Page 7 - BusinessWest May 16, 2022

ears) to those looking to start or grow a business.
And for this issue and its focus on entrepreneurship, Business-
West talked with several of them.
Individually, and collectively, they spoke of the various kinds
of rewards — and there are many of them — that go with men- toring, and about the various ways they try to counsel those on the other side of the desk, or the telephone, as the case may be.
This counsel can be technical in nature, such as how to read a spreadsheet and understand the numbers of business.
“I tell them that numbers really matter — get to know the numbers,” said Bellamy Schmidt, a retired executive who worked
Yadira Pacheco says she tells entrepreneurs to network every chance they get, because relationship-building is one of the keys to success.
for many years at General Electric before moving to Wall Street and the giant investment firms JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and then Holyoke City Hall, where he served as auditor. “As much as people may find the numbers uncomfortable, they basically tell the story of a business.”
In other cases, it’s practical advice, everything from under- standing one’s audience and meeting its needs, to the impor- tance of networking and relationship-building.
“I tell them that networking is the key to building relation-
“I help pull out their confidence and get them thinking that they can do this.”
ships,” said Yadira Pacheco, who owns a real estate agency and is a mentor in EforAll’s Spanish program, EparaTodos. “I tell them to network every chance they get; it doesn’t matter if it’s linked directly to their type of business — they’re going to find some- body who knows somebody who knows somebody who’s going to connect with them because of what they do.”
And then, there’s advice, or counseling, that falls more in the category of psychology, if that’s even the right term, that Corsello referred to.
“I tell them not to be afraid of failing — and for obvious rea- sons,” said Bill Cole, owner of Tiger Web Designs and a serial entrepreneur himself. “The bottom line is this ... if you interview all the super successful people in this world, you’ll find that a common thread is that they failed miserably many times before
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