The Role of Marketing for Boards of Directors

By Kelly O'Brien
Posted Thursday, January 20, 2005

Small and emerging companies often do not put together a board of advisors or board of directors for many reasons. Some entrepreneurs believe that businessmen and women would not be willing to serve on their board of advisors for the little or no compensation that the new company can afford. Another reason small and emerging companies do not have boards of advisors is that often the entrepreneur does not want advice from others. In some extreme cases, entrepreneurs believe they do not need advice from others. GSI knows better.

GSI works with entrepreneurs, like Kelly O’Brien, President of TurningPointe Marketing, (www.turningpointemarketing.com), who has hired our firm to assist her in putting together a strong board of advisors to help her grow her company. Entrepreneurs like Kelly O’Brien are finding out that having a board of advisors for your company that meets regularly can pay huge dividends.

Beginning with its first meeting on November 18, 2004, Turning Pointe Marketing’s board of advisors consisting of 6-12 members will meet quarterly for one year to help expand the company’s business model. Currently the company provides intensive marketing clinics twice a month for its clients where Ms. O’Brien, in a classroom/boardroom environment, helps create marketing approaches for each of the company’s clients.

In the future, the Turning Pointe Marketing will greatly expand its use of technology, virtual classrooms and will be writing articles and books on marketing for a broad audience. The board of advisors will play an essential role in making this large-scale expansion of the offerings and media used by the company a reality within two years.

For more information on TurningPointe Marketing, contact Kelly O’Brien at kelly@turningpointemarketing.com. For more information on the services that GSI provides to help organizations create and manage boards of advisors and boards of directors, please contact Herb Rubenstein at herb@growth-strategies.com.

About the Author
(c) 2004 TurningPointe Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved. Marketing educator, Kelly O'Brien, is creator of the "Create a TurningPointe!" Marketing Bootcamp. To learn more about this step-by-step program, and to sign up for FREE how-to articles and 20-page marketing guide, visit (http://www.turningpointemarketing.com)