Mentors - Why You Need One

"Boys, you look like a couple of clowns juggling on the bow of a sinking ship." - My mentor in 2008.

The Story

At age 22 I knocked on the door of a young entrepreneur named Steve. I was a door-to-door salesman in college and would work evenings trying to sell my products to new home owners. Steve had a small apparel company named Del Sol and, unbeknownst to me, was looking to hire his first sales associate when I randomly visited his home on a summer evening in 1998. 

A year later after several interviews with him and the executive team, I was hired as the 12th employee at Del Sol. Nearly 12 years later when I left the company, we had over 800 worldwide employees and over 120 stores. 

Del Sol was an apparel company. My job was to open stores. And during my time there, we opened stores in resort and tourist destinations, including every major cruise ship port in the world. This meant that before I turned 30, I had visited nearly every island in the Caribbean, ports in Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and Europe and tourist destinations in nearly all 50 states multiple times. For a young kid studying international businesses, it was dream job. 

As I reflect on my time at Del Sol (and the sister company we would start called Cariloha), I find that the moments I remember most come from the 12 years of one-on-one time that I had with Bob, our Chairman. We called him Captain Bob. A retired multi-millionaire that was the sole investor in Steve's company - he was Steve's father-in-law - and a man that loved mentoring young, ambitious kids with "bright eyes and a passion for the future". Also a man that loved business and never lost his passion for it. 

When Steve the founder retired, Bob's son Jeff took the lead along with a talented CFO over finance and operations, and me over sales and marketing. The three of us (kids, really) ran the company to the very best of our abilities under Bob's direction. 

Our weeks and months with Bob consisted of finance meetings where Bob would cut through initiatives and diagnose problems or holes in our strategies. We had hundreds of marketing meetings where Bob's keen insights would help us refine and perfect marketing programs. And when we, through our youthful inexperience, would make mistakes - Bob was there to make sure the mistakes were brought to the surface, discussed and fixed. Bob didn't mind telling us we were mistaken, flawed or short-sighted. It was his money we were managing - so it was his right to manage us. 

It was in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008 when I stood with the President and CFO to present (what Bob believed was) a poorly crafted recession business strategy and presentation designed to motivate our team. After the meeting ended and the employees cleared the room, Bob closed the door, looked at his young leadership team and said, "Boys - you look like a couple of clowns juggling on the bow of a sinking ship." 

We worked hard on our plan - weekends, late nights, long, hard hours for several weeks ahead of that presentation. We believed it was solid. We thought we had asked and answered every possible question. But it fell flat. Important elements were missed. And Bob, our mentor, was there to remind us what we did wrong - and to help us fix it. 

The Lesson

When I consider my own businesses today, my thoughts go back to the voice of my late mentor, Captain Bob, almost daily. I don't think of the exotic locations where I worked as often as I think of the lessons I learned from him. 

The direct benefits of mentorship are astounding, according to this 2023 study. Here are some of its conclusions: 

1. Employees with mentors are less likely to leave their jobs
2. 98% of all Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs
3. Every single one of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs
4. Companies in the Fortune 500 with mentoring programs had nearly 2X the profits as those that did not, and their employee productivity was much higher. 

Bob was an invested mentor, not a passive mentor. It was his money that we were managing, so he was involved, opinionated and passionate about our success. This made him a coach that was interested in the details - not just the superficial high-level responses. 

Every business leader needs an experienced mentor. An "Old Grizzly" with a little grey hair, as the great salesman and business owner Harvey Mackay once said. To be mentored you have to be somewhat teachable. You have to be humble and accept that you don't know everything, otherwise a mentor's council will go unheeded. 

Mentors offer the most difficult source of context to obtain: that which comes through experience. It's easy for young, bright, intelligent and passionate 20 and 30 year-olds to dismiss the old person that may not understand the new world. That's exactly what I thought when I met Bob. "Nice old guy. A bit outdated." I quickly learned how much we needed his perspective and now, as I have a few grey hairs of my own, I can see how critical he was to our success. Though we may not have recognized it at the time, I can say with total confidence today that our success would not have occurred without Captain Bob. At critical moments, he made sure that our ship sailed in the right direction. 

We all need a few "old grizzlies" in our corner. Find a mentor. Use your mentor. Someone that you can reach out to in critical moments to provide an unbiased, honest review of your challenges. Not for your day-to-day tactics, but for the big moments that you believe are critical to the direction of your business. 

Mentors = increased likelihood of success. It's that simple. 

If you aren't sure where to find a mentor, we can help. We mentor several businesses. Family members, friends with experience, parents of friends that are experienced, etc. are all great places to start. A great mentor will be a benefit for many, many years.