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In this solo episode of The Business Owner’s Journey, host Nick Berry explores the three essential pillars of support every small business owner needs for growth and resilience. From trusted advisors to peer networks and advisory boards, Nick provides actionable strategies to overcome isolation and accelerate success in entrepreneurship.
Nick highlights the importance of having a trusted advisor who provides personalized insights for both business growth and leadership development. Unlike consultants who handle specific projects, trusted advisors offer continuity and accountability, helping uncover blind spots and fostering resilience. Whether it’s a coach or strategic advisor, having a sounding board for tough decisions is invaluable.
“The best business owners I know always have someone in their corner who tells them what they need to hear - not just what they want to hear.”
Nick stresses the importance of being part of an industry peer network or broader community. These groups provide access to trends, inspiration, and a shared space for exchanging ideas. Peer networks, whether local business associations or online communities, offer an invaluable volume approach to problem-solving and innovation. I met previous guests like Daniel Wakefield and Dr. Haley Perlus through larger community networks.
“The shift from seeking help to becoming a contributor in a community is one of the most powerful transformations a business owner can experience.”
Unlike larger networks, a peer advisory board consists of a small, intimate group of like-minded individuals at similar stages of their business journey. These groups foster trust, accountability, and tailored support. Organizations like Vistage, EO, or industry-specific programs can be game-changing, offering a SWAT-team approach to tackling challenges. Previous Guest Steve MacFarland was my Vistage Chair in Indianapolis.
“Being part of a peer advisory group isn’t just about problem-solving; it’s about thinking bigger and pushing each other to new heights.”
Nick reminds listeners that building a robust support system requires intentional effort. Starting with a larger community, followed by a one-on-one advisor, and finally a peer group, lays the foundation for sustainable growth. Treating this as a priority investment will yield exponential returns over time.
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:00)
The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your
Nick Berry (00:12)
So if you haven't seen it, I got a new professional headshot done That was done by Daniel Wakefield, who was a guest a few weeks back and is a professional headshot photographer. He owns top tier headshots. I mean, it's fantastic. I like never thought that a
Picture of myself would be something that I was going to want to show people.
Look at that. Professional Nick.
It really is me. I did have someone ask me if it was AI generated. No, that's a talented photographer. there's smiling professional Nick. And then back to regular Nick. Daniel is fantastic. he just doesn't miss. You can see the difference in his headshots. When you see a client of Daniel's,
like their LinkedIn profile, you can tell that he did it. It's incredible.
A few more updates on previous guests. I'm interviewing Dr. Haley Perlus for the second time
Matt Diggity's Chiang Mai SEO conference is If you're in the SEO world, you probably already know about that because if you're in the SEO world, you know who Matt Diggity is.
Anthony Milia just announced that they are having their first baby. it's not really business related, but Anthony is a great guy and I'm just excited for him. So congrats again, Anthony.
And by the way, this might be a good time for me to bring it up if you haven't left a review and you do think that it is worthy of a review. If you've gotten any value from the show, I would love to have it. You can go if you're on mobile, you have to do it on mobile if you're going to go to Apple. But if you go to Apple podcasts, you can leave a review and a rating. If you go to Spotify, you can leave a rating.
It's all appreciated. If there's something about the show that you do not like, I would still love to hear from you. I would prefer that you send it to me. But I still take the feedback. If it helps me figure out how to meet you where you're at better, then it's fair game with me.
since I'm talking about guests, I'll tell you a couple of things about myself. We went to Kentucky to visit family a few weeks ago for a couple of weeks. It was great. Vivienne got to play with grandparents on both sides of the family. And like all the aunts, uncles, cousins, spent a ton of time on the farm, at the zoo, doing all the things. it was an awesome, awesome visit. Came back, I did a mountain bike race.
do one a year. I would like to do more if there were more nearby But I'm still recreational. It's not a professional endeavor for me at the moment.
