How to Get Someone to Mentor You

Learning from someone else’s experience is invaluable. Mentors can help you break into new fields and navigate unchartered waters. Not only they can help you become a better version of yourself, but they also advocate for your success.

Every mentorship relationship starts by asking for advice. But it can be hard to get advice from someone who doesn’t know you yet. Starting that conversation requires courage. Not only you have to admit you need help, but there’s still a possibility your request will be rejected.

People, after all, are busy — or at the very least they think they are — and it’s easy for busy people to say “no”.

In this piece, I won’t get into details of how to ask for mentoring, what medium to use, or what to say. I’ll focus instead on two tenets that, if you follow them, will greatly diminish the chances of hearing a “no”.

Always assume they are busy

In general, people like helping out. It makes them feel appreciated. That appreciation vanishes the moment they feel you’re taking their time for granted.

Busy people want you to understand that they are busy. You are reaching out. You are asking people for their time, so respect that time. You should work around their schedule, meet them at their location, use their timezone. In other words, they want you to acknowledge how busy they are.

But it doesn’t stop there. Save them time being clear on what you need help with (you’re asking for advice, remember?). Instead of writing a long-winded email with no point or babbling about things that ultimately won’t matter, be specific in what you want.

Help them decide how to answer you by including a call to action. If there’s no call to action, the burden of deciding when and how to respond will fall onto the other person. Always remember that the easier you make it for them to counsel you, the smaller the chance of hearing a “no”.

The same goes if you don’t hear back from them: follow-up once, but don’t hound them. A check-in after your initial contact is fine, but otherwise assume they don’t have the time.

Originally published at https://pluckd.co.