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Join us on Count Me In for an enlightening and engaging conversation with Callum Liang, author of "Boardroom Blueprint." In this episode, host Adam Larson sits down with Callum to uncover why accountants and business professionals should aim for board positions to supercharge their careers and personal growth.
Callum shares his insights on what companies look for in a stellar board member and reveals the real, often hidden, pathways to landing a board seat. From leveraging LinkedIn to setting up advisory boards, Callum offers practical advice on building a compelling personal profile and making valuable connections that can change the trajectory of your career.
Whether you’re an aspiring board member or simply looking to up your professional game, this episode is packed with actionable tips and authentic stories. Don’t miss out on the chance to learn from one of the best in the business. Be sure to check out Callum’s book and connect with him on LinkedIn after you listen!
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Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson. And today, we're thrilled to have Calum Liang, author of Boardroom Blueprint, with us. In this episode, we'll delve into how accountants and business professionals can transform their careers by joining boards. Calum explains why being on a board is more than a career boost.
Adam Larson:It's a path to personal and professional growth. We'll cover what makes a great board member, the importance of building a strong LinkedIn profile, and practical networking tips to secure your first board seat. So whether you're aspiring to elevate your career or curious about board dynamics, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Let's dive in. Well, Colin, we're so excited to have you on the Count Me In podcast today.
Adam Larson:And you're the author of a great book called, The Boardroom Blueprint. And, I thought it'd be great for us to kind of start out. Why is it so important for, accountants and business professionals to get on a board, to get on that first board, especially in the booking encourages you. Hey. You can get on that first board in, like, 60 days.
Adam Larson:And so why is it so important for us to get on those boards and to and to advance our profession?
Callum Liang:Yeah. Look. I I think it's for a lot of
Callum Liang:people any anyone with kind of any ambition, they sort of have this plan to get on a on a board, but there's not actually much information out there. And I think what ends up happening is a lot of people kinda think, well, if I just put my head down and do good work for the next 20 years, someone will tap me on the shoulder and offer me a board seat. And so, really, the purpose of the book was it came out of the fact that I I I'm an entrepreneur. I do, small business mergers and acquisitions, and I was sitting on a lot of boards and, realized that there was a lot of people on boards that probably shouldn't be on board. And there was a lot of people being overlooked because they didn't have the right contacts.
Callum Liang:They didn't go to the right schools. They didn't look a certain way. And yet they were hugely talented and and could add real value on the boards. And and so I think I sort of I wrote the book and and came up with the program, web and direct program, to to help businesses by getting good people onto boards to help those businesses to grow. But I think from an individual perspective, it's very easy in our careers to just get pigeonholed as just the accountant in the corner, or, you know, the marketing person or whatever.
Callum Liang:And the minute you get seen as someone that's sitting on the board of a company, it kind of changes everyone's perspective of you. You're now an accountant, but you're also a board member. And therefore, someone clearly sees a value in you that that your own business may be your own company doesn't. And so I think it's a I think it's a very useful tool, a, for how people perceive you, but, b, just in terms of your own personal growth and journey. It's, oftentimes, when when we start our career, we wanna be the best within what we do.
Callum Liang:So we become very knowledgeable about all the accounting treatments, and and we kinda learn as much as we can about our topic of expertise. But the danger with that is often you become very siloed. And so you become very good at what you know, but you become it's quite difficult sometimes, especially in big companies. It's quite difficult to understand the the whole ecosystem of the business. And the example I give in the book, I think, was that I started off my life as a a tech engineer, in the kind of the early days of the Internet.
Callum Liang:Mhmm. And I was very good at actually, I wasn't that good. I I was okay. I was good enough at the the the tech of what happens in the back end of Internet companies, but I had no understanding of what the business was. I really didn't like, I knew clients paid for stuff and, but I didn't really understand the business.
Callum Liang:And, obviously, if you're in a small business, then you do kind of have a little bit more visibility. In in a big business, not so much. And when you go and sit on a board of a company, you have to think strategically and you have to think holistically because that's your your job on a board. And and so I think from a personal growth perspective, it's a hugely valuable thing to to aspire to.
