Sometimes things happen for a reason. I recently found myself in a position where I reached out to a Entrepreneur who owns a small Marketing Company that I would consider a mentor of sorts because of the direction I would like to take my brand in. I was actually referred to this person from a friend. I wrote a very professional pitch letter and attached my media kit to the email asking to intern or become a mentee so I can further my professional marketing and PR experience. I was thrown off by the reply and even more surprised that after I responded to it I didn’t receive a reply to my response. While there are many established companies that welcome interns or mentees I guess there are some that don’t or maybe it’s just the cases where they may feel threatened.
I am going to give you my personal opinion of the situation and you can weigh in once I give you the details. The initial response to the first email I sent was that… “it seemed as though I was trying to do something similar to their company and offer similar services”. There were differences in their list of offerings and what I would like to do. It was also questioned how they thought they would be able to help me without becoming competitive and securing their clients. I honestly just wanted to learn and would never as a intern or mentee solicit another companies clients. That’s just really shady! I know they did their research on me by investigating my media kit and going to all my social media channels etc. to see if my stats were accurate and see how I engage on my social media platforms. They did mention that they were impressed at how far I have come on my own.
The conclusion I have come to after not receiving a response to my last email explaining that I had no intention of becoming competitive and was in no position to do that, I just wanted to learn. I got a sense of them fearing my success. I also offered my services to do things that may not be a strong suit for the company. I stated that there are people who always outsource tasks that they don’t particularly like doing themselves so they can focus on their passion and what they are happiest doing. At the end of the day, I got no response and decided to leave it be. What I did learn from this situation is that no matter what, someone is always watching you offline and online. I received a few emails after this particular incident with opportunities to do exactly what I wanted to do from larger corporate companies. I was elated that they thought of me and that I will be able to gain the experience I seek to expand my brand .
I am okay with the outcome because it wasn’t the right opportunity for me and I see that. Sometimes we may encounter obstacles or roadblocks but, when one door closes another one opens and it may exceed our expectations. A mentor shouldn’t mind you picking their brain, listening to you bounce ideas off of them or mind pushing you in the right direction. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt another person, blogger or company for that matter didn’t want to see you succeed or feared your success, almost putting you in a position where they viewed you as a potential threat to them? This was my first real up close and personal encounter with this type of situation. What are your thoughts?
