Meetings en masse or more relevant meetings?

by Nic Haralambous on 7/04/2009

This is a debate that I have raging in my head and strategies all-round at the moment.

Is it more effective to have meeting en masse or to set up carefully planned and calculated companies, agencies and people to meet with?

As I see it, Here are the pros and cons of having more meetings:

Pros

More meetings mean more chance of work (really?).
Meeting more people can lead to more connections.
More people = More products.
More meetings = more hype around your product.

Cons

Meetings are time-consuming.
Statistically I feel like more meetings with less research and planning means less success.
More meetings lead to less follow-up time and client relationship management.
Time away from the office means time away from other responsibilities.

And the pros and cons of have more relevant meetings:

Pros

More research means a greater understanding of the company you are meeting with.
Taking time to plan means providing a better pitch.
Time is not wasted on fruitless meetings.
You are able to manage and maintain relationships with key clients.
Clients feel unique and taken care of.

Cons

If meetings don’t work out you are left with few options.
Client contracts end. Then the process starts all over again if you’ve put all your eggs in a few baskets.

This is not a particularly detailed list of pros and cons but the overall messages come through clearly I think.

I am still struggling with the decision of committing my time to being out of the office at 5 or 6 meetings that might not prove to be valuable at all, or planning one meeting per day with an exceptionally well researched client who you think holds specific value with regards to specific projects you have planned or they have planned.

It’s probably a combination of both types of meetings in the end, but I hate that. I hate that I still have commit a chunk of my time to meetings that might not prove to be valuable, especially when I am leaving the office to do so. But it’s part of the way things work I suppose.

nharalambous@gmail.com

There is 1 comment in this article:

  1. 7/04/2009Dolce says:

    Meetings are the devils handiwork.

    Eish. I think the primary pro around meeting someone is that if you make a good impression, you’re likely to be remembered when they *do* need someone; and that impression often has less to do with how much detail you know about their company and more with how much flexibility you have in answering their needs. And in those unresearched meetings, letting the client have the table for their agenda can often yield some pretty interesting insights.

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