A Mentor Is Important, But A Coach Is Invaluable

Both terms, mentor and coach, are used interchangeably, designating leadership in guiding others to excellence.  But there is an important distinction between the two terms.  A mentor lays the foundation for success to their student or client.  A mentor gives advice and answers questions but rarely, if ever, follows up to check on the progress of their client.  A mentor sees the people they help as clients, while a coach sees them as students with the goal of turning them into either partners or coaches themselves.  While mentors have helped millions of entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground, coaches inject themselves into the process and guide the entrepreneur from business start-up to profit.  Mentors generally take a hands-off approach while coaches are definitely hands-on.

The separation between a mentor and a coach is accountability.  A good coach holds their students accountable to not only their scheduled tasks, but to their overall goals.  Mentors motivate their clients, while coaches hold their students accountable.  This is why coaching students excel in their businesses at a far greater rate than mentoring clients.  If the coach is also part of the same business model (and even company, as in an internet marketing business), then the coach has major financial incentives to help their student become successful.  For instance, some businesses reward coaches with 30% residual income on all of their student's revenue, without taking anything from the student.  This practice may seem insincere, but it guarantees that not only the coach's attention to their student, but it motivates the coach to provide only the advice, tools, and instruction the student needs to start earning revenue as fast as possible.

One of the goals of a successful coach is to create coaches in their students.  Financially speaking, the residual income package of many internet marketing businesses are such that if a coach has created just 10 decently producing coaches themselves, the residual income earned from the percentage of their revenue can be in the tens of thousands per month.  And since their students are now coaches themselves, that income is steady, predictable, and growing.  Professionally speaking, the testimonials and experiences the coach receives from his students when they have become successful coaches themselves is invaluable to the growth of their own internet marketing business (or any business for that matter).

It is conventional wisdom in the internet marketing business that if a person starts a business to make money as their goal, then that person will fail.  But if a person starts a business in order to have a make a positive impact on the lives of other people, then that person will succeed, because he or she will be driven by something more than money.  Successful coaches are driven by the growth and success of their students.  That is what motivates them.  Students then feed off the energy of their coach.  Students are positively motivated as they accomplish more tasks and goals laid out by their coach and start to see increasing revenue in a relatively short period of time.  Students are also negatively motivated, as a good coach will not waste their time with students who continually do not accomplish well thought out tasks and assignments.  Most of the time, simply warning the student that their coaching arrangement will end if they do not accomplish a set of tasks within a small time frame provides the kick in the pants the student needs to get out of their personal and professional rut and start thinking and acting like an entrepreneur.

The differences between a mentor and a coach are also seen in the sheer amount of clients and students they have.  A mentor can be an influence on thousands, even millions of people, producing multi-media courses and presenting in live events, then dispensing advice in question-and-answer sessions, email, online forums, and business hot-lines.  A coach has a few hundred students at a maximum, because the goal of the coach is to create business partners or other coaches, where their students will build up to hundreds of students themselves.  Remember that a successful coach can limit their students to 10 or 20 and still build an incredible residual income from the success of their students.

Mentors are very important, especially the ones that specialize in a certain field, such as internet social marketing, Google AdWords, seminar training, and so on.  An entrepreneur that is goal oriented and wishes to be successful has one coach and a few specialty mentors.  Usually, the coach will recommend a course or a book from a few mentors and will lay out precise plans and tasks that mirror the success of those mentors.  If starting an internet business to free yourself from a job or to build financial freedom to better your life and the lives of those around you, then make sure the sponsor of the business you are researching is not just a sponsor.  Also make sure they are not just mentors.  They need to be coaches, personally committed to your success.  Leave the mentorship to specialties, not your general business.  Once you find a successful coach willing to sacrifice their time and energy to guide you to success, latch on, do exactly what they say, and you will experience success at a rate and amount much greater than without one.

Never start a business alone, especially an internet business where you can be drawn into marketing scams and tricks and spend thousands thinking you can put your entire business on auto-pilot in your first week.  Once you are broke, your entrepreneurial spirit will be broken as well.  Don't let that happen to you.  Find a business with a coach who cares about your success.  You will find it very difficult to fail.