Business Meetings Tips, Ideas, and How-to's

Purpose of Business Meetings

Meetings serve as a multipurpose channel to generate new ideas, discuss feedback, celebrate achievements, and clearly align on business goals. In short, a successful meeting is one that generates formal communication in a way that is efficient and ultimately saves the company resources such as time and money and results in increased employee engagement, productivity, and creativity. 

Typical Audience

The audience for your meeting will vary largely based on the desired outcome and nature of the meeting itself. If launching a new product, your focus will most likely be on sales representatives; providing product education and generating excitement for the future. If you are hosting a company-wide yearly review, on the other hand, your audience will extend into all departments – working as both an educational and networking event that will result in an overall boost in employee engagement.

Sourcing Requirements / Budget Drivers

Most of a business meeting budget is allocated to the meeting space, room block, food & beverage (meals and breaks), and A/V. Depending on your destination, the location of your meeting can also have major budgetary impacts. Picking lower demand cities, being flexible with your dates, and beginning the sourcing process early (9-12 months out) are all factors that can work to maximize your budget. Length of meeting is another budget driver that can be made flexible based on what the meeting aims to accomplish. If the budget needs to be tightened, increase breakout sessions and allow attendees to pick and choose what’s most important to them so the schedule can be shortened and expenses recouped.

Services

• Sourcing for accommodations, meeting space, A/V
• Stage design or décor for the entire event
• Full scale, flexible registration websites
• Registration services via web and telephone
• Name badges and signage
• Presentation templates and branding
• Meeting kits and fulfillment
• On-site operations personnel and registration desk staff
• Professionally designed confirmations and reminders
• Real-time payment processing
• Comprehensive cost reconciliation
• Post-event attendee evaluations 

Challenges

Many clients have experienced headaches when tracking registration manually. While it may seem doable to simply have an attendee list in excel, it typically results in countless hours of additional work and leaves room for inaccurate attendee counts, name mishaps, and a variety of other informational errors. Using registration software for your next meeting will help streamline the planning process and enhance overall execution.

Another common pain point in meeting planning consists of changes occurring after collateral has been finalized and sent to print. While waiting until the last minute to send items to print is an option, there is no way to avoid unforeseen changes. While you can’t always prevent emergencies from happening, you can adjust what these surprises will impact. By incorporating a mobile app, you can make real-time changes to any of your collateral (agenda, sessions, logos, etc.) throughout the meeting. 

Creative Tips

Business meetings don’t have to be all business. While they often don’t have the most exciting reputation, there are ways to keep them fresh and engaging without increasing the bottom line. Try exploring options outside of the standard banquet menu or adding in local flare – chefs usually enjoy the opportunity to get creative with their craft. If your meeting agenda is the same year over year, try switching things up by replacing your late afternoon break with a networking happy hour.