The Entrepreneur's Roadmap to Success through Mentorship with Tom Meyer

Unlock the secrets to fostering a successful entrepreneurial spirit underpinned by faith as we sit down with Tom Meyer, a beacon of business acumen and President of MBBI (Midwest Business Brokers and Intermediaries). During our enlightening conversation, Tom imparts his experience on the transformative impact of mentorship for Christian entrepreneurs, emphasizing the power of learning from those who've already navigated the road to achievement. As an adjunct professor (Olivet Nazarene University) with a wellspring of knowledge, he guides us through the process of identifying mentors who can not only illuminate your path but genuinely commit to your personal and professional flourishing. We delve into the art of harnessing your network to unearth these pivotal relationships, providing you with the toolkit to not just venture solo but be uplifted by seasoned guidance every step of the way.

Embark on a narrative that draws from the pages of Tom's new book, where the worlds of sales strategy and life's myriad challenges coalesce, offering a framework to enhance both your business and personal journey. We contrast the roles of mentors and coaches, highlighting the bespoke nature of these partnerships and their capacity to shape your future. The episode also serves as a masterclass in networking, transforming simple social engagements like graduation parties into opportunities to forge connections that could propel your career skyward. Listen in for a treasure trove of actionable insights that promise not only to bolster your business endeavors but also to nurture a holistic approach to personal development and connection.

If you want to connect with Tom, you can email him at tmeyer@centrustbank.com or call him at 847-899-3793. 

To connect with Olivet’s Entrepreneurship Program, contact Program Director, Chris Perez at caperez2@olivet.edu.

To learn more about other entrepreneurship opportunities and the McGraw School of Business’s very own Createur Conference and Pitch Competition, go to Createur.Olivet.edu.

Transcript

Karli: 0:00

What does it mean to be a Christian entrepreneur? How can I turn my ideas into an actual business? How do I navigate my path to entrepreneurship?

Spencer: 0:11

Welcome to Creator, the podcast brought to you by Olivet Nazarene University's McGraw School of Business to unlock the secrets to Christian entrepreneurship and fuel your path to success.

Karli: 0:23

I'm your host, Carly Bird, graduate assistant of Olivet's Entrepreneurship Program.

Spencer: 0:29

I'm your co-host, Spencer, James and Olivet undergraduate marketing management and business administration major.

Karli: 0:35

Join us, fellow students, as we embark on a journey to discover the call of the entrepreneur. This week, we are delighted to have Tom Meyer as our guest. He will join us to emphasize the significance of mentorship and provide valuable insights into the lessons he often provides to his mentees. Hello everyone, this week I have the pleasure of being joined by someone that I personally look up to as a role model, tom Meyer. Tom is a former graduate of Olivet's business undergraduate and graduate programs. He has been an adjunct professor for Olivet for over 15 years and his professional career has been in banking and lending to small and medium-sized businesses. Tom is currently the president of MBBI or Midwest Business Brokers and Intermediaries. Tom has been married to his wife, tracy, for almost 27 years and they have three children. Tom, it is so great to have you here today. Thank you for joining me.

Tom Meyer: 1:40

Thanks for having me.

Karli: 1:42

Of course. Now, before we dive right in, I would just like to point out, which I'm sure many of my listeners have already noticed I am without a co-host this week. Spencer, my co-host, is actually on vacation, which is fantastic for him, but unfortunately means that everyone is stuck with a double dose of Carly.

Tom Meyer: 2:01

That's perfectly fine with me, right.

Karli: 2:05

You know, hey, it might actually be in your favor, tom, to only get questions thrown at you from one person this week. Absolutely, tom. I know that you would agree that mentorship is such a powerful tool, and I'm sure that many of our listeners would agree with that as well. However, I think one of the main problems is that they don't know how to use it. From your personal experience, and as a Christian, what would you say are some qualities to look for in a mentor? How do you find that person?

