Accountability is much in the news these days, mostly as complaint. Would you agree that accountability is also much avoided? And “when you point your finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you!” Let’s face it: The solopreneur has no one else to point at! As the business grows larger, accountability is distributed, but it still comes back to the top dog. How can you make yourself more accountable, more effective, more aware of your responsibilities, more active in discharging them?

It’s a challenge for all human beings, but for no-one more than the entrepreneur or small-business owner, who already has too much to do. If we go back to the beginning of your small business, you may have decided you weren’t going to work for a jerk any more, that you were going to “be the man” rather than answer to him, that you were tired of taking orders, or of being given responsibility without authority. Leaders make lots of mistakes, easily and quickly perceived by those who follow them. But, if you’re an entrepreneur, you may have discovered that there is absolutely nothing harder than making promises to yourself, and then keeping them! I don’t know about you, but I personally will give myself any sleazy excuse I can rather than admit failure, or laziness, or carelessness, or unwillingness to look ahead, or (especially) to do something I don’t want to do.

You too? If we have met the enemy, and he is us, then I invite you to consider business coaching. It can open new doors for you. It’s ironic, but after we got rid of the person who held us accountable, we discovered that something may have stopped working in our life. Many of us didn’t focus on strategy.

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Focus – Harder and harder to do! If you’re an entrepreneur or a startup possibility, you probably have things you haven’t gotten around to. Usually, they’re Important but Not Urgent. Issues which could be highly valuable to the development of your business and your bottom line, but are set aside because of all the damn things you have to do every day.  How do you handle the CEO things? How avoid being the “chief employee?” How do you manage the distractions of the Urgent? I’d be happy to have a conversation with you. I’m writing a book on the subject. I’ve spent a lot of time as an entrepreneur and coach, working with entrepreneurs, dealing with this absolutely critical issue. You want the people who report to you to “do the thing right.” But your job is “to do the right thing.” And to know the difference! If you make space in your life to decide what the “Right Thing” really is, and then do it, you will inevitably do well. Making the space is the trick, the hard thing, the good thing. This is your focus, as an entrepreneur. It’s also the focus of my coaching.

No rush – just consider if this makes sense. Have a look on the other side. Why do we put off the really important things, and get lost in what Michael Gerber calls “doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it!” Dr. Steven Covey of “Seven Habits” fame made it clear. If you divided your tasks into the 4 groups below, which order do you think you’d tackle them in? And, of course, the Important But Not Urgent tasks each represent a major opportunity ignored. Why we do it? Covey’s explanation: If it’s urgent and important, that’s a no-brainer. But, the category of Not Important is less consequential, perhaps less confronting than Important, so we do the easy stuff, numbers 2 and 3 next, save number 4 for last!

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Selling to high-level decision makers is challenging at the best of times. However, it can be easier if you understand a few business principles.

C-level decision makers are paid to improve their business results. Regardless of how the media portrays these executives, their primary concern is to improve their business. This includes increasing sales, market share, customer loyalty; reducing costs, errors, or employee turnover; improving productivity, employee engagement, customer service, etc.

How does your product, service or solution address one of these issues?

C-level decision makers deal with changing priorities. Improving customer engagement may be a top priority today but tomorrow that executive may be faced with cutting $250,000 in expenses. That means they sometimes go cold after expressing initial interest in your solution.

Do you have a strategy in place to keep your solution current?

C-level decision makers are extremely busy. The average executive arrives early in the morning and stays late into the evening. They get dozens of calls every day, receive too many emails, and attend too many meetings. This means that you need to maximize every minute you have when you connect with them. This applies to telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings.

Do you know EXACTLY what to say when you connect with these individuals?

C-level decision makers rely on others. Contrary to popular belief, these high-ranking big-wigs seldom make decisions on their own. They often defer to other people on their team and ask for feedback from peers and/or subordinates. This means you need to involve these people in your conversations and include them in the decision making process.

Do you have the ability to finesse this?

C-level decision makers don’t like to make mistakes.

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How many times have you heard the phrase “Act like your business is worth £1m” and left thinking that although that would be nice, there is no way you could do that because you just don’t have the money. 

Me too! 

And then, the other day I reached an epiphany. By this phrase, people don’t mean to actually spend money like your business is worth £1m. 

