There probably should be a disclaimer with this article, a very good friend of mine told me not to write it. They thought it might “rub people up the wrong way” or it might prevent me or my company being employed to deliver mentoring or mentoring programmes.
And, if I’m honest, I did think twice. But this piece has been weeks in the planning, days in the writing and it’s something I’m passionate about…
Like many businesses, I’m not in the luxurious position to lose work and it not impact the bottom line.
But is that enough of a reason not to talk about the things that matter? I don’t think so.
My mum always taught me that doing the right thing and speaking up was never the wrong thing to do, no matter the consequences.
So here it is. The article my peers told me not to write.
You may grab a cuppa, this isn’t a short read, it’s a longform analysis of my observations over a period of about five years as a mentor and 30 years as an entrepreneur.
We Need to Talk Frankly About Mentoring
Here’s the thing, I’m a mentor on a number of programmes. I also do mentoring, coaching and consulting privately within my business (you’ll need to remember I split these three things later).
I’m not going to pretend I’m the best out there at what I do – I’m not, I don’t think anyone can really say that in mentoring, coaching and consulting – everyone is different in their approach. I’m fairly sure that my unique way of doing things works for some people and not for others, it’s the nature of the business. And it’s the same for entrepreneurs, they consume, digest, assimilate and process information differently – one size rarely fits all.
For entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners support is everywhere, there’s a wealth of practical, financial and mentoring programmes available across the ecosystem here in Northern Ireland offering valuable assistance to growing businesses.
Here’s the thing though…whilst the support is everywhere, I think we’re missing a massive piece of the puzzle. I don’t think we’re teaching people how to use the support effectively.
As I said, Northern Ireland isn’t short of business support.
Between government-backed initiatives, enterprise agency programmes, funded mentoring schemes, council-delivered interventions and countless third-party offers, entrepreneurs in this part of the world are surrounded by opportunities for advice, guidance, and structured help. And, for the most part, that’s a good thing.
But here’s the bit I’m uncomfortable with – I don’t think we’re teaching entrepreneurs how to be mentored. We’re giving them access to support, but not the tools to actually use it properly.
And that’s a problem.
It’s a problem I’ve seen time and time again from both sides of the table. As a mentor, trainer, consultant and as business owner who’s worked across programmes and with hundreds (maybe more 🫣) entrepreneurs, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve watched a perfectly good mentoring opportunity fall flat. Not because the mentor lacked knowledge. Not because the mentee wasn’t hungry for help. But because nobody ever explained how that relationship is supposed to work in the first place.
This isn’t a dig at funders or delivery agents or even mentors (I represent 2 out of 3 of those on occasion). The issue runs deeper than that.
We’ve built this ecosystem of support, which I think in many ways is world class. But we’ve forgotten to equip people with one of the most critical skills in the entrepreneur’s toolkit: How to confidently, effectively and critically engage with a mentor.
So, Who Needs To Care?
When I’m talking to clients I always ask them who the consumer persona is for every piece of content they put out. And I had to think about that myself when I was looking at writing this piece.
The reality is this is for anyone who has an influence in an entrepreneurs journey – programme designers, delivery agents, mentors, consultants, enterprise partners and, of course, the entrepreneurs themselves.
Because if we don’t start talking honestly about what mentoring really is, what it isn’t, and what it should be, we’re going to keep wasting time, effort, energy, funding and worse, we’re going to keep disempowering the very people we’re trying to support.
It’s time to change that.
If I look at my own experiences I had one mentor on a programme that spent about 5 or 6 hours making me fill out a single circle wheel thing of me showing how much effort I put into certain things and arguing with me when I said I didn’t want a work/life balance because I loved what I did so much that I would choose to do it on my day off (which, ironically I’m doing right now, my final edit on this piece on a day off).
This mentor forced me to create a job description for a job I knew that I, firstly, could not afford to employ and secondly didn’t think would be the first job I’d ever employ. And here I am, years later, I still haven’t employed that person but I’ve employed many others.
