For Mentees
By joining this platform, you're gaining access to the minds and experiences of professionals who have walked the path you're embarking on. This is not just a learning opportunity; it's a responsibility you owe to yourself and to your mentor.
If ever you feel overwhelmed by the advice you're receiving or feel like you're not benefiting as much as you'd like, don't hesitate to reach out. We're here to ensure this experience is both enriching and rewarding for you.
Open dialogue, honesty, and respect are the lifeblood of this community!
Session Conduct
We trust you to carry yourself professionally in all your interactions. Be kind, be eager to learn, and aim to add value to the conversation.
Active Learning – Be engaged and attentive during the session. This is your time, make the most of it!
Respect – Treat your mentor with respect and gratitude. There's no such thing as a dumb question, but remember to value their time and expertise.
Professional Boundaries – Keep your interactions within the professional realm. While you might have a fantastic product or service, our mentors' time should not be used for unsolicited promotion.
Off-Platform Interaction
While it's understandable you might want to continue conversations off-platform, we recommend maintaining all mentorship interactions within the GrowthMentor platform. This ensures streamlined communication and protects both parties.
Be Prepared and Timely
Time is a golden resource, both for you and your mentors. Be punctual for your sessions and come prepared. If you have to reschedule, remember to do so more than 24 hours before the scheduled session out of respect for your mentor's time.
Professional Communication
Keep your communications clear, respectful, and professional. It's okay to be friendly and conversational but maintain professional boundaries. Remember, the goal of these sessions is to learn, not to promote personal products or services.
Active Learning
Own your learning journey. Be curious, ask questions, set realistic goals, and follow up on your progress. Remember, the outcome of this mentorship relies heavily on your proactive effort and commitment.
In Case of Missteps
It's okay to stumble; we're all humans. But we expect you to correct your course. Consistent negligence or disrespect can lead to an unfortunate end of your journey here. Let's not go there, shall we?
Own Your Growth
Remember, you're in the driver's seat of your learning journey. We're here to provide you with a roadmap and a professional guide in the form of a mentor. Use this opportunity to accelerate your growth and achieve your professional goals. Your success ultimately lies in your own hands.
For Mentors
Having a live profile on GrowthMentor is a responsibility.
By having availability open on your mentor calendar, you are offering your experience and advice to those in need.
At any time, if you feel overwhelmed by the requests you are receiving or feel that you are not offering the value you are capable of because of other obligations, please reach out to us and we’ll work together to reach a solution.
We are so glad you are here and want to keep this experience fun and rewarding for you.
100% open door policy up in here!
Brand Ambassador
Being a growth mentor is something to be proud of!
You were chosen not only because of your impressive work history, but because we feel that you genuinely want to help others reach their goals.
We hope that you will help us in spreading the word about GrowthMentor and encourage others to hack their learning curve by speaking with advanced professionals.
Ways to promote GrowthMentor
- Badge on your site
- LinkedIn job title
- Blog post on your site about your experience as a mentor
- Promote your mentor profile via social media “I just talked about *insert topic here* with an aspiring startup founder on @GrowthMentorHQ! Book a call with me and #GetGrowing (link to your profile).
- Social media shares and mentions of GrowthMentor
- Comment and tag people on our social shares
Availability
Work with the basic rules of supply and demand when setting your open hours.
Perhaps you are looking to make a little side cash and have a flexible work schedule, open up your hours and promote your profile.
If you find that you are constantly having to reschedule sessions and you are getting more requests than you would like, change your schedule.
Going away for a bit?
Click ‘off’ on 15 min, 30 min and 60 min sessions and people will not be able to schedule with you.
Your schedule is completely up to you, play around with it, adjust your pricing and see what fits best for you!
Attentiveness
It is important that you respond to messages and session requests in a timely manner. By having a profile live, you are in agreeance that you are ready to schedule calls and help people.
The members on our platform are coming to you for help. They may feel shy, vulnerable and even desperate if their business is not doing well. They are putting themselves out there and chose you because they read your profile and thought you could help them.
Do whatever works best for you to ensure that you are checking messages and session requests- email folder, slack notification, etc...
We'll do our best to follow up with you if we notice requests going unanswered.
Session requests: If someone sends you a session request, whether you accept it, deny it or reschedule it, you should always leave some sort of message.
