Building successful companies requires more than just good products and strong sales teams. The isolation that comes with leadership positions often leaves CEOs and founders without the honest feedback and diverse perspectives they need to grow. Scott Boulas, an ex-army officer and father of seven who spent 30 years leading sales and marketing teams, believes peer advisory groups offer the solution most business leaders are missing.
From Military Service to Business Leadership
Scott brings a unique perspective to business coaching, combining military discipline with three decades of corporate experience. His background leading sales and marketing teams that delivered approximately one billion dollars in revenues gives him firsthand knowledge of the challenges facing business leaders. “I had a really great career, 30 years leading sales and marketing teams that delivered about a billion dollars in revenues,” Scott reflects on his journey. The transition from military service to business leadership taught him valuable lessons about the importance of surrounding yourself with trusted advisors. His experience as a father of seven children also reinforced the value of collaboration and seeking input from others when facing difficult decisions.
The Power of Mastermind Groups
The concept of peer advisory groups isn’t new, but Scott draws inspiration from historical examples of successful business leaders. He points to Napoleon Hill’s famous book “Think and Grow Rich” as a foundational text that studied many successful entrepreneurs. “He studied many famous men—Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie—people that built our country’s infrastructure,” he explains. These business titans understood something crucial about success that many modern leaders overlook. What made these historical figures particularly effective was their commitment to honest feedback and mutual challenge. “One of the things they all professed to do was have a mastermind group, where they could get together and be honest and challenge each other and cause each other to be greater,” Scott notes. This principle remains as relevant today as it was during the industrial age.
Three Critical Benefits for Modern Leaders
Scott identifies three key advantages that peer advisory groups provide to busy executives, with the final benefit being the most significant.
1. Step Outside Your Daily Operations
Schedule regular time away from daily tasks to focus on strategic planning. Join a peer advisory group or find trusted advisors who can help you see blind spots you’re missing. Working ON your business, not just IN it, creates sustainable growth and prevents you from getting trapped in operational details.
2. Leverage Collective Problem-Solving
When facing challenging decisions, seek input from non-competing peers across different industries. Their diverse experiences often provide unexpected solutions to your specific problems. Don’t rely solely on internal team feedback, as employees may hesitate to offer honest opinions that could impact their job security.
3. Embrace the Service Mindset
Scott saves his favorite benefit for last, and it’s probably not what you’d expect. Once you’ve achieved a certain level of success, your mindset starts to shift. “It’s this idea of service and giving back. Helping someone else become a stronger leader. Helping their business grow so they can create jobs and improve their community,” he says. That’s when peer advisory groups become more than just a place to solve business problems. They become a way to multiply your impact far beyond your own company. Scott looks for that mindset when building new groups, because it changes everything—the conversation, the culture, and the outcomes.
Founders of small to mid-sized companies face challenges that Fortune 500 CEOs never have to navigate. That’s why Scott creates peer groups specifically for leaders who know that growth takes honest feedback, fresh perspective, and shared experience.
The best part? You no longer have to figure it all out on your own.
Scott makes it easy to start the conversation through New Growth Strategies, his website, or LinkedIn. For CEOs ready to stop working in isolation, that first conversation might be the smartest business decision they make all year.
