Mentoring, it turns out, is more than just giving back to the marketing community and helping younger marketers, it also presents the chance to exchange ideas and learn from each other. Mentoring is about the chance to create something together. It’s about synergy.
The mentor/mentee relationship is not only beneficial to mentees, it helps broaden the perspective of seasoned marketers who have a completely different view of the world.
Not everyone sees the world in the same way. Speaking with marketers with different experiences makes you realise that marketing really is evolving so quickly with new trends, technologies and ways of thinking. I love being able to compare marketing approaches with others who have the insights to tell me that my idea won’t work on their generation.
Why did I decide to be a mentee?
I wanted a mentor so I could sit down and have a frank conversation. I want to know how to overcome those obstacles to get to where I want to be in my career.
Should I specialise in a certain area or work on developing a broader skill set first?
Should I follow my passion or explore other areas that hold interest?
How can I choose between internal marketing and culture, customer experience, content marketing or strategy?
You see, as an emerging marketer, everything is new and it’s so hard to know where to focus. There are endless opportunities to grow and learn and contribute to your workplace. But the question remains, how to choose?
For mentors, emerging marketers seem to have an abundance of passion and energy. To mentees, their mentors appear to have reached their career goals. But the thing is, when you realise your goals, unless you set new ones then it doesn’t matter how far you climb that ladder or how far you push yourself, if you suddenly stop learning then you stop developing in your career.
When a mentor and a mentee come together to learn from each other and create new ideas, that’s when true synergy happens.
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