If I’d have known what I could and couldn’t ask for or if I’d have had the confidence to say I didn’t want to do those exercises I may have felt that I got more out of the sessions.
In complete contrast I’ve had some amazing mentors who have just “got it”, who have engaged and challenged me in ways that felt uncomfortable and scary but that was necessary and needed. By then, I knew what I wanted to achieve in the sessions and I was able to articulate that better at the beginning of the process. As a result, I got a lot from those sessions.
The Disconnect When Mentoring Misses the Mark
I genuinely believe if there’s no shift of something physically, mentally or intellectually then the mentoring hasn’t worked. There has to be a feeling that something has moved forward.
I had a mentor that gave me specific advice at the beginning of my time with them: “you need to stabilise the main business before you can pursue your tech product”.
A year later when we were discussing my “next steps” they said: “you’re thinking is too fractured, no one will want to invest in a tech product if you aren’t doing it full time”.
So what was it? Stabilise the profitable part of the business or jack that in to pursue the tech dream? To say I was deflated after this is an understatement. I felt the year I had put in was for nothing because I got the complete opposite advice from the same person 12 months later. Not just that, every time I spoke to them it felt like it was the first time I was telling them about my idea. It was exhausting and it was frustrating.
It’s time we acknowledged that mentoring isn’t working as well as we like to pretend it is. And the people it’s not working for are afraid to have that conversation with their mentor. I hope that my clients, no matter how hard it would be for them, would tell me if they weren’t getting any value or they didn’t understand the value I was trying to create for them.
I’ve said it already, the problems aren’t because the programmes are bad or the mentors don’t care or the mentees don’t engage. Many programmes are unbelievable, most mentors I know would accuse themselves of caring too much and many mentees would say they would give anything for the time and space to be able to engage effectively.
The problem is much more subtle, but no less damaging.
We’re sending people into mentoring relationships without preparing them for what that even means.
We’re not helping them understand how to use the time, how to ask for what they need, how to challenge what doesn’t land or how to know when they’re not being served well or when they need to ask more questions. Too many people sit in front of a mentor unsure of the rules, the roles or their own right to steer the conversation. And too often, they leave the session feeling “grateful” but unchanged.
There’s a difference between being grateful for someone’s time and something actually shifting.
That’s one of the biggest red flags for me. Because real mentoring isn’t just a chat. It isn’t a motivational talk. It isn’t a box ticked.
If there’s been no shift…no spark, no friction, no push…then what are we doing?
A good mentoring session should challenge your thinking. It should stir something up. It should either move you forward or force you to stop and look again. And if it doesn’t do that, if all you walk away with is a warm fuzzy feeling and a list of things you already knew, then it hasn’t landed properly.
And no, that’s not always the mentor’s fault. But it’s not always the mentee’s fault either. What we have is a systemic disconnect, one that I think is never really talked about.
Entrepreneurs don’t always know what they don’t know. They can’t always see the gap in their thinking, especially when they’re spinning ten plates and trying to keep the lights on. I know what it’s like to be too close. I know what it’s like to be in desperate need of a fresh perspective and for someone to stop you in your tracks and make you think differently.
When a mentee is in that position, they’ll often defer to the person with more experience in the room. That’s natural. But it’s also where the dynamic can quietly start to slip into something unhealthy, something performative, something that ticks boxes and fills in generic templates instead of being tailored, bespoke, thoughtful and critical. The mentee nods along, smiles, sometimes writes things down. The mentor thinks they’ve nailed it. Everyone feels good.
But nothing changes. And, after a while, the mentee realises they haven’t moved forward.
That’s why fit matters. It’s why context matters and it’s why lived experience, that real-world, get-your-hands-dirty, I’ve-been-there-and-felt-it experience truly matters in mentoring.
