Alan Jenkins from Carmarthen is now into his fourth decade as a Lloyds Banking Group employee, having joined the bank in 1982 aged just 16. Since then, he’s enjoyed a number of key successes, including being awarded Bank Manager of the Year in the Swansea Local Director Group and gaining fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB). Having occupied a number of roles across the bank, Alan is currently a Lloyds SME Banking Relationship Manager for Agriculture in South and West Wales and, in recent years, his name featured in the top ten Agricultural Business Managers in the UK for ‘Building the Business’. Most recently, Alan has decided to expand the range of small and medium businesses he can help by volunteering as a Lloyds Banking Group enterprise mentor. Although it’s early days in Alan’s mentoring journey, he agreed to chat to us about his motivation for starting it:
“I decided, with over 33 years in banking, I wanted to give something back to the local business community. I started at age 16, jumping on my bike down to the local branch of Lloyds and, since then, I’ve had a variety of roles on the commercial side, and managed key branches within North and South Wales.”
The satisfaction Alan gains through his day job by helping people grow and develop their enterprises is something he hopes to emulate as an enterprise mentor:
“Funnily enough, I saw one of my old customers on television last night. He was talking about how things had improved on his farm over the last few years because the bank had lent him money to buy a new robotic dairy set-up. I hadn’t seen that result as I’m no longer in contact with that customer so it was fantastic to see how things had developed for him since we met a couple of years ago.”
Alan joined Lloyds Banking Group’s enterprise mentoring programme after seeing the opportunity advertised internally. His employer sent him on a short IOEE course in Bristol to learn more about what good mentoring entails, as well as to other events designed to optimise his potential as an effective mentor, including ‘Hacking the web strategy’ in Bristol and Meet a Mentor in Cardiff. There, Alan made his first connections with possible mentees, as he recalls:
“I talked to a guy there with an insurance business, who was looking to revitalise his family firm. We spoke about a few ideas and since then we’ve hooked up on LinkedIn. There was also someone looking to set up a B&B.”
Although in his day job Alan’s focus is agricultural businesses, as a mentor he will be able to offer his services to any sort of business. As he explains, most start-ups and small and medium businesses falter in the same areas:
“When you start talking to people with small and medium businesses they have similar issues. For example, they’ve thought about the cost of setting up, but not given so much consideration to the first few months of being in business. I have been looking after general business, as well as agricultural businesses specifically during the last four years. The rules are very much the same, no matter which business you’re in.”
Additionally, as a former branch manager who has taken control of workforces that are up to 50-strong, Alan brings considerable people skills to his enterprise mentoring, like listening and management. However, it is through his IOEE training that Alan has learned the key facets that make a good mentor:
“It’s important not to cross the line and become a counsellor or a consultant. Mentoring is about finding the balance to helping people without getting involved in areas that are not expected of a mentor. You must be careful not to give advice – that’s something that came out loud and clear through my training. One of my first mentees asked ‘do you think I should go ahead with this business?’ That’s a point blank question. I thought, if it wasn’t for my training I probably would have said yes or no, but really all you can do is help them come to decisions themselves and ask the right questions.”
So, does Alan envision mentoring becoming a large part of his future?
“I’d like to think so! While I still enjoy it I hope it will continue for a long time to come because it would be a shame to throw away 33 years of business experience. I want to put it to good use somehow!”