Declining a session with no message feels like a door being closed in one’s face. Again, these are people coming to you for help. Please treat them respectfully.
Session requests that go unanswered and are automatically declined by the system will be documented.
Inbox messages: If someone messages you asking for advice on something, you have every right to direct them to book a session with you. If you would like to offer them guidance over chat, that is entirely up to you.
There is no obligation to help members who have not booked time with you.
Attendance Policy
Once a session is scheduled, it is set in the system unless rescheduled within the platform or with the assistance of support staff.
If a scheduled session needs to be cancelled (never to be rescheduled) support staff needs to be contacted.
Rescheduling: Please take sessions seriously when you accept them and mark off the time on your calendar. Do not accept the session if you do not feel 100% confident that you can make it.
Scenario- you receive a session request for Friday at 1pm. You often have lunch meetings on Friday that tend to last a while. Instead of accepting the session and cancelling at the last minute, suggest another time that you know will work for you and see what the mentee says. We all understand that things come up, but when someone is counting on you and you cancel at the last minute, it doesn’t leave the best impression on them.
24 hour rescheduling policy: Rescheduling within the system is only possible when done more than 24 hours before the scheduled session.
This is done to respect the mentor’s time. They are agreeing to a set time when accepting a session request. Both parties should plan accordingly and have their schedules cleared at the agreed upon time.
If you need to change within 24 hours, communication is key. Message the mentee as soon as you know that you can not make a session and discuss what to do about the absence. Hopefully you can come to an agreement and select another time to meet.
NCNS (no call no show): in an era where the phrase ‘butt dial’ is part of normal vocabulary, there is no excuse for completely missing a session without contacting the other party. .
If something comes up, let the user know ASAP and get the rescheduling process started.
We must enforce a 3 strike policy for this to ensure that members are getting the help they signed up for.
Session Conduct
We’re not going to tell you how to conduct your calls. We do ask that you keep our core values in mind while interacting on the platform and on calls.
Be kind. Be creative. Add value.
1) Active Learning – Engage the mentee in the conversation. Ask lots of questions. Get them to come up with their own solutions.
2) Humility – Treat all members of the platform with respect and have patience. They have come to you because they want to learn from your previous experiences. There is no such thing as a dumb question. If someone has an idea that you think is horrible, be delicate with how you make suggestions.
3) Human Relationships –Think about how you can help them after the call is over. Perhaps a mention of their business on social media or an email introduction to someone else that would be helpful for them to know.
Don’t treat these calls as a task, remember that there is a person with a goal on the other end and if there is something you can do to help them reach that goal, why not do it.
Off-Platform Interaction
We’re not trying to hide your identity and keep you hidden away up in a tower. Your full name and LinkedIn profiles are on your profile. People can easily contact you off of the platform and offer to pay you for your time directly, etc…
This is #PlatformLife.
What we hope is that you will encourage those rogue souls to at least book a session with you on GM – call it an introductory call if you want- so that you can at least get a review out of it.
We gave you a coupon code for a full year free for instances just like this. “Hey John, let’s do an introductory call on GrowthMentor and go from there. Here is a code to signup and a discount code!”
- You’ve got a solid lead who took the time to copy paste your name from GM into LinkedIn
- John thinks you are really swell for offering him a coupon
- You’ll get a review to boost your profile
- We have a new member
We all benefit from the poach attempt!
The situation that shall not be named
God forbid we ever has to ask someone to leave or take down a profile because of negligence.
But if it needs to happen, it needs to happen.
Please don’t let it come to this!
Remember the open door policy!
If the platform is not a good fit for you, let us know and we’ll remove your profile, no judgment or questions asked. We’d much rather have this than you just abandoning all messages and session requests to never be heard from again.
Ownership
We view you all as partners. You are a part of this team and we will do everything in our power to help you succeed and achieve your professional goals. If that means mentioning you for job possibilities that are brought to us or connecting you with full time clients, we are in your corner!
Once we get ourselves stabilized and securely out of bootstrapped life, we want to work on a profit sharing scheme to reimburse you for donated time. If you have any ideas or suggestions about this, please let us know!
If you accept/acknowledge all of the above, please click the 'I accept' button on the signup wizard. We don’t need to get all lawyery.