Mentorship - w/ Lauren Stiebing - Ep. 69

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Welcome everybody, to another edition of CPG Insiders. I'm your host, Markan. Justin is off today and. But that's okay because we have a great guest today. Now, folks, I want to set the stage for you here. We're going to talk about mentorship. And this is interesting because I just met with a young man who has a company, not going to use the name of it, and great guy, great knowledge of his industry, great products, but he's made a lot of mistakes. And the reason he made a lot of mistakes is because he was kind of making it up as he goes and he didn't have anybody to guide him. So one of the things you have to think about when you're an entrepreneur is entrepreneurs. And again, I want you to understand there's a difference between an entrepreneur and self employed. A plumbing contractor can be self employed. I'm a plumber and I've got a truck and a couple of employees and I'm self employed. I'm a barber. I have a barber shop. And there's nothing wrong with that. But that's not being an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is somebody who has a vision and creates something from nothing. And an entrepreneur. All entrepreneurs believe they have a secret. And their secret is, I know how to do something or make something better than the rest of the world. I have this unique ability or this unique knowledge or this, this unique invention or process, whatever the case is, that is going to make the world better. And I'm the only person who can do it. And when you do this, you go into this with everyone around you telling you you're wrong. So everyone is saying this is a bad idea. Why would you give up your job at a Fortune 500 company to go do this? And what happens if you fail? And you know what you're saying is too ambitious. So this is what you hear. And then you go out and you do it and you make some money. And then you tell yourself, well, see, I'm the only person that knows what they're doing because everybody else said I was wrong. So then I go and I do the next thing and the next thing I do. And people say, well, you made it past the first one, but you're probably going to be wrong on this one. And then you're right again and this becomes a reinforcing behavior. And this is normal for humans. And we just. And we really learned this during World War II. Hitler had the idea that if he kept bombing London, if he bombed London every night, that eventually he would break down the strength and Break down the attitude of the British people that eventually they would just give in. What he didn't understand is that it is human behavior that every time Hitler bombed London and he didn't hit me, I became that much more emboldened to essentially flip Hitler the finger because it's like, ha, sucker. You've bombed London eight times and you haven't hit me. So I become more and more convinced that you won't get me. And again, this is why people smoke cigarettes even though they know cigarettes are bad for them because, well, it gets everybody else, but it won't get me. So as entrepreneurs, we start to reinforce this thinking that I'm the only person who's correct. However, the great entrepreneurs, the people who really succeed, are the people who realize, yes, I need to press forward when. When the people around me. And remember, most of these people around you are not experts in your field. It's the family, friends and all that I need to understand. They're not part of my world. So when they're not part of my world and they tell me I'm going to fail, I'm probably not going to listen to them because they're not part of my world. They're not entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are not made, they are born. There is about 4% of the country or 4% of the population that has an entrepreneurial genetic predisposition to be entrepreneurial. And these are people who, like myself, have very high tolerance for risk. And I'm going to use racing as an example. I literally just came back from Sebring International Raceway where over this weekend I ran two eight hour races. And we drive as a team. So I didn't drive all 16 hours, but I was driving in a championship level at a very high level where the competition on this track is absolutely terrorizing. And at the track was my two coaches. Now, I want you guys to understand, my coaches are half my age. They're literally half my age. In fact, younger than half my age. But they've been driving for many more years than me. And they're great drivers and they know what they're doing, but they're great coaches. And I was able to drive on that track with them in my ear because we have radios. And I had a coach telling me, you can do this, you can take this area. Okay, break. A little later when you're coming into this turn, turn the car out a little bit more and rotate the car. When you get here, watch out for that guy who's coming up on the right hand side. I had the coach that was telling me how to do it. This is why when we look at, you know, great teams like the Chicago Bulls in the past and we look at, you know, what was it? Who was the coach over there? I'm trying to remember the name of the coach in Chicago. Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson. Thank you. And Phil Jackson was a great coach. But does anybody think Phil Jackson was a better player than Michael Jordan? No, Michael Jordan was the star. But Phil Jackson knew how to bring the best out of him. And that's what a coach and a mentor does. So today we're going to talk to Lauren and Lauren it is stibing, right?

