Years ago while part working for a global entertainment company here in Los Angeles, something I had joked about for years…finally happened. I was in yet another Senior Team meeting. It was the third meeting of the day. Five minutes into the meeting I realized I was in a meeting-about a meeting!! That was it…I’d had enough. The time had come to take matters into my own hands. I swore from that day on that I would do everything in my power to make sure that any meeting I was part of would have an agenda. It’s the only way to not waste everybody’s time.

Here are some helpful tips to run a successful team meeting.

1.) Set a specific time for the meeting. Give it a start time and an ending time. This will help with the pacing of the meeting. If your meeting is an hour long with 5 agenda points (see 4 below) you pretty much know that you have roughly 10-12 minutes for each point to be discussed.

2.) Be on time. It sends a terrible message to your team if you are the one habitually late to meetings. First it displays your bad time management skills and secondly it sends a message that your time is more valuable than others. Yes, we all know problems arise, fires need to be put out and projects get derailed-but make an effort to be on time.

3.) Make sure the right team members are present. Who is actually vital to the main topic of the meeting? Make sure they are there…not the entire team.

4.) Have an agenda. This helps everybody in the meeting to know exactly what’s going to be discussed during the meeting. Break down the meeting into small bite sized bits. This helps to accomplish a few things. First, everyone in attendance will be able to determine which parts of the meeting agenda specifically pertains to them. This also allows them to make notes ahead of time to answer questions.

5.) Use a timer. I have found through the years that this can be a really handy way to keep yourself and your team members on time. Use your iPhone timer or your watch. Let people you will be using this method for the benefit of everyone at the meeting. Trust me…it works.

6.) Take notes. This does not mean that you have to take notes…but make sure it gets done. There a few different ways to approach this. You can either assign it someone on a permanent basis or a rotating basis. Once the notes have been taken make sure that they are distributed to all team members in attendance as soon as possible after the meeting.

7.) Assign action points. During the course of the meeting when new tasks are discovered make sure that they get assigned during the meeting. Make sure that the tasks are assigned to the team members with complete info: what the task involves, what is the due date and who gets confirmation of the task being completed.

Finally, there is one last question to the throw out to the room once you’ve completed the meeting. What needs to be done from this point forward to take us to our next step? Look around the room and you will see a sigh of relief that you asked the question. Everybody had it on their mind and are now relieved that it has been put on the table.

Jedi mind trick!

As always, onward and upward.

Keeping your team on point and happy is crucial to work getting done and productivity staying high. This happiness doesn’t always have to be paid out in dollars. Let’s take a quick look at how some of the biggest companies out there motivate and incentivize their employees.

Google: Every wonder why Google employees love their jobs? Maybe, just maybe it’s because some of these perks.

• Free food from gourmet cafes representing food from around the globe
• Dog friendly work environment
• On-site gym
• On-site doctors
• Free laundry machines

Netflix: When you work here you never have to worry about asking for days off-there’s no vacation policy. As long as you get your work done there is no limit to the number of days you can take off. What about a dress code? There isn’t one.

Facebook: Free food. There is $3,000.00 for child care reimbursement. So, what about time off? 21 days paid time off, 11 paid holidays and unlimited sick days. There is also four months off-paid for-for maternity/paternity leave.

Now that we’ve seen what life is like at the top of the food chain…let’s come back to reality for you and your small business! Once again-showing your appreciation doesn’t always have to be about dollars.

Employees want to be appreciated and they want to know “what is going on”. Working from this statement let’s take a look at a few things you can to keep your workplace a great, positive place for your employees to come to everyday.

Show Your Appreciation
When you have an employee that is doing stellar work-don’t it go unnoticed. Either taking them out to lunch or a verbal, “thanks for the great job you’re doing” can make a huge difference in an employee’s day. This is an instance where a little bit can go a long way.

Communicate-Make sure you have consistent communication with your team. It’s vital to keep moral up and positive. Don’t sequester yourself away from everyone. Try to be as open and real as you possibly can with your communication in the office. Remember…your attitude and vibe can often set the tone for the entire office.

Don’t Lie-If your employees find out that you have lied to them…your toast. Any trust that existed will be obliterated. Trust is directly linked to positivity and productivity in the workplace. Also, try not to ever over extend yourself to your people. If you promise to do something, then do it! Lying to your people is a guaranteed path to destroying morale in the office.

Stay Out Of It-The dreaded “M” word is micromanaging. Everyone knows you care about your company, your clients and your employees. Show that passion. Be that person to rally the troops and lead them into battle. DON’T micromanage them. You hired them all for a reason. Let them do their job. Hands off!

A Clear Goal-It’s really simple. When your employees have a clear and concise goal in front of them…it will make their road to success that much easier. Being vague never works. Be crystal clear about what you expect out of them so that they can feel good about the hard working they are doing and so that they can feel confident in your leadership.

As always…onward and upward.

It’s inevitable that it will happen. You have to come to the conclusion that you have a “bad client”. For whatever reason or reasons, the relationship is just not working. When it does happen, the first thing you need to ask yourself is this: Is this relationship mutually beneficial to both sides? If your answer is no-you need to figure out exactly why?

When you are preparing to go into a business relationship with any new client it’s a good idea for both parties to first determine the benefits of working together. This needs to a vital process in your business dealing with anybody-what will we, as a company, achieve from working with this particular client? The specific answers can only be determined by you and your team. Here are some factors to take into consideration.

1.) Value. Can each party clearly articulate the value of working together?

