Most Entrepreneurs Mentor The Wrong Way — Here’s How to Fix It - Special Ops with Emma Rainville

Episode Overview

Podcast: Special Ops with Emma Rainville
Episode: Most Entrepreneurs Mentor The Wrong Way – Here’s How to Fix It
Date: September 9, 2025
Host: Emma Rainville

In this episode, Emma Rainville dives deep into the often-overlooked topic of mentoring your internal team, not just driving revenue. She argues that most entrepreneurs approach mentorship incorrectly—by trying to mold staff into their own ideal rather than supporting their unique goals and strengths. Emma shares her tactical approach to purposeful mentorship, providing actionable frameworks and emphasizing the lasting power of "tribal knowledge" within a team.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Value of Tribal Knowledge (00:00 – 03:00)

Tribal knowledge refers to the accumulated expertise, systems, and company-specific insights your team develops over time.
- "Having that tribal knowledge in your staff is worth far, far more than I think most people give it credit for." (Emma Rainville, 00:16)
Emma stresses that while growing the business is crucial, growing your existing team is just as vital for sustainable success.

2. The Foundational Mentorship Document (03:00 – 05:40)

When bringing on a key staff member, Emma creates a private mentorship guide to track skill levels, growth areas, and unique talents.
- "This doesn’t get shared with them—it’s for me … I also teach them to do this for their staff." (04:12)
She uses a 1–5 scale:
- 1 = High expertise; 5 = Needs significant development in that skill.
Emma documents both required and unique/personal skills.
Important: You mentor people into who they want to be—not who you want them to be.
- "Your job as a mentor is not to mentor someone into who you want them to be, it’s to mentor them into who they want to be." (05:16)

3. Aligning Mentorship with Individual Goals (05:40 – 09:00)

Early conversations cover personal and professional goals for 1, 3, 5, and 10 years.
Emma asks about:
- Career ambitions, future roles of interest
- Concepts of retirement and ideal work-life vision
- Notable Quote:
  "I like to understand if someone’s trying to retire earlier … or if they’re like, 'Yeah, I’d never retire.' I’m actually the only person I feel like would say that right now—me and Perry Belcher." (Emma Rainville, 07:36)
Emma emphasizes documenting these goals and not nudging team members toward paths they're not interested in.

4. Personalizing the Mentorship Cadence (09:00 – 13:00)

Every mentee responds differently to communication styles and frequencies:
- "If I made Richard get on a call with me every other week and talked about his life, I feel like he’d get quite angry... Whereas Tiago would absolutely enjoy every week talking … about how his daughter’s doing." (Emma Rainville, 10:44)
Emma advocates adjusting mentorship style to each team member:
- Take them where they’re at, not where you want them to be.

5. Leveraging Outside Resources & Delegating Mentorship (13:00 – 17:30)

Emma shares examples of funding outside learning:
- Saka was interested in tech and automation—enrolled in Mario Castilli’s Genesis Mastermind.
- Richard needed sales skills—purchased Russell Brunson’s course for him.
Key insight:
- “[Mentorship] doesn’t always have to come from you … We can certainly farm that out to courses, to masterminds, to other coaches for sure.” (14:08)
For higher autonomy and leadership growth, higher-level staff may be given access to the Ignite Mastermind program.
Important: Follow up after team members attend programs—ask for learnings, implementations, and track progress for organizational impact.

6. Continuous Feedback & Revisiting Goals (17:30 – 23:00)

Every quarter, Emma revisits goals and progress:
- "What did you accomplish to get towards your personal goals? … Do you feel like you’ve wasted the quarter? Do you feel like you’ve excelled…?" (Emma Rainville, 20:22)
She asks for feedback on the mentorship itself:
- "Is there anything that you would like? Is there anything missing? Do you have a dream list or a wish list?" (21:45)
Notable Moment: Emma recalls a team member's wish—sometimes it’s an expensive mastermind, sometimes it’s something simple, like a cooking class.

7. Why Growing Your People Enables Business Growth (23:00 – End)

Emphasizes that focusing on people’s growth empowers your business to handle and sustain the revenue growth you work so hard for:
- "If we're going to spend so much time focused on the growth of our business, the increase in revenue, we really should be equipping our people to be able to handle it." (Emma Rainville, 22:45)
Actionable resource: Emma has provided a free template, "Mentoring with Purpose," available for download on the podcast’s Visionary Vault.

Notable Quotes

"Tribal knowledge can really excel your ability to grow as long as the person in the role is growing with the business." (Emma Rainville, 00:49)
"Your job as a mentor is not to mentor someone into who you want them to be, it’s to mentor them into who they want to be." (05:16)
"I want to take each person for where they’re at, not where I want them to be." (10:55)
"[Mentorship] doesn’t always have to come from you … everything’s not going to be in your wheelhouse." (14:08)
"If we’re going to spend so much time focused on the growth of our business, the increase in revenue, we really should be equipping our people to be able to handle it." (22:45)

Important Timestamps

00:00 – 03:00: The importance of tribal knowledge, the hidden value within your existing staff, and how growth can stall if people are left behind.
03:00 – 05:40: Emma’s mentoring framework, skill documentation, and the core philosophy of mentorship.
05:40 – 09:00: How to elicit and align with your team’s personal and professional aspirations.
09:00 – 13:00: Matching mentorship cadences and styles to individual needs.
13:00 – 17:30: Using masterminds, external mentors, and courses as part of your mentorship strategy.
17:30 – 23:00: Tracking goal completion, quarterly feedback loops, acting on team member requests.
23:00 – End: Final reflections, reiteration on why team mentorship is vital, and details about the free mentorship template.

