of work to prepare these 2 experiences and some others that I won't get into on the show. Show, I am thinking more holistically asking better questions, and my clients are getting better results. So I want that for you. Show, so let's talk about what can you do to either assess whether you have the holistic thinking type of support that that you're able to access that now or, like, if you're starting to think about building out support, what can you be asking, what can you be looking for, etcetera. So in a moment, I wanna give you 5 specific questions to help you assess show, what kind of support you're getting and how holistic it would be and how you can really suss out somebody's mindset that you're show in the role of mentor or coach.

But before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of LinkedIn. In fact, I've recently been sharing some of the experiences I've had of getting show, business consulting contracts from my LinkedIn connections. But let me give you a few data points that'll help you understand why I'm so excited. LinkedIn has users in over 200 countries, and 53% of LinkedIn users have a high monthly income. Show, only about 1% of LinkedIn users actually post on the platform regularly. Compare that to Instagram show, it's over 69%, so it's much harder to get your content seen. And lastly, marketers see 2 x show higher conversion on LinkedIn than any other social media platform.

Maybe you've heard about LinkedIn and you've thought about using it, but you're not really sure what to do. Show, how do you attract higher level opportunities through LinkedIn? I've been doing a lot of sessions with people on this exact topic, show, LinkedIn for social entrepreneurs. If you wanted to, we could use my strategy session format to do a LinkedIn profile review, we'll do things like look at your headshot, your timeline photo, your bio, your about section, your experience, show and tailor them all to your ideal client. And in addition, we'll do a simple LinkedIn marketing plan for your business based on your goals to help you leverage this powerful platform. If you'd like to find out more, you can click on the link below, then just let me know. You'd really like to show, up level your game on LinkedIn and get more results. So I have 5 questions for you that are gonna help you assess show, where you are, what's the best need for your situation, and when you're looking at show potentially adding to or assessing your team of mentoring or coaching support, where are the strengths and where are some of the, you know, gaps that might help you be intentional about finding a holistic mentor. Show first question is, where are you on your business journey? Are you very early on pre revenue or, you know, show, pretty, small amount of revenue on a monthly or yearly basis.

Or have you been out a little while and you got decent revenue, but maybe you've hit a ceiling? Or, show, you know, you're mostly solo, and you have a little bit of contract help, and you're trying to grow into, like, team in a more robust way. Or do you have a team of 3 to 5? But now you're, like, thinking, okay. I'd really like to scale it. Got some things that are working. Systems are, you know, okay, but not great, and I wanna up level that. Show, where are you? There's just different needs and different experiences depending on which stage of business growth. So be honest, do some reflection. Where are you on your business journey? Second, what is your business model? Show, are you, you know, a SaaS, you know, software as a service platform? Do you make physical products? Are you somebody who is a show, consultant or service provider.

These are all very different types. Do you make a physical thing? I just, you know, show signed up to go to a presentation of next level battery technology for the sustainability and electrification of our economy space. Right? Show, that's really different than a consulting business or a, software as a service business. And understanding what your business model is, what's the product, show, how are you providing value to your customers or clients? That's gonna help you more accurately assess show all the skills in business, nobody can know everything, but certain kinds of businesses are gonna show issues that repeat themselves, questions that you need to answer effectively, and some things that aren't gonna transfer as well. For instance, if somebody's done a real intense scaled, technical business. They may have less understanding show of how to build and grow a consulting business or something that involves more touch. So the second question is, what is your business model? How do you provide value to your clients or customers? Number 3, the question I want you to ask is, how much business training show experience do you have? So for instance, if somebody comes to a business with, let's say, an MBA show or something equivalent to it, a wide angle deep dive, kind of training and the breadth of what business needs to pay attention to, they're gonna have a different relationship. They're gonna be able to maybe show already have a sense of that more holistic sense, and, they can have a mentor that can be a thought partner, but they're gonna have a different relationship to kind of the breadth of knowledge that one would wanna know to successfully run a business show in a sustainable way that really provides quality of life and well-being and all the things that you, my listeners, that's so important to you all.

