Business Meeting Etiquette – 7 Secrets For Your Conferences And Special Events Success

I am sure you have been in an audience at sometime in your life, when the event has been delayed and no one tells you what is happening.

How do you and the rest of that audience feel? Slowly the audience begins to get restless until dissatisfaction sets in and the night could very well be ruined at this point.

“I was part of a major concert with over 30,000 people in the audience and half way through the show, the main breaker serving the lights and sound blew up, bringing the concert to an abrupt halt.

However the band, stayed on stage and started singing along with the audience at the front of the stage without microphones.

Very soon the singing passed from one person to another until the whole audience was singing along without any sound or lights.

The band prevented any bad feeling and the audience was kept happy and entertained for the 15 minutes that it took to replace the breaker.

This was great business meeting etiquette of a different kind and everyone went home happy!”

Business Meeting Etiquette in the entertainment world is a little different to normal business which is done at meetings and desks. Our business meetings maybe conferences, concerts and special events, but the same 7 secrets apply to all:

Secret 1: Start On Time

Very often, the audience has paid good money to come and see your event and it is only correct not to keep them waiting.

If for some reason, there is a delay, due to some unforeseen circumstance, let the audience know what is happening and maybe even give them some entertainment while they wait.

It is fairly easy to get someone on stage just to talk for a while rather than just letting the audience sit there wondering what is happening.

It shows lack of respect for your audience and they will soon feel abandoned by you if you don’t inform them of what is going on.

Secret 2: Be prepared

Not only should you have had rehearsals, but all your slide shows, Powerpoint presentations, laptops and other presentation devices should have been tested to make sure they are all compatible.

There is nothing more embarrassing than half way through your new product launch you have a technical breakdown and have to say sorry to the audience.

You will lose them at that point!

Secret Number 3: Be More Prepared

Preparation is the key to event success. Sometimes things will go wrong. It is inevitable that sometimes this will happen.

Often equipment will not work. A common one I see is when wireless microphones will not work and there are no backups ready causing a long pause in the presentation, so always have microphones with cables ready just in case or other equipment around for back up.

Secret Number 4: Question and Answers

If you have a question and answers section, give some of the audience some questions in advance. There is nothing more deflating for a speaker than when at the end of their presentation they ask if any one has questions and no one says anything.

“Plant’ a few questions in the audience to keep the momentum going and there will probably be more questions to follow from other participants.

Secret Number 5: Don’t Just Read Powerpoint Presentations

I don’t know how many times I have been to presentations where the speaker just reads all of the words on the Powerpoint presentation and the audience just sit there reading all of the words without paying any attention to the speaker.

If you have ever sat in such a presentation, you know that you can read faster than the speaker can talk and so you just sit there in a “cut-off-long-distant” feeling from the speaker, just waiting for the next slide.

Powerpoint presentations should highlight keywords and phrases not the whole presentation. The speaker should deliver the content not the Powerpoint.

Secret Number 6: Venue Coordination

Last week I was at a conference as a sponsor at an event that was due to start at 8 am in the morning. The ingress of equipment was at midnight the night before.

However the venue, did not provide power until 7am which delayed setting up all of the equipment. This had a knock on effect and the organizer of the event was going nuts trying to keep his audience.

Secondly, the very minute the last speaker stopped speaking, the venue turned off the air-conditioning and started pulling the chairs and tables out forcing the audience to leave.

This was terrible on the part of the organizer who wanted meet-ups and photo ops in the room after the event.

Before the event, you should have production meetings to discuss all the requirements so that you do not get these kind of surprises.

You can bet the organizer won’t be going back to that venue again.

Secret Number 7: Adapt and Involve Your Audience

One of the saving features of the conference I spoke about above, was that before the 1st speaker went on stage, they had a 10 minute segment where an entertainer got on stage and had the audience singing, clapping and dancing.

Not only did this get them excited and energized for the 1st speaker, who came on stage to a thunderous applause, it also made them forget that they had been waiting for an hour whilst the technical stuff was being done.

Any bad thoughts they may have had was quickly removed from their head and the opening moments of the event were simply tremendous due to some smart thinking by the producer.

Business Meeting Etiquette – Summary

Business Meeting Etiquette actually has no secrets. These 7 secret are just common sense and careful planning by experienced producers.

Tim Bennett has almost 20 years on the international circuit producing special events and conferences and would love to help you get your next special event ready for your audience and can be contacted here.

Treating your audience special and with respect is the key to any special event.