Internet Conferencing – video web meetings

Tim Gorman asked:




Videoconferencing is rapidly gaining in popularity, and it’s hardly surprising. Basically, videoconferencing allows people to communicate in real time, no matter where they are located. It can be as few as two people, or it can be thousands. The participants can hold a meeting or conference, compare charts and generally do everything they could do if they were all in the same room together. This is all done via audio and video transmission through the wonders of the internet.

The list of advantages gained from using videoconferencing is long, but here are a few of the main advantages. The most obvious advantage is the enormous savings involved when people don’t need to travel. An average business trip usually involves at least one night spent in another place, and costs incurred include flights, transport, meals, accommodation, entertainment, and the list goes on. If you need ten people at a meeting, and add together all the costs involved, the total is staggering.

Remember, too, that not only is travel costly, it takes time. So those ten executives have to take two days out of their busy schedule, for example, to attend a half-day meeting at head office. With videoconferencing, they can allocate the half-day, and spend the other day and a half doing productive work in their office. Using videoconferencing provides big savings in both money and time.

If the video conference involves one person or team making a presentation, they’re in their home environment. So they can’t accidentally leave the most important graph on their desk back at the office – they have everything readily available. It also means that questions can be answered fully, instead of the presenter needing to return to his office before he could access the required information.

Videoconferencing also makes it easier for business to access outside experts. In a medical environment, for example, researchers from around the world can get together regularly and compare notes, making it easier to pool their findings and accelerate the process of finding answers. This type of collaboration would never happen if the experts were constantly required to travel to stay updated, because they’d never have time to do their research. Cooperation on this level isn’t just beneficial for the medical profession; it can be used in almost any profession you can think of.

A slightly less direct benefit, but a benefit just the same, is that employees will need to learn the basics of presentation skills and research, in order to participate productively in videoconferencing. This encourages the employee to stay up to date with information relating to their field, so that they’re confident they can answer questions during a videoconference if required.

Videoconferencing is also a great deal more personal than a phone conference. A high percentage of our communication is through non-verbal cues, so seeing the person making a presentation can gives us so much more information. It also means that visual aids can be used, which speeds up the process of explaining certain types of information. There’s no need to wait while a set of graphs is posted, faxed or even emailed and printed – you can see them instantly. And if extra information is required, it can be pulled out of the file and displayed, with no need for any delay. If you’re using videoconferencing to deal with a potential client, it becomes much easier to develop a personal relationship, which is an important element in any business relationship.

Video conferencing also means that all the required people can be present at the meeting. Previously, expense considerations may have meant that only one employee could attend a certain meeting, and upon their return they would then brief everybody else about what went on. This inevitably left gaps in the feedback, as no one person would take in every single thing that occurred, or would even know that one particular piece of information was of special importance to another staff member. Videoconferencing means that everybody hears and sees everything, and can extract the information that is most relevant to them. They also get a personal feel for the other people involved in the conference.

There’s no doubt that business will be quick to utilize videoconferencing, once the numerous benefits become clearer. The potential for business is enormous, and as technology improves and prices drop, videoconferencing will become as standard in businesses as the fax machine or personal computer.

Clinton

David CJ Jones asked:




The advent of the Internet has caused many ripples in the sales world, one of the major ones being sales conferencing. This is a method of conducting a sales presentation or sales demo using the Internet for the visual portion of the presentation over the Internet and the audio over the phone or the Internet.

Benefits to Sales Conferencing

There are many advantages that companies have found in doing sales conferencing for their sales presentations. The major one is the cost savings that comes with replacing traveling for in person meetings with this video conferencing sales method. A typical sales trip can cost anywhere from $500 – $1,000 per day with airfare, car rental, hotel room and dining as well as any other additional costs like parking and other amenities. The cost savings can be very significant if sales reps are required to take multiple sales trips per month.

Another great benefit to web sales conferencing is being able to do more sales presentations in a short amount of time. A typical sales trip maybe able to get in 3-5 sales presentations per day if the sales rep is efficient and packs his day in. By using this video conferencing sales method, you can drastically increase the number of sales presentations that you can do. Some sales reps are able to do sales conferencing sessions every hour if there are able to get attendees on.

