Business English – How to conduct a business meeting?

In our today’s article for English for Business series, we will discuss few smart tips to conduct productive business meetings. The aim of any business meeting is productive brainstorming. Any working professional will tell you this that attending and conducting business meetings is an everyday activity in the workplace.

Our online Business English learners are thus well versed with the concept of a business meeting. Most of them however, look upon them as a general waste of office working hours. This bad reputation to business or office meetings is on account of general malpractices or misinformation amongst employees.

With our constant endeavor to help you learn English online and staying true to our reputation of being the best online English speaking course, Speechify has covered a series of topics like Business negotiation skills, effective email writing, composing effective presentations and delivering smart business presentations.

But before we delve into the art and etiquette of conducting work place meetings, lets address basics. If you are struggling with basic spoken English fluency, we recommend online Spoken English classes to get started with English speaking. However ground breaking business ideas you may have, they are all futile if you are unable to communicate effectively at work.

Hence, its best to enroll to an online English speaking course and then gradually finetune other skills necessary for work place success. Without further delay, let us understand how should we conduct a productive business meeting:

1. Meeting Agenda- This may seem irrelevant but is often the most ignored criterion of a business meeting. The agenda sets the stage for topic discussions and is the main reason for hosting the meeting. A crisp statement broken down into 2-3 main topics will help the attendees understand the main discussion theme, its business context and thus help them prepare in advance for a fruitful session. Include this in your email subject title with the sub-topics in the email body. Before you hit send, ask yourself this question: Should this be a business meeting?
2. Attendees- If you set the agenda correctly, you will know exactly whom to invite for the meeting in question. Avoid bulk invites and random team representatives to discussions especially when you are not very clear on the right stakeholders. This will only delay outputs and can be a waste of productive time for everyone. A good option is to use the optional attendees’ function on email calendar applications to enable others to add these stakeholders.
3. Time management- Be courteous as to when in the day you schedule the discussion. Ideally you can allow the attendees to choose their preferable slots and go with the mass consensus. Another extremely important point to be noted is to schedule and plan discussion topics with respect to the available time. It is only a loss of time, effort and enthusiasm if you try fitting in a 2-hour long brain storming session in a 20-minute meeting.
4. Minutes of the meeting- Also called meeting takeaways or notes in business slang. It is extremely important to note down the key inferences of the business discussion in question so that the attendees are in consensus with the discussion outcomes and prepare for forthcoming meeting agendas. A written conclusion that may include key notes, next possible agenda, unanswered question points etc. will act as a reference guide which you must share with all attendees.

Simple right? You are definitely recollecting all those things that made business meetings painful/waste of time for you! Remember, it is all about getting the right balance of all the above and this comes only with practice.

However, reiterating on the earlier point, if you are in a mid-managerial position and are struggling with your English communication skills in the workplace, we recommend that you enroll to Speechify right away.

Speechify is the best online English speaking course- We have trained many students in online English speaking not only in India but from across the globe. Speechify provides access to expert online English teachers, unlimited English learning material, maximum spoken English practice – all at lowest prices!

Many run of the mill English speaking courses online as well as otherwise make misleading claims- Like English free of cost or Learn English in 30 days etc. that ultimately hamper your learning efforts and cause a lot of grief.

To learn English online should be simple, affordable and most importantly effective. As the leading online English speaking course, our only advice to you is to invest your time and money smartly.

Related articles: Negotiation skills | Writing Effective Emails | Business Presentations | Designing Effective Presentations