By Roger James Hamilton, Futurist and Founder of Genius Group
When it comes to entrepreneurial success, often, the most difficult part of the business journey is getting the initial idea off the ground. You spot a market trend, have an idea, want to solve a problem, but you’re just not sure how – or not confident enough – to take the plunge and turn your idea into reality.
This is where business mentoring comes in. Some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs have benefitted from mentoring in one form or another. One of the world’s wealthiest businesspeople Bill Gates credits his success, in part, to his mentor Warren Buffet. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg looked to Steve Jobs as a source of inspiration and advice. While prior to that Steve Jobs benefitted from the guidance and mentorship of one of Apple’s earliest angel investors, Mike Markkula.
Why Business Mentoring
It doesn’t matter if the business mentoring relationship is formal or informal, direct or indirect. What does matter is that you connect with someone who encourages you and challenges you to approach potential problems from a different perspective and think bigger.
They don’t teach subjects like entrepreneurship and investment in schools yet. Business owners must carve their own path of learning. Gaining access to insider knowledge shared by a mentor increases the chances of securing sustainable business development and success.
That’s what happened when Chad Pope and his business partner Andrew Mobsby attended the Wealth Dynamics Masters programme at the Entrepreneur Resorts Tau Game Lodge in South Africa in 2019. They had no business at this point, just an idea of democratising investing in order to help motivated investors. Following the retreat, Cashbox Global was launched. Two years later, Cashbox Global became a multi-million-dollar company through giving retail investors access to the same banking instruments that were only available to institutional investors in the past.
Chad says: “There have always been opportunities for more predictable rates of return, through products created by investment banks – but previously these have only been available to very large investors. We wanted to make these opportunities available to everyday investors, who don’t perhaps have a million dollars to invest in one product. So, what we’ve done is gather interest from like-minded investors who have a minimum of $10,000 or more to invest per product and put them in one box – a ‘cashbox of interested investors’ if you will.”
Asked if the business mentoring has impacted on the success of Cashbox Global, Chad says: “Absolutely! Our growth has been driven by the breakthrough ideas we unearthed at the Wealth Dynamics Masters programme. We have loved the journey, camaraderie, and global relationships that have developed because of being around go getters.”
Through mentoring, Chad and Andrew discovered several key takeaways that were crucial in structuring his business and has the following advice for other start-ups in the financial sector:
- Go upstream: With Cashbox Global, we link directly to the source of financial products.
- Cut out the middleman: For us, this has allowed supply to be narrow, clear, and uncomplicated.
- Parachute in: Partnering with the very best suppliers means going straight to the top – there is no need to climb the mountain on your own.
- Build a team: We brought together a very specific team that enables us all to work to our strengths and employ complimentary skills or resources. This has allowed us to be aware of and appreciate each other’s strengths and abilities, plus we have no blind spots.
- Create rhythm: Making a super clear business plan and promotion plans have been great enablers – all clearly understood by all, all of the time.
Chad and Andrew are now members of the Genius Group Crystal Circle, an invitation only global mentoring group delivering the guidance, tools and resources to maximise business outcomes in a 12-month exclusive programme. He credits this mentoring to helping his business through the impact of the pandemic.
“In hindsight, 2020 was a blessing because we had to accelerate into a new space of on-line and global fast,” Chad points out. “It was great to have the Crystal Circle team’s guidance and world views to bounce new ideas and learnings off. There really isn’t anything that can’t be achieved if you are open minded and receptive to new learnings and experiences.”
How Business Mentoring Could Work for You
The first step to connecting with a suitable mentor is to identify a person who possesses the attributes, skills and experience which you respect and feel inspired by. Start by looking to and building upon your existing network. Then broaden your outlook outside of the key players in your industry. You can also look sideways to other sectors – there can be lots to learn from adapting successful paths or processes and translating them to your market. Consider investing in specialists – seeking out more structured coaching and courses takes the principles of business mentoring to the next level.
About the Author
Roger James Hamilton is a New York Times bestselling author and Founder and CEO of Genius Group, a multi-million-dollar group of companies including GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, Entrepreneur Resorts and Genius School. GeniusU is an edtech company and platform providing over 2 million students with personalised learning paths and is currently seeing over 1300 new students join each day to take the entrepreneur quiz and identify their path to wealth. Genius School provides education courses for young people from 0 to 25 years old. Entrepreneurs Institute provides training courses from 25 to 100 years old, and Entrepreneur Resorts is a market leading group of entrepreneur focused luxury resorts and lodges, beach clubs and city co-working hubs, offering business leaders professional educational retreats in exotic destinations around the world, including Singapore, Bali and South Africa. Entrepreneur Resorts will be expanding to 10 further locations this year. Roger is the creator of Wealth Dynamics, Talent Dynamics and Impact Dynamics, used by over 2 million entrepreneurs to follow their flow.
About Chad Pope
Chad Pope is a successful entrepreneur who has spent 30 years building and optimising multiple businesses and refining his personal investment model. After personally experiencing the benefits of Structured Products, Chad joined the Cashbox Global team as Head of Operations to make these products available to more people. Cashbox Global aims to democratise investing by offering financial investment contracts, delivering predictable, sustained returns. The company joins together a community of like-minded investors from across the globe. Cashbox Global’s enterprise promise is: Helping you to easily create safe, strong, steady, passive sources of income so that you can go do the things you would rather be doing.
