Last Updated on October 27, 2022 by kavin
If you are a professional or a small business owner, you will know how important meetings are at work. However, getting zoned out in a meeting is easy when you’re running a business. You meet with clients, vendors, partners, and sales reps. But how do you get them to take away something?
Great meetings can potentially make your business grow to a large extent. To make your meetings meaningful, all participants must understand and contribute. The best way for this is to make your sessions interactive. Having participants involved will make them listen to what you tell and help you learn more from others. Even though it is well understood that meetings are better when it’s interactive, not many people know how to do them. Here are eight tips that make your sessions interactive and interesting.
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Make sure everyone knows what’s expected.
If you want to increase attendance at your meetings, make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to bring to the table. Also, send out reminders before the meeting if necessary. Having your meetings scheduled can help all participants know what to expect. Finally, create a meeting plan, mentioning all sessions and timings. If you are blank on creating a well-structured meeting agenda, then check out some agenda design ideas.
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Plan ahead
You may think you’ll remember everything you must say at the meeting, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. You can prevent this from happening by planning. Write down any questions you might have beforehand and prepare answers to them. This can help with not breaking the flow of the meeting. If the continuity of the conference is lost, it can affect the results drastically.
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Have a clear objective
The first step to successful meetings has a clear objective. What do you want to achieve? For example, do you want to have more people attend meetings? Are you looking for specific information about a topic? Knowing what you want to accomplish will help you determine what type of meeting you need to hold.
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Set realistic goals
Once you know what you want to accomplish, set reasonable goals. It would help if you always strived for success but didn’t expect miracles. Setting small and achievable goals will help you reach your objectives. Please ensure these goals are achieved, and if you fail to achieve them, try to analyze why you did not make it. This exercise will make your meetings in the future better.
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Use polls, surveys, and voting cards.
Most organizations use some survey or voting card at the beginning or end of their meetings to get input from participants about how the meeting went, what worked well, and what didn’t work as planned. These tools enable you to focus the discussion on productive ways by getting everyone involved and ensuring no one feels left out of the conversation. This is a great way to get all the participants involved. If you have a long presentation, it can help break the monotony. Polls are also a great way to collect info from your audience and participants. It can help you make informed decisions later in the meeting.
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Create meaningful questions
People are much less likely to participate if given a list of questions and asked to check off what they want to discuss. Instead ask open-ended questions like, “What do you feel is holding back your team’s success right now?” You can even ask people about their personal goals for the meeting. You’ll find that many attendees have interesting things to tell you. The right questions can help you get correct feedback. Feedbacks help you make improvements if needed.
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Be prepared to answer questions.
Just because you’ve planned does not mean you won’t get asked questions at the meeting. Preparing to answer those questions will ensure that you stay relevant and keep the conversation going. Have a rough idea about the questions that could be asked and have the answers ready. The best way is to stay active during the meeting and listen to others. This can make the answering easy and contextual. Answering can help your participants gain clarity on the subject. This can also help you understand how well they have understood the discussion.
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Make your point visually.
People tend to remember visual information more easily than verbal information. Use images and charts to help illustrate the information. A picture says a thousand words, so use pictures whenever possible. Presentations are the best ways to get the attention of your crowd. 78% of the audience feel that meetings are much more interesting than presentations. If you lack the time or skill to create an engaging PowerPoint presentation, then you can try out great presentation templates that are ready to go.
What are the benefits of having interactive meetings?
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Being able to network with people who have similar interests
Interactive sessions open the room to network well with participants. This could be with your colleagues, competitors, or executives from other industries who can work together towards a common goal.
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Having the opportunity to share knowledge and experience
The true value of knowledge is created when it is shared. By conveying messages, you help others grow, making you a better version of yourself.
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Hearing about what they do well and how they could improve
Listening to other people and understanding their strengths and weaknesses can help you work together more efficiently.
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Building trust and credibility
When people open up, they start trusting you, and interactive meetings are great platforms for it.
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Learning about new products and services
By listing to participants, you get updated about new trends in the market. This allows you to be equipped for the latest changes.
Conclusion
Meetings are an integral part of businesses. And to make the most out of a meeting, it is necessary to make it an exchange of ideas rather than a broadcast. This can help make it interesting, and the participants get to take more from the session. You can achieve an interactive session with the right plan and agenda for the meeting. Make the most out of the meeting and let your business prosper.