Meetings… your staff either thinks they’re beneficial, or a waste of their time. It’s a topic that consistently comes up during conversations I have with new and existing clients. The fact is, research shows that most people find meetings to be unproductive and boring. Why? Because the meetings have not been structured properly!
As the CEO or business owner, you set the vision. Wouldn’t it benefit your business if 2-3 times a year you shifted the focus of staff meetings from “the now”, to “where are we going”? Sure its OK to spend a few minutes on the now…and get a quick update… but then quickly move on to the future, where action or change can actually make a difference.
Here are 7 questions you can use to energize your next senior staff meetings.
Pick one topic per meeting for your next 7 staff meetings (or every other meeting), and discuss for a half hour. I can almost guarantee that these questions will result in some strategic or tactical shift in how you operate your business.
Meeting 1: Why do we lose business? Have participants write down their top three reasons, then go around the room and discuss them. Are you and your staff on the same page? Pick the top three reasons and develop an action plan.
Meeting 2: Who are our most profitable/important customers? What do they have in common? How can we attract more of them? What could we do to solidify our relationship with them?
Meeting 3: Why do our clients select us over our competition? What’s our competitive advantage? Are we communicating it clearly? How do we really know if our customer values this advantage?
Meeting 4: Could we form some partnerships or alliances that could open up new business or take us into other markets?
Meeting 5: What can we do to gain business? Have participants write down their top three reasons, then go around the room and discuss them. Are you and your staff on the same page? Pick the top three reasons and develop a plan.
Meeting 6: Could we change, offer more, or eliminate some of the products or services we provide? Have participants write down their suggestions.
Meeting 7: What could we do in the next 30 days to improve our profitability? Have each participant write down three ideas. Develop a Profit Improvement Committee to assess all the ideas and present their findings and action plan during one of your next meetings.
We often assume people on our teams are thinking about all this good stuff. They’re not. They are busy operating the business.
As always, have a great week.