Your physical working environment sets the tone for virtual meetings. Are you making that first online impression count? In this blog I’ll share 7 ways savvy sales reps can use their physical environment to improve online meeting performance.
Over 70% of industry average organizations don’t maximized their use of video conferencing technology, according to Aberdeen. Want to make sure you’re not one of that group?
2011 Was a good year for the mobile phone. Coldwell Banker went so far as to name 2011, “the year of mobile” in their recent whitepaper, The State of Mobile, Last year, the compact little guys made their way into the hearts (and pockets) of nearly three quarters of the world’s population leading to a tipping point in mobility and forever changing the role of the mobile phone, far surpassing its humble beginnings as simply a means of making phone call.
On the move, headed to my office for the day
Mobile phones are cheaper than ever, 3G is easy to come by and you can now do just about everything with them thanks to information in the cloud and an abundance of mobile apps. Your grandma, your neighbor, even your grandma’s neighbor has a mobile phone and they’re not the most recent converts – Having just traveled through some of the most rural and developing parts of India and Thailand, I can confirm the widespread use of mobile phones from texting and talking to streaming music. Forget most modern must-haves, it looks like the world wants life untethered and while we’re at it, a cool ring tone to go with it.
But going mobile doesn’t stop at owning a phone. Nearly every aspect of the office went mobile in 2011 and it looks like the trend will continue in 2012 and beyond.
In iPass’ 2011 Mobile Workforce Report, 24% of mobile workers surveyed said they plan to use their laptop less in 2012, while more than half said they plan on using their tablet and smartphone more. iPass also predicts that by 2014 more people will connect to the internet via the mobile web than on PC.
As a striving Digital Nomad, this is an exciting shift. Forget the fancy teleworker title, whether it’s joining a conference call on the fly or editing a last minute presentation, it looks like everyone will take some aspect of their business out of the office in 2012. The fact that I won’t be the only person sniffing out 3G or asking my hotel to restart the router, will certainly make my mobile office easier to come by. But aside from my personal situation, the rise in mobility means that business – from corner-shop retail to Fortune 500 – must shift to accommodate the mobile world.
In today’s busy world it’s harder and harder to get time with prospects. Decision-makers are more difficult to reach. The sheer volume of options on the Internet has killed the sales pitch.
Unfortunately, when you finally connect with prospects on phone or email, it’s hard to gauge their true reactions and 
respond appropriately. A face-to-face meeting is almost always more successful, but they’re expensive and time-consuming. In many cases, setting up an online meeting is the perfect way to get your foot in the door.
Here are tips from my experience on what it takes to use video and make your case, overcome objections, and get prospects to say “yes”—quickly and decisively.
Greetings from Singapore! Today I find myself in one of the world’s smallest but strongest countries in our global economy. Singapore has been a welcomed stop on my yearlong journey to PGi’s EMEA and APAC offices. Nowhere on earth can you find a higher concentration of 5-star shopping, gourmet street food, or award-winning gardens.
Squeezing in some work on the bus to Singapore.
Since we arrived last week, we’ve greatly appreciated how easy it is to work here. Not only do I have an office to work in, but the internet is excellent, cab fares are reasonable, air conditioning abounds and cell reception is close to perfect. Some might call it a Digital Nomad’s paradise.
But if you’ve ever worked outside the office, you know that internet and AC aren’t the only things you need to make remote working a success. It takes the right personality and most importantly, your team’s support.
While in Asia Pacific I’ve relied heavily on my team in Austin, TX and Atlanta, GA to help make the most of my time overseas. I’ve realized that these teleworker accommodations are not “built-in” to most teams; instead they are learned through experience.
With the rise of the mobile workforce, it’s a rare occurrence to have your entire team in the same office. So instead of offering tips for the aspiring Digital Nomad this week, I’m gearing today’s post to those in the traditional office setting, who work alongside their remote colleagues.
Here are five ways to make your remote colleagues feel part of the team and keep business moving at the speed of light.
Be Human. Instead of dialing your remote team members in via Blackberry speaker phone, include them as if they were there to join in person. Find a room where you can get the whole team on webcam and make sure the microphone is strong enough to pick up everyone’s voice. Nothing has made the distance fade faster, than a good video conference with my team.
Be Mobile. Set your teleworkers up for success by working with productivity and conferencing tools that accommodate a mobile work environment. Whether it’s a teleworker, home office employee or team member in the field, having the ability to respond to a ticket, view a presentation on a web conference app or dial into a meeting on the fly can be the difference between a successful remote working experience and a failed attempt.
Be Global. If your team is separated by a 13 hour time difference, when is the best time to schedule a meeting? Trick question! Although there is rarely an ideal time to meet when your half-way around the world, the show must go on so respond to your remote workers’ emails first and schedule meetings during hours when they are most likely awake. Your team can quickly resolve small issues over email and use any overlap time to collaborate “in person” via video as opposed to week-long email chains. You can also accomodate your remote workers by ensuring global dial-in details are in the meeting request or better yet, work with meeting solutions that offer VoIP or global dial-in/dial-out options.
Be Inclusive. Nothing’s worse than being on the other end of a conference call and having no idea who’s talking, what they just said or why everyone is laughing. Remote workers can feel as if they are a thousand miles away, so make them feel welcome by ensuring everyone speaks clearly, one person at a time, and side-conversations are kept to a minimum.
