Earlier this year, mentor Paul Brockwell, MD of PBR Coaching Ltd, met Kim Tserkezie, co-owner of Scattered Pictures, at the Meet A Mentor event in Newcastle. Their mentoring relationship has since developed into an inspiring story of mentoring success. Here Paul and Kim talk about why it's worked so well, what mentoring brings to the business, and their hopes for its future.

Prior to setting up his business, Paul Brockwell spent 17 years as a teacher and then as a Deputy Head in Schools and Colleges.

One day Paul looked at what he had enjoyed doing most in his career and realised that his greatest sense of satisfaction came when he had been empowering teams, helping them motivate themselves to achieve their goals. That's when his business was born. He trained as a corporate and executive coach and now delivers training on leadership and performance management through coaching, he says:

"What I've really noticed is that the same issues of leadership and management occur across all sectors. The people change, but the issues raised and the skills required are often very similar. The work I do with one organisation always gives me inspiration to take away and feed into my work elsewhere ".

We asked Paul what he thought about the Introduction to Enterprise Mentoring training and why he was interested in the volunteer commitment that went with it, he says:

"I found the mentor training very interesting, it reinforced my belief in what I was trying to do in trying to develop leadership capacity in business and increase awareness of an individual's professional skills. I found it very informative, a lot of the skills introduced were coaching anyway, so it helped me to reinforce those skills. It's very complimentary to what I do, which is why it appealed".

"I wanted to get involved in some voluntary activity. In the last few years I've been a start up business so I know the pressures and stresses that come with that. I wanted to mentor someone that was about to go through that process. A lot of mentoring is about helping people to develop the confidence to get out and do. It's about setting goals, making sure they meet deadlines, and helping them be more business savvy".

Although he completed the training about a year ago, he was waiting for the right time to go about finding a mentee to work with. He saw the information on the Meet A Mentor event in Newcastle and realised that this was a good opportunity for him to make that commitment. Paul met lots of businesses at the event, but made a great connection with Kim Tserkezie, who was part of a company formed by a writing trio called Scattered Pictures, he says:

"Scattered Pictures are a writing company owned by a team of brilliant writers. Their goal is for one of their story outlines from their 'slate' to gain commission and be put into production. It was their passion for their product which interested me most about them. Kim also expressed an interest in working with me and so we had a further discussion at the end of the session and set up some times to meet."

Kim was delighted when she met Paul at the event, she says:

"He was just fantastic, he totally understood what we were trying to achieve and had a great way of asking the right questions. He tuned in very quickly to where we were at and what we wanted to achieve. In one of the presentations at the event someone had mentioned how we should also use our gut instinct when considering a mentoring relationship. When I met Paul, that was spot on because I totally felt he would be right for our business".

Paul and the Scattered Pictures team now meet on a monthly basis and Paul has tried to focus his support on developing their business acumen, he says,

"One of the first things that we worked on was realising that what they were selling was a product, it put their ideas on more of a business slant. I also hope to have developed their belief that they can make it work. Mentors are there to empower, to motivate the mentees and facilitate their progress".

Just this week Paul has spent time on the phone with Kim discussing her strategy when attending an industry event later this week.

"We talked about beginning with the end in mind and the sort of questions she wants to ask potential contacts. We also talked about how to gather information that helps you know what they're interested in, so that you can pitch your products in the right way for their interests".

Kim agrees that Paul's support has helped them become more business focused, she says:

"He's helped us approach our work in a business like way, and allowed us to think bigger with our goals than we ever did before. We all have different skills and personalities and he's helped us realise how the company can get the best out of everything the team has to offer".

Paul is volunteering his time so we asked him what he felt he was getting out of the relationship as a mentor, he says:

"It's very exciting to know that I may play a part in helping this company succeed. It's a great team in a new sector for me so it's very invigorating to support its development. I do see this being a long term relationship, and I hope they do too, so who knows how it may develop in the future".

Kim agrees, and feels that Paul is integral to the business now, she says:

"It's really hard to imagine Scattered Pictures without Paul now, I sometimes joke that he's a 'Scattered Picture-ite' already. We see this as a long term relationship with someone that's supported us from the start"

We asked Kim how important a volunteer mentor was for a start up business, she says:

"It's so invaluable, especially when support for starts ups just seems to have vanished. It's amazing that someone will believe in us as a company. We tried so much to get funding, to go to Europe, to new councils, but we can't access their support until we are turning over considerable funds, so it's been brilliant to find someone that's been willing to support us".