If your Food & Beverage business doesn't have an advisory board then you are short changing yourself!

I meet a lot of small to medium food and beverage companies who just don’t have the strategic grunt power to make wise decisions for the medium to long term. 

This is primarily because they don’t have the financial resources to hire the right level of experience.

Setting up a small advisory board is very advantageous and can be very cost effective and often free! 

So why is this a good idea?

1. You’ll get fresh sets of eyes looking at your business with new ideas. This is actually the most important reason in my view. You just can’t beat fresh eyes. 

2. You’ll reduce your financial and reputational risk.

3. You will develop strong governance and it will help you stay on track. 

4. It will be great experience and you will learn a lot. 

Select a small group (3- 5 people in total) with diverse backgrounds, usually who can fill a void within your current set up.

So if you are terrible with finance or marketing have a smart accountant or a marketing guru on your advisory board.

Meet once a month or even every second month for 2-3 hours.

Set up a strong governance process. This is the process for which key decisions are made and that will reduce your financial and reputational risk. 

Have a chair person to run the meetings and to lead the comms with other board members (usually NOT the owner or CEO/ Directors). 

• Have a robust meeting agenda and clear objectives.
• Review financial results.
• Review the strategy and the progress of key milestones.

Today it is bloody hard or almost impossible to obtain a paid board role without any board experience so I am sure you can secure amazing people affordably or even free for 20-30 hours a year. They then use this experience to obtain paid roles plus you secure new life long friendships and some great mentorship along the journey. Also try the contra deal conversation. You may need help but never underestimate how you can help people without any money changing hands!

Setting up a board can be for start up and SME businesses not just for ASX200 companies.

You don’t need a big shiny board room with a luxurious shiny table and chairs (like in the image above), with an expensive crystal whisky decanter sitting in the corner. 

It’s all about diversity including gender, age, industry background, levels of experience and so on. 

Remember advisory boards are set up to assist with strategic direction and governance not to assist and run the day to day grind. You don't need to attend expensive board courses (even though I did), but you may need some coaching along the journey.

There are no rules, it can be very affordable and even free so why wouldn’t you set up a small advisory board? 

www.djbfoodgroup.com

Reducing risk and optimising growth within the food and beverage industry.