Summary Takeaways

Don’t just mentor people to fit your mold—discover and guide them toward their own aspirations.
Invest in your team’s growth as methodically and intentionally as you do in your business’s growth.
Outsource mentorship when it makes sense: buy courses, enroll in masterminds, and get other experts involved.
Continually document, evaluate, and revisit your mentorship process and each team member's progress and wishes.
Start today: Download the free mentorship template Emma provides to implement her system in your own business.

Download the free Mentoring with Purpose template at specialopspodcast.com.

Transcript

A (0:00)

So many of us talk about how to grow our business, but we don't talk about how to grow our team. People that we currently have, who have been with us through all the mistakes we've made, what worked, what didn't work, having that tribal knowledge in your staff is worth far more than most people give it credit for. Tribal knowledge can really excel your ability to grow as long as the person in the role is growing with the business. People forget that your job as a mentor is not to mentor someone into who you want them to be, it's to mentor them into. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Special Ops Podcast. I'm Emma Rainville, your host and today we're going to be diving into mentorship. So, so many of us talk so often about how to grow the revenue of our business, expand our business, new products, more money, but we don't talk about how to grow our team, our internal team that we currently have grow their skill set. So tribal knowledge in your staff is worth far, far more than I think most people give it credit for. And so if we can take the people that we currently have, who have been with us through all the mistakes we've made, all the products we've put put out, how well they've done, what ads worked, what didn't work, having that tribal knowledge can really excel your ability to grow as long as the person in the role is growing with the business. If they're not growing with the business, they can become a roadblock to the business's growth. You want to make sure that you're growing both intentionally at the same time. And so one of the things that I like to do whenever I bring on product, particularly a key staff member, is sit down and make a mentorship guide for myself. This doesn't get shared with them, it's for me. So when I hire higher level staff, not only do I do this with them, but I also teach them to do this for their staff. Because I do want even my customer service agents being mentored into a management or a lead position, even qa. So when I onboard someone who's in an upper management role, they're going to spend time being mentored directly by me. And in doing that, without even letting them kind of see that I'm doing it with them, I teach them to do it with their staff, if that makes sense. So the first thing I do is I kind of write down the date that they started, what their first day was like at my company, a document, what key skills that they have that I'm excited about and what key skills I think that they need to work on during our time together and kind of where they're at from a one to five, generally like to rate one, being that they're number one. They're great. You know, they have high expertise level five, meaning I need to spend more time with them on that skill. They don't quite have it. And so once I rate them at the key skills that their job requires, their role requires, I also list four or five skills that I see from them that isn't necessarily dependent on their role, but they might be really, really good at or really interested in. And so one of the key elements I think about mentorship people forget is that your job as a mentor is not to mentor someone into who you want them to be, it's to mentor them into who they want to be. That's really hard because as human beings, we automatically have this pre notion of what our thoughts are for that would be better for someone else. And we all do this, right? So they would be better at. Or they would like X more, or they would get along with this person better. So we just have that inherently in us as human beings. But when you choose to mentor someone, not manage, mentor to lead them to their best self, it has to be what they want in the way that they want. So I like to sit down with them early on and talk about what are the goals they have for their life, both personal and professional, what are they looking to do? Very similar to my wave structure, what are they looking to do in their personal and professional life in the next one year, in the next three years, in the next five years? And ultimately, where do they want to be 10 years from now and then retire? What does retirement look like? I always like to ask, what does retirement look like for you? I like to understand if someone's trying to retire earlier, you know, 50s, 45, 50, somewhere in there, if someone's just thinking in general terms of 62 to 65, which is the norm in the U.S. or if they're like, yeah, I'd never retire. I'm actually the only person I feel like would say that right now, me and Perry Belcher. But I don't think many other people never want to retire. But yeah, I just want to know what they want for them. What does life look like for them? What's this their idea of a perfect day? What's their idea of being successful in their role currently? How long do they want to be in their role? What role would they like to explore next? I really want to take and document what they want. And then I really don't want to try and lead them to anything that isn't their idea. I might mention. Have you ever thought about what would it look like if. But if they're not interested in exploring it, I leave it alone and we move on to work on them. Now, some of the key elements that you want to look for when you're mentoring someone is how did they learn the best? What will help them the best? A lot of us spend time coaching clients, consulting with clients, but we don't spend enough time with our staff consulting and coaching them. So I want you to make a true effort of how much you're going to do that with your key people that report to you. And so I like to first come up with a cadence, and everybody's different. If I made Richard get on a call with me every other week and talked about his life, I feel like he'd get quite angry with me very quickly. Whereas Tiago would absolutely enjoy