How to Use a Mentor Effectively

Episode 972: How to Use a Mentor Effectively, with Kevin Harrington

How to use a mentor effectively? Listen to Kevin Harrington in this podcast episode to learn how to use a mentor effectively. 

How to use a mentor effectively? If you’re knowledgeable about it, it will help establish a good mentor-mentee relationship that has many benefits. So, make sure to stay for the entirety of this podcast episode and listen to what Kevin Harrington has to say.

As an “Original Shark” on the hit TV show Shark Tank, the creator of the infomercial, pioneer of the “As Seen on TV” brand, and co-founding board member of the Entrepreneur’s Organization, Kevin Harrington has pushed past all the questions and excuses to repeatedly enjoy 100X success. 

His legendary work behind the scenes of business ventures has produced more than $5 billion in global sales, the launch of more than 500 products, and the making of dozens of millionaires. He’s launched massively successful products like The Food Saver, Ginsu Knives, The Great Wok of China, The Flying Lure, and many more. 

He has worked with amazing celebrities turned entrepreneurs including, like Billy Mays, Tony Little, Jack LaLanne, and George Foreman to name a few. Kevin’s been called the Entrepreneur’s Entrepreneur and the Entrepreneur Answer Man, because he knows the challenges unique to start-ups and has a special passion for helping entrepreneurs succeed.

What you will learn in this episode about how to use a mentor effectively:

• How Kevin first became an entrepreneur in the early 1980s by way of his family business and how he grew and helped create an entire industry
• Why Kevin co-authored his book “Mentor to Millions” in an effort to teach others how to find and how to use a mentor effectively
• Why writing a bestselling book was a key goal Kevin set for himself, and how he and his own mentor Mark Timm created the book based on their relationship
• Why going all-in with your mentor and committing to being a good student is crucial for you to reap the rewards of the relationship
• What advice Kevin suggests for finding the right mentor to work with, and how he leveraged connections he already had to find one of his ideal business mentors
• Why now, even during the chaos of the global pandemic, is the ideal time to look for and begin working with a mentor
• What tremendous benefits you can receive as both a mentor and as a mentee, and why the relationship should be mutually beneficial
• Why it is important to be clear and set your expectations at the beginning of the mentor-mentee relationship
• What remarkable opportunities, business ventures, and networking growth Kevin was able to receive from being a mentor

Resources:

• Read this blog on how to use a mentor effectively and accelerate your success
• Mentor to Millions by Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm: https://kevinmentor.com
• Website: https://kevinharrington.tv/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thekevinharrington/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harringtonenterprises/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkevinharrington/
• Twitter: @HarringtonKevin
• Learn how to use a mentor effectively and improve the mentor-mentee relationship

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/

 

 

How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success and learn how to use a mentor effectively from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner. 

 

Good morning! I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host on Onward Nation where I interviewed today’s top business owners, so we can learn their recipe for success, how they built their skills, and their business. In fact, my team Predictive ROI, which we’ve been talking about a pretty consistently now about how we have been rebuilding and expanding our free resources section, is actually called a section. It really doesn’t do it justice anymore. It really is a resource library on Predictive roi.com. So you can download free practical and tactical guides for everything and how to build out your own authority sales machine. Everything from how to create your ideal client avatar, how to create a value ladder, how to build out a sales funnel and how to make sure your content strategy aligns with a 10 to what makes someone in authority within their niche.

 

Just go to PredictiveROI.com/resources and there is always everything was free and everything we request, we will send it, write to your inbox. Okay. Onward Nation let’s get set for two days. I’m telling you a very special Encore gas. So way back in Episode 410, and Kevin Harrington, the Original Shark from ABC’s hit show, Shark Tank was my guest. And during that episode, which I highly recommend that you go back and listen too, because you know, is rock solid, awesome. And the golden nuggets that Kevin shared are off the charts.

 

While during that conversation, we focused on a great deal of our discussion around mentorship. These are the lessons that Kevin received early on in his career. These lessons are still dividends today, as the role has now reversed because he is the Mentor. Well, Kevin recently co-authored a new book entitled Mentor to Millions Secrets of a Success in Business and Beyond, which is available now on Amazon and wherever else books are sold. So he and I thought this would be a great opportunity to extend what we talked about in episode 410, and connect it to some of the golden nuggets in the book. And why now, given the choppy waters, we’re all trying to navigate our businesses and teams through? This is the perfect opportunity to seek advice and expertise have mentors.

