How to create business opportunities with online meetings?

Business meetings don’t always work as well as they should, right?

Badly run meetings do little, if anything, but waste our time.

Whether one deals with dysfunctional project teams or individuals, whether it’s a company or an organization, when people try to work in groups, it’s inevitable to experience some of the downsides of business meetings, at least once in your career.

However, today, if one wishes to achieve goals and support the growth of business, faster decision-making is one of the skills to master.

That’s precisely why business meetings are goal-reaching opportunities.  

A well-run meeting empowers people to solve problems, share information and be more productive. Tweet

A badly run meeting is a waste of your time and energy. 

No one wants to waste time. Do you want to waste time and energy of your employees? No, you don’t. 

With collaborative technologies, modern businesses have powerful tools for better decision-making, project and time management and overall organization and management. However, business collaboration technologies and business applications might be challenging in different ways. 

How can you keep your employees and audience engaged while they are sitting in different offices? Even, different countries? How DO you keep them engaged?

If you had an opportunity to use an online meeting software, you are aware of its benefits, firstly, in finances. On the other hand, online meetings and web conferences can be stressful, unproductive and lack in professional approach. But, anyone from any industry (can) have benefits from web meetings.

How?

For remote workforce, online meetings allow greater productivity and satisfaction and empower real-time collaboration.

For businesses, web meetings open a door to sharing knowledge and experience with experts who live all around the world. 

For clients and customers, the good web meeting application allows a great deal of interaction. 

But, what makes a successful online meeting? The same basic (universal) rules that make any meeting a step closer to success:

1. Agenda (or stated purpose), because all meetings should have an agenda to be productive and effective working sessions.

2. Concrete next steps and action, because attendees should leave the meeting with concrete tasks.

3. End time, because if you don’t set end time, productivity and creativity could easily turn into useless conversation. Even more, schedule the meeting for the same time.

4. People limit, because a meeting is not a party, invite as few people as necessary.

Is this all it takes to run a meeting like a professional? Not likely. 

In terms of technical tools and organization, the success of your online meeting depends on the collaborative software you choose for your business. Easy-to-use and simplicity are the keys to the right collaborative software. However, it also depends on you and your abilities and skills.

Here are three tips to consider when running an online meeting.

#1 Stay on topic, invite the key people and ask for opinion

A meeting must have an agenda to stay on topic, to finish on time and to produce results. At the click of a button, people from all over the world can attend a meeting, but not everyone should be invited.  Gretchen Gavett published a great piece on what people are really doing when they are on a conference call, presenting data from InterCall, pointing out that 27% admitted to having fallen asleep at least once, and 60% admitted to doing some kind of other work, according to report. Therefore, not everyone should be invited, only the right people who have something to contribute to and whose participation will increase productivity.

An online meeting is not a presentation, it’s a meeting where you need feedback, to ask questions and support constructive discussions. Moreover, every participant should be included, thus, it’s important to ask for opinion. 

#2 Pay attention to your surroundings 

Online meetings are in many ways similar to face-to-face meetings, but if you choose a noisy office to host your meeting instead of a quiet meeting room, you shouldn’t expect good results. When distracted, people are unfocused, and inactive. Apart from location and surroundings, opt for the collaborative technology that promote visual stimulation, because we all are visual learners. Whiteboards and screen sharing tools will keep participants engaged. Tweet

#3 Record a meeting 

Even if you and other participants take notes, people quickly forget what went on during the meeting, or easily misplace notes. One of the greatest benefits of collaborative technologies for any business are business tools that provide content sharing and data storage.

If you have ten people working on the same project with different deadlines, record the web conference for the project participants who weren’t able to attend. It’s better to record a meeting than to have them participate and do “other work”. 

With these tips, you will professionally host an online meeting and web conferences.   

When it comes to our collaboration software,  we offer all necessary tools to get your web meeting or a conference be the key opportunity for the success of your business, to enforce collaboration and teamwork. You can find out more about the opportunities to grow and organize your business with our platform.