When you think about the many meetings you’ve attended in your business life, I’m sure you will remember some that were very worthwhile but others that left you feeling resentful because they wasted your valuable time. The last thing any of us needs is to have time taken away from us!

Unfortunately, because many of them are poorly run, meetings in general have gotten a very bad rap. In fact, some people have decided it’s just a bad idea to hold meetings. But that’s taking the easy way out, because meetings are important and useful when they are well run. These will strengthen teams, increase motivation, and enhance productivity and relationships. Anyone who has employees should hold meetings with them regularly – without wasting their time!

When you run a meeting, do whatever you can to make sure participants will see value in it. Here are some guidelines and tips.

Prepare

• Create an agenda – Include meeting objective(s), topics, and names of discussion leaders (if any).
• Create a meeting timeline – On your own agenda copy, write the estimated start time for each item, based on how long you think the previous item will take.
• Enable participants to prepare – Send them the agenda in advance.
• Know your stuff – Write down your own questions to ask & information to present. Make it obvious that you have made an effort and that you respect their time.
• Assign someone to take notes.

Establish and Follow Rules of Engagement

• START ON TIME.
• Stick to your timeline as much as you can and END ON TIME.
• Keep discussions focused on the topics & objectives of the meeting.
• Allow only one conversation at a time.

Lead by Example

• Set a positive tone and do whatever you can to keep it that way.
• Demonstrate respect for all – encourage everyone to participate, acknowledge what they say, and express your appreciation. Transition smoothly from one topic to the next.
• Be a listener first and allow opinions and feelings to be expressed before stating your own. Great things happen when people realize you really want to hear what they have to say.

Use Phrases that Will Get Everyone Involved, Stay Focused, and Stay Positive:

• Tell us more about that.
• To build on Joe’s idea…
• How many of you agree with what Susan just said?
• What I hear you saying is that…
• We have a few options. [list them] Let’s discuss these before we decide…
• Let’s recap what’s been said on this.
• How do you feel about this, Brendan?
• That’s an important point, but for now let’s just focus on _____.

Follow Up

• Send out a note summarizing what happened during the meeting.
• Include follow-up assignments that were made (if any) – and then make sure they are completed.

Follow these guidelines and you will be running better meetings than 90% of your peers. And your meeting participants will be happier and have greater respect for you!

Sometimes things happen that upset the apple cart, and emotions kick in. You’re having a fine day when a customer calls with a complaint. Or the power goes out and you can’t do the things you need to do. Or you get a call from home on a cold day saying there’s no heat. Or the computer in the office refuses to boot up. OMG!!!

In these situations, it’s all about keeping your emotions in check and keeping everything in perspective.

When an irate customer calls, swallow your pride and focus on what will make the customer feel good – not what will make you feel good. You may feel like they deserve a punch in the nose, but with very few exceptions, it’s best to do whatever is needed to make the customer happy, so that they won’t talk negatively about you. Word-of-mouth can be great, but it can also be your undoing, especially in today’s twitter/facebook world.

In other problem situations, the first step is to take a deep breath and remind yourself that you’re NOT facing the crisis of the century. Step back and think about the immediate priorities:

• Which customer(s) will be impacted by the situation? Do you need to call them? If so, take a little time to figure out what your next steps will be and then make those calls.
• Is there a temporary workaround you can implement to alleviate the situation?
• Do you need to leave the office/shop during normal working hours? If so, be sure to post a friendly apology on the door.

Once you’ve recovered from the situation in your business, write down what happened, how you addressed it, and how it will be prevented in the future. If you have employees, engage them in this process also. Update your operations manual to include the “what-if” scenario that you just experienced. (What’s that? You don’t have an operations manual? We’ll talk about that another time…in the meantime, just write things down in a notebook or in a document on your computer).

It’s always best to think about how you might handle various situations before they arise, and actually write down the steps you would take. This will greatly reduce your and your employees’ stress levels if you’re ever faced with these situations. Here are some common ones to address:

• Office equipment failure
• Credit card processing failure
• Cash register failure
• Shop tool/equipment failure
• Late delivery of critical supplies or materials
• Unexpected absence of an employee
• Serious disagreements between employees
• No electricity
• No water
• No phone
• Family emergency

When bad things happen in business, the key is to keep everything in perspective. Stay calm, remember that your family is priority one, and within your business, keep your customers top of mind. And then ask yourself, ten years from now, how important will this incident have been in the history of your business?

I have a question for all of you small business entrepreneurs out there: Are you a networker?

An active networker, I mean. The kind that sets aside real hours every week for networking.

If you don’t spend time networking every week, you’re missing a huge piece of the small business owner’s marketing puzzle.

OK, I admit it, networking takes some getting used to. Most people feel uncomfortable walking into a room full of strangers. I sure did when I started out! The beauty of it is that the more you network, the more people you know and the more comfortable you feel with the whole thing.

