Many successful advisors use advisory boards to connect with other financial professionals, obtain client feedback, build their company brand and take their practice to the next level of success. Two Million Dollar Round Table members, Brian Haney and Brian Heckert, recently provided insights into what it takes to create and use a successful advisory board.

Why create an advisory board?

First, why do advisors need an advisory board? In explaining why his firm created its board, Haney said that his practice niche is associations, primarily professional membership organizations that are operated by a board. Haney is a 17-year MDRT member and the founder/CEO of The Haney Company.

Haney’s firm also believes in practicing “The Power of Association,” and he has spent much time in volunteer leadership positions with several associations. With that as a backdrop, when his firm rebranded many years ago, it made sense to form an advisory board of clients and colleagues to help the firm navigate this process.

Haney listed three primary reasons for creating an advisory board for his firm.

1. He wanted help to see his firm differently and obtain an outsider’s perspective, whether from a client, a colleague or a center of influence. “If we could not see ourselves with clarity, understand our true value proposition and market position, and have critical leaders help us take formative steps toward building the brand we wanted, this exercise would have been far less useful,” he said.
2. He needed to understand his firm’s audience - not just how the audience thought of the firm, but what the firm’s audience truly is.
3. The firm needed collaborators who would support its efforts. “When someone accepts a volunteer board position, they naturally have a higher level of care for the organization they are supporting,” Haney said. “While not our intended purpose, we certainly hoped increased goodwill among those board members would be valuable to our brand and reputation by empowering them to help us tell our story across the marketplace.”

Heckert's firm established an advisory board to narrow its focus, adjust its offerings based on client needs, and transition from a sales-oriented practice to an advisory model.

“I heard of the advisory board concept at an MDRT meeting and thought it was worth the time invested. It turned into a much greater benefit that resulted in the practice we have today,” he added. Heckert is a 38-year MDRT member and senior advisor, managing director, at FSM Wealth.

Creating an advisory board

What steps did Haney’s firm take in developing its advisory board? He said the first step was developing a shortlist of clients, colleagues and industry partners, people he believed best knew the firm and would offer unique and valuable leadership perspectives.

Subsequently, the firm members refined the list to include those they believed were the right fit, had a genuine interest in assisting and possessed the ability to do so. “By casting a very strategic net, when we approached the final candidates, the majority happily agreed to help,” Haney said.

However, he added, “We also had to be extremely clear about the ask: role, responsibilities, time commitment and term of engagement. This made it easy for the board members to know whether they could commit. I believe a lot of times people fail in this area because they do a poor job of defining what they want and need, make things too ambiguous and ultimately leave too many things open-ended, which frustrates all parties over time.”

Haney said his firm did not have actual “roles” such as president or vice president for the advisory board members. Instead, each board member was simply an advisor, granting these parties an equal say in their operations.

The board met quarterly, with some ad hoc meetings specific to initiatives, such as a brand-focused change, or part of the strategy they had to zero in on.  Haney said that during these meetings, board members discussed the firm’s business plan and marketing/branding strategy, while the firm’s members gave the board quarterly reports on the progress of the rebranding process and how parts of the business plan were coming together.

The members of the firm also requested that the board provide them with regular advice. Whether it was good or bad, the firm’s members wanted to hear the truth from them about what they thought they were doing well, poorly and everything in between.

The commitment to serving on the advisor board lasted about 18 months, Haney said. It wound down to an informal dynamic after that, periodically engaging with certain advisors to ask for help or advice. But the board stopped having quarterly meetings after those initial 18 months.

Benefits gained from having a board

Haney said the most important benefits his firm gained from having an advisory board include:

• Clarity of vision, mission, purpose and value. “When you only see the world through the filter of your own experience, you never get the full picture,” he said. “By creating an intentional body of trusted individuals with decades of experience whose role was to speak into our practice and help make it as good as it could be, we gained invaluable perspective. That helped us build a strong brand and improve our reputation and visibility in ways years of uninformed marketing never could.”
• Accountability. Boards require you to report to them, Haney said. “Just having this structure creates an intentional framework for quantifying, measuring and tracking yourself across a variety of domains that you might not otherwise focus the same time and energy on,” he said.

“Not only did we need to “show the board something” each time we met with them, but we naturally wanted what we showed to be significant. That built urgency and purpose into getting things done that we might otherwise not focus on, such as operations.”

• Brand ambassadors. Haney said that while they knew this benefit could be a byproduct of the experience, they are grateful that the board members they worked with became some of their strongest advocates in the marketplace. “Because they knew us well and spent meaningful time working with us, they felt a significant sense of ownership over our success. We continue to reap the benefits of their goodwill and referral efforts to this day,” he said.

Heckert said that his firm also gained several benefits from having an advisory board.

One benefit was that the firm refined its entertainment policy to focus on value-added events and seminars instead of on entertainment events. Heckert discovered that many of his firm’s clients knew the firm for only one of its services, but few knew or used all of its services.

He said the board likely saved his firm from spending money on tickets to ballgames and other entertainment events. This is because clients said they get those from other sources and would use them but wanted their firm to reinvest that money into client speaker-related programs, which are easier to attend.

Steps for creating an advisory board

For advisors who want to create their own advisory boards, Haney’s first piece of advice is to start small.  Not everyone may be ready for something extremely formal, he pointed out, so if this sounds overly daunting or unfamiliar, start by creating a shortlist of informal “mentors” that you invite into your “inner circle” and have them “speak into your practice.”

“Be specific with what you ask and create an intentional rhythm of engagement so that it’s not completely random and unstructured,” he said.

Haney said the goal is to create a habit of vulnerability and accountability. For many advisors, getting beyond the initial discomfort of “pulling the curtain all the way back” is often the biggest hurdle.

“As that grows and you gain comfort with what this can look like, have these same partners help you create a more formal structure, such as a true board of advisors, if that is ultimately what you decide is needed,” he said.

The key, Haney said, is to build the group that best fits your practice. The form matters less than the function.

“Find a way to bring advisors into your practice to speak meaningfully into it, challenge you, offer a different perspective, and ultimately help you grow strategically over time,” he said.

More steps to success

Heckert shared additional steps to success. They include:

• Start with the definition of success from the board meetings. Build the agenda from that goal.
• Make it special in the client’s eyes.
• Ask questions instead of leading members to a discussion.
• Reward members with a nice gift
• Allow time for the board members to meet and get to know one another.
• Keep the board fresh, with no more than two meetings, if you are continuing the process.

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