The importance of Business Face to Face meetings

How important are face to face meetings to your company’s success?

 

In the era of Skype and financial restraint, business meetings have been lower down many corporate agendas. Research, however, suggests that this is detrimental to company profits.

 

The global research firm, Oxford Economics, found that for every dollar spent on travel, $12.50 was generated in additional revenue and an impressive $3.80 in profits.  The report states that if all business travel in an organization was halted, profits would reduce by 17% in the fist year alone!

 

The power of face to face communication cannot be underestimated.  Humans are designed to communicate on many levels; voice only being a minor part of the total. Seeing how people react, picking up facial expressions, a warm handshake, etc., all help cement relationships.

 

Relationships are vital.  We all know ‘people buy people’ and an effective salesperson can substantially improve results.  However, the importance of relationships in team dynamics can also be demonstrated when remote staff get together.  Even if staff often see each other, spending considered time as a team can reap substantial rewards.  A deeper understanding of each other and raising of levels of trust are two key benefits of this engagement.

 

In particular work that requires consensus, persuasion to bring people on board and generation of new ideas, is all much better achieved face to face.

 

So the next time your Financial Director questions your budget for team meetings, point them in the direction of the latest research and ask how they would fill that 17% profit gap!