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People often talk about how much time is wasted in business meetings. In fact, there are estimates in the USA alone that $43 Billion a year is wasted in unproductive meetings and I want to share with you 2 tips to make your next meetings more productive.
My name is Dori Sella, I’m a business trainer and consultant - I calculated that in 30 years of global business, I participated in 22K internal business meetings and 7.5k customer meetings in close to 50 countries.
If you are working, it’s probably safe to assume that you have participated in some unproductive meetings as well – and if all your meetings have been productive – please – call me – I want to learn your secret!
Here are 2 tips from my book – Business Meetings that Work – 6 Steps to Increase Productivity to help make your meetings more productive from now on – even if you only have 5 minutes to prepare. I promise that when you start paying attention today to these 2 tips – you will be more productive.
The first is a bit tricky – yes, I’m committed to straightforward language that is easy to take action from – and at the same time, I know that certain things mean different things to different people. So the first tip is - Know your Objective for this specific meeting.
I guess some of you are saying to yourself – Of course, I know that. But stop.
Objective is NOT what you are going to say!!! It’s what you want to happen, how you want people to feel, react, think when you are finished. What do you want them to do after your meeting?
Objective is also not what you want to achieve in a few weeks or months. That is a longer-term objective. For instance if you have weekly status meetings – your objective is not to resolve all of the issues, rather to find out what they are. This by-the-way has traditionally been one of the huge time wasters in businesses going into the resolution of a problem with many people in the room who aren’t relevant.
If you are selling a solution that is not a process sale – then your objective at an initial meeting won’t be to close the sale, but rather to gather information and create a need with your customer.
So remember – Ask yourself What do I want to happen at the end of the meeting. Only then ask yourself How you will make it happen and what you will say.
The second tip is a tip for life not only for meetings. At the same time, it’s critical to help you achieve your objectives for the meetings. It’s what I call SOM or State of Mind.
Have you ever walked into a meeting just after you read an annoying email or had a difficult phone conversation? And it’s affected your state of mind? We are human and we are affected by what goes on around us – and I’ll let you into a secret –
When we are in a negative state of mind guess what happens? We automatically filter what we are hearing and interpret what is being said in a negative matter. Not the best resource for a productive meeting is it?
So what can we do? Take a tip from sports and movies. You know in the movies when the player is standing on the line in the last seconds of the game to shoot, kick or bat the winning point – in the movies you hear – silence. The player is focused on what? The objective – get the winning shot/goal.
Find your unique way of getting into the best State of Mind for your next meetings.
Thanks for watching – Dori Sella Big Business Tips for all.