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Erik: How are your mentor relationships changing as your business grows?
J.T.: What I've really tried to do in the past probably year or so is really take focus
and look externally out at people who could really help me take our business to the next
level. So you know people who've done it before, professional organizations that support businesses
kind of over a certain size and try to find people that you know essentially I kind of
liken it to people I want to get into adventures with, you know, so maybe it's not an explicit
business purpose that you have but you know it's a smart person, typically an entrepreneur,
that's kind of who I gravitate towards, who's maybe done it successfully or had some success
in their own way. You know look for those people and try to network to them and meet
them and you know have a lot of lunches and breakfasts and you know just try to soak up
all the knowledge that I can.
Erik: How do you make that introduction?
J.T.: Well, usually you've got to be introduced by somebody else, right? Because all these
people are busy, right? So you need somebody to say, "Hey, it's worth your time. You know
you're going to want to know this guy. You're going to want to you know spend the time with
him." So that's probably the hardest part, you know, is just getting the introduction
and you know sometimes you can go through like a professional organization and maybe
it's a little bit easier but it just depends on the organization. Sometimes they're set
up for that, and other times they're not.