Correct? Stibing, yes, stibing.

And Lauren is the CEO of LS International. And I'm going to read a little bit here. So Lauren is a small town girl. This is, I almost feel like I'm reading the story here. A small town girl with big dreams. This is almost like a Hallmark movie. Degree in international studies from Louisiana State University and she went to school in Amsterdam. She has a passion for headhunting, top notch networking abilities, skilled judge of people, experienced headhunter, founder of LS International. Persevering, hard working, resilient, high personal standards, dedicated to success of every client and candidate. And she specializes in finding your really thing is finding the best people for sales, marketing and general management. And we'll talk about that more. But what we're going to talk about right now is how do people get the get the right coach, the right mentor because we need these people. This is an important thing. So. So Lauren, first off, welcome to the show and you heard my diatribe at the beginning. Did you kind of disagree with me? Agree with anything I said. Go ahead and pick it apart.

Thanks, thanks. No, I definitely agree. I think it's useful to differentiate coach and mentor. Obviously in sports it's a bit different, but if we talk about the professional world, I think for coaches they're usually asking you questions that you get to the answer yourself. Whereas mentors, I would say are more of a guide. They can use coaching techniques but they can also give direct advice and share their own experiences. So I would say mentoring is a bit more give and take. Coaching is very much getting you to reflect on your own ideas by asking you questions. And then the sports piece is another piece. My father is actually a professional basketball coach as well. So if we want to go to the sports side can also comment on that. But I think you're completely right that the coach doesn't need to be the best person that does that. Job, they need to be able to get the best out of the person doing that job.

And in the case of mentoring, when you, when you jump into the world of entrepreneurship and in the care in our, most of our people are in the category consumer packaged goods. If you haven't been there, someone who's already been there can really save you from making a lot of bad mistakes because that's. We find the biggest problem. I know about you, but we find often one of the, one of the worst things we see because the company comes to us and they're great people and they have great products, but they've made so many mistakes, it's hard for us to fix it because they didn't have anyone to tell them, don't do that.

Yeah.

And the right mentor can absolutely save you a fortune by telling you, not only telling you what to do, telling you what not to do.

Yeah. I think though, there are different levels. What I was thinking is from our side, we are usually working with mentors that are experienced executives. So those executives have never actually been entrepreneurs. So I think as well, it kind of depends what their experience is and where that entrepreneur is. If they're in a very startup phase. I think working with like an executive entrepreneur from the CPG industry maybe isn't the best idea because they're probably going to like knock down all of your ideas. But I think if you're at a stage where, you know you're maybe selling 50 million, 100 million, 200 million, then that could be a stage where someone that has managed that size business before could also be very helpful. So I guess it depends. I mean, ultimately that person, the mentor is going to really like share their experience, their expertise. You know, they need to be willing and open to guide that person, support their growth. But they also should be qualified or have similar experiences to what that mentee is looking for. And most entrepreneurs should have multiple mentors with multiple different types of experiences as well.

So understand when, when Lauren's talking about entrepreneurs and executives, there's a huge difference. As I said before, entrepreneurs are people who have vision and they create something from nothing. Executives are people that are trained in management and know how to take the 0 to something. So let's call that 0 to 1 and turn the 1 into 10. And that's a skill as an entrepreneur we don't usually come to the table with. And this is why in all entrepreneurial companies, as they grow, there's the time when it's time to, and I use, I'm using this word probably In a way to irritate people. There's a time when it's time to bring in the experts. And so I'm not saying that an entrepreneur isn't an expert. I'm saying that if you are a real DNA dying a hard, genetically born, a born entrepreneur, you probably suck as an executive because it's boring to an entrepreneur because it's like, I don't want to do this. This is repetitive. Well, that's kind of how you build a business. Once you create something, you need to be able to repeat it correctly.

Yeah.

And that's not fun for an entrepreneur. And that's why you need these executives. So.

