You’ve heard the mantra - “it’s lonely at the top!” It’s very true and if you don’t have a good support system locally, you will struggle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed to rely on outside counsel such as my entrepreneurs group, advisory board, and board to be a sounding board especially during trying times. Your venture should never be an island. Even if you don’t have a board, being in a community of entrepreneurs is critical as you often need an outlet to share war stories and to talk things through outside of your internal team.
Personally, I have a local group of entrepreneurs I meet with each month that include CEO’s from a moving company, a real estate development firm, a financial services firm, a recruiting firm, and a catering company. They have been true friends and I’m always surprised at how similar the issues we share while running very different companies. Without them, I wouldn’t know where I’d be.
For those of you who don’t have an advisory board or a community of entrepreneurs you can tap into, here are some creative and not-so-creative ways to get help:
1) Join EO or Accelerator. It’s an entrepreneur group that’s International in scope and they have local chapters in most cities. I’ve been a part of EO for over 6 years and it kicks butt.
2) Create an entrepreneurial event. Host a poker game at your office, invite a group of entrepreneurs for happy hour. Do all the work so the entreprenuers can just show up. Then, ask them to join your advisory board formally or informally each month at a get-together. Trust me, these gatherings will rev up your juices and get you motivated for the hard nights ahead.
3) Offer to bring coffee to them each month. Make it an easy commitment - offer to bring them coffee and you’ll sit in their offices for 20-30 minutes each month or every other month to get caught up on the business and get their feedback.
4) Be reasonable on equity. Incentivize your advisors for being on your team. If you do give equity, require commitment - i.e. monthly or quarterly advisory board meetings. I’ve seen equity as low as 0.25% to 1.25% for advisors in an early stage startup.
5) Be Persistent. Everyone’s busy, but an occasional email with updates on your business to your ideal candidate to be on your advisory board will grease the wheels. Start building the funnel today! Better yet, if you can’t get directly to your ideal candidate network with friends of your ideal candidate and get introduced. By then, you’ll have already started on step 2!
Good luck and happy hunting, let me know if you have any other tips and tricks below on getting the right outside folks on your team!
I am going to be looking for coffee at your office next time.
I’ll be sure to take you up on it
Great Tips Andy! I think I joined Accelerator a long time ago but never got that going - I’m going to re-activate that account….what are some of the conversations you can have with CEO’s in other type of business’s? Do you speak about online marketing and web related topcis while they share info related to their type of business?
Ruben - Accelerator is great, all early stage entrepreneurs who are hungry to grow their businesses. The conversations run everywhere from personal challenges to professional issues. It’s a great outlet to be able to discuss these issues in a confidential environment - some hot topics are hiring/firing, raising capital, sales, online marketing, etc. Even though the businesses are different, the stories and challenges are very similar even though I’m in the online space.
I think being persistent is the most important one. Nice tips by the way…
It’s always underestimated, it goes a long way…
I’m definately going to pursue this idea. It’s easy to get caught up in your own struggle, and I think it is great to hear from other people going through the same experience.
Plus, it’ll help get us out of this bunker office we spend most of our time in everyday.
Great point - getting out of the woods with your business and taking a step back with other colleagues goes a long way to gaining perspective and actually getting more out of your business.
The fees for the Los Angeles EO group are pretty high:
Membership Dues
# EO annual dues are USD $1300 and are due at the beginning of each fiscal year, which is July 1st. Fees are based on a quarterly pro-rated schedule. New members pay a one-time initiation fee of USD $600.
# EO Los Angeles annual dues are USD 2650, with a one-time new member chapter initiation fee of USD 500.
Average group member sales are over 5 million. Maybe too advanced for a newbie?
Mary - thanks for visiting. EO is for businesses that do $1M+ in annual sales, it is something to strive for as you grow your business and is a big milestone. I know LA has an Accelerator chapter that would be a great way to get plugged in to the entrepreneurial community and it’s for early stage entrepreneurs. Even if you don’t get involved with Accelerator, I’d highly recommend getting perhaps 3-5 other entrepreneurs to meet together on a regular basis to keep each other accountable and energized in your business - it’ll go a long way to setting your business on the right path.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check out Accelerator.
I only know a couple of entrepreneurs, but I think regularly meeting with them could be a great start to attract others to join. So far I’ve been picking mostly admin people’s brains, and I’ve learned a lot, but nothing beats being exposed to other entrepreneural spirits!
Exactly!
I was wondering on the prices as well as the geographical limitations of establishing the advisory team.
