Don’t let the name fool you. “Simple” does not mean less important, or even less time-consuming, when you consider the total time and resources spent on all the simple meetings an organization hosts in a given year.
In fact, most planners (75%) say simple meetings account for up to 50% of their workload. That number will likely grow, as 27% of planners believe simple meetings will increase in 2025.
Simple meetings constitute a large portion of overall meetings held by an organization annually, yet they are all too often siloed and managed separately from other event types and don’t always receive the same level of support from staff or event tech.
It doesn’t help that we’re living in the era of “this could have been an email,” and meetings are said to be ineffective 72% of the time. This should serve as a wake-up call to event organizers and stakeholders as they consider how to make their simple meetings programs more valuable.
The key here is centralization. Organizations can derive tremendous value from ensuring their simple meetings are visible to all planners and meeting stakeholders within a centralized event portal. This allows teams to measure ROI across all meetings and events, track each event’s contribution to the sales pipeline, nurture leads across events, and ensure all meetings are compliant with company policies.
What are simple meetings?
Simple meetings are typically small-sized meetings with limited participants, fairly straightforward logistics, and often replicable plans. They are commonly characterized by having fewer than 50 attendees and few requirements, such as a single meeting room and minimal audio/visual support, though what constitutes a simple meeting varies by organization.
The term has gained traction in corporate environments, reflecting a shift from the previous terminology of "small meetings" to better capture the essence of these events. The purpose of simple meetings can range from training sessions to team-building exercises to internal stakeholder meetings.
Oftentimes, the focus is on collaboration as opposed to elaborate presentations or entertainment. An example might be a one-day leadership summit, where an organization’s leaders gather to brainstorm and plan their strategy for the year.
Types of simple meetings
Different types of simple meetings serve different needs, and while many simple meetings can be planned with a fairly standard blueprint, meeting organizers should consider which type best serves their needs each time they’re planning their next event.
Whether you’re hosting internal meetings, meetings with customers or prospects, or otherwise, the meeting styles you choose play a large role in determining how successful you are in meeting your goals for each gathering you plan.
While larger organizations might choose to host more extravagant versions of events, each of the event types below can be organized as small and simple meetings.
Town hall meetings: Organization-wide meetings where leaders share updates and offer employees the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback.
Board meetings: Regularly scheduled meetings where a board of directors discusses an organization’s performance, strategy, and governance.
Leadership summits: Generally offering some form of leadership training or team building, the goal of these meetings is to give leaders a chance to discuss strategic initiatives and long-term goals, and brainstorm how they can best meet those goals.
Project kickoffs: Initial meetings held with key stakeholders to outline objectives, roles, timelines, and deliverables for a new project.
Sales kickoffs: Sales kickoffs are meetings geared toward launching new sales strategies, evaluating prior performance, aligning sales teams to broader business goals, and motivating sales teams for the coming sales cycle.
Post-mortem meetings: Reflective meetings held after completing a project to discuss what went well and what could be improved for future projects.
Event debriefs: Event debriefs offer a chance for planning teams and event stakeholders to discuss an event after it wraps, including what went well, which goals were met or missed, challenges faces, and areas for future improvement.
Team building events: Team building events feature activities designed to improve team collaboration through various games, exercises, discussions, and speaker sessions.
Training sessions: Small group sessions focused on skill development or knowledge sharing. These can be training sessions for internal teams or geared toward customers or clients (learning how to use a product, for instance).
New-hire onboarding events: Introductory meetings designed to welcome and integrate new employees into an organization.
Planning committee meetings: Depending on how an organization operates, planning committee meetings might be used for department-wide planning sessions; allowing stakeholder participation in annual strategic planning; setting an annual calendar for events, content, product launches, etc.; or establishing an annual budget.
Field marketing events: The goal of field marketing events is to meet prospective customers where they are, creating experiences that build meaningful connections while promoting products and services.
Lunch and learn sessions: These informal meetings involve a presentation or discussion during lunch that’s geared toward teaching participants about a particular topic, such as product updates or demonstrations or team trainings.
Networking events: Events offered for specific groups based on common interests or professions, networking events allow participants to make connections that could benefit their personal or professional aspirations.
Focus group meetings: Sessions where a small group of carefully selected individuals discuss and provide feedback on a product, service, or concept.
Client onboarding meetings: Introductory sessions to welcome new clients, explain processes, set expectations for collaboration, and launch projects.
Client appreciation events: Gatherings organized to thank clients for their business, strengthen client relationships, and highlight key wins that demonstrate effective partnerships.
