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You are here: Home / Archives for client management

June 19, 2019 by Eric Butts 5 Comments

How to Take Notes in Meetings Like The Rich and Powerful

 

How to take notes

Do you ever feel like your day has so many meetings they all start to blend together?

So many details to capture. And sometimes not even knowing anything about the meeting topic.

It’s a real struggle. And because of this, one of the most important things you can do in your career (especially management consulting) is make sure you know how to take notes in meetings.

Working on consulting engagements, it’s not uncommon to have multiple meetings to prepare for the “real” meeting with the client. If you’re lucky, the meetings will yield some useful information.

There’s a huge problem with all of these meetings though – people have short-term memories. By the time the participants leave the meeting and get back to their desks, they remember minimal pieces of the discussion.

And even worse, when you ask people later about their commitments made in the meeting, they act like you’re speaking in a language they’ve never heard before. (Maybe accountability could be considered a language and that’s why they’re not familiar with it.)

That’s exactly why you’ll find the rich and powerful to be avid note takers.

When it comes to meeting notes, you’ll want to email those out to all invitees and be sure to focus on capturing the 6 following pieces of information.

Don’t worry if you’re having trouble following along in meetings. I’ll show you what to do in that situation too.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Management Consulting Tagged With: client management, consulting, how to take notes, management consulting

April 5, 2017 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

3 Reasons Virtual Meetings Will Always Be a Secondary Option

Virtual Relationships

Relationships might be built online but they are solidified in person, whether that be business (think client buyers) or personal (think online dating). That’s on my mind because I just got back from a meeting in Salt Lake City and it made a world of difference. I think I was in town for roughly 16 hours and was asleep in the hotel room for a decent chunk of that. It was kind of funny, because my flight out got delayed to the point that I was checking in for my flight home before I even left the San Jose airport.

A big part of why some folks like virtual meetings isn’t what you think. The official reasoning might be that it saves on travel cost or time wasted migrating between meetings but I know some people who won’t walk next door if there is a webex link in a meeting invite. Some of it might be laziness but I think the more likely culprit is work overload. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career management, client management, relationship management, relationships

October 2, 2016 by Eric Butts 4 Comments

Life as a Consultant: The 10 Best Pieces of Advice I Ever Received

10 best pieces of consulting advice

One of the many things you learn in the management consulting business is there is no one path to success, so it’s interesting to hear what people remember as the most useful information or advice they’ve picked up so far. What better way to highlight this than to ask consultants from different firms what’s the best advice they’ve gotten. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Management Consulting Tagged With: career advice, career management, client management

September 17, 2016 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

ESPN Violated One of the Major Rules of Consulting


ESPN fantasy delay

In case you don’t like sports or somehow manage to interact with zero people who like sports (or maybe you live in a place where American football isn’t so popular), something pretty interesting happened this past Sunday. The worldwide leader had a “not top 10” moment of its own that I bet they won’t be replaying for the entertainment of its millions of viewers. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Management Consulting Tagged With: client management, espn, management consulting

April 21, 2016 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

3 Ways to Know If You’re Wasting Your Client’s Time (and Money)

3 Ways to Know You're Wasting Client Time

Odds are your clients have a day job in addition to supporting the consulting project where you spend full-time hours. That means wasting client time needs to be a top concern for you.

You know you need to build a relationship, which takes some time but if you take up too much time you might start to come off as overly sales-y. Once that happens, it’s a matter of time before you’re looking for your next gig.

Make sure you keep an eye on these three things so you don’t overstay your welcome and cost yourself long-term opportunities. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Management Consulting Tagged With: client management, clients, Meeting

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