And I think one other thing. Sorry to interrupt, Mark, but I think a big differentiator is as well. They're not investing their own money most of the time, so it's someone else's money. Whereas entrepreneurs, because I've also had experiences where, you know, companies will launch a new brand and they'll say, yes, I built that brand from the ground up, but you had the, the entire network and the backing of a much larger organization. So I think putting, let's say skin in the game is also a big differentiator between entrepreneur and executive.

Yeah. Being the category captain of a new line of product at P and G is not launching a skin care line out of your garage. It is, it is a completely different experience. And I got to tell you this. So we had a, we had a company that thought they needed to really bring in some big talent years ago, and they hired a guy who was a category captain from Campbell Soup. This guy was shell shocked when he had a meeting with Walmart because as Campbell Soup, he was a category captain. He controlled 30ft of shelf. He did whatever he wanted to do on 30ft of shelf. And now he found himself in front of a Walmart executive begging for 3 inches of shelf space and literally didn't understand, why are you doing this to me? What do you mean? I don't fit on the shelf. So there's a place for the entrepreneur, then there's a place for the executives. The entrepreneur knows what it's like to have to battle for 3 inches of shelf space. The big corporate executive, that's a different experience for them. However, they have other skills that you don't have. So what do we think is the most value that an entrepreneur would get when working with a mentor? What do you think they're really going to get out of it?

Yeah, a few different things. I think some of the, let's say being a Sounding board, I think is the thing that they find most useful. I mean, everybody knows that entrepreneurs, they're usually making the decision, so they need to make quick decisions without a lot of information. But sometimes it is good to have a sounding board to bounce ideas off of, to really, I would say think in another way, think a bit out of the box. Obviously a lot of entrepreneurs are great at thinking out of the box, but out of their own box, I would say. So it's good to have like a different angle, different view on things I think as well just like exposure to different perspectives, different knowledge. One of the biggest things that people are looking for in a mentor is that they're going to bring knowledge and learnings that they don't have usually. It will also help to increase your self awareness. So you know, by them questioning you, getting you to think in different ways, you'll also learn about yourself. And that also helps to build self esteem, confidence. We all know that entrepreneurs have great days and really, really terrible days. So I think, you know, having a mentor is great in both of those instances, but definitely on the days that aren't so great.

And let me tell you another issue you have. When you're an entrepreneur and you've got a small company and you've got suppliers and you've got your employees working for you, you live in a lonely spot. You have people around you, but you live in a lonely spot. And the reason is because your friends and family for the most part don't understand what you do. And the rest of the circle that's around you is working for you. So you don't always have people that are just willing to say, hey, you're heading down the wrong track today. It's very difficult to get somebody to do that. And I'll give an example when I say your relatives don't know what they're doing. My parents, who are both passed away at this point, I assure you. My father passed away not understanding what I do for a living because he came from a different world and for him it was like, so people give you money for what? Why do they do that? And why do they give you that much? So they pay to talk to you? Does that, that just didn't make any sense to him. Why would people pay to talk to somebody? And that's the same case for most entrepreneurs. So you do need that voice that is willing to say, hey, you're nuts here today. You're heading in the wrong direction today. This is a bad idea. Because most people around you are either going to say it's a bad idea because they have no understanding of what you're doing or they're not going to tell you it's a bad idea because they're on your payroll.

And I think one of the biggest aspects as well is the network. So by everyone you know, you also have access to their network. And I think as you said, most of our days are spent spent entrepreneurs building their business. They don't have a lot of extra time to go out networking. I mean definitely they're like industry events and different ways to connect with people. But most entrepreneurs aren't prioritizing those things. They're prioritizing their business and working hard. So depending on your mentor, it also gives you access to their network that could also come from funding or other suppliers that can also directly help the business.

So how does somebody find the right mentor? How do they go around finding one? And again, my head is kind of like saying, okay, it's like AA and I need a sponsor. Which by the way, entrepreneurship probably runs very closely akin to a form of addiction. It's another conversation. But where do I find a mentor?

