298 - Why Mentees Fail ...

0:00Why mentees fail to leverage their board and tools for success? Boy, that's a good question. You know, one of the things that's most interesting to me, and I had to continually learn it because it's not something that I do naturally, is not ask for help. One of the things I learned early on in my corporate career where I was in corporate sales, technical sales, and I had to rely on manufacturing people, engineering people, quality people, pricing people, on and on and on to do my job. It just became second nature to say, okay, what do I need and who is the best person to provide that within a big organization?

0:51And so I got pretty good at that after some practice. But interestingly enough, mentees ask me all kinds of questions and that's fine. But one of the things that I usually say to them is, have you asked your board? And almost always the answer is no. And you put this board together, you put it together with talented people, and then why would you not use the tools in your toolbox, namely your board or your professionals or your financial partners. All of those are tools in your toolbox. So I'm going to give you a second to think about the number one answer that I get when I ask why didn't you use your board members or your professionals etc etc etc.

1:47So think about that for a second. Write down what you think the answer is, and then I'm going to tell you right now what the answer is. So almost always the answer I get is, first, did you talk to your board? The answer is no. Then secondly, which is the question I just asked you, why didn't you talk to your board members? And the answer almost always is because they're going to think I'm stupid. No. They're going to think you're stupid if you don't ask them questions. And they're going to begin to think, well, why am I even on this board? I mean, they never, you know, the person that put this together never asks for anything, never does anything.

2:33So, huh, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I'm on this board, but I don't do anything. So they want to help. Board members in particular want to help. They want to have you go ahead and solve the problems with input from them. And most of the time, they will have much more. Now, when you reach out to them, it gets tiring if all you say is, what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? You don't learn that way. But if you have a problem and you want to suggest to the board that you have a problem, give them a couple solution. Say, here's the situation. I think that, you know, we could do A or B, and I think A is better than B.

3:20What do you think? And they're going to come back and they're going to say, yeah, I think A is good. Or they're going to say, no, I think B is good. Or I don't think A or B is good. What I think is good is this. And you become much, much smarter as you go forward that way. You learn from their experience, their mistakes, their wisdom, things that you don't have to learn by making the mistakes because they've already made it. So I would encourage you to use and leverage your board, your professionals, your financial partners, and you will typically succeed a lot more quickly than if you don't do it.

3:59And they'll wonder when you do something that turns out to be wrong. Well, why didn't you ask us? That's a good question. Okay, if you don't know the steps, you need to learn the steps. Go over to BruceWhipple.com. The Acquisition Advantage is where I would suggest you go. If you want to look at starting conversation with board members, etc., there's a free course there. If you want to go directly to that, just brucewhipple.com forward slash free course. And then lastly, there are still a couple spots open in the VIP Mastermind. If that has interest, go over and look at what the details are. You're going to see that it says sold out.

4:45Ignore that. I like to talk to people before I take their money and put them in the VIP Mastermind. But again, the subject of this, why mentees fail to leverage their board and tools for success because they think they'll be stupid if they ask, and you will not be. You're stupid if you don't ask. So I hope that you use the tools in your toolbox.