Running a business can be a lonely job.
You might have a great team, supportive family and plenty of people around you, but there are some conversations that are difficult to have when you’re the owner.
Should you take the risk and grow? Is it time to make a difficult change? Are you missing something obvious? What happens if you get the decision wrong?
These are the moments when having the right people around you can make an enormous difference.
At The Alternative Board, we see the value of peer advisory boards every day. But we also believe that something this important shouldn’t be based purely on gut feeling or a handful of success stories.
For nearly five years, The Alternative Board has collaborated with independent researchers studying peer advisory boards to better understand a simple question:
Why do they work — and what makes a great board truly effective?
The research draws on the experiences of thousands of peer group members and looks at different peer advisory organisations around the world. Some of the latest research is so recent it is yet to be published.
The findings give us a fascinating look at what really happens when business owners come together around the right table.
Do peer advisory boards really help business owners?
The short answer from the research is yes.
Studies comparing peer boards with other groups available to business owners found them particularly valuable for learning and personal development. They can also support wellbeing — something that matters when you consider the pressure that often comes with owning and running a business.
And perhaps that isn’t surprising.
Other business owners understand things that can be difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t been in your shoes. They know what it’s like when a decision affects not only you, but your employees and their families. They understand lying awake thinking about cash flow, people problems or whether you’re making the right call. And they know what it feels like when everyone expects you to have the answer.
Over time, a trusted peer board creates somewhere you can bring those challenges without pretending you have everything figured out.
Can a peer board actually make a difference to the business?
The benefits aren’t limited to having people to talk to.
Research has found that peer boards can help business owners:
- avoid costly mistakes by working through problems collectively
- prepare for risks by learning from what other owners have experienced
- recognise opportunities they may not have spotted themselves
- develop stronger strategies for growth
- find the confidence to make important decisions and act on them.
That’s an important distinction.
A peer advisory board isn’t simply a networking group. You’re not there to swap business cards or find your next customer. You’re there to make better decisions.
Business owners often join for one reason, and discover something much bigger
Many business owners aren’t familiar with peer advisory boards before joining one. They might expect networking, some useful business advice or help solving whatever problem happens to be keeping them awake that month. Those things can certainly happen, but the research suggests the real value can go much deeper. The right peer board can help an owner step away from the day-to-day and tackle the bigger questions facing their business:
- Where are we actually going?
- What’s holding us back?
- Have we outgrown the way we’ve always done things?
- Is there an opportunity we’re too close to the business to see?
- What needs to change if we want to reach the next stage?
- Sometimes the most valuable thing another business owner gives you isn’t an answer.
It’s the question you hadn’t thought to ask.
What happens when nobody around the table has experienced the same problem?
You might assume a peer board is most valuable when someone else has already dealt with the problem you’re facing. Interestingly, research suggests boards can become particularly valuable when business owners are dealing with uncertainty and rapidly changing conditions. SME owners don’t need reminding how quickly circumstances can change. COVID-19 was an extreme example, but owners regularly face changing economic conditions, rising costs, skills shortages, supply chain problems, new technology and changes in customer behaviour.
Sometimes nobody has a ready-made answer, but putting several experienced business owners around a table means you’re no longer looking at the problem through one pair of eyes. You can share what you’re seeing, challenge assumptions, identify risks and uncover opportunities together. That collective thinking can be incredibly powerful when there isn’t an obvious roadmap.
What makes peer boards effective?
Simply putting a group of business owners in a room isn’t enough. Research has identified several ingredients that make a significant difference.
1. The right mix of people
A strong board needs people who have enough in common to understand one another — but enough differences to challenge one another. Members are fellow business owners and leaders who understand the responsibility of being at the top. But their industries, experiences, personalities and strengths can be very different.
That’s where much of the value comes from.
Someone from outside your industry may question something you’ve accepted as “just how it’s done”. Another owner might recognise an issue because they’ve experienced something similar. Someone else may approach the problem in a way that would never have occurred to you.
Similar enough to understand. Different enough to bring a fresh perspective.
2. Trust takes time and changes the conversation.
Business owners can gain value from their first meetings, but research suggests it can take between six months and two years for the deepest levels of trust and understanding to develop.
That matters.
As relationships grow, conversations change. You stop giving the polished version of what’s happening. You can say, “I’m really struggling with this.” Or, “I think I’ve made the wrong decision.” Or even, “I have absolutely no idea what to do next.”
When people know your business, understand you as an owner and genuinely want you to succeed, the quality of the conversation becomes very different.
