Who's On Your Board of Directors?

Last week my wife and I had dinner with our financial advisor.  We, along with eight other client couples met at a local restaurant.  There were two reasons for the dinner.  One was to thank us for our business and the second was to get our advise on how to improve the host's customer service.  He called us his "board of directors". 

It's an ingenious idea.  Who knows better how to improve customer service than the customers themselves?  Doug received several suggestions that he promised to incorporate in his business. 

How could you apply this idea to your business?  Think about the way that corporations operate.  They all have a board of directors to advise the company's management.   I looked up Wal*Mart's board of directors, and found that they have:

• The CEO of the company
• A member of the Walton family
• 2 retired Wal*Mart executives
• The retired CEO of Coca Cola
• The retired CEO of an Hispanic media conglomerate
• A retired professor of business administration
• A banker
• 2 Venture capitalists
• A human resources consultant
• A former member of the Clinton cabinet.

Each of these people brings expertise to the company that might not be available internally.

Why not have your own board?  It could be made up of some of your best customers.  You might add your banker, someone who works in advertising, or other retailers.  Use your imagination.  People like to help and to be recognized as someone with a valuable opinion.  For the cost of a nice dinner you could get some incredibly helpful ideas.

Way back in 1937, Napolean Hill introduced the idea of a personal board of directors in the classic business book Think and Grow Rich.  He called it the Master Mind Group.  He said there were two characteristics of this Master Mind Group;

"The economic feature is obvious. Economic advantages may be created by any person who surrounds himself with the advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group of men (or women) who are willing to lend him wholehearted aid, in a spirit of PERFECT HARMONY. This form of cooperative alliance has been the basis of nearly every great fortune. Your understanding of this great truth may definitely determine your financial status.     

"The psychic phase of the Master Mind principle is much more abstract, much more difficult to comprehend, because it has reference to the spiritual forces with which the human race, as a whole, is not well acquainted. You may catch a significant suggestion from this statement: "No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third,invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind."

Even though Hill's book was written nearly seventy years ago and was based on work he did many years before that, it remains a consistent best seller even today. 

How often you meet with your "board" is up to you.  You might have one formal get-together each year with a nice dinner, and a more informal lunch-time meeting twice each year or even quarterly.  Some members may lose interest which isn't necessarily a bad thing because that gives you an opportunity to bring in new ideas from time to time.

You're in competition with companies that have their own boards, shouldn't you have one too?

Comments

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