Before you begin work on any marketing campaign, or any other in-house project, you’ll need to hold a “kickoff” meeting with your team or client or both. Despite being a precursor to the actual work you’re going to do, the kickoff meeting has the potential to start the project on the right foot — or doom it to unreasonable expectations and inefficiencies in the near future.
The Main Goals
So why have a kickoff meeting in the first place? There are three broad goals to consider
- Rapport. This is your chance to have your team meet and interact with the client directly, establishing a rapport in-person. If you’re all going to work together, you’ll need to be on the same page.
- Expectations. This is also the perfect opportunity to set your client’s expectations proactively, both in terms of what kind of product they’re going to get, and what to expect on how the project is managed.
- Details to start. If there are any other details you need to start, such as defining specific goals or asking questions to clarify meaning, this is your chance to get them.
Adam Honig, the co-founder and CEO of Spiro, says kickoff meetings of any type are especially important for nailing down what success looks like for your client. He explains:
Once you know the objective, then you can get prepared: what are you going to do in the new year? What are your goals? How does this meeting relate to them, and how can the people at the meeting help you complete your objectives? With an objective in mind, you can start planning ahead to fulfill it.”
The Necessary Ingredients
So what does it take to hold a successful kickoff meeting?
- The right greeting. First, make sure you greet your client warmly at the door, especially if this is their first time at your location; don’t underestimate the power of a first impression. This means preparing the office ahead of time, potentially using preregistration procedures and digital sign-ins in addition to a warm greeting by a person to make a bold, tech-savvy impression.
- A comfortable setting. Next, choose a comfortable setting for the meeting. If you have a cozy, quiet meeting room in the office, go ahead and use it. If you’re looking for something more casual for a personable client, consider having the kickoff meeting over lunch. If you’re both busy, you could have the meeting over the phone, but it’s almost always better to meet in person; researchers show that in-person interaction leads to more trust between participants.
- A detailed agenda. Don’t go into the kickoff meeting blind, or you’ll end up wasting time and neglecting important considerations. Keep a detailed agenda for the topics you need to cover, and the order in which you need to cover them.
- Appropriate attendees. Collectively, businesses waste more than $37 billion in unproductive meetings, and much of that share is due to having the “wrong” people in the meeting—either people who don’t need to be there but are, or people who do need to be there but aren’t. Review your list of attendees carefully; you’ll want to include relevant parties from each department to be a part of this overview, but don’t include someone for the sake of increasing your numbers.
- A review of goals. Even if you’re confident you’re on the same page, take some time during the meeting to recount the main goals for the client and the project overall. If there are any gaps between your understanding and the client’s, this is the time to clear them up.
- A timeline. You’ll also need to clarify the timeline for the project during this meeting, charting out when you’ll hit certain milestones, and when you expect the project to be completed. You should also express a degree of confidence in your work; be honest about the chances that this could change, and what factors could make it change.
- A framework for communication. About 55% of IT professionals had at least one project failure per year, and most of those failures can be traced back to a lack of communication (or an error in communication). Either way, establishing a framework for communication is ideal in the kickoff meeting, so you can have clear, mutually defined standards for how to move forward. For example, how often are you going to meet? Who is the point person on each side? How will you handle disputes, or timeline updates?
- Next steps. Conclude the meeting by going over the next steps of the project; who’s responsible for what, and when are they going to do it? Is there anything necessary to have or complete before the project can begin? Consider sending a follow-up email to the group with this information as well.
These eight ingredients should be ample to ensure your kickoff meeting with the client is successful. The follow-through, of course, is also important; you’ll need to meet or exceed all the expectations you set in the kickoff meeting, or else proactively update them with further communication. But ideally, starting with the right attitude, the right environment, and the right expectations can prevent or mitigate the vast majority of problems you’d otherwise encounter throughout the project.
