Nobody tells you this before you start a business: the smartest people in the room are often the ones who weren’t invited.
We were standing in our respective kitchens at 6:47 AM, both still in workout clothes, staring at an opportunity that should have been a no-brainer.
A Fortune 500 company wanted us to pitch a massive engagement. The kind that would triple our revenue in one quarter. The kind that gets written up in business journals with headlines like “Midwest Consultancy Lands Whale Client.”
Our brains were screaming YES. Our guts were screaming something else entirely.
We couldn’t staff the account properly without a few big hires. About half of the contract was enough outside our wheelhouse that both of us would have had to staff the account ourselves. And we guessed it would take up one-third of our time. We were already working eighty hours a week and had full client loads.
So we did what saved our business more times than we can count. We called our Kitchen Cabinet before we called the client back.
What Your Mastermind Group Isn’t Telling You
Most entrepreneurs collect coaches and advisors the way we collect Amazon dupes—hoping quantity will somehow create quality. They join masterminds, attend networking events, and stack LinkedIn connections like they’re building armor against failure.
Here’s what nobody mentions. When the stakes are actually high, most of those people disappear.
Not because they’re bad people. Because they’re the wrong people. They either don’t have the experience to help. Or, their answers are surface, nothing deep.
Your college roommate who “totally gets it”? She doesn’t understand capacity planning. Your business coach who charges $500 an hour? He’s never actually had to decide between growth that could break you and opportunities you might regret forever. That accelerator mentor who gives great TED Talk advice? She’s never navigated the reality of school pickups, client deliverables, and a team that’s already stretched thin.
When we were standing in that kitchen trying to decide whether to pursue the opportunity of a lifetime or the disaster that would destroy everything we’d built, we didn’t need cheerleaders. We needed three very specific types of people.
We call them Champions, Connectors, and Compensators.
Champions: The Believers Who Tell You Hard Truths
Beth made the first call: her Champion. A woman who’d built and sold her own consulting firm, someone who’d watched us grow our business from a scrappy startup to something real.
She didn’t tell Beth what she wanted to hear. She asked what we needed to answer.
“Walk me through your current team capacity. Now tell me what this engagement actually requires. Not the pretty proposal version. The 2 AM crisis version when everything goes sideways.”
Beth started talking. The Champion started laughing.
“You’re three people short of being able to deliver this without destroying your existing clients and your brand. You know that, right?”
We did know that. We just needed someone who believed in us enough to say it out loud.
Champions aren’t yes-people. They’re the ones who care enough about your success to risk pissing you off. They’ve been where you are. They’ve made the mistakes you’re about to make. And they love you enough to pull you back from the edge.
How to find them: Look for people who’ve already achieved what you’re trying to build. Not competitors. Parallel players. People in adjacent industries or slightly ahead of you on the journey. Then actually invest in those relationships before you need something.
This isn’t networking. This is relationship building. The difference matters.
Compensators: The People Who Fill Your Blind Spots
Victoria ran the numbers while Beth was still on the phone with her Champion. That’s how we work. Beth sees opportunity, Victoria sees operational reality. Where Beth’s ready to swing big, Victoria’s calculating what “big” actually costs.
“What’s the payment structure?” Victoria asked.
Net 90 terms. Massive upfront investment in team hiring. Long contract negotiation process.
Victoria’s face said everything.
“So we’d need to float payroll for three months, hire people we can’t afford yet, and bet that they don’t change scope or delay payment?”
Compensators don’t just give you advice. They fill the actual gaps in your expertise. We’re brilliant at client relationships and business development. We’re not always brilliant at the financial modeling that determines whether “opportunity” actually means “bankruptcy with a prettier name.”
We compensate for each other constantly. Beth’s visionary optimism balanced by Victoria’s operational realism. But we also needed outside Compensators who could see the landmines we’d both miss.
How to find them: Make an honest inventory of what you’re terrible at. Not “could improve”, but genuinely terrible. Then find people who are exceptional at exactly those things. And here’s the key: make sure they have no financial incentive to tell you what you want to hear.
The best Compensators are the ones who succeed whether you take their advice or not.
Connectors: The Door-Openers Who Change the Game
While we were processing the capacity and cash flow reality, Beth made a third call: our Connector. A former client who’d become a friend, someone plugged into the industry in ways we’d never be.
“Have you worked with them before?” she asked.
We hadn’t.
“Let me make some calls.”
Within two hours, she’d talked to three people who had. The intel came back fast: notorious for scope creep, payment delays, and internal politics that made decision-making a nightmare.
She also had an alternative: a different company, slightly smaller engagement, better terms, cleaner execution path.
“Want an introduction?”
Connectors aren’t advisors in the traditional sense. They’re relationship capital personified. They open doors you didn’t even know existed. They save you from doors you shouldn’t walk through. They see around corners because they’ve spent years building relationships without keeping score.
How to find them: You can’t hunt Connectors like they’re rare Pokémon. You cultivate them by being someone worth connecting. Show up consistently. Deliver exceptional work. Be generous with your own network. Connectors are attracted to people who create value, not extract it.
The Decision That Changed Everything
By 3 PM that same day, we had our answer.
We passed on the Fortune 500 “opportunity of a lifetime.” We pursued the alternative introduction instead.
That alternative became a three-year relationship that generated steady, profitable revenue without breaking our team or our systems. The Fortune 500 company? According to our Connector, they burned through two other consulting firms before the project imploded entirely.
Our Kitchen Cabinet saved us from what looked like success but would have been disaster.
Building Your Cabinet Before You Need It
Here’s what we got wrong initially and what most entrepreneurs still get wrong: waiting until you need help to build these relationships.
Your Kitchen Cabinet isn’t something you assemble during a crisis. It’s something you cultivate over years, through small moments that build trust.
Coffee conversations where you ask smart questions and actually listen. Introductions you make with no expectation of return. Problems you help solve when there’s nothing in it for you.
When we were standing in that kitchen at 6:47 AM, we didn’t have to convince anyone to take our call. They already knew us. Trusted us. Wanted us to succeed.
That’s not networking strategy. That’s relationship physics.
The Question That Changes Everything
So here’s what we want you to think about: Who would you call at 6:47 AM when everything’s on the line?
If you can name three people—a Champion who believes in you enough to tell you hard truths, a Compensator who fills your blind spots, and a Connector who can open the right doors—you’re ahead of 90% of entrepreneurs.
If you’re still thinking about it, that’s your first business move.
Not your business plan. Not your marketing strategy. Not your product development.
Your Kitchen Cabinet.
Because the biggest opportunities often look identical to the biggest mistakes. And nobody who actually succeeds figures out the difference alone.
