In the first of a series, we profile Lara Solomon, founder of mobile accessory company Mocks and her mentor Jen Dalitz, CEO of businesswomen’s networking site, Sphinxx.
Jen Dalitz says:
I worked in banking for years and there was only one other woman at my level reporting to the chief operating officer. I started looking for role models but there weren’t any. It was such a boys’ club, there were no women I could ask for advice.
All the mentors I’d ever had were men, so I wondered if I could maintain my career and still have kids. How would I fit that in? My mentors all had wives who had left the workforce to raise their families. How did other working mums manage the juggle?
In 2007, I started www.sphinxx.org as a way to connect time-poor women, share ideas and save time. That is where the mentoring started.
Lara was looking for very specific help in improving her business; and she’s an experienced businesswoman as well. She’s also an action-oriented person, so I had to get straight to it.
Lara’s terrific, she makes notes, goes away and does it. She holds herself to account. I expect mentees to take ownership for their actions. It won’t work if they can’t hold themselves to account.
If there is one thing I would pick out about Lara’s success, it’s her focus on building her own personal brand in the public sphere, and her own business brand. I’ve learnt a lot from her on this.
This is an important issue because many women are not confident about putting themselves forward in business.
But her ability to create a profile is such that, given the strength of her personal brand, I was surprised her business was smaller than I’d thought it would be. She does it by making herself available, by giving things a go and by being on-message all the time.
Lara’s commitment to mentoring is what makes it work.
Lara Solomon says:
Before Jen, my dad was my mentor, but he died in 2008 and I didn’t have a peer group to help me.
With Jen, it’s just having someone questioning what you are doing. I needed the one-on-one attention to get me through some things which were going on in my business.
I knew her background, so I met up with her and chatted about what she’d done before. For me, a mentor is someone you just have to click with.
She helped me change the way my team worked, to build them into roles. I wanted to get more out of them, make them more accountable.
I asked every one of my people to email me a report once a week on things they had done during the week and things they planned to do the next week. I had been having a problem with a lot of procrastination and this process made everyone more accountable. As a result, I spent a lot less time chasing people.
Instead of vague ideas, like “increase sales”, we went for specific key performance indicators, just something small. Answer the phones. Answer emails within 24 hours. Very specific.
In 2009, we turned over $1.4 million; and we’ve sold 1.6 million Mocks worldwide to date.
Jen’s very to the point and she just tells me what is required.
I’ve got a better understanding of my business and a more strategic view in terms of direction.
Having her as a mentor has helped me because she challenges what I do as opposed to me rushing into things.