Melinda Love participated in the Australian Businesswomen’s Network MentorNet program. For more information on mentoring, please click here.
The Mentoree: Melinda Love, Melinda Love
Company: Designs to Inspire Why did you become a mentoree? My design and homewares business is my passion and I needed to bring an outside influence in; a stable check-in point to bring more structure to what I’m doing and some timelines for accountability. What were you hoping to get from the experience? I wanted to hit the ground running at the 1 July mark with a Business Plan and Marketing Plan and get a handle on financial management disciplines. What is the biggest challenge of being a mentoree? Juggling your time and the demands of business to ensure you complete the module tasks and prepare for each webinar. This is where your mentor plays a valuable role – helping you to push through the haze and find a place of clarity where breakthroughs happen. What is the most powerful thing you’ve learned? Make time for your business and don’t get bogged down in it. Don’t accept that what you know today is the way it will always be. Be thirsty for information. To that end, I try to stay on top of upcoming ABN webinars and try to participate in those I think will be relevant to where my business is at. What would you say to anyone considering being a mentoree in the MentorNet program? Do it and be disciplined about it. When it’s all over, revisit it and look out for more of the same. MentorNet provided the outline of a business plan (marketing, financials, etc) for you to complete over the time of the program. How did this process help your business? It helped me to formulate my first official range of products for Summer 09/10. I applied formal cost structures so I have a sound level of confidence for where I need to pitch my products. Any additional comments? I’ve still got a lot of proactive marketing to do. I really need to drill down on distribution options. I could actually do with ongoing mentoring but perhaps not weekly, more like a monthly check in. I need an ongoing mentor. The ABN is a fantastic anchor point.