 

So Kevin and I are going to do a deep dive around how do you find a business mentor, and how to become a mentor and the importance of doing so, and why mentorship is essential to business owners and going into business with your mentor. Is that an opportunity? And if it is what are some of the do’s and don’ts? So without further ado, welcome back to Onward Nation, Kevin.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Kevin Harrington’s Introduction

 

Hey, Stephen, thank you. That was a powerful opening, and I listened to every word. It was weird. And you know, here we are again. You’ve done how many podcasts since? Well, 500 plus. Yeah.

 

That’s pretty amazing. And congratulations on your business. And so I think maybe for those, I know they can go back and listen to the old podcast and get some background. But I, you know, I was an original shark on Shark Tank and maybe, I would take 60 seconds to blow through my background to bring everybody up to speed and then start learning how to use a mentor effectively. So this is good and fast. So, early 80s, I was an entrepreneur of one of six kids in Cincinnati, Ohio. My dad opened a bar when he saved up enough money. He was a bartender and at 11 years old, I started working inside his places, but I was very entrepreneurial. I had a driveway sealing business in high school, and a heating and air conditioning company in college.

 

Then I decided to get into a business brokerage. I sold businesses and one day I’m watching TV on my cable. I just got cable TV. This is now almost 40 years ago. It goes back to the early 80s and I’m watching Discovery Channel and it went dark for six hours. I called the cable company and I said, I’ve got a problem, nothing on Discovery. And they said, Oh, it’s a brand new channel. They are only for 6 hours. They are only on 18 hours a day, 6 hours a day is nothing gonna be there. Okay. So that’s when the entrepreneurial light bulb went off. I said, hey if I have something to put in there, can we talk?

 

They should come on down. So right around that time was at a trade show, happened to run into somebody, very, very powerful. He was selling at the trade show, the Philadelphia Home Show. He was cutting to a Coca-Cola. I can with this knife and then through a muffler, through a pair of sneakers. And I said, this is a powerful demo. You called it the Ginsu Knives. And so I said, wow, I got to talk to him. And it hit me right there. I’m going to film this, take it to Discovery, put it on TV and see if people, then he was meeting with 10 people at a time. We could see millions at a time on TV. And that was the transition. This was the early 80s.

 

We did it. And it did hundreds of millions of dollars over the next couple of years. So Boris said, do you wanna meet some more guys like me? He knew Billy Mays. He knew some Wally Nash, others. And so all of a sudden we created an industry Tony Little Fitness Jack Lalanne in the juicer George Foreman. And then we started doing major celebrities and Kris Jenner and the Kardashians and Paris Hilton. One of them, the plumper lips. We sell lip plumpers. So yeah, you know, we did that too. So 50 Cent had headphones anyway. I’m done Stephen. That was my background. 

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Kevin’s Success Journey

 

That’s why Mark Burnett, right wants me to be on Shark Tank. So, I took that company public. We are in the 90s, we grew that company from 50 million to over 500 million in sales and margin. Or a million, and that was the founder and ended up having a nice exit from that. And Mark said, Hey, I need someone to invest in deals on TV now. S, that’s how I got into Shark Tank.

 

And what’s awesome about episode 410 Onward Nation is that Kevin was gracious enough to really take us like this sort of virtual of how to use a mentor effectively. If you will be, behind the scenes, a tour of how a sharpening starts and what that process was like, and just early on in the show, it was awesome. So I would highly encourage you to go back and listen to it. This is really, really wonderful. 

 

We don’t normally have access to the history of storytellers, so you’re very gracious this year. So take us now into, let’s hear from you like in episode 410 that day. You shared some great mentorship lessons. Is that really, you know, paying dividends until today? And now you have written this book on mentorship. So why this book? Why was mentorship such an important topic for you to go off?

 

Great question. And so, just so people can understand the timing of this, this book I wrote and turned in with Mark, Timm, my coauthor in January of this year. This is before COVID-19 ever hit. And, so now it’s become, you know, kind of, we’re getting some really powerful reactions because it is. So what do you need to do in times of stress and pandemics? And, you know, I went through the Gulf War in 1990 when Schwarzkopf was a desert storm. We had a terrible downturn in our business. So, I learned some things then to apply to today. 

