How To Get A Good Mentor!

In: Interviews| Success Stories By: Brian Armstrong

8 Jan 2009

Don’t be afraid to ask!

Neil Patel, put up an interesting post on his blog today about his mentor. He also generously offered to give his own time in case anyone had questions.

As you may know, I’m very big on finding good mentors (especially people who are successful and have already done what I’m trying to accomplish).

Well, Neil fits the bill. At the ripe old age of 23 he is a very successful entrepreneur and a millionaire from several web businesses he’s started (I’m assuming this based on his very interesting life story where he talks about losing a million dollars on a single investment). He started Crazy Egg and several other web companies you may be familiar with.

Anyway after reading his blog post on mentors I decided to give Neil a call and get his feedback on my current project: www.UniversityTutor.com.

Surprisingly, I got right through to him. His first reaction about my business? Get involved in online tutoring and change the business model to take a cut of each hour instead of a monthly fee. I’m still trying to work out exactly how this might work and I’ve been researching online tutoring today, but what do you think? If you have any experience with online tutoring and best practices please leave a comment below.

Moral of the story: the key to finding good mentors is simple but no one does it – just ask! You’d be surprised how accessible some people are and in my experience successful people are usually happy to help.

Second lesson: try to give back in any way you can. How will I do that? By asking you to do yourself a favor and go subscribe to Neil’s blog. It’s quite good.

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

18 Responses

Amanda Warner

January 8th, 2009 at 11:24 am

Great Post! It is very hard to find excellent Mentors. I’m glad I finally found mine. She is awesome and very knowledgeable. I think it is extremely important to find someone you admire and can provide you with the answers to, what you might think are “stupid”, questions.

Amanda Warner
http://www.advertise4less.net

Brian Armstrong

January 12th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

Thanks Amanda – I too am always on the lookout for good ones. I would like to get a better “mastermind group” of people who are way ahead of me that I meet with regularly. Investigating a few options for this now.

Nikki - Click and Inc

January 8th, 2009 at 5:08 pm

Congrats to those young entrepreneurs. They have figured it out early and that is fantastic. A good business sense at a young age sets them up for success in the future. Mentors are a great way for that to happen, so I wish a good one on everybody.

Manuel Zeh

January 8th, 2009 at 11:30 pm

Hey Brian, I told you once how tutoring businesses in Japan match teachers with students. Your post reminded me of another business model I came across once – the company did charge for every hour. I found a private student through them but we both ended up feeling ripped off: it really adds up, paying a fixed fee for EVERY HOUR of work for the rest of the tutoring time (maybe months, this can run into the hundreds of dollars), when the website only provided a ONE TIME service in putting us in touch with each other. I never used the company again after that. That was just the way we welt about it, but get some more opinions.

Congratulations on the 2008 / 2009 goals post btw, and greetings from Honduras ;)

-Manuel Zeh.

Brian Armstrong

January 12th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Haha – good to hear from you! I think you are right about people feeling ripped off and there is a good disctinction to be made there: should you really get ONGOING profits from an ONE TIME connection? Thanks and see you soon!

Chiko

January 9th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

How do you find a good mentor? Figure out what you are trying to accomplish and then find those who have accomplished it, then find the one(s) that are willing to help you.

Brian Armstrong

January 12th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Couldn’t agree more Chiko!

AJ Kumar

January 11th, 2009 at 2:24 am

Great post bud. I agree. I actually contacted Neil randomly too and got straight through to him. Then again, I didn’t know he was big time :)

Brian Armstrong

January 12th, 2009 at 6:02 pm

haha…yep he is surprisingly accessible. May not be for long though!

Daniel

January 15th, 2009 at 5:28 am

Yes, finding a mentor to guide you can be the best thing you could ever do online. A mentor will be able to direct and advice you in ways that will guarantee you success. I found mine and he has being an inspiration to my online businesses and it’s my goal one day to finally meet him and let him know how much he has contributed to my online success.

To Brian, thanks for having this blog. It’s the best.

Stay blessed.

Daniel Dwase
http://www.christianbizforum.com

Brian Armstrong

January 16th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Interesting…so he has been a mentor in the sense of reading his books or seeing his speeches? I do this too with lots of high profile people, and also try to find more personal mentors who I can meet with in person. Hope you get that chance!

Daniel

January 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Hi Brian,

I’ve being reading his blog and books he’s written on building a successful internet business.

Daniel Dwase

Daniel

January 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm

Hi Brian,

I’ve being reading his blog and books he’s written on building a successful internet business.

Daniel Dwase
http://www.christianbizforum.com

Brian Armstrong

January 18th, 2009 at 5:56 pm