The nonprofit SCORE has much to offer both mentors and small business owners--retired or not.
Starting a small business is not for the faint of heart. As anyone who’s tried it will attest, a small business entrepreneur has to be their own marketing specialist, HR manager, IT technician, and CEO. The experience can feel isolating unless you strategically seek out mentors. One free resource available anywhere in the U.S., SCORE, aims to support business owners by matching them with experienced mentors. And it works: SCORE helped launch over 31,000 businesses in 2023 alone.
SCORE Supports at Every Step
When the nonprofit organization was founded in 1964, SCORE originally stood for Service Corps of Retired Executives. Today, it’s just SCORE, and SCORE mentors are retired, semi-retired, or still working full time in a variety of fields. As a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA), and thanks to its base of talented volunteers, SCORE can offer most of its services for free.
Three Ways to Connect with SCORE
|
Jose brings over 35 years of business consulting experience to his work with SCORE. From his perspective, Fortune 500 companies and small businesses have similar needs: how to price, how to sell, and how to make money. At SCORE, he says, “We truly help entrepreneurs start up, grow, or spin off their business, every step of the way.”
SCORE mentors are a diverse bunch: from small business entrepreneurs to corporate CEOs, with expertise from social media strategy to human resources, financial oversight to risk assessment. And the subject matter expertise among mentors ranges all over the board, too. “These folks are so willing and able to help people with their businesses, even if it's not in their industry,” Jose says. When mentors get together for regional meetings, “It’s so impressive how much brainpower is in one room.”
Why Mentor with SCORE?
Giving back is a major motivation for SCORE mentors, says Jeffrey Mullikin. “We may not have called them mentors along the way, but we had folks that were standing with us and giving us guidance and moving us along.” For many recently retired professionals, mentoring with SCORE offers a structured way to share out the expertise built over a lifetime of working and learning in business settings. “Our motivations are about giving back, because we all prospered from that coaching as we came through our careers.”
Over eight years with SCORE, Jeff has mentored more than 100 business owners at different stages of building their companies. He currently has about 16 SCORE clients, with whom he meets as often as once a week or as infrequently as every month or so, depending on where they are in their journey and how much support they’re looking for. Jeff’s expertise is in information technology, but he’s also well-versed in the big picture of getting a business to where it wants to be. Over the course of his career, he’s consulted with businesses in hospitality, logistics, technology, and many more industries.
Today, he helps train new SCORE mentors. The one to three-month onboarding process helps potential mentors learn about the organization, decide if the commitment is for them, and how to best support new business owners. “I tell a lot of my folks when I bring them on: well, you've now elevated to full Yoda status,” Jeff says.
Another reason to mentor, he shares, is that it’s a chance to learn from mentees in different industries and keep up to date on business trends. “My very first mentoring request I got assigned to me was a person that wanted to break plates.” Like, literally? Yes, the client wanted to start a business offering “rage rooms,” where customers break things to relieve stress. “I knew nothing about breaking plates,” says Jeff, “but I used it as a learning opportunity. Not only did the client educate me, I got educated by doing some industry research.”
Finally, Jeff enjoys when the opportunity arises to work with an entrepreneur whose business takes flight and becomes a big success. “Every so often you get a golden nugget,” he says. “When those happen, not that the others aren’t fulfilling, but it hooks you.” It’s extremely satisfying to feel that, as a mentor, he’s contributed to realizing a client’s dream, and that his client, in turn, is transforming the industry.
Interested in connecting with your own mentor?
At the SCORE website, prospective mentees can search for mentors by geographic area, expertise, and industry. Or, clients can reach out and describe the kind of support they need, and SCORE will match them with a mentor. The frequency and communication method for mentorship can be worked out between the two parties. Some mentorship arrangements may be targeted and short-term. Others, according to Jose, turn into holistic mentorships that last, in one instance, 19 years, continuing as thought partnerships even after the client doesn’t “need” a mentor anymore.
Since SCORE was founded, mentors have supported an astonishing 17 million entrepreneurs. CSAs and their clients might find rewards on either or both sides of the SCORE mentor / mentee relationship.
