Do you?
If you pitch, train or run team meetings, learn to give a presentation your audience will love.
Join us for Rock Star Ready 2019 and fall in love with presenting.
Happy Valentine’s Day from Team Ward Certified!
I just flew in...
…and boy are my arms tired.
When your team shows up for a meeting, chances are they’re thinking about their to-do lists, emails, projects, last night’s America’s Greatest … show. Point is, they are distracted.
Solution: Get them focused with an attention grabber, called a hook.
Maybe it’s a joke, statistic, powerful statement, or a question - anything that gets them thinking will do.
Bonus points if you listen to their answers!
Have a great meeting,
Team Ward Certified
P.S.- Think your team could benefit from Leading Effective Meetings Training? Click here to check it out.
Who else is going?
Just like a good party, the guest list of a meeting is critical.
A surefire way to waste time in a meeting is to invite the wrong people.
The people on the invite list should have one or more of the following:
Something to contribute
Something to learn
A stake in the outcome
Follow-up responsibilities
Decision-making responsibilities
Don’t just invite the same old CC group list. Craft your attendee list with purpose.
Think your team could benefit from Leading Effective Meetings Training? Click here to check it out.
What are we talking about?
As the leader of the meeting, you know what you want to accomplish and how you’d like to accomplish it. But do your attendees know the plan?
Different team members have different needs, an agenda created and distributed in advance can meet most of those needs and help you have a more productive meeting.
Aim to answer these four questions:
What – What are we discussing?
Why – Why are we discussing or considering it?
Who – Who will be responsible, and who will be impacted?
How – How will we accomplish our goals?
Tip: Make this the norm for formatting in all of your meeting invites, to set a standard for anyone on your team to be clear in advance when setting up meetings of their own.
Think your team could benefit from Leading Effective Meetings Training? Click here to check it out.
What's the Point?
Consider the last meeting you attended. Did you:
Show up late?
Leave early?
Bring in work or spend the time checking your phone?
We’ve all been to (and maybe even led some) bad meetings.
One way to improve a meeting is to have a clear goal. Do that first, and you may discover you don’t need the meeting at all. Perhaps a well written email will do the trick.
Share that clear goal so that attendees can show up prepared and in the right mindset.
Think your team could benefit from our Leading Effective Meetings Training? Click here to check it out.
Smile, Breathe, and Meet on. You got this!
Let's give 'em something to talk about
Ask your team who their favorite companies are and why. Maybe it’s the one that gives frequent updates, or treats them like family. Or the one that checks up on their mental well being every so often. (Yes, Netflix, I’m still watching. Thank you for the reminder that it’s been four hours since I last moved.)
Now for the plot twist: ask what they think their own customers would say about them and your company.
Are you giving them something (good) to talk about? How do you want to be remembered, and how can you take a cue from some of your favorites?
What’s the coolest thing they shared? Let us know at ann@wardcertified.com!
Emailing from the bathroom?
From the working parent that’s juggling kids and their job, to catching up on emails in the bathroom (I would never…), the art of multi-tasking is encouraged and celebrated in our society. But, when it comes to customer service, if you’re trying to do two things at once, you’re probably doing two things poorly.
It’s time for a New Year, and a New You.
Tip: Whether you’re talking to a team member or customer, stop what you’re doing, listen to their needs, and address the single task at hand. If you can’t, be honest:
“I really want to give you my undivided attention, but am in the middle of completing an email. Can I give you a call in 5 minutes?”
Just for fun, prove our point! Show us the funniest multi-tasking you’ve done at the office and tag #getwardcertified.