Jonny’s a successful songwriter and producer who has worked with many of today’s top UK artists (including Ellie Goulding). He’s also a ViewVo mentor who has opted to donate his fee to charity.

Alexander has always had a passion for music. He wanted to learn what he could be doing to improve his song-writing and musical skills to make his dream of becoming a songwriter a reality. So he met with Jonny in his studio to find out…

Alexander’s Story

‘Meeting Jonny has been a fantastic experience. I don’t think there’s any substitute for talking to someone that’s not just in the career you want to do, but being incredibly successful in that career.

So it’s hearing about if from the inside. And also it’s hearing about it from a non-career adviser who’s not just ticking off the usual career advice boxes. but answering the basic questions you want to know, about numbers for example, or how it feels, so it’s that personal thing.

My next steps are that Jonny’s given me lots of homework which is terrific! One of the things I was keen to ask Jonny is what were the skills he thought he had and that someone like me could learn. So, I’ve got a long list of things to do and I’ve got some equipment to buy as well.

it was great to see Jonny but what is good about it is to see someone as successful as Jonny you know that it’s not going to be about the money necessarily. For him it’s about giving his time and helping others, so from that point of view the charity aspect is brilliant.

I’ve learnt a lot, had a fantastic experience and would highly recommend it.’

 

Jonny’s Story

‘My time with Alexander went really well, I really enjoyed it. I think that Alexander got a lot out of it which makes it really worthwhile to me because it’s what I want to be doing as part of this process is helping people with where they want to get to and it’s important to feel like they’re getting something out of it.

I wanted to be a mentor because as a career changer myself I wish I’d had an opportunity to do something like this when I was starting out and wanted to learn more about this career I’m doing now. There’s a lot of advice you can give through hard experience that it would have been so great to have that myself.  So if I can help people through my experience which costs me nothing it’s a great thing to do.

It helped me as there’s an extent to which in talking through with someone the way you work and them asking very basic questions you might take for granted, it makes you reassess how you’re doing things and whether they’re the right processes to be dong. Going back to basics, you’re coming out of doing it day to day and maybe thinking ‘why’ and ‘how’ and maybe that can feed through to my work.

I decided to donate my fee to charity because I thought it would be a good and easy way to donate and I thought it might encourage more people to use the service if the money isn’t just going straight to my pocket. And the charity I chose to donate to is called Youth Music and they fund music projects throughout the UK for disadvantaged kids.  It’s a really great charity I’m also helping out with my sessions and its something I feel very connected to.

As a form of fundraising I’d definitely much rather do this than run a marathon that’s for sure! I think it’s a really great way to fundraise for charity – just giving up a little bit of your time to help someone else in the process. it’s the easiest thing in the world for me to talk about my job and what I do, and if it’s helping someone else and raising money for charity it’s the perfect thing to do.

if someone’s thinking of joining ViewVo as a mentor I’d say do it – absolutely do it. Think about how useful it would have been to you and that alone should be enough to motivate you to want to help other people. I’d definitely recommend it, it’s been very rewarding.’

 

Jonny Lattimer is a songwriter and producer who has worked many of today’s top UK artists, including Ellie Goulding, James Morrison and Tom Odell. You can view his wikipedia page here

Connect with Jonny and view his mentor profile here

If you’re interested in becoming a mentor as a way to give back to your favourite charity, contact deborah@viewvo.com