The ending of a meeting is the most important phase because it’s what the client will take away from the meeting. This will help improve the client experience and drive accountability, a key element of client management.
It will be much easier and quicker to end a meeting if you have wrapped up each topic on the agenda as you go. This can be done using a script like this:
‘Before we move on from this topic I want to check if you are happy. The purpose of this topic was to [state the purpose] and the outcome we wanted was [state the desired outcome]. I think we achieved that but are you comfortable, do you have any questions or anything to add?’
Once you have worked through the topics, here is a suggested script to bring a meeting to an end:
‘Before we end our meeting today I want to make sure we are all onboard with the decisions we made today and there are no second thoughts and we all agree on the actions we are going to take away from the meeting.
Let’s take it in turn to confirm exactly what each of us will do and by when to ensure we make progress before the next meeting. And, let’s also agree on how we’re going to communicate progress between now and the next meeting.
I’ll be checking in with you before the next meeting to see how your actions are going. If you think you have any challenges, issues or problems get in touch with me.’
Finally, it’s time to gather feedback.
At Agendali we recommend adopting the principle of scoring all meetings because meetings are where key issues are discussed and decisions made. Meetings play a critical role in people building relationships and trust.
Too many meetings pass by without anyone ever stopping to think about their effectiveness. But when you take the time to score your firm’s meetings, you can understand and improve meeting effectiveness, eliminate unproductive meetings, and improve overall performance.
Scoring brings objectivity, accountability and helps drive a culture of high performance.
Scoring is simple by basing the score from 1-10 on how well the purpose and outcome of the meeting was achieved. When getting a score ask what could be improved and what went well so you can do more of it.
Assuming the score was high you could conclude with a script like this:
‘Thanks for your time, energy and score today. A good meeting is only as good as the participants and I thought we made good progress on all the topics and I look forward to our next meeting.’
If something didn’t go well you may need to do an after-action review and schedule another meeting to put it right. But, if the meeting is a 9 or a 10 (which it should always be) take the opportunity to ask the client if you can write up a success story and ask for a referral.