Right? Show So if you have an MBA, you have formal training, or you've been through, you know, a good quality accelerator, show Have you been through something like that, or do you have some sort of formal training where you have a pretty good sense? Show, were you like myself? When I started my business, I was excited about the idea. My original training is a mental health. I was an entrepreneur who was excited show to go into business for myself, and I didn't have formal business training. A matter of fact, that was one of the things that prevented me from starting my business show earlier so some honest self assessment about what do you bring to the table in terms of standing, I gave you an example of 1 accelerator curriculum from sales to leadership, show From marketing to legal, where is your kind of bar show really honestly about understanding sort of the bigger picture, and it's okay if the answer is it's fairly low. That's where I started. But let's be honest about that. Show, how important to have that wider spectrum is it, and when do you need somebody who comes in with particular kind of laser focused skill set, but you've already got that bigger picture holistic thinking as opposed to show, sometimes what I see is people who have the entrepreneur mindset, but not a lot of formal business training, sometimes they misdiagnose the problem. Show in other words, a classic example was they think they have a marketing problem, but what they really have at least initially is a product market fit problem.

They've created something show, it isn't quite what the people they either they don't know who exactly they're trying to sell it to. They just think that they need to, you know, push more show and get it out to more people on TikTok or a YouTube channel or whatever. But the fundamental issue is they don't totally understand show, who they're trying to help, what the problem is, and the product or the service that they built doesn't fit really show, there's more friction there because it's not dialed in, and more marketing muscle isn't necessarily gonna help them move the needle show on their business in a way that also provides quality of life, etcetera. So third question is, show, how much business training and or education do you bring to the table? Again, wherever you start, it's okay, but just be honest about it because show, what mentoring looks like, what coaching, what's gonna help you grow your business is gonna be different depending on show, the answers to these questions. Number 4. When you're considering a mentor, show, what are their top 1 to 3 areas of expertise, and how deep have they gone in terms of training and real world experience show in that area. Again, we can pick up any topic you can imagine, let's say, marketing because that's one that I hear a lot. Show right? So what is the experience and the training that this particular mentor that you already have in your life or that you're considering as coach? Show, what's their experience in this area? And, also, do they have other ones? Maybe you approach them for marketing, or we can use a HR.

Show, maybe you approach them for some questions and some mentoring on building out a team and what some of the legalities are and how do you go through the hiring process, show, and they're mentoring you on that, but they also might have another set of experience and, maybe culture. That would be show common one for somebody in HR to also have some experience with, you know, building teams and creating sustainable cultures and healthy workplaces, not just hiring and making sure you're getting somebody, you know, that's a good candidate, but how do you keep people? How do you promote from within, etcetera? Right? That might be an example. And if you didn't know that they had a wider skill base, show, maybe the conversations are being truncated with people that are already in your network, and you're asking very laser questions. Show, it takes a certain amount of experience and also, a certain amount of courage to like, hey. Is that the right question here? Is that really gonna move the needle? Show or sometimes just the way human interactions works, you ask them an HR question, and they come back to you. And it's an it's show framed in an HR way so they leave some of their experiences as the mentor or the coach in a more holistic way that they can show bring in other aspects, but the client is bringing such laser focused questions show sometimes the problem gets misdiagnosed or it's not handled in a holistic way. So make sure you're assessing any current leaders or mentors or guides or coaches about what's the full range of their skill set show and try to make room and engage them in that full holistic way. As well as if you see things that, you know, show aren't being covered, we can reduce the friction and increase your capacity to grow successfully if you have show, a well crafted holistic plan that's conscious of where you are business development wise.

