Do you remember - "What happened in the 2nd video call with your 3rd lead this week?"
Probably not, but you would say 'Wait, I let me refer my notes.'
However, you were too focused on clearing a mix-up and missed jotting points for the crucial middle part of the meeting.
And you’re not alone. “I love taking detailed meeting notes”, said no one ever! That’s how most of the professionals feel probably at least once every week.
Also, we all have a Recency Bias: If you ask anyone - how did the meeting go, they would probably tell you how they “felt” about it. They will say - “it was good” or “it wasn’t that great”, etc.
People always have a good understanding of the gist of the meeting conversation, it’s when you ask them to share specific details, that’s when they struggle. And that’s when they wish they should have recorded the meeting so they could go back and listen to it again and capture a few details.
Along with helping you remember what you discussed in the meeting, recording meetings keep everyone accountable and help you improve how you interact with your meeting participants.
Here are few more reasons why you should start recording your next meetings.
1. Do not miss out on any details
Details are important, they are also easy to overlook when you’re trying to take notes and still focus on your meeting. Recording ensures that you have all the major details and lets you review the meeting to discover details you might have missed the first time around.
2. Create a single source of truth for what was decided at the meeting
Have you ever walked away from a meeting with one idea of what was decided only to talk to a colleague who had a completely different perspective? With recorded meetings, you can stop the back and forth, and get swift answers about what was (and wasn’t) decided. This can clear up any confusion between you and your meeting participants so you can get to work taking actionable steps.
3. Keep everyone in the loop, especially those who missed the meeting
Busy people often have to miss certain meetings as they get pulled into solving some urgent and important task at hand. Having a recording of the meeting that they can go back and listen to - makes it easier to fill everyone in on what they missed.
You can share a relevant snippet of the recording with your CEO or product head.
4. Improve how you handle 'situations'
Knowing how we conduct ourselves in a meeting is a challenge. When you’re in the heat of the moment, are you representing yourself and the company in the best way possible? Reviewing and analyzing a recorded meeting gives you a chance to review how you handled yourself in regard to customer objections and suggestions so you know where you need to improve. Continuing to review meetings will help you see where you still need to improve and work more.
5. Keep track of all meetings related to any account or deal
Recording meetings gives you a simple way to keep track of all meetings for a given project or a customer. You can review the previous meeting before going into the next one to make sure you’re still on track and that all the objections and questions that were raised previously have been handled before you delve into the next phase. This also keeps everyone accountable for sticking to their action items and covering their responsibilities.
Bonus: Communication skills
So many times we hear someone talk where even one minute feels like an hour. Why not assist great content with good delivery skills to amp up the credibility instantly. Some quick dos and don'ts -
Dos
- Vary speed to create impact: High impact words can be said slowly
- Use pauses. The audience is listening to this for the first time.
- Focus on energy variation (Volume and Pitch)
Don'ts
- Avoid filler pauses (um, aa)
- Cut those filler words (essentially, actually, ...)
In short, recording your meetings is one of the best ways of ensuring that you make the most out of your meeting conversation.
Tools like MeetRecord and Gong help you create a calls library, share snippets of videos with your team, and track your improvements over time.
How has recording helped you meet your personal and professional goals?