In the last post I talked about the importance of choosing those things that will help you be your most successful when you are a company just starting out in the world. One of the most helpful things to do is to determine what has worked for others who have been in your position. I was incredibly lucky to have a close business associate who had launched his own company and was willing to share with me the good, bad, and the ugly in terms of starting a business and running it successfully. There is often no second chance when it comes to getting something off the ground. I was looking for any and all assistance in making my company as efficient and profitable as possible. Web conferencing could help.

Web conferencing was recommended to me many times by many different companies. I had previously dismissed it as I didn’t want to spend any more money than was necessary but it turns out that web conferencing services had so much to offer my business that I was being terribly shortsighted to just dismiss. Some of the benefits of web conferencing include:

• Savings. Travel is expensive but sometimes necessary when dealing with companies in all parts of the globe. Web conferencing, however, allows you to hold a meeting without having to travel to the same location to do it. It is one of the most effective means of communication available today.

• Increased productivity. Stopping and starting a project because you don’t have the necessary input for continuing along can cause productivity to come to a halt. The challenge of staying on the same page intensifies when the parties involved are in different physical locations. Web conferencing allows everyone to stay involved and informed every step of the way.

• Support. My clients know that I am available to them at all times and one of the ways that we offer our support is through web conferencing. Even if we can’t be in the same room with them we can still walk them through any issue in an effective and personal manner.

Popularity: 14% [?]

New companies are often the weakest in the litter, so to speak. They are just getting their legs, just learning how to operate in the world, just getting accustomed to all that is new and different. With so much thrown at a company in these beginning stages it’s no wonder that they make it all; but in the world of business there’s no choice but to sink or swim and if you choose to swim you need to have all the most important things at your disposal to keep you afloat.

What I have chosen in my quest for keeping my new business afloat is the use of web conferencing – the benefits of which are endless for someone in my particular situation. With money at the top of my priority – and worry – list, I need to make sure that I do anything I can to further the ultimate goals that I have in mind for my business. Web conferencing does all that and more.

When it comes to choosing those components of helping to run your business successfully it helps tremendously to know what has worked for others before you. This is how I really discovered the benefits of web conferencing – something that I had considered to be just another thing to spend money on. But when I talked to one of my associates who had started their own business and how they had used web conferencing to their advantage I began to see the many ways in which I could also use it. I was sold and I have not looked back ever since.

There are those things that are economically out of reach and those that actually wind up saving you money and delivering you advantages for your investment. In the next post I’ll detail some of the benefits of web conferencing and why it is so important in the world of modern business.

Popularity: 14% [?]

In the last post I talked about the start up of my business and how – like most people who build a company from the ground up – I had been eating, drinking, and sleeping that business with no rest. I had been at it nonstop for years and I was finally looking forward to my first vacation – alone with my wife – in five years. That’s when I found out that an account that I had chased from the day my door opened was ready to talk turkey and they wanted to talk it with me on the very week that was I away.

There’s no way I could reschedule and miss this opportunity that I had been waiting for; but there was also no way that I could reschedule my vacation. How was I going to pull it all off and still keep my sanity intact? Webinars ultimately saved the day.

Webinars allow you to “meet” online where you can give information, hold a meeting, address a topic, demonstrate something, or go over documents; it’s the new way of communicating especially for businesses such as mine that are engaged in global commerce and are in need of communicating with people the world over in as affordable a manner as possible.

I set up a date and time for my webinar that worked for everyone – and sent them invitations along with all the information they needed to join the webinar. I then set out on my vacation with laptop in hand knowing that I was going to have to take an hour break during my week of heaven but considering it worth it to the future success of my company. I was just thankful that I lived in a day and age when this was even a possibility.

All in all it went successfully. The webinar was perfect for my needs and the clients felt like I was being responsive to them even though were so far away. Plus I never missed a beat in my vacation making it a win/win scenario.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Webinars have fast become one of the most popular uses of modern technology – a way for companies to reach out to vendors, clients, and prospective new business across the miles and across whatever logistical divide may exist. It is the new frontier of communication; a manner in which people can impart information as steadily and timely as they can without having to worry about being face to face or even in the same building. With webinars new business prospects can be charmed and informed, clients can be brought up to speed on the status of their projects, and vendors can be given precise instructions for things that need to be done.

One of the many benefits of webinars is that they are portable. Web conferencing is so powerful because it’s so versatile. You can conduct a webinar if you are in your office or on the road allowing you the freedom to do business anytime and anywhere; the ultimate in productivity.

This was how I came to really have a respect for webinars – on the road. I was building my business and had been doing so – from the ground up – for years. I was tied to it morning and night as any entrepreneur is in those earliest of days; and getting away for mere hours was a challenge. Several years in, however, while still completely immersed in the day to day of my business, I had the opportunity to actually take a vacation; something that I hadn’t done in about five years. I planned the trip and looked forward to some time away with my wife. But then I discovered that an important business prospect – a big fish we had been working on for months was finally ready to talk and they wanted to “meet” with me during the very week that I was away. In the next post…how a webinar saved a new account…and my vacation.

Popularity: 17% [?]

When the Internet came along and technology forever changed, most of us were overwhelmed by the many things that were now within our ability to do. Life, as it had been prior to being online, was over for good. Since then we have learned to take in stride the many advancements that seemingly come on a daily basis. We no sooner become accustomed to one thing than it changes in scope and pales in comparison to the “newer” version.