Adam Larson:That's really huge. So so if I'm I'm hearing you right, being on a board really kind of stretches you and moves you beyond what you're what you're from your day to day thing. And so, you know, we were always talking about how important it is for the accounting team, for anybody in an organization, especially for the accounting team, to be at the table, at the strategy table, you know, being that business partner. And so do you think that being on that board kind of helps stretch your mind and stretch your abilities to say, hey. I can be a part of that strategy and and it's because I'm on this board.
Callum Liang:Yeah. Look. I think it does. I think and I think you become better at your job. The more you understand the bigger picture.
Callum Liang:And so I think it's it's valuable in terms of just personal growth, on that side of things. It's valuable in terms of the contacts you make. Like, once you get onto a board, you you're typically associating with other board members, and and they have interesting perspectives as well. So I think those things. And then, like we said, sort of the the way people perceive you and and will give probably give your opinions more credibility once you you've proven that another company can see value in in having you on, on the board and and playing a strategic role.
Callum Liang:So, yeah, I I think it's it's hugely valuable. And I think, you know, I often say if I was to lose everything, the first thing I would try and do is do whatever it took to find find my way onto the board of a company because there's so many options that also come to you once you're on the board. You you get so much visibility of things that you don't normally get sight of, just as a as an employee. Mhmm.
Adam Larson:What are the qualities that you think companies are looking for in a good board member? You know, so somebody saying, hey. I wanna do this. What are some of those qualities that maybe you don't have and somebody needs to upskill to get there?
Callum Liang:So there's a big difference between the public perception of what a great board member is and what an actual great board member is. And Yeah. What we try and do in the Veblen director program and in in the book, Boardroom Blueprint, is focus very much on the practicalities of your first board seat and where you can really add value there. So let let me go with kind of the the popular perception of of what a good board member is and and then why that's not actually very useful. So if you think about so a lot of people just assume that you can't even get a board seat unless you have some director's certificate.
Callum Liang:And it's companies out there that will charge a fortune to give you a certificate and and a director's certificate. And these training companies, what they do is they take academic good corporate governance best practice that that is a that is kind of derived from an S and P 500 company. And they say, this is what you need to learn. And it's very, country specific. So it's kind of the laws of the the country and the director's responsibility and all of this this kind of good process stuff that would be perfect for an S and P 500 company.
Callum Liang:The problem is you're not gonna start your board career at one of those big companies. You're gonna start in a small company. And if you try and apply best practice, good corporate governance to a small company, you'll kill it. Like, that's not what they they need. And so I think there is this this, misperception.
Callum Liang:And and equally, the the irony of it is that, actually, the S and P 500 companies, they don't need somebody with a certificate who understands the the laws. Like, those are the boards that are surrounded with lawyers. You can't do anything without a lawyer and an adviser in the stock exchange having 2 people in the board telling you what you can and can't. They're like, it's not really a a useful, if it's if you're personally interested, great. Go and get the certificate.
Callum Liang:But, actually, if you think about where you're gonna start the journey, which, is around small businesses, then what what's far more useful to them is a little bit of your past experience that can help them make, avoid making a mistake, or it's a connection that you can make somebody in your network that could potentially be a great client to them or a Mhmm. Potential investor. One introduction can completely transform the trajectory of a small business and makes you incredibly valuable to them. And so, really, our our whole, kind of way of approaching things is not to focus on the top 1% of of companies, but actually the rest. And if you look at yeah.
Callum Liang:I I personally believe that 99% of job adverts out there for, board seats aren't real job ads. Like, the I I don't most boards that I've ever had a connection with, they don't hire people randomly from an Internet ad. Right? They hire people that they know, like, and trust that have been recommended to them, and then maybe they have to put a job ad for out because HR tells them to or Yeah. More likely, it's just a recruitment company on a fishing exercise for for good TVs.
