Are you an entrepreneur, a business mentor, or an investor? What’s your perfect role?
Many successful entrepreneurs share a secret: mix all three!
Making money and producing value are keys to entrepreneurship. What better way to do so than to help others make more money and add more value?
As an entrepreneur, you create value and profit from it.
As an investor, you give others the funds they need to start and grow their businesses.
As a mentor, you use your knowledge, guidance, and outside perspective to help entrepreneurs overcome obstacles that prevent them from succeeding.
Here's how these three roles support one another:
1. Feel their pain
The top business mentors have a background in entrepreneurship.
As an entrepreneur, you understand the struggles of other business owners and can relate to them as a mentor.
2. Learn from other people’s mistakes and get paid for it!
You learn as a business mentor from the clients you serve.
The knowledge you gain from their cases motivates you to develop new ideas, approaches, and theories in your own business.
3. Better deals
Heard about smart money? That’s exactly what happens when you combine the roles of a business mentor and an investor.
As an investor, you offer not only money but also expertise and guidance–and get better deals and terms.
4. Your next big thing
Many investors and mentors I know work with multiple teams before deciding to focus on just one of them, join as CEO or chairman, and drive this company to the next level.
5. The best investor is a fellow founder
Founders enjoy raising capital from other founders. Because they just understand.
Your entrepreneurial experience provides you with the capital, authority, and skills to be a successful investor.
6. Mentoring on steroids
Your investment background gives you more authority.
Many people invest in the companies they mentor or do their job for equity.
As one of my students put it, "entrepreneurs and investors are frequently on opposite sides of the table."
When a business mentor comes into the mix, it becomes a round table where everyone begins to cooperate.
Combining these 3 roles, you enable yourself and others to create more value and impact on the world.