Marketing, advertising and business experts Lauren Fried and Toby Ralph have joined forces to set up Australia’s first Advisory Board Institute. Fried, the founder and MD of Pulse Marketing, and Ralph, who has run advertising agencies and worked on over 40 election campaigns, say their service will set up expert independent boards for small and medium-sized businesses.
“It’s a known fact that business owners who feel isolated or operate without advisors have thwarted growth while their business is building up operational, marketing and customer issues they don’t even know about,” said Fried, who started Pulse Marketing 13 years ago. “We wanted to provide expert independent advisory boards to small businesses, in order that their deep experience can be brought to bear on the issues, problems and opportunities that exist.”
Ralph said research from the University of Chicago showed “75 per cent of small business owners do not want to grow, and fewer than 8 per cent engage in innovation activities. The same could be said for Australia, had we even the research into this very important area and hence the federal government’s move to try to spark more innovation and collaboration in this country.”
“The executives we place are typically not available to small business, but their skills and experience can be leveraged as an advisory board, which is a fantastic resource for a management team to tap into.”
The Advisory Board Institute say a board could be useful in answering the following questions and goals:
Growth – Can the business grow profit without volume? How will competitors respond?
Operations – How can the business’ people become more effective?
Financing and structuring – Are the business structures optimised for a future sale?
Exits – What should be fixed before the sale process begins?
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