Mentor Insight No. 2 - Sally Pritchard
In this, the second in our Mentor Insight series, we introduce Sally Pritchard. Sally joined our program as a volunteer mentor in 2017 and has worked with a number of business owners on a variety issues including: developing a strategy to enable semi-retirement of two owners through management handover, helping another owner address a shrinking marketplace, and helping another address challenges presented by rapid growth and up-scaling.
Sally takes over from here:
“Business is personal, and that is the reason why I love working with talented people both in employment or running their own show. I have great admiration for anyone who can create thriving communities with their team, customers, suppliers and strategic partners, orchestrating them towards a common goal.
I'm a business mentor and experienced proposition consultant who helps ambitious businesses achieve their potential. I get focus and clarity on the things that matter, targeting the heart of what they do, how they do it in order to achieve their goals.
In terms of my professional career, I started out as a chartered accountant which feels like many moons ago, however I soon became restless and joined Deloitte where I had 11 varied and intense years in both the UK and US. This incredible experience prompted me to ‘pay it forward’ and share what I have learned along the way. In my day job I create new products and services for businesses, so this experience is directly relevant to SME’s who are starting out for the first time. My value is most around understanding the personal drivers for being in business, and aligning all efforts to that. This approach enables people to focus on their most desired outcomes. (Discover Sally’s full background on her LinkedIn page)
What inspired me to be a mentor?
I have been incredibly fortunate to meet and be mentored by inspirational people during my professional career. They have influenced who I have become today, which I’m hugely proud of. Whilst being mentored myself, it allowed me and continues to do so, achieve my potential. Benefiting from such a great gift, made me very focused on helping others do the same.
How do I add value?
As a business owner you are expected to have all the answers all of the time, and so I think my greatest strength is to be a non-judgemental source of confidence. Often it is just allowing time for my mentees to reach their own conclusions, but my relationship with them means they reach it quicker and more decisively to allow them to move onto the next thing.
How am I helping my mentees during CV-19?
I hope, not least, by just being a friend. My mentees know how much I keep coming back to focusing on their purpose and goals. However I’m sensitive to the fact that it is about survival at the moment, so I have ensured my mentees had all the latest information from the government and connected them to any specialist need they had. People have been very generous with their time during this crisis, which is lovely to see something positive coming out.
In terms of supporting my mentees to cope I ensure they are focusing on their customer needs. If those needs change, then businesses need to adapt in order to fulfil the new type of demand. Just staying still and hoping things will pass is not the right approach. The result would be that these businesses will get left behind while the market and their customers go elsewhere. This sounds really scary but focusing on customer delight will keep reinforcing they are doing the right thing.”
If you are discovering the Dorset Business Mentors program for the first time through this article, we are currently offering 3 months free access to our service to support businesses through this time of pandemic (£200+VAT nominal contribution to the administrative costs in return for up to 12 months thereafter). Please click the yellow bar at the top of this page for more information about how our mentors can help you with any challenges, to optimise recovery at this time, or to address and identify opportunities.