Navigating the Sea of Advice: How Do You Keep Your Business on Course?

Getting advice about your business can sometimes feel like you’re all at sea, surrounded by well-meaning views and opinions, but never quite sure which of them will help you stay afloat. 

This is a particular risk in today’s uncertain economic climate, where the stakes are high, and a poor decision can lead to costly mistakes.

But at the same time, as business growth coaches, we see examples every day of how the right advice can propel companies forward and set them on a course to success.

So, with your hand on your business’s tiller, how do you understand exactly where to moor up for reliable and constructive guidance, and where it’s better to just sail on by?

Business advice: a moving feast

Reliable business advice is often the result of consulting a variety of sources, each of which has its own strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. It’s the shape of this combination that will often determine the overall quality of the advice obtained.

From professional mentors, coaches, and consultants to online forums, industry peers, and more, each source has its own value, but not all value is created equal - especially if what’s at stake (hopefully not!) is the future of your business.

Here’s a quick look at your options.

Professional consultants and advisors

This category typically includes the most reliable sources of business advice – experts who possess the qualifications and experience necessary to offer informed opinions, strategic insight, and even regulatory guidance.

Financial advisors, business consultants, and legal experts all come under this banner. They keep up with market trends, regulatory changes, and the latest in industry best practices, making them an invaluable ally when taking complex decisions that have potentially high-stakes consequences.

Google is awash with these kinds of advisors, so your local Chamber of Commerce (ours is here) is often a better place to both start and narrow down your search. 

Industry peers and networking groups

Speaking to people who have gone through similar experiences to you is obviously a useful way, potentially, of gleaning sensible-sounding advice. 

But whilst advice from industry peers can be both relevant and situation-specific, it can also be highly subjective, based on narrow personal interpretation, and skewed by dissimilar contexts.

Networking groups and industry associations, on the other hand, can be excellent sources for peer advice, as they typically offer a broader spectrum of experiences and solutions. Networking groups, in particular, often count one or more business coaches or mentors amongst their number, so you can combine peer input with more specialist dialogue.

Online platforms and social media

Online forums, social media platforms, and business blogs all offer a plethora of advice that can be accessed quickly and at little or no cost. 

But while this can be a boon for resource-strapped startups, it also comes with risks. The quality of advice found online can vary significantly (there is no external approval process for it!) and it's often difficult to verify the credentials of those offering guidance.

One clue, particularly on a business-focused platform like LinkedIn, is to look at who’s following the advisor in question. A large number of followers from entrepreneurial or startup backgrounds, or indeed business advisory disciplines, bodes well for credibility.

Targeting the right advisors

Engaging with the right advisors starts with being realistic about the specialism of the advice you’re seeking.

A general accountant, for instance, will inevitably know about tax, but they won’t know anything as like as much about your specific tax issue as a specialist tax advisor will.

Similarly, whilst a business coach will likely be able to help you with strategy, growth, and business exit, they probably won’t be able to help you with things like business-critical personal behaviours and mindset development, unless they’re also qualified as a business mentor.

Evaluating the quality of advice

Credentials and track record play a big part in selecting a business advisor of any kind. You need to know that the advisor has delivered positive outcomes for clients.

To this end, book a consultation, and quiz the advisor about their client list, and any client testimonials or case studies they can point you to.

As for the advice itself, always consider the advisor’s motivation for providing it. Are they using it primarily to sell a service (or upsell you to additional services) or genuinely trying to solve your issue? This can obviously influence the advice they give and its applicability to your situation.

And don’t be afraid to get a second opinion, or even multiple other perspectives. Those peers and networking contacts you’ve connected to, for example, may well proffer enough different perspectives between them to highlight the value or otherwise of the advice given.

So what do you do now?

The advice (and advisors) you choose to follow can significantly impact the trajectory of your business, and in challenging economic times it’s much more difficult to come back from a bad judgement call.

Using the guidance in this post, critically evaluate where your advice is coming from, and be sure that it is tailored to your business’s needs and your specific situation as a business owner.  

There’ll always be a sea of advice out there. A wise captain knows more than one anchorage to head for, as well as those to avoid.