What they mean is categorised by the word “ACT”. Let me explain what I realised. 

How would a business turning over £1m act? Would you walk down the street with your head up or your head down? Would you make a conscious effort with your appearance? Would you shake hands confidently? 

And then what about your business? 

If you were turning over £1m, would you answer the phone within 3 rings? Would you reply to emails and get back to people quickly? Would you give an impeccable service and have high standards of customer care? 

Of course you would! 

Acting like your business is worth £1m is nothing to do with spending money. It’s all to do with delivering a great quality service and thinking about how you personally come across when you meet and deal with people. 

A good way to get a introduction into what I mean is by getting your partner to treat you to a top meal at a fantastic restaurant. How do they do things? Do they make you feel special? Are the waiters clean, smart and have impeccable manners? 

And then try to emulate what they do in your own business. 

So, what I discovered the other day when driving down the road is about ACTING like your business is worth £1m. It’s about making that extra special effort with your appearance, with your clothes, with your smile, with the way you answer the phone, with your customer service. 

But all of these things can be achieved without spending a penny. 

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OK – I have to admit, by the time I got to Z in this series, I had to be a little bit creative about the title, but actually being able to get in the Zone is an important part of running a business. 

Let’s face it, we all have projects – things we want to do in our business to get us to where we want to be. And it’s really, really easy to let these things slide because other priorities get in the way. 

I’ve got a ton of things that I plan to do between now and the end of the Year and it’s always a struggle to fit them in. There always seems to be something else that I need to do instead. So, in order to get them done, I need to enter the ‘Zone’ – in other words, set my mind to getting these things complete and actually do them. 

And that’s the thing isn’t it? It’s all very well saying I’m going to do something like get three new training contracts, but if I don’t do anything to make this happen, these training contracts are not going to materialise. 

Unfortunately, I see this happening with small business owners a lot. They say they’re going to go to 1 networking event every week, write articles, or contact 100 businesses to see if they’re interested in their products and services, but they don’t plan this activity in detail so sometimes, it never happens. 

Take writing articles as a task. This requires quite a bit of thought … and more than you might think. What topic shall I write about? What research do I need to do to write the article? When am I going to sit down and write it? Now it’s written, what do I do with the article? How do I generate business from it? 

Many of us wait until we have answered all these questions and more before we actually get going on the task and therefore, it’s very likely that the task doesn’t get done. 

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One of the biggest challenges for businesses today is integrating the Millennials or Gen Y twenty-somethings into a Baby Boomer culture. They are the newest generation to enter the labor market, arriving with their distinct ideas about what they expect from their jobs. They are our future leaders and our next generation of revenue-generators. So who are the Millennials and how do we manage their expectations while maintaining high performing organizations?

The Millennial Generation was born between 1977 and 1998. They are 75 million strong in size and were raised by “helicopter parents”, who doted on them, giving them an ample supply of attention and validation. Because they were heralded with high expectations, Millennials tend to display an abundance of self-confidence and believe they are highly valuable to any organization from day one. They are extremely focused on developing themselves and thrive on learning new job skills, always setting new challenges to achieve. They are also the “can do” generation, never worrying about failure, for they see themselves as running the world and work environments.

Unlike other generations, the Millennials are overly connected to their parents. As they move through their twenties, they still speak to their parents frequently and turn to their parents for personal and career advice. Some are still even living at home, not uncomfortable with the arrangement. Organizations must remember the parent involvement factor when dealing with this group. These parents are still micro-managing their children’s careers and personal lives.

When it comes to work life balance, Gen Y is not willing to give up their lifestyle for a career. They have traveled extensively and value having flexibility in their daily lives.

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. – Albert Einstein

We recently read that contrary to recent Android claims/statistics, the iPhone was way ahead of Android smartphones. According to the author – editor-in-chief of MacNewsWorld – it was obvious that the latest reports were over-spun, over-hyped, slanted. Who’da guessed?

