The Quarterly Meeting is a great tool to really motivate your team. These are the lessons I’ve learned to make these a success:

Lessons
  1. Maximum time 60 minutes.
  2. Maximum agenda items 5.
  3. Suggested agenda items:
    1. Update on Sales Performance
    2. Update on People
    3. Update on Products/Services
    4. Next 6 months – what you need to know
    5. Q&A

What people remember most from a presentation is not the content but how they felt! So what do you want them to feel? Taking each agenda item:

Agenda

Sales Performance – Let your team feel pride or urgency or concern based on the actual results. Give enough detail to see growth by product family.

People Update – Let your people feel the quality of your new hires. Let your people feel pride with spotlights on exceptional employee performance.

Products Updates – Let your staff understand why your products are winning in the market. Let them feel like winners.

Next 6 months – Be careful with promises. Try to focus on actions you will be taking. Stuff you know will be happening. Not stuff that might happen.

Q&A – Coax out questions – go to your reliable question asker first. There is always one. That will open up the audience. Let people know they can ask any question. It will encourage the feeling that this is an open company.

Quarterly Meetings are a great communication tool. Don’t squander them.