Get Better Results
From EVERY Meeting

Do five minutes of prep before every meeting - write down what you want to walk away with, what actions need to happen, and what questions matter most. Everyone shows up aligned. You compress 10x the value into the same time because preparation beats duration every single time, whether it's a team meeting, a conference, or a call with a mentor.

You can get far more out of every meeting you attend, and most people leave that value on the table.

As an entrepreneur, meetings are essential to keeping your team focused on the right targets, but they're also great opportunities for you to learn.

In this episode, I share the exercise you need to do before every single meeting in your life if you want to get the most out of them.

You'll hear how to develop a game plan, not just for meetings, but also any seminars and conferences you attend.

Stop going into these conversations blind and take this advice to get better results from your personal and professional interactions.

It doesn't matter what kind of meeting you're going to, or if you're hosting it or not, or if you're going to a seminar or a conference. If you do this one thing, which takes maybe five minutes, you'll get at least 10 times the value from the meeting.

What's the Power of Choosing One Question Over Many?

Asking one great question forces you to think clearly about what you actually need most. Write out all your questions, rank them by impact on your life right now, then pick the single one that matters most. If you only had a few minutes, you'd still walk away with something genuinely valuable - a golden nugget you can take back and act on.

Years ago when I was just getting started in business, I had a mentor who would ask me to send him one question in advance of any meeting that I had with him. Even if I had 20 questions, I had to pick one that would make the biggest impact on my life if I just got that one question answered.

So I'd be forced to write out all my questions and rank them in order of importance to my life at the time and then come up with one so that if I only had a few minutes with him, I got that one question answered, and if I did, I'd still get a lot of value from our time. Because success is all about those golden nuggets that you discover while you're learning. It's not always the lesson being taught that you learn from, but more often, it's what you discover while you're learning that lesson.

That exercise helped me to accomplish so much more in the last decade than most people accomplish in a lifetime. And here's exactly how you could duplicate it.

How Do You Define What Success Looks Like Before a Meeting?

Take five minutes and write down the key values you want to walk away with - what do you want people to focus on after they leave, what information you need, what actions must happen immediately after. This creates alignment before anyone sits down. Most meetings don't have this, but the ones that do compress the same value into a fraction of the time.

Before every meeting, take five minutes, maybe, maybe four or five, six minutes, and write down the key values that you want to walk away from that meeting with. What do you want the person or the people in that meeting to focus on after they leave? The kind of information you want them to get out of it? What actions need to take place immediately after you wrap up that meeting?

Now in my team meetings, everyone gets an agenda that has all that stuff detailed so that everybody comes prepared and aligned on the same target. But most of our day to day meetings do not include an agenda, like meetings with our family or with a vendor or a quick call with a business partner or anything else.

But it's vital that before every meeting, take a moment in detail what you want from that meeting.

How Do You Prepare for Conferences and Seminars Differently?

Get a list of everyone attending and research each person briefly. Make a list of what you want to get from your time there and identify the specific people you commit to spending time with. When your team prepares this way, they come back with relationships and insights instead of business cards and free pens. The same prep principle that works for meetings multiplies your return at events.

But it's bigger than just meetings. I'm always blown away by people who attend seminars or conferences without knowing what they want to get from their time there, because any event that you go to, you need a list of everyone who's going to be there. You need to learn a little bit about each person. You need to make a list of what you want to get out of your time from that event and a list of the people who are there, who you commit to spending time with while you're there.

Now, I keynoted an event just this past weekend and I had people come up to me to shake my hand. But I also had people come up to me with one or two great questions that I know they probably took back to their business and they're now already growing.

Both of those interactions took the same amount of time. But one came prepared to ask me a game-changing question and one came to get a handshake and a picture.

Why Is a Written Game Plan Worth More Than a Photo?

Because a photo sits in your camera roll untouched. A personal tip or insight you take back changes your business. People who show up at events with real questions get game-changing answers. People who show up for pictures and handshakes get exactly that. Same time investment, completely different return.

Listen, I love taking pictures but what would be better for you? A picture that you're probably never going to look at again? Or a personal tip about how to overcome a big obstacle in your business? In fact, if you had just the ability to ask me one question, what would that be?

Now go to chrisguerriero.com/ask and ask me that question because we get questions there every single day. That's one of the places that I go to figure out what kind of content to deliver. And before your next meeting, take a few moments and detail exactly what you want the people in that meeting to focus on after they leave. What information you want to get out of it and what actions need to take place immediately after that meeting.

Go in with a pre-written game plan and you'll exceed your expectations in revenue and in profit and in connections.