In
2000, I started a business that involved publishing a newsletter on Latin
American Internet companies. I sought
the help of a mentor from the Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE). This outstanding group of successful business
people volunteer their time to help new entrepreneurs with every aspect of
their business, from writing a business plan to marketing and sales and human
resources management. I found this advisor’s suggestions as very helpful.
And
so I was very pleased to discover that this group now offers on-line
consultations with a national group of mentors.
You can search for a mentor by both industry specialization and by
functional focus. http://www.score.org/mentors. So you could search for a marketing mentor who
has industry focus on the IT sector, for instance. This service allows you to tap a previously unavailable
national network of volunteer mentors so that you are no longer limited by
geographic restrictions to meeting only with mentors in your local area. So if you are starting a technology business in
Florida, now you have access to technology marketing specialists in Silicon
Valley.
On-line
mentoring is also extremely helpful to abused women who might want to start a home-based
business without their male partner knowing about their activities. This way a
woman could seek on-line advice about how to run her business. She could operate under the radar of her
abuser and would not have to leave the house to attend a mentoring meeting. Thus, her abuser would be less likely to
track or question her movements. In this
way a woman could begin making plans for her financial self-liberation from her
abuser’s control while keeping her male partner in the dark and protecting her
safety.