Callum Liang:So there's that very small percentage of companies out there with boards anyway, and and this is the the other piece. Like, there's 330,000,000 companies in the world. That's a lot of companies. Less than 1% of them have an active actual board that that's meets regularly and and is proactive. So you've got a huge number of companies that don't have boards, and yet every single successful company in the world has a board.
Callum Liang:So there's a big disconnect. And and part of it is that entrepreneurs and small business owners assume that a board must be something for big companies, that it's very expensive and and, you know, it's very difficult to pull together a good board. And, actually, kind of our our process is it doesn't need to be a big formal expensive thing. In fact, a small business can set up a an advisory board completely for free. Yeah.
Callum Liang:And often, as I talk about in the book, almost all of my businesses, the first thing I do is I set up an advisory board before I've had my first customer or got my first employee. And it doesn't cost me anything. There's a lot of people out there that want to get that board experience and can do so by becoming an adviser on a on a small board. And that's a great way for an individual, yeah, especially if you're an accountant and entrepreneurs are notoriously bad with numbers. Having an accountant, as an adviser that can just kind of give them be a sounding board on a couple of things, is is a great, it's a great way to get on that first rung of the ladder and then and then sort of leverage that up to, bigger and better things.
Adam Larson:I I'd love to dig in a little bit more about why is this why did why did you feel it's so important to have that advisory board before you hadn't had that first customer? What was what was the what was the value in that, and why is that so important?
Callum Liang:Yeah. So it came about I I've been an entrepreneur for for a long time, and and I was a young, not very good entrepreneur for a long time. And so it it's a very lonely job being an entrepreneur, and and you get very stuck in the weeds of your own business trying to figure everything out yourself. And so I started building advisory boards. I I didn't know they were called advisory boards.
Callum Liang:Basically, at the time, I was just taking more experienced, more successful people out for lunch and trying to learn as much as I could from them. Occasionally trying to get them drunk and learn their secrets as well. And so that sort of almost morphed into a very informal advisory board, and I realized that it was a great shortcut to to growing the business. And it also gave me credibility when it came to finding clients, when it came to finding staff because, otherwise, I was just a solopreneur with big ideas. But now I had I was being advised by somebody that's that worked for this company and somebody that worked for this company.
Callum Liang:And and suddenly, I was able to trade off the credibility that they had, to to help my me grow my business. So I I think for small businesses and and the reason that you know, again, people kinda get caught up into thinking that this is something that they'll do when when they're much bigger. But I if I'm starting a business, the first thing I do is I start to pull together advisers in in that space or in different spaces. Yeah. They can save me so much time.
Callum Liang:You you know, it's, like I said, one one piece of advice they can give me can save me going down a rabbit hole in the wrong direction for a year or so. So, it's incredibly valuable, and and it's amazing, I I think, how easy it is to to get people. And I I always sort of focus on this, keep it very informal. Like, if I'm asking if I was asking you to be an adviser on my company, I would say, look, Adam, this is gonna take maximum of an hour a month. I'm just I'm it's gonna be a virtual coffee once a month.
Callum Liang:Yeah. I'd love to kinda get your feedback on where I'm going in the business and and, for you to become an advocate. If you do a good job in that one hour and I start saying, well, Adam, you know, perhaps you could help me in this area or perhaps you could come and talk to my team or that's kinda going out of scope. And at that point, you can say, well, look. I'm more than happy to do an hour a month.
Callum Liang:But if you wanna hire me for half a day to come in and train your team, that's a different piece. And and so there's there's ways that you can start to monetize it even if your first, advisory board is completely voluntary. There's there's lots of options to to monetize it. But it works really well. I think it it works for individuals to get that first board experience, and it works for small businesses to, have the value that, you know, and anyone that comes from a different environment is gonna have a different way of looking at things, is gonna have learned some trade secrets that that can be very useful.
Callum Liang:So, we we've all got value that we can add. We've all got unique perspectives and and ways of looking at things that that could be very helpful for a small business owner that's, you know, doing doing one of the hardest jobs in the world.
