How Successful B2B Technology Companies Grow

Building strategic customer connections with Customer Advisory Boards  

B2B technology companies that target enterprise companies benefit from having a customer advisory board (CAB) program. Yearly, the CAB brings together the C-Suite and hand-picked customers to validate strategies and hypotheses and understand the competitive landscape through the customer’s point of view.

Many seasoned leaders who transition from their prominent tech roles to become founders, CEOs, or COOs run a CAB to engage with their earliest adopters. These customers become their brain trust, learning why customers purchase and testing marketing positioning/ messaging to win more customers. It may seem like a focus group, but these customers become year-round advisors helping nimble companies by taking sales reference calls, navigating competition, and sometimes designing new features.

Customer board advisors gain value by serving as board members as well. Most advisors want access to the CEO or the CTO to ensure their technology or service needs are met to grow their businesses. Although these are not compensated board roles, customers value the vendor and see them as true partners, often investing in their full product line and services while also advising on emerging trends and competition.

My new book, Building a World-Class Customer Advisory Board: How to Create Deeper Relationships and Validate Strategies, provides a complete guide for leaders to craft a board for their current goals. CAB meetings are best in person, but with the hybrid workforce, CAB coordinators need to know the best practices for in-person, virtual, and hybrid CAB programs.

Below is an excerpt from the book about a CEO veteran of CABs.

A company had recently celebrated its IPO, and it was time for the yearly CAB event. The CEO asked me to invite CAB customers with a Latin American regional office. Before creating the CAB agenda, I asked the CEO if he wanted a session just for the Latin American market expansion. He said it wasn’t needed. When the VP of marketing, the CAB executive sponsor, and I presented the CAB program for the CEO’s final sign-off, he asked to sit next to a multinational bank customer during the board meeting and next to a natural resources customer for lunch. Both of these customers had three or more regional offices in Latin America. After the CAB meeting, the CEO asked for the contact information of these customers, and his executive assistant arranged a follow-up call with them. Two weeks later, the senior vice president of sales hired a general manager of Latin America, and they focused on expanding into Brazil and Mexico. Over time, the CEO’s relationships with the two CAB members continued to flourish, and at the CEO’s request, the two board members put him in touch with their regional office IT managers in São Paulo and Mexico City.

Within a year, the CEO flew down to São Paulo and Mexico City for the opening of the new Brazil and Mexico offices. When the CEO was touring each city, he asked to have a virtual meeting with the board member, who was back in the United States, and the

CAB customer’s regional office IT manager. During these meetings, the CEO asked the regional IT managers if they would help support the GM in local field events as guest speakers to discuss how they used the company’s products. The regional IT managers didn’t mind, especially since they had forged an in-person connection with the CEO and GM. The relationships the CEO developed with the CAB members, initiated at the CAB event, helped boost the company’s growth in the new Brazilian and Mexican markets.

While this was a hot IPO company, the seasoned CAB CEO didn’t rest. His strategy paid off; within a year of the IPO, the company became #1 in the technology category, beating global brands. The CEO’s connections to the customer advisory board catalyzed the growth in Latin America.

Establishing a strategic customer advisory board is essential for forging trust and genuine connections that deliver invaluable insights and guidance. Following the CAB meeting, your customers will be just a text message or phone call away to advise you on issues, becoming your customer confidant.

Written by Irene Yam.
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