They may not have done it as brilliantly as you are going to, but at this point, if you aren't doing it with their level of success, you need a different approach.

You know old adage: insanity is doing same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

This is where you take a fresh look at that old-fashioned practice of mentoring for your home based business or personal life, and give it a makeover - with you as mentee.

There are two keys to a successful mentoring process:

1. your mentor has to be an outright success in area in which you need skills upgrading; and 2. you need to copycat How To your mentor used or uses to attain that success.

Simple.

Wrong. Lesson number one. People often think mentoring is a slow, 'feeling your way' process where sage advice is given and received to mull over and hopefully osmote into a useful result.

Perhaps that is a comfortable way to proceed, but in an age of lightening fast technological development and change, you also need faster, more direct development methods.

So, I'll repeat two keys to a successful mentoring process:

1. your mentor has to be an outright success in area in which you need skills upgrading; and 2. you need to copycat How To your mentor used or uses to attain that success.

Rock bottom, your mentoring makeover - Part 1 - is to transform it from 'comfortable' mode to 'practical' mode:

You ask, “Okay, I’m starting a small Homebased business, not a huge million dollar International Conglomerate! So I don’t really need a ‘Business Plan’ for that, do I?”

Actually, its all more reason to have a business plan.

Do you need a comprehensive 500 page business plan full of color graphs and charts and color 8 x 10 glossy photographs, going into gory detail and providing a 5-year and 10-year projected income statement? No, not really.

But you do need a business plan which is complete enough to anticipate typical problems you will face and provide solutions to overcome them

When I was a young soldier I learned The 6 ‘P’ Principle – Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. This has been genteely modified to The 5 ‘P’ Principle for drawing room society!

Starting a home based business without a plan is like choosing Wrong way.

Starting any kind of a business requires a “plan of action”. This is doubly true of home based business ventures if for no other reason than added complexities of home based business operation.

You are starting your business. You need a plan.

Your very first consideration must be: “What business am I going to be in?” Are you selling apples, oranges, pencils on corner, what?

A couple of more questions quickly come to mind. “What kind of space am I going to need for shipping? Inventory? Office? Pick-up and Delivery?”

We already have 5 questions to ask –- and answer – and we have skipped first question for a homebased business altogether.

The number one question which needs an answer: “What kind of zoning exists in my residential area which might affect my home based business?”