What kind of meeting should I have?

What kind of meeting should I haveWhen planning a meeting, a lot of people don’t even ask this question. And they really should.

They fall back on habit and conduct meetings in a way that they feel most conformable or have the most experience. You’ve always used audio conferencing, so whenever you run a meeting you get everyone on the bridge. Unfortunately, your go-to method may not be the best for achieving your meeting’s objective. If you want to have successful meetings, follow this simple advice from the experienced professionals at Teamings.

Establish an objective.

As always, your first (and most important) step in conducting your meeting should be establishing a meeting objective. What do you want to accomplish with this meeting?

Narrow down what types of communication will help you accomplish your meeting’s objective.

Next, you should decide what communication needs to happen in order for your objective to be accomplished. Ask yourself questions like: How many people need to be present? Do I need to collaborate, persuade, educate, excite or inform? Will nonverbal communication help achieve my objective? Is body language and eye contact important? What kind of feedback will be best? Will visual aids be helpful?

Determine what type of meeting will best facilitate your needed forms of communication.

Now that you know what types of communication will achieve your objective, you can narrow down what kind of meeting you should have and what meeting technology you should use. Look at your various options and ensure the one you choose has the functionality to allow your needed forms of communication.

Example 1: The Angry Client

Objective – To reassure our biggest account that our services will fulfill their needs in the future despite a massive oversight on our part.

Communication – 5 People, Genuine, Persuasive and Body Language (key to reading the client’s reaction and displaying our own message)

Meeting TypeIn person, put the fire out meeting. Get on a plane and meet your client wherever they want, STAT!

Example 2: The Technical Malfunction

Objective – To understand why our e-commerce website malfunctioned and come up with steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

Communication – 4 People, Informational, Collaborative and Visual (so everyone can see the performance metrics that led to the outage)

Meeting Type – Informative/Collaborative Web Conference with guest screen sharing capabilities and a white board.

Example 3: The Trainer

Objective – To fully train new hires in other cities how to use Sales Force.

Communication – 20 People, Informational. Educational, Questions/ Answers, Quizzes, Visual and Interactive.

Meeting Type – Interactive Webinar with the ability to share screens, upload videos, design quizzes and allow for questions and answers.

Any of these meetings could have taken place on your go-to audio bridge, but would they really be effective? One of the greatest challenges facing companies today is effectively connecting geographically dispersed people. Technology makes it easy to connect people, the hard part is doing it effectively.

Knowing what type of meeting will best connect those people will help you make your goals and put you ahead of the competition. Remember to always establish your objective and determine what kind of communication you need to meet your objective before you pick a meeting technology solution.

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