Agendas, assemble! Your client meeting superhero

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No! It’s the Connect4 Agendas!
Here to save you from unproductive meetings!

Okay, let’s take it down a notch.

In real-life times of peril, people generally turn to Google for help. The number of searches for the term ‘meeting agenda’ have consistently been in the charts throughout the last year, peaking every few months.

Though ‘the agenda’ is not a new concept, we can take from this Googling that people are still hungry for ways to make their meetings more efficient and productive.

Cue Connect4. The client meeting platform where client relationships flourish.

We’ve been banging on about agendas for a while now because optimising the whole workflow around meeting agendas is one of the reasons our platform exists!

We wanted to take this opportunity to look back at the concept of the agenda; where it comes from and why it’s so important to us. We also have an exciting feature announcement in store – Expert Agendas!

With our expertise, rest assured that the future of client meetings is safe in the hands of the Connect4 Agendas.

This article’s ‘agenda’ 🦸‍♀️ :

1. The history of the agenda
2. Why are agendas important?
3. How the ‘agenda thing’ works on Connect4
4. Introducing…Expert Agendas!
5. Endgame

1. The history of the agenda

It’s hard to trace the exact origins of the written agenda. People have been gathering together for all sorts of meetings for hundreds of years.

A pretty good guess is to start with a guy called General Henry Martyn Robert.

Have you ever heard of Robert’s Rules of Order?

The story goes that in the 1800s General Robert, a U.S. Army Engineering officer, was unexpectedly asked to preside over a public meeting in his community.

He had no idea how to run this meeting and, suffice to say, it didn’t go very well. He was determined to never attend another meeting until he had learnt a thing or two about parliamentary law.

He studied all he could on the subject and, due to his military duties and postings, was able to practise his ideas of correct parliamentary procedure all over the United States. Eventually, General Robert decided to write what remains the most common parliamentary authority in the U.S. today – Robert’s Rules of Order.

Nowadays, you might see smaller bodies follow Robert’s Rules. For example, the type of agenda used in formal committee/council meetings – think Jackie Weaver and the infamous, “Read the standing orders! Read them and understand them!”

But client meetings, especially those held on Connect4, need to be even more to-the-point.

The word ‘agenda’ actually derives from from the Latin verb ‘agere‘, which means ‘to drive, urge or conduct’. Connect4’s agendas facilitate that driving force and save the day with features that keep your client meetings (and relationships) moving forward.

2. Why are agendas important?

Of all the things that an agenda brings to your client meeting, time-saving is the most valuable.

Don’t let your meetings last as long as Zack Snyder’s Justice League!

Timing is everything. If you’re an accountant, business coach, lawyer or any sort of consultant, you’ll know that time is a commodity. You’re charging your clients for your collaborative sessions, advice and expertise.

We recently interviewed one of our customers, Lauren Harvey, the founder of Full-Stop Accounts. She echoes our thoughts about the game-changing power of agendas:

Do you want your clients to marvel at your meeting skills? Book a Connect4 demo now!

3. How the ‘agenda thing’ works on Connect4

Companies talk about their ‘hero’ product. We like to think that the superhero of Connect4 is our stellar agenda feature.

Every meeting in a Connect4 pod can be paired with a timed agenda, that is visible throughout your meeting and can be edited at any point.

As you can see in the screenshot below, this agenda is itemised and every item has been assigned a timing.

We prioritise meeting preparation and our pod features encourage you to change your meeting workflow habits. This is why we’ve designed agendas so that as soon as you’ve set your next meeting date and time, you’re able to set the agenda for that meeting.

You can explore the power of this for yourself in one of our support articles, a great place to read more about how to create an agenda in Connect4.

There’s more! If you create an agenda that you really like and that you think serves a meeting particularly well, you can save this as template.

Your template agendas are saved to an in-app library and you can access these templates whenever you create a new meeting.

Read more about template agendas here.

4. Introducing…Expert Agendas!

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. Expert Agendas are here to save the day!

We’ve compiled a library of template agendas that we think expertly handle meeting structure and will take your pod meetings to the next level.

There are loads of different types of meetings that you could be having on Connect4 – from candidate interviews to client meetings to 1-1 check-ins. We’ve written the agenda items and assigned the timings for each task so that you can save time when doing your meeting prep.

Have a read here to learn more about accessing these Expert Agendas.

5. Endgame

What’s the endgame? To power up meetings that will push relationships forward and use time effectively. Here are the key takeaways to remember when approaching your client meetings:

• Client meetings need to be facilitated by an effective agenda that brings order.
• Agendas are important because they help you and your client to save time. Remember, time is money!
• The agenda feature in your Connect4 pods is easily accessible, easy to edit and you can save your agendas as templates.
• Expert Agendas are your client meeting superhero! They really save the day when you need a well-planned meeting structure on the fly!

Book a Connect4 demo now and we’ll be in touch to help your client relationships flourish. Hit us up on LinkedIn or Tweet us and we’d be delighted to introduce you to Connect4, the client meeting platform.