Adam Larson:Yeah. It is one of the hardest jobs. And, you know, one of the stats you mentioned is, like, less than 1% of the 355,000,000 companies or businesses out there have an active board. How do you go from inactive to active? You know, I've been on boards where I was like, oh, I'll join that little committee and then you join that committee and you realize only 1 or 2 of you of the 10 people are working or actually doing the work.
Adam Larson:And you're like, wait, what? And after a while, you start to lose your ambition because you're like, I don't wanna do everything. I'm not getting paid for this or especially if it's a volunteer position. How do you, like, how do you transition from inactive to active?
Callum Liang:So I think, a lot of it comes down to and and one of the things we we talk about is we don't want you to be a bad board member. There there's enough bad board members out there already. So let's not add to that. We we want you to be a good board member. And so a lot of it is focusing on really where you can add the most value.
Callum Liang:And and Yeah. Again, part of that is understanding that at different levels, companies need different things from from their board members. And and so oftentimes and then look. It's done with a lot of kind of goodwill. But oftentimes, people, if they come from a big company background, they will try and apply what they've learned in a big company and apply it to a small business.
Callum Liang:And and Yeah. That could be very unhelpful. So you kinda wanna, have that awareness of of where where you can add the most value. But that that's really the the focus. And I think adding focus on where you can add value, make sure and like I said, that mean that might have nothing to do with that your career.
Callum Liang:That might just be somebody in your network that that could make a difference. It might just be being an advocate for that company, talking about it, not sharing on social media that you're you've joined the board. It's a great company. Let me know if anyone would like to be connected. You know, that can help a small business, a lot.
Callum Liang:Mhmm. And then, look, if you find yourself so so we in in the book and in the program, I kind of talk through 5 steps, and the the last step is leverage. Mhmm. And it's basically saying, okay. Now that you've got this board seat, even if it's an advisory position, your job is to leverage that.
Callum Liang:Now maybe your form of leverage is to help that company grow from being a small 2 or 3 person company to a 20 or 30 or 100 person company, and that that would be great. But if it's not going anywhere and and you've kind of given it a good shot and the other board members aren't performing and you're not really getting any value out of it, your job is to leverage that and then jump onto another board and say, hey. Look. I was on this board. I did this, this, and this for them.
Callum Liang:I'm looking to expand my board experience and and say, you you do another one. So, yeah, the the the 5 just out of interest. So the first one is really focused on connections. Like, if you're if you're genuinely looking to do this, you need to be very proactive in your connections. Most of us leave it fairly organically who we end up connected to.
Callum Liang:But if you want to get ahead in this space, you need to start connecting to entrepreneurs. You need to start connecting to directors, and and investors become a a very valuable resource. The next one is is around knowledge, and it's you don't need to kind of become a a master or an expert in corporate governance and ESG and diversity and all these things. But you need to have an awareness of them. You need to understand, the difference between shareholder value and stakeholder value and and kind of understand what investors are looking for, which is might be different from what the executives in the business are looking for.
Callum Liang:So you need to have a a sort of a a general knowledge of business beyond your your core competence. And then the third one is starting to build your profile. And, again, often, employees have not done a lot around their personal profile. It's you kinda build your personal profile within the business, but not externally. And yet the world's changing, and and you are who LinkedIn says you are.
Callum Liang:And so if someone's gonna refer you as a potential board member, the first thing that board is gonna do or that business owner is gonna do is Google you. And the first thing that's gonna come up is your LinkedIn profile. And Yeah. If you haven't updated it for 2 years, yeah, they're gonna move on to the next person. So you need to be up to date.
Callum Liang:You need to be posting occasionally about things that are related to boards. And and so it just shows that you are aware and in that space. And those first three things are all about how you get onto boards. So so that's sort of that that getting that first board seat. And the the profile piece is really about sort of yeah.
Callum Liang:If the if the average person knows 200 people, the chances of 1 of those 200 having a great career opportunity for you is fairly low. If 20,000 people know you, the chances of 1 of those 20,000 having a great career opportunity for you is pretty high. Yeah. So, it's just law law of big numbers. And then once you've got that board seat, then it's around how you create value.