Bitcoin just crossed 91,000. There's no telling what it will be by the time you hear this.
let's talk about my three pillars of support that every small business owner needs.
Nick Berry (02:54)
I just wrote an article on this on my website, nickberry.info. It's the three essential pillars of support every business owner needs. So you can read more about this there also. I'll put a link in the show notes.
Nick Berry (03:07)
I talk about how lonely the journey can be as a business owner. There just aren't gonna be that many people who can relate to the things that are gonna keep you up at night along the way. And as you move forward, as you become more successful, as you hit your goals,
That number is only going to be fewer and fewer. That doesn't mean they're wrong. It's not really a knock on people who do other things and have other priorities. But if you're not a business owner or if you're not in this field, you cannot relate to the problems. Just like a business owner is not going to totally be able to relate to the issues that keep up a non-business owner.
So it's just really important that you build yourself a support system along the way. Like one of the biggest challenges working with small business owners is helping them get past this belief that they need to do it on their own. And I'm super guilty of that or have been super guilty of that. Some people are, it's really easy for them to ask for help. Other people...
it's the opposite.
it's important that you surround yourself with people who you can lean on along this journey because the challenges are gonna come and they're gonna be new to you, but they're not new to everybody, So there's gonna be the support that comes in from finding solutions. And then there's just the...
having somebody that you can have as a sounding board or who can keep you in check or keep you focused or sometimes you just need to be picked up and dusted off and somebody to say that you can do it, you're okay. That's part of it. So that's why this particular cross section over my 20 plus years of founding and owning my own businesses,
building a company that's worked with thousands of business owners, working directly with hundreds of others,
cross section of these three things that I feel like gives you the most surface area for support with the type of issues that you're going to need support on. Because your goal, want to be continuously growing. You want to be able to like stay on the leading edge. You want to be able to move fast. You definitely want to know like if you have blind spots and you're going to need to be able to
strengthen your resilience as you go. And these three pillars will help you do that. Doesn't mean these are the only things that go in your support system. Every support system is gonna be kind of different. There are gonna be other pieces that are included. These are the three that you've got to include.
So the first pillar is individualized guidance from a trusted advisor. And I use trusted advisor a somewhat of a generic label, but it's probably going to be like small business coach or a small business advisor, but someone who is going to be able to come in and give individualized attention to the growth of the leader. So the business owner and
the growth of the business. So, it needs to be a one-on-one relationship. They need to be someone that you can build trust with, they're not gonna tell you what to think, they're gonna tell you what to think about.
They're gonna see and tell you things that other people can't or won't. And they're gonna challenge you in ways that are gonna help bring out the best version of you. That should be your goal.
I hired a business coach. think my first one, it's 14 years ago ish and it's been a constant. think that it should be a constant. That's one of the best business decisions I've ever made. you read about any successful business owner, entrepreneur, founder, like they have people like this in their corner.
So if they have to have it, why wouldn't everybody? And I mean, the consensus among other entrepreneurs and business owners is that you don't need to try to do all this stuff on your own. There's too much of it. There are too many things that you can get to a better answer faster through having conversations with someone who is like,
focused on your situation, knows you very, very well, will be objective with you, will be a truth teller. So they're gonna tell you some things that you may not necessarily like to hear, but that you need to hear. And those people are rare and they are especially, especially valuable. They're gonna get to know you well enough to be able to surface and develop and help you leverage your strengths.
and also recognize your weaknesses. They're gonna help you be more accountable, staying focused on the goals and the strategy. And it is a plus if they have a proven methodology of theirs that they bring to the table. So my example is EOS implementers. Like I would consider them a coach.
they have their EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system methodology that they bring. That's their framework that they It's not a requirement to have a methodology. I just think that it's a big bonus. EOS is another something that I've used. We use it for a long time.
