Whether your next customer meeting is your first or 15th with that client, you need an agenda. To build an agenda, you focus should be on answer these three questions:

1. What is the current state of the customer’s progress toward their goals?
2. What issues need to be solved to move the customer closer to their goals?
3. How can these issues be solved?

How to specifically structure your agenda may vary based on your customer, but our library of 80+ meeting agenda examples should give you a good starting point.

As you get your meeting started, you want to grab everyone’s attention, set expectations, and then launch right into it!

1. While small-talk is great for building rapport before a meeting, don’t let the chatter go on more than a couple of minutes into the official meeting time
2. If there are participants who don’t know each other, introduce them (and yourself!)
3. As you get the meeting started, reaffirm why you’re meeting, and what everyone will get out of it. Spending 20 seconds summarizing the agenda shows that you have and plan and you’re in control

As you wrap up your customer meeting, you should revisit any action items you’ve noted during the meeting and affirm that you’re on top of things. This is a good time to note who will be responsible for what, and when the customer can expect an update.
Then, end on a positive note, showing enthusiasm for your partnership and thanking your customer for their time.

Relax and smile
‍You may be stressed in an attempt to get started on the right foot. Don’t let that impact your body language (even on video conferencing).
 
Offer something of value for free
‍In addition to any materials in your welcome package, set the stage for a strong relationship by making an offer. This could be a resource, like a research or an ebook, or it could be to set up a training or consultation. It could even be minor, like providing advice based on the customer and your experience with other customers like them. Whatever it is, find a way to show your client that you’re deeply invested in their success.
‍
Listen more than you speak
‍You may have landed this client, but you still have a lot to learn about their expectations, goals, and priorities. Ask a lot of questions, and listen actively. Even if you think you already know the answers, being a good listener will help build rapport, and you never know—you may learn something incredibly valuable after all.
‍
Be specific about what you offer and how you can help
‍A common pitfall in initial client meetings is to be overly general. Instead, now is the time to be specific. What exactly will you do together? Who, how much, how often, measured in what way?

As a matter of fact, we do. This short, downloadable guide walks you through running a customer meeting that both strengthens customer relationships and improves company wide collaboration.
‍
Get your free download: The Art of the Customer Meeting.

• Client Check-In
• Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
• Customer Feedback
• Sales/Customer Success Hand-Off

How to run your design meeting will depend a lot on what kind of design meeting it is. Is this a sync up between just a PM (or other product owner) and the designer? Is it a weekly meeting for the design team? A critique? Or is it a cross-functional meeting, with many stakeholders present?
 
Each of these types of meetings requires a slightly different approach. What is common between them, is a need to be upfront and clear about what the goals of the meeting are (and what they aren’t).
‍
For example, here are some typical examples of design meetings:

• Brainstorm approaches for an early design
• Seek feedback on an in-progress design
• Get buy-in on a nearly completed design
• Plan, decide, and organize your team’s design process

Successful design projects usually need involvement from other stakeholders, but too much meddling can throw a wrench in the design process. As a general rule (that can sometimes be broken), input from non-designers is the most helpful at the beginning and end of a design process.
‍
Early in the project, in the research phase, non-designers can be incredibly helpful. They can clarify how a design will be used, describe customer needs, and reveal requirements that might not be obvious about how the design should be used. If designers have experimented with multiple approaches to a problem, it can be useful to share these sketches early on.
‍
Once the design specifications are clear, however, it’s often a good idea to let designers and project people iterate through the problem in a small team with minimal distraction. It’s during this time that small details can become a distraction for non-designers.
‍
When a design is nearly complete, it’s once again helpful to invite key stakeholders to make sure the design is successful, and get buy-in before more resources are invested in making the design come to life.

• Brainstorming Session
• Project Kick-Off Meeting
• Design Session
• Design Workshop
• Design Critique
• Usability Testing

Consider what can be removed from your agenda… and your invite list
‍Possibly the most common complaint about team meetings is that they are a waste of time. So the first step toward having a good team meeting is asking yourself whether everything on your agenda needs to be part of the meeting, and whether everyone needs to be there. By keeping a tight agenda and a smaller group, you’re sending a signal that people’s time is important.
‍
Share your agenda in advance
‍Speaking of agendas, be prepared. Share your agenda in advance, so that the rest of the team know what will be discussed. This way, they can prepare their thoughts, and the meeting will run smoothly. If you surprise people with topics, those parts of a meeting can take longer.
‍
Let other people talk
‍Many leaders and executives make the mistake of thinking that if they are running a meeting, they need to talk the whole time. Instead of Presenting on a topic for 30 or 60 minutes, structure your meeting so that others participate and even take the spotlight. 

For a more in-depth structure to follow, check out Vital Meetings, the free guide to having shorter, fewer, and better meetings.

With executive time being so valuable, it’s important that exec meetings focus not on information sharing, but rather on discussion that leads to decision-making.
‍
One strategy that works here, is to use action-oriented agendas. For example, instead of an agenda item called, “Priorities for next quarter” make a bold statement on your agenda: “Decide on top 3 priorities for next quarter.” This leaves no wiggle room for failing to meet the goal of the meeting.

