Business Meetings

When you talk about business meetings, what comes to mind? If you're a girl, you'd probably be worrying about what to wear, right? Well, that's if you've already decided that you would go. But nowadays, you don't have to worry anymore. In fact, unless specified, or if you're gonna be doing the meeting at an office or something, you don't have to wear a business attire. You can just go in regular jeans anywhere now. The clothes don't make you anymore.

I went to a couple of business meetings this weekend. The first one was an impromptu one, actually. A friend over at a forum that I frequent invited me to share my ideas. Frankly, I had to business idea whatsoever, but I was willing to go listen, since I knew that I'm pretty good at implementing things. Of course I will not be discussing whatever we discussed. If I did, somebody might try to steal the ideas. There were five of us who went there, and two of us weren't the actual members who were supposed to go there. And both of us were girls. I'm not going to go into detail, but I can say that it was a very productive meeting. We even discovered something that the original idea didn't have during the meeting. It was a good, good night. So full of ideas and ways on how we can make it work.

Next, this morning, I went to another one. I'm a freelancer,so I value my time even when I'm supposed to be sleeping. Would you believe the guy that I was meeting told me the day that we set the date to not be late? I was there ten minutes before the set time and they came in 20 minutes after the time. You're wondering about what time? We were meeting at 8AM on a Sunday. I was like, "OMG, I wanted to meet in the morning, but not at 8AM!". But of course, I didn't tell them that. I just had to get up really early to make it. So I'm in on their team. Right now, I'm just gonna have to wait on the project that they are currently working on, and hopefully I'm gonna have something really big to do with this.

Anyway, back to what I was wearing. The first meeting, I went in black jeans and a nice brown shirt. As long as you look decent, it's fine. We met at a nice coffee shop and just let the ideas spew out, while I commented on some of the pros and cons. For the second meeting, I was dressed more formally, shall I say. I had leather shoes on and the guys that I was meeting had shorts, denims and rubber shoes on. Thank goodness I didn't overdress and just gave them the impression that I was serious about my involvement with them and that I acted cool. I was younger than some of the people I met on the first day, but I was older by a year when I met the next guys. Except for the boss though. What made me feel all strange was their impression of me. Apparently, I'm a bright person. Then the boss said, "I told you she was bright."

The guys that I met on the second day may be nice guys, but they definitely need to work on their people skills. Not saying that I'm the best at that field, I actually prefer hiding my face behind a counter, but I guess I can do better on presentations than the guys can.

Anyway, when you do go to business meetings, make sure that the people you are meeting aren't too far out of your league. And make sure that you know at least something before jumping right in. It minimizes embarrassment and can boost your confidence, if you know what I mean.

I think this is a good start for a freelance career ahead.

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