Making Nice

Want to know what really works to influence people? Making nice. That’s it in a nutshell. Instead of meeting with your clients to do the talk and sell hustle, why not just take them out to breakfast or lunch — and leave the business presentation back at the office. Getting to know your prospective client, building trust and a friendly relationship is a smart way to do business.

I can hear you now — who has time for that these days? If you are going to be successful you must make the time to get to know your prospects and clients as friends and partners. Be like a farmer sowing seeds.

When you leave your breakfast or lunch meeting ask if you may contact your client in the future. If he or she agrees, great. Make that business meeting online, rather than face to face, and you’ll make up the time you ‘wasted’ by not talking business at breakfast!

Add Some Show to your Tell

It’s Wednesday morning and you’re at it again. Calling prospects, following up
leads and doing the sales and marketing two-step.

This time, though, you are actually sensing interest from the person on the
other end of the line. They’re asking questions, probing deeper into your
offer. Great! You can’t wait to get to their office and show them your proposal
in person — but wait.

Why waste all that momentum? Instead, convert the ‘tell’ to a
‘show and tell’ by inviting your prospect to an immediate online
meeting where you can educate them visually, as well as vocally.

If you don’t know how to use online meeting software, not to worry. Simply
find yourself a 30-day free trial and get to work learning how to use it. Lots of
products promise to save you time and money, but, in my opinion, the online
meeting really delivers on that promise.

The Value of Extra Time

Let’s say, instead of driving across town to meet with clients
or colleagues, you could take the meeting, get through the agenda and accomplish
your tasks all from the comfort of your office.   All that and you have an extra 1
to 2 hours of time in your day.   We won’t even talk about the savings in
frustration or even aggravation from having to get in your car, negotiate
traffic, find a parking spot … you get my meaning.

What’s the value of that extra time?    It could be that you’d simply get more work done that day.  Maybe it would free up a spot to fit in that workout you’ve been meaning to do.   Or
perhaps allow you to knock off early and spend some time with the kids.

Using online meetings lets me do all that, all the time.   I can meet with my virtual
assistant, explain what I need her to do, show her the documents in question and
answer all her questions, in real time, without having to leave my office.   Did I
mention my VA is located about 10 hours’ drive from me?

Online meetings let me work closely with my assistant who lives in another part of the country.   Just another benefit of the technology!

Web Based Conferencing Saves the Day!

Last week I was talking with a colleague who used web based conferencing to stay in touch with out-of-state clients. She finds web based conferencing saves time and money by avoiding travel. She also finds it helps her stay in touch with clients better than just a phone call.

She told me a story of how web based conferencing saved the day, even with an in-state client who was only a few hours away by car. Seems after a long rainy spell the river that goes through her client’s city flooded the downtown area. My colleague literally could not get across the river to visit with her client. At stake was a high-dollar contract that had to be worked out right away.

Not to worry! My colleague used her web based conferencing subscription to work through the contract with her client in real time, just as though they were sitting together in a meeting room.

These days, web based conferencing can even be accomplished via your WIFI enabled iPhone or Blackberry. Fuze Meeting lets you host and attend web conferences, view multimedia content in real time, plus chat with co-workers and friends – all with enterprise-grade security — and the iPhone and Blackberry apps are free!

Tips For Effective Web Conferencing

Today I interviewed Susan Grey. Susan is a web conferencing pro, having held a web conference a week for the last 52 weeks! Following are her tips:

Conducting a web conference is not different than conducting a face-to-face meeting when it comes to presenting the material. The strategy of interaction will be different. The biggest difference is that you can’t see them in person sometimes. And, even if you can “see” them, it’s through a webcam, which is very different than being in the same room.

There are a couple of things that you will need to know in order to conduct a web conference. These are the vendor or host, content, features and cost. When looking at a vendor you need to make sure that you’re going with a vendor that is going to be in a position to grow with your business but that is not so far advanced that people without the newest technology won’t be able to get on.

You want to make certain that your web meeting is understandable to anyone that may be in your target group. For example, if you do a web meeting on the newest technological features of a network application you’re going to have clients with a different level of technology than if you are delivering a web meeting on a way to effectively cook a five-course meal and still maintain an off-the-cuff entertainment atmosphere. In one instance you are working with technical know-how folk who might have access to the newest in computers. In the other you are working with people who may be normal home users and is going to be working with older equipment.

Features like instant messaging or the ability to use a whiteboard also need to be considered. Considering if you want to incorporate these from your vendor or use separate services is something to look into when deciding the way to conduct your web conference.

The content is the most important aspect of your web conference. You need your content to be informative, to flow from topic to topic in a smooth and related way. The meeting should be designed for your target market and be done in a way that engages your audience. Web meetings are more interesting if they are interactive so you may want to include time for questions.

Vendors all have alternative ways of pricing and you should think about which option is going to give you the most features at the least cost. Typically, web conferences are far less expensive than face-to-face meetings.

So there you have it! Tips from an expert. Want to try your hand at holding a web conference? Try a free trial of GoToMeeting.

