Conference calls are here to stay. They make conducting global business accessible, allow organizations to keep in touch regularly and easily, all which reduces the number of face-to-face meetings required.
However, without being able to see the person you are talking to, conference calling will always have a somewhat impersonal feel. Conference calls don’t have to die; we just have to find ways to keep the calls more interesting to compete with the ever-present distraction of the computer, tablet, and mobile phone.
The question is, how can you make audio conferencing fun and successful?
Steps to Improve Your Audio Conferencing
It’s very important to note that the people on the other end of the line are getting less information than they would if you were in-person, which makes the format already less interesting than an in-person meeting. Audio conferencing is a constant uphill battle to keep people’s attention and gauge whether or not they’re still listening. Here are some steps to take to keep everyone on the conference call active and engaged.
Step 1: Stand Up & Smile When You Talk
Standing up gives you more energy and smiling warms up your vocal tone. When you sit down for long periods of time, you tend not to breathe properly, and you become lethargic. Fight that by standing up. Smiling alters the muscles in your face and throat, and subtly affects your voice. If you don’t believe it, call up a friend and ask them to tell you if you’re smiling or not… you’ll be surprised! If you have trouble remembering to smile, prop a mirror up on your desk and watch yourself while you talk.
Step 2: Make the Audio Conference Interactive
Conversations are interesting; listening to one person drone on for hours is not. If one person is doing a lot of talking, break at least every 10 minutes to go around to all the participants and get feedback, ask questions, and so on. Announce in advance that you will do this so that people aren’t surprised.
Step 3: Tell Personal Stories
Even though you can’t connect face-to-face with your audience, you can still humanize yourself by telling personal stories and anecdotes. Not only do anecdotes make your presentation more relatable, but storytelling is a great way to make a dry topic more interesting.
Step 4: Focus on Discussions and Decisions
Conferences are a quick, efficient way to keep people connected, get feedback and collaborate on new ideas, but they can easily get off track. Prevent this by focusing on updates and discussion pertinent to decisions. Avoid general updates – people can catch up on those themselves.
Step 5: Use Your Voice, Not Your Eyes
Remember you have to speak up and participate! If you’re in a meeting in person, it’s easy to look at that person whom you want to respond to your comment or question. This cues that person to respond. On a conference call, you have to ask specific people direct questions – such as, “Steve, what do you think of that plan?”
Step 6: Use Emotion When Communicating
Normally, we decode the intent, emotion, and attitudes of the speaker through body language and to a lesser extent through tone of voice. On the phone, you only hear a person’s tone of voice, and it’s not very good at that because the fidelity of telephones is notoriously bad. So you have to work hard in telling people how you feel; they won’t necessarily pick it up from your body language. Use words that label your emotions so that no one is in doubt how you feel.
Many people look forward to a conference call with the same enthusiasm as a trip to the dentist. Conference calls don’t have to be torturous. Remember to use our above tips and you will start to see a big difference in the quality of your meetings!
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