31 May Seek mentors

What is the value of having a Mentor.  Ask one to find out.

Topic – 5 things I learnt from Mark Bouris

Mentor – Stephanie Wimpenny

• They lead and push out of experience
• What mentorship does
• Pay it forward

Transcript:

Kevin: Well, you can speak to no one better than the person we’re talking to all this week about mentorship, because Stephanie Wimpenny is from Moreton Bay Realty, Brisbane’s north side, and prior to it being called that, it was called Ubiquitous Realty. You may have seen the series with Mark Bouris, The Mentor, where he took them through the process. That’s actually what we’re talking about this week with Stephanie, and that is the five things she learnt from Mark Bouris.

Kevin: One of the things that I recall seeing, too, was about mentorship and I understand that he had quite a few mentors, or he has had quite a few mentors, Stephanie?

Stephanie W.: Yeah, Mark has had plenty of mentors throughout his entire career, right from when he was, I think it was 16 years old, right through to where he is now. He really attributes a lot of his success to those people who stood by him and helped him and pointed him in the right direction, or told him that he was going down the wrong road.

Kevin: What does mentorship do? What does it mean to you?

Stephanie W.: I think mentorship is fantastic because you don’t know everything and if somebody else has gone in the trenches and been through, I guess, all the battles that you’re going to occur in your career, then they’re invaluable to you. They have the experience, they have the life lessons, they know when you’re going the wrong way and they know how to turn you back before you go and enter this big catastrophic disaster.

Kevin: Yeah. I know many people have been exposed to Mark Bouris, and I always hear the thought that he has so much wisdom. How important was it to you, that you had a mentor who you highly respected and that you could actually think, well, there’s some tough lessons here, and if I’m going to take it from anyone, I’ll take it from Mark Bouris? How important was that?

Stephanie W.: I think it’s super important. I really think that you need to have people in your life who are not afraid to tell you that you’re doing something wrong or that something’s not working. Because I think family and friends, they don’t often. They just want to support you, so they’re not going to give you the hard and fast truth, and even if they do give you the hard and fast truth, sometimes because you’re so personally attached to them, you kind of don’t accept it because you’re like, oh, it’s a biassed opinion. Whereas, when you have someone who has, I guess, rungs on the belt, like Mark Bouris, who’s been there, and done that, and seen that, and experienced that before, who’s telling you, yeah, you’re really making a mistake, or you need to look at things this way instead, it’s so powerful.

Kevin: It must have been tough for you at the start, especially when you and your whole family were so caught up in the name that you had, Ubiquitous Realty, to then have someone say to you, well, no, that’s all wrong. You’ve got that wrong. Was that a tough thing for you to have to take? I mean, did you warm to it straight away?

Stephanie W.: God, no.

Kevin: No. No, okay.

Stephanie W.: Well, only because … and it’s even, there was a episode on the mentor last night, where the fellow had to change the name of his pizzeria, and it was such an important, powerful family legacy sort of name. So that was hard, but I said to Mark Bouris when I went down to Sydney to do a podcast with him recently, I said to him, “Our family business and our family’s identity was wrapped up in Ubiquitous Realty, so when someone like you or anyone comes along and says it’s a shit name,” which is literally what he said, “that obviously … ”

Kevin: Hurts. That hurts. Yeah.

Stephanie W.: It hurts a lot because it’s like he … I said to him, “It’s like you are challenging everything that we are and you’re saying it’s not good enough,” and yeah, it was a personal thing, but we needed that. We needed someone who had the courage to be able to tell that to us-

Kevin: Yeah, well said.

Stephanie W.: … because it was a really detrimental thing to our business and our brand, having a name like that, that just didn’t resonate at all.

Kevin: Yeah, no, very well said. Just the final point I want to make with you or talk to you about this morning, the power of paying it forward in small business, talk to me about that.

Stephanie W.: I just think, like, even, you look at someone like Matt Lancashire, he doesn’t have to help us. He’s not getting paid to help us and he is freely giving of his time to help us, and one day, we will be in a position like Matt, where we’ll be able to give back to another small business and help other business owners out. We already have people calling us and asking us for advice and help, and-

Kevin: Wow.

Stephanie W.: … it’s just lovely. I think small businesses really should stick together and real estate, especially, I don’t know why there’s sometimes so much division in real estate and why there has to be so much competition. There can be some nasty things going on in your area, between different agencies, and I just think it doesn’t need to be like that.

Kevin: No, it doesn’t.

Stephanie W.: I think that there’s plenty for everybody and, yeah, you get a lot more out of helping people than you ever do in badmouthing them and … you know what I mean … and tearing them down.

Kevin: Yeah, we’re very lucky to have … that you’re willing to share this experience with us, because I think it could so easily have gone the other way. It could have been so easy, that maybe they chose someone who wasn’t willing to accept, or wasn’t as … have that mentality of paying it forward. And then to have Matt Lancashire from Ray White New Farm step forward and become involved, and as you said, for little or no reward at all, it says a lot about the industry.

Kevin: Hey, Steph, it’s great talking to you. We’re out of time today. I want to talk about probably one of the biggest lessons you learned from Mark Bouris, that relates directly to our business, and we will talk about that tomorrow when Stephanie Wimpenny comes back. Steph, thank you very much. We’ll talk to you tomorrow morning.

Stephanie W.: Thank you, Kevin.