MENTORING

After training in a range of different sports from an early age, Jo has had a lot of experience of coaching – both being coached and doing it herself. She has also talked a lot over the years about how seriously coaching is taken by anyone that wants to compete or even just improve in a sport, but how it is not something that people think about very much when they first go out into the business world.

Nowadays there are many different business coaches and mentors that are available if you can afford them, plus many big companies take the internal coaching and mentoring of their staff very seriously. However, even those employees that have the benefit of a good boss and/or a separate coach, sometimes feel that it is difficult to talk frankly to someone who may have their own agenda, or who has some say in that person’s job position or even salary. Which is where an external coach or mentor such as Jo and others come in.

Jo prides herself on making herself available to anyone that is interested in some form of mentoring, whether it is the owner of a new start-up, or a senior director in a large international company. She is often heard to say that ‘no-one knows what it is like to sit in my chair until they do something similar themselves’ in relation to her own 30 plus years of setting up and running businesses. And she is more than happy to help people in a similar position to get comfortable with their own particular chairs.

Jo’s experience in running major marketing campaigns as well as her own businesses, also makes her a popular mentor for senior-level employees in larger companies who are often struggling with the weight of overall responsibility, or are feeling lonely and have no-one to discuss their own issues or stresses with. Sometimes just having someone to talk to, who is guaranteed to remain objective and confidential is all that is required to make the difference between dreading the day ahead to actively enjoying it.