To help you get started with your mentee, we’ve prepared a 6-step goal setting

process to guide you through your initial conversations.

1) Help your mentee clarify what they want to accomplish.

Start by asking your mentee, “What is the one bottleneck that’s stopping you from
growing your business?” This will help align any goals you set with the core
business problem they’re facing, rather than with less important issues or specific
solutions that they may have jumped to prematurely.

They may come to the table with a simple answer, like “I’m not making enough
money,” but that just speaks to the broad issue, not the root cause. Help your
mentee unpack the problem to arrive at a more specific answer, like “I’m not
attracting enough customers to achieve profitability.” A focused answer like this
clearly articulates your mentee’s objectives and makes it easy to identify the
appropriate goals—in this case, attracting more customers and increasing
profitability.

2) Determine the feasibility of your mentee’s goal.

Working toward a goal that can’t be accomplished will likely lead to frustration
and disengagement, so it’s important to determine whether or not your mentee’s
goal is feasible given their circumstances. Start by asking your mentee the
following questions:

 Do you have the time and resources available to meet this goal?
 Are you fully dedicated to achieving this goal?
 Are you aware of the sacrifices this goal will require, and are you willing to
make them?

If you feel like their goal is not realistic, be honest and encourage them to direct
their time and energy toward goals they are more likely to reach or smaller
milestones along the path to achieving the long-term goal.

3) Establish benchmarks for success.

Once you’ve determined that your mentee’s goal is realistic, work with them to
define what success would look like. Help them identify specific indicators of
success—e.g., metrics like profit margin or number of new customers per month.

Next, take a benchmark of what those metrics have looked like up to now and
assist your mentee in setting a numerical target for each indicator that will tell
them exactly how they’re doing at a glance—e.g., increasing daily sales by 30
percent or attracting ten new customers.

4) Set a realistic timeline.

Now that your mentee has defined goals, key metrics, and targets, it’s time to set
a schedule for achieving them. Your mentee may already have a deadline in
mind, but it’s important to steer them toward an achievable timeframe.

Similar to when you were determining the goal’s overall feasibility, keep your
mentee’s circumstances in mind by asking the following questions:

 When are you prepared to start this project?

 How much time can you commit to your goal each day, week, month?

Based on these answers, assign a date to the numerical targets you’ve

established—e.g., gaining those ten new customers in the next quarter or
increasing daily sales by thirty percent within the next six months. Set a timeline
that’s long enough for the goal to be realistic, but short enough for the mentee to
stay motivated.

5) Define strategies and map out the path to success.

Now that you have a target and a deadline in place, it’s time to help your mentee
define the actionable steps that will help them reach their goal.

Start by determining your overall strategy. For example, if your mentee’s goal is
to attract new customers, you could suggest that they:

 Engage a PR firm to get the word out about their service offering.
 Launch a search engine marketing campaign to increase the number of
potential customers visiting their website.
 Develop an incentive program for referring customers.

Once you and your mentee have agreed on the overall strategy, map out
individual tasks in a calendar. Set specific “mini-goals” by day, week, or month—
e.g., “launch my company’s Facebook page by the end of next week” or “hire a
PR firm by the end of this month.” These mini-goals help keep momentum going
to ensure that your mentee can stay on track with their timeline.

6) Encourage your mentee to track their progress frequently.

Once your mentee has put their plan in place, make sure they are tracking their
progress using the benchmarks you established together. When your mentee can
see how close or far way they are from hitting a target, it can be extremely
motivating and encouraging. That will help keep them engaged and on the path
toward achieving their goals.

Goal setting is a critical part of initiating a successful mentoring relationship. By

following these practices, you can ensure a productive, rewarding experience for
both you and your mentee. Ultimately, it’s about finding a system that works best
for your unique mentoring relationship, so feel free to use our suggestions as a
starting point for developing a goal-setting process that makes the most sense for
you.

Your Mentoring Year Tip #6: Setting

SMART Goals
by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Sep 5, 2017 | Goal Setting Conversation, Growth and
Development, Making Mentoring Work For You, Mentoring Communication, Mentoring
Questions, Mentoring Relationships, Mentoring Training, Supporting Mentors and Mentees
 Last month, we offered some tips about how to set starter goals. As we noted then,
the key to exploring starter goals is to get to the heart of the learning need and
create specificity around your desired outcome. This month, let’s discuss how to turn
starter goals into the kind of goals that help mentees achieve their mentoring
objectives — we call these goals “SMART goals.”
SMART goals are goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic
and Time-bound.
How to create a SMART goal:
1. Ask questions to really understand your mentee’s desired outcome. The best
way to create SMART mentoring goals is through conversation. Together with your mentee,
take a look at the starter goal you created. Make sure you are clear on what success looks
like. Be as specific as possible, and drill down until you come up with a way to measure
success. Ask: “How will we know if you achieved it?” “What will success look like?” “What
will be different when you achieve this goal?”
2. Encourage action rather than contemplation. Mentors help mentees create
action-focused goals by reminding them that clarity comes from engagement, not thought.
Too often we see mentees set goals that start with “I will think about” or “I will explore” or “I
will learn.” SMART goals have action words and should answer the question: “What will you
DO?”
3. Provide a reality check. SMART goals are realistic. Help your mentees set realistic
milestones that link to a larger goal. That will keep them motivated and create enthusiasm
for further progress. Ask “What are the obstacles to your success?” and “On a scale of 1 to
10, how confident are you that you can overcome those obstacles?” For anything less than
an 8, work with your mentee to identify and anticipate obstacles. If obstacles can be
overcome, create learning around that. If they cannot, create a more realistic goal.
4. Set a deadline. Too often, development goals languish because they feel important
but not urgent. Having time-bound goals helps measure progress, create a sense of
urgency, generate momentum and provide natural check-in points along the way. Set a date
by which the goal should be achieved, and continually track progress towards that date. It’s
perfectly appropriate — even, at times, encouraged — for a mentee to choose a lofty goal
that will really propel them forward. But unless that goal is broken down into smaller steps,
your mentee may get fatigued or burned out. Set timelines for milestones along the way.
How have you used SMART goals in your mentoring relationship?