Must meetings: One for stockholders, one for goals

Question: We are preparing to set our annual goals for 2005. What should be included in our goal-setting process?

Answer: There are two annual meetings every business should hold. First, for legal reasons, you must hold a meeting for your stockholders or members that own your company. The second meeting is to strategize and set goals.

To thoroughly answer your question, I have compiled the following checklists (one for the meeting with stockholders and one for your goal-setting meeting), which provide a comprehensive strategy to planning effective annual meetings, so that no details will be overlooked.

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The checklist regarding the legal issues with stockholders is as follows:

? Identify your main theme or strategy for the year.

? List every goal that you wish to accomplish for 2005, which will support your main theme. This list will set the agenda for the meeting.

? Prepare an annual meeting script. From start to finish, script every detail of what must occur and when, down to the minute. This will ensure that all goals are met while maintaining control and preventing the meeting from running long, which is sure to displease shareholders and guests.

? Detail task assignments. Record all task assignments in a timeline and a check-off format, showing deadlines and the organizer responsible for completion.

? Prepare a list of questions. Listing questions likely to be raised and preparing thoroughly researched answers will help presenters at the annual meeting.

? Create a control book. The control book is the central repository for all information regarding the annual meeting and all related events before and after it. It should contain, at minimum, the date, time and location of the annual meeting; script; agenda; all speeches; motions; press releases; proxy arrangements; every arrangement with vendors; contact information for all participants, planners and vendors; and task assignments.
The control book serves several purposes to ensure that all organizers are working from the same ?play book,? to make critical information available to all organizers at all times. It is a guide for future annual meetings so that organizers don?t have to ?reinvent the wheel.?

? Create agenda books. Agenda books are used by all people presenting, making or seconding motions, or otherwise participating actively in the annual meeting. Agenda books should contain the agenda and the script, but should also include individually tailored material such as a speaker?s delivery text or instructions for making motions.

? Make detailed guest lists. Although shareholders are automatically invited to the annual meeting, other invitees to the annual meeting and to special events such as a dinner or reception will vary.

? Tailor registration for good relations and marketing. Keep shareholder kits for those who arrive without them and additional guest information at the registration tables. Such simple courtesies are appreciated. Registration recordkeeping should not be seen as just a legal requirement; it can serve as a marketing tool by providing information on shareholders and prospective investors.

? Rehearse. Participants should rehearse the annual meeting at least once to ensure that they understand their role and their timing. Presenters should use a stopwatch to pace themselves.

? Create a follow-up list. Every event will require follow-up actions. A detailed checklist, like the assignment list, will ensure appropriate handling.

? Debrief. Document good ideas, successes, solutions and failures and discuss them after the event. Prepare a report on lessons learned for the next annual meeting, with recommendations.
Regarding your second meeting, developing an annual action plan will give you the chance to put your goals, resources and challenges in focus. Businesses are changing entities, and the environment in which your business operates also changes. New technology, new competitors and market changes ? these all affect your business, and it is vital to take a good hard look at them at least once a year.

Keep your planning process simple. The key benefit of an annual business-planning meeting is that it gives you the opportunity to stand back and review your business performance and the factors affecting your business. I would recommend following a typical business-planning cycle as listed below when planning your meeting:

1. Review your current performance against last year/current year targets.
2. Work out your opportunities and threats.
3. Analyze your successes and failures during the previous year.
4. Look at your key objectives for the coming year and move or re-establish your longer-term planning.
5. Identify and refine the resource implications of your review and build a budget.
6. Define the new financial year?s profit-and-loss and balance sheet targets.
7. Obtain consensus. Discuss the plan (or parts of the plan) with all affected parties.
8. Conclude and write the action plan.
9. Review your action plan regularly ? for example, on a monthly basis ? by monitoring performance, reviewing progress and achieving objectives.

Russell Disberger is a founding member of Tekquity Ventures LLC, a Louisville-based specialty venture capital firm investing in technology development and licensing. He can be reached at (303) 926-3990 or via e-mail at disberger@home.com.