How to Run Effective Small Business Team Weekly Meetings

SUMMARY

Have you ever felt like your team or small business was disconnected? Maybe you have employees talking to you about other employees, and then the other are coming to you, and you feel like it’s a kindergarten class. You constantly have to bridge connections between team members because they’re not happening naturally.

Today I want to talk to you about running an effective small business weekly team meeting.

Why is a weekly team meeting important in your small business?

1. You will create a reliable space and time the team can look forward to.
2. Your team members will feel valued for their input AND accountable for their role.
3. Your team will save hours a week of repeated wasted discussions “offline.”

Here are the steps to set-up your weekly small business team meeting:

1. Schedule a 90 minute team meeting, ideally early in the week and at the same time every week.
2. Explain why this weekly meeting is important (only the first time, use the 3 points from above).
3. Follow this meeting sequence every time:
   1. Ask everyone to cover these points:
      1. A piece of good news.
      2. What they are working on that is worth mentioning.
      3. A problem they are facing that others could help with.
   2. You will finish the meeting and cover the same main points.
   3. Talk about what is coming up for the business and ask for their feedback.
   4. Finish each meeting by asking from 1-10 how the meeting went and what could be better.

Some Do’s and Don’ts for this meeting:

• Do make sure that everyone is involved, even if they have little to say.
• Don’t waste too much time on one topic, if it takes longer than 5-7 minutes, deal with it outside of the meeting.
• Do use humor! Make it light, life is short. No need to be too serious.

That’s it! I hope you liked this session. Please, don’t forget to download the checklist for the effective weekly team meeting, which follows this structure. Schedule one meeting, or use this structure in one of your future meetings, because you might already have a weekly meeting. Just try it and see the magic at work. Finally, please do me a favor. Go to my Small Business Sherpa Facebook page and like it or follow it. I would appreciate it. Also, it’s a way for you to stay updated on when my Small Business Sherpa | The Course will come out. Remember, with the right path to growth, and the right tools to get there, you too can enjoy your business.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Small Business Sherpa: The Podcast with David Salerno.]

Welcome. My name is David Salerno. I am the founder and owner of Solpak Packaging Solutions, but that's not what I want to talk to you about today. Today, I'm going to put on my Small Business Sherpa hat. I want to talk to you about something that is so present in many, many businesses, which is communication issues within team members. Now, have you ever felt like your team or your small business team was disconnected? Maybe you have employees talking to you about other employees, and then the other are coming to you, and you feel like it's a kindergarten or something. You constantly have to bridge connections between team members because they're not happening naturally. As soon as Solpak grew to a 40 player many years ago, these issues started to happen, which was normal. My experience in the corporate world combined to a lot of training and coaching and whatnot, helped me set in place a system that allowed us communicate much more properly. It really gave us a chance to resolve the main frustrations regarding the kindergarten syndrome.

All right. What is it exactly that I'm talking about? Today I want to talk to you about running an effective small business weekly team meeting, and I will lay out for you today. Okay. Why is it important? First, a weekly team meeting is very important because you're going to create a reliable and space and time that your team can look forward to. They will know that each week in and out, there's going to be a point in space and time where they're going to be able to reconnect, not in the huffing and puffing of everyday activity where everybody's running around.

Second, your team members will feel valued in their contribution, but also will be accountable for their role, so value for the contribution, and accountable for their role, the second reason why it's important to do this weekly meeting in the way that I'm going to show you today. Finally, your team's going to save hours a week, hours of wasted discussions, offline discussions, repeated discussions sometimes from one player to the next. Those hours are worth money to you and your team, definitely.

Ready to start? Let's go on a step by step basis. Which color should I choose? Hmm. Red pill? Black pill? Oh, it's blue pill? Anyways. For another time. First, weekly meeting. You may already have a weekly meeting. Maybe it's a monthly meeting. Maybe it's an informal meeting. Whatever the case may be, what I'm showing you today is obviously to talk to you about doing a weekly meeting, but more specifically how to set up the agenda to maximize the use of the meeting, because ugh, meetings, people hate meetings. Sometimes it's too many meetings. That one is a proven system, proven with the method that I'm going to show you.

