Closing Keynote Speaker at MSCPA’s 102nd Annual Conference

Today’s guest post is by Roger Courville. He’s the Chief Aha! Guy at TheVirtualPresenter.com, author of The Virtual Presenter’s 102 Tips for Online Meetings, and on a mission to make his sessions at MSCPA’s 102nd Annual Conference in June the most fun you will have the entire conference.

In his brilliant book Start With Why, Simon Sinek makes a compelling case for what leading organizations do differently: They put “why” before “how” and “what.”

Professionals who create the most value for their practices with web conferencing do, too.

Let’s start with two easy assumptions:

1. You “get it” that an online meeting can save time and money versus traveling even a short distance BUT…
2. You know that people would still rather meet in-person.

Ironically, for a guy who teaches thousands of people to meet, train, and present online, I appreciate in-person communication too! Here’s why you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t add online meetings to your portfolio of communication tactics.

Save travel time
If you’re like most professionals your time a precious commodity. Even a short local trip, whether for you or your clients, might involve 30-60 minutes of travel. If the meeting’s an hour but that travel time is saved, it doesn’t take a scientific calculator to assess the benefit.

Increase sensory richness beyond a phone call
Most people’s learning and communicating preferences are visual and interactive.  They’re more engaged when they see you and your content and actively participate in the meeting.

Increase attentiveness
Video conferencing creates a sense of sitting-across-the-desk presence. If you worry about participants multi-tasking while on a conference call, it might be time to upgrade the experience.

Use VoIP to save audio conferencing costs
Here’s a tip your conference call provider doesn’t want you to know about: Better web conferencing vendors build in all-you-can-eat VoIP (voice over internet protocol). For many professionals this alone saves them more than the web conferencing subscription price.

Improve interpersonal connectedness and trust
Conference calls are obviously audio-only. Being able to see one another (with video conferencing) and share, present, and collaborate visually (seeing a computer desktop with web conferencing) enable natural interactions and trust.

The bottom line
To suggest that online meetings and webinars should replace in-person meetings would be irresponsible. Ignoring them, though, is a missed opportunity.

Now that you have a few more “whys” for online meetings, be sure to come to the Annual Conference in June for an action-packed breakout session of “hows!” with me. See you in Kalispell!