Are face-to-face meetings worth your time?
Recently, a colleague from New York told me about her new strategy for being more productive -- cut back on face-to-face meetings.
With e-mail, phone calls and even Twitter available to us, who needs real human contact?
Her strategy made sense. She had more time to do her work because she wasn’t out gallivanting around Manhattan meeting friends and business associates.
Long lunches, she found, were one of the worst time sinks.
I’ve written about the death of lunch at large companies, but I always figured small business owners and freelancers need the business lunch to keep clients and in order to not lose touch with the world outside.
It made me think about an inscription the author Robin Jay wrote for me in her new book, “The Art of the Business Lunch.” In the book she wrote: “Share a meal and close the deal!”
A nice sentiment, to be sure, but what about just sharing e-mails or phone calls?
“Business lunch is my life,” Jay said.
That makes sense since she’s trying to sell her book. But seriously folks, she thinks we’re all crazy if we don’t make time to break bread with others.
“The choice to bypass a lunch meeting is one of the biggest mistakes anyone in business can make,” Jay maintains. “In our digital age of cell phones, text messaging and ‘have your voice mail talk to my voice mail’ there’s no replacement for good, old-fashioned face time. People prefer to do business with people they LIKE.”
I’m trying to think of people I have only emailed or talked to on the phone and whether or not I really liked them. There was one editor I worked with for the now defunct Ziff Davis magazine called “Smart Business.” I never even talked to the guy on the phone. It was all e-mail -- getting assignments, negotiating my fee, etc. Did I like him? It’s hard to go that far, but he seemed like a nice guy.
Eating together would have definitely helped our cyber friendship, but what if you just don’t have time? Jay has some advice:
“If your work day is too, too full, then meet for breakfast. This is also a great suggestion for entrepreneurs on limited budgets, as breakfast is almost always more affordable than a big business lunch. But to pass up the opportunity to share conversation and ideas with clients is a tremendous mistake.”
When I was getting off the phone with my colleague who is against face-to-face meetings, I told her, “Next time I’m in New York let’s have lunch.”
“Eve,” she said. “Remember, I really don’t do lunches.”
“Ooops,” I said, a little embarrassed.
“Let’s do drinks,” she suggested.
I’m assuming she meant real drinks in a real bar and not a rendezvous in Second Life, or some other virtual venue.
Cyber cheers anyone?
