Using Tech to Improve Meeting Efficiency

I asked my team a simple question last week: "What's still eating up your time every day?" The room got quiet. Then Sarah, one of our top AEs, spoke up. "Meeting prep. I spend 20-30 minutes before every call just trying to figure out who I'm talking to, what their company does, and what questions I should ask. Yes, we have a few tools that give me some fluff about the people I am talking to, but I still need context specific to us, our customer, and how I can add value when I step into the meeting...." She pulled up her screen and walked me through her process: - Check LinkedIn profiles for each attendee Research the company website - Look up recent news or funding Scan their tech stack for competitors - Draft discovery questions Block time for follow-up tasks "This is for ONE meeting," she said. "I have six today." Five minutes into her walkthrough, I stopped her. "Five minutes is five minutes too long. We're fixing this today." That afternoon, I built what my team now calls "the prompt to rule them all." Here's what our Daily Sales Agenda AI agent does automatically every morning: 1. Scans each rep's calendar for the day 2. Researches every non-company attendee 3. Pulls prospect insights and company context 4. Maps strategic connections to our solution 5. Generates tailored discovery questions for each meeting 6. Flags if competitors appear in their tech stack 7. Recommends optimal time blocks for deal management Schedules post-meeting follow-up windows 8. Creates a daily deal hygiene checklist 9. Suggests new prospect research windows The agent delivers this as a personalized briefing document before their first coffee. Sarah tested it the next day. Her reaction? "I feel like I have a research team working for me overnight." But I didn't stop there. Version 2.0 is already in development. It will pull data from Salesforce, analyze recent Gong calls, cross-reference email engagement, and even suggest which deals need attention based on last activity. But here's the real insight: This isn't about the tool I built. It's about changing how we think about sales operations. For years, we've accepted that "good sales reps do their homework." We've normalized 2-3 hours of daily admin work as "part of the job." That's insane. Your reps shouldn't be spending 30% of their day on tasks a computer can do in 30 seconds. The old growth equation was: more people = more revenue. The new equation: remove friction = sales superheroes. Every minute your team spends on manual research, data entry, or administrative tasks is a minute they're not solving problems for prospects. We don't need to buy every shiny new sales tool. We can build targeted solutions for our specific workflows. The question isn't "Can we afford to invest in automation?" The question is "Can we afford NOT to?"

Important meetings rarely fail because of a lack of intelligence. They fail because of a lack of preparation. Not obvious preparation like showing up on time or reviewing a few notes, but deeper preparation understanding context, anticipating questions, identifying risks, and knowing exactly what outcome you are aiming for. For founders, this becomes even more critical. You are often walking into conversations where decisions need to be made quickly, with incomplete information, and under pressure. The quality of those decisions is directly tied to how well you have prepared. This is where AI can be useful, if used correctly. Not as a replacement for thinking, but as a way to structure it. Here’s a simple way to set up an AI system that prepares you for important meetings using Claude: Start by giving it context. Before any meeting, input the key details who you are meeting, their role, the objective of the conversation, and any background information that matters. The quality of the output will always depend on the quality of the input. Then ask it to build a structured brief. You can prompt it to generate a clear meeting summary, key discussion points, possible objections, and areas where alignment may be required. This helps you walk in with clarity instead of reacting in real time. Next, use it to identify risks. Ask what could go wrong in the conversation, where misunderstandings might happen, or what questions you may not be fully prepared for. This shifts you from reactive to proactive. Finally, refine your positioning. Use AI to test how you communicate your ideas. Ask it to challenge your assumptions, simplify your message, or highlight gaps in your reasoning. This is where decision quality improves. The goal is not to rely on AI during the meeting. It is to ensure that by the time the meeting starts, your thinking is already structured. Because in high-stakes conversations, clarity is often the difference between progress and delay. How you prepare shapes how you decide. Before your next important meeting, are you relying on memory or on a system? #AI #Founders #Leadership #DecisionMaking #Execution

