Notes for the Notetaker: Tips to Write Better Agendas, Recaps, and Weekly Summaries | Sales

By Joshua Baez, Marketing Consultant for Heinz Marketing

Who guards the guardians? Who watches the Watchmen? Who takes notes for the notetaker?

Ah, notetaking. Truly an underrated task that many would characterize as boring, manual, administrative, “grunt-work,” and while there are a handful of occasions I can think of where those descriptions are absolutely true, notetaking is also an incredibly important task not just saved for B2B organizations, but for the majority (let’s say… 99.8%) of professional, collegiate, and personal endeavors as well.

In the context of an office, the notetaker is the unsung hero. We rely on them to keep projects on track, people accountable, and accounts organized, yet I don’t know many notetakers who receive praise for their email riddled with bullets and bold fonts. (A shame, really.)

While notetaking may not be the new hot job trend of 2018, 2019, 20, 21, 22… their importance to the business is one that we shouldn’t take for granted.

So, this one’s for all you notetakers out there. Because if you’re looking for ways to improve, strengthen, or just give your notetaking prowess some extra “oomph,” well, you’ve come to the right place.

Who takes notes for the notetaker. I do. And away we go.

Agendas

An agenda can make or break a meeting. It can be the torch to guide your way or the matchstick at the end of a fuse. And while that may sound overly dramatic, a weak agenda, or no agenda at all, leaves attendees on both sides of the table guessing as to what will be discussed and presented. Meanwhile, writing a strong agenda not only helps lead those previously unknown discussions, but it also shows those involved that you are prepared and ready to have a productive conversation.

Now, I know. That sounds like a lot of pressure, but luckily, writing a strong meeting agenda doesn’t require any fancy tips or tools or secret knowledge to do well. In fact, to start writing better agendas, all you have to do is start with a bullet point.

Tips to Write Better Meeting Agendas

• Discussion Points
  • Your meeting agenda should contain all the discussion points you want to cover, but one should avoid cluttering the topics with more detail than is needed.
• Navigation
  • To make your agendas easy to read and navigate, the agenda writer should organize the agenda into categories based on what will be discussed with more specific deliverables and efforts listed within each of those sections.
    • For example, bold bullet points for Campaigns, Content, Reporting, and other high-level areas of interest,
      • With sub-bullets that detail the individual pieces or topics that relate
• Meeting Details
  • Ensure that all meeting attendees attend the right meeting by placing the meeting invite details, such as the dial-in number, passcode, screenshare link, and/or meeting room, at the top of the agenda.
• Review
  • Send your meetings agendas to all internal meeting attendees before sending out to a client. This way, you can make certain all discussion points are accounted for and people are held responsible for their sections.

Here’s a sample Agenda (feel free to copy-paste)!

Login: [screenshare link if applicable]

Dial: [phone number]

Meeting ID/Passcode: [passcode]

[Client Name] weekly status agenda, [MM/DD]

• Demand Generation
  • Email Campaign
    • Emails to managers/directors – updates
    • Emails to C-suite
  • Social
    • Social ads creative brief
• Nurture Campaign
  • Nurture Strategy – review
• Content
  • eBook creative brief – review
  • Blog post – updates
• Reporting Dashboard

Recaps

A strong Recap plays a pivotal role in holding people accountable, ensuring tasks are completed, and moving the project forward. Therefore, it’s up to the notetaker to keep track of everything that’s being discussed from updates to statuses to feedback.

Though writing everything down may be challenging at first, the more practice you put into it, the easier it gets, and soon, you’ll be naturally typing as the conversations happen.

Tips to Write Better Meeting Recaps

• Notetaking
  • Don’t think too much about the content, grammar, or sentence structure as you take notes. Instead, focus on getting all the information down, whether you think it’s important or not, and worry about the clean-up later.
• Next Steps
  • Outline the next steps for both teams and place them at the top of the recap.
    • These next steps should be clear, concise, and actionable.
    • The notetaker should try not to clutter the Next Steps section with specific details – if details are needed, make a note that the details for whatever point can be read below in the recap.
• Review
  • Like your meetings agendas, send your recaps to all internal meeting attendees before sending out to a client. This way, you can make certain all of your notes are accurate and that people are held responsible for their next steps.

