If you have a challenge, then we have a mentor who can help! When you submit a help request, you’re submitting your challenge to a pool of mentors who want to help people just like you.
The better you write your help request, the higher the chances are that the rightly qualified mentor(s) will apply to help you. Your goal is to help activate the right mentor for your particular situation.
Let’s sneak into the head of a mentor for a moment. Imagine seeing a bunch of requests in a queue on Slack. Mentors visit this Slack channel and look for relevant opportunities to share their expertise and experience. As a mentor, there’s not much time for probing. Either it fits or it sits.
What makes a great help request?
Your stated challenge will be viewed by all mentors who have capacity to help and it should consider the following:
Clarity – Think through your expectations for your request.
Are you interested in forming an ongoing mentorship or looking for help on a specific challenge? To ensure your help request is fulfilled, make sure that you’ve already Googled or tried to address it yourself and you just need to talk to someone who can help you break through to the next level.
Take time to think about what question(s) you want answered from your call. If you need to formulate your questions, write it down or ask it out loud to help ensure you’re turning emotions into actionable words. Setting expectations up front will help you and your potential mentor ensure you get what you came for and walk away with what you need.
Context – The more context you can provide about your situation, the better.
Your background, industry, challenges, resources, constraints, strengths, weaknesses, what you’ve tried, etc., are all great context for your mentor.
Do you have a website, url to mockups, or a specific story that will help your mentor understand what’s going on? Great, share them!
Your information will be kept private with your mentor, so it’s okay to open up. The more time you spend sharing this information in the session request, the more time you’ll have on the call to discuss solutions.
Focus – It’s best to focus your sessions on 1 or 2 related things.
It’s best to focus your sessions on 1 or 2 related things. For example, mentors can’t tell someone how to scale their business when they haven’t had a single customer yet, or how to fix their messaging, pricing, and website in a single 30 minute session. But they can tell someone what their next steps should be, or what to look out for when adding new channels into the mix.
Keep your focus on one challenge at a time and know that you can always book another call.
Remember, if you need help articulating what it is you need help with, you can always reach out to us on live chat, Slack or email. We’re always there to help point you in the right direction.