I think started in 2014 when like, I think there were maybe four implementers on their website. Gino Wickman was still doing the workshops and that's who I was in his workshop and that's who enrolled us into the program. But it's one of the three or four biggest, most valuable decisions we've ever made and inflection point in our business.
And it's, I'm still using the system today. 10 years later.
A mentor could be a good option. It just depends on how, formally they want to make a commitment. But mentor could very well serve the same purpose. You're looking for somebody who's going to help you learn to see further into the future, anticipate, become more proactive.
What I would not consider as this type of solution would be a consultant. Consultants are really valuable. They have their place. But I look at a consultant as different because the consultant's going to come in to solve a specific problem. It's almost like project based. So they're kind of going to come and then go. And what you're looking for is continuity, not necessarily something that feels transactional. Again, nothing against a
business consultant, that's just not the type of solution that I'm talking about for this pillar.
should you have multiple advisors or coaches? If they have different purposes, but if you have a strategic advisor, you don't need multiple strategic advisors, For example, like I, when I have strategic advisor and at the same time was working with a coach on leadership presence.
And so those two things, they made, they butted up against each other, but it didn't create any type of conflict. there was no problem. but in other instances if I have a business strategist and a marketing strategist, those two people are going to have to be in the room together.
they could not be in silos. The right hand and the left hand have to know what each other are doing.
But what you need from this one-on-one, trusted advisor is someone who knows you very well, who knows what you're trying to accomplish, who knows what your tendencies are, who is gonna be level-headed and objective with you and help you navigate the uncertainty that like making decisions with very little information where you're gonna have to make a lot of assumptions
you need somebody who knows you well enough to know kind of what you're thinking before you've said it and help you get your biases out, get the beliefs out and make sure that you're not letting those negatively influence your decision making. That's somebody who can sometimes tell you that wasn't good enough or that was out of line.
And that's to me, one of the most valuable elements that comes from having a coach like this is, I mean, it's a requirement for me. if somebody is going to be my coach, you've got to show me that you're going to tell me something that you think I'm going to be uncomfortable with. that's why we're here. And for me to work with someone, they're going to have to show me that they, even though they may be uncomfortable, that they still want that feedback.
because I don't think any of us need more people who are going to only say, good job, you got it. the job is not a cheerleader. The job is keeping it real, helping you see things more for what they are, helping prepare you, like handle the challenges of today and prepare you for the ones of tomorrow. And you cannot do that by running from the discomfort. You cannot do that job.
I worked with some coaches who When they started working with me, I could tell it took them a while to realize that I was serious about wanting that feedback. And they were almost like surprised. I worked with one coach in particular who had a background in big businesses. So, it's like very political environments and
You could tell how measured everything he said was. It was like, he couldn't give me any type of criticism without it being like the shit sandwich. Like, I don't need that, man. I just need you to give me the answer. Like, tell me what you're thinking. Let's move on. I feel like I would call that being very coachable. it's like.
We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable for it to work. But that to me is probably as important of a piece, maybe other than their business acumen, that might be the most important piece. But after that, I don't know if much matters. If I can't trust that that coach is gonna be willing to tell me,
you're thinking about that wrong or you're just being stubborn because I've been that before.
So that's what you're looking for out of this one-on-one individualized trusted advisor pillar. The second pillar is the larger community of peers, what I call like the network. it's the people who are similar to you in some way, peers, it could be like industry groups, but it's being part of a community and you have some common ground.
and it gives you like a really broad base of support and knowledge. And it's a good way to, expand and, and, gather more inputs and meet more people it's kind of like a volume approach to seeing what's going on out there. a part of that community is going to give you access to trends insights.
you're going to be able to see who's taking off and who might be kind of lagging behind. And then you start to learn like, what are the pattern? What are the tendencies There are a lot of shared experiences. think these groups are really good for being able to get you kind of re-energized and motivated like, hey,
okay, right? You're gonna pick you up and dust you off and we're here, we're all dealing with stuff and it's tough, but you're gonna get through it. Just seeing other people doing that can help you pick yourself up and dust yourself off. I also think you can become a contributor to others there. So I think there's this huge, huge shift.
when as the business owner, you go from feeling like you're just a person who's there to be helped to someone who can actually contribute. Now you may have been able to contribute for quite some time, but as soon as your belief changes and you think, I can also help somebody else out, that's one of the most powerful shifts along the journey because that's when, let's kind of let your validation.
