Business is a journey. As your business develops, you will grow in skill and understanding. The questions and puzzles you face will change. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and, as per one of our Four Truths of Business Growth®, you won’t make it on your own.
Among the people you will need is a small group of wise heads, detached from your business, to offer insights, pressure-test your ideas, help you see the big picture, and hold you accountable for carrying out your projects.
This group takes different forms along the journey, and the most successful business owners tap into more than one.
1) Networking and Business Communities
You might begin with an occasional meet-up with peers who get what it’s like to be in your position, offer support, swap tips, and steer you towards helpful resources. Just having someone to talk to is a huge relief at times! Local chambers of commerce can do this, and in a more structured way, think business networking and referral groups.
The Community level of our Kickstart program offers this online.
2) Mastermind Group Approach
You can add power by adopting a mastermind group approach, where you and your peers follow a structure to address directly the business issues you each bring to the table. That’s when you light the afterburners!
A future add-on to Kickstart will include this level.
3) Advisory Boards
A step further is an advisory board. This is a purpose-built group that you call together regularly (we favour paying them), and you use them as your think tank. This is where we really hit the power band! You have a lot of flexibility in who you invite and how you conduct the meetings.
At Upland we help clients set up and facilitate advisory boards.
4) Establish and Refine a Board of Directors
And finally, if you hope to use someone else’s capital in your business, by shares or by loan, a top question in your investor’s due diligence will be “Who’s on your board?” The same if you are partnering with a big corporate or multinational. A board of directors (often called a governance board) is not just advisory in function. You, as an owner, delegate to them the personal responsibility for making decisions in the best interests of your company.
Upland also works with clients to help them establish and refine a board of directors.
Do you notice a thread here? At each stage, you the owner/founder are saying “I don’t have all the answers. I need more input.”
Are you and your business ready for that next step? Give us a call and let’s talk it over. Follow this link for contact details.
