Want a Board Seat? Forget Applications – Here's to Create Your Own Instead

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James, your host. And today we're going to talk to a serial entrepreneur, a good friend of long standing who's based in Singapore. And he's written a book about boardroom positions because apparently quite a few of us should be on boards, but we're not. And Callum's written a book that's going to explain why we should be on a board, but also how to get onto a board and the difference it can make to your career and to your well-being as an entrepreneur. Callum Lung's joining us today from sunny Singapore. Callum, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jim. It's nice to be back because it's my second time, so I'm deeply honored.

Well, honestly, I keep having you back because you keep adding a huge amount of value. In fact, Callum, yeah, is in the first, uh, sort of tranche of interviews from the Unnoticed Entrepreneur show, and he's actually also featured in, in the volume of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur book, uh, talking about how he's managed to get his businesses noticed. So yeah, it's great to have you back. And you've, you've managed to introduce this new book. It's called The Boardroom Blueprint. Tell us about the role of a, of a boardroom advisor and why it makes a difference to an entrepreneur to be one, and, and I guess the other question is, why would you do it when you're so focused on your own business? The last thing in the world you can think about is helping someone else with theirs, Callum.

Yeah, so look, I think boards are this kind of weird enigma that everyone kind of thinks, when I'm older, I'll sit on a board and it sounds like a good thing to do. But actually, there's very little information out there, like, what is actually happening on these boards and how do you get on these boards? And it kind of sounds cool, but nobody really knows what it is or what goes on. And I, through my sort of entrepreneurial journey and being in the public markets for the last 10 years, I've been sat on lots of boards and ended up advising lots of boards and hiring board members and firing a few board members. I realized that there's a lot of people that are on boards that probably shouldn't be on boards. And there's a lot of very talented people that are being overlooked for boards because they weren't the right gender, they didn't look the right way, they hadn't gone to the right schools. And that was really frustrating to me. And so I realized that over my sort of 20 years or 25 years now of being an entrepreneur, I had kind of used informal advisory boards. And one of the things in terms of kind of entrepreneurs is I've always encouraged every startup that I've ever advised to build an advisory board before they do anything else. Like, it gives you so much credibility. And it also gives you some accountability. Now, one of the things that's exciting about being an entrepreneur is you don't have to answer to anyone, except of course you do. You have to answer to everyone. And having an advisory board can make a huge difference to your own career trajectory. But on the other side of that, I discovered, I remember being really frustrated as an entrepreneur, like you're stuck in your own business. Everybody else's business looks like it works really well, right? You know that your business is held together with masking tape and chicken wire. And there was times when I just would have just loved to have gone and had a peek into somebody else's business, how it was run. And when I started sitting on boards, I kind of got that overview. And I actually became, by sitting on other boards and helping other companies, I became a much better entrepreneur. I kind of, A, I got to meet these incredible people that were also sitting on the boards with me. But B, I got to see, okay, look, I'm not the only person having these problems. And by the way, other people have already figured out how to solve this. I can take that and use that in my companies. So I actually think it's an incredibly, like, yeah, there's huge earning potential, there's uncapped earning potential as well. But let's take all of that aside. I think there's huge value in entrepreneurs, both adding boards to their own companies, but sitting on other people's boards as well.

And Callum, you know, for many of us, we've been involved in groups like EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization that's had peer group masterminds, which have been kind of an informal advisory group. But the structure of a board, of course, gives some degree of accountability and regularity as well, doesn't it? Let's first of all take the individual that would like to add value to another company because the other dimension is you need a board yourself. But let's in this particular context and in your book, you're really talking about how an individual can take up a role as a board advisor.

Yeah.