Even though we’re rotten at math, there’s nothing wrong with the “complaint” or probably the statistics the Android team used. Take a few statistics we grabbed recently by industry experts:
- digital sales for single-track downloads were flat in the U.S. market… overall digital music sales were up over 5 percent in the U.S.
- 29% of all tweets produced a reaction – a reply or a retweet
- Blu-ray household penetration tops 17%
- 12% of mobile consumers prefer paying a fixed amount for mobile data quota
- 75% of all U.S. consumers did not connect to or download multimedia content including games, music, video, or eBooks

As Gregg Easterbrook said, “Torture numbers and they’ll confess to anything.” Don’t believe it? We recently received the following from an Aussie friend… They say that 20% of all accidents are caused by drunken drivers, Therefore 80% involve sober drivers. Can sober drivers get off the road so that we (drinkers) can get home safely? Thank you. This message has been sent in the interests of safe driving. The statistics, the numbers, are correct but… That’s the way the PC/CE/communications industry – including you and us – works. We jump from one hot, sexy product/category to another before folks have really gotten into understanding and using the product.

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Leaders need to ignore the articles that make generalizations about Generation-Y and the other generations within the current workforce. The articles I refer to use research and surveys in making generalizations about Gen-Y, and seem to focus the perceived shortcomings in the younger generations. The majority of the articles suggest that Gen-Y is prone to entitlement, outspoken, not able or willing to focus, and dislikes criticism. Leaders must look past these articles if they are to remain effective as leaders.

The irony is that I have met and worked with many Boomers and Gen-Xers who share the same qualities as Gen Y. I have observed plenty of entitlement in Boomers and Gen-Xers who are living in their own reality of status quo. Many of them are unwilling to listen to new ideas, much less challenge existing comfort zones. And they do not take criticism very well.

Let me offer a blunt and harsh reality that we should keep in mind. The vast majority of corporate leaders that brought us to the financial crisis a few years ago were Boomers. Bernie Madoff was a Boomer. Some of our country’s political leaders that have been recently found guilty of ethics violations and breaking laws were Boomers. Those CEOs of fallen organizations, the same CEOs who were earning huge salaries and benefited from golden parachutes as their organizations collapsed, were Boomers.

Another reality: the ADD dysfunction is not something that only affects Gen-Yers, as I have read often enough. I’ve worked with many Boomer executives who were not able to focus on any one thing for more than 2 minutes. Perhaps modern society is just more educated on recognizing the indicators of ADD. But there seems to be plenty of ADD to go around for all generations.

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One of the questions many small business owners ask is why is my marketing not working? Many people have spent a lot of money, time and effort getting their marketing to work only to find they have little or no results. It can be very frustrating and be enough for many business owners to give up and just rely on referrals. 

But, you’ll be glad to know that there is a reason (or actually three reasons) why marketing doesn’t tend to work for small business and knowing these reasons can often mean that you can do something about it. 

Let’s have a look at what those reasons are: 

1.    Marketing doesn’t just get you customers. Marketing actually has three purposes: (a) to increase the awareness of your business; (b) to establish you as an expert within your field and (c) to get you customers…obviously. But, the thing is most of the marketing methods you do are much better at achieving (a) and (b) than they are at achieving (c). There is something you need to do differently in order to actually get you customers. More about this in a minute. 

2.    Small business owners don’t follow up. If I gave you the contact details of someone and told you that they wanted your products or services, I’m willing to bet that you’d be on the phone to them right now. But, how many of you will follow up with everyone who visits your website or everyone who you meet or don’t meet at a networking event? Small business owners are fairly bad at following up consistently and with everyone and this is vital if you’re going to get business. 

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“When the truth is found to be lies, and all the hope within you dies.”

Yes the Don’t you want some Brands to Love?
Don’t you need some Brands to Love?
You gotta find some Brands to Love.

Coen brothers got the classic Jefferson Airplane lyric a little wrong, but let’s (hint) hope that brand marketers don’t make the same mistake.  Trust, based on truth, equals credibility, in interpersonal relationships as well as for people/brand relationships.

Edelman’s recent 8095 (born 1980-’95) study of how Millennials connect with brands clearly demonstrates that brand trust is the sine qua non of marketing in the social media age. According to Edelman’s research, eight of 10 Millennials have taken some form of personal action on behalf of a brand they consider trustworthy.  Involvement ranges from sharing brand experiences with friends and family, on and off-line, to joining online communities and posting reviews. Better watch out though, because Millennials are just as activist when a brand experience fails to meet their expectations.

That New Brand Religion

Happily, these newly empowered Millennials, an even larger generational cohort than their boomer parents, in short, want some brands to love. According to 8095, they are already significantly defining global brand trends through their actions. 