Warm Up Your Online Meeting

Online meetings benefit from icebreakers every bit as much as the face-to-face meetings.
Shy participants need help getting comfortable participating. Bored attendees need to see the content will be useful.
This doesn’t change just because we can’t see each others’ faces.
There’s also the intimidation factor of online technology. Many of us don’t know how to use the tools, or are uncomfortable
not seeing each others’ faces.
Next time you lead an online meeting, try incorporating one of these 4 icebreaker approaches and you’ll see a difference.
1. At least get an introduction
You’ll always want to at least have everyone introduce themselves. (If I’m in a meeting I want to know who else is on the call, don’t you?) If it makes sense for your meeting, have them add something personal about themselves as well. I like to guide the personal side with a question – favorite pet, something fun about themselves we may not know, best vacation spot, you get the drift.
2. Ask for a lead-in
Help everyone understand the reasons for the meeting. You might ask each person to share one thing they want to get from the meeting. Advanced online tip: if you have interactive chat in your web conference software, have everyone type in their answer. Think of it as a quick software orientation inside the icebreaker.
3. Visuals rule
Use a powerpoint slide to display a question or visual puzzle. This icebreaker technique is a chance to make sure the web conference software works for them. If you plan to use the webinar’s document annotation tool, have them try that feature out too.
4. Take a Poll!
If your webinar software supports it, post a survey for attendees to take. It can be an on-topic survey, particularly good as a lead-in for a training meeting, or even a “fun facts” set of trivia questions. If you give the survey results (and the correct answers) later in the meeting it can make a nice break when the energy starts to flag.
Decide on an icebreaker (or two) for your next online meeting. Your attendees will appreciate it.

Three Jobs for the Meeting Facilitator

Start with an agenda. Ask your manager what (s)he wants on the agenda.  It’s also a good idea to send an e-mail to the meeting participants, asking them what they’d like to see on the agenda.
If you have any issues you’d like to see discussed, put them on the agenda,too.  Perhaps you’ve read an interesting article in an industry publication or heard about something a competitor is doing. Put it on the agenda.  As the facilitator, you can use these tidbits of information as ice breakers, too.
Include everyone in the meeting. As you move along the agenda items, be sure to solicit input from everyone who’s logged in.  If someone hasn’t contributed to an area, ask him or her to summarize what the others have said.  In that way, everyone will feel a part of any decisions that are made.
Last, set a time limit for each agenda item … and stick to it!

Keep the meeting on track. The main reason facilitators are necessary is because meetings have a habit of getting off track, taking too long and not covering what needs to be covered.  A good facilitator takes care of the details, watches the times and makes sure everyone’s opinion is heard.

If you are planning any brainstorming sessions, be sure to keep them positive and encourage everyone’s input.  Remember that brainstorming is not a time to judge ideas. It’s a time to put everything on the table. Even the wildest, craziest ideas can sometimes trigger a workable solution, so you don’t want to discourage anyone.

Summarize agenda items before moving on. Once you’ve completed an agenda item, summarize everything that was discussed as well as any assignments that were made. Leave no dangling ends as you move to the next point.

Send out meeting notes. Write a summary of the entire meeting and send it to everyone who attended as well as those who should have been there but couldn’t, such as your manager. Get it in their hands within three days of the meeting, then encourage the participants to get back to you if they notice any discrepancies.

Team Building, Virtual Meeting Style

Are you familiar with the 4 phases of team building? They are affectionately known as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. In order to get your team working like a well-oiled machine, you need to encourage candor, critical thinking and kindness – at the very least civility — among your members.

How well your team meetings go is a good predictor of how fast your team will get to the Performing stage. Let’s say you’re in the Storming stage. You know. That’s where the members don’t quite trust each other, or you, yet. There are turf battles emerging or ongoing. No one feels real comfortable saying what’s really on their mind.

What to do? Try this strategy in your next online meeting. Start with a blank shared document split into quadrants. Assign a relevant question to each quadrant. It’s good here to have a mix between subjective and objective questions like:

1. What potential do you see for our team?

2. In a perfect world, what would you have our team accomplish this year?

3. Name one thing you enjoy about your work.

4. Share your biggest concern about this team.

5. What one thing about this team is working really well?

Like all brainstorming sessions, let people pass if they can’t think of an answer. Give everyone about 30-60 seconds. This isn’t the time to analyze responses. Write everyone’s thoughts down so the group can see them.

You have a couple of options now. Take 10 minutes and let the members discuss the document and ask clarification from each other. Then, maybe, go back to your mission statement and see if it needs revision. Or, maybe you need clarification from the higher-ups on what the team’s goals ought to be. Here’s where your leadership/facilitation skills kick in.

This process doesn’t take long and yields good results. The most significant is that you and your teammates will gain a better understanding of each other. These insights will help your team quickly move into the all-important Performing stage.

Essential Tools for Successful Online Meetings

When you’re shopping for an online meeting provider, make sure to look for these valuable tools:

A “whiteboard” feature.  This essential tool allows freehand markups of documents and other presentation materials just like you were in a face-to-face meeting.

Another feature that you’ll want to have is the ability to transfer keyboard and mouse control to a participant.  This can really help a participant fully explain his points and call up documents he needs to assist his explanations.

A chat facility, so participants can communicate with you and others without disrupting the proceedings of the meeting, is invaluable.

Finally, look for moderator tools that include options like mute functions. This can be very helpful in shutting out unnecessary background noise that disrupts the sound quality of the transmission.