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We will provide you with mentoring support
that is tailored to your own individual circumstances, rather
than generic classroom training. After a rigorous analysis
of your needs, our mentors will provide support and advice
in areas that might include planning for business growth,
outperforming your rivals, and managing your organisation.
Our mentors come from a wide variety of backgrounds.
In most cases, they are of British origin, or at least are
normally resident in the UK. Some have previous experience
of living or working in Africa, although this is by no means
guaranteed (and it is not necessary for them to be an effective
mentor).
We do insist that all of our mentors have
at least five years’ experience in their chosen discipline.
In practice, most have considerably more experience (so far,
on average, they have had 20-25 years’ experience in
their fields, or in a range of related sectors). This avoids
the danger that you might be receiving support from someone
who is strong on theory, but weak on how things work in practice.
Instead you will be working with someone
who knows how people operate, how organisations work, and
what a small business needs to do in order to thrive. Some
mentors have worked for major blue chip companies, while others
run their own small businesses; in both cases they will bring
a huge amount of experience and wisdom to the table.
The mentoring process
When you sign up for a Skills Venture mentor
(using the application form on our getting
started page), we will add you to our list of entrepreneurs.
This is free of charge and carries no obligation. At this
stage we cannot guarantee when, or even if, we will be able
to provide you with a mentor, since we depend on the availability
of mentors who approach us. However, as soon as we have found
a mentor whose skills and experience matches your needs, we
will contact you to arrange for a placement.
When this happens, the exact timing of the
placement will depend on the mentor's availability to come
to Kenya. Our team of Kenyan facilitators will come and meet
you to assess your needs in more detail, and assuming that
we think that there is a good match, we will then organise
for you to undertake a number of mentoring days with your
selected mentor.
These mentoring sessions will probably take
place over the space of a few weeks. In most cases they will
be at our campus near Naivasha, but the initial meeting will
normally take place at your own premises. We will help you
to organise transport to Naivasha, if needed. It is very important
that you commit to the dates that you have agreed to.
The fee of 500KSh for a day's mentoring (including
lunch) is payable 24 hours in advance by M-PESA or Zap.
We will then organise for you to stay in touch
with your mentor after they have left Kenya, using email and
the internet, if you both feel that this would be useful.
This is free of charge. We will continue to stay in touch
with you, to monitor your progress over the following months,
and you may apply for further mentoring after this time if
you consider that to be helpful.
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