Let's start. Okay. First, the setup. You're going to book a 90 minute meeting. If you can, probably using Outlook. We use Daylite, another CRM. You name it "Weekly Team Meeting." You book 90 minutes. 90 minutes? Yes, 90 minutes. If it's shorter, people are going to be happy, but at least it sends the message that this is the time of the week where we're really going to make sure that we talk about everything we need to talk about first. Second, you're going to explain why the meeting is important. The first time, you're going to explain why the meeting matters.

Now, without rewinding, what are the three reason why weekly team meeting are important? Do you remember? Okay, I'll give them back to you. First, you want to create a reliable space and time where the whole team reconnects and spends the time to make sure they communicate and have the time and space to do it. The second reason why it's important, you want everybody to be value for their input, and also be accountable for their role, so everybody's going to be accountable around the table. Finally, the third reason why it's important, is you guys are going to save hours on a weekly basis. Remember, 90 minutes is long, right? But is it long when you compare it to maybe two hours of wasted communications for team players? If you have eight, 12, 13 people wasting each an hour each, that's three times, so 36 hours let's say of wasted time during the week, plus it's still not resolved because people are still talking about these issues that haven't been resolved.

All right. Now, here's the setup and the actual agenda. Number one, everyone will talk at the meeting, not just if they have something to say, not just if they have the gift of the gab, everyone around the table. It's going to be like a roundtable thing, right? We start with one, and we go around. What are they going to talked about? Everyone talks, everyone.

Number one, they're going to talk about their good news. What is their good news of the week? Remember, you're doing this every week. Basically, it starts off with something positive, and we all need more positivity, right? We're busy, we're running, problems, issues, so start with the good news. The second thing, what are they working on that is worth mentioning at a meeting? So what I'm working on, right? Everybody will know what everybody kind of does around the table, because they're working together. I'm hoping that colleagues know what they're doing, right? Right? Yes? No? Maybe?

Okay. What are they working on? First, if they talk about it, it will matter to them, so that's very important. That's how we feel value, you will say what you're working on that's important to you. It gives you the chance as the leader of the team and the small business, to see what is their priority at the weekly meeting, because you're observing what's going on. That could allow you to see if there is a disconnect between the team's priority and the individual's priority, and you can address it later on the one-on-one meeting. Check out my other epic post on the topic of one-on-one monthly meeting. Then once they've talk about what they're working on right now, and that might trigger conversation, which is okay. Somebody might ask a question, somebody might say "Hey, you know what? Whenever you're finished with that thing you're doing just let me know, because I'm really, really interested in being on par once it's ready." It's great for team building.

Finally, a problem. What's a problem others could help with? The third thing they say is well, what's one problem, the biggest problem I have right now this week, that others could help me with? I'll give you an example. We have an advisor, she's on the road, she's using our Thermogo trucks, special truck, multi-temperature, unique in Canada by the way. She had issues with a technicality with the truck, so that her main thing. Everything is chugging along, she talked about it. It's funny because our other advisor had the same issue, and he just said "Oh yeah, this happened to me. Just do X, Y, Z." Case closed, thank you very much, done.

That's a very minuscule example, but sometimes it'll be a bigger, your coordinator marketing might have an issue because she's designing a specific page, and she's not quite clear with the copyrighting, so the advisor could say "Well, when I talk to clients, they always talk to me about X," and then they'll give her help in building her own campaign. So that's it.

All right. That's it. Good news, what am I working on that matters right now, and what's a problem that I am facing, my biggest problem that others could help me with. That's everyone. Then you. As the leader of the team, you're going to do the same. You're going to exactly these three points the same. You're the leader of the team, but you're part of the team. By doing this, we set up a motion where you're showing the example, you're connecting with the other team members at the same level, because right now you're part of the team.

Then, you will talk about what's coming up for the business. Okay. Picture this, just visualize this. Everyone around the table talked about what they're working on, the good news, so they already have a sense from each area of the business of your small business or team, what's happening, which is great because people want to know what's happening with my business. You're going to complete with what's coming up with the business. What's going to happen, is you're probably going to talk about the future. You're going to talk about a project that's upcoming. You're going to talk about something you're working on that hasn't yet propagated in the rest of the team. This is amazing because it solidifies the confidence they have in their team. Okay, we're going somewhere, there's an upcoming project coming down the stream, there's this idea. This is amazing. This is magic. I'm telling you try it, it's magic.

