Before asking for a mentor, do this.

If you were looking for a sign to focus on your career right now — this is it.

Last week, I got a text message from a friend with an interesting — and fairly common — professional request. She had identified someone in her company who she thought would be a good mentor for her and wanted some tactics on how to initiate the conversation in hopes of becoming his mentee.

I replied back to her with some advice and guidance on how to approach the situation, and thought it might make for a useful blog post. These are my thoughts for five steps to follow for anyone seeking mentorship as part of their professional development journey.

Step 1: Synthesize your professional narrative up to the present

The first thing I did in reviewing my friend’s request was review her LinkedIn profile in order to piece together her professional background and create a narrative thread around it. She had a wide array of experiences across industries, but the common thread I’d noticed across her roles was providing positive, high-touch, customer service and support, from the moment customers walked in the door to the moment they walked out.

If I were to consolidate her personal brand, it would be, “attentive, convivial customer support professional — obsessively focused on making clients feel heard and cared for, and doing anything in [her] power to ensure their needs…