Why You Need a Board of Advisors

Advisory boards provide isolated small business owners
with an affordable outside perspective. 
Boards replace trial and error with experience and knowledge.  They act as sounding boards and boards of
inquiry.  They open needed doors and
close unnecessary ones, while giving management an inside look at the outside
world.

An advisory board is not a board of directors.  Directors are responsible for running a
company and can be sued.  Advisory boards
serve at the pleasure of management and have no authority or liability.

How does an advisory board help a business?  An effective advisory board helps in three
ways:

1. Direct
   assistance:
   1. Answers to specific questions about the full
      range of operating issues based on its members’ own operating experience.  Help is often given by phone on an as-needed
      basis.
   2. Introductions
      to banks and access to investors.
   3. Background
      checks for high level hires and personnel referrals.
   4. Operating
      oversight:
   5. Ongoing
      review of financial statements and other measures of company performance.
   6. Strategic
      audits of major areas such as marketing, financial management, outsourcing,
      salaries and benefits, and so on.
   7. A high-level
      overview:
      1. Ongoing
         evaluation of company opportunities.
      2. Ongoing
         critique of company effectiveness in addressing those opportunities.