Co-promotion meetings - Tips on how to document the important stuff

If you are working in a co-promotion partnership, you should be meeting with your counter-parts from the other company on a regular basis, whether by teleconference or face-to-face.

Each meeting should be documented, reviewed and approved by both parties, and circulated to your manager, and your counterpart's manager. Your managers can then decide if the minutes need to be circulated to even more senior managers.

If your manager circulates to senior management, make sure that there is some kind of documentation about this as well (date of circulation and names of senior management staff circulation).

Communication is the key to a successful co-promotion. By documenting meeting topics, this helps fill in the gaps for those who were not present. Even if somebody was not present at a meeting, make sure that they receive a copy of the minutes.

Minutes can also be used as reminders of responsibilities and deadlines per person. If you have some responsibilities, write them down in your calendar and give yourself enough time to complete the task for the agreed-to timeline.

Documentation also keeps senior management from both companies in-the-know of certain decisions. Therefore, if they are in disagreement with a decision made by the marketing team, they will be able to address it amongst themselves first, then with their individual teams. Also, your manager and senior management should never be surprised about things that you discuss or present at the business review meetings, so it is better to keep them informed from the get-go.

Documentation is also critical if ever there are legal issues arising that may cause strain to the co-promotion partnership. Nobody likes to think that the partnership may come to this, but it can happen. If this is the case, you may be asked to provide proof of certain discussions and decisions to the legal team.

At the beginning of the meeting, assign somebody to take notes for the group. You may rotate this responsibility at each meeting. Check the co-promotion agreement. It may actually stipulate who holds the responsibility for taking meeting minutes.

Here are the details that should be included in the notes;

- Date, time

- Meeting place

- Note taker

- Note reviewer from counterpart company (this proves that the minutes were reviewed and approved by both parties)

- Attendees from Company A, Attendees from Company B, and any other attendees (ie. agency)

- Absent people who typically would be at these meetings but had to miss for whatever reason

- Type of meeting (ie. meeting to discuss promotional tools for the upcoming cycle, business review meeting to update senior management, status update amongst the marketing team)

- All decisions made as a team. Be very clear with all the details. What was agreed to? If the decision was made but there are still some folks who are not in agreement, then take the time to write down why that particular decision was taken. Is somebody going to lead? If so, then who? Are there timelines involved? Is there a budget involved - how much?

- Any details that are pertinent to the contract. For example, if the contract states that the P&L needs to be reviewed by the team on a quarterly basis, make sure that you not only do this, but document that it was done. Note any discrepancies vs. the contract and whether this is an issue or not for the team.

Before you distribute the minutes, you should make sure that both companies have had at least 1 person to review, modify and approve the minutes. The note taker and the reviewer from the counterpart company should be determined at or prior to the meeting itself. At the same time, determine a timeline for completion of the minutes by the note taker, and approval of the minutes by the reviewer at the other company.

Approval of the minutes by both companies is extremely important. You do not want to distribute minutes, then have your co-promotion partners say that they had a different understanding at the meeting, and that the notes need to be amended. This can cause confusion, delay and mistrust. It is better to put in the work ahead of time.

Once the minutes are completed and approved, it should be the responsibility of the note taker and the reviewer at the other company to distribute appropriately at their individual companies, copying one another (ie. the note taker copies the approver, and the approver copies the note taker). That way both companies know that the minutes have been circulated to all members.