At Sudbury Quality Inn, we recognize that people travel for a variety of reasons, including business. It’s because of this that Sudbury Quality Inn has a boardroom space to facilitate guests in holding successful business meetings!

In addition to having a functional space to meet, business meetings require planning and preparation to be efficient and effective. Here are three tips to make the most of your business meetings. 

Pay Attention to Time

Time is one asset that we’re not getting more of and people don’t appreciate theirs being wasted. To respect the time of others, start the meeting at the planned time and try to wrap it up on time as well. Not only does punctuality respect the time of others but it demonstrates that you are leading and in control of the meeting. Commencing the meeting promptly, also conveys, to those in attendance, that if they don’t arrive on time they’ll fall behind.

Always Have an Agenda

Meetings need to have a purpose and agenda’s help recognize that purpose and ensure all required topics are covered. If you need others in the meeting to discuss certain topics pertaining to them, assign them parts and have them prepare a brief paper or, at the minimum, notes for their part of the presentation.

Once you have created your meeting agenda, type a one-page summary and email it beforehand, to all those who are supposed to be in attendance. This ensures everyone is coming with an understanding of what will be covered, so they can contribute. 

Agendas help your meetings to flow, reduce wasted time and minimize having to pause and figure out what’s next. 

Shake Things Up

When planning your meetings, don’t always take the same approach. Adding variety helps keep employees engaged and promotes participation. Also, it’s important to welcome feedback, so you can use it to make improvement for future business meetings.