Mentoring Should Be Collaborative, Not Hierarchical
I can tell you from experience that a mentor who’s been in the trenches knows what it takes to spot the real problems and knows what it looks like when someone’s just agreeing to be polite. They know how to push…gently, but deliberately, to find out whether what’s being said is actually landing.
If I don’t piss people off at least once throughout our mentoring sessions I’m probably not doing my job right. It’s knowing how far you can push towards the friction is the skill and it’s knowing when you have to explain your questioning.
I honestly believe if the person hasn’t been challenged, motivated or galvanised the mentoring probably isn’t working the way it could be.
Our mentees shouldn’t feel like they’re sitting in front of a teacher hoping for a gold star. They should feel like they’re in the driving seat with someone experienced sitting alongside them, helping to read the road, navigate the bumps and figure out when it’s time to accelerate or pivot.
But they can only do that if we’ve taught them that’s what mentoring can be and given them the confidence (and permission) to own that role. Until then, we’ll keep watching opportunities slip out the door.
And we’ll keep wondering why it’s not working.
What Good Mentoring Actually Looks Like
Mentors aren’t teachers and our mentees aren’t schoolchildren.
This isn’t a power play or a classroom, in my opinion a good mentoring session should feel like a working partnership, not a lecture. It’s not about one person speaking and the other nodding. It’s about collaboration and context. But, most of all, it’s about customisation because no two mentees are the same and no one-size-fits-all approach is ever going to cut it.
So with that in mind, every mentor will have their own definition of what good mentoring looks like and I can only speak for myself. I expect there to be people that disagree and I hope there will be people that might challenge my perspective if they think it needs challenged.
In my sessions, and usually the first one or two, I start with questions – lots of them. And not the fluffy kind. The more information I have, the more context I have, the more context I have, the more questions I will have…
I interrogate the business model. I ask why – a lot, it’s annoying, I know! I want to know how they’re making money, where the profit sits, what’s actually selling, what they love doing, what’s easy to sell and what they’re only doing because they think they have to (I need to remember to take my own advice! 🤣)
The first mentoring session is one of the most important, and probably the most frustrating, too.
Why? If I don’t know you, your business or your industry I’m relentless in that deep-dive.
I’m not there to nod along and rubber-stamp the idea. I’m there to understand it – fully, deeply and quickly so I can actually offer something meaningful in return. And that means pulling it apart before we start trying to build anything on top of it.
A lot of mentees struggle with that at first. They want to get stuck into action straight away, it’s fair enough. But action without understanding is just busywork. And I’m not here to waste their time or mine.
From the very beginning, I make one thing clear: You’re the customer. You’re in control. It’s your business, your mortgage, your staff, your future. This is your time, not mine. And I need you to drive it.
- Want to change direction halfway through? Fine.
- Want to park one goal and focus on another? No problem.
- Need to reschedule, pause, rethink? That’s your call.
But with freedom comes responsibility. To the mentees it means showing up, being honest and following through. Telling me when something doesn’t make sense. Interrupt me if I’ve misunderstood your industry or made an assumption that doesn’t fit. You don’t owe me deference, you owe yourself results.
I’ll say it again, this isn’t school. This isn’t about you getting a gold star for turning up. It’s about you getting what you need. And to do that, we need to work in your way, not just mine.
That’s why I always ask how people learn. If you need a checklist instead of a conversation, I’ll build one. If you retain better by talking it out, we’ll talk. If you’re not great with note-taking, or you’d rather listen than write, that’s fine too.
I believe every mentoring session should be recorded for the client’s benefit. There’s no reason not to. We have the tools now. AI transcription, recording, automated summaries – whatever works for you. It helps the mentee revisit the conversation. It helps me stay accountable. And frankly, it stops really valuable information getting lost the second the call or meeting ends.
Let’s be honest…most people don’t remember everything they’ve heard in a high-pressure, high-emotion session. Why pretend otherwise? A good mentor will use whatever’s available to improve the experience. And they’ll adapt, not just to the business, but to the human behind it. The pace, the pressure, the style – everything needs to be flexible, moveable and able to pivot.
