How much does a business mentoring program cost?
At Next Level Mentoring (NLM) this is one of the most popular questions we get asked.
This article will give you the exact costs for our base business mentoring program. It will also explain the variables that can affect these costs.
The base costs of our mentoring program are.
The price for our standard Next Level business mentoring program is $13,950.
This allows up to 15 mentoring pairs and runs for up to 12 months.
This price includes everything you need to make a successful mentoring program. It is inclusive of running your mentoring program from start to finish. There are no hidden extras.
What variables can alter this price?
There are a few variables that could alter the price. We will address these below.
1 - Planning
This is included in our standard mentoring program
The costs include a 90-minute planning workshop to agree and finalise your mentoring plan. This workshop is facilitated by NLM. This step is critical to your program’s success. You should have all the relevant stakeholders at this workshop.
Some of the questions that will be answered in the planning phase are.
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What are you wanting to achieve through mentoring?
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What will be the focus of the program?
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Number of participants you want in the program.
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Where will we get the mentees from and where will we get the mentors from?
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Who will be the Executive Champion for the program?
2 - Number of participants.
This variable can affect the standard costs.
Our standard program cost allows up to 15 mentoring pairs.
The larger your group, the more time it will take to run the program.
Any additional pairs are charged at $1000 AUD per pair to cover the extra time.
Please note we do not recommend having a single program larger than 30 mentoring pairs as it starts to become unmanageable.
3 - Duration of the program
This variable does not affect the standard costs.
Our standard mentoring package allows your program to run for up to 12 months.
Whether your program runs for 6 months or 12 months, the NLM development costs remain the same.
Please note: If you are running a pilot, we recommend 6 months to get faster results.
4 - Location of the program.
This variable could affect the standard costs.
Next Level Mentoring is located in Adelaide, South Australia.
If your company is in Adelaide then there are no costs for attending any in-person meetings. These are included in our standard mentoring program costs.
If you are not located in Adelaide, NLM will use video meetings to run the sessions.
Based on experience we do recommend that a NLM facilitator attends the following sessions in person.
1. Kick-off session
2. Mid-session pulse checks
3. Close-out Ceremony
If you are not in Adelaide and would like NLM to attend some or all of these sessions, then there will be additional travel costs.
Travel costs for each session within Australia will be an additional $1000 on average which covers flights, taxis, hotel, and food.
5 - Location of the participants.
This variable could affect the standard costs.
If your participants are in various locations around the country or the world, then you have time zones and travel to contend with.
This may require running multiple sessions to ensure everyone is getting the same training and information. Consistency is crucial for a good mentoring program.
The use of video calls does help connect people who cannot attend the in-person events. NLM does not see a noticeable difference between in-person and virtual attendance.
As part of our standard mentoring program, we also provide an annual subscription to our online mentoring training portal.
This allows your program participants to get access to all our training and guidance regardless of time-zones or location. We track and follow up with each participant to ensure they have completed the training.
Our standard mentoring program package includes:
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1x live mentoring information sessions to all employees
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Access to NLM’s online mentoring training portal for all participants.
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1x kick-off,
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2x mid-session catch up (1 for mentees, and 1 for mentors),
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1x close-out ceremony.
6 - Work types/schedules of your participants.
This variable may affect the standard costs.
Your participants may work in a shift pattern (i.e. fly-in fly-out or rostered workers) or are mainly part-time. If this is the case, then you may need to run multiple sessions and events such that every participant gets the chance to attend.
You will probably not get everyone attending every session but you want to ensure at least 80% attend to ensure consistency.
You can record the sessions such that those who cannot attend can watch them later. Experience shows that only a small percentage of people view recordings post-session.
Again, video calls and the online mentoring training can help participants access the content at a suitable time. This will minimise the administration of the program.
Our standard mentoring program package assumes your participants can attend the various sessions.
7 - Mentoring matching process
This variable may affect the standard costs.
There are many ways you can match your mentoring pairs.
NLM recommends that the process is mentee-led. In this case, the mentee receives 4 mentors that match their desires. They then rank them in order of preference.
