Effective meetings start before the meeting

Posted by LauraDerb on January 18th, 2021

All meetings, in a way, are sales meetings. They are not found just to find themselves. There is a sale involved even if you are not selling a product. The change has to be sold. Meetings have to be sold. The first and most critical question is do you need to have a meeting? Could you get what you need by email or by meeting a few people in person?

If you decide to have a meeting, you must understand what you want to achieve. This means that you must develop a detailed mission statement of the "why" of your meeting. Who will you invite and why they "should" be invited. Is your meeting voluntary or mandatory? If you are a volunteer, you must sell it to the people you are inviting; it must give them a clearly defined benefit to attend. If your members must be there, it is mandatory, you must still give them a reason for your required presence. Now, I would ask each person to send you or give you an answer if they can come; if it is compulsory, why can't they attend. Know in advance how many people will be in attendance to prepare the meeting presentation.

Let me give you an example. My college fraternity chapter will have a fifty year reunion in March 2015. We had a planning meeting yesterday. I arranged the meeting. The meeting was to go over the details and responsibilities of the active members and the alumni president. I invited members who I thought should be there. I included the chapter president and the chapter project president. The alumni I invited were the student president and the chapter student 到會推介. The house manager was invited to give us feedback on the food and activities around the house. The invited members knew exactly why we were having the meeting and why they were invited. I chose the small meeting room in the chapter house. He had sent our decision that we had to consider. I met with the alumni president an hour before the meeting. Everything was arranged ... wrong.

At the time of the meeting, the alumni advisor called me to ask where we were meeting. I said in the small meeting room on the third floor. He said the room is too small and we have to meet in the living room. He said eight active executive members wanted to attend. I said we only needed the president and the president, I was firm. He and the two members got closer.

The meeting lasted ninety minutes. When we left we had the agenda, the meals, the people in charge, the venues; Most importantly, the two chapter representatives knew specifically what they and the chapter needed to accomplish. Because I had a clear idea of ​​what we needed to achieve and the most important members to achieve it, our meeting was a success.

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LauraDerb

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LauraDerb
Joined: October 25th, 2017
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