Episode 60: Why Great Mentors Know When to Let Clients Go with Kerrie Dorman

## Show Notes: What’s the real difference between a business mentor and a business coach, and how do you know when a client relationship has given all it can? In this episode of *Beyond Six Figures*, Ziv Raviv sits down with **Kerrie Dorman**, business mentor, entrepreneur, and founder of the **Association of Business Mentors (ABM)**, the UK’s professional body dedicated to raising standards in mentoring. Kerrie answers what she calls **the million-dollar question**: a mentor draws on firsthand experience to guide, while a coach uses questions to draw the answer out of the client. She walks through ABM’s six core competencies and explains why knowing when the value has been exhausted, and **wrapping up a relationship ethically**, is the real skill of a mentor. She also shares how a frustrating start as a mentor on a government-funded project in 2006 led her to found ABM, now 3,000 members strong, why one mentee has stayed with her for about seven years, how she builds trust with people who don’t know her yet, and her own struggle as a business owner: being a giver who over-delivers and finds it difficult to charge. If you’re a coach, consultant, or service business owner, this episode is a practical look at when to lean on your own experience, how to earn trust, and how to tell when a client relationship has run its course.   ## Episode Highlights: - **Mentoring vs. Coaching: The Million-Dollar Question** A mentor draws on firsthand experience to guide the mentee, while a coach uses questioning tools to draw the solution out of the client, and ABM’s approach is a healthy blend of both. - **The Six Core Competencies of a Business Mentor** ABM’s six core competencies are awareness, curious questioning, listening to learn, the use of tools like the Business Model Canvas and OSCAR, the use of experience through storytelling, and knowing how to wrap up a relationship when the time comes. - **Knowing When the Value Is Exhausted** Kerrie calls this the real skill of a mentor, sees keeping paying mentees attached by an “umbilical cord” as unethical, and says the only way to know is to ask your mentees. - **A Powerful Closing Question, and When to Drop It** Kerrie borrows a closing question from Professor Jonathan Passmore of Henley Business School (what could make the next session more valuable?), yet one mentee found it so overwhelming he asked her never to ask it again. - **Mentoring Is Like Peeling an Onion** Drawing on Julie Starr, author of *The Mentoring Manual*, and a scene from *Shrek*, Kerrie explains that the good stuff happens when the mentor opens up and is vulnerable and the mentee meets them there. - **Give It a Go or You’ll Never Know** Living by that motto as a serial entrepreneur, Kerrie was asked to mentor on a government-funded project in 2006 after a successful business sale, found no guidelines on how to mentor well, and founded ABM to provide ethics, guidance, support, and training; 15 years after its founding, it is 3,000 members strong. - **One Mentor, Three Kinds of Work** Kerrie mentors SME owners one-on-one, trains mentors, and designs mentoring initiatives for larger organizations, including one pilot of six pairs that grew to 50 pairs over five years. - **The Mentee Who Stayed Seven Years** After three years, Kerrie suggested a new mentor might serve him better, but her mentee said the value was that she was on the journey with him and knew his business inside out, and she has now mentored him for about seven years. - **Trust Can’t Be Rushed** Kerrie builds trust by taking time to really get to know people, making it clear that everything stays confidential (trust is broken only for safeguarding or legal reasons), and relying on intuition and emotional intelligence. - **The Giver’s Dilemma** Kerrie’s own struggle as a business owner is one many coaches will recognize: she over-delivers, gives her time for free, and finds it difficult to charge.   ## About Kerrie Dorman: **Kerrie Dorman** is a UK business mentor, non-executive director, keynote speaker, and the founder of the **Association of Business Mentors (ABM)**. She started out as a serial entrepreneur, and her journey includes seven businesses, three of which she successfully exited. She found mentoring in 2006, on a government-funded initiative she joined after a successful business sale, with no support or guidance. In 2011 she founded ABM to bring standards, ethics, and training to business mentoring, and it has since grown to 3,000 members. With 20 years in mentoring behind her, Kerrie mentors founders, executives, and senior leaders one-on-one, trains mentors, designs and facilitates structured mentoring programs for organizations, and brings an independent perspective to boards as a non-executive director. Her work has been recognized with the People’s Mentoring Champion UK award and an invitation to Buckingham Palace for services to mentoring. She is also the author of *Stand Up*, a true memoir – the story of Jennie Lee and her son Django – and the first book in *The Life Stories of Jennie Lee*. She hosts the podcast *That’s Life or Is It?* and writes a regular column for *Elite Business Magazine*.   ## Links & Resources: - **Kerrie Dorman (Official Website)** https://kerriedorman.com - **Association of Business Mentors (Founded by Kerrie)** https://associationofbusinessmentors.org/ - **Kerrie Dorman on LinkedIn** https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerriedorman/ - **Stand Up: The Life Stories of Jennie Lee (Kerrie’s Book)** https://jennielee.co.uk - **That’s Life or Is It? (Kerrie’s Podcast)** https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thats-life-or-is-it/id1862416056 - **Elite Business Magazine (Kerrie’s Column)** https://elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk/author/kerrie-dorman