The Moments That Matter Don't Happen During Your Regular Scheduled Meeting...

What fascinates me about top tier athletes like Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal, Phil Mickelson, and Lewis Hamilton is not how they perform during their respective event but how they act in the critical moments prior to the event and at the end of them. What makes them great is that they expand the time boundaries of their event with incredible preparation and reflection. 

Unfortunately this level of thoughtfulness is not the case in many business settings. We all complain about “death by meetings” but in many cases we are the ones to blame when a meeting goes off the rails or the intended message gets lost. The common theme of a bad meeting is that participants and hosts don’t prep for them and take the time to reflect and act on what was discussed. 

Here are some tactics and mindsets that will enhance your level of influence with your audience, leave them with a positive impression, and set the stage for you and your team to always come back. In full disclosure some of these lessons I learned the hard way throughout my career and I still work on them to this day. 

Timing Matters - If you are setting a meeting to sell a product or service, influence key decision makers, or to gain commitments from project teams the most effective time to set the meeting is at 10:00 AM. No matter where you are on earth it is scientifically proven that a human is primed to make decisions, commit to something, and most importantly be in a positive mood before noon. Daniel Pink’s latest book, When - The Scientific Secrets to Perfect Timing, supports this with many different studies. People tweet more positive messages, surgeons make less mistakes, judges hand out softer sentences all before 11:00 AM. If you don’t believe me on this just schedule a meeting or training with a team at 2:30 PM. Please call me after they wake up. 

Discussion Topics and Meeting Goals Help You Win The Meeting Before It Begins - What’s more flattering than sending a brief one page outline to a key decision maker of what is going to be discussed and what you would like to accomplish from everyone’s time before the meeting. This practice, if done in a professional way, allows for the  “sender” to lead the conversation. Also note that I did not say “send an agenda.” Words matter in this world and “Discussion Topics” or “meeting objectives” sets a positive tone and removes the negative connotation that the word agenda has. 

First and Lasting Impressions Happen In The Moments We Take For Granted - "This will be easy peasy...” or “This is going to be a walk in the park...” or “We killed it...” or “Oh by the way did you hear about...” These are phrases shared both privately in a casual way within a team either at the start of a meeting or when the meeting is immediately over. The statements in many cases can lead to tangents off of the main point of a conversation and they are normally said when someone’s guard is down. I’ve seen many people make silly statements in jest or provide small gossip in the critical 2 or 3 minutes after a meeting that eroded much of the positive impact that was made. No matter how good you think the meeting went don’t let your ego tell yourself that you deserve an encore. You are not Pavarotti, just finish and politely leave and let people go about their day. 

A Good Old Fashioned Thank You Note Makes Your Presence Felt From Afar - Many people believe that it takes 7-10 different impressions points or positive interactions with a prospect to gain their commitment. Sending meeting participants a thank you follow up note or email after the meeting within two business days keeps you and your message on their radar.

Quantity of Attendees Does Not Equal Quality of Attendees - Packing a meeting and inviting too many “contributors” does not equal success. The main person to cater to is the decision maker and then their respective “right hand guy or gal.” Adopt the Jeff Bezos "two pizza rule" to feed the group when thinking of meeting size. 

Reflect to Perfect... Take the time to reflect on the tactics and mindsets shared above to improve your influence and your participant’s meeting experience. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I arrive five minutes early to start meetings with a clear mind?
• When I call a meeting, do the participants know the discussion topics at least one day in advance?
• How influential am I in early morning meetings vs. afternoon meetings?
• Have I said something in jest or in a too casual of a way prior to the start of the meeting or at the end of meeting that I wish I could have taken back? 

Some of these points are common sense but unfortunately they are not common practice for some professionals. Just like the pros I mentioned in the introduction doing the little things before, during, and after the “event” will make a big impact.