What qualifications would one need? Because, you know, I myself, I applied on, on a platform called New Role, and my background of running sort of multiple businesses in multiple countries didn't seem to, didn't seem to fit. No, I, I didn't have a sort of a corporate enough background, it seemed, to fulfill that kind of role. So do you want to just explode some myths about who can be on an advisory board. And then we're going to talk about why from a time and money perspective, people might want to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. So look, first of all, so basically, about 18 months ago, I set up a program to help women, minorities, and first-timers to get board seats. And so for the last 18 months, I've been training people how to apply what I'd kind of learned. And I think we had, within 3 or 4 months, or maybe it's 5 months of joining the program, 60% of people had got board seats. And one of the core criteria that we have is never apply for a board position. And part of that is Look, I think part of it is that I'm an entrepreneur. And so just the idea of putting my future in the hands of someone in HR really makes me—

Yeah, you stepped out of that a long time ago, didn't you? Yeah.

So, so I, and I wasn't, no, just very few people get hired to a board position because they've applied through formal channels. That's just not how board positions work. Look, when you see an advert out there, it tends to be they've already made the decision, but they have to appease someone in HR. So the advert goes out, or it's a recruitment company that's just fishing for CVs. And I'm sorry that you weren't the successful applicant, but by the way, if you've got a wanted job, we've got XYZ. So we say, look, never apply for a board position. There's 330 million companies in the world, less than 1% of them actually have a board. So, despite the fact we're saying how valuable it is to have people that hold you accountable and that can bounce ideas off, less than 1% of them have. And most of us, when we think about boards, we think about Apple or Facebook or, you know, Esso, whatever those are. And by the way, nothing in my book can teach you to jump onto those boards. I don't know how to get onto those boards. What I'm talking about is getting on the bottom of the rung, starting with smaller companies, building your way up. Because one of the sort of fundamental arguments is, well, you haven't got experience, you haven't got board experience, so we can't put you on the board. It's like being a teenager again and being told you can't get a job because you haven't got experience. Like, it's frustrating. So what we get our members to do and what I advise in the book is, A, think outside of your local neighborhood, because in your local neighborhood, you've got, you're not different from everyone else that's looking for board seats. Internationally, there's a whole bunch of companies out there that are thinking about expanding into your country. And to them, you've got unique knowledge and you've got unique contacts. And regardless of what your career is or your industry is or how much management experience, you add value like that. Now, if they haven't got a board and you offer to help create a board for them, you can then go and reach out to 4 or 5 cool people that you want to connect with and say, hey, I'm putting together a board for this company. It's informal. We're just going to meet once a month. There's no— you're not going to get paid, but this is just an opportunity for some experience to connect with people. There's no risk. There's no legal obligations there. So it's incredible. You now have become incredibly valuable to that company because you've pulled this together. It's also a great excuse to meet some brilliant people and you can add value. And by default, you've kind of got your board position. And even though at a very basic level, all you're actually doing is meeting with the CEO for coffee once a month to ask them some questions about your business, If you update your LinkedIn profile and say, I meet for coffee once a month, nobody's particularly impressed. If you update your LinkedIn profile and say, I now sit on the board of advisors for XYZ company, what happens is your network goes loopy and goes, wow, that's incredible. I didn't know you were interested in that. Let me introduce you to this person. And it happens over and over again. Our members update their profile with their first board seat and suddenly people are reaching out and going, oh, I didn't know you were even thinking about that. Have you spoken to this guy? So it's incredibly effective. And And what we're trying to do is get into that inner circle. And so that's kind of the first step.

Alan, that's really, really useful, though you did mention something in there that we should just clarify. You said it'll be a free position. And if you've got your own company, there's an opportunity cost. Most of us are desperately trying to figure out the winning, the delivering, the managing of our own businesses. Are you recommending then that people should offer their services for free to a company that in effect should be making money as a result of your involvement?