Unlocking Everyday AI: Practical Benefits for Business Roles By Heidi Evenson After three decades of building and adopting software to boost efficiency, I’ve seen technology reshape how teams work. Recently, I spoke with a managing director at a major financial institution that uses the Microsoft platform about Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered assistant. Surprisingly, his team hadn’t considered using it, despite financial services being known for early tech adoption. This highlights a common gap: while AI is making headlines in areas like drug discovery, its practical benefits for everyday business roles are often overlooked. Let’s shift the focus to how AI can empower business roles (e.g., project managers, change management and communications professionals, data and financial analysts) - helping them work smarter, not harder. Practical AI Opportunities for Everyday Employees AI tools like Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini are platform integrated and designed to automate routine tasks, enhance productivity, and support better decision-making. Here are some practical ways Copilot, for example, can make a difference for companies that already rely on the Microsoft 365 platform: Meeting Notes & Summaries: Automatically capture key points, decisions, and action items, ensuring clarity and accountability. (Request your Legal department’s approval to record meetings.) Email Drafting & Responses: Generate professional emails quickly, maintain consistent messaging, and save time on repetitive communications. Seamlessly email meeting notes and summaries to people who miss meetings. Project Planning & Management: Streamline the creation of project plans, timelines, and feature delivery components or sprints, making updates and sharing easier. Create and share RAID logs to track risks, issues, actions, decisions, and dependencies – add targeted alerts for team members via email to help ensure effective communication. Strategy Documents: Organize ideas and refine messaging for project vision statements and strategy documents. Align strategy with corporate goals. Financial & Data Modeling: For data analysts and financial analysts, Copilot can assist with building, auditing, and updating data and financial models in Excel. It can automate calculations, check for errors, and run scenario analyses, allowing analysts to focus on insights and strategic recommendations. Why It Matters By automating the mundane, AI enables business professionals to focus on higher-value work—like strategic thinking, stakeholder engagement, and driving change. For financial and data analysts, this means less time spent on manual data manipulation and more time delivering actionable insights. For business leaders, it means more energy for leadership and innovation. About the Author Heidi Evenson is a 30-year professional in information technology management, with deep experience in the Biopharma and Financial Services industries. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Too many reps are still winging their meetings. They show up. They talk too much. They forget to follow up. And then they wonder why deals stall. The top reps I’ve trained over the years all have one thing in common: They don’t just HAVE better meetings, they RUN better meetings. Here’s what they do differently: • They send a shared agenda before every call • They follow the 40/40/20 structure to guide the conversation - 40% Discovery (focused on impact) - 40% Value Alignment (From the executives priorities down) - 20% Next Steps (dates, owners, action items) • They send summary emails with key take-aways and get the client to confirm it • They use tools like Otter.ai to automate the admin and focus on selling The best part? You can steal these frameworks for free. This is the Sales Conversation Playbook I built with Otter.ai: https://lnkd.in/eKxVwep4 It’s short, tactical, and loaded with tools you can use right now to increase conversion. Meetings don’t move deals. Clear next steps do. Use some of the tips and tools in this workbook to run your next call and let me know if it makes a difference. #MakeItHappen #MeetingExecution #sponsor #Discovery

How I saved +14 hours a week using AI. (the sales efficiency playbook I wish I had years ago) Here’s the truth: You need a really good AI sales assistant / notetaker. But most AI meeting summaries are 50% fluff. They tell you what you already know and miss what you actually need. So instead of saving time, you still end up copy-pasting notes, searching for deal context, and scrambling before calls. Not helpful one bit! That was me.. …until I rebuilt my workflow using Sybill. (especially their new summaries + briefs features). Here’s the 5-step playbook I now follow: 1. Build your own summaries. Drag + drop sections, add custom AI prompts, hide the noise. No more generic “transcript dumps.” 2. Match the meeting. Demo ≠ Discovery ≠ Proposal. Let your briefs auto-adjust so prep always fits the call type. 3. Prep in minutes, not hours. Pull prospect research, past calls, CRM notes, and calendar context into one brief. You walk in fully prepped after a 2-minute skim. 4. Highlight what matters most. Want risks at the top? Competitor mentions? Action items? Make the critical info impossible to miss. 5. Close the loop fast. Turn summaries into instant follow-ups and clean CRM updates. No more hopping between ChatGPT, email, and CRM to get deals moving. The result? 14 hours a week back. Less scrambling. More selling. Make your AI tools give you YOUR time back!!

We already have bots transcribing our Zoom calls. Why not have it facilitate a meeting? It's not hard to imagine AI facilitating your next workshop or meeting. No bias. No fatigue. No office politics. But also no human touch? The best human facilitators read the room, sense tension, and navigate complex emotions intuitively.  AI can't do this. Is it worth the tradeoff? Here are some Pros and Cons on AI facilitating a meeting: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀: • Saves meeting time • Keeps participants focused • Boosts team inclusivity • Ensures project continuity • Cuts operational costs • Scales meeting capacity • Aids global accessibility 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀: • Lack of empathy • Misses human nuance • Risk of algorithmic bias • Raises privacy concerns • Causes technical failures • Low participant trust • Encourages over-reliance • Kills creative spontaneity People often hold back in meetings due to fear of judgment. Would an AI facilitator help improve this? Yes, there's facial recognition, and it may be able to detect certain emotions, but that doesn't have any meaning. Machines don't have empathy. AI might excel at structured sessions like brainstorming or project reviews, while humans remain essential for sensitive discussions and team dynamics work. We're not at the point yet with AI facilitators, but I don't think we're far off. What's your take? 👇 -- ♻️ Share if this made you think differently about AI ➕ Follow Jason Moccia for more insights on technology, products, and AI

Four years ago, I organized a group of colleagues to investigate and define industry requirements for meeting productivity & task automation tools. Our goal was simple: find ways to boost meeting productivity using “Conversational Intelligence” apps and AI-powered automation. Fast forward to today, and I can confidently say that AI-enabled "Meeting Assistants" have reached a level of maturity where we can rely on accurate meeting summaries, action items, and real-time insights. Solutions like Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet, Otter.ai, Sembly AI, and more have transformed the way we capture, organize, and act on meeting outcomes. 📌 Our "ideal" workflow is closer than ever to being realized. (See the green boxes in the graphic.) The next big leap -- Better integration with existing project management tools and proactive notifications for open action items. What’s next? If you’re leveraging AI-powered tools for meeting productivity, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Which tools have made the biggest impact for you? Share in the comments! 👇 #AI #MeetingProductivity #ConversationalIntelligence #Automation #FutureOfWork #AITransformation