How do I get a mentor?

Someone may eventually come forward and offer assistance. There most likely will be something you can do for them in trade or $$, but if you can''t find one here I am sure there are other forums out there you could ask this in as well

Actually you won't need a mentor if you just focus and start at somewhere, if you are new to IM then you should first get some basic book explaining the basic IM stuff and while you are reading it you can start to offer services at various IM forums including warrior like article writing, backlinks, etc, and if you have any graphic skills or web development skill then you can include that too in your portfolio.

By doing the above you'll have some immediate cash at your hand which you then can invest in hosting, and buy some reseller hosting for your future sites.

Once you have hosting at your disposal and by that time you would have finished your basic book, you'll be ready for some affiliate marketing. Start with affiliate marketing and you can get some good step by step books, courses on this topic, and implement the information given in them. At the same time keep offering your services as that would provide you with some constant cash and you won't have to worry about the money while you are learning affiliate marketing and implementing it.

This is just the starting points, and you can either start from here or just wait for some compassionate mentor to come and help you.

I don't understand why people ask for mentors here when I haven't seen anyone coming forward to help these guys who keep asking for mentors, and if someone comes forward then he asks way too much money for mentoring which kills the purpose in the first place.

I'm sure there are several people on the forum who mentor but there isn't anyone I know of who knows what they are doing who is willing to do it for free.
I don't know what you mean by too much money and "kills the purpose in the first place"?
Do you think mentoring means doing it for free?
How much do you think it should cost?

Mentoring takes a lot of time and its emotionally draining.
Someone has to pay for that time.
I've spent hours and hours with students on a daily basis working for pennies because they couldn't afford it. Trying to give some of them a break. You know the saying "no good deed goes unpunished" - its actually true. The worst students are the ones who are doing it on the cheap. Probably because those people haven't learned the value of time and skill.

Most people don't realize how much work is involved so they flake on you when the projects take time and effort. Then all the coaching and mentoring turns into a waste of time.

At the beginning of this year I ran a few "cheap" classes just to give people a break. It was a disaster (in my opinion) very few finished their websites. Most people are lazy and have short attention spans. No one wants to work. Its tough to keep people motivated. In fact its very frustrating.

I believe if people don't make a solid financial investment in their learning then they won't be committed to finish. I've seen this happen far too many times for it not to be true.

You may find people here to mentor you but its not going to be free. Anyone who knows what they are doing is going to have an active business. That means they are already busy. You'll have to buy their time if you want it.

The more successful they are the more you'll have to pay for their time and experience.

Remember - you pay peanuts, you get monkeys

You need to be very clear what "the next
level" is before you even begin to look for
a coach or a mentor.

You also need to be very clear about what
business you are actually in, or plan to be
in. Then you'll know the type of person who
is most likely to be able to help you.


John

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear...

Or so I heard from a girl in a bar

Peace

Jay

This is really helpful information! Well, if anyone is interested in trade, I've got a bachelors in systems administration, 10+ years experience hosting (linux, windows, mail, http, etc...), and have been building websites since 1999 (graphics, php, css, html). Also, plenty of experience with business development (mainly in tech industries) and I've got a natural knack for IM and am absolutely loving it so far. This is truly my first segway into the realm though and I'm prone to focusing on "unfruitful" labors all too often (mainly autoblogs this week) and have had trouble getting significant traffic flowing... and I suppose the next level (goal) for me would be $50/day continuously.

I guess there are mentors and mentors - I've done work with friends mostly on the basis of asking them to either use some affiliate links of mine, offer me some promotion,or sign on to affiliate schemes via my links. If they become successful I profit - and my help has cost them nothing.

Well the same thing happens in all such mentoring threads, i.e. everybody starts to post facts about how much their hours are worth as per the income they are earning, and no one dares to come out in front to offer their coaching.

I consider such things as just lame excuses because no one can actually determine how much you are worth per hour because one can't determine it solely just based on your own said earnings that you supposedly earn....

