When I discuss advisory boards with business owners, there are a few things I’m used to hearing. Probably the most common is the question that heads this email.

After all, you’ve managed to build up a successful business. Your own talent has helped you push annual revenue into the seven- or eight-figure range. You’re doing pretty well by any measure, so why do you need an advisory board to help you to the next stage?

I think a lot of this is due to people simply not knowing what an advisory board is. It’s a relatively new concept in Australia. I didn’t hear of them myself until about three years ago, and I was part of the first wave in bringing the concept here in a professionally structured and managed way.

There’s also possibly some confusion about what exactly is meant by advisory board. The name has been around for years, meaning a variety of different things.

Lots of utility companies have customer advisory boards, and there are medical, scientific, and special purpose advisory boards. But they’re very different from what I’m talking about — a professional business board that a business owner can turn to for advice, help, or support.

The question right now is why do you need any outside support at all? You built your business on your own and grew it to the point where it’s bringing in a respectable revenue. Isn’t that evidence that you’re doing fine without help?

Well, it is and it isn’t. Your successful business is proof that you’ve managed fine to this point. But are you happy with where you are or do you want to grow further?

In almost every case, when I ask business owners this question, they tell me they want to grow. The thing is, in most cases they’re finding it difficult to achieve the next stage of growth.

This doesn’t surprise me — it’s perfectly normal for businesses to reach a growth ceiling and get stuck.
What a lot of people don’t appreciate is that the skills you need to start a business aren’t always the same as the ones required to take it to the next level. For example, a lot of tradesmen start out working for a company then decide to go into business on their own.

If you’re good at your job, that isn’t too difficult. You just need the trade skills you already have, plus the ability to do some basic accounting.

The next step up is to hire some other people and go from being an independent tradesman to a small company. Again, most people can manage this step.

You’re still hands-on, so most of your time is spent doing the job you’re good at. You still have to do the accounts, and now you need some management skills as well, but most people who have come this far can handle it.

If you want to go any further, however, it can get trickier. At some point you’ll have enough people working for you that you need to take a step back from the hands-on side of the business and focus on management.
This is the first big hurdle that a lot of small businesses never manage to clear.

If you’re turning over $10 million a year or more, you’ve made it past this hurdle. Unfortunately, it isn’t the last one you’ll find in your way. The larger your business grows, the more issues you have to deal with, and there are limits to what any one person can do on their own.

You almost certainly don’t do your own books anymore — you have an accountant do that for you. You probably have a general manager to handle some of the everyday tasks of running the business. As you’ve grown, you’ve made a series of decisions to delegate things that you no longer have time for.

In fact, there’s more involved than just delegating. What you’ve been doing is acknowledging that you can’t deal with the accounts, routine management, etc., yourself and devote time to growing your business.
And it’s worked, hasn’t it? After all, you’ve come this far already.

Now you want to continue growing and that’s going to be your main priority, but eventually you’re going to reach a point where you can’t go any further on your own. This happens to every business eventually.
When you get to that level, you have a choice: stop growing or bring in the expertise you need to grow further.

Personally, I think every business should focus on growth. If you’re not growing you’re standing still, and that’s not a great idea at a time when we face unprecedented technological change and increased global competition. To be successful, and often just to survive, a business now has to be agile.