If you ever meet a successful person in life, you will notice they are accompanied by a host of advisors- lawyers, accountants, financers- and have access to a wide variety of other successful people. After all, success breeds success and what’s the best way to achieve your goals but to hang out with people who inspire you to do better (a little friendly competition never hurt anyone). Take for example Indra Nooyi, president of PepsiCo- not only is the Board of Directors of Pepsi a who’s who of the international business community but she speaks with the 3 former CEO’s of Pepsi daily- unheard of in the business world where departing CEO’s rarely gives the new CEO the time of day (see how Jack Welsh treats the current CEO of GE).

For us mere mortals who do not have Pepsi’s bank account to find (or pay for) good advisors for our own personal finance, small business or life issues, where do we go to build an advisory board (whether formal or informal) to give us the best advice possible and who do we pick to be our advisors?

I know most of my colleagues in the blogsphere are either raging DIY er’s or slanted towards the DIY side but, as someone who’s worth was once measured by the billable hours, you begin to prioritize tasks that will yield you the most bang for the buck and delegate what you do not know or do not have time to know to others. Or, to quote the business saying, sell what you are good at and buy what you are not.  It is very rare to be good at many different things. Take the time to be great at one and then pipe in the talent on other aspects.

Some of you may think: “I don’t have the money to hire advisors!” You don’t have to. You would be shocked how few people are asked to give advice to people on a volunteer basis and how receptive they are to the offer someone who is genuine and eager for advice. I was asked this week to attend a dinner where someone I had not spoken to in over 6 months was canvassing advice on an idea he had. I was honored he actually asked me and said yes immediately. Most people want to help others but are rarely asked; its a sad statement on our society that we think of ourselves as islands on our own and not members of a community. Those who greedily look out for themselves are those who wouldn’t be a good fit anyways. As a caveat though- be reasonable, be respectful and honor their time; there’s a difference between asking for advice and getting someone to work for free (the fine line with me is whether I feel like I am being used then disposed of… we are all human).

The question becomes- HOW do you look for a good people to be your advisors? There are two things to keep in mind. First, I deliberately shy away from putting in my inner circle people on my “payroll” as paid advisors. Certainly, I pay them to do whatever they have to do but for the big decisions in money or life, I ask for their advice but vet it with someone else in the inner circle (except for extremely technical questions of course). Why do I do this? If they are on payroll, their context to you is different; they want to help you BUT as a client whereas a good advisor will help you because they like you as a person; money and professional liability concerns color the advice given (trust me, I was a lawyer…).

The second thing I do is reach outside my immediate circle. It is hard to give honest advice to a good friend- too much politics involved and someone always pulls out the “well, remember when you were 18 and drunk…” card. All of my close advisors have become friends but they didn’t start out that way. At first, they had a sufficient personal distance to give good advice without worrying whether I would be mad at them for their candor and not have beers with them Saturday night. Even after we became friends, we had set the expectation that honest advice should keep coming. One of my best advisors I met completely randomly through an association. In other words, start networking away in circles different than yours where people have experienced success.

WHO do you look for? The standard answers in personal finance and entrepreneurial publications is to focus on skill-set. Find a lawyer, an accountant, a tech person etc. etc. I find this to be generally bad advice. Remember that good advice is about solving problems and no one skill-set has a monopoly on that. I know literally hundreds of lawyers; I can count on both my hands the true problem solvers in that bunch. Getting a lawyer on your advisory board means nothing if all they do is tell you the 18 ways you can’t do something rather than the ways you can. As another example, some of the best financial advice I receive are from various bloggers many of whom I have never emailed or spoken to and, as far as I know, most do not have the multiple designations a “professional” investment advisor has. They figured “it” out about money and write passionately about it.

Instead, I take this approach on finding who would be good advisors:

1. Find someone who has achieved success in life multiple times. I leave the definition of “success” to you but the key is that they were successful more than once (once is an accident; twice is a pattern). It takes a lot of hard-work, dedication, savvy and street-smarts to be successful- not necessarily a lot of degrees. Someone who has been successful displays these characteristics. The other factor is that if this person is a “level” or two about you, it can motivate you to reach upward.
2. Find problem-solvers. Sounds simple doesn’t it? But think about work when the you know what hits the fan. How many of your co-workers start pointing fingers, complaining, panicking etc. I bet you its a lot more than those who take the bull by the horns and just fix the problem. You ask for advice because you have a problem. You don’t want people to tell you all the things you did wrong, how the situation will only get worse etc. You want some possible solutions to mull over. I have an advisor who has that all-knowing but humble Mom quality to her. Her advice always starts off with “well, why don’t you try this….”
3. Find people who you relate with. You want differ viewpoints but you want to be able to relate to the person too on a personal level. Most of my advisors share a similar context as I do (grew up in hard-working, middle-class families that stressed education). There is something to be said for sharing the same set of life values even if we all come from different viewpoints.

WHEN do you meet your advisors? Depends on your personality. I hate formality and small talk. Most of my “meetings” are not really meetings but casual situations where I start a conversation. For example, I play poker with a lot of guys who are successful in their respective fields. Before we have too many beverages, the quality of advice given on business and personal situations is astounding but no one ever thinks of this as an advisory board meeting in the conventional sense of word; in fact, my advisory board is not so much a board but a collection of people who I speak to regularly. Find a situation which suits you best. The key is to keep the dialogue going.

WHAT do you talk about? Anything at all. Be honest and open. That is the only real rule of asking for advice. Lawyers always ask their clients “is there anything else you need to tell me?” to ensure their advice captures all available information on hand. BE SURE TO LISTEN THOUGH and not to shoot down the idea immediately out of hand.

It can be tough to find some true, faithful and prudent advisors. But its well worth having them in your life. Good luck.