VIP events: VIP events are exclusive gatherings for important clients, stakeholders, or high-profile individuals to build and strengthen relationships and offering networking opportunities.
How simple meetings can make a big impact
Despite their simplicity, well-planned simple meetings can have a significant impact on your organization. Effective meetings can foster communication and connection, enhance teamwork and efficiency, boost morale and employee or client satisfaction, improve decision-making processes, align cross-functional teams, and so much more.
What’s more, when you choose to host a simple meeting to achieve these outcomes, you can focus on critical, targeted tasks without wasting time on excess chatter or fanfare. To make the most of all of your meetings, no matter how small, carefully consider your meeting KPIs to help measure the success of these gatherings and ensure they contribute positively to your organization’s goals.
Simple meetings offer big cost savings
One major benefit of hosting small and simple meetings is the significantly lower cost of these events compared to larger conferences. Even still, there’s always room for additional cost savings—if you know where to look for them.
According to current event trends, offsite meetings that require hotel stays are getting more expensive each year. If your simple meeting requires travel and accommodations, it’s wise to look into independent and secondary properties in first-tier markets rather than overpaying for popular top booking options.
You can save on your bookings by being flexible on your dates or location and by leveraging venue sourcing tools to help you find venues that are within budget and meet your specific needs. Further, consider what types of venues might help you save even more.
Unique venues like golf courses, restaurants, and even sports stadiums can offer lower-cost, flexible-use spaces that allow you to only pay for the space and amenities you need.
Of course, depending on your simple meetings policies, you might be a bit pigeonholed in your selection. 53% of event organizers say they are required to use a contracted/preferred hotel for their simple meetings stays, and 72% say they must also consider onsite spaces for their meetings before looking offsite.
The good news is that organizations aren’t blind to the value of keeping your options open, and 53% of planners say they must get competing bids for venues before making their selection. So, if you’re able to find competitive venues that can save your organization some cash, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to branch out.
Want to save even more? Consider ditching the venue altogether and going virtual for your next simple meeting. Virtual meetings and events remain popular, partly because they eliminate the need for disparate teams to travel, and partly because they’re so economical to host.
Implementing creative strategies will make belt-tightening a little less painful as organizers do their best to provide the best possible meetings and events while working within difficult budget constraints.
How to run a simple meeting
Wondering how to run a meeting? Running a simple meeting requires planning and structure, but it’s really only as complicated as you make it. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you run successful simple meetings.
Before the meeting
As you prepare for your meeting, follow these steps to get rolling. Many tasks on your event checklist will be similar to those for larger events, but you’ll find it much easier to tick each box for your simple meetings.
Define the purpose and objectives: Clearly determine the reason for the meeting and what you want to achieve. Just as you would define conference themes for larger events, clearly define the theme and goals of your simple meetings.
Create an agenda: Prepare a list of topics to be discussed, activities, meals, etc., and allocate time for each item.
Invite the right people: Only invite those who need to be there to achieve the meeting's objectives. Remember, simple meetings are inherently small, otherwise they become more complex (and expensive).
Set a convenient time and date: Choose a time that works for everyone, and make sure to give them enough notice. Particularly if there’s travel involved, you’ll need to make sure everyone who needs to be in attendance has ample time to book their travel and accommodations.
Choose a venue: If you’re hosting an in-person meeting, you’ll need to find a venue that’s available on your chosen date(s). Better yet, find the perfect venue by remaining flexible on your dates, then once the contract is signed, you can invite your attendees.
Prepare any necessary materials: Gather any documents, reports, presentations, equipment, and signage you’ll need. In keeping with the “simple” theme, your meeting materials list shouldn’t be extensive.
During the meeting
Start on time: Begin the meeting at the scheduled time, even if some attendees are late. You likely won’t have much time to make up for a late start.
Welcome and introductions: To make everyone feel welcome, kick off your event with some sort of formal welcome and introduction. This could mean using meeting icebreakers to get everyone acquainted and excited, or simply running through the goals and agenda for the day.
Stick to the agenda: Stay focused on your goals, and do your best to avoid getting derailed. Especially if your meeting participants don’t see each other often, there’s a good chance they’ll start into socializing and fluid conversations (which is great!), but you’ll need to reel that in if you want to be sure you’re achieving your goals. If you expect a lot of chatter and catching up, work this into your schedule so you don’t run out of time.
Encourage participation: The beauty of small and simple meetings is the opportunity for all attendees to participate in some way. Ask open-ended questions to stimulate discussion, and encourage everyone to contribute to the day in some way.
Take notes and action items: Particularly as you try to measure and meet particular meeting goals, assign someone to take notes and identify action items, track assigned responsibilities, manage the agenda, and report on the meeting’s success.
