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Honestly, I’m not always the type of person you expect me to be. And I even enjoy telling my “unknown” characteristics, always followed by an unpredictable reactions! The thing is, despite beeing a journalist, I’m also a very shy person, finding it hard to communicate with other people. I’m never the one to introduce myself first; in a new company I prefer to keep silence; can’t make a single call for ages and love the moments I can stay in front of my computer the most of all. Well, it’s been a little easier lately – I learned to force myself to communicate with important people, at least…
So. now you understand, that everything connected with blog I prefer to discuss online. Expect for those rare projects like Live Your Life, Love Your City, that I really become a fan of and just can’t fit them into a single letter. But after all there is a statistics that people normally spend up to 35% of their working time in business meetings.
So, if you can’t avaid it, how can you behave in process? Fall is a high season for all types of meetings cause we are full of energy after summer vacations, so it’s a perfect moment for this post.
Please, feel free to add everything you want in comments.
Do you really need this meeting?
What else could I have started with:) So, how to understand, when it’s the right time for the meeting and when it’s just enough to send and e-mail?
First of all, try to answer, why do you want to meet this person? Good reason is to present your project or to organize brainstorm. If you only want to discuss how everything goes – just use online sources.
Secondly, figure out if you have all the important information and if all the people you want to talk to are available at the moment. I’m sure, you don’t want to repeat it thousands times:)
And finaly, imagine how your future collaboration would look like without this meeting? Are there still some problems, you want to focus on? Just don’t get me wrong, you’re not the only busy person in here. Statistics say that almost 80% of all dialogs can be made without personal meeting.
And if you can’t skip the meeting after all, be sure to organize it not faster than 2 days and not later than 10 days, to give everyone enough time to get prepaired and not to forget about an appointement.
9 important rules of any business meeting
1. Always be in time! You can, of course, arrive earlier – to choose the best place:) Just don’t be late!
2. By the way, talking about time. The first part of the day is considered to be the best for meetings, but you can also go for a later option. Just remember: meeting and lunch is not the same (which may sound a little strange for bloggers, cause we mostly meet in caffees). If you don’t have other options, just make sure not to eat while discussing work. After everything is sorted out – grab some food and have a nice chat!
3. Watch your speech. Well, of course, no one expects high end words from you, but after all it’s still better to sound a little over-official than a little to familiar. And no matter how friendly is your companion, you’re colleagues today, so no gossiping about your friends or diet:)
4. Listening is important. Yes, you might have a lot of ideas and enthusiasm, but meetings are called so, because they are about two people, not one. Otherwise, people would have called them “monologues”, agree?
5. Forget about your friends. For a while, not forever:) It goes without saying, you can meet your friend anywhere someday. But your colleague that is not familiar to him, might feel uncomfy not knowing what to say and how to react (or am I the only one to feel that?), so don’t make him feel nervous.
6. Control yourself:) Sometimes we can by accident do some annoying stuff, like knocking table with the pencil or touching hair too much. Mobile phone that vibrates every other second is from this list as well. Try to avoid those habbits on a business meeting!
7. Don’t make an agreement to soon! Not in a global way. But be sure you went through all the options at first and only after that choose the ones you are really fancy about. Otherwise you will look too unpredictable and uncertain.
8. Always finish business meeting in time. You may have all the day free, but it doesn’t mean your colleague has so much time as well. Be sure to ask if he wants to continue the dialog or should you end for today and continue next time.
9. However ends your meeting don’t forget to send everyone a short summary at the end of the day. So you will be sure you didn’t miss or misunderstood something.
Hope this short instruction was useful. Good luck with your meetings!
