For people who work in the IT industry, holding more productive online business conversations can make or break a business’s operations. If you want to know how to better conduct these kinds of meetings, check out these best practices that you can implement as soon as possible. After all, meetings are meant to make you more productive, so make sure that all of your professional discussions go as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Turn On Your Webcam
Make sure that you have your webcam turned on during the meeting itself. It is important that you introduce yourself to your colleagues and partners face to face and that you see them in order to allow you all to get to know each other better. Seeing each other face to face allows everyone to build trust faster. At the same time, building trust makes it easier to collaborate on projects and helps your business overall.
If you work in IT and use your video conferencing service to help customers, it is best to see your customers face to face in order to build trust with your client base. It is also easier to help your customers when you can see them and screen share in order to troubleshoot their IT problems.
Prepare Your Content Ahead of Time and Stay Focused
Make sure that you prepare your content ahead of time and keep the conversation as focused as possible. Allow your video conferencing technology to enhance the overall experience. For example, you should use screen sharing and chat functions in order to make the gathering of employees as productive as possible.
You can use screen sharing to share PowerPoint slides and documents back and forth between attendees. If the purpose of the conversation is to collaborate on a project, screen sharing these documents can be a very helpful tactic. If the goal is to teach your colleagues or employees a new topic, screen sharing PowerPoint slides can be a great way to get your point across. For these types of uses, you may want to conduct meetings online for IT using Blue Jeans.
Establish Clear Goals and Objectives from the Start
According to USGS.gov, it is essential that your colleagues and partners know and understand the focus of the meeting from the start. Therefore, you should relay what the goals and objectives are before you do anything else. Tell them why they were invited to the conversation, what each of their roles are, and what everyone should be trying to achieve to help the business’ goals now and over time. Once everyone knows his or her specific roles, all participants will be more focused on the online discussion at hand.
Reach Out to International Colleagues and Partners
Keep in mind that video conferencing services allow you to reach out to any remote colleagues or partners who live across the country or even across the world. You can use international toll-free numbers in collaboration with your video conferencing service in order to reach these colleagues or partners. Such discussions can help keep you and your remote colleagues as connected as possible.
Prepare Ahead of Time
Prepare as thoroughly as you would if you had to talk to somebody in person. Prepare the topic, as well as an agenda. If necessary, prepare any necessary documents or PowerPoint slides in order to present your topic. If you are well prepared, it will almost certainly run more smoothly. Just keep in mind once you have done your preparations that you still need to keep the discussion as focused as possible once it is in session. This means removing any distractions and making sure that everyone in attendance is on task.
Learn Valuable Features
Make sure that you learn and leverage any necessary or useful video conference call features ahead of time. You should learn chat, annotation and screen sharing functions in order to keep your video conferencing communications as efficient and effective as possible. Practice using these video conference call features before starting a convo with colleagues and partners.
Remember that you can use screen sharing to share important slides and documents with your colleagues, partners, and employees. If you decide to use the screen-sharing feature, make sure that you prepare the necessary slides and documents ahead of time.
Avoid Distractions
Turn off your mobile phone and make sure that you are in a quiet environment, especially if you are the one hosting or presenting. Ask that other attendees avoid using their mobile phones or tablets and stop working on other projects and instead focus their full attention on the discussion itself. Don’t forget your business etiquette, too, as stated in an article by ComputerWorld.
It’s time to prepare for your next online meeting! Keep these tips in mind and you should be able to conduct or hold a productive discussion without any issues. You might even impress your colleagues and your boss as well as drive up the productivity of the whole group, too.
