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Hello and welcome to biz Your work life Sorted. I'm m Burnham and today we're demolishing everything you thought you knew about mentorship. Get it out of your mind. If you're jealous of those people who have that one perfect mentor that guided their entire career, guess what, Lucky for you, you shouldn't be. We are throwing that out of the window. It's twenty twenty five and we're doing mentorship differently. Now think less marriage proposal and more dating professional dating that is,
I'm less no professional dating like always. I'm joined by our wonderful career coaches. Michelle Battisbee, who was an entrepreneur and launched Bumble in Australia. She now runs her own startup and so of hers. She's the one who took a leap from Google to launch her own coaching program for people in their early career era, just like myself. They will be talking about the new era of mentorship
and we think you're going to love this one. Plus Sofa is going to tell you exactly how to secure that dream mentor.
Michelle, do you have a mentor yourself?
My initial response to that question is no, But it's because I haven't put a formal label on the relationships I have with people I get advice from. I think having a mentor is really just having someone that you trust and respect and you can learn from their experiences. So with that in mind, yes, I do have mentors, and I do like thinking about mentoring in a more disarming way where it's not this scary, rigid, formal thing.
Yeah, that's why I'm so excited to get into this episode.
So this idea of a single mentor or a series of mentors is really just like being in an open relationship. You can collect an army of brilliant brains with different experiences that you can learn from to expand your own career. I kind of love the open relationship analogy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just to continue that further, so, if you look at the traditional model for mentorship, you'd have this one person and you'd have this long term relationship with them. The problem with it is that often it would just get a bit weird, the vibes would sort of die. It would often start strong and then end really awkwardly. And also, like a relationship, you sort of had all this pressure to find this one perfect person, and I felt this so much. You know, I grew
up in regional in New South Wales. I went to UNI and it felt like after UNI everyone got into the workforce and everyone kind of had a mentor. You know. I didn't have a business network around it, had no clue how to find a mentor myself, and I just felt really intimidated by the whole thing and like I'd already fails because I didn't have a mentor in my career. So what we want to have, hell you guys do is to actually reframe what mentorship is and we want to explain the new way to do it. Hit us
with it. So for what is the new way to do mentorship? So instead of having this one single mentor that you might have ten chats with in the year, we want you to think about ten different people that you have one conversation with. So this is a series of mental chats where you have intentional conversations with specific people to actually learn something and to figure something out.
So it's much more specific. Michelle. The reason that I actually think this is a way better approach one you would be so surprised by who is actually willing to say yes when it's a once off conversation versus an ongoing commitment. Two, these conversations are more specific, so you're going to prep for them. They're more specific and targeted versus a traditional mentorship relationship, which can often be quite general and sometimes you just sort of feel like you're
filling the space with questions. So it's more specific and therefore much more practical. And then three, actually think this approach is way more inclusive, so anyone can make this work for them, and you don't have to have sort of a big existing network of people that you know or work for a really big company. Anyone can make this approach work.
I love this so much because it also sounds like there won't be any awkward breakups with this sort of process. I became fascinated by this and went out on my Instagram stories and I run a poll and eighty three percent of people came back to me saying that they did not have a mentor, which blew my mind. And I then asked a follow up question, which was, if you don't have a mentor but you want one, what are the blockers? And my question box responses have never
been more packed and the replies were pretty consistent. So lots of people want a mentor, but they've got these blockers, and a big one is cost. People are wondering how much does it cost? How do you determine that with a mentor, which we'll get into. They don't know who to ask, and they don't know how to ask. So this is your bread and butter. This is what you do at work.
Baby.
Let's start with what actually is a mentor.
Yeah, let's bust some myths. So a mentor is anyone where you learn from their experiences and then you apply that knowledge to your own situation. So by asking them questions, am I listening? I think it's helpful to know the difference between a mentor and a coach. So a mentor is someone where the conversation is mostly about that other person, so you're listening to them and you're applying that to
your own situation. And a mentor conversation is unpaid, they should really be unpaid, versus a coach, where in a coaching conversation, the focus of that conversation is typically on you, so they're gonna ask you questions and guide you and give you frameworks. But it's really fully customized to you and your situation. Because of that, these conversations are typically paid. You know, I was pretty shocked actually to see in some of those dms, Michelle, that people were saying, you know,
how much should I actually pay a mentor? Or I can't afford to pay a mentor? Well, the answer to how much should I pay mentor is actually zero because a true mental relationship should be unpaid because there is this mutual value exchange, so the mentor gets something out of it too. So I actually do both free mentorship and also paid coaching. You know, I've got five different people that I mentor right now, and I get so
much out of these conversations with them. I think, you know, the way that they emailed me, the vibe that we had in that first chat meant that, hey, I actually do want to stay in touch with these people, these young, smart, ambitious people. I get so much out of it. So yeah, it's a mutual value exchange. But typically a mentorship should be unpaid.
Honestly, I think that will surprise so many people that definition, and as you're walking through it, it also, on the flip side, expands the kinds of people that you could work with like for example, I do meturing as well. I don't do coaching. I don't believe I could do coaching. So I think there are a lot of people out there that are willing to share their experiences in more of a mentoring capacity.
So I honestly feel.
Like most people would be down to accept, you know, mentoring someone who is looking to propel themselves forward. And on your point as well, like from the mentor, you're sitting there thinking just take from me, extract from me, like you want them to ask the kinds of questions that are going to benefit them and unlock nuggets of your gold free of charge, and it feels really.
Good to do. I think it's about asking it the right way.
So after the break the five sentences to land you a mentorship, so we love to give you practical steps and advice here. So soph is about to give us the three steps to develop your mentor series. And then so if I want to ask you what we all should not be doing?
