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Research

Demand for Business Advice or Mentoring Among Entrepreneurs

This brief presents a breakdown of the reasons entrepreneurs seek business advice or mentoring, as well as the sources of mentoring, drawing from the 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs. The trends explained here are based on the perceptions of the entrepreneurs themselves, which provide insight into how they think about and navigate the process of obtaining business advice or mentoring.

Featured highlights:

  • Half of employer business owners did not seek business advice or mentoring.
  • The most common reason to seek business advice or mentoring was related to taxes and accounting (33.9%), followed by legal (15%), and increasing sales (13.8%).
  • The most common sources of business advice or mentoring were legal and professional advisors, colleagues, and family. This was the case for employer business owners regardless of business age (66.2%, 48%, and 22.3%, respectively), and for owners of businesses less than 2 years old (61.8%, 51.6%, and 30.4%).
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