The Value Of Virtual Meetings
Meet with clients from the comfort of your home office via the Internet.
By Julia Miller
Considering wasting two days flying to attend a two-hour meeting
with a prospect who might not pan out? Perish the thought. Today,
several companies specialize in putting together cyber conferences,
thus eliminating the hassle and expense of travel and allowing you
to meet with customers, prospects or colleagues from the comfort of
your home office.
In many cases, with only a phone and 28.8K Internet connection,
you can make your marketing efforts more immediate with interactive
meetings that range from one-on-one client presentations to
intimate peer pow-wows. You can also integrate all types of media,
including PowerPoint slides, streaming audio and video, and live
demonstrations. Web conferencing companies like WebEx, PlaceWare and Contigo all offer either free or
affordable virtual small-meeting space. Both PlaceWare's My
Placeware and WebEx's Free Meetings software are free for small
groups of up to five people. Contigo's i2i Meetings software
costs $2,799 for meetings with up to 10 people but includes
unlimited usage during a specified period of time.
"Because multitasking is so crucial today, there's an
increasing demand to hold meetings that don't require
participants to be physically present," said Barry James
Folsom, president and CEO of PlaceWare. "Web conferencing
makes virtual meetings an affordable reality."
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It also makes meetings a more convenient reality. Besides being
able to grab lunch and chat with customers (and maybe even feed the
dog if you're an expert multitasker) at the same time, virtual
meetings also eliminate geographical boundaries. This means if
you're a globally-minded entrepreneur, you can still talk in
real time-albeit at some strange hours-with a customer in Europe or
Asia. Check out the aforementioned Web sites for free demos.