3. A great facilitator matters.
The expertise in a peer board comes largely from the people sitting around the table, but research also shows that professional facilitation plays an important role in getting the best from that collective experience. A good facilitator isn’t there to dominate the conversation or hand out all the answers. They’re there to make sure the right conversations happen. They know when to dig deeper, when to challenge, when to bring another voice into the discussion and when to stop the group jumping too quickly to a solution. Most importantly, they help create an environment where business owners feel comfortable being open and honest, even when the conversation gets difficult.
What do the business owners themselves say…
Research can tell us a lot about why peer advisory boards work, but sometimes the people sitting around the table explain it best.
When business owners involved in the research were asked about their experience, four things came through strongly: honesty, support, perspective and accountability.
A place where you can be completely honest
There aren’t many places where a business owner can take off the brave face and talk openly about what’s really happening. Your team doesn’t always need to know what’s keeping you awake at night. Your family might listen, but they may not fully understand. And sometimes the issue is simply too sensitive to discuss with people inside the business. A trusted peer board gives owners somewhere they can have those conversations without judgement.
As members put it:
“My peer group allows me to have unfiltered/confidential conversations about issues within my professional and personal life. Feedback is respectful but honest from a group of individuals that I trust.”
And:
“Feedback from the group is open and honest. But feedback is also fair and does not indict individuals or get personal. It is a safe environment, and we can seek answers freely without fear of criticism.”
That combination of trust and honesty is powerful. Because sometimes you don’t need someone to agree with you. You need someone you trust enough to tell you what you might not want to hear.
People who genuinely have your back
Running a business can take a lot out of you. There are weeks when everything seems to be working. And then there are the weeks when the problems pile up, the decisions feel heavier and you wonder how you’re going to keep all the plates spinning. Having other business owners around you doesn’t make those challenges disappear, but it can make them feel a lot less lonely.
One member described it beautifully:
“The encouragement received helps me to push through the tough times and allows me to draw on the energy of others!”
Another summed up something many owners will recognise:
“Running your own business can feel like you’re constantly pulled in multiple directions… You don’t have to do it alone and can get the support you need from the group or from the business coach individually.”
Sometimes the value isn’t finding an instant solution. It’s knowing there are people in your corner who understand what you’re going through.
Perspective you can’t always get anywhere else
When you’ve been living and breathing your business every day, it can be incredibly difficult to see it objectively. Your employees have one perspective. Your family has another. Your accountant, lawyer and other advisers each bring their own expertise. Fellow business owners bring something different. They’ve had to make difficult calls themselves. They’ve hired the wrong person, taken risks, dealt with difficult customers, worried about cash flow and wondered whether they’re making the right decision, and because they’re not inside your business every day, they can often see something you’ve missed.
As one member explained:
“The peer group is effective for me, because the group challenges my thought process, so I can look at all angles to a situation, thus making a better decision.”
Another simply said:
“Having a group I can turn to for advice is huge.”
That’s the real value of perspective. The board isn’t there to make the decision for you. It’s there to help you see the decision more clearly.
Accountability when you need it
Most business owners don’t struggle because they have no idea what needs to be done. The problem is often finding the time to actually do it. Customers call, someone on the team needs you, an urgent problem lands on your desk, and that important piece of work you promised yourself you’d tackle gets pushed to next week. Then next month. A peer board makes it harder for those commitments to quietly disappear.
One member said:
“What makes the peer group effective for me is the inherent accountability to make progress on the things we talk about.”
And perhaps the most relatable:
“I am most appreciative when our group members call me out for not following through on a commitment.”
That’s the kind of accountability that comes from people who know you, know your business and genuinely want you to succeed. They’ll celebrate the wins with you. But they’ll also remember what you said you were going to do.
The big decisions may be yours, but you don’t have to make them alone
The Alternative Board brings together groups of 6–8 owners of non-competing businesses, carefully matched to create a balance of shared understanding and different experiences. The structure of the boards and the way facilitators are prepared are informed by evidence about what makes peer groups effective, but ultimately, the power of a board comes down to something very human.
It’s business owners helping business owners.
People who’ve had difficult employees, taken risks, made mistakes, chased opportunities, worried about cash flow, celebrated wins and wondered whether they’re doing the right thing. People who understand because they’ve been there too.
Whether you’re facing a major turning point or simply want to build a better business without carrying everything yourself, having the right people around you can change the way you think, decide and lead.
Because owning the business doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers.