Tag: meetings

16 Tips for a Successful Lunch Meeting | Small Business Trends

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As more and more business meetings move out of conference rooms and to more casual settings like lunch meetings, there are a few important things to keep in mind. Having a successful lunch meeting can yield a lot of benefits, since it can be a bit more relaxed and informal, and you can have more candid conversations.

To help you maximize your chances of success, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to lunch meetings filled with helpful tips and tricks.

What is a Working Lunch Meeting?

A working lunch meeting is a straightforward part of working life and can take several forms. You can have working meetings outside of the office by going to a nearby restaurant.

Or if you’re meeting a prospective client, taking them out to lunch can help you get to know them better in a more casual way, and you can conduct the meeting on neutral territory. Alternatively, you might invite attendees to a lunch meeting in the office, such as hosting a luncheon in a conference room.

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Top 5 Tips From Meeting Planners To Consider When Submitting Your Speaking Topic | Kerry Heaps

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kerryheapsWe recently interviewed Meeting Planners about what they look for in a potential Speaker for their events. Here’s what they had to share about the submission process.

1. Pay attention to the submission process and provide what is requested. The questions and information that is requested is required for a reason. If you don’t provide what is requested and don’t get selected, that’s a pretty good indicator of why.

2. Make your topic and description summary SIZZLE. Write your summary and take away points as if you were going to market the class to your own prospects. This will increase your chances of selection, keep in mind that several professionals are contending for the same spot on the agenda, so make your presentation stand out.

3. Don’t write the Bio or description in first person. Keep your bio updated and make sure it’s written in third person. The same is true for your description, it needs to be written in third person for the Reader.

4. Keep your information updated. The contact information that you provide during the submission process needs to be kept up to date. Due to the nature of the submission process, it may be a few months before you are contacted with an offer. If you are sent an email that you’ve been chosen to speak, and it doesn’t reach you, the missed opportunity goes to someone else.

5. Adhere to deadlines. Once you’ve been selected and agree to speak, its imperative to follow the deadlines provided to you and to read all the information that is sent to you. Last minute changes happen, it is appreciated when you stay on top of things. Be proactive, not reactive.

Why You Should Ditch the Keyboard and Meet in Person Instead | Entrepreneur

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Face-to-face communication is a dying art, or so it seems in the digital age. The majority of our communication with clients now takes place over email and instant messaging. While digital communication certainly has its advantages, experts warn their overuse may lead to some fundamental flaws that could derail your success.

Michael Diettrich-Chastain, a business consultant in Asheville, N.C., who helps business leaders understand the human side of their business, says while digital communication now prevails, we should beware the consequences of avoiding face-to-face meetings altogether. Diettrich-Chastain says some important elements of communication are lost in digital exchanges. Although phone conversations now sound an intimate way of connecting, even these don’t allow for body language and eye contact that are only available to you in an in-person meeting.

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4 Mistakes That Ruin Business Meetings | Business News Daily

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Business meetings have a longstanding reputation for being unexciting. Sitcoms, films and even stock photo collections are filled with scenes of employees looking at the clock, rolling their eyes and falling asleep while the presenter seems to drone on interminably.

Though these staged “boring meetings” may be slightly exaggerated on camera, they’re not too far from the truth: A recent survey by enterprise intranet company Igloo Software found that about half of all employees find meetings to be unproductive. The most common meeting pet peeves reflect this sentiment, with unnecessary meetings (76 percent), meetings going off-topic (59 percent) and people repeating one another (58 percent) topping the list.

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Until We Meet Again – Final Part | Peter Mehit

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imagesEver drive to a mall and park your car and then after you finish shopping, you come back and you can’t find it?  This gets worse if you own say a white Honda Accord, or a brown Camry. You look and look and look. And after all that searching and frustration, where do you find it? Exactly where you left it.

But parking lots can be a good thing too, especially if you can use them to park items that are going to crash your agenda. Here’s how it works:

You’re having your weekly status meeting. It used to cost $322. But because you started keeping time you were able to get the meeting to run and hour and ten minutes (about $250). Then we were able to save about $40 a meeting more by having people show for their part of the meeting and leave when they were done. We’re down to $210 per meeting (saving $112). How can you get that last ten minutes back?

Continue reading “Until We Meet Again – Final Part | Peter Mehit” →

Until We Meet Again Part 4 | Peter Mehit

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imagesWhere does the time go? No seriously, why can’t you store it up? Why can’t you borrow it from the future? Probably because we’d all be dead, having spent our future in replays and do-overs.

But fortunately, you can’t store or borrow time. You can only spend it. Instead of launching into a piece on the nature of man and time, I’ll instead supply you with some ideas on its wise expenditure when it comes to meetings.

You’ve done your agenda and selected the right participants, sending them the agenda early so they can have time to look at it. What’s next? Actually, we’re going to look at your agenda again.

Continue reading “Until We Meet Again Part 4 | Peter Mehit” →

Until We Meet Again – Third in a Series | Peter Mehit

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imagesI remember one time when I was going to go do ‘stuff’ with my friends. You know what ‘stuff’ is, right? Anyway, as I was going out the door, my mom called out, “Take your brother with you!” The presence of my little brother made sure that we would have to substitute different ‘stuff’ to do, much to the consternation of my buddies.

The fact that I don’t have a little brother shouldn’t take away from the main point of my anecdote; the participants in an activity will determine its outcome. Meetings are no different.

When you’re building your agenda, consider the participants you need to make the meeting work and only invite them. How do you know if they are the right participants? If the agenda topics are related to their ability to perform their job, then they are the right people. If they only have minor involvement, they should not be invited.

Continue reading “Until We Meet Again – Third in a Series | Peter Mehit” →

Until We Meet Again part 2 | Peter Mehit

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downloadYou’ve no doubt heard the expression that a person has a ‘hidden agenda’. We’re here to tell you the shocking truth. Everybody has a ‘hidden agenda’ and only a few people have an actual agenda. I know, I was scared too when I first heard this.

Are agendas important? You bet. Without one, meetings are unstructured discussions that will take longer than you expect and won’t deliver the results you want. With one, you’ll make millions and be ecstatically happy every day. Well, maybe not, but you’ll be happier than you would have been without one.

To be successful, agendas need to be:

Realistic – Can you really get to all the items on the agenda in the time you have? This is important because you always have to finish on time (more later).

Continue reading “Until We Meet Again part 2 | Peter Mehit” →

Until We Meet Again part 1 | Peter Mehit

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downloadWe all do meetings. We meet to status tasks. We meet to discuss strategy. We meet to make a decision. We meet to avoid making decisions. We…what? Meet to avoid making decisions? Yes, we do that, but that’s a different topic.

Meetings are part of business. They are among the most expensive activities a company can do, yet they aren’t viewed that way. Some simple math may convince you:

Weekly status meeting, 1 hour:

Position                                               Salary with benefits

President                                             $75/hour

V.P. of Operations                              $55/hour

Operations Manager                            $45/hour

Team Lead                                          $28/hour

Buyer                                                  $25/hour

Cost for one hour meeting:                 $228/hour

Continue reading “Until We Meet Again part 1 | Peter Mehit” →