So yeah, there's a few, I mean a few different, I would say more generic places and then I can get into more, more concrete. But I would say just anywh where you are definitely, as I said, like networking, attending industry events, workshops, conferences, seminars. I think also depending on the network you have already, you can tap on people that you really trust to see if they know anyone. So you know, let really leveraging your existing contacts. Then of course they have like online platforms. So there are many different platforms. I mean LinkedIn doesn't really do the matching but of course you can go and search on LinkedIn. There are mentoring platforms that can match you educational institutions. So any kind of university, mba, anything like that. Our ourselves we have a program called LS Elevate that Most of our mentors are executives, as I was saying, so they're working executives in CPG companies. But there's also a lot of startup incubators have mentorship programs. So I think once you get looking, you'll find a lot of different ways to find a mentor. But yeah, we can get into how to find the best mentor. But I think with the Internet. Yeah.

How do you do it? If I came to you and asked you to help me find the right mentor, what's the process?

Well, there's never like one right way. I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you have to have chemistry with that person. So if you're at any of these events, networking workshops, etc. I would definitely reach out to the people that you have chemistry with, someone that you look up to, someone that you think you can trust. So I think it does take time to kind of build that relationship. I think there are certain questions that you can ask. I'm not going to go through all of them, but I think having like a mentor interview is quite important. So, you know, what's your experience in the field? What's your expertise? Why do you want to be a mentor? What do you enjoy about mentoring? A question that I really like to ask on our mentor interviews as well is like, tell me something which most people don't know about you, because I think it's not only like. So it doesn't need to be like a job interview. So it doesn't need to be so structured. I think you need to genuinely feel comfortable with that person because you're not going to be opening up to them about all of your challenges and struggles if you don't really feel comfortable with them.

So, on the part of the mentor, how big of a job should the mentor expect this to be?

I mean, for the mentors, it is quite a lot of work. So in our own program, they're only mentoring one mentee at a time because it is quite, quite a lot of work that goes into it in terms of the preparation, in terms of the sessions themselves. And there is a lot of prep that goes with it. So, yeah, I think about it, I would say it depends on the program. It depends on how often you're meeting, but I would say probably an hour of prep before the session and an hour of prep after for every session that they would have.

So it's. It's a real commitment on the part of the mentor too, correct?

Yes.

And how is there an. Is there a length of engagement that would be normal for something like this?

You can see all different. Yeah, you can see all different lengths. For us, what I think works very well is around nine months. Our program is nine months long. I think that, like, there are some short programs that are like three months or three sessions, four sessions. And I think that's great if you just want a couple of advice here and there. But I think it's really difficult to kind of like get into the nitty gritty of the business and who you are and all of that in three sessions. I think you really need longer. So I would suggest nine months. But I think anything over a year is a bit too stretched because usually you have specific goals. It's one of the most important things to come with is like, clear goals. And you want to make sure those goals are achievable in a certain amount of time. You wouldn't want the mentorship to go on for two years. Although you're going to keep in touch with a mentor, you just would have less regular sessions.

Are there any. Are there any, like, big challenges or problems that come up working with a mentor?

So definitely, I think there are many different challenges that that can come up. I think one of the things that creates challenges is if the mentee doesn't have clear goals and objectives. So we've seen in the past in various different instances where someone says, maybe they're listening to this podcast and says, hey, I need a mentor. And then they go out to look for a mentor. And then the mentor is like, okay, what would you like to. And they're like, well, I just heard that I need a mentor. So that's not really the goal. You know, you need to understand what you're looking to achieve and make sure that you have that very, very clear. And I think sometimes there's miscommunication between expectations of a mentee and a mentor. So it's quite important at the onset of the program that you decide, you know, how often you're going to meet, what's going to be the format of the meetings, communication preferences, etc.

I get calls from people or emails from people asking me to mentor them. And I will ask the question, why is it, what is it you expect to get from a mentor? And I will literally get answers like, well, I want to be like you. And then my answer is, you can't be me because you're not me.

Yeah.