So again, the 4th question is, what are the top 2 to 3 areas of expertise that any particular mentor show or coach that you're considering or is already in your network, what are those expertise? And, also, where else show, they have maybe not world class. Maybe they're world class in HR or sales, and but they're also good in x, y, and z. Show and then where are the places where they're just out of scope to try to help you in any sort of, you know, beyond beginner kind of a way? Show, right, I am not the right person to be talking legal to. I have a stable of awesome legal resources that I can refer to. Show so there's some basic questions or basic, you know, pointers I can give to somebody, but pretty quickly, if it's a legal conversation, I'm gonna say, I'm out of scope here. Let me get you to somebody who knows more than I do and is trained to answer these kind of questions. Lastly is how much training and experience outside of the above do they have? And show so this piggybacks on question number 4. But, again, if you somebody came to me, they might know that I have a lot of experience with show, social enterprise models and impact business models, they might come to me around podcasting because people I do a lot of podcast consults.

I just set 1 up this morning. Show, I do a lot around marketing. Right? So these are things that somebody might come to, but they might not know that I've also, show, you know, done a lot of work in the leadership realm and in the culture realm. I had the awesome experience, and it's, show, the 2nd edition is coming soon, working with Catherine Bell on her incredible book about leadership and culture show called The Awakened Company, I'll put a link in the show notes. So, yeah, I've been thinking about in conversation and just did my show own growth as a leader, growing communities of, you know, 250 plus social entrepreneurs. I had to think about culture and leadership, show, and I've learned a lot about that. I wouldn't say I'm a world class resource in the same way I might be around social impact models show for businesses, again, podcasting, etcetera, these are some marketing in general is one of my real strong points, show the leadership and culture, I've gotten quite good at it. And over the years, the percentage of time that I am consulting around those issues has gone up.

Show, I'm providing better results for my clients, and I just know more because that's come up more often. And I've gotten to work on these world class show projects, and I try to be somebody who's like, oh, wow. This is popping up in coaching. Now I gotta go learn about it. Right? So over the years, 16 years, show, I am much more knowledgeable and can help my clients with much more robust issues, for instance, in those 2 areas, leadership and culture. Show so when you're assessing, again, a coach, a mentor, make sure you know what their top areas are, and maybe that's why you originally show them, but do an assessment of their their holistic personhood, their skill set as a professional in a holistic way, and don't just get limited to the 2 or 3 things they might be known for. That one thing Paul is the person I ask podcast questions, yes, I can help you with which microphone and, you know, which platform do you wanna publish on, and let's talk about SEO and podcasting and how do you find great guests and all that stuff. Right? That's one thing I can do, but show, as I've been in business longer, that's gotten wider.

So make sure you're assessing what is that full spectrum, stable of tools or skill sets that your mentors and coaches have. And the last thing I wanna point out is that oftentimes somebody who's gone really deep in one area. I mentioned podcasting for instance. Show, I'm thinking of several really great podcasting resources. One particular individual I'm thinking of, show, he's awesome. I would refer to him very quickly in one particular domain that is podcasting. But for example, show, he's always like, Paul, why aren't you doing video podcasting? Everything's going video. And that's true.

I know the trend. I'm well aware of it. Show but for my goals at this point, the extra amount of work and, just expanding show, the bandwidth and the editing, especially the editing, it's a lot more work to edit a video podcast, for example. Show and he has trouble understanding, like, my business is doing, you know, quite well. I'm hitting my goals. I, you know, have been at this a while. I have one of the longer running podcast in the social entrepreneur space, like, do I need to add video? At this point, so far, the answer has been show that the cost of adding the bandwidth what it means for my guest, it's just not a right fit for now, and he has a really hard time holding that holistically. So that'd be an example of somebody who's really good in one domain, but is really struggling to understand show, what it means for me as a business owner to be thinking about my podcast in the full range of what I'm doing.

Show so I hope this helps you out to think a little more holistically about what can happen in terms of mentoring and coaching, show, what to look for, some questions to ask, these 5 questions. Again, remember show, to look beyond where you are right now and beyond where you've engaged ship, one particular leader for the precise thing you're reaching out for help for, and think a little more holistically. Show, don't treat everything as a nail because you're more than a hammer and so is your business. I wanna thank you for listening. Show, if you have an idea for a topic or a guest, we love listeners suggested topics and guests, so please feel free show to pitch us an episode at the Awarepreneur's website. And for now, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening. Show please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our