Web conferencing is just another product of the Internet; a way for us to communicate with each other in a much more effective manner regardless of our location or the location of those to whom we are speaking. Who would have ever thought that there would come a day when we would be able to conduct a meeting with people in another country without ever leaving our offices? Today, it’s almost commonplace; the ability to call up state-of-the-art communication technology and to use it to our advantage in growing our business.

While webinars are no longer the new kids on the block they are not ready to go away either. In fact, web conferencing simply continues to grow in step with changing commerce – allowing for more options in presenting and receiving information to and from parties the world over.

Do not expect web conferencing to disappear. Rather, anticipate that there will be new and better ways to communicate through webinars in the years to come. Even now, webinars can include the ability to include slide presentations, real time whiteboard annotations, live video, desktop sharing, and the provision to have interactive communication with participants so that webinar leaders can not only disseminate information but also collection information in return – including that which may be collected through polling or through question and answer periods.

If you are doing business in the modern world webinars have become a part of doing it successfully; doing business in the future will surely include the use of webinars.

Popularity: 17% [?]

In the last post I talked about the challenge I was presented by my company’s owners. I was in charge of the sales and marketing division and had my hands full as it was with trying to do everything I could to brand the company and grow the business within a very restricted budget. The owners came to me to see what I could offer in terms of stepping away from competition and offering something different.

Because we are a manufacturing company that first markets our products to retailers that in turn offer it for sale to the consuming public, we had quite the challenge in making sure that all of the retailers with which we worked got the appropriate information and support. After all, they needed to be passionate and excited about the products before they could convince anyone else of their merits. We were low on staff and our sales reps didn’t have the funding that they used to for visiting the retailers and making them sufficiently comfortable about our products. In turn, they were not as enthusiastic as they could be about selling them. Plus, we couldn’t reach those potential retailers who may be inclined to carry our product line if we just were able to give them the proper information.

Webinars were my idea in this regard. Webinars offer the ability to present information online – a web conference that select participants could join and learn all that they needed to know about our products. Webinars offered a number of benefits which I quickly offered up to our owners including:

• Inclusiveness. We could simultaneously reach retailers all over the country (and throughout the world if we so choose). Additionally by holding specific webinars for interested retailers we could pitch our products.

• Affordability. All of this ability to reach out and touch those who were in the position of potentially earning us money could be done for little cost. The cost of a webinar certainly paled in comparison to the cost of a plane ride.

• Versatility. We could change webinars up according to what information we needed or wanted to offer at that particular time. This way we could easily update retailers on new products or change the sales information for one of the existing products.

• Sparkle. Using technology in this manner allowed our company to stand out from others in our industry and show that we were cutting-edge and willing to do whatever it took to get the appropriate information into the right hands.

Popularity: 17% [?]

When the owner of the company came to me and asked me to come up with something that would set our business apart from the competition I was, admittedly, at a loss. Here I was in sales in marketing, responsible for branding our company’s name and making sure we were on track to appropriately attract new business prospects, and I was at a loss. The truth was that the economy had made everything harder. We didn’t have the marketing funds that we once had and truth be told many in my department had been laid off. I was working with skeleton staff and limited financial resources. And still, ownership had come to me to ask my opinion on doing something that would separate us from our competition; we were all fighting the battle of our lives to gain new business and keep afloat.

We are a medium-sized manufacturing company that produces a product line that sells in retail stores. So in truth we almost have to market as much to our retail buyers as the end user. We needed the buyers to be able to sell our product and to be excited about it in a way that will ignite passion in those who they turn around to sell it to.

So I came up with the idea of using webinars to give us an edge in the industry. We had retail outlets around the country and while we had sales reps who were responsible for these territories we didn’t have the money for travel that we used to - meaning that reps were not able to go to these retail stores as much as they would have liked to introduce new products and make their clients feel warm and fuzzy about our company. Further we were not able to similarly reach out to those prospective retailers that had still to agree to carry our product.

Webinars were a way of reaching out on both fronts and giving people real solid information about our product line in a convenient and comprehensive fashion. More in the next post…

Popularity: 15% [?]

Choosing to go the least expensive route in any business decision is essentially the way of the world right now. Companies of all sizes and in all industries are mostly doing what they need to do to survive; the last thing they would consider would be discretionary spending that can possibly be avoided. This is the dilemma that I have been living with as the head of sales in a medium sized company. Consider my position…I had been asked by senior management to watch my spending; but I was also charged with continuing to make sales. In fact, the healthy sales produced by our division would help the company’s profits overall and so I would essentially be doing what I was asked to do which was to be mindful of our bottom line.

This was all well and good until it came to situations where I would seemingly have to ignore one set of managerial directives to achieve another. These were the circumstances that I faced when I had a new business prospect that was on the other side of the country. This was potentially an important new account and could mean good money for our company. But the cost of traveling to the other coast - in order to walk them through the components that I would normally present in a face to face sales meeting - would simply prove too costly.

A colleague of mine introduced the idea of presenting the information to my new business client via webinar; a way to provide a professional presentation without having to incur the costs of travel.

Webinars offer businesses the opportunity to speak in real time to specific parties anywhere in the world – utilizing the Internet in order for participants to access the same information simultaneously. A webinar was the perfect way to balance my need to save money with my need to earn money.

Popularity: 17% [?]