So what I do is I recommend starting the conversation about, I'm going to set this up as a free advisory board to give you value. There's a— first of all, you're not actually giving it away for free. You're giving it away for credibility because now you're sat on a board of advisors. Now you've got that update on your LinkedIn profile. It's now much easier to talk to so many other boards in a way that when you applied, they looked at you and saw you didn't have any board experience, therefore it's too hard to get you on board, whereas now you've got that board experience. So it's not for free, it's for credibility. The second piece is that if you know how to add value, and again, in the book, I talk about how you add value, a couple of things happen. First of all, that company, you're only committing to 1 or 2 hours a month. But if you start adding value, that company is going to say, hey, look, could you come in and talk to the team for half a day? And you say, well, that's a little bit outside of scope, but I'll do it for XYZ. Or you can— I'll give you a great example. We had— I do a webinar on this and I got a— somebody reached out to me, a guy called Keith reached out to me in the US after watching the webinar. He said, look, absolutely fantastic. I'm 70 years old. I think I might be a bit too old for this game. And I said, no, no, absolutely. Like, yeah, let's have a chat. And he was an entrepreneur who was retired and he wanted to give back. And I said, okay, he joined the program, went through, started actually blogging about it on LinkedIn. Every week he talked about his, what he was learning and the progress. Within 3 months, he had joined the advisory boards of 3 different small businesses. And in each one, he said to them, look, I'm happy to work for free. But if I bring in connections or investors or revenue that takes you from here to here, I want either a slice of that, a slice of the equity or a cash bonus. And in all cases, the founders were like, yeah, absolutely. Why wouldn't I if you can do that? Now, in one particular case, it was an F&B business in Switzerland. He's in the US. And so he did this proposal. They said yes. He said, let me introduce you to my best friend since school days, who's the head of a massive F&B business in the US and looking for a distribution partner in Europe. That deal alone will be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to Keith for doing that. What was interesting about that, so 3 months, he's sitting on 3 advisory boards. In the 4th month, somebody reaches out to him from, I won't use a name, but it was an S&P 500 company. Says, hey, we've seen your posts on LinkedIn. We'd like to invite you to join our board or to interview for our board. Now, it wasn't the main board, but it was like the second tier of boards that they have in this S&P 500. They interviewed him. They offered him a job for $168,000 a year to sit on their board. And he turned them down because he was having too much fun with the small businesses. And that was like literally 4 months from joining the program to doing it. It's just, and he had all the knowledge, he had all the networks. But it just switched the way he looked at things.

Callum, that's great. And I'll have to talk to Keith and see if that role is still in the offing. Maybe I can help him get into the UK. Okay, well, we'll talk. You've got a program and we can perhaps talk about that in a little while. What are some of the components that someone needs in order to be a good board advisor? You talked about the kind of the activity of going out and offering to set that up and in Keith's position, you know, helping to connect. But what about some of the components? Because many people haven't structured how they appear, you know, and the show's about getting noticed. They haven't structured how they appear as a director, but maybe as a founder or as a CEO or as an entrepreneur, very different.