every week talking to me about how his daughter's doing, how his goals are going. Did he work on his house more? He's building a house in Argentina. Or maybe remodeling. He's remodeling, renovating a house in Argentina. He would enjoy that. So I need to take each person for where they're at, not where I want them to be. Yo. We interrupt this pod to tell you like and subscribe. What are you doing? Why haven't you liked. Why haven't you subscribed? Just subscribe. What's the problem? In all seriousness, subscribe so that you get notifications every time we drop new content. Additionally, if you have not signed up for our visionary vault. What the hell? Www.specialopspodcast.com Go sign up. It's free. We never try and sell you, and we're putting all kinds of stuff in there to help you with the operations of your business because we're passionate about it and we want to share operational excellence with our direct response. E commerce and online selling family. How would communication best serve them, and on what cadence? And then I try and keep, like, simple documentation of how they're doing, where I think I need to spend more time with them. Other ways that I can get the mentorship. For example, Saka. Brilliant, brilliant guy. His skill set and what he's working on is very different than my skill set, what I work on, or what I'm capable of even discussing. And I mean that literally. I can't even discuss some of the things that he is in his wheelhouse for his job. He's tech and I just. Not me, not so much. So one of the things that I did, because he was very much wanting to learn more about marketing automations and how to align that all with tech, called my friend Mario Castilli. He has a offer called Genesis. I actually worked with him and Luke several years ago to build that program. I know it's a great program. It's a phenomenal Mastermind. And so I basically asked him if I could get soccer in the Mastermind. And I put him. You know, I put him in that Mastermind. I also buy courses. One of my staff, Richard, is absolutely brilliant when it comes to marketing, but he's a little weak at sales positioning. So the actual clothes. Russell Brunson came out with a course for selling online, and I bought the course immediately so that Richard and I could both utilize it. And so it doesn't always have to come from you is kind of my point. But taking a look at. Okay, I put Sokka in Genesis. Hey, Saka, how much time are you spending going through the different courses? Because Mario has a ton of different courses in there. The different courses that Mario has. How many workshops did you watch? How many calls did you show up to? How much time did you spend? And then additionally, like my team, I'm so fortunate because I work with Perry Belcher, and I'm one of the people that help him deliver on Ignite and Driven. So my staff get to go into Ignite Mastermind get to go into Driven Mastermind, and they get to see all of the seminars, all of the wicked smarts, where members basically share their big wins, what made them a lot of money, and how they did it. But my team gets to experience all that. But Ignite Mastermind has, I don't know, probably about 60 courses, maybe more in there, probably 20 or so workshops, from email to how to get more traffic to. To how to write a book, and then there's a tech call every week. There's a suite of software that comes with it. There's a ton of stuff in there, but it's $3,000 a year. That's nothing. 297 bucks per person. So if I have a staff member who I need to be able to manage better and function more like a business owner, where they're able to make decisions on my behalf, Ignite would be where I would want to go. So we don't need to absorb all of the responsibility of mentoring to teach. We can certainly farm that out to courses to masterminds, to other coaches for sure. Like, everything's not going to be in your wheelhouse. But then you want to come back and you want to say, hey, Richard, what did you learn from this? Hey, saka, you spent the last two weeks working with Mario, Mario's team at Genesis. What did you learn? What were your key takeaways? Can you tell me how you're implementing that in your current role? You want to keep track of that and make sure that they're utilizing what you're giving them to help them expand their career for your business. And so I just. I keep track of that. I told you, I start that document where I document all the things that they want for their lives, and I document how much I'm giving them in my time and other time and resources like Genesis, like ignite. And then I'm putting their takeaways. But then about every quarter, I'm re asking them about their goals. What did you accomplish to get towards your personal goals? What did you accomplish to get towards your career goals? Do you feel like you've wasted the quarter? Do you feel like you've excelled and moved forward in a way at a pace that makes sense for you and what you want for yourself? And then I ask them what other things I can do to help them. I generally wait about three months. The first three months, I just kind of work with them and see if I can figure it out. But then I'll ask them, like our time together, the things that I'm providing you to grow you. Is there anything that you would like? Is there anything missing? Do you have a dream list or a wish list? And a lot of time? I'll keep track and sometimes I'll give some of it. Sometimes it's a $30,000 mastermind, so no way. Or a cooking class one time. But in any event, it can be very advantageous for you. It can be very advantageous to your business. And it makes a lot of sense to me. If we're going to spend so much time focused on the growth of our business, the increase in revenue, we really should be equipping our people to be able to handle it. I hope you enjoyed today. I have put a template on how to mentor with purpose in the visionary vault. If you're not familiar with our visionary vault, Please go to www.specialopspodcast.com. you can sign up for free in our visionary vault. We never sell anything there. We never try and sell you anything. It's all free, all the time. As a thank you for hanging out with me on my podcast and listening. And so if you go in the Visionary Vault, you can sign up for free. When you go in there, you can find your Mentoring with Purpose template. Thank you so much. And make sure to like and subscribe so that you always get notifications when we drop a new podcast.