Tom Meyer: 2:37

Well, I think, whether you're in your career, or whether you're in school or in church or all the above, you want to go somewhere. You want to accomplish something. Maybe you want to be a better Christian. Maybe you want to go to the next level in your career. There's specific position that you're eyeing to obtain. Maybe it's in sports. You're the backup quarterback and you want to be the starting quarterback. I think, in all areas that you're involved with in your life, finding a mentor to help you can really take your skills to the next level with some outside support.

Karli: 3:20

Going based off of that. Another area that's a little bit more specific that I've found can be very difficult to navigate when first exploring mentorship, is the concept of having one mentor or many. How do you decide? Is there a right or wrong way to approach this concept?

Tom Meyer: 3:39

I don't think there's ever a wrong way. I think if you have a desire and you're open to learning and open to allowing people to help you, I think having a mentor is great. Based on your own time, maybe you're constricted and only have the ability to have one mentor, but you could essentially have a mentor in several facets of your life. For example, if you're in college and you know you want to get into sales, then you obviously would look for someone that maybe has already finished college and graduated and maybe they're in their first couple of years of their sales career. If you're in your sales career and you want to take things to the next level and you find someone within your company that's extremely successful and you have a good relationship with them, then maybe asking that person to be your mentor to help you along the way it's possible.

Tom Meyer: 4:34

These are people that are already in your circle in your life. Maybe it's your pastor, maybe it's your professor, maybe it's your boss or your manager or someone that you work for, or maybe it's someone outside of those circles that you're involved with Instead of someone just managing you. You can ask them are you open to spending additional time to help me in these areas. Are you willing to go to lunch? Can you grab coffee? Can we meet maybe on a weekly or a monthly basis and do check-ins? But you can definitely have a mentor in all those different areas and there is no pre-described time and how long you spend with them. It's just. The goal is obviously to help you along the way of your journey to be successful.

Karli: 5:23

Yeah, I really like that approach. So you've also touched on kind of finding that mentor. What would you say are some qualities to actually look for in that person? If you're just getting started, you're trying to find who that would be in your life, what kind of qualities would a person look for?

Tom Meyer: 5:38

Well, I don't think there's any exact quality that makes the most sense.

Tom Meyer: 5:43

I mean, typically, I would say a mentor is someone that is an adult that's maybe older than where you're at now.

Tom Meyer: 5:52

Maybe they've already accomplished what you're trying to achieve and they're open to being able to help you along the way.

Tom Meyer: 6:01

A lot of people don't have time to help others and that's unfortunate, but I think the more adults that you talk to along your journey, you'll come across someone that is striking to you and someone that maybe you feel in your own mind that you would like to be more like them and be where they're at at the time frame that they're to get there. If you feel comfortable with them and they're willing to spend the time to be able to mentor you and help you with questions and maybe it's once a month in breakfast that you have with them. If you have a five-minute phone call, maybe you're in the midst of a project and you text them and want to reach out to them and say, hey, do you have 10 minutes to talk? I think it can come in any kind of fashion. It's just you need to both be open and willing to communicate and work with each other. Hopefully, this mentor has a desire to help you and to see you succeed in what you're asking them to mentor you in.

Karli: 7:09

Okay, so another big question that I feel that topic leads into would be what is the difference between a mentor and a coach?

Tom Meyer: 7:20

That's a good question. I think a mentor is maybe a looser and more casual type of relationship with someone. There is no set parameters or goals or guidelines. Maybe you set a specific time that you want to meet all the time, but it's not like you're actively working through goals and actively trying to achieve them. A coach is probably more specific someone that maybe you would hire and you would pay, maybe an hourly fee in order to have them help you. For example, I'm writing a book right now and I hired a book coach and she has a specific skill of helping me write this book and have it accomplished in a year's time frame and in exchange for her time, which is both Zoom coaching along with her reviewing my work and coming back with proposed edits and then making introductions for me along the way. I think having a coach is more of a structured, contractual payment type of relationship versus a mentor is more casual.

