The Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce is the Hawke's Bay agent for Business Mentors New Zealand, which runs 26 agencies throughout the country. It matches mentors to businesses and is a free service apart from a one-off registration fee.

As of August 2015, there are 31 mentors that can be assigned to support Hawke's Bay businesses, for up to two years, and around 65 businesses in the region apply to use the service each year. The mentors help develop business plans and provide on-going support to those businesses.

For Stephanie Dillon, having a mentor on hand has made a huge difference in the development of her business. She partly owns Gains Psychology, one of Hawke's Bays largest integrated private practises.

She says the business was established eight years ago and was already successful but Stephanie was keen to take it to another level so she wasted no time in registering with Business Mentors NZ where she was quickly matched up with Ron Massey, the Napier City Council economic development manager.

“We needed help from someone we could bounce ideas off and someone who understood the market,” says Stephanie.

Ron helped Stephanie draw up a five year business plan. Together they looked at the company's financial structure and how to make the business more successful.

Stephanie says Business Mentors is brilliant because it's independent, non-judgmental and confidential.

“The advice was friendly and no nonsense. It's reflective and helped us crystallise our vision of where the business was heading.”

“We all think we are world champions in our own backyard. But there is always going to be someone who knows more than you. You might be expert at what you do as a business but you might not know about business generally. Getting advice from very knowledgeable people can be very beneficial.”

Mentoring: The Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce is the Hawke's Bay Agent for Business Mentor New Zealand. The mentor match service runs from 26 agencies throughout NZ. The service is free (except for a one-off registration fee) and mentors are assigned to support businesses for up to 2 years. Click here for details.