Recruit an Informal Board of Business Advisors

Rieva: I think it’s really important for small businesses to have informal boards of advisors. You’re not like a public company where you need a formal board of advisors but an informal board of advisors are a group of people like some of them could be your friends, some of them might even be your family who have expertise at areas that you don’t have. At least once a year, you should all meet together. I mean, you’ve got to breakfast together once a month, once every six weeks and you talk about here’s where I’m at, here’s where I want to go, what do you all think? Let’s say you’re a really good communicator but you don’t have a lot of financial skills and you might not have a CFO. Chances are you don’t, you’re a small business. It’s good maybe to have somebody with an accounting background on that board. You cannot have an employee on that board because you’re going to be discussing things that happen in your business that that employee really shouldn’t have any business knowing about. What if you’re discussing salaries? What if you’re discussing, you know, I have a problem with an employee and I want to let somebody go. So no to anybody who works for you. Yes to friends, family, the most important thing is put people on that board who are not yes people. You know they’re going to talk back to you but they’re people that you trust and that you respect and that you could have an open and honest discussion with and you’re going to listen to them and you’re going to act on what they tell you if you and them come to the conclusion that it’s the right thing to do.