Karli: 8:35

Yeah, really quick. You mentioned your book coming out. What's the book title? Could you share that?

Tom Meyer: 8:41

with us. Sure, it's titled Life as a Sale S-A-L-E and it basically discusses how everything we do in life is a series of interactions between people and relationships. You're selling them on the fact that they will do something or they're selling you on the fact that they won't. The journey along the way, after spending about 25 years in sales myself and then also working to overcome challenges within my own life and growing up in multiple different broken, divorced households, being expelled from school the original college that I went to for getting into trouble and then surviving a plane crash and overcoming those obstacles. So I use both my personal skills, along with skills that I developed along the way within sales, to help people develop the qualities within themselves in order to be the best version of themselves.

Karli: 9:47

Wow, that's incredible and I'm just so looking forward to reading that and I would highly recommend that to any listeners out there right now. That is going to be incredible. Another topic that comes up very often when thinking about mentorship is how can those relationships help grow your personal network. I think that's something that many people should take advantage of.

Tom Meyer: 10:12

Yes, you know, depending on how old you are. You know, sometimes I start mentoring youth when they're just about to graduate high school and they don't necessarily have relationships or networking type of relationships, for example. So one of the things in exercises that I give them to work on is, you know, knowing that they just graduated high school, they typically have five to 10 or 15 to 20 graduation parties that they're going to go to throughout the course of the summer and I believe that's a great environment for you to begin having discussions with adults at a different level than maybe you've been at prior to that point, because now you've graduated high school, you've achieved success in your life and now you're looking towards what's next. In many cases that's going to college.

Tom Meyer: 11:04

But having these conversations with adults, you know, at a graduation party, number one, it's a familiar environment.

Tom Meyer: 11:12

They may know you already and you know going up to them and talking to them and asking them how do they start their career, if they own a business, when did they start their business and why. Be prepared to listen, because they're going to give you intimate details and things that they've done along the way. And as you continue to go through these graduation parties and meeting these adults you know. Make these connections, connect with them on LinkedIn, get their name and number, ask if you can follow up with them. There's going to be a couple of people that are really going to stand out to you and you know that might be. A way to find a mentor is just by having conversations with adults and if you can do it, you know at a graduation party whether it's a relatively safer environment. Well, that gives you a lot of practice to be able to continue to do adults every step of the way as you continue on, you know, through college and in your career.

Karli: 12:12

You never know who you're going to run into in those situations. I think, personally, one eye-opening experience for myself would be being a part of the Creator Conference and Pitch Competition team and having that opportunity. You know, being in that type of an environment with so many incredible individuals with so much expertise to offer. Take advantage of those moments, get to know someone, take the time to introduce yourself and build those connections, because you never know who is going to you know, change your life in an instant like that.

Tom Meyer: 12:45

Yeah, I mean, human nature is we want to. You know we as Christians, we want to help others and you know it could be as simple as just asking and some people are just afraid to take that first step. But there's. Everything you need is all around you. This is something that I mentioned in my book. You just have to seek it out, and asking questions and going up to adults and having initial conversations are a great way to really figure out. You know who's around you and what they could do to potentially help you and, on the flip side, maybe there's something that you can do to help them as well. They likely wouldn't be expecting a young male or female at a graduation party to be able to help them in their career, but maybe they are looking for someone to hire and maybe you're familiar with someone that you can maybe make an introduction. These are ways to build your network over time.

Karli: 13:41

Wow. Would you have any recommendations on how do you build up that confidence or that courage to start making those connections or, you know, actually push yourself to introduce yourself or take the next step? You mentioned that it can be difficult sometimes. You know, and we have some individuals that have never done anything like that before or put themselves in that position how do you push yourself to get in that zone?

Tom Meyer: 14:09

Well, I think with anything that you're trying to do better at, the key is you have to practice it and you have to recognize that you're going to have anxiety, you're going to be nervous about talking to someone that you don't know and, of course, growing up, you know our parents are always said don't talk to strangers.