And you're also getting that validation in during a period where it is the freshest, where you're like, I was you. I remember, it wasn't that long ago that I was dealing with this problem and it really sucked, but it was fantastic when somebody else helped me. So now I'm overjoyed to be able to share that information with you. So the shift of going from a person who is there to be helped to someone who
realizes that they can be a contributor, they can be a helper also, is huge.
I think the type of communities that we're talking about, I mentioned industry groups, business associations. You can find online communities everywhere, local, Chamber of Commerce. You can be members of multiple of these types of groups. They can have different flavors. One could be your industry and another could be your craft. But it's just about
plugging yourself in to these volume inputs so you can be absorbing like what does the landscape look like out there in this world that my business is in.
what I don't consider the same thing like a networking group, like B &I, it's kind of like consultants. They can be really valuable. They have a place. This is not to devalue them. They're just not the type of community that I'm talking about here. Like B &I, they're great if your goal is generating referrals for your business.
But that's not our goal with this pillar. Our goal with this pillar is to grow as a business owner and leader. that's not being I's value prop.
and the third pillar is the smaller, more intimate, peer advisory board, your inner circle. And to contrast that with the larger community of the network, whereas if the larger community and network is a lot of people who have like something in common with you, they're kind of like you, this inner circle.
the peer advisory group is a few people who have a lot more in common with you. So a lot more like-minded, similar places in the journey. Those are examples of the type of things that they might have in common with you, but it's more than just, hey, we're both in like, pool building industry.
these groups are so powerful because you have people who, like it's a tighter cluster of people
This is just more of a highly focused group that they have a lot more in common. They're more familiar with each other. They have an in-depth understanding of the individuals and their goals and their businesses so they can tailor their support more to that. depending on the group that you're a part of, they'd be eight to 20 members.
the selective criteria so it's not just like anyone who can pay X dollars gets to be a part of it. There needs to be like structured facilitation or agenda. There needs to be like some controls in place to keep things efficient and focused on what's important. But it becomes like a really high trust, high value informed environment where, you know, talk about
getting comfortable being uncomfortable. You know, it's important that members are going to be really forthcoming and honest with one another. There should definitely be non-disclosures. So things that get talked about in the room, don't go outside of the room. That kind of environment. But I liken it to a SWAT team for handling tough challenges and helping you navigate the journey, helping you become a better decision maker.
I'm a 10 year member of Vistage. Again, another one of the probably five most valuable decisions I ever made was when I joined Vistage. that influenced probably several of the other most valuable investments or decisions that I ever made. But Vistage, Entrepreneurs Organization, YPO.
alternative board tab. Hampton.
And then there are a lot of industry specific programs like this Fitness Revolution, which is one of my companies, offers business coaching for gym owners. And we've been doing peer groups for
15 years and about 10 years ago, we really tightened it up and it took
One of the advantages of being in groups like this is the business growth. So couple of examples, Fitness Revolution does business coaching for gym owners and that's one-on-one business coaching, but offers a peer advisory board as well.
But we did a study from 2018 to 2020 and the members of the peer groups outperformed the non-members of peer groups. People were only getting one-on-one coaching by 3X. So people who had a one-on-one coach and were a member of the group for fitness revolution were growing at 19 % per quarter. And people who were only getting one-on-one coaching.
We're growing at 6 % per quarter, which is not bad, but it just shows you the difference of those
Vistage says that during 20, 20, their members reported that annual revenues grew by 4.6 % and that non-members reported a 4.7 % revenue decrease.
