Consulting Journal: Style - Business breakfasts

Style: Business breakfasts

by David Blakey

Why you should avoid them.

[Monday 31 December 2007]

Consultants can have a lot of breakfasts in hotels and restaurants.

Obviously, consultants have breakfast in a hotel if they are staying in that hotel. So we can begin to list the causes of consultants having breakfasts in hotels and restaurants.

Staying in a hotel overnight.
Meeting someone else who has been staying in a hotel overnight.

Often, consultants will travel to a different office of the firm in another city or another country, and one of the local consultants may have breakfast with them to provide information and orientation. I could argue that better organization would delay that orientation until the incoming consultant has reached the local office, but many firms work this way.

One other kind of breakfast can result from staying in a hotel overnight.

Staying at a conference, seminar or workshop and having breakfast with the other people attending it.

Consultants can also have breakfasts in hotels under the following circumstances.

Attending a business breakfast with a client.
Attending a business breakfast with a supplier.
Attending a business breakfast with another organization.

The last example, of having breakfast with another organization includes having breakfasts with a professional organization of which the consultant is a member.

I think of breakfast as an important meal. It provides your first nourishment of the day and it provides a time when you can do other non-essential activities, such as watching the news, reading or checking your diary or things to do list. It should be a time when you can relax before your day's activities.

You should not set up breakfasts with clients. They will see enough of you during the rest of the day. If you think that having breakfast with a client is a good way of breaking the ice, then think again. The main focus of anyone at breakfast is eating. You can set up lunches with clients, because they will need to take a break in the middle of their day and may welcome an opportunity to discuss some ideas with you outside the normal round of business meetings. You can set up dinners with clients, if you must, as clients who are available for dinner will be relaxed; bear in mind that they may well prefer to have dinner at home or out with their families, rather than you. You should avoid breakfasts.

You should not accept breakfast invitations from suppliers or potential suppliers. There may be issues over accepting hospitality from people who supply to you or to your clients. If you must meet with suppliers, it should be in a work setting, with an opportunity to record the topics that you discuss.

You should not attend breakfast events with other organizations. A breakfast briefing generally takes about an hour, and eating the breakfast takes up to half of that time. It takes an hour to give you information that could be given to you in a thirty minute session. It would be better for these organizations to set up their half-hour briefings later in the day.

My recommendation

I recommend that you only eat breakfast in hotels and restaurants when you are away from home. You will not be working to your daily routine, and you should eat breakfast. I do not consider that it is ever worth my while to change my daily routine if I do not have to.

Justifications

People sometimes justify breakfast meetings on the grounds that they occupy time that does not affect work. The argument seems to be that if I start my working day at 7:00 rather than 8:30, this has no impact on the rest of my day. I drive myself to work. If I have to go to a hotel for breakfast at seven, I will probably have to drive along a different route and concentrate more on the traffic lanes that I need to be in to make turns. I will probably not know any short-cuts that I could take that will be faster but may appear longer on a map. I shall have to park my car. I may not know if there is parking available at the venue. I may have to park in the street and use a meter, which means that I need coins or I need to send a text. I may have to park in a public car park, so I need either cash or a credit card; I may have to queue for the cashier. At the venue, I need to find where the event is happening. This is sometimes more difficult than it sounds at larger venues: finding the right conference room can take time. I will need to have done all these things before seven o'clock. I cannot be convinced that all this has no impact on the rest of my day.

An exception

If you prefer to start your day having breakfast at a hotel or cafe, and if you do so regularly, then you might consider changing your routine to attend breakfast meetings. I would still ask you to consider whether you should not stick with your routine of breakfasts alone or with colleagues or friends.

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