Benefits of a board for your company

At our annual GROW! Conference in Tampa this year, we were fortunate enough to have Clay Mathile, former owner of Iams, join us for our keynote session. A resident of my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, Clay purchased the now well-known pet food company for $1.2 million in 1982 and 17 years later sold it to Procter & Gamble for $2.3 billion. He was the only shareholder.

One of the lessons Clay shared with us is the unique value having a board can provide business owners, no matter the size of the company.

Now, for many of us, the notion of a board conjures up images of Fortune 500 companies, men in suits and heated discussions about shareholder value. It can be hard to imagine what a board could do for a small, privately held landscaping company, or to think you have the time or the resources to build one.

But as Clay likes to say, “If you ran a popcorn stand on the corner of Third and Main in Dayton, Ohio, I would still suggest that you have an outside board.” In the months since GROW!, we’ve received a lot of questions about this topic, so I want to share with you my own thoughts and what’s worked for me.

Read more in our August Issue.