Never ending waste of time on meetings in person
From time to time I have people insisting that they have to meet with me before we do some business. Most of the cases it is that such people want to buy something from me or form some partnership and they feel we have to meet personally to do business together.
The scenario goes like this:
1. I email information what we should talk about, hoping that we can really get something constructive going.
2. We meet and the other party apologizes that he/she didn’t have enough time read it.
3. We talk about non related stuff. I try to force it back to business talk.
4. At the end we agree on something, but really nothing major really happens. Maybe few follow up emails, but that’s it.
You can add different people to this scenario (accountant, join venture partner, customer, etc.). I am always surprised how much time people have in hands to insist on meetings like that.
On the other hand when working with people over the internet all the crap is gone. I need something, the task gets done or doesn’t get done. Cooperation will start or fail. If the other party doesn’t have the right information or argument then the business is not done. Decisions are made in seconds or minutes. Small talk is gone. Just results and facts. I like that much better, but too many people still rely on the “old school” way of doing business.