 

But the bottom line is that when I looked at all of the things that I’ve done in my life. And, you know, I’ve launched hundreds of products, billions of dollars in sales, a dozen public plus companies that I’ve been involved with, been on a network TV show. But what I haven’t had is a real bonafide bestselling book. And that’s why I said, I need this. This is sort of the bucket list. This is the next thing that I really need. And I want, as an entrepreneur, to be able to have that as a part of my resume so to speak. Right. But umm, so in the process, they said, this is, I don’t want it to be how to, you know, how to shoot infomercials or how to do this or that.

 

And what Mentor to Millions turned out to be is a journey that I have with Mark Timm as my mentee and how he understands he needs a mentor, he gets ahold of me. And now the book is following our journey along this path and in the power of exponential growth and magical transformation. And so this is that you know, kind of the thought behind it all. And by the way, we turned it in in September then March, April, and May. We’re hitting with COVID pandemic, the publisher said this, we really need to focus and get out there.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: There Is No Elevator to Success

 

And so, I mean, we’re doing a massive publicity tour to two, to get out there and lots of great stuff. And thank you for having me back on, you know, Onward Nation because, I know you have great followers and the bottom line is the book has some great stuff – how to get mentors, how to use them. And you know, one of the things that I like to talk about Mark, likes the talk about it because he’s the Mentee is many people. You know, like I’ve mentored in the book Mentor to Millions is not in millions of dollars, it’s about millions of people that, you know, one of the original co-founders of the entrepreneur’s organization, and you know, we’re at 150 countries. I’m a hunter, you know, plus cities and all over the world.

 

And so, we mentor hundreds of thousands just there and through Shark Tank and other things. We’re reaching millions of people now, and Mark says it best. He says the most important thing a mentee can do is to be the mentor’s best student. And because let’s put it this way, Stephen, if you’ve mentored some people, I’m sure, haven’t you? Have you ever mentored somebody and then you got with them a month later, and you said, how did things go? So we can put an action plan together. Last time you told me to do this and this and this, how did all that go?

 

So I didn’t get time to do it then, you know. It’s because I was just so busy this month. Like, you know, they don’t have time then I don’t have time. So, you know what I’m saying? It’s important that if you get a great mentor you just go all in and really get to them 

 

I am excited about what you’re doing on how to use a mentor effectively. So I’m gonna share my screen here to see if I’m tracking with you and my notes. Let me just double-check. So I heard you say kind of, sort of visualizing this metaphor a little bit, right? There’s a journey for the mentee, right? And that’s the job of the mentee. To prove that they’re the best student of the mentor, you know. If that journey, that arc, if you will, that’s the power of mentorship because you can essentially take them from the start and help really shorten the learning curve and really accelerate their growth because of the smarts the mentor are being applied right now.

 

Exactly. I mean, Zig Ziglar said it best. There is no elevator, and with success, you’ve gotta take the stairs. And so I’ve been taking the stairs for 40 years as an entrepreneur, building each step at a time. And so I’ve learned the steps I’ve been through. That hundreds of times and it’s pretty easy.

 

So for me, it helps somebody that’s at the bottom of those stairs to get up to the top as quickly and powerfully as possible in a real fashion. Because again, don’t take that elevator. You’re going to the power of going through those steps. Okay. So I get this question often and my guess is you probably get it exponentially more often than I do. So, Kevin how do I find the right mentor? Like, how do I know who’s going to be the right mentor for me?

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Making Connections with The Right People

 

So there’s a system and a process that I had talked about. And we talked about this in the book. One of the first things I say, because people say, I don’t know anybody, right? So I’m going to go back 30 years, myself. I didn’t have a lot of good connections in the world, but I had a business that was in the SMTP business. And, I had accountants, I had lawyers, I had phone centers, fulfillment centers, and bankers on credit card processors. And what I say is I was writing a lot of cheques on a monthly basis to all of these people who do write checks to in your business, right? Lawyers, accountants, phone centers. Boom. 

 

So the first thing I did was I said, Hey, call my friend’s accountant. They are friends of mine or my lawyer. Their friends, or like I need business expansion. I flat-lined. And this is true. So I’ll just walk you through it. Okay. I built my company, and this was the second. Now on the TV business, we flat line at 50 million. I couldn’t break through the ceiling, and this was the problem. I had no capital when I started. We were using the profits of the business, the fund, the growth that grew up to 50 million. But now we take the profits and plug them back into the company’s inventory and growth.

 

But after a while, there’s only so much that you can plug back, and there’s only so big you’re going to grow with. Do you get external financing? So I said, I need financing. So I reached out to people. Oh, you should start with the bank. All right. Well, okay. Guess what? I went to the five bankers and got, for the most part five polo, polite nos, one slam the door don’t ever come back.

