7 Best Ways to Sell a Mentoring Program to Leadership

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Mentoring is an art and developing a successful mentoring program involves a great deal of planning. But no matter how good it is, if you do not adopt the most lucrative ways to sell a mentoring program to leadership, it will not see the light of day.

A mentoring program taps into the experience and knowledge of a mentor to help mentees accelerate their careers and achieve much higher goals in life.

When it comes to a workplace mentorship program, it is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ kind of an option for organisations. Recent statistics show that a large percentage of successful companies have a mentoring program in place.

Well-developed mentoring programs can improve productivity, develop leadership, promote diversity, and help retain talents for a longer time.

In other words, a great mentoring program can set both the organisation and professionals on a growth trajectory.

Have you created such a stellar mentoring program and are looking for ‘secrets’ to promote and sell it to the decision-makers successfully? Then this post is just for you.

Let’s explore the seven proven ways to sell a mentoring program to the leadership and get it approved without a fuss.

7 Ways to Sell Your Mentoring Program and Get It Approved Successfully

Take a look at the 7 ways you can sell your mentoring program and pave the path to success, both for your organisation and employees.

1. Emphasise the Benefits

If you are having a notion that ‘once you build it, they will buy it’, it's time to ditch it. No matter how good your program is, your leaders need to be convinced that this mentoring initiative is worth the investment.

One of the best ways to sell a mentoring program is to showcase its benefits. When you put forth the mentoring program proposal to your leaders, first you need to identify the need for mentoring in your organisation.

The next step is to highlight how the mentoring program you have developed will address the need and bridge the gaps.

Let's say you have developed a mentoring program for your remote workers, including newly hired freelancers. You can build your pitch around how the program will help you better groom your employees by boosting their engagement, productivity, and skills and turn them into brand ambassadors.

You can support your pitch with real life examples and actionable tips to manage remote teams like the ones mentioned in this Attrock post.

Remember, the focus here is not on how good a program is but on what ways it can impact the team and foster growth. So let's encourage a growth mindset, where we see every challenge as an opportunity to learn and improve together.

2. Discuss the Expected ROI

Implementing an organisational mentoring program is a considerable investment. That's why to get it approved, you should draw the attention of the leaders to the expected ROI.

Once you list down the benefits, it’s important to quantify the ROI your organisation may reap by adopting this program. After all, a business will only put money into something that gives it something in return.

This could be in the form of building a highly motivated team and a diverse workplace. You can explain how the skills acquired may reduce the cost of outsourcing.

As mentoring programs can help companies retain employees for a longer time due to their professional growth, you can talk about the reduced turnover cost and enhanced employer branding.

You can even pitch employee advocacy solutions to them and explain how employees talking about your mentoring program can boost your employer reputation.

If you’re able to prove the ROI of your program, you’ve got a deal in hand. And that’s what makes this one of the best ways to sell your mentoring program to decision-makers and win them over.

3. Share Success Stories

To convince your leadership of the benefits of incorporating a monitoring program in the organisation, you need to show them success stories.

Curate case studies and success stories of organisations to show how mentoring programs have made a difference to them.

For instance, you could showcase employee interviews from other organisations where they talk about how they benefited from internal mentoring programs.

You could showcase such real examples to your organisation. They can add credibility to your argument and make a strong case for your mentoring program.

4. Explain How the Program Works

For your leadership team to approve a mentoring program, they need to clearly understand how the program will work.

Remember, one of the best ways to sell a mentoring program is to educate people about it.

Dedicate a section of your mentoring program presentation or written proposal to explaining its goals, its structure, the tools and resources required, the timeline, and the expected outcomes for mentors and mentees.

You can also explain the marketing and promotional techniques you will adopt to ensure more employees will enrol in the program.

When you break down the program’s plan, you provide a virtual framework that bears a deeper impact on your superiors and can convince them to approve the program.

5. Address Potential Challenges

Once your leadership team thoroughly understands the structure and purpose of your mentoring program, they will get back to you with several concerns.

The potential challenges may range from finding the right mentor-mentee match and promotional methods to the timeline, budget, effective experience management, learning assessment techniques, and much more.

You should be well prepared to address these concerns and give a fitting explanation to convince the leaders. You also need to be flexible enough to incorporate the suggested changes in the plan successfully.

For example, to shorten a lengthy process, you can adopt contactless marketing and registration methods.

You can even consider using a platform like PushFar to find seasoned mentors if you do not have in-house mentors in a specific field.

Thus, addressing challenges is one of the proven ways to sell your mentoring program to leaders.

6. Highlight the Potential for Leadership Development

Most mentoring programs are beneficial to both the mentees as well as the mentors. The role of a mentor is quite demanding and through the process, a mentor can discover their hidden leadership qualities.

Along with developing non-judgemental communication, mentors can build trust, develop listening skills, and master public speaking to lead others successfully.

When you are highlighting the benefits of a mentoring program, draw your leadership’s attention to this major advantage. Through a mentoring program, the board can identify people who can be moved to more senior roles and can be trusted with greater responsibilities in the organisation.

7. Propose a Trial Period

To conclude our list of ways to sell a mentoring program, here is a practical suggestion. To convince the value this program will bring to the organisation, it is essential to test it.

You can choose a small group of mentees and allow them to attend the mentoring program for a stipulated trial period.

This will allow the leadership to see the benefits of the program and also help you assess possible challenges and rectify them on the go.

Thus, when the program is fully implemented, you will be better prepared to achieve the desired goals.

Conclusion

It is evident that a mentoring program can help mentees in developing a career development plan with a mentor and foster organisational growth.

But to get a program approved by the board, you should come up with practical and proven ways to sell it to the leadership.

Go ahead and try the techniques discussed above and launch a successful mentoring program in your organisation.

Author Bio

Gaurav Sharma is the founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company. Grew an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure revenue in just two years | 10X leads | 2.8X conversions | 300K organic monthly traffic. He also contributes to top publications like HuffPost, Adweek, Business 2 Community, TechCrunch, and more. Find him here.