What Is Micromentor?

What Is Micromentor?

Program Marketing Kit

What is MicroMentor?

For entrepreneurs, turning a passion into a business is the ultimate dream. But that dream doesn’t come easily. It’s hard work, and there are challenges around every corner.

Fortunately, entrepreneurs don’t have to go it alone. Their chance of success increases with access to the business knowledge and guidance of experienced professionals.

MicroMentor is where they meet. We facilitate meaningful connections for early stage entrepreneurs and experienced business professionals with a proven and user-driven mentoring platform.

With a growing community and a record of thousands of mentor-mentee matches, MicroMentor’s mission is to leverage the power of mentoring to help small businesses thrive.

How can MY organization and community benefit?

As MicroMentor is a free, online service, any small business owner or experienced mentor can sign up to participate in this program. Small business and community development organizations, incubators, and startup hubs like yourself can utilize our existing online community and infrastructure to bolster your community members’ entrepreneurial endeavor.

This packet includes ideas and materials that you can instantly use to talk about our online mentoring program to your entrepreneurs and mentors. Please make use of the tools and templates in this packet, mobilize your members to get onto our platform and get connected.

As a promotional partner, your community members will receive a badge with your organization’s name so that they can identify each other. In the following section, you will find the custom link set up for your organization. Every place that you promote this mentoring opportunity to your mentors, please make sure to use this link so that they will have this badge!

If you are interested in additional services, such as access to user data and usage tracking, personalized marketing consulting, and branded landing pages, please see page 7 of this packet to learn more about our product offerings.

EXciting! How can MY community members sign up?

It is quite easy! Using the following link, direct them to the new account registration page associated with your organization:

An account will be started and they will be ready to have conversations and get connected with the mentors in no time!

When the entrepreneurs (or mentors) register on MicroMentor, they will fill out information about themselves as well as their business. Over the years, we have noticed that thoughtful and detailed profiles tend to grab the mentors’ attention leading to an enriching and productive relationship. Please encourage the entrepreneurs in your community to take some time when they start creating a profile to greatly increase the chances of quickly meeting a mentor of good fit.

We even have a blog post about the characteristics of a good entrepreneur profile, and we’d encourage you to share this resource with them:

How shall I PROMOTE this program?

There are many avenues for promoting your new business mentoring services, both online and offline. Our goal is to make this as easy as possible by supplying all the necessary resources. Below is a list of possible tactics you might consider.

Online Promotion

Create A PAGE ON YOUR WEBSITE

The easiest way to promote your new mentoring services is by adding a page to your website. This page introduces the mentoring opportunity, communicates that this offering will be powered by the MicroMentor platform, and sends them to MicroMentor to get started.

Macintosh HD Users benjaminwills Desktop Affiliate Materials Navigational Link Example pngBefore you create a page, first decide where you would like this page to be located.

See the screenshot on the left for an example. Here, the organization has listed “Mentoring” under their “Grow Your Business” tab.

This can either fit into your top-level navigation or below an existing section (as in this example), such as “Our Programs,” “What We Do,” “Services,” or “Advising.”

This page should be brief, to-the-point, and match the language of the rest of the site. You’ll find below the basic content about the program for your page. Copy and paste our basic language, edit or add content as needed, and publish!

For entrepreneurs:

Recommended Title: “One-on-one business mentoring”

Recommended Location: Under “Services”, “Programs”, or “What we do”

Body Content:

Get help starting, running and growing your business from an experienced business mentor.

Learn from experienced mentors in more than 50 industries, each with an average of 7 years of ownership and 14 years of management experience.

Tap into specialized expertise from over 5,200 active mentors skilled in business planning and strategy, marketing, finance, sales, management and more

Gain an advocate for your success. Volunteer mentors dedicate 14 hours per relationship on average and many relationships continue for more than a year.

To get started, join here:

For MENTORS:

Recommended Title: “Share Your Knowledge, help others succeed”

Recommended Location: Under “Volunteering”, “Give Back”, or “Get Involved”

Body Content:

Volunteer small business mentors are subject experts and advisors to our clients, who are small business owners. Our mentors do not see mentoring as a consulting opportunity or marketing opportunity. This is truly a chance to give back to the community!

Why do business mentors volunteer their time?

Give Back: Entrepreneurs who work with mentors on MicroMentor grow their revenue by an average of $47,300, or 106%.

Develop your skills: Even though mentors come to the relationship with substantial business experience, they frequently develop new skills such as teaching and coaching.

Learn from entrepreneurs: Conversations with entrepreneurs expose mentors to new industries, challenges, experiences, and ideas. Our mentors frequently report that they feel like they get much more than they give.

LINK:

EXAMPLES

Here are some examples of how other organizations have described the MicroMentor program, in their own voice. Notice how in each case, the description varies to match the brand style and messaging of the organization’s brand and program context:

  • ACE Loans – Entrepreneur Services in Georgia:
  • 501MentorMatch – Nonprofit professional mentoring in Oregon:
  • Women’s Business Development Center – Helping women entrepreneurs in the greater Chicagoland area:

share about THE program in an E-mail OR NEWSLETTER

If you have the e-mail addresses of your constituents, sending out an e-mail announcing this new service will likely be the most effective way of generating interest. We recommend sending a series of 2 – 3 e-mails for this mentoring opportunity. However, it can just as easily fit into your regular newsletter or alongside other announcements.

SAMPLE EMAIL COPY

SUBJECT: Get expert guidance to grow your business

BODY:

Dear [Name],

I wanted to share with you a great opportunity. Now our members have access to free business mentoring services through MicroMentor, an online platform that has helped over 9,500 entrepreneurs get connected with a mentor and grow their business through mentorship.

Now, all of our clients (that means you!) have access to a growing global community of more than 9,500 business experts in 50 industries. To learn more about this new offering and get started, go to

Thank you,

[Your name]

Post On Social Media

If you have an active following on social media, posting announcements about your new mentoring services, their value, and how to take advantage of them can help create awareness in your existing network.

Twitter CONTENT
  1. We’re thrilled to announce that we are now offering free one-on-one business mentoring! Find out more here:
  2. Make better decisions and get better results with guidance from a volunteer business mentor:
  3. Business mentoring fuels success. Find a free mentor here:
  4. Access to a community of more than 7,000 volunteer business mentors:
  5. Learn from someone who has walked in your shoes:
  6. Get help starting, running and growing your business from an experienced business mentor:
  7. Find out how entrepreneurs like you are doubling their revenue through free business mentoring:
Facebook, LinkedIn & Google+ CONTENT
  1. Get the support you need to grow your business today:
  2. Get access to a community of more than 7,000 volunteer business mentors:
  3. Wondering what the next step is for your business? Learn from experts who have walked in your shoes before through our free mentoring service:
  4. Mentoring can help you avoid costly mistakes, make better decisions and earn more revenue. Tap into our community of volunteer mentors today:
  5. Learn from volunteer mentors in more than 50 industries, each with an average of 7 years of ownership experience:
  6. Draw on the expertise of more than 7,000 volunteer business mentors through our partnership with MicroMentor:
  7. Discover how business mentoring can help you make better decisions and get better results:
  8. Get an advocate for your success. Join our free community of volunteer business mentors today:
  9. Connect with a volunteer business mentor to learn how you can grow your business:

Offline Promotion

The most successful affiliates integrate mentoring into existing programs as a core offering. Think about the situations where you interact with clients. Referrals work best when directly tied to a client need. Client intake, classes, workshops and events are all excellent opportunities for educating constituents about your mentoring services. Having printed collateral on-hand can be helpful for giving them materials to take home and review.

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