subject: Small business owners should cancel all unnecessary meetings [print this page] Small business owners should cancel all unnecessary meetings
One of the best ways to recapture energy and time is to identify timewasters. Unnecessary meetings can be major time and energy wasters for small business owners. Be mindful of how you spend your working hours. Make them productive, make them effective and make them efficient. The more you ask yourself "what decision needs to be made?" or "how will this bring me closer to meeting my goals and objectives?" the more you will start to eliminate unnecessary meetings. With all the technology we have today, take advantage of ability to reduce travel time and expenses.
Face-to-face meetings should be scheduled wisely. They should include establishing a personal connection with a potential client, sales dialogue and persuading or soliciting a decision. Most other meetings should be done virtually. For more effective and efficient meetings:
Make sure there is a real purpose for your meeting or event and predetermine your outcome. If your meeting involves: business negotiations, connecting with a decision maker, personal favors, promises, understandings, coordination, persuasion of others, expression of emotions, etc. they should be face-to-face. If not, schedule a virtual meeting.
Use technology to make scheduling easier and stop playing phone tag. Sites likeTungle,Doodle,Bookfresh andSetster allow you schedule a board meeting, business lunch, conference call, family reunion, movie night, or any other group event.
Use your virtual meeting to determine the need for a face-to-face meeting and cover the basics (i.e. draft an agenda, review material, etc.) Use sites likeDimDim.com,gotomeeting.com, conference call lines, Skype and video conferencing to save time, gas and money and still achieve optimal results.Be sure to send visuals (i.e. PowerPoint, reports, documents, presentations, etc.) ahead of time so that you can review them together online. (This also saves paper).
As a small business owner, you can't afford not to streamline your business operations, work with a purpose and be efficient. So before you schedule your next meeting, ask yourself, "What is the purpose?" "Is this the best use of my time?" and "How will this bring me closer to my goals and objectives?" and cancel any current unnecessary meetings.
WANT TO RE-POST THIS ARTICLE ON YOUR BLOG OR USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE, E-NEWSLETTER OR WEB SITE? You may, as long as you include this complete bio with it:
