Cultivating the Pipeline: Keys to Customer Advisory Board Recruiting

I have written about reciprocal value in previous posts, and one of the keys to a thriving customer advisory board that provides reciprocal value to both the members and the sponsoring company is a healthy membership base.  The sponsoring company receives strategic advice on products and services from trusted clients, and the members find value in the true peer connections advisory boards can provide.  While the client membership may be flourishing today, it is inevitable that an advisory board of 25 client members may lose members sporadically as executives depart from companies or change roles.  Thoughtful planning is required to ensure that you have a pipeline of quality candidates and a process in place to reach them.

Rigorous membership management is needed to track details such as industry, geography, and membership term lengths.  Doing this will provide a snapshot of when members may be departing from the group, as well as where you may have openings in certain industries or geographies.  A tracking process is especially important when the member vacancies are in niche industries or under-represented geographies, where it may be difficult to find the right candidates.

Once you know where the membership gaps will be, how do you go about identifying viable nominations?  Do you take a bottom-up approach or a top-down approach, or maybe a combination of the two?  In our work on executive-level customer advisory boards we have seen success (and challenges!) with both methods, and there is not one way to go about it.  If you try gathering potential nominations from the field but are coming up short, try the top-down approach and identify the “dream team” — if you could cherry pick members from the target industries and geographies for the board, who would they be?

In some cases, candidate identification is not the challenge.  Often times, the process falls down in the important vetting stage where a strong relationship is needed at the account team level and further up at the executive level.  In our experience, candidates with strong ties to a senior executive are more apt to engage on a customer advisory board than those that don’t have skin in the game with the company.  Once vetting is underway, consistent follow-up keeps the process moving forward to get to the end result of inviting the candidate and filling that board member seat.

Keeping the customer advisory board roster full takes time and work, but advance planning will ensure your board has a healthy and diverse membership that provides benefit to all.

Related Stories

Customer Advisory Boards: How Difficult Conversations Drive Change

Posted on 04.27.2023 by in Customer Advisory Boards

One of my first jobs out of university was working in the headquarters office of a local business with several locations. In this role, I worked closely with the customer service representatives, and we received feedback, questions, and  

Continue Reading »

Putting the Peer in Client Engagement

Posted on 03.6.2023 by in Customer Advisory Boards, Featured, Understanding the C-Suite

In this era of social connectedness, opinions and input from peers are of paramount importance to driving buying decisions and the adoption of new enterprise products and services. In working with executive engagement programs, the power of peer  

Continue Reading »

Ramping up Customer Advisory Council Recruiting

Posted on 01.31.2023 by in Customer Advisory Boards, Featured

When the end of a calendar year closes, hand in hand come a number of retirements and role changes in the C-suite, which has an impact on Customer Advisory Council membership. While a number of open seats on your  

Continue Reading »

How to Make Working Groups Work For You

Posted on 12.8.2022 by in Customer Advisory Boards

Coming out of Customer Advisory Council meetings, there is generally a list of action items, and areas identified for further exploration. There are many ways to follow through, but one vehicle is invaluable when it comes to keeping  

Continue Reading »


Customer Advisory Boards

Customer Advisory Boards are powerful engines of engagement, insight, and business transformation. Make the most of yours.

Meeting Facilitation: Virtual and In-Person Boards » Taking Your Customer Advisory Board Meetings Virtual »

Learn More »

Engagement Strategy

Like any good relationship, customer engagement is a long-term, reciprocal effort. When done well, meaningful engagement leads to better business results, faster.

Engage Your Customers to Help You Stop Pitching » Getting to a Customer Engagement Mindset »

Learn More »

Understanding the C-Suite

Building C-level programs that are meaningful and bring value to you as well as to your c-suite customers is challenging. Veiled sales pitches won’t win the day with this audience. Deliver what executives want: ideas, inspiration, innovation, influence.

Building a C-Suite Client Experience Strategy » Do you Know What Your Customers Value? »

Learn More »