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. "If you want to teach a nation to read: Just turn on the subtitles". This simple advice might just help make kids become proficient readers... The innovative N. Ireland based startup that'll help you save both time and money when importing... Urban Massage announces new on-demand wellness services and immediately raises over £2.5m in investment via equity crowdfunding platform, Seedrs. The innovative app which is creating a better way for law firms to communicate with their clients... London-based startup Ugenie is aiming to allow businesses to efficiently engage & monetise their customer community via an affordable tailored mobile hub. Thinking of entering and expanding your business into the US market? We chat to Michael Burke, Partner in the Washington, DC office of Arnall Golden Gregory LLP. The FinTech startup which is on a mission to fix car leasing and make the entire process easier than ever before. Early-stage startup CityRadar is a SaaS platform that aims to tracks, analyses and increase consumer spend in the hospitality, tourism & travel business sectors. We found out more... Dublin-based startup RewardsWide is a team performance and incentive platform for both families & workplaces. We found out more... Continually wants you to never miss another lead from your website, replacing contact forms with simple messaging, making it easy for customers to get the information they need as quickly as possible.
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