Callum Liang:So being aware of the value that the company needs and not being caught up on this. Well, I need to tell them about corporate best practice. Entrepreneurs don't don't need that. And, actually, I think a a really relevant point is no business owner actually wants a board member. What they want is the results that the board member can can bring, and and that's really the understand that value piece.
Callum Liang:And then the 5th one is that leverage and how you leverage it for yourself to take the company to the next level or take yourself to the next level. And once once you're on the the bottom of the rung, once you're on that get that first board seat, it's so much easier to then continue to to move up. Because otherwise, we do it's like going back to the beginning of your career where you can't get a board seat because you don't have board experience. And and how do you get a board experience? Like, it's it's that same level of frustration that you felt right at the beginning of your career when for people work experience.
Adam Larson:Yeah. That's that's a big part of it. And I I I wanna focus a little bit on that that that beginning, that first step, that networking. You know, because a lot of times, you know, what I've read about boards is sometimes you have to get a recommendation from a current board member to get on that board.
Callum Liang:Yeah.
Adam Larson:And so you're like, what if you're somebody you're just saying, hey. I don't know anybody who is on a board. How do I find these positions? How do I get out there? Because you know, that first step is a is a huge one, getting getting to that first board.
Adam Larson:And maybe we can talk a little bit about, you know, finding that first board position.
Callum Liang:Yeah. So, actually, we we we have a mantra at Veblen, which I talk about in the book as well, which is don't apply for a board seat, create a board seat. So if if you can just go back to numbers, which is good for accountants, like, just just law of, law of big numbers is if only 1% of companies have a board, it's gonna be much easier to create a board for a company that doesn't have a board than it is to actually join a board. And the interesting thing is and and this is a a nice little kind of hack in this game, is that if you approach a small business owner and say, hey. Look.
Callum Liang:You got a a great looking business. Would you be interested in me finding 4 or 5 really talented people to create an advisory board for you for a year? It's not gonna cost you anything. They'll get them their experience, and you'll get free consultation for an hour or so a month. Just really low key, very informal.
Callum Liang:Most business owners would be very open to that. The interesting thing is you're what you're saying is that you're gonna go and find those people. So you go out to a few people in in your network. You say, would you be interested in this? Most people are very excited about that opportunity to to get their first board experience.
Callum Liang:Of course. By default, you're on that board. Now what happens is you you might sort of present 4 or 5 people to the business owner and say, hey. Look. I've spoken to these people that they would be interested.
Callum Liang:What do you think? I go, well, I like this one. I like that one. I'm not so sure on that one. Okay.
Callum Liang:No problem. But no nobody ever looks at you because you're the person putting all this to get together. So by default, you you're sort of on the board. So it's it's a great way of doing it. And also, but, like, you know, you those people that you just bought onto the board now owe you a big favor.
Callum Liang:So, it's a it's a great way. And and this entire game runs on favors and who knows who and who's done what favor for for the others. So, yeah, get getting in this, at the beginning is a is a good way of doing
Adam Larson:it. Mhmm. It sounds like it's it's very important to have an active network of network of people whether you're using LinkedIn or something else. A lot, you know, obviously, like you said, when somebody Googles you, the first thing they'll see is LinkedIn, especially when they're looking at you professionally. How important it is is is it to, you know, interact with your network on LinkedIn, you know?
Adam Larson:Because a lot of times we connect with people and then we forget about it. You know? What what are are there different ways that we can connect with those people and try to make those connections, especially you're saying, hey. Approach that person with a small business. A lot of times you might not connect with that person except through LinkedIn.
Callum Liang:Yeah. So, look, I think I think there's, for a lot of people, networking kind of feels odd, like, in unless you're sort of in sales or marketing, where where it's kinda the the game. If you're an accountant, it might feel a little bit odd to do this. But I'd say there's a couple of things. First of all, you wanna be you wanna start being deliberate about it.
Callum Liang:And then the second thing is that you actually already have an interesting network. You probably just don't you're not aware of it. You're not aware how to package it. But there will be people that you know that could be very valuable to another company out there. So don't kind of discount the network that you already have even if you've never sort of deliberately built a network, but but they can be very valuable, to someone who doesn't know them.