There are lots of networking groups that you can try out. For me, BNI (Business Network International) has been great. It’s been around since 1985 and has chapters all over the world. The biggest pluses about BNI are that you develop solid relationships with people by seeing them on a weekly basis, and you really learn HOW to network and HOW to talk about your business…and HOW to LISTEN! It requires a real commitment of 90 minutes a week with a fairly stringent attendance requirement. If you make that commitment and really take it seriously, BNI can bring you lots of additional business.

For those who need a more flexible schedule, the local chamber of commerce may be just the ticket. Just be aware that you have to discipline yourself to make it work for you, because no one will be tracking your attendance or otherwise checking up on you! But those who make the commitment and give of their time and knowledge can find great reward in a chamber membership. In addition, small business owners can benefit from insurance programs and other member benefits that many chambers offer.

Smaller networking groups abound. For example, there are groups for particular types of businesses, for women, or for young entrepreneurs. One place you can check out online is www.meetup.com for some of the groups in your area.

Remember, you can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, you might as well just fold up your tent! Get out there and build a network of business friends. They, in turn, will help spread the word about you and the great things you do for your customers.

OK, let’s party! Balance sheets! Cash flow statements! P&L! Budgets, anyone?

A lot of business owners feel the urge to run out of the room at the mere mention of financial statements or accounting. The eyes of many who are presented with a page full of numbers glaze over immediately.

The truth is, though, that business is all about numbers, and this goes way beyond finances. Really successful business owners recognize the power of operational and marketing metrics as well as financial data. They define numerical measures by which they will be able to gauge such things as quality, productivity, and marketing ROI (return on investment). They document development, production, and installation costs on timelines for every job or project. Such documentation becomes a key tool in creating estimates for similar jobs as well as defining personnel and other resource requirements for the business.

Ignoring the numbers is the downfall of many a business. In fact, the #1 reason why startup businesses fail is lack of startup capital, which is often exacerbated by the business owner’s lack of knowledge about financial matters. Many business owners keep themselves busy from morning until night doing all kinds of work in the business – except dealing with the numbers. This is a blueprint for disaster.

The good news is that business owners don’t need to become accountants in order to run the financial side of the business effectively. Step one is to hire an accountant. Step two is to provide the numbers that the accountant says he or she needs. But even that can be a real challenge for many business owners. Enter the bookkeeping service. QuickBooks (for example) is a great system but becomes really powerful only in the hands of people who are truly skilled in using it. So, if you’re a business owner who doesn’t like to deal with the books, hire a professional to do it for you. You’ll be amazed at the kind of information that can be gleaned from those numbers to guide your business strategy as you move forward.

Once you have a system in place to keep track of the numbers, everything gets easier. Your accountant will be happy, your tax returns will be in good shape, and – most important – you will have laid the groundwork for positive results in the ultimate business metric: profitability.

Let’s talk about delegation vs. the cost of doing everything yourself. Very often, when I suggest that a business owner hire someone else to do non-managerial work for them, they tell me: “I have to do this myself, because I don’t trust anyone else to do it right.”

Is that the way you think? If it is, then here are a couple of questions to ponder:

1. Do you think for one minute that the big winners in business think that way?
2. Have you ever tried to think of a way to stop doing some kind of non-managerial work?

Of course you can’t just hand your work off to the first person who walks past your office door. But you really need to shed the notion that no one else can do the work that you do. Your own time is too valuable to be spent on non-managerial tasks. Sometimes the cost of a business owner’s time is referred to as “opportunity cost.” In other words, the business owner’s time lost translates into lost opportunities.

Pick a specific non-managerial task that you now spend two hours a week on. Commit to yourself that you will find a way to stop doing that work without letting it fall through the cracks. You may need to train one of your employees to do the job. You may need to hire a part-time employee or contractor. Or perhaps you will choose to pay an external service provider – this is often the quickest solution. Find out what each option would cost. Write down the pros and cons of each potential solution, and then pick the one that makes the most sense for your situation.

Now make a plan to win back two hours of your life per week! Estimate how long it will take to implement your solution. Write down the steps involved and a target date for completing each of them. Don’t be overly aggressive with the dates – remember that you are actually going to be doing more work until you get your new solution in place. The key is to make a plan that you will be able to stick to.

Once you start implementing your plan, hold yourself accountable and do all you can to stick to the dates. Beat them if you can! And if something happens and you fall behind, jump right back on the wagon as soon as possible. Many people find that it helps to have someone else who keeps them accountable – a spouse or a high level employee, for example. I can’t emphasize this enough: Stick with that plan until the job is done!

In the end, the extra work will have been worth it, when you find that you have two hours more each week to spend on improving your business, building partnerships, or developing your employees to make them happier and more productive.