Another excuse that I often see is that "students are lazy, and want to be coached for nothing, and they are not willing to work"!!! Well maybe the fault is not with the students, it's with the mentor himself because he doesn't know how to properly coach his students, and I know that no mentor will say that he is poor at teaching his students. It takes courage to say this and take responsibility.

Every time when I read such excuses by mentors I wonder what the other side[students] have to say about it.. I would like to see what the students who went through some sort of coaching and then supposedly didn't complete it have to say about this.

Students are lazy, not all but the majority who claim they want help.

I have testimonials from students who completed the work, students who took action, and have students who did nothing with the same material and help. I have people from both sides of the fence.

Ah! it's the mentors fault for not teaching correctly. How come this is true when you teach 20 people, 5 are successful because they did the work, they took actions, they asked for extra help and the 15 failures all have excuses why they couldn't do it.

Sahi, as you're such an expert at mentoring when are you going to give all the people who want help mentoring for free. You could do a case study and show how you have the hidden secrets of how to have 100% success with every single person.

Here's the problem with free mentorship or taking a profit split from your students success. I was recently talking to a very successful direct marketer in the UK. He has consistantly earnt 7 figures for a number of years. He offers a high cost one to one years mentorship. It costs about £10k ($16K). He lays out a blueprint to success. He told me that of the last 20 people enrolled, 16 dropped out within 6 weeks as they thought it was too much hard work, 3 dropped out after a couple of months leaving 1 guy that looks to earn over £100k in his first year. So even paying this high price people didn't follow through. That's the sad facts of life.

Rich

Talk to Michael Oksa. He mentored me, and his advice was invaluable.

I think that if you can find someone to mentor you and you are willing to follow what they say than you are luck.

I am a firm believer in teaching someone how to fish instead of giving them a fish.

Being an accountant IM has never come easy and still doesn't after 10 years. I have had some small successes but nothing lasting.

If you have the $$$ and can find a mentor that walks the talk and can show you how to duplicate their results then you have landed a goldmine.

If you can accelerate the learning process which will save you time and money than its worth it. Unfortunately not everyone has the $$$ for that route.

Personally being back on WF I am finding I have analysis paralysis from all the information overload. Having a hard time focusing on any one plan even if its in front of me and I am sure their are others here.

I am sure some find mentors here and that some mentors find you but not through the open forum but by PM.

Also don't look at your mentor as a way to get rich quick.

sahi - I'll address your issues.

My rates are based on $65 hr and are posted here
Webmaster & Website Maintenance Plans
The retainer plans work out to less money per hour but you have to make a commitment to them.

Sure I have had students where the fit wasn't good. I'm the first to tell them its not going to work.
I don't know about anyone else but for me this is more than just taking someones money. I take pride in the project and when people accomplish their goals.
I get it that day to day life gets in the way but some of the people I've had - and its always the free or cheap rate ones - just can't seem to stay motivated.

One guy - I setup 2 blogs for him and gave him free hosting - so the only cost he had was for his domains. There were 2 or 3 posts added then nothing - they are still sitting there not being used months later.

Same for another young fella who was ambitious about his sports and promoting affiliate products in the sports niche. I gave him free hosting, setup his blog and created a template for him - ALL for no cost.
He posted a few things and there it sat - no updates - nothing. In fact I just recently deleted it off my server. There had been nothing done to it for over a year.
With that person part of his obligation was to report back in a certain forum the things he was doing and the goals he was achieving.

I could go on and describe others I've helped but I think you get my point.

Of the students I've had where they paid for my services - and not a discount rate either. Most of them manage to achieve their goals.

But it never fails - the ones who want it for nothing or whine about the price and talk me to down to a lower rate - those always come back to haunt me.
They either take up too much of my time, wanting to be spoon fed everything or they bail before completing the project.

