It seems easy enough to get people in your company together. Whether it’s to go over the year’s new strategies or to plan the corporate budget, meetings seem like a straightforward event to organize. And yet when you add the element of travel to the equation, a few bad moves tend to undermine the effectiveness of meetings.
An Environment That Gets Results
When you’re arranging meetings & incentive travel together,you need to balance the objectives for both. On the one hand, you need a specific outcome (like a new sales plan for the next quarter) to happen with the meetings. On the other hand, you need to make sure participants feel rewarded with the incentive trip.
Unfortunately, good intentions tend to weaken, and then things begin to go wrong in meetings. And the incentive trip turns into an expense that fails to deliver on returns. Here’s how it all happens.
Last-minute planning is a surefire way to undermine the results of any meeting—in any location. When you book the airfare, the accommodations, and the event at the eleventh hour, you are bound to pay for premium rates. Aside from paying top dollar for basically everything, you’re likely to have fewer options on routes and hotels.
When you have senior executives participating in the meetings, certain expectations are formed. They might have a specific venue in mind. They may need the inclusion of certain content in the meeting. And so, to not include them during the planning stage could lead to big changes at—you guessed it—the last minute.
It’s an oversight that’s likely to happen in your rush to get the meeting organized. Failure to communicate the schedules may lead to latecomers. And not sending agendas early on may impede a smooth flow for meetings.
When schedules and agendas are not communicated, your meetings are not going to start on time. This pushes back other activities in the incentive trip, causing most participants to feel rushed and stressed out. Meetings that start late also fail to arrive at the best possible solutions or decisions over agendas.
Finally, not asking for help to organize the meetings and execute the incentive trip will cause missteps. You need more hands on deck, so to speak. And no hands are more capable than an incentive travel service that helps you plan and execute business meetings and trips for top performing employees. With this kind of assistance, you’ll achieve successful meetings and see great returns on your incentive program.
