You don’t have all the answers, so create an advisory council

If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.

This quote has been attributed to many different people, but regardless of who said it, the wisdom holds true. You want to be smarter? Spend time with smarter people. Are you the smartest person in the room? Then you aren’t growing.

It was with this basic logic that 12 months ago we decided to start the Lemonly Advisory Council.

The Lemonly Advisory Council is a group of people meant to serve as a sounding board, an alternative opinion, and a band of cheerleaders for Lemonly.

How It Works

Last August, I sat down for a coffee with some of the folks in the Sioux Falls business community that I admire most and asked them to be a part of our founding advisory council. We tried to select a group of people that was diverse by company, role, experience, gender, age, and opinion (one individual who agreed to participate was only able to make one meeting, which altered our balance a bit). We laid out the requirements as clearly and simply as possible.

• Five Meetings (Oct, Nov, Jan, Feb, Mar)
• Meet at Lemonly HQ from 7:30–9:00 am
• Lemonly will provide coffee and breakfast
• Lemonly will send a rough agenda the week before and give a 15 minute presentation on the topic of that month’s meeting
• Discuss, Ask Questions, Give Opinions, Challenge

After invitations were sent, we formed a group of seven individuals from seven different companies — and the Lemonly Advisory Council was born.

The 2016–2017 Lemony Advisory Council. Back Row — Micah Aberson, me, Paul Tschetter, Dave Austad. Front Row — David Whitesock, Chad Hatch, Jennifer Schmidtbauer.

What We Gave Them

I’m incredibly aware of how valuable everyone’s time is — it’s the most valuable thing we have. To ask for an early morning before work that might disrupt family time and a morning routine is a big ask. All of the folks on the council were so gracious and excited to help, but I wanted to thank them for their time so we appealed to the basic needs of:

1. Food — we’ll provide a breakfast and hot coffee
2. Do good — we’ll donate $100 per meeting you attend to a charity of your choice in your name
3. Spend time with cool people — you get to meet and connect with new and exciting people

Screenshot from the PDF we sent to all council members.

What We Discussed

The first advisory council was exactly what we had hoped for. Each month the group arrived ready to ask questions, share opinions, and more quickly than I expected, they also looked forward to catching up with the other council members. We discussed a wide array of topics, not limited to, but including:

• How should Lemonly position itself in the market?
• Should we be “infographics only” or “visual storytelling”?
• If most of our business comes from inbound leads, why don’t we invest more in making those happen?
• How do you define an infographic?
• The lesson that making a decision, even if it is a wrong one, is often better than no decision at all.
• The inevitability for all businesses, no matter the size or business model, to make change.

These are some great lessons, right? And just like a business coach I often felt at the end of the meeting that I knew the answer all along, but by 9 am I felt much more clarity and confidence about a decision having vetted it with the council. The list above is only a sample of all the great discussions from five meetings.

What We Learned

I believe creating an Advisory Council can be one of the best things you can do for your business, and it can be done rather quickly and affordably, but still must be done right. There were a few great takeaways we learned from facilitating our first council and from direct feedback from the council members.

1. Find the right balance — By balance, I mean a balance of content, questions, and discussion. It was important that each month Lemonly started with a brief, 10–15 minute presentation to not only set the stage for the discussion but also to catch everyone up on what had happened since the last month. One council member said, “We knew what was going on each month, but also had ample time to share our thoughts.”
2. Respect the schedule — We felt that 15–20 minutes of “networking” time each month was important. We were right, but we were also too loose on the schedule. Some months we talked over coffee for 10 minutes and jumped in to the room to work, and other months the social time lasted 25 minutes. The feedback from a member was, “Set the schedule. Start on time and keep to the schedule.” He’s right.
3. Facilitate connections — A benefit that was greater than expected from the advisory council was the connections made by fellow advisory members. At times we’d go down a tangent from one person’s professional history, and I know many of the members connected outside of the group for their own 1-on-1 coffees or lunches. I loved when one member told me, “I felt like I took WAY more than I gave. I would go back to the office each month and share my notes with my team.”
4. Be honest and open — I knew for this concept to work we needed to be honest and open about Lemonly and the state of our business. We couldn’t just present the glossy, everything-is-perfect side of our business. We were extremely open about the good, bad, and ugly of Lemonly. We didn’t require council members to sign an NDA. We simply created a culture of that boardroom was a place to share anything and that what was said there, stayed there. I knew we got it right when one council member said in our last meeting, “John, I thank you for your personal and professional vulnerability. Not many folks would be willing to do that.”

I hope these ideas can serve as a simple blueprint to start your own advisory council. Don’t overthink it, but take it seriously and make it formal. Copy our ideas, change them, and improve upon them. We’re currently making invitations for our 2017–2018 Lemonly Advisory Council and are looking forward to more lessons ahead.

Find the smartest people you can and put them in one room. That’s the room you want to be in. — John T. Meyer

If you like reading about people and companies, and companies that put people first, sign up to receive more great stories from Humans and Resources.