The CEO’s Secret Weapon: Record & Transcribe Your Meetings

We’ve all had it happen, we leave a strategic meeting with our executive team or a client and struggle to remember what was discussed or agreed upon days or weeks later.

In many cases, even if notes were taken, they may not be complete and it can always be helpful to have access to the exact conversation. One innovative tool is redefining how CEOs are showing up to meetings and leaving with everything they need to revisit the conversation at a later time.

That tool: Otter.Ai.

Simply hit “record” and Otter both records the conversation and immediately transcribes everything that is being said. With their multi-speaker feature, it will clearly denote when different speakers are talking.

In this way, if you’re doing a Zoom or virtual meeting, Otter can capture what is being discussed in real time. That way you can focus on the conversation and not on taking notes. Likewise, if you are meeting in person, you can download the Otter.ai app on your mobile device and capture the meeting conversation that way as well.

Here are three reasons why having your meetings transcribed is a gamechanger for the busy CEO:

1. Reduces time-draining confusion. Not only can you focus on the conversation at hand, but you can revisit it later and as often as you want. This helps to reduce miscommunication by having a record of what was shared and agreed upon for you to return to later, should you need more clarification before tackling a task. The recording can be shared with team members as well to ensure they have the exact instructions or concerns that were shared, eliminating the chance of misinterpretation. 
2. Builds a searchable archive. For strategic meetings, it’s nice to be able to have a library of conversations to refer to, at any point. With Otter, you can organize conversations and search by keywords to find exact sound bites as you need them. For example, if you remember having a discussion about grant funding with a consultant, but don’t recall the date or the time it was had, you can easily search by “grant funding” and find the exact conversation and the exact timestamp when that topic was discussed. Plus, you can either read the transcript or listen to the audio from the live meeting. 
3. Enhances your ability to focus. It can be challenging to have to take notes, engage in conversation, and think strategically, all in real-time. By recording and transcribing your meetings, then you can focus entirely on the conversation – knowing you can refer back to the topics later. In addition, when you do revisit the conversation, you can listen in for new points that you may have missed the first time and get a deeper level of understanding out of the recorded conversation.

We share a host of other meeting strategies to enhance your productivity in this blog here.

What other strategies do you use in your executive meetings to save time and increase your effectiveness as a leader? Share your thoughts in the comments below.