Can mentoring be found with an algorithm? Jo Burston thinks so - Women's Agenda

Can mentoring be found with an algorithm? Jo Burston thinks so

According to serial entrepreneur and Inspiring Rare Birds founder Jo Burtson, having a mentor is the key to success for women in business, no matter how far along your entrepreneurial path you are.

Australia’s women entrepreneurs will now be better equipped than ever to find that mentor thanks to a new partnership between Inspiring Rare Birds and Virgin Unite.

Virgin United, the not for profit foundation that forms the basis of the Virgin Group, has agreed to partner with Inspiring Rare Birds to roll out a national mentoring service called Rare Birds Mentoring.

Inspiring Rare Birds is a support service for women entrepreneurs in Australia, founded by Burtson late last year, in order to fill the gap in support for women in business. The company launched its first book earlier this year, Rare Birds: Australia’s 50 Influential Women Entrepreneurs, designed to inspire women looking to enter the world of business.

Moving from inspiring to enabling, the organisation is now preparing to roll out its mentoring service to ensure women entrepreneurs have the support they need to be successful in business.

The mentoring service will use an algorithm to connect entrepreneurs with mentors, which Burston believes will help ensure they are suitably matched. 

“If you match two people at the right time, with the right skills and experience, you can begin a relationship that will grow and develop over many years and benefit both the mentor and the mentee,” Burston told Women’s Agenda.

“The algorithm works to make sure everyone is perfectly matched. The program begins with a set of validations to help both parties understand who they are and what they want out of the relationship. We take detailed demographic information from the entrepreneur as well as information about her business and about her personality. We then do the same with mentors – we collect information about their own experience in business, their career path and their personality. We then match them up and set up an introduction between the two parties.”

Burston added that if, upon introduction, both parties were happy with their match, they proceed with a mentor/mentee relationship.

So why is mentoring so important for women in business?

“You can’t be what you can’t see. By that, I mean that women need clear, strong role models, particularly in a male dominated industry like business, to show them what they are capable of and how to get there,” Burtson said.

“Women’s natural instinct is to put others before ourselves, but mentoring is one area in which it is crucial to put yourself first, invest in yourself and find a mentor that will help you achieve everything you want to achieve.”

Burston said mentors are particularly important in an all-consuming project such as starting your own business.

“Mentoring is a very personal relationship and it covers all aspects of the experience of becoming an entrepreneur,” she said.

“Your mentor ends up knowing more about you than anyone else on the planet. They know how you’re feeling, how you’re coping, how successful your business is – even what your financial books look like.”

“This is a hugely important aspect of mentoring because while entrepreneurs are great at telling you their good news, they are not so good at sharing bad news. A mentor is a trusted confidant, someone you can share everything with, even the really bad news. You share with them the fears and challenges that you wouldn’t share with anyone else.”

Burston said she hopes the mentees who join Rare Birds Mentoring will all experience this kind of holistic approach that will assist female entrepreneurs in all aspects of their lives, both in business and outside it.

Burston, who launched her first multi-million dollar company in 2006 and now owns eight different businesses, says she couldn’t have achieved any of these goals without a mentor.

“Having a mentor is crucial at every single stage of entrepreneurship,” she said.

“I couldn’t do anything without my mentors, even now. One of my mentors has been with me for nine years, since the very beginning, and I couldn’t have achieved the things I have without that relationship.”

“I’ve had a mentor from day one, and the things I’ve learnt over the thousands of hours of conversations with my mentors are immeasurable. These are things I never could’ve learned from a book.”

“It’s like having a best friend just for business.”

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