Remember that paying for a mentor is not heresy. In fact, many good coaches or consultants offer a paid mentoring program to help you get where you need to be. As a general rule, you can expect to pay your mentor a little less than what they would charge with their regular consulting fees. This is because mentoring also offers benefits to the mentors themselves, beyond the money they can bring.
Mentoring doesn't have to be a paid job because it usually takes place naturally, especially in the office. While we always appreciate expert mentors mentoring others for free, we believe that the vision, experience, knowledge, and support you can provide deserve more than just a verbal expression of appreciation. One of the first examples of mentoring was Alexander the Great, who was the mentor of Aristotle, who was the mentor of Plato and Socrates. By now, you should have a good idea of why mentoring is so important and why many of today's professionals turn to mentors to gain an advantage over the competition.
The good news is that the benefits of finding a business mentor far outweigh any negative aspects, and if you're anything like us, once you start mentoring, you won't be able to look back. You may still be getting to know them, but at this point, there's also a commitment to ongoing mentoring. Seriously though, there's no single flat rate for mentoring, just like there's no single flat fee for hiring a Python developer or Facebook ad consultant. Speaking of expectations, it can be helpful to plan your mentoring sessions in advance, even if that involves writing a schedule and itinerary for each session and then adding detailed notes on the topics you talked about.
The next step is to start thinking about whether you yourself could benefit from mentoring, or even if you might have what it takes to mentor someone else. As I was learning about formal mentoring programs (where you pay for advice, systems, and advice in an area where you want to grow), I thought about the idea of “paying for mentoring”. Fortunately, a good mentor is worth more than the fee they charge and can often pay for themselves, saving you time and resources in steering your company in the right direction.