Yeah, absolutely. So we, we have 5 components that we take all people through, and they're not sequential. There are 5 components that will get you to that board of advisors position and then take you up to board apprentice and then take you up to an actual board seat. So, and you kind of repeat through them. So the first one is connections. And as you know, my first book, Progressive Partnerships, was all about how do you create enough value to get people into your network. Most of us are pretty organic with the way we build our networks. It's not very deliberate. So one of the first things we have our guests doing or our members doing is actually reaching out to business owners, reaching out to directors, reaching out to investors, and starting to have those conversations. Second piece is knowledge, but it's not— a lot of people kind of think, well, look, I've got 20 years of supply chain management. I could be I could advise your board on that. That's not what the board needs. That's a consultant that the company needs. The board needs to be thinking about stakeholders. So don't worry about your current career. You need to start thinking about what are the stakeholders of a company? What does a board actually need at different stages? And you don't need to be an expert in this sort of stuff, but it's really understanding the difference between shareholder value and client value. And most entrepreneurs are obsessed with client value. But actually, you need to start thinking about shareholder value and when you sit on the board. So just a basic knowledge around that kind of piece. The third one is profile, and exactly right. Most of us, if we're an employee, generally we haven't done anything on our profile because it's only needed internally. If we're an entrepreneur, we've built our profile hopefully around our business and how we do that. So it's not about getting rid of your profile and saying, hey, now I want to be a board director. It's about taking what you've got and looking at the intersection of how you can start to add value to boards. And that's why getting your first board advisory position is so important because it completely changes you from Sarah, the IT professional, to Sarah, the IT professional and board member. And that's a very big jump. And look, We advise all of our members to do podcasts because it's a great way for them to build their profile. People sit and listen to you and what you're up to, how you can add value. We do media profiles for them as well. So, and Veblen Director Program, which is our business on LinkedIn, 3 times a day, they put out 3 different stories about or repost or make some comments on those so that when somebody looks at your profile, You're not just talking about PR or IT or supply chain management. There's a few little bits around there about governance or ESG or investor relations or something like that. So make it as easy as possible. So those are the first 3. And those 3 are really about how you get the board seats. As you discover in the book, it's actually relatively easy to go out and get those first board seats. You don't want to be a bad board member. There's enough bad board members out there. So the next piece is really around how you add value. And like I said, most people don't understand it's not about them. It's really about understanding what the needs of the business are and creating value there. And I give the example. So a lot of people think, okay, the definition of a good board member. They've got 30 years PLC experience. They've got all the certificates. They know the legals and all that sort of stuff. And the example I give in the book is, imagine if you're a startup and you're looking for investing and you find an investor and the investor says, you know what, I'll write you a check for $10 million, but I want to put someone on the board to look after my interests. Yeah, absolutely. Of course. And you go into that first board meeting and there's a 10-year-old girl sitting on an iPad At the end of the room. And who's that? That's his board representative. Well, that person is the most valuable board member at the table. They've got no experience, they've got no certificates, they're not well connected, they don't have the knowledge, but they're still the most valuable board member because if you piss them off, you lose your $10 million in funding. So understanding what the pressure points are and how you create value, just like You know, when we talk about international exposure or who you are, your industry knowledge or your connections in the company, those could be your value points. So understanding value is really key. And then the final one is leverage. We don't want to be a board advisor for the rest of our lives. We want to leverage that up either to take that company to the next level and grow with them, because the bigger the market cap, the bigger your salary and opportunities, basically. Or we say, look, that was a stepping stone. And one of our mantras is every role you take is just a stepping stone to the next one. So you get that, you do that for a year, but at the same time, you're already applying to be an apprentice for a publicly listed company. And once you start doing that, you go up to the real one. So those are the 5 components and you just loop through those over and over again.

Yeah, Callum, so that's a couple of things in there for me, really, really important. One is that you understand that you're adding shareholder value, not acting as a consultant providing product value, right? You're not then giving your time for free for something that they would pay a salary for, right? You're creating a quantum strategic change in the business, a business introduction, for example, or even a strategic insight. And the other point that you've raised, I mean, there are 5 great ones, but the other one It's about a term that you're not locking yourself in. You have a duration for this agreement. Does one need a specific template document-wise? Because you're starting to advise, starting to get people involved, that creates some responsibility, maybe some liability, some risk. So Callum Lang, how do you handle that documentation part?

With your legal hat on. Look, the way I frame it is for the board of advisors, you want it to be as informal as possible. And in fact, when you're talking to the founder, you're going to say, look, this is going to— this is nothing to worry about. This is going to be informal. This is basically, it's a virtual coffee. We're going to find out what your hopes and dreams are. I'm going to ask you some questions if I can introduce you to some people. So it's super, super informal. And what that does Is it also takes the pressure off you because a lot of people think, well, board of advisors, I don't know how to advise a startup or a new company or a restaurant. I don't know. And the point is actually the best advisors give the least advice. They just ask good questions. And that's what we say. You're not going in there. We don't want you creating any harm either, because a lot of people will kind of go, all right, I've been in HR for 20 years. The first thing you need to do is do an HR manual, and I can help you with that, which would kill any startup, right? It's not valuable. But asking them what they're going to have achieved in 90 days and how they're going to get there and who they're looking for, potential partners that I might be able to introduce you to. Uh, you know, what team members you're looking for that I might know and might be able to introduce you, or what investors I might know. That's the value add.