It is the simplest and most effective means for matching your mentoring pairs.
NLM’s matchmaking tool is based on this process and is included in the costs of our standard mentoring program.
Other options you can use are:
1. The company does the matching based on the mentee’s desires and the company's judgement.
2. The program runs a speed-matching process where the mentee meets several mentors. They then decide their favourite.
3. The mentee gets access to all mentors. They then choose which one they want (normally on a first-come, first-served basis)
Option 1 requires more time as you need to ensure each mentee only has one mentor. You spend significant time matching and re-matching until you think you have got it right. The greater the number of participants, the longer the process takes due to the increase in permeations.
Option 2 requires almost all participants to attend. This will only be suitable for small programs where you can guarantee attendance. It will also require another 1/2 day for the kick-off. However, it is a lot of fun and is a guaranteed way to inject energy into the kick-off.
Option 3 will require mentoring software to ensure the mentees have access to the mentor’s profiles and can perform real-time selection. If you decide to have a company-wide mentoring program, where mentors and mentees can sign up at any time and be matched at any point, then this would be the best option.
8 - Training and guidance
This variable does not affect the standard costs.
Our standard mentoring program pricing includes full access to NLM’s online mentoring training for all participants.
A mentoring program without training is like dropping your participants into a city without a map and asking them to find the train station. Some may have been there before and go directly to it, others may get there after a few wrong turns, and some may never get there at all.
You want all your participants to have the right amount of knowledge and guidance before they begin mentoring. This ensure that each participant knows what to expect and what to do. It also helps with their confidence and increases the effectiveness of each mentoring journey.
At NLM, we provide our online mentoring training such that all participants can get access to training. The mentor-specific training also has an assessment to reinforce the learnings on this important role.
We repeat key lessons during the kick-off as a further reminder before they start their mentoring journey.
We are also available to answer any questions at no additional costs.
9 – Managing the mentoring program.
This variable does not affect the standard costs
At Next Level Mentoring, we ensure your program is correctly managed. During the planning and establishment phase, we recommend meeting once a week to discuss progress and assign actions. After the kick-off session we recommend reducing the frequency of meetings down to an average of once or twice a month.
Our standard mentoring program pricing includes as many meetings as our client needs.
10 – Facilities
This variable could affect the standard costs.
Do you have the facilities to comfortably host a 30-participant mentoring program?
Would you prefer to run the sessions offsite to increase the prestige or credibility of the program?
Where you host the various sessions for your mentoring program will affect the cost of your program.
This variable is down to your personal choice and budget as the delivered content & learnings are the same regardless. You know your people and what they would expect from a program like this.
Our standard mentoring program pricing assumes our clients are responsible for organising the various event locations.
11 - Content of the various sessions.
This variable does not affect the standard costs.
In your mentoring program, you will have a blend of your company’s current and future leaders.
During your live sessions, you may want to take advantage of having this engaged group of leaders together. You could roll out company strategic initiatives or provide additional leadership speakers etc.
Our standard mentoring program includes the following sessions and their average duration.
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Introduction to mentoring; 1 hour
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Kick-off; 1.5 hours
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Pulse check sessions; 1.5 hours
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Close-out ceremony; 1.5 hours.
There is no cost if you want to extend these times to add extra content to the audience.
12 - Feedback
This variable does not affect the standard costs.
You want to gain feedback from the participants at various stages of the program to know what is working and what may need to be tweaked or stopped.
Our recommendation for seeking feedback is for you:
1. Have a feedback survey 1 month into the program. Aim is to get feedback on the start of the program including the matching process adopted.
2. Run an in-person mid-program pulse check session, 1 for the mentors and 1 for the mentees. The pulse check is like an enhanced feedback session where you have all the mentees or mentors in groups answering key questions. The pulse check also allows the participants to share best practices.
3. Have a final feedback survey after the close-out ceremony. Aim is to get the final feedback from the participants before the Evaluation stage.
Our standard mentoring program pricing includes all feedback surveys and pulse check sessions.
Try our online quote system
Please fill in the form and we will send you a draft quote that allows you to add or remove items to build your bespoke mentoring program.
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