Courtesy Tip #3: Show flexibility in your schedule
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 9:02 am
Context is your why and the focus of my second tip. Why are you sending this calendar link? What reason, goal or agenda are you working on?
By letting the recipient know what potential discussion they can expect, they'll have a clearer idea of, first, why they're making room for you on their virtual calendar, and second, how long they should book that meeting for.
I like to think of contextualizing or supporting any link as if it were a menu. Yes, a menu. Hear me out. You're standing outside a coffee shop, and before you go in and order, you want to know what the coffee shop has to offer. Are they overpriced? Are they presented in a way that suits you? And do they have a selection of potentially delicious items to suit your taste?
You look at the menu in the window first precisely to make those decisions. manufacturing directors email lists So offer your contacts a figurative menu to look at before they mark the link on your calendar and "ask" to sit down to talk. Politeness when scheduling a meeting is about the expectation that precedes the prospect, and not the prospect in the absence of expectation. Nobody likes an ambush! Or a flat, overpriced coffee
One final note on context is the calendar link or URL itself. I recommend that your calendar link be a bare URL, like this(dot)com, and not a hyperlink like here – for the sake of transparency.
With a naked URL, you are signaling to the recipient that you are honest and forthcoming in your dealings: You say what you do and you do what you say. Returning briefly to a notion of professional standards and greater workplace awareness, I can think of few more important qualities to convey than honesty and openness.
Have calendar flexibility, just as how the man efficiently balances himself on a wooden stool.
Calendar Meeting Scheduling Protocol: Show flexibility in your calendar
Your weekly yoga sessions won't help you in this regard, unfortunately. By marking the link in your calendar, contacts are committing to the idea that you can provide them with something in return, something worth their time.
With any subsequent booking actions, be flexible and show them that same commitment. Your contact may need to postpone or even cancel the initial meeting they had booked. And that’s okay. Letting your contact choose an available time is, after all, a way to put them in the driver’s seat and make them feel as important in this meeting as you do.
If there is a change in the schedule, follow up to determine the next step, always keeping in mind the courtesy we discussed here in the section on setting the tone. When the meeting does materialize, flexibility was not limited to the schedule.
If your contact wants to discuss matters that aren't on your agenda, don't hold back and respond to them as best you can. They gave you a chance by marking the link on your calendar; now it's your turn to show faith in equal measure. This balance is important in the budding client relationship that meetings like this (hopefully) foster.
By letting the recipient know what potential discussion they can expect, they'll have a clearer idea of, first, why they're making room for you on their virtual calendar, and second, how long they should book that meeting for.
I like to think of contextualizing or supporting any link as if it were a menu. Yes, a menu. Hear me out. You're standing outside a coffee shop, and before you go in and order, you want to know what the coffee shop has to offer. Are they overpriced? Are they presented in a way that suits you? And do they have a selection of potentially delicious items to suit your taste?
You look at the menu in the window first precisely to make those decisions. manufacturing directors email lists So offer your contacts a figurative menu to look at before they mark the link on your calendar and "ask" to sit down to talk. Politeness when scheduling a meeting is about the expectation that precedes the prospect, and not the prospect in the absence of expectation. Nobody likes an ambush! Or a flat, overpriced coffee
One final note on context is the calendar link or URL itself. I recommend that your calendar link be a bare URL, like this(dot)com, and not a hyperlink like here – for the sake of transparency.
With a naked URL, you are signaling to the recipient that you are honest and forthcoming in your dealings: You say what you do and you do what you say. Returning briefly to a notion of professional standards and greater workplace awareness, I can think of few more important qualities to convey than honesty and openness.
Have calendar flexibility, just as how the man efficiently balances himself on a wooden stool.
Calendar Meeting Scheduling Protocol: Show flexibility in your calendar
Your weekly yoga sessions won't help you in this regard, unfortunately. By marking the link in your calendar, contacts are committing to the idea that you can provide them with something in return, something worth their time.
With any subsequent booking actions, be flexible and show them that same commitment. Your contact may need to postpone or even cancel the initial meeting they had booked. And that’s okay. Letting your contact choose an available time is, after all, a way to put them in the driver’s seat and make them feel as important in this meeting as you do.
If there is a change in the schedule, follow up to determine the next step, always keeping in mind the courtesy we discussed here in the section on setting the tone. When the meeting does materialize, flexibility was not limited to the schedule.
If your contact wants to discuss matters that aren't on your agenda, don't hold back and respond to them as best you can. They gave you a chance by marking the link on your calendar; now it's your turn to show faith in equal measure. This balance is important in the budding client relationship that meetings like this (hopefully) foster.