I’ve learned something incredibly powerful in just the last couple of months that I’m eager to share with all of you, because it’s made a really significant difference for me.

As with most things this is a really simple idea that can create some pretty profound results, and applies to a LOT of different things. Networking and one-on-one meetings are just one area.

The idea is this. Instead of simply walking into a meeting, event, or conversation spend just a few minutes preparing for that interaction.

·         What is your objective?

·         In a perfect world what would the ideal outcome be?

·         What can you do to get there?

·         What things do you want to learn from or get out of this meeting?

·         What questions can you ask that will get you there?

·         What are your desired next steps?

Just spending 10 minutes to think through these things and WRITE THEM DOWN. You may or may not want to bring these notes into your meeting, but just going through the exercise will help you gain much more clarity in what you hope to gain from the interaction. Rather than just going through the typical motions, because you’ve done this a thousand times before.

In addition to preparing for your success I’m also going to suggest that you spend another 5-10 minutes after the meeting to write down all of the key things you want to remember. If you’re anything like me if you don’t do this process your recall even a couple of hours later will be missing some important details. You’ll also want to record any to do items that you committed to from the meeting as well as document any ideas for your follow-up and next steps.

If you’re doing the math I am indeed suggesting you invest 30% more time in a 1 hour meeting preparing for and debriefing each meeting. While you may be thinking that you don’t have time for this much extra work in your schedule I’ll ask you to consider this. Would it be worth spending at extra 20 minutes per meeting if the results of the meeting were 500%-1000% better? Think about the results of the meetings and interactions you’re having today. How productive are the outcomes? Could they be significantly better if you were to get closer to an ideal outcome most of the time? Heck, just try it a couple of times and see if the extra time investment seems worthwhile to your or not. At the end of the day it’s a personal decision. However my philosophy in many things including networking continues to be that quality is far better than quantity.

It’s 2011. Are you prepared to succeed?

Happy Networking!