So how do we start? Okay? Step one is to really ask yourself why am I doing this? So what am I trying to get out of it? And I thought it might be helpful to give you a live example. So let's use the example of someone who they currently work in sales and maybe they want to go and work in marketing, and they're kind of thinking like, do I do that now or should I just say in sales a bit longer and work my way out? So Step maumble one is asking yourself, what am I trying
to get out of it? And why do I want to have these chats? Step number two is to actually build yourself a short list of people. So to do that, you're going to be looking at, Okay, I'm trying to pivot my career from sales to marketing. Let me maybe try and find some people that have done that. So you can first look at your internal network. There might be people within your company that have done it. You can then go and do a bunch of LinkedIn stalking.
So people have so much information about their careers. It's actually so easy to find people who have done something similar to what you're trying to do, and also just ask you around. You want to try and land on three to five people who have done something similar to what you're trying to do. Now on too. Step three, which is the very simple five line email that you were going to send them, so I wouldn't normally read out an email live, but because it's so simple, actually
just wanted to share that with you. Now, if you're up for it, love it, let's go the five lines. Line one is high person's name. I know you're busy and you get a lot of emails. Part two, you're going to start with them. This is very important. So you want to show I have spent time researching you, I know something about you, and you're going to start
with them. So an example of that might be I admired the way you pivoted your career from X to Y. Or it might be I've been following your career for a while now and I love the way you talk about topic X. Part three you're going to link to you and why you actually want to have that conversation.
So an example might be the reason I'm interested in this is because I'm all so trying to pivot my career from sales to marketing, and you know, I'm currently working in this role at this company and it would really help me to understand your process. Line four. It would have a huge impact on my career. If you're able to give me twenty minutes on the phone or zoom for a career chat so I can learn from
your experiences and five give them an out. So you say, I know this is a long shot, and I understand you might need to say no due to bandwidth. Even getting a reply from you would make my day.
I love this so like it's making me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's making me feel warm and fuzzy if I were to receive something like that, but it's also making me feel like I want to challenge myself. Now take your template and I want to report back by our next episode with like an iconic founder that I have used this template for to get to mentor me Because I also think an important point is don't
cut yourself short with who you reach out to. Dream big when you write that shortlist of people that you want to hit up.
Even just a story from my own career. So actually, one of the best mentor chats I've ever had is with the CMO of Telstra, Brent Smart, and I was having this amazing chat with him. I think it was supposed to be an hour and I got an hour and a half. And I mentioned in the chat that one of my very junior reports at Google actually is a big fan of his and had sent me his podcast and Brent said, well, I'll have a mentorship chat with him. I was thinking, like, there's no way even
do that. Anyway, my report emails brand and you know the next week he's having a full hour with this very senior marketing leader. He was very junior at the time, So I think, yeah, exactly what you said, Michelle, don't hold back, go for your dream list. And the trick is just really keeping it very short, making it about them, and explaining why you want to have this conversation, and make it specific, and you will be so amazed at who is actually going to say yes.
Last thing for me on this. I also love that it wasn't can I take you out for a coffee, because I do feel like their effort to go out and meet someone can sometimes just be a hurdle that you might not have capacity for. But to just jump on a phone call or zoom is just making someone else's life easier. So I love that guidance on that, what are the do's and don'ts, what are the red flags? What is not going to land you a date?
So I actually have a lot of people emailing me to ask for mentorship, and so I just want to share with you some of the things not to do. So the first red flag for me is don't just ask someone can I pick your brain? Don't say that to them. You really need to show that you've invested time in understanding who they are and why you're actually having that conversation, so you want to make it specific. That's where asking for twenty twenty five minutes on the
phone call or zoom is great. Don't just say can I pick a brain. The other red flag is never ask someone to be your mentor. The reason for that is I just think like a good mentorship chat, it's quite balanced, right, So, like mentors love talking about their experience and how they can actually help young up and comers.
So asking someone to be your mentor, it just starts the vibe off as being really weird, and it also makes them feel like they're getting into this long term relationship but maybe they don't want to be in.
Yes, it's almost like asking someone to become your committed like boyfriend or girlfriend before you've ever been on a first date. You might not need the label. Maybe that's one of the takeaways from this episode, you might not even need that label on the relationship to have a mentor, and I think that makes it less scary as well.
That is exactly it. You're just asking for a career chat, you are not asking for them to be a mentor.
Yeah, love it? Okay, So what are the action points? What do I need to do right now to get a mentor?
So step one is to really ask yourself, why am I actually doing this? What is the decision I'm trying to make, or what am I trying to get better at? What am I trying to figure out? Step two is you want to get your short list of people, so I think you can even set yourself a goal of like, I want to do ten of these mentor chats in the year, whatever it is for you. And then step three is you want to have this email tenplate this very short email template, and we have made it super
easy for you. So we've got it in the Biers newsletter. All you have to do is jump into the show notes and you can get the subscription link. Subscribe and we'll send out that email template to you.
Finding out that eighty three percent of people don't have a mentor has made me feel so much better about not having one, and I actually don't even need to feel bad about it. If you want that five sentence email template that's going to help you land those dream mental conversations, it's in our newsletter this week and it's absolutely free to sign up. There's a link in our show notes.
For you to do so.
Also, if you do end up getting a yes from your mentor, which I mean of course you will because this template is working for everyone, do not stress about what to do next. We are going to cover exactly how to nail those conversations in a future episode. And don't forget our beiz Inbox episode drops sis Thursday, where we answer all of your career dilemmas. Check the show notes to find out how to submit your work questions.
See you next time. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on