Make Time for Face Time

We’ve all heard it.  We’ve all touted its benefits.  But, in this day and age, the benefits of face time with someone can be easily overlooked…not to mention, a bit difficult to obtain.

I’m encouraged by what setting a weekly, in-person tag-up with a client can accomplish.  By setting this as a recurring meeting, it doesn’t take an act of Congress to get on the client’s calendar.  Working out details over e-mail and phone can often take far longer than a quick in-person meeting to review the same info.  The volume of topics that can be covered, the in-depth conversation that occurs and the decisions that can be quickly made are far greater from these face-to-face meetings.  Plus, I find that we often end up discussing other topics that have a deep influence on the greater whole of the work we are trying to accomplish.

Beyond the weekly tag up, in-person meetings can have an enormous effect on output.  Take for instance, two occurrences just this week –

I attended an annual retreat for a client where we all gathered in person for strategic discussion.  This client hosts weekly telecons with reps all over the country.  While these phone meetings are worthwhile, the discussion, candor and decisions made during the retreat were remarkably greater than any resulting from one of our recent telecons.  Not to mention, I now have a face with a name for so many of those folks!

We are looking for interns at Griffin, so we were about to interview a gal that looked like a great candidate.  She is studying abroad in Spain, so an in-person interview was out of the question.  We knew we could catch her on the phone, but really wanted that face-to-face perspective.  Skype to the rescue!  With five minutes of computer prep to set up a web cam, we were able to interview her “in person.”  What a difference to be able to see her and interact than to have just talked over the phone.

And now, I’m prepped and ready to roll on to another one of my in-person weekly tag ups.  I’m about to head into a one-hour meeting with a quick agenda that will most likely close out some projects and open doors to new ones.

I encourage everyone to make face time a priority.  It’s too easy to rely on e-mail and phone these days.  Heck, I even have a text message and Facebook relationship with some clients!  Make time for the in-person meeting.  You’ll be glad you did.

— Deanna Wilke