Okay, that's wonderful.

And, and as you say, then this is basically keep it informal, like an email outlining this is the idea is more than enough.

Okay, that's wonderful. And then, as you say, as it's informal, then it graduates slowly as you add value. But as you say, you're not trying to rescue the company, you're really helping the founders maybe learn and have maybe see some of the blind spots because as entrepreneurs and founders, companies often are missing something that you might have that insight, especially if you've got a network or you're established as well. Callum, you've talked about the reward being credibility, but there is a time commitment. From a monetary point of view, you've mentioned about Keith sort of managing to parlay that into something. Should people have an ambition for a board position of making money, or do you really see it as part of an overall strategy to build one's profile and to get ahead in kind of other ways?

So look, I used to get, I still get more often than I should, people approaching me on LinkedIn, sending me messages. Saying things like, I'm getting to the end of my career. I don't want to work as hard. I don't want to work as long hours, but I want to be well paid. Can I have a board seat with you? And I would go, wow, somebody lazier than me. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Like, it's the worst pitch ever, but it's amazing how many people think like, well, that's Why wouldn't they want me? I don't want to work. Like, that's what boards do, isn't it? It's just old people sitting around having cups of tea. So look, I think if you go into it with this idea of I'm going to make money, that becomes all about you. If you go into it with the idea of Hey, look, I want to figure out how I can add value. I want to understand this process. I want to be sitting on 2 or 3 boards so that I can share insights. I can share, like I can meet investors here and take them over here. That's really valuable. And there's no reason why you shouldn't be getting well rewarded for doing that. But you don't go into the conversation going, I want to be well rewarded for this. We're entrepreneurs. deliver value and then we get compensated for it. And I think that, that mind shift alone makes a massive difference. And, and there's tons of, like, there's literally, it's unlimited how much money you can make once you sit in this because, and this is like the value of the Bevelin community is, you know, we've got 60, 70 people sitting on boards all around the world. Now, if we want to start doing M&A between some of those companies, you can create like 2 plus 2 equals 20. Like it's, you know, there's lots of opportunities and directors can slice themselves into some of those things. And, and, you know, people say, well, what about conflict of interest? At a public company level, you have to declare all public, all conflicts of interest. Even at a private company, you should declare conflicts of interest. But It doesn't mean that they're wrong. Like you can quite easily say, hey, look, I'm sitting on this board. I'm sitting on this board. I think it would make sense for both of these companies to merge. And if I help put this together and create a $100 million company, I would like to have 2% of that company. And if both parties think that's a good transaction, let's do the deal. And bang, you've got $2 million worth of equity.

Callum, um, so as always, you, you know how to create value from, from nothing but from networks and building businesses. It's incredible. I love, love having these conversations with you. They're really, really inspiring. And well, unfortunately we haven't got too long, but you have mentioned this Veblen community. And Veblen, I think, originally means, uh, that something has a perceived value, you know, and the higher the perceived value is attached to the price, right? So if something's charged, someone charges a lot for something, then the perceived value is that it must be good. So, and that's, you know, we use that in marketing Morgan cars in China. We priced them high because the perceived value then was high. Tell us about how people can find out more about you and this Veblen community, Callum Lang.

Yeah, so the Veblen Director Program, Probably the best place is to look on LinkedIn or do a Google search for Vetland Director Program. There's tons and tons of free content out there. Obviously the book, I take all the lessons that we've learned from all of our members going through it. Really what I'm trying to do is obviously within the program, there's a lot of knowledge and there's a lot of experts I bring in to talk about different areas, especially once you get into the PLC. world. But the real value is the community, you know, just being able to say, okay, so I know this F&B company here and this guy's sitting on a company over here and this guy's connected to this investor over here and this one's got this group of investors. And that is hugely, hugely valuable because it's also when you then go and talk to a company about potentially sitting on their board, they're not just getting you, they're getting the community behind you. And so Yeah, look, I guess have a look at that and love to talk to you there. But also, I'll do a deal with so that your members can get a free copy of the book as well.

