Josh Anstey’s Blog

A well organised agenda is one of the secret keys to a successful meeting. Spend some time before the meeting preparing the agenda.

7 important points to organising the agenda are:

1. The purpose of the meeting
2. The division, committee, team or attendees of the meeting
3. Date, time and location of the meeting
4. The expected length of the meeting
5. The items on the agenda – who is responsible / presenting for which item
6. Time allocation for each agenda item
7. Pre-meeting reading / preparation requiredRemember to send around the agenda well before the meeting (at least a day or two). This will allow everyone to see what is going to be discussed at the meeting, prepare accordingly, and propose any other items that they wish to discuss.

I hope you can use these 7 important points to organise your agenda so that you have a successful meeting.

Click here to read my previous post, ‘Preparing for meetings – who to invite’ and a follow on post from this article, ‘Preparing for meetings - 5 tips to encourage participation’.

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Knowing how to prepare for meetings is a really important skill that is quick and easy to learn, but often many entrepreneurs have no ‘meeting’ experience, and therefore don’t prepare for meetings effectively.

On top of this, there is the question of who to invite to the meeting. It is safe to say that people generally do not like meetings. Furthermore people really don’t like meetings that they didn’t need to be at. There is no worse impression on people than wasting their time with pointless meetings.

Strategically inviting people to the meeting is the key to avoiding these issues. Preparing for meetings effectively will ensure success and that everyone invited is playing a role in the meeting.

Here are some key points of who you should invite to a meeting:

• Key decision makers
• Senior managers in this area
• People who are experts or have key knowledge about a certain area of interest
• Certain stakeholders in the issues
• Anyone who will have to design, develop, implement, monitor, create or manage the outcomes of these decisions

Remember to carefully think about who is required at the meeting and who the meeting is optional for. Sometimes it is better for senior management just to be updated about the meeting afterwards as this is a lot more time efficient if their direct input is not needed. Others who did not need to be at the meeting can be updated via a quick chat, phone call or email.

As entrepreneurs, it is important to determine who is required at meetings, and strategically invite people. After all, you may be starting out, and this is a perfect impression of where ‘first impressions last’. Rather saves someone’s time now than waste it.

Preparing for meetings and inviting the appropriate people is often a challenge for entrepreneurs with no experience, so this should be a good guide to get you going. It will help you run a successful meeting and avoid people thinking of the good old saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’.

Have a great meeting!

Other related articles: ‘Preparing for meetings – 7 important points to organising the agenda’ and ‘Preparing for meetings - 5 tips to encourage participation’

Have you read my ‘Diary of a Start-up #1’ series?

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Welcome back to my ‘Diary of a start-up’ series.

Today I am going to remind you how important it is to take advantage of your age. It is very exciting to be a young entrepreneur, and trust me when I say that a lot of people are just as excited about it as you. Society is becoming more accustomed to young entrepreneurs and are willing to embrace and support them.

This is something I learnt when I started my web design business. We were definitely ahead of our time in the sense of being young entrepreneurs, and encountered a bit of resistance, but overall we were able to take advantage of our age. You will always get the people who do not trust you, or don’t believe in you, but this is a perfect opportunity to prove them wrong and show that you mean business. Show them that your entrepreneurial flair won’t stop at anything. I found this to be a really positive beneficial attitude to have.

In my experience, I found that most people are really energized when they encounter young entrepreneurs and often want to deal with you to see what you have and can offer. This is really great, so make sure that you don’t disappoint.

Take advantage of your age to get in the media. As they say, all publicity is good publicity, and using your age to create media hype and a story can do wonders for your business. New reporters love nothing more than to showcase the work and enthusiasm of a young entrepreneur, so get out there and in the spotlight.

In summary, take advantage of your age because:

• People love dealing with young entrepreneurs
• Your age is a great story to get you publicity

These are two really simple points, but nonetheless important in generating strong business and making the most of being a young entrepreneur.

Read my previous post, ‘Diary of a start-up #1’.

Keep your eye out for future ‘Diary of a start-up’ posts. Make sure you don’t miss them by subscribing to my blog.

I am pleased to announce that I was mentioned in a blog carnival on the ‘Business Opportunities and Ideas Blog’. Whilst John, the writer of the blog disagreed with my post mentioned, it did provide some good discussion and through generation.

In any case, you can check out my appearance on the ‘Carnival of Small Business Issues #26’.

There are some interesting posts in this carnival.

Thanks John for adding me to the carnival!