If you take a look inside a manager’s calendar, it’s not uncommon to see 50-90% of their time blocked off in meetings. At first glance, this seems to make sense. If your primary function is leadership, should you spend the majority of your time with others? However, this kind of distribution often doesn’t leave enough time for strategic thinking and planning.

If you’re attending lots of meetings out of a need to stay in the loop, a better approach is to ask your team to take notes on important meetings, and share them with you (and other relevant stakeholders). A meeting management platform like Hugo can help, and many managers whose teams use Hugo report spending 20-50% less time in meetings because they can rely on skimming notes for less important meetings instead.

• Executive Weekly Team Meeting
• Board Meeting
• Monthly Management Meeting
• Senior Leadership Team Meeting
• Quarterly Planning Meeting
• All-Hands Meeting

HR (human resources) is responsible for supporting recruitment, hiring, training, and managing. HR professionals meet with job applicants and current workers to support these goals in a variety of meetings, ranging from job interviews, to trainings, to one-on-one coaching sessions.

If your behavior at work is in the process of being addressed, you may need to meet with HR. This can be a stressful situation, but ultimately, if you handle yourself professionally, you should be able to come out of the meeting in good shape (and keep your job).
‍
Here are a key tips to keep in mind:

• Request examples of behaviors that need to be addressed
• Write down any specific requests
• Ask for clarification to avoid misunderstandings
• Listen and repeat back what you hear to show you are listening
• Take ownership of your mistakes
• Ask for help if you need it
• Show your commitment by setting clear next steps
• Stay positive (and avoid being defensive)
• Say thank you. Be gracious for the opportunity to improve

• Schedule a meeting so that you know you have private time set aside to have the conversation
• Focus on the behavior, not the person. Avoid personal attacks and instead focus on what they are doing
• Show up prepared. Put some thought into what you want to say. Taking notes about the behavior in question may help
• Stick to the facts, and not what you think someone is thinking/feeling
• Keep a cool head. Even if the issue is serious, try to avoid arguing, shouting, and cursing
• Request help in finding a solution

• Focus on the facts of the situation
• Be calm, even when under pressure
• Consider other people’s points of view
• Be aware of negative body language
• Practice good listening. (Don’t cut anyone off)
• Make sure your effort matches the importance of the issue. (Don’t go crazy over something small)

• Employee Onboarding
• Exit Interview
• Performance Review
• Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

Invite necessary decision-makers, but don’t cast too wide of a net. Since marketing often involves or impacts a lot of departments, it can be tempting to invite a lot of people to some marketing meetings. Instead, try to pair it down. If someone is being invited to the meeting only as an FYI, send them meeting notes instead.

The common structure for many marketing meetings is the following:

• Celebrate wins (start off the meeting with something great)
• Review key performance metrics
• Roundtable: Give updates on what’s happened recently
• Prioritize and plan for what is next
• Assign any action items or tasks

These are the types of meetings marketers have most often:

• Weekly Marketing Meeting
• Marketing PR Meeting
• Marketing Campaign Planning
• Project Kickoff Meeting
• Content Planning Meeting
• Ad Campaign Ideas Brainstorm

The best meetings involve the whole room, not just one or two presenters. Here are a few ways to encourage more engagement:

• Ask others to contribute to the agenda. Having a shared agenda helps everyone in the room feel responsible for the meeting’s success.
• Make small talk as people are settling in. When you show up early, get the conversation flowing instead of burying your head in your laptop or your phone.
• Don’t do all the talking. Invite fellow participants to lead discussions and provide updates.
• Give updates before the meeting. Provide materials to review before the meeting so that you can focus on the discussion and decision-making when everyone is together.
• Do a deep dive into one topic. Focus on a single challenge to tap into the collective intelligence of everyone attending.
• Keep a sense of humor. Cracking the occasional joke will help meeting participants feel open to expressing their own ideas.

Team meetings are among the most common and most important meetings in any workplace. Agendas for these types of meetings range wildly, but all topics usually fall into one of these categories:

• Introductions. If they don’t already, make sure everyone in the room knows who each other are.
• Updates. Updates are extremely common in team meetings, but often they are also the hog a lot of time without providing a lot of value. Summarize updates on the agenda when possible and keep them brief.
• Discussions.
• Decisions. If a decision needs to be reached during the meeting, note it explicitly on the agenda.
• Next steps. While not a significant part of the agenda, it’s important to always agree on action items from a meeting and who owns them.

• Go around the table with an icebreaker. Get to know each other by having everyone answer the same question.
• Change up the location. Get out of the conference room and into the break room, or on the lawn outside.
• Start at a weird time. Pick something memorable like 1:23 pm.
• Get some exercise. Switch things up during a long meeting by having everyone take a run around the block, do as many pushups they can do, or some other physical activity to get the blood pumping.
• Pass out prizes. Have a pile or swag, or candy bars, or coffee gift cards up at the front of the room. Whenever someone makes a spectacular contribution, toss them a prize.