Recap the meeting: Whether you have action items or simply want to remind everyone of the value of the gathering, offer a brief meeting summary and list of action items or new goals to pursue. Everyone should leave the meeting feeling like it was a valuable use of their time and that they have next steps of their own, whether they be further brainstorming, new projects, updated strategies, or otherwise.
After the meeting
Send a summary and action items: Distribute the meeting notes and action items to all attendees. Even if you’ve given a great recap at the meeting, you’ll want to remind attendees of any responsibilities they’ll need to follow up on.
Follow up on action items: Whether you’ve set new project goals, launched a new product, onboarded a new client, or otherwise, follow up on your own set of action items as well as the tasks assigned to each attendee. This keeps the conversation going and ensures your meeting has value after it’s over.
Evaluate the meeting: Assess the meeting's effectiveness, and identify areas for improvement for future meetings. You should also make your event evaluation available to all pertinent stakeholders, which can be done easily with the help of an event stakeholder portal.
Tips for planning better simple meetings
To maximize the effectiveness of your simple meetings, implement the following tips into your planning and execution strategies.
Make your goals your main objective: It might sound obvious, but your meeting goals should be the focus of all your planning efforts. If you don’t achieve what you set out to, your meeting will be a waste of valuable time and money for your organization and for your attendees. Get as specific as possible with your goals to ensure they’re actionable and measurable.
Carefully choose your meeting KPIs: Just as you’ll need to stay focused on your goals, you must be sure you have a way to measure your success in reaching each objective. That’s where your meeting KPIs come in. Define what datapoints or variables you’ll need to consider to measure the success of your goals, and be sure you have a way to collect that information.
Keep it brief: Your meeting should last no longer than absolutely necessary. This will benefit all attendees as well as your bottom line. Make sure your content and programming is designed for a simple meeting setup and that you’ve built in time for inevitable delays and sidetracks.
Decide who really needs to attend: Just as your programming should stick to the essential, so too should your guest list. By limiting your attendance numbers to only essential participants, you’ll save on meals, venue costs (for larger spaces), travel expenses, and every other cost incurred for each participant.
Be flexible: Even though these meetings are meant to be simple, there’s always room for things to go a bit off the rails. Just as with any event, expect the unexpected, and prepare to be flexible. That might mean changing up room layouts to accommodate changes in attendance numbers, ordering more food than you think you’ll need, etc.
Follow up with purpose: Once again, following up with attendees is crucial to ensuring your meeting has value beyond when it wraps. This is more than an opportunity to thank participants; it’s a time to remind everyone of their key takeaways, address any remaining questions, and set the stage for follow-up meetings or events.
How technology can help
Technology plays a key role in simplifying meeting processes, no matter how simple or complex. In fact, centralizing all meetings data is essential for gaining visibility into an organization's entire events program and simplifying the planning process for each event.
Simple meetings, characterized by their high frequency and low complexity, are often managed outside the central planning team. Of course, this means those organizing them don’t generally have visibility into their organizations’ total event programs, and those planning larger events might not be privy to the inner workings of these simple meetings.
To bridge this gap, organizations should implement processes and technologies that allows any stakeholder to plan an event seamlessly while allowing for greater visibility into meetings and events outside of their purview.
Currently, only 37% of meeting organizers say they run their small meeting through the same tech as their large meetings, and 12% use specialized simple meeting technology. But think of the possibilities if more organizations took a holistic approach to their meetings and events.
Beyond simplifying planning efforts with one event management platform for all, you can also streamline the promotion of all meetings and events and track performance of any marketing efforts related to them with the help of an event marketing platform.
Track engagement and lead captures with event marketing tools, collect KPI data in one place for each event, identify patterns across all your meetings and events, make data-driven decisions about future events… the possibilities are truly endless with the right tech by your side.
Want to see this efficiency in action?
One organization calculated that nearly 70% of their meetings were considered simple meetings, but those only encompassed 18% of their annual meeting spend. This begged the question: why spend so much time on these events when they don’t offer an equally large return?
So, they pivoted and onboarded simple meetings software to help them save both time and money. This shift in strategy ultimately netted them 15% overall cost reduction and helped them save 2,200 hours managing simple meetings.
Maximizing the value of your simple meetings
Simple meetings are an essential component of organizational success, offering numerous benefits that can transform the way teams collaborate and achieve their goals. By adopting a simple meeting strategy as part of a larger event ecosystem, organizations have an opportunity to increase productivity, improve communication and connections, and reap all the rewards events can offer—all while saving time and money.
