by Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC

What if you could set up your world so that surrounding you on all sides were people eager to offer you advice and support you in pursuit of your goals. This is entirely possible and will take far less effort than you might imagine. What are some more formal procedures you can use to get people on your side, thereby helping you to achieve accelerated progress towards your goals?

Devise an advisory board of directors. There are lots of people who would like to be on your board! If you poll most people whom you know, you’ll find that they’ve never been asked to be on a board in their entire lives. They’ve heard about people on boards, but they’ve never been asked to be a part of one. Begin to look for people in your immediate surroundings who can be members of your advisory board. These could include people in local associations, one or two people from work, perhaps somebody from your church or community group, and perhaps a mentor as well.

You may invite the whole group to dinner twice each year. It doesn’t cost as much as you might think; you can usually feed everyone for under $360.00. Let everyone know in advance what issues you’d like to tackle at the session.

Have dinner, then pass out the agenda, review the issues that you wish to tackle. Record the discussion so you’re free to interact instead of taking notes.

Possible Advisory Dinner Agenda Items

• other people I ought to know
• Names of people who have achieved balance in their lives, especially in unique ways
• New groups, networks, groups to know
• Video producers
• How can I sell blocks of 100 or 1,000 books?
• New newsletters and publications
• How can I help you?

You might think, “Sure, people will come to my advisory board dinner once or twice, but would they come over and over again?” Not only will they come back, but you may even get requests from people you’ve never met who have said, “So and so is on your board and suggested that you might invite me to be on it as well.”

Most of the time, the advisory board is quite supportive. If there is some type of criticism or redirection, it’s done in a gentle manner that you can easily take.

Encourage your advisory board members to become good friends themselves. Facilitate this by circulating a list at each meeting with everyone’s name, address, phone, and email address. Invite them to bring their own literature, whether they’re in business for themselves or work for corporations, so that they can become more familiar with each other.

By the third or fourth meeting, you’ll find that the quality of the recommendations and the leads, insights, tips, and strategies that they present to you more than pay for the cost of the dinner.