Quite often, when I speak to business owners about advisory boards, they tell me they had never thought about it or that, if they had, it was only for bigger business.

They will say something like, “Well, we’re a private business and we’re not big enough or complex enough to need an advisory board. It’s really for larger firms, isn’t it?”

The belief that a board is overkill for a smaller business is something I hear often, but in fact size doesn’t have a lot to do with it. Like many of the misconceptions we’ve already looked, this one exists because people aren’t really familiar with advisory boards and how they work.

Recently, I was talking to a colleague who’s the general manager for the Australian subsidiary of an overseas multinational contracting organisation. He has about 85 people in Australia and a turnover of around $40 million, with the UK parent turning over something in the region of $250 million.

We were discussing advisory boards, and he told me that the parent company was planning to set one up for his Australian operation.

He was slightly worried about this. His concern was that the board would just add to his already heavy work load and the difficulty of distance. He didn’t want to have to report to this new board when he already reported to the overseas MD.

I shared with him that a high-performance and properly structured advisory board wouldn’t get involved in day-to-day operations, which was what he was most worried about.

Instead, it would be a source of local support and local knowledge and confidential advice that would help him run the business here more effectively. Most importantly, a good advisory board wouldn’t restrict what he was able to do; it would support him and empower him to do more.

He admitted that it was his lack of understanding of the role for an advisory board that had caused his anxiety, and he now appreciated that it should be there to help him, not be a de facto reporting mechanism to the UK. I gave him a copy of an advisory board charter I use to clearly define the roles.

He was absolutely right in his assessment. Properly structured advisory boards with a defined charter are there to support the business leader. Of course, it can offer support to other senior people as well, but its key function is to help the owner or leader run the business more effectively.

What this means is that the size or complexity of your business isn’t actually the important factor. It’s there to help you grow the business, and its effect on the business comes from your enhanced ability to lead.

When I work with clients, their business industry, size, or complexity is not important, they only need to have two key elements: a desire to learn and a desire to grow. An advisory board is a powerful tool to help lift you to the next business level.

It doesn’t matter how small or simple your business is right now; a good board will help you grow personally and open up new opportunities for future growth.