When you work on a team, meetings are an important part of your toolkit to succeed. They serve as a way to bring teammates together for idea-sharing, knowledge gathering, relationship building and to make critical decisions. But it’s imperative that your meetings have structure and purpose in order to make them beneficial for your business and not just a time-suck. Consider the following tips for hosting productive meetings.
Hold the meetings in person
Zoom is a convenient way to connect with those on your team, but during meetings, it creates an extra layer of distance between you and your teammates. That makes it harder for conversations to flow and easier for minds to wander. If you want to make the most of your team meetings, hold them in person.
Lisa Nguyen, a team leader with RE/MAX Professionals, tells RISMedia why she still organizes face-to-face team get togethers at 10 a.m. every Monday:
“The reason we need to get together face to face weekly is to keep the interaction going, as I am still old school in my thinking that there is nothing better than meeting with people face to face to get to really know them or what is going on. A lot can be lost in the translation of texts and email correspondence.”
Share strategies for communication with clients
In the wake of recent commission lawsuits and changing policies, buyer’s agents may have concerns when it comes to having vigorous, rule-complying, but still profitable conversations with leads and clients.
Rather than a built-in commission split, you may need to have more detailed conversations with clients about compensation options.
If you’re not sure where to begin, consult with other people in your field and find out what’s working for them. You can set up regular strategy meetings for team members where you tally individual successes in order to see what’s working. You can also share individual experiences in talking to clients and explain the new commission rules.
Take it a step further and hold team workshops in which you and your teammates roleplay as a buyer’s agent and a client having such a consultation. Acting out both sides of the conversation will prepare you for real-life scenarios out in the field and provide insight into your clients’ point of view and what questions might arise.
Use meetings to set goals
Looping other people in so that they’re aware of the goals you hope to achieve—and the progress you’ve made getting there—is an excellent way to hold yourself accountable. Have team members share any new goals they’re working toward, or update goals they’re currently working on, at each team meeting.
“We begin our team meetings with what we are grateful for followed by speaking out loud our manifestations,” shares Nguyen.
If that approach isn’t for you, don’t worry. You can always treat the roundtable as more of a hard business strategy session, where members consult each other on reaching hard and specific goals.
Invite a speaker
Nguyen’s most innovative meeting tactic is to invite a speaker from outside her team.
“The first 30 minutes is usually given to a guest speaker of any type of industry linked to real estate, whether it be a bank, lender, hardwood flooring company, remediation company, surveyor, inspection company, etc., to see how we can all work together to bring each other business,” explains Nguyen.
This can also be a solid networking opportunity, allowing team members to converse with someone from a connected industry. Nguyen stresses, however, that the speaker should not occupy the entire meeting. “We ask the guest to leave (after the first 30 minutes) and continue the meeting with problem-solving,” says Nguyen.
Asking teammates to come to the meeting with specific problems in need of solving is a surefire way to have a productive meeting as well.