So you just. Why would you want to become a copy of someone else? What are. Who is it you're trying to become? And it's surprising how many people don't know that answer.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of. A lot of the work is really finding your purpose. Why do you want to be like Mark? There are many different aspects of Mark. So what motivates you to be like Mark? You know, and I think that's a lot of the self reflection and self awareness that can also come out of a mentorship program. You know, it could be possible that they say, I. I mean, I don't think that would be an entrepreneur specifically, because entrepreneurs usually have quite clear what they need to achieve and maybe just want some feedback, but it could happen.

How can someone decide what would be the best thing that Someone should do to kind of put a fence around their goals. How can, what's the homework that the mentee should be doing to decide, okay, these are the deliverables, these are the things I'm trying to get. This is why I think I need a mentor. How can they do that homework? What kind of self reflection do they need to do?

Yeah, I mean a lot of times the mentor is the one designing the homework. So I also tell the mentees in the program, like some people like homework, some people don't like homework. So if you're the type of person that likes homework, definitely ask the mentor that you would like homework. Whether that be readings, whether that be preparing certain things for the next session, etc. But I think one of the most important pieces of a successful relationship is the accountability piece. So if you say that you're going to do something for the next session, then it's important that you do it both for mentee and for mentor. If that isn't getting done, then it is true that it can. The relationship could potentially break down if there is an accountability on both sides.

And as the mentee, do I need to set aside a budget for my mentor and what would be a budget for that?

It depends. There are all different types of programs. Some of the mentors are volunteers, some of them are paid. I mean if you go online, I think it can range anywhere from €50 probably to €1,000 an hour, something like this when I, when I've researched it myself. So yeah, I definitely think you should have a budget. But it really depends. You can also find someone in your network. There are plenty of mentors that will mentor free of charge because mentors also get a lot out of mentoring. So it really depends. Is that, is this, this person's full time job, then usually they will want to be paid for it or do they have another job and are they doing this more to give back or for their own development?

So when we think about these mentors, are they likely to come out of, you know, to be an accountant, to be an attorney, Are they people who are running bigger CPG companies than me? What, what do they probably look like?

I mean a mentor in the end can be anybody. Even someone's mom or dad could be a mentor. So it does, it doesn't need to be a specific job. I think it's key that that person wants to support and help other people grow. And they really, it needs to be work related, but they don't need to come from any specific function in my opinion. I think they need to be interested in personal development and they need to be very supportive, but they don't need to. And that's the thing. If you are a leader and you want to have lead a team of, you know, if you have a team now of 20 people that's going to become 50, well, of course, then it's useful if you have a mentor that has led large teams, but they wouldn't need to lead large teams to qualify to be a mentor.

Okay. Does it make sense now? For me, I've had, over the course of my life, I've had different people who have stepped in at the right time. And it wasn't that I went looking for mentors, but I had people who stepped in at the right time in my life who had vast skill sets I didn't have and poured those skill sets into me. So is it unusual for someone to. Because I would say, looking back, I would say I've probably had a half a dozen plus mentors in my life, because at one point there's a guy who taught me this, another point, somebody taught me this, and so on and so forth. Is that, is that the norm, that I may go from mentor to mentor over the time, over the years of my career?

Yes. Yes. I would say that's quite normal. And you can kind of treat it as a lifetime board of directors, if I can say that. So it's true that in different situations you're going to call one over the other, depending on their experience and expertise and track record with you. And yeah, I think it's. It's normal to have, I would say more than six probably would be a bit difficult, but I would say anywhere between four and six is a. Is a good number. And that's pretty normal. It depends on your age and how much experience you have. But, yeah, I would say that's pretty normal.