2.) Styles. Do your styles match? If you are a company that moves at a continuous, quick pace will your client be able to “keep up” or will you always have a feeling that you are “dragging” the client along?

3.) Clarity. Is there complete clarity about what the client is looking to achieve? This works for both sides. Does your team clearly understand the goal of the client and does the client understand what will be needed from their team to achieve their goal?

4.) Qualification. Wanting a goal and having the qualified people in place to achieve that goal are two different things. The client may want to build that very groovy, cool new mobile app but do they have the team in place to utilize it once it is built? Do they have the funding-now? Is your team qualified to build the app in a timely fashion?

5.) Communication. Does the client really understand? Do they really listen well? Do both parties do what they say they will when they say they will? This is a big one.

So you’ve covered all five checkpoints above and come to the conclusion that it is not going to be a good fit. You are now at the point where you are ready to “fire the client”. Do it with dignity and class.

First make sure ALL of your contractual obligations (up to this point) are fulfilled as best as possible. Second, stick to your guns about ending the business relationship. This will be really useful in the event that they make a request for you to do more work. Learn to say NO…with a thank you tagged on the end. Prepare a concise and constructive answer if they do request more work from you. You never know. Sometimes having these conversations can turn positive-for both sides.

In conclusion, always make sure you are being a great service provider to your clients. This can only be done by assessing the real value of entering into any new business relationship-before the relationship starts.

Onward and upward!

As a child I was able to travel the world because my Father was in the military. Yes, I confess, I am an Army brat. As we moved from country to country, military base to military base, state to state, I could feel the influence it was having on developing my personality. When you are stationed somewhere for a little as 12 months at a time you learn to make friends quickly.
As I grew older and started my career in the entertainment business I joked to friends that all that moving served as a good training ground to learn how to deal with ALL kinds of people in the business. These are not normal people by any stretch of the imagination.
One of the biggest advantages to this upbringing was the honing of tenacious networking skills. To this day it repeatedly puts me into business situations and opportunities that otherwise would never be possible.
In the last two weeks I have been able to put two groups of people together to accomplish a common goal. The first group is the people looking for an experienced, reliable mobile app developer. The second group is the developer. E-mails and conversations are now taking place at a rapid pace…it’s now down to “go time”. What is this “thing” we are building going to cost? Time and time again-this is where things get sticky. I’ve seen it from both sides. In this case the company looking to build the app has posed the question to the developer-how much? WRONG!!! It is your job-as the client to know exactly what your budget is…to be able to relay this to the developer. Why? Here’s why. When you make the grave misstep of putting it out into the world that you either don’t have a budget or don’t want to share the info-you are painting yourself into a corner.

Again, why? Here’s why. You have now used or rather tried to use the not so strategic maneuver of “guess my budget”. This never works. You are wasting your time and more importantly the time of the developer. Be bold. Give THE number up. If you don’t, here is what most likely is going to happen. The developer is now getting a sense that you’re trying to out maneuver them. Guess what-you have not. All you have done is irritated them. You will now be getting a number from the developer that is loaded with a little extra “you are wasting my time” added to the budget. This will immediately stall the negotiations AND make you start second guessing the integrity, reliability and worth of the developers. So, I say to you today…be bold…put forth great plans into motion…give up the number!
Onward and upward.

Years ago I had the opportunity to be part of a development team here in Los Angeles for a large, global entertainment company. The team was to put together by some of the brightest and best of the music/entertainment industry in the U.S. The reason for this was as follows. While the company had a large presence around the world…this team was being assembled to build the first e-commerce offering for the brand. The powers that be were aware enough to realize that the team had to work out of the Los Angeles office-home of Hollywood. It was an exciting and inspiring time. Nobody in the business world knew yet exactly was “e-commerce” was going to be-things still felt a bit…like the wild, wild West.

As things progressed and we inched closer to our launch date, I began to notice some interesting happenings in the office between the U.S. team and our counterparts in the U.K. Syntax of language became a big part of my day. We quickly became two teams divided by a common language. Here are some examples of what would happen. The word “sale” here in America indicates that some of the stock you hold is going to be put on a special discount…it’s going to be part of a “sale” you are having. This concept was met with horror and disbelief from our counterparts across the pond. In their mind a “sale” meant that times were tough and you were trying to liquidate stock…trying to save the business. As more of these terms came to light as being misinterpreted I realized I needed to quickly create a playbook…a glossary of terms that we would be using moving forward. It was initially looked upon as a bit of comic relief-but soon became the bible for both teams to fully understand how we were going to approach and assemble a marketing and sales plan that would help us hit our sales goal. There were a few lessons that I quickly learned from this scenario.

The first was-everybody on your team has to be on the same page. Whether separated by countries, cities or office-every team has to have a complete understanding of what goals of the business are-where you’re going. The second lesson I learned was even more important. The speed of the boss becomes the speed of the team. What that means is that if there are weak or insufficient leaders in place-it will hold the team back. Deadlines and goals will not be met-ever. Conversely, when there are leaders in place that inspire and continuously display a complete grasp and understanding of the business and the goals that are to be met-great things can and will happen.

Inspiration serves to motivate individuals to believe that they can do anything. They will make significant strides towards achieving their goals. Why? Because they believe they can. They see from their leaders that they can. They become more engaged-they believe more passionately that they will succeed. Their success quickly becomes the success of the company. A great secret and success only of any great company is not just measured in how well the “top” employees perform but rather in how some of the lower achievers are brought along-inspired developed and motivated. As always, onward and upward.