if You are a franchise owner, it’s Time to Put the Power of mentoring to Work for You

evan hackel

I have always been a great believer in mentoring. I have mentored young people in the organizations I have run. I have mentored people outside of my own companies too, including young people who were just starting out in their careers and starting new companies.

I have also had mentors of my own – in many cases, highly experienced executives who shared their knowledge with me - who have guided and encouraged me more than I can tell you.

At every stage in my mentoring activities, I felt as though I always saw some extra benefit happening – something I could not explain. People on both sides of mentoring activity – both mentors and mentees – were doing more than just sharing information. They were being elevated in a mysterious way.

And I Was right!

It turns out that I was not imagining the extra benefits of mentoring.

I realized that was true recently when I moderated a Training Unleashed Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm, two highly successful entrepreneurs who believe that the more you mentor others, the more success will come back to you.

Kevin was one of the original sharks on the hit television show Shark Tank. He is also recognized as the man who invented the infomercial. Mark, who calls himself a “serial entrepreneur,” has built successful companies in more than a dozen countries, from retail to wholesale to manufacturing and real estate. “Positive mentoring relationships will reduce the cost of any mistakes you make and increase the chances of achieving success sooner.”

They believe so strongly in mentoring that they made it the focus of their new book, Mentor to Millions: Secrets of Success in Business, Relationships, and Beyond. Both men told me that their success was transformed when they were working with the son of Zig Ziglar, the visionary business thinker who believed “you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”

opportunities to benefit from mentoring in your Franchise

You can ask a more experienced franchise owner in your franchise company to act as your mentor. In fact, that is a terrific idea because someone who knows the ropes – and who has experienced both successes and setbacks – can teach you so much that you need to know about success. Yet working with a more experienced person as a mentor is only one of the many ways you can put the power of mentoring

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to work as you build your franchising success.

mentor your employees

If you do, they become better employees who will support the success of your franchise, sell more for you, remain with you longer and help build your success in other ways.

Tap other Franchise owners to mentor you or to become your mentees

They could be long-term owners, new owners, or anyone in between. The fact is, you don’t need to discover everything through a process of trial and error. Positive mentoring relationships will reduce the cost of any mistakes you make and increase the chances of achieving success sooner.

Never Stop mentoring a Wide range of People!

You can mentor younger people who are just starting out in their franchising careers. You can mentor people who are at mid-career transition points. The fact is, you can mentor people at all stages of their life journeys – and they can mentor you. If you embark on this path, I believe you will discover what I have about mentoring. It repays you in more ways than you expect. That’s what Kevin and Mark told me. And do you know, they are right.

Evan Hackel, a 35-year franchising veteran is a nationally recognized expert and speaker on franchising. Evan is founder and CEO of Ingage Consulting, and CEO of Tortal Training, a leading training development company. Evan is an active advisor in the C-Suite Network. He is also author of Ingaging Leadership, and host of “Training Unleashed,” a podcast covering training for business. Contact him here, follow him at @ehackel, or call 781-820-7609.