Wonderful. Yeah, we're going to do that just at the end. But before that, Callum, I am going to ask you for the number one mistake that people make when it comes to approaching the board position. Just tell us that. And then we're going to ask you for your number one tip. As well. So what's the number one mistake people make?

So I think that the number one mistake is, is they're applying for board positions as they would for a job. And, and they think it's about them and, and they don't really know what a board is looking for or how to have a conversation around that. So I think that's, that's probably the number, number one mistake.

Okay, and I think, and you've addressed that about mindset as well, about shareholder value rather than about sort of product development and sales. So that's wonderful, you've articulated that really clearly. Number one tip, Callum, I mean, you've got so much experience. You're based in Singapore, but I know you've got global reach. What's your number one tip to anyone that's thinking about becoming a board member?

So I think Thinking globally is a, yeah, I just think everyone should be thinking globally. Like, you know, most board meetings happen by Zoom now, so you can be anywhere in the world and your own neighborhood can be incredibly valuable to someone. So I think that that's probably the key thing. But if I'm allowed to, I would then say, think in terms of creating a board rather than applying for a board seat. I never applied for a board seat.

Well, people come to you, Callum, I think, and approach you to be on their board. So you're at that level. Callum, you're learned. You've written— this is your second book. We're going to put a link. Also your fourth book. Sorry, I'm getting corrected.

His fourth book.

So prolific author as well. A book or a podcast that you would recommend? You're not allowed to have one of mine, although you kindly offered to reference one of my books, but that wouldn't seem right. If there's a book you could recommend to me and my fellow unnoticed entrepreneur, what would it be?

So I think in terms of a really useful one for thinking like, thinking in terms of shareholder value rather than client value, Daniel Priestley's 24 Assets is a really good book. And it's one of those books that you can use to add enormous value to boards that you sit on because you can kind of take them through the assets in the to be building up to add value.

Okay, that's one of it. And he's written so many wonderful books himself. I've lost track of how many, but each one seems to be a bestseller. So he's prolific as well. Callum, if people want to find out more about you and the Boardroom Blueprint, where can they go?

So the book itself, we'll put together a link specifically for you. Which will be a variation on that site. So right now, before the book launch, you can actually get a free copy in return for a social media post. But yeah, so boardroom-blueprint.com is the best place. And then if you want to connect with me, reach out on LinkedIn, make sure you put a message in the comments mentioning Jim or Unnoticed, and I'll connect with you. But yeah, that's the best way.

Great, Callum. And presumably don't send any messages saying, I'm retiring and I'd like to make a lot of money. What board positions can you give me? Callum, thanks.

They won't listen to that.

Yeah, they've missed part of the key parts of the talk today. Callum, thanks for coming, not for the first, but for the second time. Hopefully this will become a more frequent occurrence, you and I having these conversations. I love them. Thank you.

Sure, Matt, it's been a pleasure.

So we've been listening to Callum Lang, and that's L-A-I-N-G, by the way, if you're looking for Callum. And I'll put, of course, his details in the show notes. And becoming a board member is something that many of us haven't thought about. We didn't have a chance to talk about creating a board, and that may be a time to have Callum back to talk about that. But playing a role on other people's company boards is a great way to learn as an entrepreneur, different ways of doing things, get insights, but also to build those valuable connections to help your own business, especially if you find companies that would add value to your own to be a board member on rather than just finding one that just seems convenient. Find one that would be a strategic value to you as well. So thank you very much to Callum for joining us. And thank you for joining me again on the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Show. And until we meet again, I just do encourage you to Keep on communicating.