Here’s a sample Recap:

Next Steps

[Client Name]

• Demand Generation
  • Email Campaign
    • Emails to managers/directors – review and send feedback
  • Social
    • Social ads creative brief – send to design team
• Content
  • Blog post – post on 9/12
• Reporting Dashboard – continue updates to reporting

Heinz Marketing

• Campaigns
  • Demand Generation
    • Emails to C-suite – update and send revised
  • Nurture Campaign
    • Nurture Strategy – update based on feedback below
• Content
  • eBook – draft final copy

[Client Name] weekly status recap, [MM/DD]

• Demand Generation
  • Email Campaign
    • Emails to managers/directors – updates
      • Emails are based on role and title
      • Content for emails was taken from the content audit conducted on 9/4
      • Messaging is from the persona deck from Jeff
    • Emails to C-suite
      • These need to be revised based on updated messaging
        • Messaging should be more focused around ROI and less on tactics
      • Content should be mostly bottom-funnel content
  • Social
    • Social ads creative brief – approved and ready for design
      • Client to take these from here
• Nurture Campaign
  • Nurture Strategy – review
    • Strategy is good, but may want to add an additional touchpoint for a DM piece
    • Content is aligned as well – add more case studies towards the end of the nurture
      • Want to push the lead towards a buying decision
    • Add a few touchpoints for follow-up calls
• Content
  • eBook creative brief – review
    • Creative brief makes sense and content is accurate
    • Next step is to draft the final copy for the eBook
      • Then push to design once complete and approved
  • Blog post – updates
    • Updates align with feedback provided previously
    • Ready to post
• Reporting Dashboard

Weekly Summaries

While Weekly Summaries may not be as widely used as agendas and recaps, they’re a quick and easy way to show your managers, clients, and whoever else may be involved what’s been accomplished in the week and reiterate next steps as you head into the next week.

Tips to Write Better Weekly Summaries

• Content
  • Weekly Summaries should reiterate next steps, as outlined in the most recent meeting recap, as well as the accomplishments made in the week to update the client and the internal team on what’s been done and what’s coming up next.
• Next Steps and Accomplishments
  • The next steps of the Weekly Summary may differ from those sent in the weekly status recap as tasks have been completed and new tasks are assigned.
    • If this is the case, be sure to list these actions, whether they be “reviewed creative brief,” “followed-up with client on strategy doc,” or “updated project plan,”  as Accomplishments and update the next steps accordingly.
• Timing
  • Weekly Summaries should be sent every Friday to prepare stakeholders for the following week.

Here’s a sample Weekly Summary:

Next Steps

[Client Name]

• Demand Generation
  • Emails to C-suite – review revised brief
• Nurture Campaign
  • Nurture Strategy – review revised brief
• Reporting Dashboard – continue updates to reporting

Heinz Marketing

• Demand Generation
  • Emails to managers/directors – revised based on client feedback
• Content
  • eBook – draft final copy

Accomplishments, [MM/DD]

• Demand Generation
  • Email Campaign
    • Emails to managers/directors – client reviewed and provided feedback
    • Emails to C-suite – Heinz Marketing updated and sent for review
  • Social
    • Social ads creative brief – ads sent to design team
• Nurture Campaign
  • Nurture Strategy – Heinz Marketing updated and sent for review
• Content
  • Blog post – posted on 9/12

While note taking may be tedious, manual, and seemingly unimportant, it’s those same notes that help keep projects on track, people accountable, and action items checked off week after week. And whether your notes be just for you or for your larger team, having something to reference to determine where you need to go next can make a huge difference in the outcome of a project.

While note taking may be tedious, manual, and seemingly unimportant, it’s those same notes that help keep projects on track, people accountable, and action items checked off week after week. And whether your notes be just for you or for your larger team, having something to reference to determine where you need to go next can make a huge difference in the outcome of a project. So give it a shot. In your next meeting, bring your notebook, a pen, and start jotting things down. Because when the flurries start flying, you’ll be the one with the umbrella.

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