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Mentoring programs can skyrocket your organization’s success if you have the right strategies. I discuss those strategies in this episode with my guest, Ken Rusk.
Ken is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and blue-collar advocate that proves there is no degree needed to achieve comfort, peace, and freedom. Ken spent his younger years digging ditches and working in construction.
He is passionate about helping people achieve their dreams regardless of their educational background or past. In Ken’s book, Blue-Collar Cash, he shares his insights from over 30 years of working in blue collar trades as an entrepreneur, mentor, and life coach.
Why is Mentoring Important?
Ken believes it should be incumbent to anyone who is successful to give back to the people that are following in their footsteps. He believes that it’s a good idea to shorten the learning curve of those who follow us because you can prevent them from making a lot of expensive mistakes. That’s just part of being successful to share that kind of advice; especially if those people work for you. To grow your company there’s a lot that you can do to help people within your company that are intrapreneurial at heart to be successful. They win, you win, everyone wins at that point.
The Case for Mentoring Intrapreneurial People
As the owner of a business, your goal should be a couple of things. Number one, it should be to become as irrelevant to the business as possible from a mechanical daily standpoint. If you’re going to be a visionary you can’t be involved in doing the day-to-day stuff. You need to hand it off to people and make them feel they have some ownership of the results. He’s said in front of his staff of over 200 that he can’t get what he wants, his company can’t get what it needs until all of his employees get what they want first. The more they win the more you’re going to win in the end.
Advice for Leaders
You must be planning what you want to do with your business, meaning drawing it out to the most minute detail. It’s like creating a brochure that is about yourself. You must have a clear idea of the goals your company is moving towards and why. Once that reason is clear then passing that goal along to the people in your company that you’re mentoring is paramount. You want to get your team to feel like they’re in it for themselves and they relish the fact that they’re allowed to swim in that intrapreneurial pool. When they create results and share ownership of those results your business is poised for explosive growth.
We also dive into topics such as:
- Characteristics of good mentees.
- How to create successful mentorship experiences for intrapreneurs.
- How to create a platform for mentorship within your organization.
- How to approach potential mentors.
- Why you want to hire people that are self-managing.
- Advice for bosses about how to be good mentors.
- Examples of what Ken’s mentoring programs look like.
- The importance of recognition and bonus plans.
- Why dropping the ego as a boss/owner will make your business more successful.
- How to successfully co-create and achieve goals with your employees.
- The criteria of good goals.
- The one thing, above all else, that you need to do as an owner/boss to create a mentoring program within your organization.
…and other golden nuggets of advice!
You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”
Click here for more outstanding interviews with entrepreneurs and thought leaders!
About My Guest
Ken Rusk is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and blue-collar advocate showing that there’s no degree required for comfort, peace, and freedom.
Ken spent his younger years digging ditches and working in construction. He never went to college. Instead, he made goals, planned, and worked hard for thirty years. Now, Ken is a very successful entrepreneur with multiple businesses and revenue streams.
Ken Rusk specializes in mentoring and has coached hundreds of young people in areas such as short-, mid-, and long-term goal setting, life visualization, career paths, and sound financial planning. He is passionate about helping people achieve their dreams regardless of their educational background or past.
Click here to learn more about Ken!
