The Characteristics Of Today's Business Meeting Planner

The Characteristics of Today’s Business Meeting Planner

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Sugar and spice and everything nice. So you think you have the right stuff to be a business meeting planner today? Ever wonder what makes a great business meeting planner? Are they tough? Do they survive on one hour of sleep a night? Well we’ve taken a look at the personality types of several meeting planners that we’ve worked with over the years and have come up with a list of common traits. Sorry, we won’t be naming any names here.

The Job of a Business Meeting Planner Can Be Thankless

A couple people around here tell me that I should’ve made the title “traits we would like to see in today’s business meeting planner”. And to be honest, I have worked with a lot of business meeting planners that were not at all the right fit for their job. But when the business meeting planner is your client, you often just grin and bear it. A business meeting planner’s job can be thankless. On top of that their travel schedule is, at times, horrendous. I have worked with meeting planners that quite literally didn’t even know the city they were in. I didn’t take that as an indication that they weren’t good at their job. Rather I took it as a reflection of the demands of the job. I also think that’s why the turnover can be very high for a business meeting planner.

There are, however, certain characteristics that good business meeting planners share. A few of the characteristics that made it to the top of our list are:

Leadership – can make quick decisions on the spot | have others wanting to work for them | takes responsibility | isn’t afraid to delegate | would not ask you to do anything that they would not do themselves
Passion – does their job like they were born for it
Organizational skills – keeps deadlines |workflow |can get others to do their job on time
Multitasking - is able to focus on more than one task at a time |doesn’t have a breakdown over small crisis |appears confident
Listening Skills - does not have a “my way or the highway” attitude
Honesty – doesn’t mind offering advice even if they know it’s not what their client wants to hear |takes responsibility when things go bad

A disclaimer – there was no scientific formula that we used to achieve our results. However it was interesting when we asked a few people in the industry what they thought were important characteristics. Quite often items from our list were at the top of their list as well.