Why Your Board Members are Your Best Sparring Partners: An Interview with Dan Rossignol

It took Dan a solid decade of board meeting trial-and-error before he landed on the 4 key tenets that he deploys at every board meeting.

“Board meetings go astray when the people presenting can’t stay inside of their swim lane,” Dan says. 

Breaking down the board meeting game plan into 4 buckets helped Dan focus on what matters and avoid meetings that devolve into an unhelpful blame game.

1. People

When you’re leading a board meeting, it might feel like all the pressure is on you. But don’t forget you have an entire company of talented employees behind you—and your board members will get a better picture of progress by hearing from their perspective. 

Board members are primarily interested in 2 things when it comes to your company:

1. Is your company durable?
2. Is your company growing? 

Great people are the asset that will ensure a company hits both points successfully. 

“I used to find it really landed well when I would hire people from my previous network, instead of going through the challenge of recruitment. I would use that as a major win” says Dan.

Bringing in people you already know assures your board members they will be effective and get up to speed quickly.

Dan also recommends calling out existing team members by name to support statements made in the meeting and build confidence.

“Board members want to see a mini OKR,” says Dan. “Key results are driven by different people on the team that have to execute on those key results in order to get closer to the bigger objective.” 

2. Process

Every company should work to develop processes that lead to smooth scaling.

People and processes go hand-in-hand. People need good processes in order to become successful.

For Dan, this meant building out clear playbooks for roles like sales and customer success. For example: At one company, he created a handbook for sales development representatives (SDRs). When a new SDR joined the business, they could quickly scale because it was crystal-clear what they would be doing on Day One when they arrived, and the days that followed.

At another company, Dan created productivity metrics so it was transparent how account executives (AEs) were spending their time. 

The key is to share how these processes are impacting the growth of the company. 

“Are you building a playbook or a framework to have people wake up every morning and say, ‘I know what my role is’?” Dan asks. 

When board members know you have clear processes, it enhances their confidence that the business is durable and ready to grow.

3. Technology 

The short version: Spend your technology budget wisely.

The longer version: Today’s board members know there are a plethora of tech options to choose, and they may invest in or have contacts at those tech companies.

Dan likes to take a conservative approach when it comes to spending early-stage money on tech. It’s a simple philosophy: Your tech spend should depend on how much revenue you’re making.

“If we’re doing under $1 million in ARR, you will not see me spend money on a fancy CRM system. I just won’t buy it. I will use Microsoft or Google Sheets to build a CRM. I communicate that to the investors and the board,” Dan says. “I want to be very upfront with them that this is the technology stack, given our stage and age, that we’re utilizing to be productive.”  

Board members are eager to see top-of-funnel movement. But it’s important to hold the line and invest in the right tech at the right time—because the board will also like smart investments. 

4. Accountability 

Yes, founders and CEOs are accountable to their board members. But don’t forget that your board members are also held accountable to their limited partners. (Where all that VC money came from in the first place.) 

“Founders don’t understand we have to do the same dog-and-pony show they have to do,” Dan says. “We’re not trying to be jerks. We’re just going to have to go take that into our potential quarterly meetings with our limited partners.” 

The solution is to provide a constant stream of clear, updated metrics so your board members can see how they transform over time. 

Do you find board members are always asking about the same information? Take note and be sure to wrap those details into subsequent board meetings to save time. 

If your board members walk away from a meeting with subjective updates instead of the concrete numbers they need, they will inevitably circle back with you 1-on-1 after the meeting. To avoid a slough of individual phone calls and follow ups, your best approach is to address everything in the board meeting itself.