The great Sir Winston Churchill once said “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it”. He was true to his word, writing “The Second World War”, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” and winning the Nobel prize for literature in the process (as you do).
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Likewise for us the importance of getting your version of a meeting circulated first is not to be underestimated. In fact I heard a story a while back about an ex-colleague who visited a very major account, had an OK meeting and went off on his way. A month or so later his boss wanted to visit this very major account with him and asked our friend to arrange it. So he picks up the phone calls them and asks for the meeting… to which they respond “no… we haven’t seen the action list from the last meeting yet”. Ouch.
As we’ve documented on Real Life Selling previously, sales people are notoriously shy of paperwork. However this is one case where you really have to grit your teeth and bash those minutes out.
If you don’t get your minutes out pretty quickly there are two risks…
* The momentum of the sale is lost. You’ve had a great meeting, got some commitment, but in two weeks time both you and they have moved on to the next urgent item.
* The customer minutes the meeting. “Great” you may think, “that’s saved me the effort”. But, of course, in their version of the minutes the commitments they made may be just a little softer than they seemed at the time and the items you committed to have been “bigged up”.
Here are some suggestions on minuting that I hope you’ll find useful…
Minute meetings as soon after they finish as possible. If it’s at your office, stay on in the meeting room for 15 minutes to write-up the meeting. If it’s at a customer’s site, sit in your car outside and write it up on your laptop before you leave, or at the airport, or on the plane home.
Concentrate on the next actions and use W3… who, what, when.
Start your follow-up actions immediately. You may not be able to finish them, but at least initiate them. So if you need a quotation… fill in the form and submit it. If you need someone to do something, email or call them and tell them what needs doing and by when.
Use your diary or electronic calendar to set some follow-up reminders.
Thank the customer for their time and hospitality.
And finally keep the minutes to-the-point and business-like. As Sir Winston once said “This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read”.
The great Sir Winston Churchill once said “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it”. He was true to his word, writing “The Second World War”, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” and winning the Nobel prize for literature in the process (as you do).

About to get his version in first!
Likewise for us mere mortals the importance of getting your version of a meeting circulated first is not to be underestimated. In fact I heard a story a while back about an ex-colleague who visited a very major account, had an OK meeting and went off on his way. A month or so later his boss wanted to visit this very major account with him and asked our friend to arrange it. So he picks up the phone calls them and asks for the meeting… to which they respond “no… we haven’t seen the action list from the last meeting yet”. Ouch.
As we’ve documented on Real Life Selling previously, sales people are notoriously shy of paperwork. However this is one case where you really have to grit your teeth and bash those minutes out.
If you don’t get your minutes out pretty quickly there are two risks…
* The momentum of the sale is lost. You’ve had a great meeting, got some commitment, but in two weeks time both you and they have moved on to the next urgent item.
* The customer minutes the meeting. “Great” you may think, “that’s saved me the effort”. But, of course, in their version of the minutes the commitments they made may be just a little softer than they seemed at the time and the items you committed to have been “bigged up”.
Here are some suggestions on minuting that I hope you’ll find useful…
- Minute meetings as soon after they finish as possible. If it’s at your office, stay on in the meeting room for 15 minutes to write-up it up. If it’s at a customer’s site, sit in your car outside and use your laptop before you leave, or at the airport, or on the plane home.
- Concentrate on the next actions and use W3… who, what, when.
- Start your follow-up actions immediately. You may not be able to finish them, but at least initiate them. So if you need a quotation… fill in the form and submit it. If you need someone to do something, email or call them and tell them what needs doing and by when.
- Use your diary or electronic calendar to set some follow-up reminders.
- Thank the customer for their time and hospitality.
- And finally keep the minutes to-the-point and business-like. As Sir Winston said “This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read”.