The upshot for marketers, PR practitioners and social media gurus cannot be over-estimated:

Millennials see brand relationships as a form of self-expression. Brand preferences compete with religion and ethnicity as leading personal identifiers.

Information is key to influence – more info coming from multiple channels is welcomed, as 8095ers seek from four to seven sources in their decision making process.

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“I can’t afford to have an independent programmer monitoring me. Do you have any idea how many outside systems I’ve gone into?” – Master Control Program, Tron (1982), Walt Disney

Engineers must have fantastic imaginations because in their early stages, most technologies are pretty ugly…wires going every which way, oversized circuit boards, cases the size of breadboxes and beyond.

Software is probably the same but heck, it’s a bunch of ones and zeros, so who can tell?  Especially with a new technology, called augmented reality (AR), that merges what’s real with computer-generated graphics

To us, AR has been an engineering project in the works for years…always almost ready to productize and dress up for “normal” folks.  So we were only mildly interested in seeing what was new in AR at the recent 6Sight conference.

Most of the time, when you see a “personal” AR system, it’s some dude with a big backpack and a funky pair of glasses (and you think 3D glasses look bad?).

On the Road – Getting AR compact enough for people to use in the real world has been a work in progress for academics and engineers.  The technology has been stabilized but still requires a backpack system and special glasses to enable its use by individuals, but apps are changing the way most people view, use AR tags.

We realize game technology and gamers have led the way for getting lots of neat stuff into mainstream use, but AR?

Real Virtual
For gawd sake, they live in the virtual world!!

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Let’s start by saying 2011 is going to be the year we wanted three years ago when the financial institutions “borrowed” our global wellbeing!

It was the first time we entered unfamiliar territory because the financial meltdown didn’t affect just one country but all of us.

Economic Outlook
Internationally governments are feeling their way along the precipice because the depth and duration of the recession was beyond what most could clearly recall.  They are moving – hesitantly – but still slightly dazed by the headlights of the near miss.

At the same time the U.S. government ground to a near halt because of the partisan politics that could last for two years.

Fortunately as in past recessions companies have finally become sick and tired of being sick and tired and realized that government – any government – can’t move things forward…it is up to business to get the job done!

Most of the 80+% of the employed U.S. population (10% tracked unemployed, 8% dropped off the grid) are certain that conditions are and will continue to improve.  This was apparent over the holiday buying season where PC/CE/communications sales increased more than 7% with a greater percentage being cash sales…resisting mounting additional personal/family debt.

While company management is optimistic about growth they are paying closer attention to market changes, have enhanced their risk management and have much more effective, stringent cost control efforts in place.

That undoubtedly means low to modest workforce expansion and greater attention to product line extensions rather than revolutionary new product introductions at least for the next two years.

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The Case for Investing in Employee Training During an Economic Recession

When companies struggle through economic downturns, much like the one we are experiencing now, the first instinct is to start slashing the operating budget. Managers and employees are asked to do more with fewer resources.The economic outlook for the foreseeable future in our country shows businesses will continue to cut costs and make tough choices in order to survive and stay competitive. While the belt tightening continues, so too will the temptation to cut training budgets or eliminate them all together.It’s been my experience that one of the areas hit hardest by budget cuts is the training function. Training, in some instances, is often thought of at times as a luxury or “nice to have” in organizations. It is an expense worth paying for when times are good, but an easy target for elimination when times are bad.Companies who have established formal training departments, however, see the benefit to operating an education arm of their organization because they understand how training maintains or increases performance in their employees. They understand there is a science behind training and adult earning. In order for it to be effective, training must be built on sound instructional design and administered accordingly. After all, it is the employees that help make the organization run. Poor performance on their part could mean poor performance for the organization as a whole.I’m here to argue that if you are thinking of cutting back on your training budget just to save money and ride out our current economic storm, you are actually doing more harm than good to your organization’s bottom line.

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In business, one of your key roles is to spot opportunities that can give you the advantage and help you stay ahead of the competition. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell what these opportunities are as they’re not always obvious, but it’s important that you’re aware of them rather than letting them pass you by. 