The second thing is, you're not a genius, I'm not a genius, nobody's a genius. Maybe Einstein? But anyways, the point being is, when you share this information, you will ask for their opinion on it. Sometimes, I'll give you an example. We had a marketing campaign, and I basically said "Guys, we're coming up with this new truck line," that was a few years ago, "And this is what it does. This is what happened, I went in to visit some clients of our partner, and they really love their trucks so we want to implement the same thing, so we're looking through it. This is where we're at right now, please confidential don't talk about it because it's part of our strategic plan. Any thoughts and ideas?" It was interesting because I got a feedback from the advisors who were like, "This is amazing because I constantly hear my clients saying, they're complaining they don't have a solution to bring all their prepared meals hot or cold at the same time." So it was reinforcement okay, we're onto a right project.

Sometimes it was the opposite. It was something that we needed to launch, and we showed the example, "This is what's coming up in the business," and it was a bad idea. I don't remember what it is, because it's ... traumatic event was wiped out of my mind. I basically said "You know what guys? Thanks for your feedback. I'll get back to you." The next weekly meeting I was like, I'd review my things, I decided okay, strike that. Bad idea. I told them, that's the second part of the magic, is they feel valued because they realize I have an influence on the outcome of my team or my business. Do not underestimate the power of that.

All right. Let's recap here. How will the team 90 minute meeting happen? First, everyone around the table will talk about good news, what am I working on, problems other could help you with. Then you're going to do the same thing. Then finally, you're going to talk about what's coming up in the business and ask for their opinion. At the very end, quickly ask from one to 10 how did the meeting go. All right? Just one to 10, and then people are going to share naturally, so you do quick roundtable, you don't have to force everybody to give a score just piff, piff, piff, it comes out.

Sometimes what's going to happen, is you know how it goes, some people talk a lot, right? If it's you and you're the boss, poor you, because nobody's going to tell you. But they might say "You know what? I give it a seven. It was really good. I feel we spent too much time talking about that truck thing, so I don't know maybe we could talk less about the truck thing next time." But it's okay, because that's going to allow the team to get in sync and to get a vibe, all right?

That's the agenda. I hope you like this. Try it. It works. Here are the dos and don'ts. Make sure that everyone is involved, even if they have little to say, everyone is involved, even the shy ones. We have a team player on the team, our Coordinator of Logistics, very shy, very shy guy. Sometimes we help him and say "Well, didn't you say yesterday that you had an issue with when we would leave certain cases just randomly in the warehouse?" Then it kicks it "Oh yes, that's right," and then he's going to jump in with a topic. Some people have stage fright, even around a table with people they know. So make sure everyone is involved. Help them. That's your job as a leader.

Second thing, if a topic requires too much time, let's say ... too much time, and I'm talking seven minute plus, right? If somebody brings a topic and it's a heated topic, it's good, people are exchange, and you see it's going to be seven minutes or over in the 90 minutes, then you will kindly ask who needs to work on this, and could you please settle some time after the meeting to resolve this issue, right? You don't want to start, because this could completely kidnap your meeting. Make sure that topics that require more attention, I'm saving seven minutes plus, make sure it's happening after the meeting, or later during the week.

Finally, use ... humor. Now, this is the magic of the English language, is it humor, or is it humor, which one is it? So anyways, we have a convertible humor here, right? Use humor. Make it light. You know what? Life it short, so be the clown a little bit if you want, relax. This is the goal of meeting is that we have a good time, and a secret bonus, free if you listen right now, feel free to clap. It's kind of ridiculous, but I think we've been clapping at Solpak for the last nine years. It's just instinct. Sometimes somebody has a good news, and we're just so happy, "What, this big account is going to come in? It's two years that we've been hearing about this big account, and now they're choosing Solpak. This is amazing." We clap. We just love to clap and to be clapped, right? Right? All right.

Cool. That's it, guys. I hope you like this session. Now, I'm going to invite you to download the checklist for the effective weekly team meeting, which follows this structure. Schedule one meeting, or use this structure that I am proposing in one of your future meetings, because you probably already have a weekly meeting, but just try once. Just try it and see the magic at work. Finally, I have a favor to ask of you. If you could please go on my Small Business Sherpa Facebook page to like it or follow it, I would appreciate. Also, it's a way for you to stay updated when my Small Business Sherpa | The Course will come out. Thanks for watching, and remember with the right path to growth, the right tools to get there, you too can enjoy your business.

Download the Small Business Weekly Team Meeting Checklist here.