Does Your Meeting Plan Include These Key Elements?

Do you know a recipe for disaster for you and your clients? It’s calling your team members to an unannounced client meeting and just winging it. In reality, can you expect everyone to be available and prepared without prior knowledge? Of course not! For it to be an exceptional meeting, you need to have every item pinned down beforehand.

Make sure these key elements are included in your meeting plan:

1. Client Agenda. You may choose to provide a client’s agenda to the client. Or your administrative manager who sets the appointment may cite it to the client as a reminder of the purpose of the meeting. Knowing the agenda in advance may help them stay on track or help them formulate questions that need to be addressed in connection with the agenda items.
2. A team agenda should be a detailed list of the items to be covered or reviewed during the meeting, with the time allotted to discuss each item noted, and the team member responsible for each portion identified within parentheses.
3. List attendees at the meeting including team members expected to attend the meeting AND those who should be available (in person, by phone or through an online meeting collaboration tool such as GoToMeeting) to answer questions or provide backup documents should they be needed. “On call” means “be available but continue with work as usual (and don’t consider this billable hours unless called).”
4. All relevant documents needed for the agenda items such as:
   • Documents provided to your client at or after the previous meeting, which the trusted financial advisor briefly reviews to check for completeness.
   • Meeting-prep package: materials, reports, and other documents referred to by the financial advisor during the meeting in order to guide the meeting flow, answer questions, or provide supporting data. (Mark the ones to be shown to clients with an asterisk.)
   • Client packet of documents your client needs to complete and return at the next regular progress meeting.
5. Documents and resources needed to conduct a conversation about referrals should be added to the financial advisor’s meeting-prep package so that you don’t overlook an opportunity to grow your comprehensive financial business. If you’re consistently performing comprehensive services in a way that makes your clients feel like they want to rave about you, encourage them to do so.