Leveling Up with a Peer Advisory Group

Photo by William Fortunato

One thing all business owners can use is a forum to solve problems or think strategically. In the early years of building a business there’s more of a focus on building the business and getting to sustainable growth. That experience prepares you for the next level, and that’s where peer advisory groups can be a real help.

Not Really Networking

Networking is important and all business owners should engage with it in some way. This could be joining a local Chamber of Commerce and helping with committee work there, or joining a BNI or ACA. The connections you make here will often be helpful and some of those connections may also introduce you to how peer advisory groups (they can also be called advisory boards) work.

Collective Experience Wins

There are so many ways an advisory board can help a business owner. Here are a few examples we can share:

• An employee has been found to have stolen $20,000. The business owner had never been in such a situation before and was furious and wanted to withhold the final paycheck. A lawyer in the group reminded him that there wasn’t a legal method by which he could withhold that final paycheck and that if he did want to get that money, he would have to go through a legal process which in the end might not be worth the time or money. Other members chimed in to suggest that maybe another team member, not so emotionally tied to the situation, handle the firing, along with another witness, so that everything could be documented.
• An owner was unsure about his pricing strategy. He had originally presented the business as a “more for less” proposition, but he realized that wasn’t bringing in enough revenue even though his customers were raving fans. One of the group suggested a price increase and gave metrics for how we could know that the price was right. He kept bringing the increases back to the board and over a period of a year he increased prices 300% until they were finally at around the correct price.
• A business owner was unclear about what new marketing strategies he could try and whether he needed to engage a firm. One of the firms he had spoken to had offered some interesting ideas, but the price point scared the owner. The conversation got to what the real issue was, which wasn’t really the price of hiring the firm, but about the medium and long-term future of the business. The owner had not admitted to himself that he was tired and wanted to sell the business, and so he didn’t necessarily have the stomach to start an entirely new type of marketing. This allowed the owner to speak with one of our advisors to start thinking through the process of listing the business for sale.

Business owners often have “no one to talk to” as they may not want to burden their spouse with operational issues or can’t talk about employee matters with employees. At base, a peer advisory group is a place where everyone knows what you’re going through, and often someone can offer helpful guidance. They are also in a position to hold you accountable, like if you say you’re going to fire someone and you come back the following month and you haven’t.

Some General Guidelines

You don’t only have to belong to one group. In a podcast episode on the subject, Jason Terry of Blue Gurus shared that he belonged to three, each offering different value.

• Meet regularly, at least once a quarter, but perhaps once a month. Try to have a basic agenda for each meeting so that people can better prepare and not just be “surprised” by what they hear at meetings.
• Try to be category exclusive. It’s hard to be vulnerable and share business challenges if you have a direct competitor in the room. This isn’t a policy of “exclusion,” it’s more about being practical about what can be shared if there’s a non-allied counterparty in the room.
• Try to limit the number of people in the group. Some groups are as small as 5 and some as large as 15 but larger than 15 can make the format a bit unwieldy and not give everyone enough time to get help for their needs.
• Have a designated facilitator. These people tend to nominate themselves (they are the people who throw dinner parties in our friend groups) or get nominated but they don’t necessarily have to carry the burden all the time. The position could be rotated annually.
• Don’t set limits. This isn’t just a “business-only” setting. Your spouse may start to be unsupportive of the business and you want to know how to handle that. Or you may have just lost a parent and are worried it’s affecting how you’re running your business. Very often there will be someone in the group who has gone through a similar problem who can share strategies to help you.

Would you like to join a peer advisory group but don’t know where to start? We might have some leads for you. Give us a call.