Best Practice Hints & Tips

Here is a list of Best Practice Tips and Hints compiled by our faculty of experienced mentors:

• Schedule all sessions in the first meeting. Confirm the next session (date, time) at the end of each session.
• Agree how regularly you would like to meet. It is usually 3 -4 weeks between sessions.
• Determine best time, days for each of you and pencil in forthcoming sessions in advance if possible. Ensure you complete the HerBusiness Mentoring online forms so the office can send reminders. If dates change (and they often do), keep the office in the loop so they can best assist you.

Conclude each session using the final few minutes to recap agreed actions, and timings, plus reinforce information about anything you intend to provide as points of reference, templates or resources to assist the mentoree.

At the beginning of each session:

• Agree this session’s “agenda” items. Ask the mentoree what they are hoping to achieve during this session.
• Recap the focus/outcome/insights from the last session, and check on progress, any challenges or learnings and assist further as required on these. Some mentors suggest reviewing the mutually developed agenda to determine progress.  If the mentoree has struggled to find time or focus to achieve the last session’s objectives or activities, then work further on them jointly to help move toward completion of these activities. Sometimes it takes more than one session to complete an agreed outcome or action.
• It is also useful to ask the mentoree if they are happy with how the partnership is working, would they like to change anything, is it adding value. When we come to the end of a meeting I also usually ask for an impression of how this meeting went and what we might be able to do (or stop doing) next time to make the next meeting as good or better. I find it helpful to ensure the mentoree is getting real value from their point of view.
• It is conducive to a faster, more effective start to the relationship if the mentor has spent time checking the mentoree’s website, Facebook, LinkedIn or anything else that may be relevant to ensure a broad understanding of their business and to ensure some of the advice comes from experiencing their business from an objective, “customer” type of view. It makes for more meaningful feedback and conversation if you have some prior knowledge of their operation.

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