And that's during COVID.
So that's a big deal. Being a part of solid, structured, the right groups, it works. Because you're getting access to speed, like you solve problems faster, you avoid problems, you get solutions.
But you can get to it so much faster when you're in these groups because the peers have almost certainly all either face the challenge that you're currently facing or are facing the same challenge that you're currently facing. So there's that familiarity that they can tell you like, here are the symptoms, here's what we did and it didn't work, here's what we did that did work. And you can go make a decision. They can tailor their guidance.
to you because they know more about you. It's not just a stranger who's giving you this insight. You get to know one another and you have this level of trust where you can speak more candidly.
you get to know one another so well, there's this understanding and trust that you're gonna able to challenge one another, to inspire one another, to motivate each other and give like the honest candid feedback. These peers are gonna help each other like think bigger. That's another major, major benefit is putting you around people who are gonna say like, what if you, what if there's more to it than that? What if the potential is even bigger than you think? Because
You don't hear that from many people. You definitely don't hear it from many people who are qualified to help you figure it out. So these groups I mentioned, Vistage, EO, YPO, there's a list. I'll put them in the show notes. Again, this is one of the best decisions I've ever made. One thing to be clear, so I call it a peer advisory.
board or peer advisory group. But that's not the same thing as a board of directors. A board of directors would have probably some fiduciary responsibility. It's probably more of a formal connection to the business. That's a different thing. Their job might be to hold the owner, the CEO accountable, hire, fill that position, fire that position, whatever.
Can you be a part of multiple peer groups like this at the same time? I mean, you can, you may not need to. If you get in a good one, I don't think you need to because it can be a lot
I think you need to be in a group for probably at least six months before you can make an assessment as to whether or not it's gonna work for you. But
I think the right group, one group works. If you think you need multiple groups, you're probably not getting all the juice out of the current group that you're in, or that group is not capable of giving you all the juice. So I would be looking, seeing how I can get more juice out of that squeeze before I went to another option.
Nick Berry (22:22)
And another thing about these groups is they're gonna have a facilitator or a guide or there's gonna be someone who is, they're not the same as that one-on-one individualized coach, but they are going to have that expertise. So they may not be dedicated exclusively to you, but they are a valuable, valuable so someone like Steve McFarland who was a guest on the show, Steve is a chair.
of a Vistage group that I was a member of. That's how I know him. And he's still, you know, it's been a few years since I moved away from there, but he's still someone that I will talk to anytime I get an opportunity because he's so insightful.
Nick Berry (23:00)
So to kind of bring all of this full circle between the one-on-one coach, being a part of a larger community, and then having the smaller, more intimate peer advisory group, like that is a really well-rounded support system that's gonna address needs on multiple levels. pulling that support system together, you have to treat that as if it's your responsibility. Those things aren't gonna fall into place for you on their own.
You have to see it as your responsibility. You have to make it a priority to build and invest in that support system. So rather than feeling like you need to just go figure out what that support system should look like, I'm telling you, like, this is where I would start. And if I was starting from scratch right now today, then the first thing that I'm doing, go join like the larger community because it's so easy. The barrier entry is, it's so easy to find solutions like that.
But at the same time, I'm starting to look for my one-on-one coach. And I've also got my ear to the ground on the peer advisory group, but my priority would be the one-on-one coach.
Each one of those is going to play its own role over time. You don't have to get them in place right now, but I would treat it as though like, know I'm going to have to get these. So I need to be, it's like hiring. I need to be filling these roles and as part of my my leadership org chart as I go starting now, if you make it a priority, it'll pay off. I mean, you've heard me talk about it and there are too many of my guests have said the same things like,
This is where the good ones spend money. It's getting answers faster, moving faster, avoiding problems, not figuring it all out on their own, not doing it the hard way. Because that's the slow and expensive and painful way.
Alright, that's a wrap on the three pillars. Let me know what you think.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
