Category: People & Relationships

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People & Relationships

6 Tips for Running Effective Online Meetings

Meetings may not be your favorite activity, but they’re vital to the success of most businesses. Fortunately, the Internet has largely eliminated the need to get people from different places together in the same physical location. Online meetings make it possible to instantly connect with people in other parts of the country and around the world. They are an ideal solution when you have people working in different offices or when you need to touch base with remote workers.

While convenient, however, knowing how to set up a conference call to ensure maximum effectiveness can have its challenges. It’s easy to get off track, and making sure everyone is on the same page is often difficult. If you want your meetings to be efficient and productive, you need to know how to run them effectively. If you aren’t sure how to run an effective online meeting, here are a few tips to help you get started.

Start with a Well-Communicated Agenda

Creating an agenda and distributing it to participants prior to the meeting helps ensure that everyone is on the same page. It also keeps everyone focused on the purpose of the meeting and the points that need to be addressed and can prevent you from getting sidetracked.

When creating the agenda, include opportunities to ask for input from others. Also, clearly note any points where decisions need to be made. Leave room for last-minute questions or additions, but make sure the overall agenda is concise. No one wants to be stuck in an online meeting for any longer than they have to be.

Send the agenda out to all of the participants a few days prior to the meeting. Ask everyone to read through it, and encourage them to reach out to you in advance if they have any questions or concerns.

Familiarize Yourself with Your Conference Call Service

If this is the first time you will be using a particular service, familiarize yourself with it well in advance of the meeting. It’s important to know how to set up a conference call ahead of time. Also, figure out exactly how the system works and how to utilize any specific features that you plan on using. Trying to learn how to use a new system while the meeting is taking place is unprofessional and can make things take much longer than they need to.

Make Sure Everyone’s System is Ready to Go

Online meetings often get off to slow starts due to technical difficulties. When you have several people participating and a few are having trouble with things like getting the meeting to load, speakers or microphones that aren’t working, etc., it’s easy to waste a significant amount of time.

Ask all meeting participants to restart their computers and make sure their microphones and speakers are working 20 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the meeting. Do the same on your end, too. If you are using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, charge it up or make sure you have a charger close by. As the other participants to do so as well.

Keep Statements Short and Ask for Frequent, Specific Feedback

Pretty much no one enjoys getting on an online meeting and listening to the host drone on and on for what seems like forever. You may have a lot that needs to be discussed, but if you go through everything all at once, participants are likely to zone out or get distracted by games, social media, or other conversations. Keep your statements concise, and once you’ve made a point, ask for specific feedback. Avoid the generic “Does anyone have any questions?” question until the end. Instead, ask specific questions about what you’ve just gone over. Address them to the entire meeting or to a specific participant. If you are talking about something budget-related, for example, you may have a question to direct to your accountant or a project manager.

Keeping your messages concise and asking specific questions helps keep everyone engaged. People are also much less likely to zone out if they know there is a chance that you may be asking them something that they will need to know how to answer.

Use Video Whenever Possible

One of the great things about online meeting software is that it makes it easy to meet “face-to-face” via live video. People often skip the video portion, though, and choose to communicate through audio online. Many folks aren’t incredibly comfortable with people on camera, so it may seemingly make sense to just communicate via audio unless video is absolutely necessary.

Getting everyone on camera, however, typically results in more effective meetings. For starters, without video, participants have no visual cues to go on. They’ll hear what you are saying, but without being able to see you, they may not grasp the full meaning. Also, having everyone on video helps minimize distractions. Watching a video conference is more engaging, and participants are much less likely to slack off when they know that everyone can see what they are doing.

Finish with Clear Action Items

When your meeting ends, everyone should know exactly what needs to happen next or what to expect. Unfortunately, corporate meetings often conclude with vague promises and half-hearted agreements from participants. As the host of the meeting, it is your responsibility to assign next steps and establish due dates. If you are the one who is promising something to participants, make sure they know exactly when and how you will deliver on that process. Everyone should leave the meeting feeling informed; not like they have no idea what’s supposed to happen next.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to running effective online meetings, proper planning is vital. From making sure you are using the right conference call service and learning how to use it prior to the start of the meeting to creating an agenda and keeping your statements concise, there are all sorts of things to do to ensure that you next online will be efficient and productive.