Be Social. Bring your remote workers into the conversation by asking them how they’re doing, make sure they have an opportunity to add to the discussion and don’t forget to fill them in on the latest office happenings or inside jokes. Although these tips might appear trivial, I can assure you they will make for happier, more satisfied and productive remote workers.
Is your team “geographically diverse?” What advice would you give to those new to working with a remote team?
With so many tools available to connect with anyone, anywhere, there are many options to build trusting relationships online. Buyers trust online relationships more than ever, according to this eMarketer study.
Here are five tips to help you make sure you’re doing it in the right way:
If there is one thing I love more than travel, it’s shopping for travel.
Lately I’ve been enthralled with the overflow of tech gadgets and travel products recently released into the market. As a fine purveyor of almost all things, I enjoy researching what’s new for the avid traveler and will occasionally allow myself to dream of life-made-easy with clutz-proof netbooks, noise-cancelling ear buds and microscopic GPS devices.
Special “teleworking” titles need not apply, according to InfoTrends, almost all knowledge workers have an element of travel within their day and with technology trending toward mobile, global and social, you can work from almost anywhere. Dial into a conference from the car? Sure thing. Finalize a presentation from the airport? That’s an easy one. Send that final email before take off? Please.
But even with the rise of a mobile workforce, working on the go is anything but easy. Even with calling ahead to confirm the WiFi, charing up your devices overnight and backing up your data, it takes a minor miracle for it to actually come together. That’s where technology and good design come in and cash in on our quest for faster, smaller, smarter… and if possible, cuter.
What’s on my Digital Nomad wish list? Just about everything on CNN’s 10 Best Travel Products for 2012 , especially their laser keyboard, loose-leaf tea cup, water bottle with built-in purifier and laptop-bag-of-the-future that will charge your gadgets en route to your next destination.
You probably know what it’s like to have a meeting that makes you feel worse after it’s over, as though you’ve accomplished less for attending than if there had been no meeting at all. You aren’t clear on your next steps, attendees are frustrated, communications were cloudy, tense, or worse, or maybe even some of the primary stakeholders weren’t even in attendance.
How do you overcome what just happened and preserve relationships? Do you meet again, continue to take up more valuable time, or suffer in silence with questions and confusion, potentially delaying projects and eroding relationships?
Communicate, but don’t challenge
If you are encountering a person in a meeting who demonstrates behavior patterns that are perpetually distracting or disruptive, it’s not usually the wisest idea to challenge him or her directly as this will typically place them in a defensive posture and tends to escalate matters. However, not addressing the issue at all can be frustrating for the rest of the team, so focusing on the behavior rather than the person is generally a satisfactory middle ground to begin positive conversations. Suggesting improvements to the process that can structure the conversation or changing the format for attendee contribution from verbal to written ones such as interactive chat or asking attendees to use iMeet’s Evernote collaboration feature are just two ways you can diffuse an overbearing attendee.
Also, use common sense, common courtesy and common meeting ground rules as a neutral “judge”—some of these would include “only one person talks at a time,” “all viewpoints are valid,” and “meetings start and end on time unless all attendees agree otherwise.
In our incredibly competitive global market, companies are constantly looking for ways to position themselves as thought leaders with investors, prospects and customers. Webinars are one of the most popular ways to distribute 
messages to target audiences without travel costs, scheduling conflicts and time commitments — making it an incredibly powerful tool for businesses to expand their reach even with limited budgets and dispersed audiences. But with the plethora of webinars offered to your target customer and prospected bases, how do you make your webinar stand out of from the crowd? Here are seven ways to transform your efforts into successful webinars to get the most bang for your (modest) buck.
1. Research the best date and time. Internet habits vary by user. For example, the best days to send a marketing email are Monday-Wednesday, but if you’re reaching out to a sales marketing list, those are the days your user group is out pounding the pavement. Start out with a survey of your user group asking when they are most likely to attend a webinar, and then create a strategic study by hosting webinars at different times and comparing the attendance results.
2. Don’t just rely on email. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is marketing webinars only by email invitation. With social media, your company’s message can be posted, tweeted, liked and shared by your employees and target audience — reaching prospects you never thought to target. And don’t forget to leverage your own employees, especially if they have established trust with your target attendees. Create incentives that encourage your employees to pick up the phone and lock-in prospects the old-school way.
Happy Chinese New Year from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Last night Will and I welcomed the auspicious year of the dragon in the heart of Kuala Lumpur surrounded by old friends, good food and new traditions.
My First Ang Pow! The Traditional Chinese New Year Red Envelope
As we look forward to a prosperous 2012, we want to set our fellow teleworkers (and teleworker wannabes) up for a successful year of mobile working.
Forget the official title.
Even if you work in the office, odds are you’ve joined a call on the way home, logged in to your computer at the airport or maybe even worked from home one afternoon. As the workforce becomes more mobile and the “office” becomes less defined, very few workers will be confined to the traditional office environment and most will require a crash course in remote working.
Gear up for a year of successful working-on-the-go with my top 10 teleworking articles from PGi.
Cora the Digital Nomad’s Top 10 Teleworking Articles for the Mobile Workforce
They say if you trust your gut, you’ll get a stomachache. This is especially true in sales today.
In our warp speed economy, we need precision like our lungs need air. But there’s never been more roadblocks to accuracy than there are now.
Last week, a group of 100 sales leaders ranked their top areas of difficulty:
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