How to Effectively Build and Utilize Your Personal Board of Advisors

Everyone needs a support network they can lean on, and entrepreneurs are no exception. For starters, the entrepreneurial world can be rather lonely.

Many people around you often don’t relate to your experience or understand your daily struggles.

It is, therefore, vital to create a personal board of advisors to help you on both a personal and professional level. They will be there for you when you find yourself in need of excellent counsel or a gut check.

The difference between making viable business growth decisions and spinning your wheels comes down to having a team of advisors you can trust.

Today, we take a comprehensive look at how to build and utilize a personal board of advisors. Read on to ensure you and your business stay healthy and competitive.

Start With Your Vision

What is your company striving to achieve? Are you looking to foster relationships in a remote world or reduce employee turnover? Whatever the case, you need to identify your needs as both a business and an entrepreneur.

The entrepreneurship journey includes asking for help every once in a while.

Ensure you are as specific as possible when defining your needs. It will also help to establish how your goals match your company’s vision, mission, milestones, and strategy.

However, don’t forget to determine whether the expense and time spent creating an advisory board generates a considerable positive ROI.

Taken in Melbourne Australia, Nikon – 2016

Ensure You Draft Detailed Gaps

Your company should then proceed to write suitable profiles for ideal candidates. Ensure that you create detailed job descriptions with a set of qualifications. Doing this will help you attain a diverse team with a unique set of views.

Although your board composition will depend on your specific needs, you can use the following blueprint to structure it:

• Career management advisor – it needs to be an individual that is familiar with the unique challenges of your career development path.
• Life/personal advisor – Look for an individual who understands your current position. This could be someone who has been in your shoes or a trusted old friend.
• Technical – Have you considered any specialist knowledge you seem to lack? Well, here is where this individual comes into play.
• Sector connection – an individual who understands the sector well will always come in handy. It is a vital role to fill if you are trying the waters in a new sector.
• Role model or mentor – find a person that understands what’s going on in your life.
• Curators – these individuals can help you answer the difficult ”where” and ”who” questions. They have the expertise and reach to facilitate introductions.

Identify Potentials and Have Conversations

You can now start identifying prospective candidates for the roles you created. However, ensure the team members don’t have a pre-existing relationship with your management team or company. It will help to conduct cold outreach to engage with others.

Only decide to hire a specific candidate after talking and interviewing several fits.

After all, you are building a team that can help you thrive in the long run.

Taking your time ensures you surround yourself with nothing short of the best. Don’t forget to stay in touch with unselected candidates because you never know when you might need them.

Make Agreements With Your Advisors

A memorandum of understanding ensures your team is on the same page. Therefore, have every member of your team sign it before any work can begin. Formal documents also help demonstrate how serious you need the board to be while setting a tone.

Draft a simple one-page or simple document and set expectations.

It will also help to have the chosen candidates sign it before the first meeting. Doing this helps safeguard your company from any lawsuits and claims.

Set Goals and Key Performance Indicators

Do not forget that your board of advisors is there to help you achieve specific milestones in your professional and personal life. Therefore, ensure you monitor all outcomes against key performance indicators (KPIs). Doing this will help you swap out unproductive members or those that are no longer a good fit.

Ensure you set clear objectives and finalize your KPIs. Every board member needs to understand that they are working towards specific goals.

Always remember that a good advisor will want to be held accountable at all times.

Every entrepreneur needs to take care of one key asset – their time. Building an excellent personal board of advisors will certainly need you to invest your time. Therefore, it is vital to do it right the first time around.

Often times when this isn’t personal, it can be a paid position. It depends on how you create the relationship and if it is in direct relationship to your business or to you personally. That’s an entirely different article. 🙂

Grow Your Business With Your Own Personal Board

Growing your business doesn’t have to be stressful. Let’s have a conversation (you and me) to see how to help ease the stress that comes with managing an ever-growing company.

Let’s start by ensuring you steer your business with intention. Schedule a strategy call with me here and let’s talk through your vision for creating a business that will give you more time and freedom to create more as a leader.