Meeting notes

Most meetings end with everyone nodding and then nothing changing. The discussion was valuable. Ideas were shared. Decisions were technically made. But a week later, nobody can agree on what was actually decided.

Meeting notes tools solve this by capturing what was said and making it searchable. The best ones transcribe automatically so you can focus on the conversation instead of typing. They pull out action items and decisions so the important bits don't get buried in forty minutes of transcript.

For growth teams, this is especially valuable. You're constantly meeting with sales about pipeline, with product about roadmap, with leadership about results. The insights from these conversations should compound, not evaporate.

This chapter covers meeting notes tools that work for the rhythm of growth teams, where you need quick capture without heavy process.

Sales call recording captures what prospects actually say. Their words, objections, and questions are gold for marketing messaging. Without recording, these insights live only in the sales rep's memory.

Internal alignment meetings need documentation. When marketing and sales sync on pipeline or leadership reviews quarterly results, the decisions made should be findable six months later when someone asks why you made that choice.

Customer research interviews are too valuable to rely on notes alone. Full transcripts let you quote customers verbatim and catch insights you missed in the moment.

Team standups and planning sessions move fast. Automatic capture means you can focus on the discussion instead of splitting attention between participating and documenting.

Automatic transcription is table stakes. You shouldn't need to remember to hit record or assign someone to take notes. The tool should capture everything by default.

Action item extraction surfaces what matters. Good tools identify commitments and decisions automatically so you're not reading full transcripts to find the two sentences that matter.

Search across all meetings lets you find that thing someone said three months ago. When insights are searchable, past conversations become a knowledge base instead of forgotten history.

Integrations with calendar, CRM, and project management tools put notes where they're useful. Automatic logging to HubSpot or task creation in Asana beats manual copying every time.

Transcription accuracy varies significantly. Test with your team's actual voices, accents, and terminology. Some tools struggle with technical jargon or non-native speakers.

Privacy and consent matter. Make sure the tool handles recording notifications properly, especially for external calls. Getting this wrong creates legal and trust issues.

Consider where the notes need to end up. If everything lives in the meeting tool but your team works in Notion, you've created another silo. The best tool is one that fits your existing workflow.

Evaluate the AI summary quality. Many tools now offer automatic summaries, but quality varies. Test whether the summaries actually capture what mattered or just extract random sentences.

Fireflies is the most popular choice with strong HubSpot integration and accurate transcription.

Otter works well for general meeting notes but is less sales-focused.

Fathom and Grain are solid alternatives worth evaluating if Fireflies doesn't fit.

Check pricing based on your meeting volume. Some tools charge per user, others per recording minute.

Meeting notes tools pay for themselves in recovered insights. Every conversation your team has contains information that could improve campaigns, close deals, or prevent mistakes. The question is whether you capture it or let it disappear.

Start by recording everything and see what's valuable. You'll quickly learn which meetings benefit from transcription and which don't need it. Then build the habit of actually reviewing and acting on what you capture.