Callum Liang:And then link LinkedIn makes this much easier. Like, you Yeah. You no longer need to go to those horrible networking events and drink cheap wine and eat horrible food and pretend to be interested in everyone. Like, you can pretend to be interested in people on LinkedIn instead and drink whatever you like. But the the, the way to do it is not to kind of go out and aggressively try and sort of make connection requests and and stuff because, actually, the often the people that you want to connect with, lots of people are trying to connect with them, and it it's difficult.
Callum Liang:But the really, valuable thing that is sort of overlooked in LinkedIn is if you find interesting people that you'd like to be connected to, directors on boards, entrepreneurs, small business owners, A lot of them are trying to build their own profile, and the way that they're doing that is they're making posts on LinkedIn. Okay. The most neglected part of LinkedIn is going and making comments on people's posts. It's a great way to build a relationship. Everyone who posts wants people to to comment because that's how they get validation of of their ideas, and it's it's how relationships start.
Callum Liang:It's a very easy way to start a a relationship with someone. And if you if you're the person that kind of, jumps in the comments, says, hey. This is a really good idea. Have you thought about this? Or, by the way, have you seen this article?
Callum Liang:Or I connect you to this person. Suddenly, you become a a valuable resource, and and they all want to connect to you. And and so I think, that's good. And then if you start looking at this profile piece, and I know, it it kind of feel if you've never published in or posted, it it kind of feels really weird and Mhmm. Yeah.
Callum Liang:Who am I to do it? Everyone else is an expert, and then there's everybody else that's kind of talking about how wonderful they are, and I don't wanna be that person. So there there's a couple of ways of thinking about it. First of all, is building profile is not about shining a spotlight on yourself. Go on to Instagram if if you wanna do that, but I don't think there's many accounts on Instagram.
Callum Liang:The the best way to do it is to shine a light on the people you're helping. So shine a light on your clients. Shine a light on, somebody in your team that's doing cool things. Like, put the light on somebody else. But by shining the light on somebody else, you kinda get reflected in that, and it's easier than yeah.
Callum Liang:None of us want to go out and say, hey. Look. I'm a wonderful accountant. Like, that that's it feels odd to do that, and you're the least credible person to say that. So Yeah.
Callum Liang:Don't even try that. But the other thing is is, well, in terms of posting and adding real value to your network, like, a lot of us, again, will still say, well, I who am I to sort of be an expert and talk about, like, what's happening in in the accounting world? If you think about your audience, not as the people that you look up to, but as the people that are just entering your industry. If you post for the person you were 5 years ago, what would you have liked to have learned? So and that's that's a really easy way of doing it because you're not trying to impress everyone.
Callum Liang:You're just trying to say, hey. Look. If you're coming into the accounting world, these are three things I wish I'd known at the beginning. That's really, really valuable. The other way of doing it is never like, I don't like the idea of positioning myself as an an expert.
Callum Liang:I I try not to. I always kind of say, look. This is something that I've I'm learning with you. So if you do that sort of, this is a voyage I'm on. So, hey.
Callum Liang:Over the next few years, I wanna sit on some boards. So in this process, I'm gonna share what I'm learning along the way. Oh, I've just discovered that there's a great book by Callum Lane called Order and Blueprint. But in that, I discovered this. But if you if you're sharing stuff as you learn it along the way and you're not doing it from the position of I'm an authority on this, you're doing it from the position of, hey, I found this interesting.
Callum Liang:You might too. That's actually much more authentic and much easier for people to get behind. And then, again, when when you do get referred to a board and they look at your postings, it all kind of aligns and it makes sense, and it comes across authentic. And and so that that would be sort of my advice on on how to do it.
Adam Larson:Well, Colm, I think this has been a great conversation. I encourage everybody check out the link to the boardroom, blueprint book in the show notes. Connect with Colm on LinkedIn, and, let's keep the conversation going. And, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Callum Liang:Pleasure. It's been fun.
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