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People & Relationships

5 Ways to Get to Know Your Audience

Regardless of your marketing goals, the only way for you to reach them is to get to know your audience. Now, identifying them by their gender, age, education, income and similar characteristics is simplistic and it doesn’t reveal nearly as much as you might hope.

For instance, you can see that your audience is predominantly female and see that Facebook and Pinterest are predominantly female platforms. From here, it’s logical to assume that posting your content on these two platforms will yield the best results, right? Well, both yes and no. You see, marketing is both a delicate science and a subtle art, which is why there are so many different factors to consider. The first step in doing so, nonetheless, lies in getting to know your audience. Here are five ways in which you can do so.

1.      Look at your closest competitors

The first thing you can do in order to get to know your audience is to look at the audience of your closest competitors. More likely than not, this is the exact same audience. In some industries, like the smartphone business, people are exclusive to one brand and will either buy Android or iOS devices. In most industries, nonetheless, it’s nothing unusual if the person within the same industry has several suppliers or brands they like. The best example is the fast food industry or the fashion industry (no one sticks to just one brand or eats at a single venue). This is also quite useful if you’re a new business and don’t have a well-developed audience group that you can study.

2.      Get to know them personally

The next thing you can do is get to know your audience on a personal level. Needless to say, you can’t get to know all of them, yet, having a candid conversation with a couple of representatives can be quite revealing. In this day and age, it’s quite easy to reach out to a potential client/audience member. Even though not all of them may respond, by customizing/personalizing your outreach and reaching out to enough people, you’ll easily get some prime candidates. From this point on, you get to speak on a personal level (as a part of a P2P marketing effort) in order to see who you’re dealing with.

3.      Try social media monitoring

The best thing about social media is the fact that a marketer no longer has to ask for information. Why would they when people are more than willing to offer this information for free, often without being even asked? Imagine launching a product trailer or teaser. How would you measure its effectiveness? Well, the simplest way to do so would be to check the engagement, look at the like/dislike ratio (if we’re talking about YouTube) and look at similar other metrics. It would be even better to find a reliable social media monitoring platform and get an in-depth analysis of your current status in the world of social media.

4.      Create a customer persona

Another covert way to do some market research is to make a customer persona and infiltrate all the places that your audience tends to visit on a regular basis. Imagine your average customer and use those crude metrics from the introduction in order to create this persona. How old are you? Are you a male or female? What do you do? Once you have this covered, try to identify which social media groups, forums and subreddits your audience visits the most. Try to adopt their jargon and don’t be afraid to ask a question or even get into an argument. This also gives your brand some insulation from the ramifications of arguing with strangers online, which is a bad practice for brands.

5.      Conduct a survey

The last thing you need to do is the old-school marketing technique of conducting a survey. Previously, we’ve talked about some basic traits of your customers and this can be figured out quite easily. On the other hand, if you want to know more about their characteristics or opinions on a certain topic, what you need to do is conduct a survey. This is quite easy to do on your own, yet, if you want to be 100 percent sure that your survey is adequate and efficient, you can find someone to compose it for you.

Conclusion

The very last thing you need to understand is the fact that it’s impossible for you to understand every single one of your audience members. Fortunately, you don’t have to. All that it takes is for you to get a general idea on what your market needs, wants and aspires to. Once you have this information, your business will be virtually unstoppable.

Dan Radak is a marketing professional with eleven years of experience. He is a coauthor on several websites and regular contributor to BizzMark Blog. Currently, he is working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies.

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People & Relationships

Philanthropic Efforts Help Individuals and Your Business

It is not a surprise anymore that increasing numbers of young people (we’re looking at you, Millennials) are entering the workforce and the economy and changing how businesses cater to consumers. And the beliefs of this segment of the working and purchasing public aren’t just modifying business practices; they are reshaping business cultures, too. An increased awareness of the world and our place as humans and consumers in it has shaped a new segment of the population, and businesses are becoming more and more cognizant of how their products and policies contribute to society, demanding social obligation be a contributing factor for all new ideas. One of the biggest changes has been the focus on philanthropy that businesses now see as an important requisite for success. Take a look at how philanthropic efforts can benefit not only individuals, but your business, too.

Philanthropy Breeds Respect

Let’s face it: giving back makes you look good. If you can’t see any other benefit to generosity, consider the fact that 70% of Millennials would rather spend their money on brands that are socially and civically responsible and nearly 67% of them would rather work for a company that makes charitable donations than one that does not. When your company donates to a cause, it sends a message that you care for more than yourself, a message that draws respect from the community and promotes their support of you, both as consumers and as employees.