One of the great challenges to doing web sales conferencing is that you lose a bit of that personal touch that comes with seeing someone face to face in their office. But many companies have found that the increase quantity of sales presentations they can do, even with a lower conversion rate, still increases their sales and revenue. And because you’re saving considerably on the traveling costs, there is a much higher return on investment even if the conversion rate is lower.

In addition, many companies still incorporate traveling as part of their sales model, but they use the sales conferencing method to qualify their prospects and warm up their prospects. If you do a sales presentation over a web sales conferencing webinar first before you see them face to face, it will dramatically increase the effectiveness of that in person meeting. The propsects will already get a good sense of what the product or service is like. Now you can just focus on them and how your company can help your prospect.

If a prospect as agreed to a in person meeting after they’ve already attended a sales conferencing session, it is more likely that they really need the product. I can’t say how many times I’ve gone to see a propsect only to find that they don’t really need our company’s services. It’s usually something I couldn’t have known from a cold call, but could have discovered during a sales presentation on a sales conference call.

How to Overcome Challenges

One of the greatest challenges in using the sales conferencing method is that the attendance rate goes down drastically. When some schedules an in person meeting, it is almost 90% certain that the person will attend, mainly because you’re going to their office with an appointment. People are more likely to keep a face to face meeting.

Sales conferencing is a bit different as you can imagine. Prospects who schedule a webinar will be a lot less likely to remember the appointment and a lot less likely to show up. Most companies using this method has discovered this problem and have take steps to overcome them.

The best and most simple way to overcome the attendance rate problem is to merely do a reminder and confirmation call. When the prospect is scheduled for a morning sales conferencing webinar, the sales rep should call them the afternoon before. If the webinar is on an afternoon, the sales rep should call that morning to remind them. I’ve seen companies’ attendence rate increase from 30% to 70% using this method.

The other challenge of course is the lack of personal touch and interaction. Again, you’ll find that this loss will be made up for more than enough by your number of conversions. Additionally, you can always choose to go see them at any point. Studies have shown that most sales are closed with 7 sales calls. It’s a more effective if you use web sales conferencing for one of those calls than to go see them each time or merely give a phone call.

Sales Conferencing Services

There are many great companies that offer video conferencing sales services. Webex and Go To Meeting are two good companies that I’ve used before. I won’t say how much I paid because their rates probably change with new technologies and changes in the market. Needless to say, their services are relatively cheap if you compare them with travel costs to see a prospect in person.

Janice

Angela Wills asked:




Hosting an audio conference is a great way to gain exposure and expert status for an online business owner. The challenge becomes how to set up an audio conference once the decision has been made.

Audio conferencing solutions are available online to allow you to host, record, stream and even replay your conference calls.

Here are some of the features available with most conferencing solutions available today:

1. Phone Number – When you sign up for your chosen call host you will get a phone number for your guest to call into. This phone number is often a US number as many of the companies are based in the US. You can also get international numbers if you have guests that may not be in the United States. Typically you get a phone in number, a host code and guest pass code.

2. Control Panels – Many audio conference solutions allow you more than just over the phone control. You can often log onto a website and get details of the call like the number of visitors on the line, where they are located and even their names if you have previously entered that information in.

3. Recording – You will be able to record you call. This is obviously very convenient for most calls as you often have people who can not make it to a call but could benefit from the replay.

4. Streaming Audio – Some programs also will host the audio recording that is created and allow it to be ‘streamed’ online. This is sometimes a paid feature as it does cost to host and play audio files online.

When choosing you own solutions you’ll want to always first consider the needs of your call and of the attendees.

Ask yourself questions like:

- Will they want a recording?
- Are they internet savvy enough to just get a download or do they want streaming audio?
- Do I need to know who’s on the line?
- Am I willing to consider paid solutions if they offer higher quality?

An important thing to remember as you search around for the appropriate audio conferencing solution for your call is to plan ahead. Give yourself time to search around for the best solution and then test it out. You’ll want to test out the lines for quality and ease of use to make sure both yourself and your guests don’t have problems on the call due to a poor quality product.

When I do my own calls I always keep a backup no matter which solution I choose. For my backup I use a company called Audio Acrobat. With this program what I do is call into a special phone number and then set my recording. Then I call back to the conference line and continue with my call and recording there. Having a backup allows you to continue with peace of mind that you won’t have any lost information.

Rodney