Meetings are at the core of the company culture for many businesses, yet too many professionals arrive unorganized and unprepared. If you’re meeting out of habit more than necessity, it’s time to reevaluate your strategy. Every meeting should have clear value and a core purpose.
Meeting planning isn’t something to take lightly. Every attendee at your event is taking time out of their busy day for the gathering. Make sure it’s worth their valuable minutes. Understanding how to prepare for a meeting will help you make the most out of your minutes so your time together is always well-spent.
Meeting prep tips
Every professional should know how to prepare for a meeting successfully. Meeting prep isn’t something you can throw together in the hour before you’re scheduled to meet. It should begin well before your invitations go out, and conclude with a few finishing touches that take place before anyone else arrives in the room.
Proper meeting planning ensures that your meeting is necessary in the first place, then follows through to make sure that your time spent in the meeting room is as productive as possible. Eliminate time wasters and learn how to prepare for a meeting properly.
Use smart scheduling strategies
Your meeting prep begins at the scheduling stage. Don’t simply look for a blank space on your calendar. Carefully consider all the implications of your meeting date and time. Most workers use Monday as an essential prep day where they tie up loose ends that are lingering from the previous week and try to grasp what’s going in the days ahead. Scheduling your meetings for Tuesdays instead will give your participants a critical day to prepare while keeping them in a place where they see the majority of the workweek ahead of them.
Early morning time slots are another hazard that can lead to a lack of preparation. If you schedule your meeting for 9 a.m., those who are rushing into the office won’t have the extra hour or two that they need to gather their notes and grab a coffee. Leave a meeting too late in the afternoon, however, and you’ll find many employees clock-watching as the end of the day approaches.
Every company works a little differently, so experiment to see what’s most effective for yours. Record the number of attendees who show up for your meetings and note the participation level and effectiveness of your gatherings. You might reveal fascinating trends that will help you pinpoint the most productive meeting time for your staff.
Choose the right space
Evaluate the different meeting spaces available to you and choose mindfully for the best meeting experience. Every gathering has its own distinct needs, so don’t go for the one-size-fits-all option when you can customize your selection for more effectiveness.
New York City’s WeWork 222 Broadway is an ideal example of an office space with diverse meeting opportunities. You can choose a quiet alcove for a one-on-one meeting with a cozy, casual feel. Spacious meeting rooms provide a more professional look with enough privacy to effectively shut out distractions. Private offices are available with up to 50 seats, so you can rent a personal area that’s spacious enough for a regular gathering of six or an expansive meeting with dozens of participants.
If the setup allows for it, consider offering food at your meeting. Studies have shown that meetings with food are more productive and satisfying. Avoid the pastry go-to that just gives you attendees a sugar crash in the hours following. Yogurt and oatmeal are better picks at breakfast, while whole grain crackers, fruit, and cheese are a healthy choice for afternoon gatherings.
Prepare your agenda
Never hold a meeting just for the sake of getting together. Meetings are a huge time-waster when they’re not planned properly. Every meeting should have a detailed agenda that can answer key questions.
- What is the purpose of the meeting?
- Who are the key decision makers at the meeting?
- What information do you need to share?
- What will your participants gain from the meeting?
- How will this benefit your business?
- What do you need to accomplish by the end of the meeting?
- What action should your attendees take after the meeting?
If you don’t have an answer to one or more of these questions, reevaluate whether a meeting is really necessary. If you can’t determine the value of the meeting for your overall business efforts, your time is better spent in another endeavor. If you’re not sure what you want your attendees to do when they walk out of the room at the end, you need to focus your purpose better.
Every meeting should hold value for its attendees. The purpose of the meeting isn’t to give you something to fill out your agenda. It must carry weight. One final question to ask is whether you could accomplish the same goals in another manner. If your information is just as effective in an email as it is in a meeting, opt for the former and hold off on a meeting until you have a more pressing need for the gathering.
Gather equipment ahead of time
Don’t rush into a meeting with your laptop in hand only to hook it up to a projector and find personal emails on the screen. Everyone’s time is valuable, and the minutes spent in a meeting should be focused on that agenda you prepared. Arrive to the meeting 15 to 20 minutes early so you can set everything up properly. Set handouts and pens at each seat when applicable. Connect all your audio-visual equipment, prepare the whiteboard, adjust the window blinds, and arrange the chairs.
If you can take care of a task before the event, do so. Leave your meeting minutes for topics that you must discuss in person during the course of the gathering. The more you prepare ahead of time, the smoother your meeting will go.
Script some of your meeting planning
Most meetings feature large chunks of time that are unscripted. The point of getting together is to share your thoughts and ideas, and you can’t know what others will bring forth ahead of time. If your meeting is too unscripted, however, you may find that you’re left with long pauses and awkward silences as you grasp for something to say.
Keep a list of talking points on hand so you can keep the meeting moving. Pair an important fact or statistic with an insightful question. If you’re holding a meeting to discuss sales strategies, your talking points may include the fact that Joe’s sales are double the next highest-performer on his team. Link this to the question of what Joe is doing differently. Jot down a list of possible contributors to guide the conversation if no one seems to know Joe’s secret.
Prepare your information in small, easily digestible snippets. Rather than droning on through a lengthy marketing report, pull out three to five critical bullet points and sum these up in a sentence or two each. Keep things small and simple with plenty of room in between your snippets to draw out conversation and collaboration.
Help attendees prepare
The most efficient meetings are those that everyone is prepared for. Don’t get so focused on the question of how to prepare for a meeting yourself that you forget about others. Meeting prep is something everyone should participate in. Provide your attendees with an agenda so they know what to expect. This enables them to prepare their own talking points.
If you’re hoping to get a specific piece of information from your participants, let them know. Inform your top salespeople that you’re going to explore the techniques that are contributing to their successes so they can evaluate their own behavior and come up with some ideas as to what they’re doing differently. If you’re planning to brainstorm marketing ideas for the latest widget, give your invitees sample widgets to play with before the meeting. Involve everyone in your meeting planning so you all show up well-equipped.
Meetings can serve as a powerful way for your coworkers or clients to gather and share information. However, they should never be a default that you fall back on out of habit without a powerful purpose. Make your meetings as effective as possible by following through with thorough meeting prep for each one. Taking the right actions ahead of time can make any meeting a success.