Here are my top five ways of spotting the opportunities that are all around you in business: 

1.    Pay attention to what other people do.In order to make sure I stay ahead in my business, I subscribe to many newsletters and audio recordings of people who could be counted as my competitors. You’d be amazed how many ideas I’ve come up with just as a result of doing this – let’s face it, there is no point in reinventing the wheel. If you pay attention to what other people do, then you’ll be able to spot some great opportunities for your business. 

2.    Ask, ask, ask. A few months ago, one of my competitors seemed to be doing loads of speaking events with Business Link. My reaction to this was “If she can do it, why can’t I?” So, we made some enquiries and send an email off to Business Link West Midlands and Business Link South West. Business Link West Midlands replied almost instantly saying that they were looking for a speaker on exactly that subject and could I give them more details. Long story short, we’re now running several workshops on networking made easy – all from just asking the question. 

3.    Volunteering is one of the ways in which I got established in business all those years ago. I volunteered for anything and everything that was even remotely related to the business such as mentoring for Business Link and sitting on panels for Gloucestershire Development Loan Fund. The great thing about volunteering is that you get to know the key people in an organisation and then of course if a paid job comes up, guess who is likely to get it? 

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I try not to write too much on market research and understanding your customers and your competitors – while it’s important, it’s not what most of you want to hear. Most small business owners simply want to know how to get more customers and don’t necessarily care how this comes about.

But what if I told you that having an understanding of what goes on around you can literally double or triple how many customers you actually get? Understanding your customers and competitors isn’t just important for your own knowledge, but it can really shape how you communicate with people. And if people feel you’re speaking their language, they’ll be much more likely to come and do business with you. So when was the last time you actually sat down and thought about who your customers are? If you haven’t done this for a while, just take five minutes out and check that you know the answer to this question. I must admit that a couple of months ago I did this exercise for my own business. I felt things were generally ok but that we were a little bit off track in how we communicated with our customers. Just taking five minutes out to reconfirm who our customers were made me refocus. It also served as some reassurance that we were doing the right things, but refocusing would make that communication even stronger.

Once you’ve done this for your customers, take another five minutes and refocus on what you know about your competitors. Which competitor leads the market? Who do you admire and want to be like? Is this still the same as it was, say a year ago? Again, five minutes after doing this for my business I realised that one of our competitors that I really admired and strived to be like them had completely changed – I now admired different companies which is going to make us even better in the long run.So, that all it takes – 10 minutes out of your life.

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“This is Jason Bourne. You are nine hours behind the toughest target you have ever tracked. Now I want everyone to sit down, strap in, and turn on all you’ve got. That would mean now.” – Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), The Bourn Ultimatum (2007), United Pictures

You should really be excited.

The government – no matter what country you live in – recently reported that the last few unsteady years are behind us and things are better and getting better.

That’s government speak.

Actually, the downturn lasted so long it changed the consumer landscape, so the next few years deserve their own name..the new normal.

Jason explained, “Then do something about it. Everything you need is in there.”

We’re frugal in areas we never thought twice about before.

We go “a little wild” in others because they help us at work/home, they are useful in managing other aspects of our lives.

Government folks focus on the less than 10 percent unemployment figure, but keep in mind that means 9 out of 10 of us are employed.

True, you may not be as liquid as you were a few years ago, and you’re probably pushing your productivity past your limit, but staying above the yellow line is a good thing.

The drawn out dry spell “trained” folks that many of the day-to-day necessities – toothpaste, hairspray, towels, shirts, tacos, etc. – were all pretty much the same so what the heck buy generic or what’s on sale.

People changed their buying patterns.  They’re shopping more and not feeling guilty walking out of a store without a bag in your hand.

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Are you tired of hiring new sales people that never seem to quite work out?

Since 1980, we have been helping our clients improve sales results by assessing and developing their people. We’ve learned one or two things along the way.

