I know brainstorm sessions can prove to be extremely valuable. Why? Because we hear it often in our work at Farland Group — whether in a customer advisory board meeting, or in a working group session in between board meetings.

As we near the end of 2021 , I want to share my word of the year. At the end of 2020, I wrote about adaptability, and while there are many words I could use to describe my 2021 (because it has been quite the year!) the one that sticks out for me is virtual.

Let’s pause for a moment. It’s mid-November, some of the major holidays are coming at us full force and you think your work is (sort of) winding down…. well, not quite! If you are like us at Farland Group, we’re already in the midst of planning for customer advisory board meetings taking place in 2022. And with only 6 weeks left in this year, if you had to pick one area to focus on, what would that be?

It’s been nearly two years since most of us went all-virtual… all.the.time. As we push forward with customer advisory board meetings, one thing is clear — there is no definitive answer on what a potential hybrid meeting will entail.

Explaining to family and friends what my job entails around customer advisory board work is complicated. When people ask about what I do, I find myself using long-winded sentences that sometimes trail off into the sunset as I provide every little detail. Because what we do at Farland Group involves many different puzzle pieces.

I once considered January to be a sort of “regroup” month. I had some extra time to dig out from emails that I received during the holidays, look ahead to what was on the horizon for the coming weeks and plan accordingly. That was then and those were different, pre-pandemic times.

As we at Farland Group gear up for the end of 2020, and prepare for customer advisory board meetings for 2021, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would best describe this year in one word — adaptability.

Co-creation, brainstorming and an interactive give and take that occurs in a successful sales exchange is a very successful approach for presenting to a Customer Advisory Board. Here are tips of what works and doesn’t work in developing a powerful presentation to a Customer Advisory Board.  

Before COVID, we would often hear from business leaders about the challenges they faced surrounding talent and resources. Executives were seeking peer advice on how to invest in current employees to keep skills fresh and up to date. They wondered if new entrants in the market had the more creative, innovative skills needed. And, they wanted to understand the best way to reskill employees — through in-house training, external partners or a combination of both.