More over, am afraid how good it is to discuss your business problems and share your business details with others!
Maybe, Andy has to write about how choosing advisory personalities and their basic pre-requisites.
Indeed, having the wrong advisory board members can ruin things for you, so you are right - it’s important to choose advisory board members based on their personalities and basic pre-requisites.
I’ve had an advisory board in the past and it a was a real boon to business. About a year ago they disbanded and it’s just been me. After reading this post, I’m thinking I should start again.
When I did have an advisory team, it consisted of my father, a professor from the local business school, a small business advisor, an employee, financial advisor, and geeky friend. I tried to cover all of my bases in terms of knowledge and personality. The advisors would learn just as much from each other as I learned from them.
I would buy all of them lunch at the local restaurant and we would meet for 2-6 hours every time. Thanks for the “push”
rock on. having a rhythm of meeting with outside advisers whom you trust and are willing to share will be huge as you have already realized. good luck!
What kinds of roles should potential advisory board members be capable of advising on?
i’d start with areas you are particularly weak in. perhaps it’s advertising or sales or finance. i’d look for folks who are experienced in those areas and invite them to participate. i have folks who are experienced as a tv producer, a former executive at a tv station, a marketing guru, an seo expert, and others.
Even though I am not apart of the business board here at my current job I have been in other organizations before. The best thing to know when going into any board is the ablity to communicate yourself, and your ideas.
good point, be prepared and read up!
another good post.. you have provided some great insight on this blog so far. Thanks Andy
Great new blog, Andy! And a very timely piece of advice especially for startups.
In this day-and-age of lawsuits and liability, it’s much easier to recruit and work with a Board of Advisors than it is to persuade some big name players to a Board of Directors. Especially in this recent downturn. Never mind the cost of Directors Insurance! IMHO Advisors have been an underused resource.
I tend to work with my advisors in a more informal way rather than a group sit-down meeting: phone calls in the evening, a quick coffee or a meal somewhere. Sometimes you’ll get a gem that might not come out in a group. And I tend to pick advisors based on particular specialties directly related to the business and its technology. I tend to assume that I know nothing so I try my best to bring on people smarter than me (not hard!) and it’s worked well over the years. I also try not to pick Advisors from my investors list as a rule to avoid any conflicts.
Entrepreneurs as a whole often tend to be loners and I think that in spite of so many fine local organizations such as NWEN etc., we’re not reaching all of them as well as we might think. Finding ways to connect all those loners out there might be a way to tap a new resource. I’ve often wondered if there’s a business model in creating an online Board of Advisors site complete with meeting and chat rooms as well as teleconferencing.
Robert - that is a fantastic point. It is much harder these days to recruit a board of directors than it is to form an advisory board. I think the idea of an online board of advisors is definitely worth considering - especially if it’s done at no cost or an equity piece. Thanks for the comment.
Andy what are your thoughts about including advisors from a specialty different than the business you are in. When it comes to individual mentors, I believe having someone with experience outside of your one’s specific business is helpful in providing a fresh perspective.
Ron - great comment and advice. I absolutely agree. In a future blog post, I think having an advisor that has been through the downturn and successfully navigated it no matter what industry they are in - is invaluable.
Funny - it’s like the P-I read your blog and published a followup piece today by Susan Schreter: Inside Entrepreneurship: Minimizing the pain from a failing business:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/395333_schreter09.html
Her first piece of advice is to seek out some experienced advice.
I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…
I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks
Hi everyone been lurking for a while and decided to sign up [img]http://m08u1212ewbf192.imageshacknow.info/img/1965/j09j0105vfjn/smile.gif[/img]
Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.
I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.
Andy - Looks like your comments section has also been discovered by Comment spammers now. I use Akismet to filter them out for moderation before they get posted up in Comments. Too bad there isn’t an easier way to get even with these idiots!
Andy,
Let me know if u r looking for some manual help in filtering comments? I have some free time right now and expect to have for coming few days too…
This is a good post. I am going to sign up of one or both of the organization listed. Are there places online or offline of a directory of top people in a specific start up specialty?
Thanks a lot for this, Andy. I particular liked that you said “if you can’t get directly to your ideal candidate network with friends of your ideal candidate and get introduced”. That’s absolutely true. I heard once that “we are only a few phone calls to ANYONE in the world that we want to meet”. So, yes, you are right there. Thanks for sharing this, once again.
Hello,
I have already seen it somethere
Thank you
Bodyc