Tom Meyer: 14:28

But this is the exact opposite. You know of what you learned, but you know, use your visual and your hearing cues and observe people around you and identify. You know someone that you see or that you're interacting or you see someone else interact with that you have a genuine need or want to know who they are. Being inquisitive is a way to overcome the anxiety of talking to someone and you just got to do it. You just have to take that step and you just got to keep doing it over and over again, and the more you practice, the better you're going to be. You know you're always trying to differentiate yourself amongst your peers and learning and practicing to talk to adults or talk to people around you and being inquisitive that's one way to do it.

Karli: 15:27

You know I have to ask you because you know, I really appreciate that you have this desire to mentor as well, and you mentor, you know, many individuals that are of all different backgrounds and looking to get involved in their futures and find their career paths. So do you have any? You know, is there any little nugget of advice or you know something from your experience as a mentor that you often tell your mentees that you could share with our audience today?

Tom Meyer: 15:56

Well, I think I kind of touched on a little bit earlier. You know, is differentiating yourself. I don't know how many times there are in the United States, but somehow I have to differentiate myself. When I go and meet someone and tell them, you know that I provide loans to small businesses with, so do a lot of other people, and they might even be called Tom. So how do I, you know, figure out a way to differentiate myself?

Tom Meyer: 16:21

And I think it's being genuine, I think it's looking someone in the eye, I think it's a genuine wanting to hear what they have to say. You know, I love to hear when a business owner tells me how they first decide to start the business. I mean that's intriguing to me. It's like trying to solve a case or something. But you know, being genuine and going up to someone and talking to them, you know I think is important and differentiate yourself.

Tom Meyer: 16:51

What I say is you want to leave sticky notes in someone's head. So, you know, when, when you leave that person, something or or a few items that you talked about really resonated with them and it's ringing in their head and they can't get out of their head. And the more people they talk to, that might be a competitor of yours per se. Now they're using you to set the bar, to figure out whether these other people they talk to are going to even compare, and you know. So I think. Once again, I think differentiating yourself any way that you can is a great way to to network and to develop few further connections and then potentially find a mentor or mentors that you believe can help you.

Karli: 17:40

Here at Creator, we do like to end with what we call our quirky question of the week. So, tom, are you ready for your quirky question?

Tom Meyer: 17:48

Yes.

Karli: 17:49

All right. What is the first app that you open on your phone when you wake up in the morning, and why?

Tom Meyer: 17:57

I wish I could say it's some phenomenal app that I would open. But I always look at my schedule, open my calendar up and just kind of Visually think about you know what my day is going to be like, so that way I can start to mentally plan and prepare my time while driving or things like that. But that's probably the first day I open and then maybe the Maybe the second one might be like Facebook or Instagram and just get a pulse on pictures that people post and it reminds you of birthdays for the day, so that way you might can see happy birthday to someone and make their day.

Karli: 18:35

Good point. Yes, definitely. It has been such a pleasure, tom, and I thank you so much for joining us and bringing some clarity on the concept mentorship and how our listeners can find their mentor, and what a great conversation that is.

Tom Meyer: 18:51

Thank you very much for having me.

Karli: 18:53

Absolutely, and listeners. If you want to connect with Tom, you can actually email him at tmyreatcentrustbankcom or you can call him at 847-899-3793. Yeah.

Tom Meyer: 19:11

I look forward to hearing from anyone and make sure they remind me that they heard me on this show.

Karli: 19:17

Absolutely, you heard him and to connect with our Olivet Entrepreneurship Program Director, chris Perez, or discover any entrepreneurial opportunities that this program may have to offer you, such as our very own McGraw School of Business' Creator Conference and Pitch Competition, which Tom happened to be a guest in in our last one we just had recently go to olivetedu slash creator, as always. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget to tune in next time when we have Hayden Reitgen joining us to discuss how to maintain your Christian identity through the good times and the bad times. We'll see you next time.