A growing community of business people are coming forward to mentor other entrepreneurs. Free training is now available to develop skills to be an effective business mentor.
Get Mentoring is an initiative to recruit and train 15,000 volunteer business mentors. It provides budding mentors with free training, and enables them to be plugged into mentoring activities.
The benefits of mentoring
"When you’re setting up a business, it’s a very lonely process and it’s great to be able to talk to someone who understands what you’re going through."
Moses Kibuuka Muwanga
Mentoring has been shown to increase the survival and growth rate for businesses.
Mentoring can aid the professional development of both parties, enhancing leadership and management skills, 'soft' skills (business confidence and aspiration), and business performance (turnover and profit).
Mentors can also gain a better understanding of the challenges facing new businesses, which enhances their own working life and outlook.
Resources available for mentors
Get Mentoring provides free training resources to its mentors:
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Online learning
Free access to a distance learning programme to training enterprise mentors across the UK -
Mentoring workshops
Working with key partners to deliver local training workshops. -
Ask a mentor
In a series of short films, experienced mentors answer some key questions about mentoring.
As of March 2012, the Get Mentoring initiative has recruited more than 7,500 volunteer business mentors - passing the halfway mark to the target of 15,000.
My music mentor
Creative business mentoring
Networking creatively
