Should I make it mandatory for my sales team to have mentorships? What's worked well for you?

Question

Answer

You could consider encouraging that everyone find a mentor rather than making it mandatory. Finding a mentor can take a little time and trying to match people up doesn't work well. What worked best for me is when I need help with a specific area, like years ago when I was new in sales and wanted to learn how to understand business better - including how to read a P&L, understand an annual report, and other important business documents. I asked someone from my company's finance team and after a couple of good conversations, was pretty up to speed.

Answer

Yes. Everyone needs a good mentor. You can’t make it mandatory as it’s really a personal preference. One need to know the importance of adopting into a mentorship process to be able to leverage the benefits.

I personally have benefited a lot from various mentors and coaches in different areas of my business and personal development .

Answer

The only time we require mentorships is onboarding. Every single new hire is assigned a sales onboarding mentor and they're usually with that person for 6 to 9 months. That role is designed to interpret the things they're learning and to train on real-life examples.

The other area where we're using mentoring is for individual contributors who want to be a manager. They're going to be assigned a mentor or encouraged to find a mentor to help them navigate to that role and figure out what skills they need to build while they're in their current role and how they can be effective once they move into that role.

Should I make it mandatory for my sales team to have mentorships? What's worked well for you?

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