 

The problem was I didn’t know how to talk to the banks. I was only talking about all the great things we had done. Well, when I got the mentor, and I’m coming up with the story and the mentor, he said, you know, the banks, that’s part of the story they are. But, once they give you the money, they want to know they’re protected and how they are going to get repaid. 

 

And why you put things in place to make sure they get repaid and where you’re going with this. And what’s going to be the growth factor? So I make a long story short. It’s through my connections with people that I write checks to. They said, Hey, there’s this guy, Pete Albert, that you got to talk to. He used to run a bank. He’s retired. Now. It was a bank president. And, you know, so he happened to be a member of the chamber of commerce that I was in when we ended up connecting. And so I’m sitting there talking to Pete. And Pete, was getting excited about my business because of the As Seen on TV business.

 

I own As Seen on TV Inc. AsSeenOnTV.com. We were the original guys putting these infomercials on TV business that was going, and he was like, this is a new industry. And so he said, so you talk to five banks that turned down all of them. I’m going to make you a deal. He said I’m retired. He said I’m going to get you what you’re trying to raise. $3 million, right? And I said yes. He said I’m going to get you the 3 million. It’s gonna take me 90 days. I’m not going to charge you a dime. I’m going to be your mentor. And when I’m done, you’re in maybe somebody that has already turned you down. But what I’ve done, you are gonna going to say, please come in and help me grow this business.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: The Importance of Networking

 

And maybe there’s a longer-term deal. And by between now and then, I’ll determine whether I want to be part of your longer-term deal based on how we interact in the meantime. Wow. Needless to say, everything he said happened. 90 days later, I had 3 million in my account from a bank that turned me down, and we sat down, and he ended up joining my company. We really hit it off and he was a powerhouse for me. Now, interestingly enough, his skillset was financed. As it turned out, he did not have skill sets in other areas like operational and other things. So we ended up bringing in lots of good folks in the process and others. We brought a legal mentor on, who was with the big law firm.

 

They helped us out getting all our legal structures. But anyway, to make a long story short, where did you get mentors? How did you find mentors? How to use a mentor effectively? Who do you write checks to? And your accountants, your lawyers? You’re a professional organization. You’re part of a chamber of commerce. I also belong a lot in networking organizations. If you have ever heard of the genius network, Joe Polish’s board of advisers, Mike Calhoun, a war room with Roland Frazier. So I belong, you know. And by the way, they all cost money. I gave Joe Polish, he was 25,000 to belong. And so, it’s important.

 

I want to be part of these networks and experience this because there are people there now approaching me to be their mentor and I’m approaching other’s cars. I’m the old entrepreneur now. I’m in my 60s. I never learned about digital, you know, internet stuff. I mean, until more recently. So, the younger folks are growing up around it. I mean, you know who Russell Brunson is, right? Stephen, the click funnels guy. And then I reached out to Russel. Russel, I need some Mediterranean in the digital world. So Russell Brunson became a mentor to me.

 

And then, I got all focused after talking to Russell. I sold  AsSeenOnTV.com, As Seen on TV Inc. because I saw the handwriting on the wall. TV viewership was dropping by more than 50%. And I said I’m going to be a digital entrepreneur. And that’s what we’ve morphed into. So, we have digital mentors. We have financed mentors. I have a personal finance mentor on where to invest money and a legal one. Add two full-time legal guys that I consider them because there are outside guys that actually joined our company. So it’s, you know, Entrepreneur Organization is that it is another good place to find a mentor.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Finding Strategic to Help You

 

So, I think you get the message. Who do you write checks to? What organizations do you belong to? or their networking clubs, entrepreneurial clubs, social clubs, maybe your church even? But lots of good ways to reach out and find the right people. But you’re also being very strategic about it. Not to just take anybody who will say yes. You’re specifically looking at people who you’re writing checks and or people in Joe’s group. 

 

And you mentioned Russell. When you reached out to Russel, because there is a gap, there is an opportunity. There is a way to plug into his knowledge, and that was a party business opportunity. So you look at the entire business and where can we be better? Or where can we add some knowledge and expertise and who might plug into that is not random, right?

