Marketing Mentoring To Attract Proficient and Competent Mentors

Sharon asks: How to best market the program to attract proficient and competent mentors?

I like the way you phrased this question Sharon, because actually you captured the essence of the answer already – marketing is the key.

Marketing your mentoring program involves:

1.   Identifying the people you want to attract;

2.   Understanding what’s important to them;

3.   Engaging them; and

4.   Gaining their commitment.

If you want proficient and competent mentors, you’ll need to decide what that means to you. This will give you selection criteria. Then you can either: throw a broad net and filter out those who don’t fit the bill; or, you can target specific people who do. I’ve talked about strategies for this in my ebook How To Recruit Mentors. If you’d like a copy let me know and I’ll send it to you.

To market to anyone you have to understand what’s important to them. Mentors do volunteer for altruistic reasons and you must acknowledge them for that but you must also show tangible benefits for mentors and strategic value for the organisation. You’ll need to get potential mentors talking and really listen for their needs, wants, values and fears. In an organisation, you are looking for an overlap between personal desires and strategic objectives that either have significant impact on them or they really care about.

If you have begun a dialogue with potential mentors, you have started to develop a relationship that will help you engage them. What you have learned about their needs and wants will help you shape the messages you communicate (your “pitch”). 

People are so busy and so overloaded with information and advertising that you will need to cut through the clutter and deliver a powerful message. Consider a personal approach, one-to-one, presentations at meetings, delivered yourself, or by mentoring champions. Audio-visuals will help reinforce the message. Follow-up in writing, maybe use something novel like a postcard or book to stimulate more interest. Provide an online information kit with all the details. Then ask them, in person, to join.

What do you think? Add your thoughts, comments or questions here.