Ground Rules For Business Meetings – 3 Simple Rules To Help Your Event

Imagine the picture and ask yourself how you would feel if this happened to you:

It was 8am in the morning. All the suppliers had been there since midnight installing their equipment. There were 2000 people in a queue outside the venue waiting excitedly for their “hero” speaker to motivate them into success.

One rather small problem…No Electricity!

The venue did not, for some amazing reason normally allow setups during the night, but on this occasion made an exception and the technical crew were not on site as they had not been told.

Eventually at 8.15am they got an electrician to turn on the power and the teams setup with the audience coming into the venue. Fortunately they were very forgiving and the organizer entertained them as best he could while the suppliers got everything ready and the event started with only one hour delay.”

Imagine this was your event. How would you feel being treated this way by the venue?

But as terrible as it is that the venue treats you like this, in some ways you would be responsible for this, if it was your event, as it was not discussed or sorted out before.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 1

Do Not Assume

This is one of the most important of all the Ground Rules For Business Meetings if you ask me.

How many times have you heard “Oh I thought you meant…” or “Oh I thought you were going to do…”

Do not assume that things will be done the way you want them, when you want them.

Without being rude, treat people as if it is the first time they have done this and make sure that every single simple little item is covered.

Once you have experience in events, you will be able to have event recall and you should have a list of items that need to be discussed.

This list should be updated at every meeting with some new point and added to the things to talk about.

If this had happened at the above event, a lot of stress would have been avoided.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 2

Put Everything In Writing

Putting everything in writing may very well save your life and is another major part of our Ground Rules For Business Meetings.

When you are having your meetings, as you talk, make notes of what was agreed, promised or assigned. Also write the name of the people that said each comment, so you can refer to it later.

After the meeting, send a copy of the points to each person in the meeting by email, snail mail or some other way.

This may seen tedious, but one day you will be grateful you did.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 3

Make People Responsible.

When you send documents to people, make sure that they sign for them.

They should print, sign and date a receipt for the documents, so that they can never say “I did not know…”

Also send everyone a directory of the names, telephone contact numbers and email addresses of all the key people involved in the event along with their titles and responsibility to the event.

This way no one has any confusion about who is involved and what their role in the project is.

These 3 Ground Rules For Business Meetings, may appear to be very obvious to you and somewhat very simple, but it is amazing how many people do not do them and then live to regret it.

If you have an assistant, you can assign the task of handling these tasks to them so you can focus on the event.

If you would like help organizing your event, feel free to contact me anytime here