Have you thought about mentoring?

Those of you who read my blog regularly will already know that I believe strongly in the CIM family and that we should all be working together towards one common goal - raising the professionalism of marketing.

CIM Yorkshire held a senior marketers luncheon yesterday, at which we launched a mentoring facility for our members.

Mentoring is a powerful personal development and empowerment tool. It is an effective way of helping people to progress in their careers and is becoming increasingly popular as its potential is realised. It is a partnership between two people (mentor and mentee) normally working in a similar field or sharing similar experiences. It is a helpful relationship based upon mutual trust and respect.

This is not to help studying members pass their exams, as they have their tutors for support, but those that are starting out on the career path. Maybe they have just left the comfort of studying and no longer have a tutor on hand, or peers to talk to. They are fellow marketers and they need your help.

A mentor should help the mentee to believe in themselves and boost confidence. A mentor should ask questions and challenge, while providing guidance and encouragement. As a mentor you will act as a guide, helping the mentee to find the right direction and develop solutions to career issues by using your experiences to gain an empathy with the mentee and an understanding of their issues.

Our senior marketers are in a position to help our junior marketers in their career by mentoring, and you may be interested to know that you can claim upto 21 hours per year for mentoring under Category 6 of the Chartered CPD Programme.

To register as a mentor, simply update your profile on Mvine through the regional website at www.cimnorth.co.uk checking ‘yes’ in the mentor box and the mentees will then be able to find you by searching the network.

If you do not have an Mvine log in please email dianeearles@cim.co.uk

Please help us make membership of The Chartered Institute of Marketing even more beneficial.

Marketing Clinics

This week I was at the Liverpool Echo Arena for the LDP Business Hub event. The North West SME Ambassadors and myself were out in force to spread the word of professional marketing. As always our FREE marketing clinics went down a storm, where we offered 20-30 minute sessions with a Chartered Marketer to discuss how professional marketing could help grow your business. And as always the feedback was excellent, so thanks guys for giving up your time.

The clinics are a great way for us to get across the fact that marketing isn't just advertising and doesn't have to cost the earth. Basically we work through the 7Ps and give practical suggestions for improvement.

If you know someone who might benefit from this, our next session will be held at the Wirral & Chester Business Fair on Wednesday 16th July between 10.30 and 3.30 at Wallasey Town Hall.
For more information visit www.businessfairsuk.com

Looking for a Dream start?

If you are looking for a dream start or ideas to grow your business, then read on...right to the end (I promise it will be worth it!)

CIM Yorkshire is delighted to announce that it is supporting this event to help local businesses thrive. We will be offering our very successful FREE marketing clinics, where you can have up to half an hour with one of our local qualified marketers and we have three speakers talking on various aspects of marketing throughout the day.

The CIM seminars are as follows:

10.30am Branding for SME's by Joe Chetcuti of Front Sheffield and author of our Top Tips.

1.30pm Intellectual Property by Andy Sherratt of SPA Marketing and Training and past Chair of Mid Yorkshire Branch with UK Intellectual Property Office.

3.30pm Everything You Wanted to Know about Internet Marketing by Ian Roe, who has run these sessions to packed out audiences for us in the past.

For more information visit www.dream-start.com Tickets are £99 or £75 for CIM members, but I am excited to annnounce that I have some free tickets to give away, so email me now dianeearles@cim.co.uk with your name and full postal address and I will dish them out in a first come first served fashion.

I hope to see you there!