Philanthropy Makes You Feel Good

If giving makes you look good, it also makes you feel good. Just like how putting on a nice outfit and combing your hair often boosts confidence, a dedication to charitable giving creates an atmosphere of positivity. Supporting a local cause can unite employees by boosting morale and fostering a spirit of community. A mere dedication to the bottom line could never forge the same alone. Where would you rather work? For a large law firm only interested in big paychecks or an EB-5 lawyer with a team committed to helping immigrants change the world?

Philanthropy Increases Exposure

Helping others will inevitably expose you to lots more people than staying at your desk and not helping them. Think about the types of people your company will meet as you make calls to research and schedule causes to support. These people become part of your network. They could potentially support you as customers, and they could become a part of your organization as employees or partners. Knowing more people only opens more doors.

Philanthropy Can Save You Money

This is one of those times when spending money can actually save you money. Tax deductions for charitable giving can help your company save money on taxes. Just make sure you follow all applicable laws when filing your tax return.

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People & Relationships Planning & Management

Mastering Modern Management in the Millennial Workplace (pt. II)

In part 1, we covered what it takes to understand millennials, as well as their impacts, and we discussed what management vs. leadership means, especially in a world of remote work. In pt. II we discuss adaptation, education, purpose and corporate social responsibility.

Be Adaptive: Never Stop Educating Yourself

No matter what field you’re in, Millennials and technological change are infiltrating your operations. What’s more, the rate of change that we’re seeing now will only grow as time goes on, meaning that you need to learn how to get ahead of the curve and stay ahead.

This means that old, long and drawn-out campaigns relying on rigid processes and technology won’t work anymore — or at least that they won’t work for long. The lack of fluid structure and adaptive decision making is exactly why Blockbuster failed as a company where Netflix succeeded. Learning to predict these differences means committing to continued acquisition of knowledge.

To accomplish this goal, some people peruse blogs and use the internet to source information on new technology and management. Others prefer a more formal course of education, such as a postgraduate degree related to business. In fact, learning company Context reports that the MBA represents 25 percent of all graduate degrees awarded, with permutations like the executive MBA (EMBA) program, designed for business professionals who are already mid-career and can be earned while working full time.

Of course, not everybody is sure whether or not the MBA is worth it for them. Arizona State University’s online resources number one question for those questioning the MBA is “do you aspire to be a leader?” This is because 86 percent of post-graduate recipients reported that the MBA did indeed prepare them for leadership roles.

Whatever your preferred method of knowledge acquisition, be sure that you’re using that knowledge in practice as adaptively as possible. All of that said, there’s one more big thing that needs to be understood about modern employees.

Work With Purpose & Corporate Social Responsibility

Millennials have tightened the relationship between purpose and work, and have even begun to change the face of ethics in businesses, with corporate leaders such as Suburu, Honda, Marks and Spencer, and Nestle investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) measures. Each of the aforementioned have taken steps to promote initiatives centered around ethics and sustainability, from decreased landfill waste, to cutting carbon emissions and reducing water use.

It’s not just consumers who are demanding that companies promote better CSR, but those companies’ employees themselves. Modern workers want to care about the work that they do, and knowing that the company they work for is bettering the world or society in someway can provide that meaning. Here are four methods companies can utilize to boost CSR efforts.

 

  1. Give back to a cause that your employees and customers care about. Research causes in the community your company serves or in which it is based.
  2. Set up volunteer programs hosted by your company. This will give employees a feeling of connection to both your organization and they community they’re making a difference in.
  3. Embrace cause-marketing. Partner with a nonprofit and donate sales or labor to better their cause.
  4. Get feedback from the board. Getting a board of directors on your side means you might get a better CSR budget, or even that the board members themselves get hands-on with the initiatives.

The bottom line is that companies who exist solely to turn a profit won’t exist for much longer, because employees will flock to organizations that take the extra effort to embrace CSR.

While millennials certainly didn’t bring about the digital and societal catalysts that have forever changed the workplace, they are inextricably tied to them via their values and skills — and they’re not the last generation that is going to usher dynamic transformation in the world of work either. Managers who are learning to lead in this millennial-dominated world should simultaneously be gearing up for the next generation of workers that will soon be pouring into conference rooms and board meetings around the globe. The only way to stay on top in this world is to think ahead and be adaptable. Whether or not you think you’re getting the employees you need, it’s your responsibility to be the manager and leader that they deserve. Perhaps someday they’ll follow your example and lead new generations of work down the road.

