Its your first opportunity to set the tone of who you are. Make it stick. Do the right thing.
A young, high-school entrepreneur cold-dropped in to see me last week. I love his aggressiveness. Evidently I had met him within the last year when he was starting his previous startup. Yes, you heard that right, he is in high school and working on his next idea.
I have a good feeling about him and if not this idea, I am sure he will be successful with something soon. I hope TSF can be there for him when he is ready.
Though I could not meet with him in the moment, I asked if he could come back and schedule something a week or two out. You see when we are “in session” our days are pretty booked. Even if I am not in a meeting, I need to use the gap time to check email, schedule meetings, and support the entrepreneurs occupying our space. I asked him to email me with some proposed dates.
HERE IS THE LESSON I TAUGHT HIM TODAY.
There is a point in the email back-n-forth where it is clear that a date/time has been agreed upon. It is incumbent upon the person requesting the meeting to now take ownership of the meeting. What does that mean? Send me a calendar invite for the agreed upon time so it now sits in my calendar. Don’t make me do it – this is your meeting, you asked for it, right?
There are a few very positive things that result from this simple task:
- When I accept the meeting you have an additional level of confirmation from me
- You have the opportunity to remind me how we are meeting (phone, skype, Google Hangout, in person)
- You can share the specifics of our meeting (my office, you call me or I call you, etc.)
- You can fill in a few thoughts in the Notes section of the invite that can get me thinking beforehand what you want to talk about.
- All of this is in one place so I don’t have to go searching for it 2 minutes before our meeting.
My net/net is that I notch you up a few levels when you show a proactive and courteous level of engagement with our important meeting.