I recently met with my friend Matthew Whitaker, the owner of gkhouses, to learn more about the advisory board he established in 2017. With over 1,500 homes currently under management, gkhouses is a regional property management firm for single family homes and is the largest property management firm in Birmingham, with additional offices in Nashville, Chattanooga and Little Rock.

Frederic: Why did you decide to form an advisory board?

Matthew: I was actually “advised” to form an advisory board (pun intended). In mid to late 2017, I was meeting with a number of people to discuss next steps for gkhouses and heard from multiple people who I respected that an advisory board would really help me. I thought it would make a lot of sense given I was taking so much time at these meetings getting people (advice givers) up to speed and that it would be much more efficient to find board members who already knew a lot about my business — or that I could at least teach them just one time.

Frederic: How did you select your advisory board members?

Matthew: I read a number of books on putting together a board. But in the end, I decided on people who I thought were a few steps ahead in doing what I’m trying to do – who all had different skillsets. I really wanted to cover the broad range of skills we needed to excel in order to be successful: IT, sales, finance, M&A, etc. I also wanted to pick people who made me a little nervous when I spoke to them so that it would force me to be prepared and to respect their advice when they gave it.  I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to have a board of people you don’t really respect.  There is a ton of effort that goes into having these meetings, and you need to extract as much value out of the time investment as possible.

Frederic: How often does your advisory board meet, and how do you conduct meetings?

Matthew: Our board meets on a quarterly basis for three hours. I try to make it as convenient as possible for the board members, so we do it late in the day on a weekday (typically 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.). I have snacks for them. We’ve also done one over lunch, which I think works very well. They have to eat.

I have a meeting schedule that I follow to run the meetings. There were some more traditional schedules out there (in the books I consulted). But I didn’t feel like a formal schedule was the right move for us. We follow an agenda very similar to the meetings we have here at the office. If you are familiar with the book Traction by Gino Wickman or the EOS (entrepreneurial operating system) model, then you will know the agenda. And it’s very important to me that we start on time and end on time.

I also send out a three-page update at least 48 hours before the meeting. It isn’t required reading for the meeting, but it gets their head in the right place when they show up. I even tell them what issues we are going to discuss. Some people need longer to process than others and giving them 48 hours to think about my problems usually gets some better advice.

Frederic: How has your advisory board added value to your business?

Matthew: I’m just getting started but feel like I’ve already received a ton of value. First, it forces me to zoom out and look at the business on a quarterly basis. Second, it forces me to simplify what we are doing, so that I can communicate clearly to them in the allotted time (a very healthy exercise). And last, I believe their advice has led to some pretty cool changes and ideas for future changes at gkhouses.

Frederic: What advice do you have for other business owners who may be considering an advisory board?

Matthew:  I was actually thinking about this the other day, and I came up with four things.

1. Ask people who intimidate you a little bit. And be willing to take a “no” to get some great people.
2. Be prepared. Don’t waste the advisory board members’ time. If you’ve asked the right people, you have busy people on your board who can see straight through you “faking” a meeting. One way to do this is writing down issues when you think about them between meetings.
3. If the board gives you advice, either do it or explain to them why you didn’t do it at the next meeting. There is nothing that gets the board more excited than to see their ideas implemented or at least considered. We have a “to do” list that comes out of every meeting and going through those items is on our list of topics to review at the beginning of each meeting.
4. Give them the reality. If you have the right people on the board, you have a tendency to want to impress them with how well the business is doing. I try to push the ego aside and tell them the unfiltered truth. No matter how good business is going, all of us have some serious issues that you need help solving. I think they actually appreciate it when you are transparent with them.