What Is the Correct Way to Conduct a Business Meeting?

With planning, business meetings can be efficient and productive.

Business meetings are often dreaded by those involved, who think of them as time-consuming and, often, quite stressful (if they are not properly prepared). In order to conduct a successful business meeting, a facilitator must have a clear list of goals outlined for the meeting ahead of time; if this is a meeting between two companies, both sides should have clearly outlined goals they wish to achieve. These goals should serve as a kind of blueprint, and should lead the participants towards a productive and efficient meeting. In a successful business meeting, it is key that one or two facilitators lead the meeting and keep the rest of the group on-task.

Things You'll Need

• Agenda
• Visual aides
• Clock or watch

Instructions

Prepare For The Business Meeting

1. Announce the meeting: send out a notice to everyone who will be expected to attend the meeting, outlining all relevant information: location, date and time, facilitator(s), what will be discussed and/or decided, etc. This notice should be sent as far in advance as possible so that everyone who needs to be there can save the date.

2. Prepare an agenda: prepare a meeting agenda, carefully outlining all topics that will need to be addressed at the meeting, as well as how much time will be allotted for each topic. This agenda will act as a road map for the meeting, and should be sent to all participants so that they will know what to expect, and also if their work is being covered and/or if they will need to prepare anything for the meeting.

3. Send out periodic reminders: send out a few well-timed reminders about the upcoming meeting to your participants---you don't want to do this with irritating frequency, but enough to keep it on people's radars.

Conducting The Meeting

1. Begin on time: probably one of the more annoying things for employees, prospective clients, or business partners, is if you call a meeting, send multiple reminders about the meeting, and then start it late. Be sure that the facilitator gets the meeting off to a timely beginning and immediately addresses the first item on the agenda.

2. Stick to the schedule: the facilitator should make sure that the meeting does not run over its prepared timeframe. If agreements need to be reached for different points on the agenda, keep track of time so that there is enough time to present and discuss each point, and then to negotiate and/or vote on the issue at hand.

3. Make sure that everyone who should contribute has a chance: keep the dialogue moving around the table so that all participants who should be contributing input are getting a chance to do so. If some feel that their voice is not being heard, this will lead to frustration and a sense that they are not part of a process that they should be part of.

4. Make sure everyone leaves on the same page: conclude the meeting on time and with a recap of what has happened, what been decided, what is to come for the next meeting, and what---if anything---should be done in the meantime.

Tips & Warnings

• It is useful to have a designated scribe present at business meetings to keep a record of what was discussed and decided (as well as who was there). The notes taken by this scribe can be sent out to participants after the meeting for their review.

References

• Altika: How to Conduct Successful Business Meetings
• The Leader's Institute: Conducting Effective Business Meetings