Insights — Founder Advisory & Business Mentoring — 3 min read
What Does a Business Mentor Actually Do?
A good business mentor helps you make specific decisions better. Here is what that looks like in practice.
In short
A business mentor uses their own experience to help you think through specific decisions and problems: challenging assumptions, sharing what has worked or failed elsewhere, spotting risks you have missed and holding you to the priorities you set. A good mentor gives direct opinions and asks hard questions, but does not run your business or do the work for you.
Descriptions of mentoring often drift into vague phrases like 'unlocking potential'. That is not much use to a founder deciding whether to pay for one.
In practice, a useful mentor helps you with specific decisions and problems. Here is what that looks like.
The core activities
- Challenging assumptions before money or time is committed
- Sharing relevant experience — what worked, what failed and why
- Spotting risks and blind spots
- Helping prioritise between competing options
- Reviewing proposals, pricing and plans
- Holding you accountable to what you said you would do
Real examples of what a mentor helps with
Pricing
First sales hire
Focus
A proposal
What a mentor should not do
- Make the decisions for you
- Do the sales, marketing or recruitment work
- Offer generic motivation instead of specific input
- Promise results they cannot control
Mentor, advisor or execution partner?
When the focus is mainly commercial — pricing, sales, markets and hiring — the role looks very like a commercial advisor. Evans Founder Advisory provides exactly this: a monthly one-to-one session with Tom Evans, review of one commercial document a month and reasonable between-session questions, for £249 + VAT per month. If you need the work itself done, that is execution — for example Growth Partner.
How to get the most from a mentor
- 01Bring a real decision to every session
- 02Send key documents in advance
- 03Be honest about what has not happened
- 04Agree two or three actions at the end of each session
- 05Report back next time
Conclusion
A business mentor earns their place by changing decisions. If you are wondering whether you need one, read 10 signs you could benefit from outside advice.
A commercial sounding board for founders.
Evans Founder Advisory gives founders and business owners a monthly one-to-one with Tom Evans, challenge on pricing, sales and market decisions, and reasonable between-session questions — for £249 + VAT per month. You make the decisions; Evans helps you make better ones.
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