When conducting professional meetings in your office or in your conference hall, sitting face to face with the participants, you prepare meticulously for the discussion. Well, conference call meetings should get the same treatment. A conference call is usually set up between two or more people, who are placed in areas that are remote.
With business offices spread across the world, conference calls have facilitated the way in which companies hold meetings with their employees and customers, without requiring their physical presence at the meeting hall. This in turn has resulted in huge savings for enterprises, as there is no travel to the destination of the meeting, and no hotel accommodation charges, amongst others.
Conference calls used in professional meetings are very different from personal telephone calls, or one to one conversations with colleagues. It is to be remembered that conference calls are considered to be meetings that are as formal as the meetings that you conduct in the conference room.
It is a business tool that possesses some of its own etiquette, which must be followed at every step of your participation. While you attend conference calls, you need to be as courteous and professional throughout the call as you would be in face to face meetings.
Your attitude in attending conference calls is a direct reflection of your professionalism, and of your ability to make presentations to others. Every time you have to be conferencing, you should be well prepared for the discussion, and should be ready with all relevant documents that you will require before you join the conference. As you prepare yourself, it is wise to test the conference system, and make sure that your microphone and other equipment are working and that the volume has been set right.
Make sure that you do not multi-task while there is a conference call in progress. You should pay attention to the debates going on without diverting your mind to something else that is not related to the meeting. You can always take notes on paper or on your laptop, ensuring that not too much noise emerges from the keyboard. In conference calls, ideas are shared, and if you do not actively participate in the discussion, you will not be remembered as being a participant at that meeting.
Conference call services may be outsourced and there are many such providers. The technology typically uses conference phones or VOIP systems. If you are hiring these services for your conference calls, you would have to designate the date and time of the meeting that you would want to hold.
You will be assigned with a group dial-in number, and also with a password through which you can access the conference network at the date and time that has been set for you. When you outsource, you do away with the drama of having to get your people to set up the con call for you.
When you want to learn about another country it would be wonderful to be able to speak directly with somebody from there and listen to their experiences. It would definitely make studying much more fun and interesting if students can get live information.
Academics are not just the only reason to conduct a seminar. Many organizations will market new products via a seminar, thereby, increasing profits. When using videoconferencing, one of the major challenges would be the logistics.
Adapting your seminar to a specific audience will be more effective by connecting with a well-known person to speak about your product to the attendees. The specialists that you have hired can interact with your potential customers from anywhere in the world through the use of conference calls. Therefore, saving your host time and you money for flying them to a specific location. With conference call services they just have to be online at the allocated time and begin the seminar.
There is no substitute for being able to see a live demonstration, regardless of the product. With videoconferencing the viewers can see these demonstrations on-screen. Just watch your sales figures increase especially when you offer your viewers who have participated in the seminar a special free gift for buying your product. This is always a good incentive for getting people to make a purchase.
A videoconferencing seminar should not last longer than two hours because it will be very easy for your audience to lose interest and, therefore, missing the real reason for the seminar in the first place. An interactive and exciting presentation can be done within an hour. In advance of the seminar, be sure to publish a schedule and create a new brochure and distribute these documents to the participants of the seminar. In addition, have any other material on hand that you may require at any time during the seminar.
When you have confirmed the list of people attending your seminar, you could increase your organizational efficiency by assigning each person a particular seat and placing any additional materials at each seat. You should also label every seat with the name of the person who has been assigned that particular seat. Ensure that the labels you use have large lettering and can be read easily from some distance away. This will help reduce confusion as your attendees attempt to find their designated seats.
It is understood that the expert that you hire will either be the success or failure of your seminar. Always arrange with them early so that if they are unable to attend you can quickly make other arrangements. Be detail oriented when speaking with your hosts and include the time and a summary of the topic they will be discussing. Don't forget the different time zones when enlisting foreign speakers for your seminars.
Both Ajeet Khurana & Jody Cafaro are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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