1. Take a second look at the big picture. What are your goals for the year? Understood. Increase sales. Do you know where those increases will come from? Will you sell more of the same to current accounts? New products to current accounts? Or will the increases come from new accounts? And what will you sell them? Current products or new products? “All of the above” is not the right answer. The essence of strategy is denial.
2. Put the right people in the right roles.  The Publisher of a large newspaper once said to me that he wanted his sales managers to question everything, including the structure of their teams. He did not want them to uncritically accept the structure and the people that came with the promotion. If the goal is to open new accounts do you have the sales people who like to prospect? If the goal is to get more money from existing accounts do you have the sales people who can sell strategically? That team that helped make you a winner last year might not be the same team you need to accomplish this year’s goals.
3. Determine the profile of the ideal rep for each sales goal. I know you have done that exercise before. Do it again. You must be absolutely crystal clear about the competencies required to be successful. The competencies are determined by your sales goals. The attitudes and skills required to excel at prospecting are not the same as those required to excel at account development. If you are not sure about what you need, take a look at some of the sales assessment tools that are available in the marketplace.
4. Do a thorough assessment of each sales person. There are two major dimensions you should look at. Skill and Will.

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Reporters Aren’t Your Friend, They Aren’t Your Enemy…They’re Reporters

Most journalists – online, on air, print – don’t ask tricky, tough questions.

They simply ask a question and let the interviewee fill in the awkward silence.

Or as Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) said in All the President’s Men, “I never asked about Watergate. I simply asked what were Hunt’s duties at the White House.”

Bad coverage – or fear of it – reinforces why many executives avoid media interviews.

Open the door too wide, they appear to be grandstanding.

Being over reactive/defensive, can expose too much company private information.  The results can damage the company’s, executive’s image/value.

It isn’t a journalist’s job – regardless of the medium – isn’t to be your friend and help you advance your agendas.

Journalists have two responsibilities – to be professional and to fairly, accurately present the information to their audience.

All of the rest is your job.

Of course there are times it’s best to take Abe Lincoln’s advice, “‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”

Interview Timing
There are times when an interview just isn’t possible for any number of reasons.

Suggest an alternate date and/or time.

As long as the interview isn’t deadline critical this is why both parties like an email Q&A:
- answers can be researched, thought thru, accurate
- responses can be provided from anywhere in the world in a timely manner
- little chance of being misinterpreted, misquoted

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Marketing, communications folks were some of the first in line at the Apple store to get an iPhone.  First again to get an iPad.  Probably have their order in for a Mac Air.

You’ve put them to great use with your personal and company Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube pages.

You’ve got your own blog that “someone” reads.

You Twitter constantly – in the office, in the bathroom, on a night out, yes even when you get lucky.  No wonder you have so many followers (they used to be known as stalkers but whatever floats your boat).

Looking around for new arenas to mine it’s only natural that marketing, communications people were some of the first to claim their corner of the Cloud.

Truth is IT folks don’t like you very much.

You’re not doing them any favors by using your own devices for business because they have a tough enough job protecting the company’s IP (intellectual property).  Your device is just a partially unlocked door to the company’s family jewels…and yours.

Let’s start with the brutal basics…your passwords probably suck!!!

Clueless

Don’t think so?  Here are the 20 most popular passwords (the ones hackers try first):

            – 123456                      – 12345                        – 123456789                – password

            – ilove you                   – princess                     – rockyou                     – 1234567

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Typical managers spend nearly 40% of their work hours in meetings, not to mention the time spent preparing (and recuperating). A survey of business leaders showed:

• 33% of time spent in meetings is unproductive
• 75% of the respondents said it is “almost essential” to have an agenda, yet they use them only 50% of the time
• Only 64% of meetings achieve their intended outcome
A disciplined approach to making the most of meeting time will help to maximize team effectiveness.

Set an objective
Answer these three questions. What, ultimately, do I want to achieve by this meeting? What, specifically, has to be accomplished by the end of this meeting? When the meeting is over, how will I know whether the meeting was a success? Use your answers to define your meeting’s objective. Then make participants aware of the objective up front.

Make sure the key people attend
Key people are the ones with the knowledge and experience needed to accomplish the meeting’s objective.Arrange for the proper facility: Little things (how the room is arranged, the room temperature, or whether there’s coffee or not) can make a tremendous difference in the success of a meeting.

Write an agenda
There are numerous ways to accomplish this task. Have a planning committee set the agenda, or send out a pre-meeting survey asking people to list one to three topics they want to discuss. When writing an agenda, put the most important items at the beginning.
The agenda should be distributed far enough in advance so participants can adequately prepare for the meeting. The agenda should state the date, location, start and finish time, topics to be covered, the expected outcome (information only, discussion, or decision), and time allotted to each topic.

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