Is it time to run a meeting survey?

There are only two ways to improve your firm’s results:

• Start doing new things
• Do old things in new ways

Both require change which isn’t easy but doing old things in new ways is a lot easier than trying to do new things.?One overlooked activity that will improve what you already do, and help you do new things are your meetings.

Have you ever wondered how effective your internal meetings are in helping your firm execute its strategy, increase employee engagement, and boost productivity? Have you considered how much impact your client meetings have, and how they compare to your competition??

By doing a simple meeting survey, with your clients and employees, you can measure the impact of your meetings and, crucially, gauge whether meetings represent a problem or opportunity in your firm.?

Understanding the true impact of meetings

I believe the effectiveness of your meetings is a key driver of your results; the better your client meetings the more value your clients will see, the higher fees they will pay and the more referrals they will make. The better your internal meetings the stronger your team and culture will be.

I’d go so far as to say that your firm’s meeting performance sets the bar for your success. Which means taking some time to measure your firm’s meeting effectiveness is a good investment.?

Meeting surveys help you assess how you are performing. All you need to do is ask your clients and employees to score five statements on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being strongly disagree, 5 being strongly agree and 3 being neutral.

Surveying clients?

Here are some statements you can use when surveying clients:

- I am more inspired and motivated after our meetings

- Our meetings deepen my understanding of finance

- Our meetings include valuable insights I can use to help me achieve my goals

- Our meetings help me solve key challenges, issues, and problems in my business

- Our meetings contribute to better outcomes for my business and me.

A score below 15 means you have a meeting problem. If your score is between 15 and 25, it means there is an opportunity to improve the client experience and drive more revenue with higher prices, sales of new services, and more referrals.

Surveying employees

Here are some statements you can use with your team:

- Our meetings are well structured and start and end on time.

- Our meetings get to the route cause of challenges, issues, and problems and identify decisions and clear actions to drive the firm forward and improve results

- Our meetings help build a culture of accountability

- Our core values are applied in meetings

- Our meetings give me a voice and help me build genuine connections

Again, a score below 15 means you have a meeting problem. If your score is between 15 and 25, there is an opportunity to increase employee engagement, boost productivity and achieve more.

What next?

Even if you do not survey all your clients and the team, just pick the top 20% of clients and all your managers.

If you’d like us to support you with the survey, we have a template survey using Google Forms, can benchmark you against other accounting firms and carry out independent 1-2-1 interviews with your team and clients to give you more in-depth feedback.?

If you’d like to explore using meeting management software to improve your meeting performance you can register for a free trial of Agendali and you can use two free resources:

• Ebook ‘Stop Wasting Time, Losing Money and Missing Opportunities’ with 25 tips on how to improve your firm’s meetings
• The ‘Ultimate Year-End Meeting Agenda & Playbook’ to increase revenue from every client and generate more referrals?

If you’d like some support with a survey and/or the free resources email me at [email protected].?