 

Exactly. I’ll give you one more quick example, a gentleman who came to me for help. He was looking for capital and a guy looking at his business. He was in the business of selling products to the military, and he was having a hard time. He would go to Dallas in the 80s. Are you familiar with FES down there? And so he said, I get to a certain point and we just, you know, I wish I could get some help. 

 

So I live in Tampa, Florida. MacDill, Air Force base central command is here. I know that when retired, when generals retire from McDill, they want to mentor business owners. So I said, Hey, tell you what, let’s go over to MacDill. We are going to find a retired general, and we did a general keep-a-deal. He had just retired two years earlier. He’s looking to help businesses. And was this a good connection or a retired general? 

 

They took down the AVS and made connections. When we take him down there, he opens every single door that you’ve ever seen. It was amazing. So you need strategic people who can help you. And so I didn’t know, chip deal. I just knew MacDill Air Force Base is here and let’s go get a retired general. This is a thinking process. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t know the guy that is retired from the bank. It’s an issue. 

 

By the way, Richard Branson. I mentioned Russell Brunson. Richard Branson has mentored me and I didn’t know him either. But I got invited to go meet him on Necker Island. So you can put your head in the sand, curing the COVID pandemic, and say, it’s gonna clear up eventually I’ll figure it out later. Now is the time. Okay. So it’s important.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Free Resources from Predictive ROI

 

Hey, Onward Nation I wanted to take a quick break from the episode to share a practical and tactical resource with you. When we first released our book Profitable Podcasting, it became the number one new release on Amazon in less than 18 hours. Well, that was nearly three years ago. And we’re still getting great feedback on a hill. 

 

The book has been to business owners just like you. As they launched a podcast to build their business when I think of strategies that you could be applying right now during these challenging times, having your own show, which will be a conduit that you could use to teach and share your insights with your community.

 

Launching a podcast are growing your existing show really should be at the top of your list. I want to help you get started by giving you access to a free chapter of mine. I just go to PredictiveROI.com/resources and you get the chapter where I show you how to confront and overcome your three biggest obstacles to success. PredictiveROI.com/resources, then we will send it, and write to your inbox. So now let’s turn the tables here and talk with Onward Nation about them being the mentors. 

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: You Get What You Want by Helping Others Get What They Want

 

So why is that value for them to provide the mentorship? So, first of all, generally, a mentor is going to have achieved a certain level of success in their life. So, you know, they can feel they can be the part. Not just play the part, but be the part, right? So there are people that play mentorship there. You know, they are really maybe just out for something. They might be out for the equities or money or whatever. I’m in a low. That kind of stuff makes the world go round. But in a true form of mentorship, in many cases, it’s a mentor. As Zig Ziglar said, you can get everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.

 

And so when I started EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization, I put money into a bank account to form an organization, to help mentor entrepreneurs. So I was giving back to the entrepreneurial community and I wasn’t looking for anything, right? Mentors should look at things in that fashion. And the reason, some of these things do make sense eventually, because like I said, you can get what you want if you help others get what they want. So, if you’re a mentor helping somebody get what they want, you just never know what’s going to come back. It’s not a quid pro quo so to speak. 

 

I’ll scratch your back, you have to scratch mine. It might happen 3 months later, 6 months later, 10 years later, 20 years later, you never know. But in my particular case, this is what I have found has happened by me, mentoring you. Connect into maybe be something new, a new industry. You learn things. You make great connections. I mean, I’ll give you an example. A buddy of mine, he got involved in a beverage business and this beverage company was called Celsius. And I don’t know, sometimes I have one sitting around, but I don’t know. Celsius is actually new. There we go. Oh, it’s an energy drink. A product that’s healthy.

 

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, but you got involved at the very ground floor of this company. You don’t how to use a mentor effectively yet. And he’s like, Kevin. He said he used to work for me at one time. So he reached out at some point. He became the CTO of this company. So we’re talking. And I said, no, most of the companies that are in the business of energy drinks, Red Bull and Monster, find him at 7/11 or in retail stores, retail distribution. I said, so certainly that’s something you’ve got to pursue, but let’s go down the director of the consumer path that I’ve been in for 38 years. Let’s get fitness influencers to sell this directly to their members and our followers and all of this.

 

And this is a powerful way to go. So we started bringing on big influencers and the flow, right of, the wrapper and Khloe Kardashians. We were shipping cases of products, you know, hundreds of cases of a product with all these influencers. So, the company was doing it a million and then a couple million and then a few more million. Now, I got involved. They asked me to get involved on the board level. So, I joined the board of directors. I got a stock and I’ve got blocks of stock in the very beginning. The stock was 22 cents. Okay. Now you know what it is today? This is a few years later, $20.