Because the goal should never just be for the mentor to “complete” the session. The goal must be for the mentee to walk away feeling clearer, stronger, more focused and more in control than when they walked in.
That’s what mentoring should feel like. And if it doesn’t, we need to ask why.
Is The Problem The Blurred Lines Between Mentoring, Coaching, Consulting and Delivery
Anyone who knows me knows I’m always going on about language definitions and how I don’t like blurring language. Within the entrepreneurial support world I believe there’s different ideas about what “mentoring” actually is. And, very often the lines between mentoring, coaching, consulting and delivery get merge. It happens in my sessions too – and, it’s ok!
For me, it’s not about drawing hard lines but rather knowing what hat you’re wearing and why. I don’t think we should be putting support in little neat boxes. Some mentors, like me, will use elements of all these capabilities in their sessions to deliver a result. Some, on the other hand, will be very clear on the role they want to play and the role they feel the most comfortable with. All of this is ok.
For example, when I engage with a mentor, I’m not looking for a coach or delivery. I’m specifically looking for mentoring and consulting and I see these as two very defined things. I consider myself a mentor who coaches, consults and delivers, but the simple truth is, that can be confusing for people.
The issue isn’t the crossover, it’s the lack of clarity around it all, not just from those delivering support, but from those receiving it and, in some cases, commissioning it.
So what do I see as the difference? You may or may not agree with me, and that’s ok, in fact, I’d love to have a discussion either way.
Mentoring
This is experience-led. It’s about lived knowledge, contextual insight, and strategic guidance. A mentor’s value comes from having been there. It’s not just theory, it’s real-world reflection.
The best mentors have a broad view of the business landscape. They know how to ask the right questions, spot red flags and bring perspective without dictating.
They walk alongside you, they don’t drag you.
Coaching
This is about unlocking potential and behaviour. You don’t need industry-specific experience to coach someone well.
It’s structured, often question-led and focused on helping the individual explore their own thinking.
It’s about how the person operates, not just what they do.
Consulting
This is expert advice in a defined subject area. You hire a consultant when you want a straight answer or a clear plan based on technical or specialist knowledge.
They don’t need to know your sector inside out, they need to know their subject.
You go to a consultant for answers, not exploration.
Delivery / Execution
This is doing the work. Simple as that.
Maybe it’s building your website, writing your funding application, setting up your systems. You’re not asking for guidance, you’re paying for action.
There’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not mentoring and it’s not coaching. And it’s important we don’t conflate them.
In reality, many of us cross these lines every day, especially when we’re trying to support early-stage entrepreneurs who don’t always know what they need. And there’s no shame in that.
But clarity still matters. In fact, wanting clarity isn’t about making a system more bureaucratic, it’s about empowering the entrepreneur and the person working with them to achieve the best results using the most effective methods.
When an entrepreneur understands what kind of support they’re getting, and what kind of support they’re not, they’re better placed to ask for what’s missing. If they understand the difference, they can go away, reflect and come back clearer.
That matters. That’s when they stop floating between sessions and start actually building momentum. That’s when their expectations align with the process. And that’s when mentors stop feeling like they have to be everything, all the time.
Truth Bomb 💥
Programmes often ask mentors to do jobs they were never meant to do. They want accountability. They want practical support. They want high-level consultancy. They want one-to-one coaching. And they want all of that inside a short mentoring window, usually on a public sector hourly rate that doesn’t reflect the complexity of the ask.
Most mentors on these programmes aren’t in it for the money…we can guarantee you that!
It’s no wonder mentors get burnt out or deliver inconsistently. It’s no wonder mentees get confused or disappointed. And, it makes me wonder, do programme outputs truly reflect the real impact.
What I’d love to see more of is openness. Mentors being honest about which hat they’re wearing and mentees being encouraged to ask. Even better, programme designers setting up systems that allow and encourage people to move between those support types without fear or friction.
