Why are meeting notes mandatory?

Imagine the following scenario: All of your meetings follow the best practice meeting books, you receive the agenda ahead of time, the meeting description describes the content, pre-reading is shared, everyone arrives several minutes early, people prepared questions in advance because they understand their time is valuable, they know why they are here, and the meeting is completed before it is supposed to.

Sadly, this isn't the case for many people, but YOU can change that!

In today's post, I'll talk about a very important aspect of every meeting, the meeting notes, which I think are required to write, share, and follow up after every meeting.

Terms:

• Meeting minutes, or meeting summaries, are both very detailed summaries of a meeting
• Meeting notes is a high level summary of your meeting, key points, and action items

Why do we need meeting notes?

Human nature makes it challenging to recall every action item and every meeting topic that occurred last week or a month ago.

When dealing with prospects or customers, taking meeting notes is even more important. You begin an engagement with a prospect but for some reason, the decision maker is unable to attend. Adding them to the meeting notes email you send is important to make sure they are on the same page, and that they know what is happening.

What is the best tool you can recommend?

A very common method is to record the meeting and take notes during it.

Numerous tools, methods, and AI/ML technologies are available that can assist you in doing this, from auto transcriptions of meetings to extracting and documenting what people said and meant, to producing action items and following up. You should do your own research to find the best tool for you.

How should meeting notes be written to be valued?

Based on the situation, whether you're talking to your manager one-on-one or with your prospect every week.

For many cases, I suggest the following template:

• Time and date of the meeting
• Participants' names
• The TL;DR section at the top (since no one will read everything... (: )
• Discussion topics, keep it short but don't miss any important points
• Action items and the owner
• Reminder about the next meeting

How should the notes be distributed?

This depends on the situation.

It is best to share this with everyone involved. Do not overshare since many people ignore long emails that are not in their mother tongue and have many recipients as they assume someone else on the list will read it and take action.

To share notes with prospects and customers, you might consider creating two different notes: one that is external, explaining the process up to that point, their requirements and needs, and the other that is internal, identifying who is responsible for what internally, what tickets are open and what can be improved for next time.

Documents, easily accessible and shareable

Put the notes in a place where many people can find them. In some cases, sharing only via email is not the best strategy since what if someone joins the project later or after a few meetings when emails become very long with notes and replies, it becomes almost impossible to follow.

Document - every company uses a different method. Make sure that the notes are documented, shared with relevant people, and tasks assigned to the relevant people. External communications can be handled through email, but please ensure that one email per one meeting is sent.

What other tips can you offer regarding meeting notes?

1. Send them as soon as possible - don't wait more than 24 hours after the meeting to send them.
2. Following up - ensure that your prospects/customers read your email. Track the tasks and follow up to see if anyone has any questions. The next time you speak to your customer/prospect, simply open the email and quickly review it to remind everyone what happened last time
3. Document - put your notes in a place where people can search for them. Do not force people to use your new method; learn from them what works best for them.
4. Tickets - assign action items to relevant people and create tickets to track them.
5. Tag - in case of internal notes, tag the relevant people, as some of them were not on the call, tagging them will bring it to their attention.
6. Notes is the Agenda - the notes will be helpful for the next agenda. Use them to prepare for the meeting with prospects/customers
7. Clear and honest communication - be open with your customers, e.g. if they requested a new feature, share the status at the next meeting, inform them what the internal departments will do with their feedback, and when the feature will be implemented
8. Your action items - track your own personal action items in a separate list to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
9. Handwritten notes - In addition to typing notes on the computer during sessions and taking notes from recorded videos afterward, I sometimes take notes by hand using a pen and paper during conversations.
10. Share the video - as part of the meeting notes, include the full recorded video of the whole meeting, but don't expect people to watch it all since people are busy

What are your tips for taking notes and communicating with customers?

As always, until next time.

Menachem.