 

Okay. The company is a $1.7 billion company in a matter of a few years. Wow. And I mean, we brought the dream team to the market and in terms of people and processes and you know. So if you haven’t heard of Celsius, you will. We were in 7/11, were in Publix, we are in Gold’s gym. We are in 165,000 locations now. So, if this started as a mentoring process, it got me involved in a board seat and making new connections across the whole new industry. I knew literally nothing about it, but I’m now considered reasonably an expert in some of the levels of the beverage industry.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Providing Relevancy in The Industry

 

Now that’s a great benefit as a mentor. For me, that’s a great example of how you stepped into the relationships they apply. Then you share some knowledge, and they apply it some more. You share some more knowledge, and then the relationship continues to grow. It wasn’t like an immediate thing that goes overnight. It was a share. And then, that was also a good litmus test for you to write or they’re going to be honest, this is over it. It actually was five years. No, it was a five-year run, and I’m still involved. I mean, I’m still on the board and all of that, because even interestingly enough, my buddy Gerry is retired as the CEO of the company, but they wanted me to stay on.

 

So I’m still on. And then I continued to, you know, and as a board member, it sort of mentorship type of thing, but it’s different. Cause now it’s a financial relationship. So, along the way here, and you’ve mentioned a few business opportunities that are intersecting with your mentorship or as being a, so are there some do’s and don’ts like, are there some do’s and don’ts on giving into business either a mentor or mentee? But my guess is that you have some great experiences there to share. Anything to share? Yeah. So I would say this: the first thing you should do as the mentor is make sure that you’ve spelled out the kind of relationship and how you expect it to work.

 

Because in some cases where I didn’t, you know, kinda make sure that we are on the same page, getting a phone call every single day. Hey, I got this contract and I needed it by the 12th. You know, can you do this? Can you, this is like one of his employees, you know? And so it’s like, sorry, I, you know, I’m not a full-time person for you. I’ve gotten a full-time life, the run, but so you gotta establish the parameters and the way that relationship works. How often can you talk? Hey, if there is an emergency, yes. We’ll work through those. So that’s important. 

 

The other thing is that there has to be is a very powerful trust relationship. And because mentorships, in many cases, you can define this upfront and I’ll ask if I’m going to mentor someone. Who do you want to get into any of the personal side of your business? Because like, for me, I’m married twice. Now my first wife, I say I’m now batting 500 in that department. Okay. But I had some real problems with my first wife. That happened to be a financial situation where I was very successful and I had cash and capital and bank accounts and money and homes and she wouldn’t participate in. And as I was getting, you know, banking relationships and things, she’s like, oh no you’re not. You can’t sign any papers or anything. And so like I needed some help at that time. And actually, I had finance mentors that I brought them into my personal problems.

 

They helped me through it. And so, it’s a business relationship only or because sometimes in the case of our book Mentor to Millions, the book starts out with Mark Timm in his driveway, holding up, ready to go into the house. He had the greatest business day of his life and he’s afraid to go in the house because all the juice that is on right there is going to dissipate. The amenity walks in when everybody is all in his face about how long he would have been working that day. And why aren’t you home earlier for dinner and you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So, he had a family issue, and this is something that he worked through and tremendous transformation.

 

So that’s part of the process. So, find the areas of concern that are going to be addressed. And if somebody is giving you their heart and soul, very confidential stuff about family, relationships, et cetera, there has to be a strict code of confidentiality. So, you know, this is very, very important. So, I think there are a lot of things that you need to set up on the front end. But at the end of the day, I feel that the most important thing is making sure that the mentor can provide relevancy in the industry. So, in other words, if Russell Brunson needed a mentor, he wouldn’t be calling me for digital.

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: Zig Ziglar’s Business

 

Right? So, like that’s maybe not what he needs a mentor for, but what is it? Maybe he needs a mentor to raise capital, go public, or buy a public shell, which he has done, you know, 15 times. So, you know, again, I’ve been involved with dozens of public companies and I sit on eight public boards right now, currently. So I’ve got a lot of experience. And so this is one of the things that people come to me for his monthly racing, you know, obviously, they want money. But how do we raise capital? How do we go public? How do we do crowdfunding? I’ve got a lot of expertise in those arenas. So I’m getting involved in those kinds of things.

