“Mentoring has given me real insight into how small businesses operate at the very top level and exactly how vital they are to the health of our economy.”

Last September Meet a Mentor was held in the stately surroundings of Exeter Castle. It was at this event that Lloyds Banking Group mentor Duncan Webster and small business owner Janine Stedman first met. We spoke to each of them about their respective roles in what has proven to be a very successful enterprise mentoring relationship.

Duncan is an IT auditor for Lloyds Banking Group and has performed various roles for the bank since joining in 1988. He heard about enterprise mentoring through Lloyd’s Commercial Banking division, which was conducting a group-wide search to identify people who may be interested in becoming enterprise mentors, as part of the bank’s Helping Britain to Prosper initiative. Duncan explains what prompted him to take that first step towards becoming a mentor:

“I wanted to support the bank in what it was trying to do and I also saw mentoring as an opportunity for self-development, to further my relationship building and influencing skills, which is something I can hopefully bring back to my day job.”

Although Duncan’s position isn’t directly connected to mentoring, he has certainly found the skills he uses during his day job to be transferable to the task, as he explains:

“A big part of an auditing role is building relationships, and listening. Even the word ‘audit’ itself stems from the Latin ‘auditus’ meaning the act of hearing! My role is to assess departments’ risks and controls so I listen, I learn and I have to understand their business, its key risks and how those risks are managed. Communication is key to me helping business departments across Lloyds execute better control over their risks, as well as to being a good mentor.”

Through Lloyds Banking Group’s partnership with SFEDI, Duncan attended an intense one-day mentoring training course. He was then partnered with local mentoring organisation Business Mentors South West (BMSW), which partnered him with companies reaching out for mentors. However, it was at Meet a Mentor that Duncan established his mentoring connection with Janine, who had recently achieved her life-long ambition of starting her own business. Tamsden Memories delivers therapies to help people living with dementia reminisce about their lives. Janine’s mother, 82, lives with vascular dementia and her care requirements meant Janine had needed to give up full-time work. Working for herself gave Janine her new flexibility. She explains the service Tamsden Memories provides:

“When people are elderly, frail and/or living with dementia, they can find the present very scary and miss their past lives. Many lose their short-term memory and remember things from the past clearly and with great fondness. To take them back to that time is to guide them to a place where they feel happy and safe. It transports them back to when they were in control and running things for themselves. It’s empowering, good for self-esteem and I do this one-to-one or within groups. It’s a therapy that works very, very well.”

Running Tamsden Memories, Janine uses techniques that appeal to all the senses, which is important because most older people have eyesight or hearing difficulties.

“I create memory boxes for people and one specialism is ‘armchair travel.’ I take in with me a box of memorabilia from all around the world and encourage people to talk about their holidays, travel, or periods when they lived abroad. Even though they can’t physically travel anymore, in their minds they’re travelling with me, a stimulating and meaningful experience.”

Before attending Meet a Mentor Janine already had an appreciation of the advantages a strong mentoring relationship can deliver:

“I really wanted a mentor because I have mentoring qualifications myself from when I worked with young people. In fact, for much of my working life I have supported young people. So I’m a trained mentor and I know the value of mentoring. It seemed absolutely the right thing to get a mentor for my business.”

When she heard that Meet a Mentor was coming to Exeter Castle, Janine quickly registered for a place, hoping to meet a mentor who could help take her business to the next level. Meanwhile, by now an established Lloyds Banking Group mentor, Duncan was scheduled to speak at the event, as he recalls:

“I went along to the Exeter Meet a Mentor as a representative of Lloyds Bank. I did a speech then got talking to Janine. She explained her business idea and what she was trying to do and as a result of that she reached out to me via Business Mentor South West and that’s how we got together.”

Janine, who is confident in her area of business, knew that she wanted a mentor who would bring a different type of knowledge and experience to the table.

“I wanted a mentor who could look at my business dispassionately and focus on guiding me. Duncan is very good. He’s made me think about pricing, risks and opportunities for the next stage. He’s really great at pulling me into the future. I’m in the early stages of running a business and I don’t have admin support so I’m very focussed on now. Duncan draws me forwards and gets me to think ‘what happens in the future?’”

Duncan was also pleased with how the initial mentoring session unfolded:

“The first meeting went very well. Janine came well prepared with examples of her memory boxes and she explained her business so effectively that during that first meeting we got to a point where I was able to help her consider her business model. As a result, some very positive changes have been made for Tamsden Memories so I am very pleased to have been able to help Janine make some good decisions. And that’s really why I do it.”

For Janine, mentoring provides much-appreciated back-up from an unbiased source with decades of specialist experience:

“It’s a good level of communication and I know that if I needed to I could contact him. I really am very grateful for the support that Duncan has given me.”

However, it’s not just Janine who benefits from the mentoring relationship. Duncan, who has only ever worked for large companies had limited experience of the way SMEs are run before he began working with his mentees. He says:

“As a corporate person I have never run a business and I’ve never even worked for a small business. Mentoring has given me real insight into how small businesses operate at the very top level and exactly how vital they are to the health of our economy. On my training I learnt that over 90% of the UK’s GDP is generated by SMEs, which surprised me a lot!”