Mentoring milestone
Business helpers’ silver anniversary
Anot-for-profit mentoring organisation is celebrating 25 years of helping more than 70,000 New Zealand businesses.
Business Mentors New Zealand started as a voluntary mentoring service for small businesses and now has a network of 2000 mentors around the country.
One of them is 83-year-old Jacob Klootwyk, who has been a volunteer with the service for 16 years.
Originally from the Netherlands and now living in Nelson, Klootwyk has been running businesses since he was 25.
For the past three years he has been advising Mortimer Upholstery and Marine Covers, helping grow the company from two employees and an apprentice to 10 staff.
This kind of support is his passion, but he says many Kiwi businesses aren’t on the right track.
‘‘Lots of people in business are not making any money. They work 60 hours a week and they get paid less than any of their employees. That I disagree with. If you’re in business you’ve got to make good money because then you can expand.’’
The very best companies in New Zealand know that innovation is the key to growth, Klootwyk says.
Wellington mentor Miles Maitland says the reason why some business owners struggle is because they are unwilling to take on staff.
‘‘They’ve very good at what they’re doing but they might not be very good at book-keeping, administration and marketing,’’ Maitland says.
‘‘They’ve got to be smart enough to surround themselves with folk who can bring that level of skill.’’
Maitland has been mentoring for 14 years and says even with his experience in finance, real estate and business mentoring, he is still learning all the time.
‘You don’t know what you don’t know ’til someone opens your eyes a little bit about it,’’ he says.
Auckland mentor and former lawyer Chris Reid says one of the biggest issues he sees is business owners undervaluing their products or services.
‘‘Many people are scared to increase prices and they’re struggling because of that. They’re not charging enough for what they do.’’
Reid says he enjoys seeing business owners follow up on his suggestions.
Business Mentors general manager Lisa Ford says that sometimes, dreams are trampled when people come to the organisation for help.
But this is better than seeing those people a few years down the track, struggling because they went ahead with a bad idea or poorly executed a good idea.