Yeah, I'd have to go back through and count them out. But just quickly, I can think there's probably six plus key people who just at the right time had skill sets I didn't have. And for me, I was able to quickly acquire a large portion of their skill set where they got me up to speed. And I'm a big fan of accelerated learning. So when we look at capabilities, I'll give you an example. It takes about six to 10 months to learn conversational Spanish. It will take 10 years to master Spanish, but you can get to about 80% of it in six to 10 months. So my life has always been built around I need a new set of Skills I need to get to that 80% level over the next six to 12 months, which will now give me enough skills to at least know what I know and know what I don't know. Because you start off not even knowing what you don't know. But if you can follow that accelerated path, which is where these mentors really become success, really become helpful, because you're not trying to get somebody with an MBA to teach you six years of business school. You're trying to get somebody with an MBA to tell you how your organization needs to be fixed and you can grab those skills. As you said, I believe you were dead on when you were saying it's six, nine months relationship, which is just like accelerated learning. And if you think about it, if I wanted to pick up Spanish, I would probably hire a Spanish coach for the next nine months and I'd probably do a zoom call once or twice a week with my Spanish coach. In about nine months, I'd be able to be conversational. And then it's time to move on to the next skill set. Because again, I don't need to know 100% of the Spanish language to go to Spain or to go to Mexico and survive. I just need to know. I need to know enough to be able to even ask, what's the word for? Yeah, so to be able to have Spanish skills, I can say, oh, what's the word for this? I still have to be able to say what's the word for this? In Spanish. So I think that's really good advice. How can people engage with you and your organization?

Yeah, so they can go to our website. It is www.ls-international.com. they can also find me on LinkedIn Lauren Stiving and write me a message. I'm very open to receiving messages. Or they can email@infos-international.com and if someone.

Really doesn't know how to find the right mentor, you can help them?

Yes, yes, definitely. I can help. I can help to find them. If we, for whatever reason, don't have that mentor that's right for them in their network, I can definitely point them in the direction or maybe introduce them to someone who, who may have the right mentor as well.

Terrific. Well, folks, if you go to the show notes for CPG insiders, just look at this episode. Go in the notes. We'll have the link for Ellis International. We'll have all the links that Lauren just gave you, including her LinkedIn link. And do you use any other social media platform besides LinkedIn, Lincoln?

No. Well, I have Instagram, but I don't use that for work. I was like, I don't even know my, I don't know my handle even.

Yeah, let's go to the LinkedIn one. That's kind of the, kind of the where the world of business one is, is in LinkedIn and we'll have all the links there for you. Lauren, I appreciate you being with us and hope you'll come back on CPG Insider sometime in the future.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And I hope that, I hope we can help in terms of finding mentors. I really think that it's can be life changing and career changing and definitely a big support to have the right mentor.

So I will leave people with this. The two, the two greatest educations that I've had throughout my career have been the mistakes I made and the people who stepped in with skills, who taught me how to get up to speed in areas. So these are two critical things. We don't learn from our successes. We learn from our mistakes and we learn from listening to people who have already done something and already been there. So the mentor has a great capability, the right mentor has a great capability of protecting you from learning from all your mistakes. Because they can, if they, if you have the right mentor, they can come in and say, I know this sounds like the right thing to do, but let me tell you why you don't do that. And, and I'm going to give you an example. In the CPG world, you're a new brand. Somebody goes out and you talk to somebody at Walgreens. Walgreens says, well, we want to put you in 100 store tests. And you immediately think, oh, this is so exciting. I'm going to get into 100 Walmart stores. The experienced mentor is going to tell you, say no because you can't cost effectively advertise 100 stores. It's going to doom you. And then you're going to get in those hundred stores, you're going to do battling and Walgreens going to say, well, we're not bringing you in chain wide because you did bad in 100 stor. There's no way you would know that without the right person who's already been there can tell you, yes, I know it's alluring, it's a trap. Don't do that. And that's why you need these people. Folks, if you enjoyed today's show, make sure to do us a favor and go to wherever you get your podcast. Leave us five star review and know that you can always reach out and talk to Justin or myself. You can go to cpginsiders.com to reach out to us, or you can go to jekyllheid Agency or JNH Labs. Yeah, JNH Labs is probably the easiest one. Jnhlabs.com that's it for today. We'll see you on the next episode of CPG Insiders. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and Marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result. Just go to jekyllheidagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800-500-4210.