 

So, make sure the relevancy is intact. That’s great. And the piece about setting expectations on the front end, so you don’t accidentally turn into ore or them. Your mentee somehow, whatever is needed. So, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how did you and Mark first met with the rate. So I’ve been mentored by some amazing people in a minute, and a few from Richard Branson on down. But one of them was exemplary and I followed Zig for many, many years and then had a chance to get mentoring.

 

And we see them on stages with, you know, tens of thousands of people. But when Jim passed away, Tom Ziegler and I became close and Julie Ziegler. And so one of the things I’ve talked to them about is their business. You know, Tom was a great guy and Zig’s only son. But their business was going like this after Zig passed because he was gone. So I said, I teach, check. I got 2 boys, 32, one is 22. My 32-year-old said, I’ve heard that name, Zig Ziglar, like 22 said, what’s a Zig. And so, I mean, he is one of the greatest minds, sales, motivation, et cetera, that I’ve got a child that’s never heard of him.

 

So I said, I got to take Zig’s products, and bring them back to the current marketplace digitally. So, I signed the deal with Tom to own the food. The exclusive rights to Zig Ziglar’s products and all this digital or all of this and that. None of it was digital. We took it all and digitized it, we released books. So, this was one of the Zig’s most successful books. You’ll see that it was released with Kevin Harrington, and I have 18 chapters in this book, as well as some Shark Tank stories and things like that.

 

So with my mentor and so along the way, what Tom Ziglar said, you need to meet Mark Timm. He was also mentored by Zig and he wants to also get involved in some amazing stuff. So I met with Mark and we became partners in releasing and launching all these things. So, I started mentoring him and then we became partners in the Zig Ziglar business. And we’d done, you know, millions of millions of dollars. I think it’s over 10 million by now in sales of some of the Zig products and re-launched the Ziglar brand on a global basis to get the Europe and Latin America, etcetera.

 

So Mark, and I, we traveled to San Paulo, Brazil and all over the world. So anyway, Mark was an amazing guy and an amazing man. And I have to say, he’s my best student. That’s what I call him. So he did a great job. Wow. Well, it sounds like he really worked hard to earn that title, that designation. 

 

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How to Use a Mentor Effectively: How To Connect With Kevin

 

So this has been awesome. I know that we are quickly running out of time and I wanted to respect your compressed schedule. I’m grateful you came back and shared additional insights and wisdom about mentorship. And obviously, put some golden nuggets out on the book. This has been great. Before we go, before we close out and say goodbye or any final advice that you want to share, anything you think we might’ve missed.

 

And then please tell Onward Nation the best way to connect us here is So, I’ll see this. I think t’s funny because before the show, the book, I’d be running through an airport. Sure. Whatever, grab me. Kevin, I know you’re busy. Give me one thing that you would do. If you, with me, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m like, I don’t know anything about you, but I, you know, what I said was, if you’re just getting started, you need to surround yourself with experts. I was an egotistical entrepreneur when I was younger, until I started opening things up to bringing the right kind of people around. I wouldn’t give budgets for CFOs until my finance mentor said, hey the most money to do the best CFO.

 

So you can get them because they’re going to make you a lot of money. So I think that I say create a dream team that consists of internal people, mentors, consultants, whatever it takes.  And of course, this is the subject of the book. And for those who wanna get this Mentor to Millions, it is very simple. There’s two ways: number one, Kevinmentor.com. You can see all the details about the book, but also my own personal website has information about me and other things. And that’s KevinHarrington.TV. 

 

And so either way, they’re going to find something, but there’s one very powerful thing that we did with the purchase of the book. Mark and I had put together a free 30-day mentoring program online, and we come in every now and then. So for a $20 book, you get to 30-day mentoring program. It’s pretty amazing. And we’re excited about that. So there’s lots of great benefits to be part of Mentor to Millions a book also. That is awesome. 

 

Okay. Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you take or how often you go back and relisten to Kevin’s words of wisdom, I sure hope that you do. We have to be good mentees, right? And so we got some great mentorship here from Kevin and now our job and being a great mentee and moving along that journey is actually take and apply. And Kevin, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day.

 

And I’m grateful my friend that you said yes to come back to help us move our businesses. Onward to that next level. Thank you so much. My friend, Stephen. Thank you, Kevin. Great to be here. Always a pleasure to see you and see you again and thanks for having me on. 

 

This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food, if you will, to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Learn how to use a mentor effectively and improve the mentor-mentee relationship