Running a successful client advisory board

If you want to improve your practice, the best sources of advice are your best clients. They know you, are familiar with your business, and, presumably, will want to help you. By seeking their advice, you’ll also more than likely strengthen your relationship with those clients.

What is a client advisory board?

A client advisory board is a small group of key clients who meet with you several times a year to discuss a range of topics that, in effect, should help you improve your business.

It is a forum in which you can test ideas, exchange best practice concepts and learn how your clients perceive you, your colleagues, and your business.

In short, it is market research conducted personally and it’s a lot more flexible than a traditional approach to research.

Tips for structuring your client advisory board

Choosing the participants:This is undoubtedly the most critical element in creating your board. It is essential to have a diverse range of participants, and to ensure they are representative of your client base in terms of age, gender and occupation.

Don’t be tempted to invite too many participants — six to eight should be large enough to provide a good cross-section of clients, while remaining small enough to ensure vigorous discussion.

Your key employees should also be involved, as they will be involved in the implementation of good ideas — let them own as much of the process as possible.

When selecting clients for involvement, avoid those unlikely to participate or those likely to dominate, as you want all views to be aired.

Even with model participants, it is worth limiting the term of their involvement (and communicating this from the outset), as this ensures a continual stream of new ideas and fresh perspectives, and gives more clients the opportunity to be involved.

Organisation:It is important to be organised, so that the meeting flows. Before the meeting, you need to determine what you want to get out of it. Set an agenda and ground rules for the meetings. The agenda should be circulated prior to the meeting, so participants know what is expected of them. Ground rules could include issues such as requiring honesty (rather than what your clients think you want to hear) and ensuring that all participants are given a chance to speak.

The format:The ongoing success of your advisory board is dependent not only on high quality participation, but also a first-rate format.

First, you need to set aside at least two hours. Choose a time of day your participants will find convenient. Make sure you follow your agenda and that you run to time. All involved will get more out of a well-run program than something that ambles along with no direction. While it’s important to hear from everyone, don’t be afraid to rein people in when the conversation veers off course.

Nourishment required:We all work better when we are well fed. Consider running your sessions over breakfast or dinner if a number of your participants work.

Appreciation:You need to show your clients that you appreciate the time they are giving you. This can be demonstrated in a number of ways: a gift, a guest speaker during the session, or dinner. Your appreciation is also reflected by actually implementing the ideas that the advisory board endorses — it makes their involvement significant.

Appreciation can also be shown by offering participants a chance for their own business development by inviting each, at different times, to present on their field of expertise, and provide networking opportunities.

Regularity:Running an advisory board can take a lot of preparation, so don’t try to run them too often. You also need to consider the time commitment your clients are prepared to make. Quarterly can work well — that way it is not too long between sessions, and not too often to consume too much of your time, and theirs.

Wrapping up:At the end of each session, it is important to formally recap the discussion, and useful for you to put together a ‘to do’ list of items and ideas for follow-up. Make sure you keep the board members abreast of changes you make or ideas you implement as a result of their feedback.

Ideas for your first advisory board

These ideas can be used at any advisory board, but I emphasise first because once you have run an initial meeting, you will have a multitude of ideas for future sessions.

* If your business has a vision, mission statement, or values, review these with your clients and make sure they represent a company that your clients want to do business with.

* ‘If we could do one thing better...’, what would it be?

* Ask your clients, ‘How can I grow my business’ or ‘How do I attract more clients like you?’. If you let your key clients know you are looking for new business, chances are they will help provide referrals through their networks, or provide other good ideas to find new business.

* Review your service offerings. Are you marketing them effectively? Are there other things you should be offering your clients?

* Review your client communications. Is your newsletter hitting the mark? Are your seminars compelling? Is there another way you can better reach your client base?

* Running client events. What sort of events would clients like to attend? For example, something purely social or of a more educational theme. What sort of speakers do they like to hear from? And in what sort of format?

The reward

Running a client advisory board is a true win-win situation. You have a sounding board for ideas, a referral source, and a group of partners helping you grow and maintain a successful business.

Your clients benefit by making a direct impact on the quality and types of services you offer. It takes a bit of organisation, but if you had to pay to get this sort of information, the costs would be much higher and you would miss out on the opportunity to foster stronger relationships with your key clients.

Peter Hodgson is head of sales and marketing atInvesco .