How to Follow Up on That Unanswered Meeting Request

Sometimes simply scheduling the meeting can be the hardest part.

You were at an event last night and met Brett. He had some awesome ideas to help your startup so you got his card and he suggested you get together soon. 

The next day you email him to schedule a meeting but you never hear from Brett again.

You know you need to follow up with Brett but don't want to annoy him in the process, which may stop him from helping you at all.

photo credit (creative commons)

How Do I Follow Up With Brett?
What people don't realize is why the other person - Brett in this example - didn't respond to the initial email.

Perhaps he never intended to help me out, but that's simply unlikely. And even if that's the case, an extra follow-up can't make it any less likely that he'll respond.

Here's what's more likely:

• He never saw my email among the hundreds in his Inbox,
• He started to respond but got sidetracked and then forgot altogether, or
• He has a laundry list of stuff to do, and meeting with me just isn't a high priority

So it's ok to send follow-ups...it's even necessary.

The obvious next question is, What do I say to Brett?


1.Keep it Short
Don't overwhelm Brett. People read shorter emails more often. Wouldn't you?

How: Keep it to 3-5 sentences max.


2. Make it Actionable
You break down your own tasks into small, manageable pieces, right? (Or should be according to GTD.) Do the same for Brett. Be direct and make it easy for him to help you.

How: Ask a specific YES / NO question. "Can we have a quick call on Tuesday? I'm free from 9-12."


3. Make them Want to Help You
Remember, you're asking for the favor. Remind them of the benefit to them, or add in some humor. Put a smile on their face and your chances have just shot up.

How: "As a thank you I'd love to give you some eBooks that you can give away to your own customers."


4. Wait a Few Days
Like the character in a movie who gets the girl's number (and doesn't want to seem desperate), be patient.

How: While it always depends, I try to wait a week before sending a follow-up.

Putting that together, here's what your follow-up might look like:

Hi Brett,

Looking at my calendar I'm open for lunch this Thursday and Friday. Can you get together either of those days around noon?

I'm looking forward to hearing more of the ideas you had at [NETWORKING EVENT], or even just an excuse to get out of the office and treat ourselves to a free lunch on my company.

Thanks!

It's short, up front and asks a simple yes/no question.

Most importantly, if Brett is someone I don't know well this follow-up shows him I'm serious. That in turn makes him more willing to invest his time in someone he doesn't know.


A Couple Tools to Make Follow-Ups Easier
And if you have a hard time remembering to follow up in the first place?

Fortunately there are some great tools that make this part easy and automatic.

Boomerang
Boomerang is an awesome app that lets you set automatic email reminders. Send emails later, Hide messages from your inbox until you need them, OR, Remind yourself if you don't get a reply to an email you sent.

FollowUpThen
FollowUpThen works a lot like Boomerang, but doesn't require any installs. All you have to do is add a formatted "@followupthen" email address to your email.

Tungle
Tungle helps people pick a time slot on their calendar to meet. This is especially helpful when you can't see the other person's availability.


Sometimes people really are too busy and you're never going to get the response you need. But for all those other times remember that a quick follow-up is easier than you think and makes a huge difference.


PS - While writing this post I found a great post that makes it easy to know when to hyphenate "follow up": if it's a verb, leave a space; if it's a noun or can be preceded by "the", add a hyphen. My trick is, Noun = No space.

What Steve Jobs Taught Us About Meetings

We're getting pumped for the Less Meeting iPad app release.

This got me thinking...what would Steve Jobs think about Less Meeting? Or even, what did Steve Jobs think about meetings in general?

The Most Important Meetings Don't Happen in the Conference Room
There's a few lessons we can take from him, but one in particular sticks out.

You see, meetings aren't always neatly packaged, formal events.

You're not going to get a nice Outlook calendar invite every time you get together with your coworkers (and I'm not talking about bad meeting planners who don't send out an agenda before their meeting). Your traditional meetings aren't always going to be your most important either.

Yes they're great at keeping things moving day-to-day, but sometimes "water cooler" conversations are where the best stuff happens. This is where you find out what's really going on, realize what you were overlooking the whole time, and have those "AHA!" moments - all after the "real" meeting is over.

Pixar's Best Conference Room
When Jobs designed Pixar's office he realized the importance of these casual conversations. The result is the now-famous story of the giant open shared space he created at Pixar.

The Incredibles director Brad Bird sums it up best:

Then there’s our building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center—which initially drove us crazy—so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.

As a result, you're constantly bumping into people, having those unexpected, yet inspiring idea creating events. Looking at Pixar's results, how can you argue it didn't work?

Now, just remember to keep your iPad handy so you can have a Less.Meeting Huddle next time it happens to you!


quote via Andrew Chen
image via Ain't It Cool News

Why Face to Face Meetings Are Still Critical to Your Business

I call it the 35,000 foot problem.

It's that it's expensive...frustratingly expensive...to travel to a business meeting. After a flight, a night at a hotel, meals, and a few odds & ends, your meeting costs $1,000 before it's even started.

Thankfully technology has solved the 35,000 foot problem. It's great what you can do with video conferencing. We've even praised it here, a number of times.


Intangible Benefits Are Worth More Than You Think
Rene Shimada Siegel over at Inc. wrote a great piece though that reminds us, face time really does matter.

She lists 5 reasons why you still need to meet in person. To me the most important is #4:

4. Read the body language. Facial expressions often communicate so much more than words. In their eyes and in their body language, we can see confidence, empathy, fear, friendliness or sincerity. That ability to “read” [the other person] is a huge advantage.

It's critical that managers and expense account owners remember you can't calculate the direct financial benefit of every part of a meeting.

Sure a status call will keep you up-to-date on how the project is going, but the side conversations you have walking out of the conference room together tell you what you really want to know.

How Do I Know When to Meet In Person?
If cost is still a factor (which of course it is), how do you strike a good balance? While it depends on what's most important to your organization, these 3 meetings are usually best in person:

1. Introductions
To work well with someone you need to have a certain amount of trust, or familiarity. This is very tough to create over the phone. Once this is established, your remote work improves greatly.

2. Crisis Management
On a previous project a few years ago, a vendor for my client refused to come on site during a key product outage due to costs. It ended up taking days, not hours, to get back up and running.

Trying to fix something over the phone and email cost us more in lost time than any flight could have cost.

3. Project Delivery
There's the familiar adage about judging a book by its cover, but what about a book without any cover? To me, delivering a project over email is just that.

So much of business is about perception, and I've found the best way to improve that perception is to do so yourself, in person.


Know the best part? LessMeeting works for any meeting - virtual or in person. Try it and see for yourself.


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