That’s how we raise the standard across the board. That’s how we retain the best mentors. And that’s how we make sure the people we’re trying to help actually get the help they need.
Designing Better Programmes: Support That Matches the Moment
We live in a different world today, it’s changing at such a pace there’s a responsibility on programmes, delivery agents and mentors to keep up with the pace. From emerging tech and AI and post-Covid digital acceleration to the changing social, political and economic landscapes locally, nationally and internationally we have to admit that the needs of our entrepreneurs have changed and how we respond to those challenges must pivot too.
The business support landscape has changed. Not slightly. Not gradually. Radically.
We are not mentoring in the same world we were five years ago, even 1 year ago. And yet too many deliverables, objectives and key performance indicators still look like they were designed a decade ago.
Today we have a generation of business owners who can generate brand strategies, market analysis, audience personas, business model canvases and product development plans in minutes. They are walking into mentoring sessions armed with more research than ever before.
And sometimes that’s brilliant, sometimes it isn’t.
The Rise Of The Context Economy
I was speaking on Radio Ulster about this recently and I pointed out that I felt we were no longer living in a knowledge economy. The knowledge I have is no longer worth what it was before. It has severely depreciated in value because so many people can access it in a second.
We’re not in a knowledge economy anymore, we’re in what I call a “Context Economy”.
The ability to take the knowledge and apply critical thought, innovative mindsets, reasoning, analysis and experience to it is what holds the value. Knowing what the entrepreneur needs to be compliant in their business is no longer the “wow” moment for them. The “wow” moment is being able to help them figure out the nuance of that compliance or the context in which it is required.
What’s happening today is that our entrepreneurs have the knowledge at their fingertips, their problem is they don’t know what to do with it.
They’re overwhelmed. They’ve downloaded 40 ideas, but they can’t tell which one’s viable. They’ve mapped out a dozen business routes and don’t know which one to take. They’ve got three AI-generated marketing plans and no clue how to implement any of them.
This is the reality mentors are facing, the role has fundamentally shifted. It’s no longer about who has more information, it’s about how to use it. Mentors aren’t walking encyclopaedias anymore. They’re interpreters. They’re sense-makers. They’re here to help cut through the noise, prioritise what matters and focus.
We’re not failing entrepreneurs who slip through the cracks because there’s no support. We’re failing them because there’s no clarity and no fit.
And I say that as someone who’s helped design support programmes from the inside.
One of the biggest myths we need to dismantle is this idea that personalising support makes it harder or more expensive to deliver. It doesn’t. In fact, it makes it easier, quicker and more effective. When you actually build around the individual, you spend less time dragging them through stuff they don’t need.
You stop trying to retrofit people into structures that weren’t designed for them. You stop wasting hours on generic action plans and start creating momentum. And you start seeing real outcomes, not just nicely formatted evaluation forms.
We shouldn’t be shoehorning people into off-the-shelf programmes. We should be building each one with the person in mind.
Funders and investors have KPIs and delivery partners need structure. There’s pressure to hit outputs and it is vital that is achieved, it’s the only way to assess success. But if we’re serious about impact, and not just delivery, then we need to design support that reflects the world we’re actually living in.
That means recognising the shift. It means recruiting mentors you know are capable and able to adapt. It means giving space for entrepreneurs to lead. And it means having the courage to stop pretending that one-size-fits-all ever worked in the first place.
A good entrepreneur support programme isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about asking better questions.
- What does this person need?
- What does this mentor offer?
- And how do we set both of them up for success?
Entrepreneurs! You NEED To Take Control And Be In The Driving Seat
If you’re an entrepreneur engaging with mentoring support you need to:
- Own the process
- Challenge the process
- Grow through the process
You are not there to impress your mentor. You are there to build your business. That’s the truth of it. And if no one’s ever told you that before, let me be the first.
- You are the customer.
- You are the one with skin in the game.
- It’s your business.
- Your mortgage.
- Your staff.
- Your future.
