Let's get together: marketers attend a lot of business meetings--not just internally but with outside service providers as well. You can make better use of this face-to-face time by following these principles.

• Author: Wachtel, George
• Position: Effective Meetings - Survey

Lillian Kilroy came back to her desk after a day of back-to-back meetings and asks herself. "What did I accomplish today?"

As the executive vice president, emerging business group, for the $6 billion Provident Bank, Baltimore, she spends on average four hours each day in meetings. "Sometimes, meetings are a necessary evil,'" she says. "If you are not doing them right, they can be a costly drain; but done right, and involving all the right people, they can actually save you work time."

According to a Microsoft Office survey across all industries, people spend 5.6 hours each week in meetings: and nearly seven out of 10 fuel their meetings are not productive. A sample survey of bank marketing people around the country shows that they spend on average two hours a day in meetings and these discussions produce just "OK" results.

With so much the and money committed to these activities, what makes some meetings more successful than others? The answers tend to come down to three "P's";

* People.

* Preparation.

* Process.

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"In general, corporations have meetings as part of their normal day-to-day operations," says Ralph Valente, senior vice president and director of marketing strategies and communications, Rockland Trust (assets: $2.8 billion), Rockland, Mass. "But some people feel it is an important part of their job just to show up for the meeting, not knowing what it is about. But you should ask, 'Why am I being invited, and what do you expect me to contribute at this meeting?' It's also OK to ask if someone else can represent you or why another department isn't represented."

Getting the right people

Inviting only the right people--and the right number of people--to a meeting is critical to its success or failure. If the critical decision makers (the "owners of the problem") are not there, the discussion tends to be more superfluous rather than action-oriented.

What is the right number of people? According to Lillian Kilroy, "More than 10 is going to be hard to get the task done. Four or five people give you different points of view and actionable steps. But sometimes just two people will do the job!"

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Mark Silverstein, senior vice president, director of marketing and business development for Grand Bank & Trust of Florida (assets: $478 million), West Palm Beach, Fla., believes "The fewer the people the better. The best meetings tend to have just three to five people. Once you get past five people, productivity begins to deteriorate."

And having the right people is critical according to Provident's Kilroy, "Bank meetings are in some ways better than nonprofit association meetings, because nonprofit...