How to Schedule a Meeting in 30 Seconds or Less

Read time: 2 minutes 14 seconds

Have you ever met someone and later thought, I should meet that person for coffee.  You know, get to chat with them for longer than 5 minutes to find out what they do more in depth than the simple conversation you shared exposed.  You want to meet with this person to find out if you can help them and of course if they can help you.  It is tough to find all of that out in a passing conversation.

So you send an email thanking them for being so great and invite them to coffee.  They reply back and let you know that a bit of caffeine is alright by them.  So you go about trying to make it happen.

Let’s break these email threads down, shall we?  

One of you offers a couple dates and times that they are available.  Let’s call this email 1.  Email 2 rolls out with a counter of dates and times that work.  Meanwhile you are connecting with other people and having email threads with them and trying to schedule more meetings.  So what was once an available time for this new great contact is now filled with your other new great contacts.  

The same is happening on all of their ends as well.  So email 3 rolls out to first new contact and a time and date is determined.  Sweet, this is what success feels like.  Not so fast, medium roast connoisseur, you still need a place to meet.  So email 4 fires off with a question about where they will be, roughly before and after the meeting.  You don’t want to stalk them, you just want the convenience factor of this meeting to be as high as possible for all parties.

Note to coffee shops: To get selected in this round you need to be known.  Utilize your marketing to make that happen.

So a couple more emails and you have a date, time and place.  It only took you about 6+ emails back and forth and you hunting through your calendar and investigating coffee shops of the city to make this work.  Total time: 15 minutes.  Boo.

Another option that promises to work well is the technological version of, you do all the work, I’ll commit to a meeting.  This is when someone emails you a link to their scheduling software or website.  You pick and choose from the times available simultaneously going over your availability and their availability.  The options are limited, of course due to 1) the programmed calendar and 2) the program itself.  Software is only as good as the developer.  Have you ever tried to schedule something with a software developer?  

Many times this leads to a time and place but no option for location.  Because it is one-way communication, which is the worst way to communicate, issues arise.  I tried a piece of software that left the location tidbit out.  So I wrote in the ‘Comments’ section a place that I suggested.  No reply was ever given.  So I followed up with a conversation with her voicemail.  No reply was given.  So I have a meeting scheduled with no place to be.  That sounds promising, right?

It got worse.  From the point of view of me believing this person really wanted to have a meeting.  No surprise, that meeting never happened.  And I am totally fine with that.  Total time for this mess of a failed meeting: 22 minutes.  Boo.

Let me offer you a suggestion to fulfill the promise of the title of this article.  Step 1: Pick up the phone.  The beauty of the phone is in its simplicity and its speed.  Immediate, 2 way conversation is available.  This relies, of course, on the party you are calling to answer their phone.  That has become somewhat of a lost art.  Not Van Gogh art, more like 2 year-old scribbles.  So to be fair, this only works for the truly professional.  Either those that always, and I mean ALWAYS, answer their phone or those that have someone ALWAYS answer their phone.  

Step 2 in this advice is to have a quick conversation with the person you wish to meet with.  You will cover these criteria:

1. Date and time of meeting
2. Location of meeting
3. Length of time each of you has allotted for the meeting
4. Each other’s desired outcome of the meeting

Total time: 30 seconds.  Boom.  

Now, please go and pick up the phone and dial away for your next meeting.  Total time saved: Over 14 minutes.  Boom indeed.