Working away at the old FrostFire Media offices in Fargo, ND

At the age of 26 I was finding myself leaving corporate America and venturing into business on my own. I had a fair inclination as to what we were going to do and lots of ideas on how to do them. We had originally started as a small entity with the best of intentions to produce independent film projects, with my leave from my corporate adventures we started a consulting division to house the new contracted services from Microsoft. We had bold ideas to launch a magazine which eventually lead to a modeling and talent agency, record label, retail division and other business interests for what would be come FrostFire Media Corporation.

Early on in this adventure I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to drive this bold ship without some much valued advice. As a young company it wasn’t practical to have a board of directors right away, and we also did not have the resources to have a full finance department, human resource department and other departments commonly found in larger companies.

You see, at the time all of my background, education and experience had been in the marketing communications field. Because of the roles that I played at DaimlerChrysler and Microsoft however I had a great deal of exposure to the other parts of business and what was needed to conduct the day to day operations. Even so, I wouldn’t call myself an expert in any of them at the time.

A friend of mine asked me over lunch a few weeks back. “How do you manage to know so much about business and what courses of action to take?” He’s a fairly young entrepreneur himself and finding himself growing much faster than he’d ever expected. My answer was simple – when I started out I didn’t know everything, I still don’t know everything. But the key to being an effective leader, I think, is surrounding yourself with talents and individuals that have strong knowledge and backgrounds in places that you don’t. Furthermore, I personally like being surrounded by people that are not afraid to challenge my ideas and debate ways of doing things. This often times produces an end result that is far more effective and works more congruently across work styles and various business needs.

I shared with this friend about our concept of the Board of Advisors. This board consisted of close friends and colleagues with expertise in various parts of business. This board proved invaluable as we experienced rapid growth, an economic downturn, a natural disaster and eventual restructure. The fourteen member board consisted of two human resource professionals, six business owners, three non-profit and community advocates, one communications professional and a few with general community interests.

The board of advisors was structured fairly loosely, we had full board meetings but also engaged the members individually on several occasions as needs arose. This team was a large reason why we were able to accomplish what we did.

Much like a board of directors, these advisors can help funnel their collective experience into your business and drive greater success, aid in crisis and ultimately help produce larger returns. They also serve as ambassadors for your message and can bring in key contacts to drive more opportunity.

But your answer doesn’t need to be a full out formalized board, it can just be an identified list of friends and colleagues that you feel comfortable going to for help. You’d be amazed at how willing people are to help make your dream come true. And how much more secure you’ll feel knowing that each business decision you make is backed with the collective knowledge of people from all sorts of professional backgrounds and experiences.