How to Structure Your Business for Growth (Advisory Board Edition)

Three stages, three kinds of problems, and a different kind of help at each one.

Growth is not one long road. It is a series of steps, and each step changes what the business needs from you. The mistake is using last stage's playbook on this stage's problem.

Stage 1: Zero to $1 million

The job: Prove the offer. Find customers. Stay alive.

What you need: Fundamentals. Pricing, a repeatable way to sell, basic financial discipline.

Best help: One-on-one coaching. Your problems are narrow, and a single experienced person can work them with you. A peer board is less useful here because the room's problems are a few levels ahead of yours.

Stage 2: $1 million to $5 million

The job: Build a company that does not depend on you doing everything.

What you need: A team, systems, and a leader who can let go. Hiring the layer below you. Managing cash as you grow. Choosing which customers to say no to.

Best help: A peer advisory board. This is where the problems stop being tidy. Owners who have been through it can tell you what worked and what it cost. What got you here will not get you there, and the room helps you see which habits to drop.

Stage 3: $5 million and up

The job: Build the machine. Management depth, strategy, maybe acquisitions or an exit plan.

What you need: Sharper judgment on bigger bets, and people who have made them.

Best help: A board of peers at your level, plus specialists such as a CFO, attorney, or tax advisor for the technical pieces.

Where advisory boards fit

The middle stage is where I see boards do the most. Revenue is growing. The owner is stretched across too many jobs. The problems are complicated enough that one person's advice runs thin.

The structure that works:

1. A facilitator who keeps the room honest and on topic.

2. Non-competing owners so nobody holds back.

3. A set rhythm, so trust builds through repetition.

4. A shared operating system. At TAB, that is the Business BluePrint, a single view of the company everyone in the room can work from.

5. Follow-through. Every member leaves with a next step and reports back.

A planning habit

Before each year starts, write down which stage you are in and which problems belong to it. Then check whether your support matches. Many owners find they are in Stage 2 and still using Stage 1 help.

Not sure which stage you are in? Come to a TAB Austin CEO Roundtable and listen for the problems that sound like yours.