Thousands of business meetings occur in the U.K. each and every day. They’re absolutely critical to the running of an organisation, no matter what size.
Before exploring the most common reasons for holding a business meeting, let’s first take a deeper look at what a business meeting actually is.
What is a business meeting?
In short, a business meeting is a gathering of two or more people to discuss views, objectives and goals that concern a topic relating to the workplace. Business meetings can be conducted in person at an office or at a different location such as the MAC in Birmingham; nowadays, it’s even to attendees to join the meeting remotely via video conferencing software.
Now we have a good understanding of what a business meeting is, let’s look at the top four reasons that you might want or need to hold a business meeting?
Internal catch-ups
Keeping both management and staff up to date with the day to day activity within a business is extremely important for the overall running of any organisation. Without the people working within the business having an understanding of the current state of play, how can they be expected to fix any potential issues, or make the most of potential opportunities?
Internal catch ups should be a regular occurrence for businesses of all sizes, and most definitely not just be restricted to management.
Sales
When trying to make a sale in business, without doubt, the best way to do this is face to face. Whether you decide to invite a potential customer into your office for a meeting, visit their premises or even hire a meeting venue, meeting a prospect in person, undoubtedly gives you the highest chance of converting them into a customer. Studies suggest that face to face sales meetings offer a much better chance of converting – and this research even outlines the best time and days to attend new business meetings.
Internal sales meetings to discuss the current sales pipeline are also common and regularly occur across a variety of business industries.
Setting budgets
Financials and budgeting, of course, plays a huge role across all sectors of business. Keeping a keen eye on how much your business can is already spending and how much you can afford to spend moving forward will be key in making sure the business remains in profit. Setting budgets and regular budget reviews allow a business to better understand how much they can afford to spend on things such as staff recruitment, product development or even hiring a marketing agency to help increase the number of leads being generated.
Quarterly and annual business meetings to discuss budgets are very common, especially in big business.
Staff wellbeing
Not typically set in a traditional, or particularly formal setting, business meetings to discuss the wellbeing of staff are vitally important. Just simple, honest conversations with staff about how they’re feeling will soon expose how they’re feeling will be of great benefit to a business. Staff will generally be happier for the support, and these conversations could lead to the avoidance of staff being off sick as you can often spot some of the signs and symptoms of burnout and address them at an early stage.