Seanyd.. Let me tell you about working with percentages. It takes a mature business person to do this. I'm not talking about the mentor. I'm talking about the person paying the percentage.
Here is the reality of percentage based projects. I'm speaking from experience and the experience of my husband who works in sales and has for the majority of his adult life.

The guy paying the percentage is ALWAYS looking at your pile of money. Its a rare business person who looks at your pile of money and says to himself - well if I'm paying him $1,000 then I'm putting $3,000 in my pocket (based on 25% commission)

Most of the time they look at your pile of money and say to themselves - good grief I'm paying this guy too much. Last month I paid him $500 now I'm paying him $1,000. Whats he doing for that money. I could outsource this to someone in (wherever) for $2.00 hr ... blah blah blah ...

Now lets move this over to the online world
If I take a percentage then my income is based on your efforts.
I've done this so read this carefully.
It generally takes time to establish a business and so the first 3 - 6 months the income is lean but thats when the majority of the work is done.
Bottom line when people start making money they forget about all the work that was put in at the beginning and its hard for them to write that check to you. Remember they are looking at your pile of money - not their own.

Then there are the people who - no matter what you say and plans you create for them they can't do it. So they don't earn which mean I don't get paid.

Nope I don't do that anymore. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt to prove it.

I've had to take a hard A$$ approach lately. I've donated too much of my time this year.

sahi - Whats your definition of reasonable?

Tell me how much you think you should pay per hour for coaching / mentoring

Hi John,

It's the sort of entitlement attitude in this thread, combined with an unwillingness to take action that scares me.

The thought seems to be, if I get a mentor and I pay then I want them to do the work for me.

Being a student can be hard, and that's not considering payment fees and for many that is too much to stomach.

Unfortuantely, IM has gotten a bit of a reputation where anyone can make money for free. I've seen a few too many, 'I am broke / need a mentor / need help' posts where the same person is also promoting and selling some sort of wealth building ability.

I can't help but feel that this comes down to an unwillingness to work and an entitlement attitude. The point made earlier about 'fees should be reasonable' - mentors aren't Wal Mart - there is no good reason or need for us all to rush to the bottom price wise.

Coaching isn't a commodity. Or another get rich quick thing.

There are real benefits there for those that put in the work but personally I don't want a student who views coaching like buying a cut price HD TV at Walmart.

First of all, I am very appreciative to the person who volunteered to mentor me a couple months ago. I've worked hard, learned alot without leaning on them very much, but I'm always received kindly with answers. First class human being.

To pen another cliche", "the teacher becomes the student". I think there's a benefit that comes to the mentor when they agree to help someone. If I wasn't so new myself, I'd gladly volunteer.

But that's the purpose of this forum. Almost everyone is here to either learn or share. I may say something, and the next person will augment it (or tell me I'm full of it). Meanwhile everyone learns.

My advice - don't focus on the fact that you're new. For some reason it doesn't sit well with some people here. But if you have a question, however basic it is, just ask. Someone with more experience will answer. And if it's the right question, it will spark ideas as well as shared experiences.

There are also forums and programs more geared to beginners. Contact me and I'll share, for what it's worth.

808glass, my apologies for not addressing your post. Let me give you a bit of advice, you'd have an easier time finding a mentor if you weren't so anonymous. I don't even know your name or where you're from.

Secondly, what interests you? IM is a vast, vast place. Is there anything specifically that looks good to you? Affiliate marketing? Creating your own products? Or are you overwhelmed and not sure where to being?

RoD

BTW - if you might be interested in mentoring me, shoot me a PM and I'll send my LinkedIn account. Thanks!

Normally a mentor is suppose to get satisfaction from bringing up someone he calls his protegee without money being involved,but it is hard to come by such mentorship these days especially on the net.
You should make a search on what you want to be mentored on,when you have someone(people) you specifically contact them and let them know you might just land some one eager to mentor you,even if it is for a fee.Tutelage is pricesless