As your landscape company grows, the need for a higher level of strategic guidance may be necessary. One of the ways to gain powerful insights is to create an advisory board so you have additional expertise you can tap into.
“When you grow outside of your skill set as a leader, that’s when I think you benefit a lot from good consultants,” says John Munie, president of Focal Pointe, based in Caseyville, Illinois. “As the business challenges get larger and more complex than any one person, that’s when you need more eyes and range of experiences. My feeling is you probably don’t really need an advisory board until you cross that $20-25 million threshold.”
Benefits of Advisory Boards
Munie compares an advisory board to having not just one personal trainer at a gym but five who are giving you ways to improve your overall wellness.
Since creating his board in the spring of 2022, Munie says he has more peace of mind as he does not have to reinvent the wheel.
“By the time our board meetings are over, I’m not confused and I’m not guessing on what the right direction is,” Munie says. “It gives Brett (our COO) and I the ability to just execute. This is what the agreed-upon direction is now for the next three months and we can run with great confidence. That’s an amazing feeling to know that you don’t have to second guess what direction you’re running to.”
Nate Farley, president – West, Perennial Services Group and founder of NationScapes, based in Lakewood, Colorado, says one change his advisory board helped him with was a complete overhaul of their organizational structure. He says their org chart now looks more like a general contractor’s. Previously, it was a very flat organization, but as NationScapes grew, Farley says they needed the structure to hold people more accountable.
“The board really forced me to think about that, and it also meant laying some people off that I knew were the wrong fit,” Farley says. “They weren’t fitting the organization. They didn’t fit the new structure. I give the board a lot of credit for pushing there.”
Farley says they also pushed him to consider winter work. He put his spin on it and allowed team members to opt in to do winter work. He says he was stunned when 85 to 90% of the team opted in.
“I empowered our team to make the decision whether they wanted to do it,” Farley says.
With these two changes, NationScapes has become very efficient and has started driving revenue through the winter season.
Munie says that his advisory board allowed the company to complete three acquisitions in two months with no prior experience with acquisitions. A new acquisition this year makes it four in under 18 months. He says without the board, he would have been too intimidated by the acquisition process to attempt it on his own.
“It helps you narrow down your risk of dumb choices and dumb decisions,” Munie says. “It has created leap forward success for us, not only in terms of growth, but employee engagement, customer satisfaction and profitability. We’re just clicking on all cylinders, and I don’t think that would have happened if I was distracted by a bunch of questions that I didn’t have answers for.”
NationScapes’s advisory board also pushed them to create a strategic plan. Farley says it has been incredibly engaging for their team.
“From the bottom my heart, I am successful because I put a board together,” Farley says. “NationScapes did what we did because we put a board together. We’d still be dawdling and not growing. I literally owe them more credit than I can ever get them. That is the best decision I’ve ever made in my professional career.”
Farley says another benefit of his advisory board is he felt comfortable picking up the phone and asking for their expertise on a certain topic.
Challenges of Advisory Boards
Munie says you must be willing to be humbled by your advisory board.
“If you’re a business owner that wants to be told you’re right all the time or that you’re smart all the time, an advisory board is probably not for you,” Munie says. “If you’re not willing to execute on what your weaknesses may be and grow through that and get the medicine and take it and change your behaviors, then it’s probably not for you.”
Farley says some owners might not like being held accountable by their advisory board. He says he hated to disappoint his board members. Munie agrees that because his board is made up of individuals he admires, there is an extreme level of accountability.
“You don’t want to let them down,” Munie says. “You’re not going to walk into a meeting of people you respect and say, ‘Yeah, I heard you, but I chose to ignore you.’”
One of the drawbacks of an advisory board is the amount of time it takes to prepare for the meetings. Farley estimates that he spends 20 to 40 hours preparing for a board meeting. He says the first one, in particular, takes a lot of work because you have to bring the board members up to speed on your business, what you’ve done, and your current strategy.
“You can’t just show up,” Farley says. “Six hours is a long time to sit around and talk to people if you don’t have a good agenda and a lot of content.”
Farley will send out his meeting agenda notes a week before so the board members can review and ask questions ahead of time, allowing them to spend the meeting doing deep dives on different sections of the business.
Another challenge is coordinating the calendars of multiple busy people. Farley says they would plan their board meetings a year in advance because of this.
When to Consider Adding an Advisory Board
Munie started his advisory board after long-time mentor and friend Kevin Kehoe made the suggestion to him in 2020.
Farley says he started looking into creating an advisory board after going through some serious growing pains in 2021.
In some cases, a peer group can be a good stepping stone before investing in an advisory board.
“The peer groups I’ve participated in, and continue to participate in, were so integral to our success, I would recommend them to anyone, but when our growth strategy became more complex, I knew we needed more specialized experience to take us to the next level,” Munie says.
Farley admits peer groups weren’t the best fit for him as he didn’t want to talk about everyone’s problems but wanted to focus on his own company’s issues.
“Your advisory board is not your boss, but sometimes it sure feels like it,” Farley says “It feels like an accountability partner, whereas the peer group, they’re your peers. It’s just a different relationship.”
Farley explains that if you’re just struggling with one aspect of the business, like sales or marketing, hiring a consultant may be a better option than an advisory board.
“They’re not there to fix a singular issue,” Farley says. “I don’t want to waste five guys’ time to tell me how to sell better or how to market better or hire better people. I really view the board as coming from a well-rounded business sense of how should your business be running? Where are you falling short?”
Farley says that while a business consultant can help with a singular problem, an advisory board should be utilized to give guidance and feedback, which you can choose whether to follow.
“One of the things that I found helpful around issues with the board, especially if you diversify it, is you’re not going to get to a clear answer,” Farley says. “You’re going to have different ideas and methodologies.”
After a board meeting, Farley would take some time to reflect on everyone’s input and then plot a path forward.
“You just have to view them truly as advisors in your business, and they don’t necessarily know what’s best for your business in a given circumstance, but they have a lot of experience,” Farley says. “I think it’s worth listening to their experience to see if you can glean something from it that’ll fit in your world.”
“If you’re thinking about it, do it,” Farley says. “If the thought hasn’t crossed your mind, you’re going to have to get yourself there. But if you have thought about it, every second you don’t do it, you’re literally just hindering the growth of your business.”
