The Sponsorship Consultants hold seminars in major cities throughout the year which offer athletes valuable insights and
strategies for engaging their own sponsorship, and their book ‘Sponsorship for Athletes’ is available on their website www.
thesponsorshipconsultants.com.au
Sponsorship tips and news is provided on the Facebook page at /TheSponsorshipConsultants.
So, exactly what is a mentor and what do they do?
Eric Parsloe from The Oxford School of Coaching and Mentoring sums it up this way:
Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order
that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and
become the person they want to be.’
To put even more simply, a mentor is someone with more experience and knowledge than
you, who is willingly available for you to learn from. They are there to provide you with
ongoing support, with help with networking opportunities, and to act as a professional
sounding board for anything you need clarification or assistance with. When used correctly,
mentors really can be the ultimate in career guidance.
Mike Campbell is an Ambassador for the fitnessU Mentor Program, as well as a successful
Personal Trainer with Fitness First George Street in Sydney (NSW), and author of Unleash Your
Alpha. From his first-hand experience both as a mentor and a mentee, Mike believes the
benefits of mentoring are enormous. ‘Mentoring provides both best practice and examples to
follow, but also ensures there is accountability to the student’s development and education.
It’s great because it provides actual plans, structures and systems to follow as well.’
Regardless of your study style and how challenging or easy you find the fitnessU education
process, working with a mentor can help develop and refine your skills and techniques,
improve the quality of your education, and increase confidence in your abilities. And you
never know, you may even make a life-long friend as well.
Kathy Johnsun is another Ambassador for the fitnessU Mentor Program and was named
Australian Fitness Network’s 2014 Group Exercise Instructor of the Year. Kathy works at as
a Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor at Fitness First St Leonards (NSW) and says
‘Mentoring helps ease the pressure of starting out as a Personal Trainer, when you have
zero or limited experience. It really encourages students to become successful in the fitness
industry, by providing them with support, direction and the confidence to shine.’
So how can you make the most of your mentor arrangement?
It’s important to get the most out of the time you have with your mentor. Both Kathy and Mike
agree that in the mentor/mentee relationship, there are no ‘silly questions’ so treat that time
together as an open forum where you can ask as much about everything that you want
clarified or confirmed.
To each mentoring session make sure you show up with a pre-written list of questions, so you
are not wasting precious time trying to remember what it was you wanted