You are allowed, and expected, to take control of the mentoring process.
- That means setting the agenda.
- It means saying, “This isn’t what I need right now.”
- It means interrupting when the mentor’s misunderstood something about your industry.
- It means asking questions, pushing back, changing direction mid-session, or even requesting a different mentor altogether if the fit isn’t right.
This is your time. Own it. And yes, it also means you need to come ready to be challenged.
Because real mentoring, the kind that actually shifts you forward, will press on the soft spots. It will force you to look at things you’d rather avoid. It will question your decisions, your logic, your assumptions.
If you’re not being challenged, or if you’re not willing to challenge, something’s off.
Now, I know that’s not easy. Even after 30 years in business, I still don’t love being challenged. It’s uncomfortable. It makes you feel exposed. And when you’re already carrying the pressure of running a business, the last thing you want is someone questioning the decisions you’ve fought to keep afloat.
Here’s the thing, you can’t grow without being challenged and you have to know it’s ok to pivot and change your business. I do it all the time and I’ve plenty more pivots and shocks to come this year. In this climate, pivoting is inevitable.
The business you start out building might not be the business you end up growing, that’s not failure. That’s evolution. That’s resilience. That’s a good strategy.
Right now, I’m in the middle of a major pivot myself – personally, professionally, structurally. And I’m not doing it alone. I’ve surrounded myself with trusted mentors, coaches, consultants, and friends. Because even when you know what you’re doing, you still need someone to ask you the hard questions.
The strongest entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who always have the answer. They’re the ones who are open enough to find better answers…with the right support, at the right time, from the right people.
If you take one thing away, let it be this: You should drive the mentoring experience. You’re expected to challenge it when needed. You’re allowed to change it. Because the more you take ownership of the process, the more powerful the outcome will be.
The Real Opportunity
As I said at the beginning, some people told me not to write this. Some told me not to publish it today – they thought the timing was “off”. But I’m not writing this because I’ve lost faith in the system, the process, or mentoring.
I’m writing it firstly because I’m a writer who loves to write, secondly I’m a commentator who loves to commentate and thirdly, because I’m hugely passionate about the support of entrepreneurs and I’m an advocate for the fantastic ecosystem we have here in Northern Ireland.
I’ve been on both sides and I know if we move with the times and the changing needs of our entrepreneurs we’ll do more, better and quicker and we’ll help more people.
With clarity, collaboration and challenge, that’s how we move mentoring forward.
It’s not about ripping up the script and starting again, it’s about an honesty within the system that can only come from the people who understand the needs, challenges and opportunities, the people who have and are living it.
We need to start being more honest about what mentoring actually is, and what it isn’t.
We need mentors who understand the shift that’s taken place in the business landscape – post-COVID, post-AI, post-burnout and we need delivery agents who build flexibility into their programmes to satisfy the diverse needs of their participants.
We need policymakers willing to fund support that’s human, not just efficient. And we need entrepreneurs who feel confident enough to take the lead in their own development, even when that means pushing back, pivoting or asking for something different.
Because the real opportunity here isn’t just about improving individual sessions. It’s about creating an ecosystem where mentoring is expected to evolve. Where challenge is welcomed and role definitions are clear, but flexible.
Where everyone knows the value they’re bringing and what they’re entitled to ask for in return mentoring works. When we stop trying to control it, instead understand it and take a risk to let it spread its wings we’re going to see a massive shift in the number of people who not only start businesses successfully but who also stick at them longer.
It’s time to have this conversation out in the open. What’s working? What’s broken? And what do you wish someone had told you before your first mentoring session (as a mentor or mentee)?
The more we talk about it, the more we fix it.
And the more we fix it, the more lives, and businesses, we’ll actually change.
There you have it, my flag in the sand…so how can I help you make a difference?
If you would like to review your crisis communications strategy, develop an action plan and/or need someone to step in and manage a crisis get in touch – [email protected] or grab my mobile number from my LinkedIn profile.
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