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People & Relationships Planning & Management

Mastering Modern Management in the Millennial Workplace (pt. I)

The workplace has changed. Millennials are now proportionally the most represented generation in the office, bumping shoulders with Gen Xers and baby boomers both in employee and leadership positions. With these millennials came vast technological change and the quirks of a growing, intergenerational workforce.

As such, the skills it took to manage an office 10 years ago are completely different than those required of modern managers, whose offices, in some cases, now exist as hybrid or even fully virtual spaces, with employees that range in digital competency from expert to amateur, and who they may never have actually met in person. This is becoming the norm, whether modern managers and leaders like it or not.

So how does one go about mastering modern management in the millennial workplace? While not definitive, here are a couple of tips that can help new cats and old dogs alike get a grip on contemporary leadership.

Understanding Millennials and Their Impact

Millennials, as a group, have received a lot of criticism in the past couple of years, and it’s only recently that you’ll find positive mentions of their generation and the impacts they have on society. While the former isn’t necessarily deserved, the latter absolutely is; millennials bring unique values and experiences to the workforce that are progressive and civically minded. They are the future of — well, everything! It’s only right that we recognize what value this generation presents to both past and future generations. The experts at Pepperdine University have presented these statistics on the millennial workforce, including information on what they value, what they want from an employer, and positive traits that they bring to the global workforce:

 

  • There are 79.8 million millennials in the U.S. By 2025 millennials will represent nearly 75 percent of the workforce.
  • 72 percent of Millennials want to be their own boss — however, if they do have a boss, 79 percent would want that boss to act as a mentor.
  • 88 percent prefer a collaborative work culture rather than a competitive one.
  • Bosses are the number one reason that millennials leave their job. Furthermore, three out of four millennials don’t know where they stand with regard to performance — nearly 90 percent would feel more confident if they had regular check-ins with their bosses.
  • 40 percent of millennials stated that their ability to excel in their job is contingent upon deriving meaning from their work.
  • Tech-savvy, socially conscious, civic-minded, progressive, diverse, and compassionate are all accurate descriptors for the millennial generation.

 

What these stats show us is that the millennial-influenced workplaces generally value meaningful work, autonomy, and good relationships with their bosses. This is where it helps to know the difference between management and leadership. Mix that with their inherent knack for technology, and you have a potentially sticky situation concerning remote management and digital leadership.

Remote Management and Digital Leadership

Though it may seem a new concept, the term “telecommuting” was actually coined in 1973 by former NASA engineer Jack Nilles — who was, at the time, the Director of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Southern California. After his research uncovered the numerous benefits inherent in this mode of work, he projected the concept would proliferate in the public sphere in the 1990s. While it took a little bit longer, technology has caught up to the hype, and now nearly 3 percent of the U.S. workforce (3.7 million employees) works remotely at least half the time, according to recent survey results.

Managers would do well to make sure that, even though the office may be virtual, office hours and protocol are still respected. Communication may be written more often than not, facilitated by apps like Slack or Skype — but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t videoconference with employees regularly just to maintain a personable presence in their working lives.

To that end, what modern employees are looking for in their bosses has evolved over the years. They’re looking for more than to just be managed; they’re looking for leaders. Rutgers Online points to three primary differences that drive this dichotomy:

  1. Empathy. Employees want to build relationships with their bosses, but they can’t do that unless that leader is empathetic. Where managers might be firm and unyielding, good leaders empathize and work with employees instead of against them.
  2. Open communication. “Leaders need to be willing to communicate about anything and everything when it is necessary to support their team or followers,” write the experts at Rutgers. “They should be able to share criticism in constructive ways. They must be willing to admit their mistakes. They need to be able to ask for help or for more effort. And they must be willing to say the hard things in a helpful and controlled way in order to get the correct message across.”
  3. Motivation and Encouragement. Similar to having empathy, managers need to learn how to motivate each employee individually, as well as how to motivate his or her team as a whole.

Learning to manage effectively in today’s society might mean navigating new technology and leadership styles that seem foreign, even if underlying principles of management are practically the same. This is why it’s imperative that modern managers and leaders be adaptive and never stop educating themselves.