How To Run Effective Team Meetings

To build and run a profitable business you need a team, it’s not something you can do on your own. Business is a team sport!

You bring on team members for one of two things

1. They help you create more revenue (Money making assets)

2. They help you buy back your time (Support staff)

In any service business, people are assets, the more assets you can accumulate the more revenue your company should produce, it’s the ultimate way to leverage yourself.  

The biggest downside to adding more people into your business are communication breakdowns and that the fact you’ll need to find the time to train them.  In a small business, this is not always easy as the business owner already lacks time, but if you seriously want to work your way out of your business you’ve got to look at the bigger picture.  

Communication 

Communication breakdowns can cost your business money, time and a whole lot of stress. Not taking the time to train your staff can cause drop-offs in service quality which will ultimately cost you by losing clients, the last thing you want is untrained staff running your business    

This is where team meetings are such an essential part of running your business effectively, lets dive into some specifics.

3 Layers To Business Freedom

The ultimate aim for any business owner is to go from being the primary operator/service provider to running the business without having to work in it.  To do this you’ll need to work your way through the following levels.

The Ground Level

This is the tactical level, it’s where you are performing the service for your clients. Almost everybody starts here, the problem is that a lot of business owners gets stuck at this level. 

The Middle Level

This is the strategic or team building level, this is the level responsible for holding team meetings and helping develop your team to serve your clients so you can move up the chain. In my experience as a business coach, this is where most business owners struggle, especially those who are great technically at servicing their clients. 

 The Upper Level

This is the top dog position, the CEO or MD.  To get here you must be able to create team leaders that develop and manage your staff effectively.   Your business will need to be properly systemized with all communication pathways between levels functioning.

These communication pathways are meetings! 

It’s why they are so important, you need them to get the correct information so you can make the correct decisions to drive your business forward as the top dog!

Now you know why you need meetings here’s how to run them effectively.

1 - Keep Your Meeting’s Rhythmic

Random meetings are useless!  It’s like having a workout when you want, it produces nothing but sore muscles! 

Both you as the owner and your team need structure, you need to know what tasks you need to be doing to grow the business and/or serve your clients. Your first step is to have meetings scheduled periodically.

2 - Run Meeting’s To Create A Triple Win Effect

Take a look at the diagram below and study it!  This is what we call the triple win effect, everybody wins! This is how you move out of working in your business to being top dog and spend more time working on it.  Your aim should be to create this as a working model.

• You as the business owner build and develop a team so that…
• Your team helps serve your clients to the best of their ability so that...
• Your clients continue to invest in your businesses services and keep paying the business so that…
• The business keeps paying you so that…
• You can have the money and time to enjoy your life!

Learning Promotes Earnings

To make the above model work the aim of your meetings should be to…

- Upskill your team with continuous training that will…

- Help them become more effective and efficient at their role so that they…

- Stay Inspired and engaged to produce their best work with your clients.

The major part of your meetings should be dedicated to developing and upskilling your team’s through training and coaching. That will trigger off the chain of events shown on the diagram. 

3 - Coach First Manage Second  

I’ve always been poor at management, however, because I was so bad at managing I had to find another way to build and run an effective team so I simply did what I was good a... 

I coached them.

Coaching helps people get better, it helps them win, everybody likes winning, it will help motivate and inspire your team to work better with your clients.  

Management ensures things get done, while you do need to manage most of you meeting should be focused on coaching and development, coach first and manage second.    

4 - Use Scoreboards, Questions & Team Members

You don’t need to do it all yourself, let your team help, it totally empowers them. 

Don’t assume that you know it all and you’re the only one that can get the job done, that’s a huge mistake.  Use numbers, questions & team members to figure out what training you need to deliver. 

Numbers  

Each position in your company will need a scoreboard that measures Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), how many KPI’s you use is up to you but you do need them. 

Here’s an example of how  to use KPI’s in a PT Business (This is hypothetical)

Both of these KPI’s will have a direct effect on our business monthly revenue and how much the coach gets paid so it’s in our best interest to come up with a strategy to reduce client cancellations. 

My meetings with my own team would focus on reducing cancellations until the numbers improved.  The numbers gave me the information I need to create the content for my meetings.

Questions

Your team will be exposed to the tactical day to day level more than you will so it’s key that you understand that they will know what needs to be improved better than you do.  

Use questions to help provide you with the information you need. 

When asking your team questions, you must ensure that you are open to hearing things that you may not want to. If staff feel threatened in any way they won’t give you honest answers.

Your Team

Have your team deliver the training whenever possible, this is how you create leaders, it’s how you can move from the middle level to the upper level in your business.

5 - Keep Them Short & Sweet

Less is more, no one likes long, unproductive, boring meetings.   Get to the point ASAP and get back to work.

In Summery

If you can produce more revenue or time out of each asset (team member) then effectively what you have done is improved your businesses profitability margin; you’ve become more efficient and effective as a business.

Team meetings are where you do this work.

If you want to grow your business so it works without you then practice and perfect the art of running effective meetings.  This time needs to be looked at as an investment, not a cost. 

Nicky Sehgal - Founder & CEO @ The FBDA 

We help fitness business owners just like you improve every aspect of their business through skills training and developing systems that work. If you want to grow your business using a systematic approach Click Here To Schedule A Chat