Tips on getting the most from Business Meetings - Part 1
by Startacus Admin
Business Meetings:
If you’re starting out in business, meetings are one of those things that you’ll just have to get used to. And quickly. There’s no escaping them - from sole traders to fully fledged limited companies, they’ll 
happen at all stages of your startup journey. Here at Startacus we’ve had our fair share of business meetings and we’ve picked up some pretty useful tips as we’ve gone along. And us being us, we’re gonna share them with you folk!
Business meetings can be a great way of developing - yep you guessed it - business and without getting too cliche-ridden, there is a lot of truth in the saying “people buy from people” - and often that rapport building that you can do in a half an hour meeting can be the equivalent of a few months’ work on the phone, sending emails or trying to get the right person.
Having said that, business meetings can be both glorious successes and humongous failures - we’ve been in a few of both! With this in mind check out our first 4 tips below which we hope will point you in the right direction. The next 4 points, as you clever folk have probably already worked out will appear in part 2...
Plan
Most, if not all of the first 4 points need to happen before you get to the meeting itself. If you are not prepared for a meeting expect all of the points we subsequently mention (unless you are remarkable at ‘winging it’) to fail and fail miserably. Planning was admittedly my biggest failing, and is quite often or not a typical mistake that most people make. If you do not plan for the meeting - where you are going, how you are going to get there, who you are meeting - their background story, their responsibility etc, what you are likely to need to know, all the company information and news stories you can find, then you may look like a prize fool, when a pretty basic question is asked of you. Work out the detail way before you go!
Reconfirm
Just because you are fab at time management (and of course you all are) you cannot expect all of your clients to be the same. Therefore rather than wasting a load of your time, planning, travel and energy in getting to a meeting and finding out the person you were meeting is either ‘not there’ or ‘none the wiser’, simply send a confirmation (aka reminder) email a couple of days prior to the meeting. Yes, by doing this on occasion a meeting may actually be rescheduled or at worst cancelled - but would you not rather that be the case, than turning up and being turned away at the door. Not only that, your client may actually not even remember that a meeting had been planned, so in turn sending a confirmation email can save embarrassment all round. Here are some tips, courtesy of accountancy experts Howlader&Co, on how to generate substantial profits by maximising productivity in your startup. The Manchester based startup that is on a mission to transform the energy system... Developing Experts empower teachers and parents to teach science with confidence and ease, with an ever-growing library of interactive, online science lessons. Startups focused on Connected Digital Mobility, including connected vehicles, autonomous travel, smart cities, future transport services, take note! The online marketplace where you can buy goods directly from independent retailers all in one place. With the aim of reaching 1 million classrooms and kitchen tables by 2021, EdTech startup Makematic have raised £1m to help brands connect with education through bitesize content. AI: Artificial Intelligence, currently the buzzwords about town betwixt the tech-savvy among us. So will robots become part of the family as our pets have? The startup that has created a biologically active food expiry label to help combat food waste... The startup that is "saving and improving human lives with artificial intelligence analytics for healthcare". KeepAppy, is a personal wellness app, designed to empower users to take control of their mental and physical wellbeing, and enable people to track all of the vitals that most impact an individual’s wellbeing.
Continued on page 2...
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